by Kyle Johnson
“My mindscape?” Jeff replied wonderingly. “Is that what this is called? I figured we were inside my mind somewhere. Why is it so cloudy and gray, though?”
“It is an area of your mind you have never accessed,” the elf smiled at him. “Obviously, you did not wield magic in your world, or you would have developed this already. Now, though, you must exert your will and form this space into something more substantial. That, in fact, is the essence of Meditation: not merely finding a way to the mana within you but mastering this part of your mind. You must make this an intimate part of you to deepen your connection with your mana.”
“Okay,” Jeff said slowly, “I can do that, I guess. Just…how, exactly, do I do that?”
“Imagine this place as you would wish it to be,” the elf shrugged. “Then, exert your will and force it to become that place. I can not guide you in the design of your mindscape: it must be a place that you find comforting and familiar. You must fashion a place where you desire to stay. Once you do, your mana will be incorporated into your mindscape, and then you can begin to master it.”
Okay, so I need to imagine someplace comfortable and familiar, Jeff ruminated silently. Someplace – what was the word he used? -- intimate. His mind churned through image after image. A Buddhist temple seems like a good place for meditation, but would I really be comfortable in one? I’ve only seen pictures of them, so probably not. What about a nice, peaceful forest glen? I mean, it’s not like I love to go walking in nature just for fun, but that would be calming…and probably kind of boring. What did he say? ‘A place I desire to stay’, right? So, this should be a place I can come for a break, someplace I can retreat to so I can relax. What kind of place would be good for that?
The idea popped into Jeff’s head, and instantly he knew it was the correct one. He held the image firmly in his mind, then imagined that landscape forming around him. When nothing happened, he closed his eyes and concentrated, focusing his thoughts on the image in his head and willing that image to form around him.
Energy began to drain from Jeff as he felt the surface beneath him shift, becoming softer and spongy. The air felt cleaner and clearer than a moment before as the mists stopped caressing his face, and Jeff opened his eyes with a smile to take in his new surroundings, gasping as a wave of exhaustion struck him like a hammer blow. That was harder than I thought it would be!
The floor beneath him was smooth, polished bamboo covered with heavy, woven mats that were both soft and supportive at the same time. A single practice dummy, wood covered with padded leather, stood off to one side, and a rack near the wall held several practice weapons: a staff, a pair of curved wooden swords called bokken, and a set of wooden nunchaku connected by a rope.
“An interesting choice,” the elf murmured, gazing around. “And what is this place? A training center? Were you, then, a warrior in your world?”
“We call it a dojo,” Jeff replied. “And, no, I wasn’t a warrior. I was…something that you don’t have in this world. I guess you would say I was a crafter of sorts. But, before coming here, I started taking classes in a place like this, and it was one of the most freeing and exhilarating things I’ve ever done.
“Martial arts require dedication and focus,” Jeff continued. “You can’t do it with a distracted mind. I…I tend to overanalyze things, so my mind is always chewing through one thing or another. But, when I was practicing in the dojo, all that fell away. It was just me, the weapon, and the forms: there was no room for anything else. It’s the most calming thing I’ve ever done.” He didn’t know why he felt the need to explain to the elf, but the old man nodded thoughtfully.
“An excellent explanation,” the elf replied. “And yet, it does not quite answer what all of that is…” The elf pointed to the ceiling, and Jeff smiled sheepishly.
Rather than having traditional wooden walls, his dojo was surrounded by a transparent dome of thick, clear glass. The dome reached about 10 feet overhead, really too low for sword training, and encompassed a round space 20 feet in diameter…much smaller than he had been picturing. That was likely not what the elf was asking about, though: the space outside the dome was an ocean of swirling mana, rather than air…or, at least, it should have been. Instead, the gray mists could be seen through a flickering haze of chaotic rainbow energy that barely coated the outside of the dome.
