Chronicles of the True Wizard

With a plan in mind, Felix headed to the nearest red room which was only a few hours away. He ran as much as he could on the way there before having to walk again, which was almost the same speed thanks to his boots. He passed by 4 different green rooms with familiar puzzles before finally reaching the red room.

Felix stood at the edge of the corridor that opened up into the red room. The room was about 5 meters wide by 10 meters long with 50 square tiles, a meter to a side, making up the floor. The walls appeared to be made of old discolored stone and were almost entirely smooth. At the other end of the room lay another corridor.

On the wall to his right, Felix noticed an engraving every meter, barely legible from this distance, right at chest height.

Well no enemies, thank god. Maybe red isn't a bad color in the multiverse, maybe this room will shower me in loot.

Felix didn't believe that for a second. If The System had the status screen represent your actual stats, and it was in English, why wouldn't it use his interpretation of colors for the map.

With the thought, red is bad, in his mind Felix took out a dagger and threw it onto the tile in front of him. Nothing happened. Next, he reached out with his foot and slowly shifted his weight onto it. Nothing happened. Next he backed up back into the corridor and tried the tile to the right of the one he just tried.

Felix opened his inventory and pulled out the maul he could barely lift. He placed it on the tile in front of him and slid it over to the right. As soon as the weight of the maul reached the other tile Felix stumbled back into the corridor as he felt a sudden buzz in his head. The buzz came paired with an itch spreading itself through his whole body.

Felix heard a loud boom on the side of the room and quickly opened his eyes to inspect the source. The wall opposite the engraving had a large black scorch mark with tiny dancing flames around the edges. The flames quickly dissipated.

Felix's eyes filled with glee.

I was right all along, this room is gonna shower me with loot.

First things first though, the buzz and the itch. Felix reached forwards and pulled on the handle of the maul so that it rested on the tile in front of him. After a few moments he pushed it back onto the tile to it's right again.

This time Felix managed to keep his eyes open as a small ball of fire bolted across the room right above the maul. Felix felt the heat of the flames passing by as well as the same buzz in his head and itch in his body, though much more tolerable this time.

The sensations were not part of the trap, they were more like there was something he had been missing. Like a new sense waking itself up coupled with a limb waking up after having been asleep, forever. It felt like there was something that used to be a part of him that he had forgotten about and now he was getting reacquainted with it. The buzz and the itch were like goosebumps and excitement, his heart raced but there was something more to it. That was just his physical reaction, he felt most of the feeling originating from somewhere within him, somewhere deeper.

Okay so three things I need to accomplish before leaving this room. Now that I have direction I can learn to use mana, I hope. Then I need to be able to cast at least Mana Bolt or Fire Ball before leaving this dungeon, might as well figure it out in this room where I can compare my Fire Ball to the trap's. Finally, I want to find the source of mana powering this trap, if possible.

Felix, carefully pushed and pulled the maul, setting off the trap three times. Each time he immediately closed his eyes and tried to hold onto the feeling spreading through his mind and body. The buzz in his head and itching in his body dissipated but the source of the feeling in his body remained. Now he could detect a slight feeling from the Fire Ball when the trap triggered as well as an even fainter feeling from below the tiles.

After triggering the trap thrice and focusing inwards Felix could feel multiple things below the tiles in the room even with his eyes open. Felix sat down cross legged in the corridor and closed his eyes. He had meditated a few times before the integration, but never really felt the benefit so he had given it up fairly quickly. Here though, it felt appropriate.

With his eyes closed Felix focused on the things he felt below the tiles. He quickly realized there were multiple objects below the tiles. Ten of them, in a line down the middle of the room. One underneath each row of tiles. As he focused, the feeling became clearer and each object below the tiles focused into distinct objects rather than one large fuzzy amalgamation.

Changing tacks a bit, Felix focused within his own body. He figured he should have a mana pool somewhere in there. It took him almost ten minutes to realize the mana pool wasn't in a specific location, it was spread evenly throughout his body. He was like a balloon filled with the stuff.

In his body, it was much fainter then the objects below the ground. His mana pool was closer and easier to sense as it was within his body but the objects below the tiles were still noticeably denser, despite their distance.

Felix took a deep breath to calm his excitement, then another. He began trying to move his mana. He was assuming this was mana, what else could it be?

Ever slightly, he felt the mana in his body slosh around, like he had nudged a glass full of liquid. Along with the slight movment, Felix felt his previous anticipation reach a crescendo. He felt like he had rediscovered a part of himself and found something he had been missing his entire life. Even just the slight manipulation was enough for him to feel like he was doing exactly what he was supposed to be doing. He assumed all caster's would feel the same thing when they first used mana, now that mana had been introduced to their universe.

I can barely slosh it around and this stupid book wants me to shape it? Well, the confidence is appreciated.

Felix opened his eyes and retrieved the maul. He walked down the corridor and around the corner before checking that he could in fact, still feel mana. He managed to run most of the way back to the rest room. He passed multiple green rooms from which he could feel a very slight trace of mana.

Making it all the way back Felix completed his workout routine faster than he ever had before, partly because he had completed the run getting back here and partly due to excitement. He then stuffed himself and his inventory from the food that had replenished itself. At this point he had about 17 servings of food from the table stored in his inventory.

He quickly bathed and refilled his canteens in the fountain before sitting himself down on the floor, cross legged, and closing his eyes. Felix spent hours sitting on the stone floor with his eyes closed sloshing his mana around and getting used to the feeling.

He was so focused that he hadn't realized how tired he was. When he eventually opened his eyes, he simply laid down and fell asleep right on the floor where he sat. When he woke up, he quickly ate and drank before sitting back down and starting again. After a few hours, that Felix could only measure in progress, he had managed to move his mana deliberately. He could clearly see the mana in his own body and could move it around pretty easily.

