But first, home sweet home

“How was school honey?” Brenda asked as John walked through the door, all the dirt and tears from the afternoon vanished.

“Normal, you know, boring,” he replied, moving toward the stairs, planning on spending all the time before heading out practicing with his new abilities.

“Alright. Well, I’m going out with some friends tonight, so you can order food if you’d like or eat any of the leftovers in the fridge. I’ll leave you some money.” Brenda reached into her purse, but John stopped her.

“Actually Mom, I have plans tonight.”

This shocked his mother, though she was quick to hide it. “Really? Going out? With a girl?”

Her deluge of questions was quickly sidestepped by John, who simply replied, “I was just invited out by a… friend. Going to a club.” He knew it was out of character but hoped his mother wouldn’t question it too much.

She just seemed happy that he was getting out of the house. “That’s wonderful! I know you’re a grown boy now, but… don’t stay out too late! You have school tomorrow after all!” With a questionable giggle, she slipped on a light jacket and left him alone to his devices.

Realizing he wouldn’t have to practice in secret if he was the only one home, he decided to test the limitations Mana Construct.

Instead of just using his palms to **** out mana, he tried to create an outline against the table with his fingertips. He drew a thin line of translucent blue into a pointed tip, drawing a blade, guard and hilt. When he tried to pick up his creation, he found that it was paper thin.

He was surprised that it wasn't uncomfortable for his hand but reasoned that his own constructs probably couldn't hurt him. Since the object was so light, he decided to test an idea he had wondered about since he learned that he couldn’t lose contact with his creations.

Focusing on the two-dimensional dagger in his hand, he used Move. Instead of disappearing, as all constructs did when leaving his hand, it began to levitate just over his palm. He rotated it, then, with the assistance of gravity, drove it into his table. The blade shattered.

Take two, John thought as he drew another blade with his fingertips. He wished he could concentrate the mana into some sort of stylus, like when he drew digital art, but that would make this too easy. Forming a thin yet adequate blade with his fingertips, he moved on to the hilt. He formed an adequate cylinder, good enough for gripping but not too finely detailed.

Intent on making some sort of blade guard, he held the knife in one hand and began to form a wiry circle around it. Halfway through, he ran out of mana leaving the circle incomplete but still attached to the blade. Though he was disappointed that detailed work apparently cost more mana, the crescent shape of the guard was kind of cool.

That can’t be right, John thought as he examined the knife in his hands, this thing is less than half the weight of anything I’ve created before and much smaller. He ran his finger over what was supposed to be the blade, only to realize it was in no way sharp. It’s not even sharp? That kinda blows, he threw the knife at the door and watched as it fully disappeared just before impact. He took a while to Meditate back to full then got back to creating a weapon. He tried to recreate the knife he just formed, slightly stretching out the edge in an attempt to create a sharp blade.

The result was a misshapen blade with the same crescent shaped guard. Upon testing, this knife’s blade was less effective than the last, both not sharp and asymmetrical. What a waste. Guess I have to stick to blunt weapons for now. John dropped the misshapen knife and immediately went back to Meditation.

Once John was finished, he decided to test out Mana Construct one last time, this time to create a blunt weapon. A baseball bat would be simple enough, he thought as he began to work. As with the knife, he first created a two dimensional design. Creating a baseball bat was simple, they all had roughly the same shape, and most had a flat circle at the base of the handle.

Satisfied with the two dimensional version, he tried to recreate it in three dimensions quickly. After all, if he was going to create a weapon, he’d need to do it quickly in combat. He spiraled the energy around the base, growing narrower until he reached the handle, where he created the flat circle he had remembered. The result was a translucent blue baseball bat that looked like any he could remember and a popup.

Mana Construct level 3!

You can now summon your most recent construct for half the cost!

That was very useful. All he had to do was make sure that his weapon of choice was his most recent construct before combat, simple enough. Deciding to take advantage of this new perk, he dropped the bat and went scrounging around for a baseball or tennis ball, intent on testing it out.

With an hour of daylight left, John went into his backyard to test out his new toy. He threw the tennis ball he found up into the air, hitting it with all his strength.

The result was underwhelming. The ball was sent flying, sure, but not more so than if he had used a normal baseball bat. Though he supposed that was because this was a normal baseball bat. He was reminded of his low Strength stat. I guess it’s good that it’s as effective as the real thing… maybe if I put some points into Strength, this could be a viable fighting strategy. He tossed another into the air but missed completely, and a few points into Agility for coordination would be good.

Checking his phone, he realized he had another half hour before he had planned to leave. He decided to spend the rest of the time using Meditate to keep him at tip top shape, maybe eating something for dinner to get a small buff.

Heading inside and into the kitchen, he threw a frozen dinner into the microwave, using Meditate while he listened to it slowly rotate. He was snapped out of it by the loud beeps of the microwave going off. Noticing his full mana bar, he tried to open the microwave and float the food over to the table. Halfway through, he noticed the absurd amount of mana this was taking and quickly stopped, his mana at half a bar.

Should be alright, as long as I don’t use any until I get there, he thought as he dug in, quickly interrupted by, Why am I so on edge? It’s just a club. I’ve never been to one before but… it’s not like I’m going to fight any more gun-toting skeleton men there. This rationale was quietly followed by a small voice at the back of John’s head which chimed in, hopefully.

After finishing his dinner, he walked up the stairs and into his bedroom to get dressed. I wonder what people wear to clubs, he checked his wardrobe to find little more than graphic t-shirts and uniforms. Digging deep, he found a plain white shirt which fit well enough and a simple pair of jeans. Deciding this was enough, he took out his phone, intent on getting directions to the club.