Jeff frowned. “It’s supposed to be underwater,” he explained. “I always thought it would be cool to live at the bottom of the ocean: it would be quiet, peaceful, and you could spend hours watching all the fish swimming by. I don’t understand why there’s no water or fish, though. And, really, this whole place is smaller than I intended – and why is my mana rainbow colored?”
The elf chuckled at the barrage of questions. “As I said, your mana is always incorporated into your mindscape in some fashion,” he explained. “Water is one of the easier forms for mana to mimic, so there is usually some body of water represented in every mindscape. However, your mindscape can only create inanimate objects: nothing within it will move unless you deliberately concentrate on maintaining that movement; thus, the lack of aquatic creatures.
“As to why your mana is prismatic,” the elf lectured, “it is unaspected mana, meaning that it is not tied closely to any specific type of magic. Were it aspected, it would be primarily the color of that magic type – green for earth mana, red for fire, blue for water, and so on – with threads of the other elements running through it.”
“Unaspected mana is not a bad thing,” the elf held up his hand, forestalling Jeff’s unspoken question. “Aspected mana is very potent in creating spells of its element but much weaker when forging spells of other elements, especially those opposed to it. So, wind-aspected mana is excellent for creating weather, generating shields and blades of air, or flight; it is somewhat weak at creating illusions, generating fire, or influencing the mind, among other things; it is terrible for manipulating earth or metal. Aspected mages tend to focus heavily on spells of their type and are very powerful in that type of magic; in return, they lack flexibility and can be easily overcome by magics that counter and oppose them. Unaspected mages can use any type of magic, but they find it more difficult to power the most potent spells of any given element. Neither path is better or worse; they are simply choices to be made.
“Finally, the size of your mindscape is limited by your Meditation skill and available SP,” the elf finished. “Indeed, the fastest and easiest way to increase this skill is to expand the size of your mindscape. Doing so requires energy, in the form of SP, though, and additional increases require exponentially larger amounts of SP, meaning at some point you will need to increase your level or Wisdom in order to make any gains at all. By increasing the volume of mindscape under your control, you deepen the connection you have with your Mana and thus the speed that you can replenish it.”
The exponential increase makes sense, if the mindscape is a sphere, Jeff mused. Its volume would increase by the cube of the radius, so doubling the size would increase the volume by a factor of 8. Although it feels like a hemisphere, so maybe a factor of 4…unless I’m expending energy to control the space below me that I’m not using. I’ll have to pay attention to that. If I used most of my available SP to create a space 10 feet in radius, though, expending the same amount a second time would only increase the radius by, what? Less than 3 feet? Yeah, I can see how increasing level and Wisdom are necessary for this skill! If I didn’t have Wisdom bonuses and the Mana Well Perk, this space would barely be 10 feet across…
“So, basically, increasing Meditation means coming here, expending SP to expand the size of the controlled area,” Jeff confirmed, “and then refilling your SP and doing it again? Over and over?”
“Precisely,” the elf smiled. “However, refilling your store of mana is not as simple as simply resting in the mindscape. You must focus on connecting your mana to the greater mana of Ka, encouraging it to accept the outside influx of magical power. Once your mana is controlled, you w
ill also have to be sure to fit the new mana into the existing patterns, which is why controlled mana renews itself more slowly.
“I will talk you through this,” the elf assured Jeff, noting his confused look. “It is simpler to do than to explain. First, seat yourself comfortably, close your eyes, and let your thoughts drift to that mana that swirls outside your fascinating dome.”
Jeff obediently sank to the floor. He attempted to assume a lotus position – that’s how he always saw monks meditate in movies and television, after all – but he found the position uncomfortable on his knees and back. “Do I have to sit?” he asked finally after squirming about, unsuccessfully trying to get comfortable. “Can I just…lie down?”
“If that is most comfortable for you,” the elf shrugged. “The body position is, to be fair, something of a formality. What matters is that you are able to place your entire focus on the task at hand.”
