Innate Magic

"Innate magic is, well, innate." Office Lady, as Mitchel had decided to just call her, stated. "You'll be born with it, unlike most magic, which you need to learn the hard way, through trial and error or even just study. There's a few advantages and disadvantages here.

"On the advantages side, Innate Magic is easy to use, requiring neither words nor gestures, and even without Protected Power or Pierce, the world 'resolves' such effects as if they were a dragon's breath or a snake's venom. Basically, you'll always be able to use these effects as naturally as walking."

"On the other hand, this type of magic tends to be... not very good, compared to actual spells with similar effects. A real spell will usually cost a lot less and hit a lot harder. Still, if you incarnate somewhere that no one else has any magic, these spells will provide a useful starting point for your studies. Otherwise you'll have to build a magic system from its most basic principles, through trial and error, and I can't guarantee you won't blow yourself up before even doing something as straightforward as lighting a candle, let alone exotic things like true matter conjuration or mind reading."

Okay, weaker, but necessary, Mitchel thought. That just sounds like basic magic in general.

"Oh, I should probably remind you how things work... or explain properly for the first time, I guess. There are numerous ways of quantifying a mage's ability at magic, but for convenience's sake, we usually consolidate it into a few specific 'stats' - all of which are, for you, equal to your magnitude at the end of this. Weirdo. I'll talk to the guy in charge of worlds, and he'll try and give you the average numbers for your new world for each of these. Anyway, those stats are:

"Mana Pool: Actually, hold on, this one's special. It's actually 100 times your Magnitude, and it's how much magical energy you can hold at once.

"Mana Generation: Usually used to calculate how much mana you can generate with your Generation method, but also impacts how effective a lot of spells are.

"Mana Density: The second half of how effective most spells are, it also helps determine how hard it is to dispel or counter your spells.

"Mana Throughput: Determines how much mana you can 'spend' on effects every second. Most Innate Spells are going to cost more than this, so casting generally won't be instant for you at first. It also helps determine your magic resistance.

"Manipulation Distance: This is basically both how many meters away is 'zero' or 'touch range' and a flat multiplier on how far your spells can reach.

"Free Cast: Any spells that cost less than your value in this, you cast for free! On the other hand, spells above this in value cost the full amount (ignoring the various caveats about how high levels of skill can make spells more efficient, some people have Boons that make spells of a certain kind cost less, etc.)"

Mitchel blinked, trying to keep a grip on all those. None of it was really new, a lot of the Boons and Office Lady's descriptions had gone over most of them to some extent, but he tried to commit the descriptions to memory.

Unfortunately, Office Lady just kept going. "Anyway, you get to start with three Innate Spells, plus three from taking the Innately Mystical Boon. They won't cost you any Magnitude, but you can't pick more, either. If you're going to a world with magic, that won't be a problem, and you'll find more useful spells easily enough. If you go to a world without magic, though, you'll need to pick carefully. Like I said, building a magic system from basic principles, without something to analyze, isn't exactly what one would call easy to do."

And with that, another dozen cards floated up in front of Mitchel. With an internal sigh, he set about reading, with Office Lady occasionally speaking up when needed.

Despite having fewer choices than the Boons (and having a firm, invariable 6 picks), figuring out the Innate Spells was much harder than the Boons. Mitchel quickly figured out that he either needed to go generalist and pick a bunch of different things, or focus on a few more specific choices to specialize into.

He was a bit surprised that there was nothing as straightforward as a fireball or poison shot - in fact there were only two true 'attack and kill' spells, both of which he ended up going with, mainly for reasons other than their combat viability.

After a great bit of thought, he decided to focus rather than go generalist; though he decided against specializing in a specific type, like illusions or mind magic. Instead, he tried to tie things together with his Boons and things that Office Lady had hinted at for future choices or opportunities after this whole deal.

She had said something about an immortality option when I was looking at that time spell. Depending on what kinds of immortality are on offer, having a backup of some kind - rewinding time if I get killed, or reincarnation? Maybe just straight-up Wolverine levels of regeneration... - would be good. After all, I doubt that there's a surefire way to be immortal with no weakpoints or loopholes.

__My Boons also have a lot of mental aspects to them, plus I've heard a lot about these 'Sympathetic Bonds.' ...hmm, maybe a spell to let me manipulate those?

I already have a suspicion what my godly domains could be, so maybe that spell would be a good idea...

All in all, Mitchel suspected he spent at least twice as long choosing his Innate Spells compared to picking out his Boons before he was satisfied with the list:

Mage Sight: see magic and mana flows. Sort of a no-brainer, as far as Mitchel was concerned, especially with the bit about using it as a basis to build metamagic (and useful for constructing any) spells with.

Heart Pierce: an attack spell that not only hit like a literal arrow, but also messed with the victim's emotions. when Office Lady mentioned the bit about using it for soul-related spells, it just made the choice easier.

Dollify: a spell that either worked and killed the target by transforming them into a doll, or failed and did nothing. A decent pick for surprise kills, but also for transmutation, healing, and fleshcrafting spells later on - all of which interested Mitchel to some extent.

Entropic Revelation: basically ages the caster by a set amount as long as the spell is held. It was also the only time spell in the list, and messing with time could be useful for many things, making it a good pick as far asMitchel was concerned.

Spirit String: effectively puppeteer the spirits of objects. Dealing with spirits could be interesting, but the fact that it made a Sympathetic Bond was what really got Mitchel's attention.

Float: make a mobile bubble of null-gravity. The implications of crushing things in a micro-gravitywell, or fly around - or, as Office Lady mentioned, make wormholes - was too tempting.

Despite there being a lot of other intriguing options, several of which Mitchel wanted as well - swapping minds between any two living things sounded like a lot of fun, and also potentially useful - he was fairly satisfied with his picks.

"Well!" For once, Office Lady sounded almost... cheerful? "We've finished up the magic section! Make sure you have at least one Mag left, or it won't be of any use, and really, you'll probably want more than that. See you, weird little soul! I hope whatever awaits you does so well!"

As Office Lady and her office started to fade to white, Mitchel tried to thank the woman for her help. Even with her less-than-professional attitude and frequent quips about how weird he was, she had dome decent advice and explained things well enough.

Then, as another office started to phase into view, a voice came from behind Mitchel.