Chapter Twenty-Four - Five o' Clock

Work ended kind of unceremoniously. Just... five o'clock rolled in, and I was free to leave. So I did. I tried talking to the others a bit more as well, to make friends, but small talking was never my strongest ability.

I called a taxi home. Yes, it was eighty bucks and the price made me a little sick. But... I didn't have time to waste. I was ordering food for delivery as I got in the cab, and when I got home, the bag was by the door already.

I stepped in, then set a new Save.

Time to learn.

I had access to the database on the company website. That was access to some fifty-odd E-rank spells. I did notice that they were sometimes called cantrips as well, which was neat.

The fact that it was so unsecured told me a lot. In my experience, corporations were pretty tight-lipped, even when they didn't strictly need to be. It was just good info-sec. So, the fact that I had access to these from home meant that they were probably leaked already. Or were so common that every corporation had copies of the same spells.

I did notice a lack of good D-rank spells. There were one or two per element, and they seemed... not great?

The fire elemental spell they had was 'Searing Touch' which made one's skin very, very hot. That was it.

You couldn't kill even a kobold with that. Maybe it had some uses at higher levels or something, but it felt lame and weak.

I suspected that I'd only get access to better things once I'd proven myself a little, and that was... fine and reasonable.

At the moment, the impression I had was that they were giving me these cantrips so that I'd look them over, maybe try one or two, then when I failed, they'd offer better training with the others.

That was confirmed a bit more when I found an actual training regimen in the docs. It was divided into three sections. Forming magical pathways, emotional calibration, and initial casting. The doc laid out each step with an approximate number of hours next to it.

Nine, two to six, and two. That was... between thirteen and fifteen hours of practice per cantrip

.

Insane.

But... given time during work-hours to train and practice, yeah, maybe I could pick up one cantrip a week, work my way through a basic understanding of magic, and then in three to six months, I'd be ready for proper D-ranked spells.

Or I could cheat with time magic? That was cool too.

I actually had something of a plan in mind for that, but that would come later. For now... I figured I could turn the four or so hours between my Save and bedtime into a solid twenty hours of practice. Maybe.

Pushing myself too hard felt like a lot on my mind. I'd try to take breaks, maybe squeeze in some guitar time, some language practice... yeah, that was reasonable.

But first, food, then magic!

I ate, slumped on my couch after speedily ripping out of my work clothes and shrugging into an old band t-shirt. Johnny Rotten screaming 'No Future' was a classy look for a gal wearing nothing else.

Mister Couchtop hopped over and occupied my lap while I read through the instructions for the simplest of the cantrips I found.

Leafshed - E

Cause a plant to shed leaves.

I paused and looked online, then snorted. Yeah, I could order houseplants on grocery delivery apps. Cool. I soon had some fiddleleaf figs on the way over, free on account of me not caring about spending in this loop that I planned to burn.

This seemed like the easiest spell, and the guide did outright recommend it as a starting point for Nature magic. Who was I to disagree?

I opened the spell's explanation, then found myself slowly starting to nurse a headache.

There were diagrams. There were 3D representations of the spell forms. There were multiple graphs. There was a six-page long discussion about the psychological aspect of this one, particular spell.

I groaned, and Mister Couchtop rumbled in disapproval at my motion.

Well, whatever. I only had forever, so I might as well dive into it.

First, I had to learn how to manipulate my own magic into a shape. The guide outlined a sort of... screw-shape, with a leaf on the back and a long, narrow pointy bit on one end. It was almost two dimensional except for the screw part.

Getting my magic to take that shape... didn't work out.

First of all... how, even? My magic was inside me, not out. How was I supposed to take it and make it take that shape?

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Turns out, there was a guide for that too. Trying to go straight to the cantrip was actually a mistake. I was trying to build the simplest Lego set out there without first knowing how to open the box.

Shaping magic could be done internally or externally. External shaping was usually reserved for the most complex D-ranked spells and up, with a few exceptions sprinkled around, so I didn't need to worry about that yet.

Instead, I had to create the spell internally, then 'carve out' the shape of reaching out of my core. I had to do so in a way that allowed for efficient mana conductivity and which didn't 'crowd out' my core.

I had no idea what I was doing, but a few videos and some step-by-step guides later and... and it was past midnight.

I sighed, then Reloaded. At least I got to eat my takeout again. I did like that part. Eventually, by the end of that second loop, I had the spell shape... kinda. Making a pathway involved thinking really hard and then moving what felt like an unfamiliar muscle. It was like trying to write in three dimensional cursive with my left hand.

It was possible, sure, but not fast or easy.

Once I had the spell's shape down, however, it was more or less done.

I just needed to cast it.

That was the next challenge. I didn't have the right kind of magic. Magic from the core was generally 'tainted' by the user's aspect, but that 'tainting' was like...

The guide had some analogies, but I preferred coming up with my own. It was like the magic in my core was water with a few grains of flavouring powder mixed in. That changed the colour from clear to something else, but it wasn't enough to give it any taste.

For that, I'd need a few scoops of stuff. That stuff happened to be emotional.

In this case, I needed sadness.

I rubbed at my face after reading several pages on this cantrip.

I needed sadness, but specifically, sadness for the plant. Empathy. For a 29.99 houseplant. No other emotion would fuel the spell correctly.

I could still cause it with, say, anger, but that would lead to a fat load of nothing, or some unpredictable effect. Casting with insufficiently tainted magic just didn't do anything, which was fine.

After trying for the sixth time, I was hit by a dizzying wave of tiredness. Not physical, but deeper. I'd exhausted my supply of magic.

Great.

I Reloaded, then felt like screaming. The pathway was gone. Of course, the pathway for the spell was meta-physical. It really, genuinely existed. It wasn't just a memory.

So I sat down and recarved it, messed up, started over, then when I messed up again, I Reloaded and tried more slowly and carefully.

At this rate, I'd be able to do it from memory. But the carving cost magic as well. No wonder my attempts were so shoddy and cut short, I was burning magic from both ends. Once to carve the spell into my core, the next to cast it.

Finally, on my fourth Reload, I cast the spell. It took half an hour of sitting there, staring at my Ficus Iyata, but I managed it.

The spell started as a thin trickle of magical energy, pouring into that 'leaf' segment. Then, with force of will and tears in my eyes, I allowed myself to be sad. On purpose. It wasn't even sadness for myself, but for this stupid, pitiful plant that was about to suffer because I was a terrible person to it.

I was getting emotional over a houseplant and I wasn't even on my period. This was bullshit.

Still, I clung to the emotion and allowed the magic to flow into the path. It wasn't perfect, but it went through, then, as I reached over and touched the fiddleleaf fig, the spell was cast.

A wave of exhaustion hit me, as expected, but it was soon replaced by elation.

A single leaf went slightly limp, all on its own.

It.. didn't fall off as it was supposed to, but I didn't care, that was close!

And it had only taken, uh, about sixteen hours?

I Reloaded. This time I didn't order a new plant, and instead ate and carved out the pathway as carefully as I could. Then, with my magic reserves a smidge lower, I decided to play some guitar, specifically trying to follow along to a folksy old French song so that I could practice two things at once.

Then, at about ten PM, feeling like some geriatric old lady, I slumped into bed and called my work for the night 'good enough.'

***