Jeff lay back, folding his hands beneath his head and propping up his knees. He stared at the swirling mana overhead, mesmerized by the multi-hued patterns for several long moments before closing his eyes and reaching out with his thoughts to touch the whorls of energy.
“Try to feel the power,” Jeff distantly heard the old elf’s instructions. “Follow the mana streams back to their source.”
Jeff focused on a stream of deep red mana, tracking its movements in his mind but quickly losing the strand in the swirl of energies. He spotted a bright, silver thread and tried to watch it to gain a sense of its movements, but as he observed it, it seemed to vanish into a snarl of other energies. Repeatedly, he tried to single out individual strands, but watching any specific thread seemed impossible: no matter how closely he observed a strand, it would seem to jump out of his sight and disappear into the chaotic mass.
Frustrated, Jeff began to pull back, to abandon the apparently impossible task but halted. This isn’t the first impossible problem you’ve solved, he reminded himself. You know how to handle this.
Taking a mental breath to calm his thoughts, he allowed his concentration to drift, not really focusing on any part of the pattern but letting his subconscious examine the whole. This came easily to him: it was an essential part of how he designed code. Sometimes, he would find himself stuck in his designs, following a path that seemed to be leading nowhere. In those instances, as his frustration mounted, he found if he could just relax and take his conscious mind away from the problem, his subconscious would provide him with sudden insight that generally led him back onto the correct path.
As Jeff reminisced about his job, remembering past challenges and the creative ways he solved them, he was struck by a sense of the mana flows. Despite the seeming chaos and entropy, he realized, there was an overall structure to the movements. It’s like a quantum system, he realized. It’s got uncertainty: you can’t analyze any one element accurately. You have to look at the whole thing like a probability wave or vector function. You can’t define the elements, but you can define the system.
The flows seemed to stabilize in his new perspective. He ignored the eddies and curls of the flow and looked at its overall tendencies. What was the predominant flow pattern in this area? Where were the attractors and repellers: the places everything flowed into and away from? He let his mind intuitively form an image of the system’s overall shape: peaks where energy flowed out, valleys where energy gathered.
He realized that the overall system was remarkably stable. Energy was constantly being drawn from the system in tiny streams represented by the valleys in his mental image, trailing off into the gray mists almost invisibly, yet the overall energy remained unchanging. That meant there had to be an inflow into the system where his mental graph peaked: those were places where energy entered his mindscape and was distributed into the greater mana reserve.
As he focused on one of those peaks, he suddenly gained a sense of a greater structure to the total energy flows. There was an overall function defining this flow, he intuited, one that he could adjust and modify if he could just comprehend it. The flash of insight was fleeting, and after a moment the sense of the pattern fled, but he guessed that with practice, it would come to him more easily.
Jeff could feel the energy flowing into him at the peak he examined, and he concentrated on increasing that flow. He imagined the peak rising, the energy outflow increasing, and he could sense the mana swirls growing faster and more chaotic. He strained mentally to increase the flow, but it seemed that the peak was as high as he could make it. He tried to reach to a second peak to replicate his feat when a wave of mental exhaustion swept over him, pulling him out of his focus and back to awareness. He blinked his eyes open, expecting to see his mindscape, so he was surprised to find himself lying on the floor of the wooden room with the old elf leaning over him, shaking his head in dismay.
“You attempted too much,” the elf admonished him. “You must learn your limits, young one! You will not always have someone near to save you.”
“What?” Jeff muttered, trying to sit up unsuccessfully. “What do you mean, I ‘attempted too much’?”
“Check your notifications,” the elf replied simply, sitting back with a dissatisfied air.
Jeff attempted to do so, although his brain felt fuzzy and his thoughts seemed to be moving slowly.