He was like a storm over the ocean creating waves in the mana within his body. He began to focus on pulling out a small thread. A few hours later he had succeeded. He managed to pull the mana out of his body in threads. They dissipated quickly but they existed, he could feel them and could have sworn he could almost even see them.

Felix decided to get up and go back to the red room now. He opened his eyes, stood up, and was presented with a System message.

Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the General Skill: [Meditation (Common) Focusing your mind, you have begun your journey on the path of meditation. You have begun to release stray thoughts and focus on a particular task, ignoring distractions. This skill can be upgraded. Your Mana, Energy and Health restore themselves at an increased rate while meditating (x1.5)]

Ding You have demonstrated sufficient proficiency to unlock the Class Skill: [Meditation (Common) Focusing your mind, you have begun your journey on the path of meditation. You have begun to release stray thoughts and focus on a particular task, ignoring distractions. This skill can be upgraded. Your Mana restores itself at an increased rate while meditating (x1.5)]

Skill: Meditation

This skill is compatible with your class.

Would you like to accept the [Common] skill Meditation as a General Skill, Class Skill or Neither?

General

Class

Neither

Wait the general skill is strictly better? General.

It seems like skills can be either profession, class or general. If the skill suits your profession or class it will be compatible. Everything else has to be a General Skill, that makes the General Skill slots much more valuable. Maybe I should have taken that as a class skill. Though, if this is true, it also likely means that my upgrades would have been locked into ones that suited my class. Also, I want that health regen.

Wait a minute, if it regenerates energy, can I meditate instead of sleeping? I'll have to test that out tonight.

Felix began his morning run, this time towards the red room he had visited yesterday.

He got to the room and it was exactly as he had left it except that the scorch marks on the left wall had disappeared. Felix retrieved the maul from his inventory and almost dropped it, forgetting how heavy it was.

First things first, he wanted to confirm something today. He slowly pushed the handle of the maul onto the trigger tile and focused on the object below the first row of tiles. Today, looking closely at the Fire Ball he realized this was too small to be called a Fire Ball and was more like a Fire Bolt. This time, having practiced, though still almost too fast to detect, he could feel the mana rise through the object, run along the tiles and into the engraving.

After a single triggering of the trap, he couldn't be sure it was depleting itself though, so he triggered it again and again until he was certain. The object under the first row was in fact depleting itself every time the trap was triggered. Felix continued to activate the trap in the first row until the object was completely depleted.

Now he could walk on any of the tiles in the first row without the trap triggering at all. The tiles still depressed, but no Fire Bolt was summoned. He quickly walked over to the engraving on the right wall and paid close attention to the object below him in case it refilled. He examined it closely before scurrying back into the safety of the corridor.

He closed his eyes and found the page with the Fire Bolt engraving in his memory palace and filed it away on the appropriate spell shelf in the library. Felix had found out yesterday that he does not remember everything perfectly, forever. The large table in the middle acts as his short term memory and only has so much capacity, the size of the table. With the map currently occupying most of the space, there was only so much capacity left.

Yesterday on a whim, Felix had decided to check his memory for the list of symbols from the purple test room. Except he couldn't find it anywhere. It seemed like, any memories Felix deemed unimportant disappeared after some time. If he wanted to keep something, he had to file it away. His library did do this automatically based on what he deemed important at the time, but with the Fire Bolt, he wanted to be certain he remembered the engraving.

As Felix exited his library, he noticed the object under the first row seemed to be at capacity to trigger the trap again. To confirm, he used the maul, and sure enough, a Fire Bolt shot across the room over the first row of tiles.

Now that I know the object under the tiles is depleting itself it seems safe to call it a Mana Battery. They seem to also be refilling somehow. Either there's a spell under them that is pulling the ambient mana, or they do it automatically. Wait, is ambient mana a thing? It must be, right? Crossing fingers for automatically. Though having that spell would be kind of cool, I could maybe even attach it to myself to increase my mana regen or use it to power traps or wards, if those exist. I changed my mind, crossing fingers for ambient mana collecting spell.

After a few minutes of trying, Felix could barely sense the ambient mana all around him. Though, he still couldn't tell if The System or dungeon was manually refilling the batteries or if they instead replenished themselves using ambient mana.

Time to find out for sure.

Felix had multiple ideas for how to get at the mana batteries below the tiles. His best idea could be summed up as, smash the tiles using the maul. Acting on his brilliance Felix tried to lift the maul over his head. After failing a few times he reached his hand right under the head of the maul and lifted it. Then when it was above his head he adjusted his footing then quickly slid his hands down the handle and swung as hard as he could.

A loud boom thundered through the corridor and Felix's arms shuddered from the impact. Felix himself was knocked over and had let go of the maul. Picking himself back up he examined the tile and found a few cracks along its surface. He repeated the process, this time more prepared, he even managed to hold onto the maul.

After dozens of swings, he finally managed to break through the tile. Careful not to cut himself he stowed the broken tile pieces in his inventory. Under the tile lay a small hole containing a palm sized hexagonal gem stone. Felix carefully picked it up and underneath there was no collection spell. Holding it in his hand he could feel it replenishing slowly from the ambient mana.

[E - Uncommon] Mana Battery (12/250)

[Small][Fast]

A battery containing mana. Slowly replenishes itself using ambient mana.

250 mana is small? What the hell is the capacity of a big or ginormous battery?

Felix continued the process of draining the battery before smashing the tile with the maul and retrieving the battery for each row in the room. In the end, he ended up with 9 [E - Uncommon] Mana Battery (Small). Unfortunately, he had damaged one of the batteries when he smashed the tile above it, luckily it's mana only dissipated and it didn't go out in a fiery explosion or anything like that.

I guess a red glow really does mean loot. . . . . .