Those notifications seemed great, but the next one was green, which he seemed to recall was a good thing; it was hard to remember at the moment. His thoughts crawled like molasses, and he had to read the next two notices twice before he comprehended them:
Yep, those looked good, but the next notification was red, and that probably wasn’t so great:
Yeah, that likely explained why he was having so much trouble thinking right now. On the plus side, one good thing seemed to come of it:
Okay, so I’ve got increased spell creation speed from, umm…, Jeff mused, trying to put all of it together. His foggy brain refused to dredge up anything, though, and after a moment he gave up. Doesn’t matter. What’s important is, I’m gonna be an awesome Sorcerer! You know…if I can come up with a spell.
“Do you understand?” the old elf asked once he saw Jeff’s eyes refocus. “You are likely suffering from Mana Deprivation and Mana Burn, yes?” When Jeff nodded, the elf sighed in exasperation. “You are fortunate I was present and able to bring you back. Had you continued, you might have permanently damaged your mana channels.” The elf sighed. “How long will the debuffs last?”
“Uh…an hour?” Jeff said, struggling to recall. “No, wait, like 45 minutes. Got Mental Resistance!”
“That could have been worse,” the elf acknowledged. “I hope it was at least worth it. What rank did you achieve in your Meditation skill?
“Umm,” Jeff frowned, trying to think of how to explain. “I didn’t get it. I mean, I got it, but now I don’t have it.” The elf scowled angrily at Jeff, and he hastened to explain.
“I got Meditation at…umm…Student 1?” Jeff struggled to remember. “But, I also got Mana Insight up, and they combined into a new skill…” The elf’s eyes widened as Jeff continued to explain about his new skill and its benefits.
“That…that is amazing,” the elf murmured. “Would you mind showing me your status, Aranos? You must think of displaying your status to me, and I will be able to see it.”
“Sure, why not?” Jeff shrugged, concentrating on displaying his status to the aged elf. An instant later, the familiar blue screen appeared, seemingly more solid this time:
The old elf sighed. “Am I correct in assuming you received 3 new skills and managed to discover a unique skill in less than an hour?” he asked.
“Yeah!” Jeff replied excitedly, his sluggish brain suddenly grasping that fact. “I got a Perk and a Title, too!”
“Indeed,” the elf replied, lowering his face into his hands. “I understand now why the ancestors cautioned us against the coming of the Travelers, if this is to be typical.” The elf rose gracefully to his feet, pulling Jeff to stand and leading him to a pile of woven mats aga
inst a wall, covered with blankets. “But, for now, you must rest, young Traveler,” the elf continued, helping Jeff to lie upon the blankets. “I will make arrangements for your testing to begin. You must lie quietly and allow the debuffs to fade so that you will be able to understand what you must do.”
The elf rose to leave but halted and turned back to face the young man. “And, under no circumstances should you attempt to use SP for anything,” he said sternly. “Allow the current effects to fade, first, or you may do yourself a more lasting injury.”
Jeff nodded and collapsed onto the thick blankets, his head pounding. Mana Deprivation sucks, he thought tiredly. Or is it the Mana Burn? Whichever one is giving me this headache, it sucks. He closed his eyes and laid his head back, allowing his thoughts to spiral. Without thought, he sank deeper into himself, descending until he found himself within his mindscape.
“Huh,” he said aloud, looking curiously about. The dojo was just as he left it, but beyond the glass dome he saw nothing but gray mists: the swirling mass of colors had vanished. “Wonder where that went?” He tried reaching out to the gray emptiness with his thoughts, but a stab of pain in his skull dissuaded him instantly.
“Okay, okay,” he groaned, clutching his forehead. “No SP. Got it.” As the pain passed, he looked over at the rack of weapons and shrugged. A little practice won’t use any mana, right? he thought silently. It’ll give me something to do while I wait for these debuffs to wear off, as well.
Decided, he stepped over to the weapons and chose the bo staff, moving over to the target dummy and assuming a guarding stance. Time passed swiftly as he moved through his weapon forms with the staff before shifting to the nunchaku and bokken. It was awkward wielding the wooden blade with the low ceiling, so he contented himself with moving through the few katas he had memorized. The movements relaxed him and focused his thoughts, removing distractions.