Getting some insurance

It had been an extremely unusual day for John, and if told about it a day ago, he would think getting home would be the end to that strange day. He would be wrong, however, as it was his first time back home since he had gotten his powers.

When John entered his home, both his parents were nowhere to be found, so he went up to his room as he usually did. He did not get to his room to begin his afternoon like he usually did, however, by pulling a game off his shelf or launching one in Steam. Instead, he began it with an endeavour to which he had ascribed himself earlier. The endeavour to get some way of defending himself. To that end, he had gone to his shelf, but what he pulled off his shelf when he had gotten to it was not a game as one would expect of John on a normal day, but a D&D book. That D&D book was the game's newest player handbook, the one made for the 5th edition of the game.

John didn’t take that book because he thought it would give him a spell nor because he wanted to study up for a campaign. John took that book because he sought inspiration, inspiration on what spell he might be able to create and add to his arsenal, because it was still severely lacking in many aspects. For that purpose, he browsed the spell list provided in the book, and a few spells caught his eye. First, he saw a classic, Magic Missile, a ranged spell that could probably be classified as arcane, and if not too costly to his MP, would be extremely useful. Second, he noticed another classic spell, Light, one he might need to alter slightly but could be incredibly useful nonetheless, a light source is always handy when exploring unknown and possibly dangerous environments. Thirdly, he saw two spells which interested him; the first was Shield: a spell allowing him to create a magical barrier that acted as a shield. The second was Mage Armour: a spell that would allow him to use a similar magic barrier that would act as a suit of armour. John thought to combine those two, though apart from their similarity as they both applied magic barriers, he wasn't sure how he could do it. After he had found three spells he might be able to create, one an offensive spell, one a utility spell, and one a defensive spell, he decided to attempt to add all three of them to his power set in whatever way he could manage.

John started with Magic Missile. First, he exited his house and went to his backyard. Which was hidden from the rest of the world by a fence, he then stood against that fence, confused on how exactly he could create something like that, he attempted to imagine darts of mana forming behind his head. When he opened his eyes to check whether the darts he had imagined were there or not, he couldn’t find them, but a slight whoosh sound could be heard each time he moved his head in the attempt to look for them. Weirdly, it seemed that his attempt to form them with his mind had worked, though John did not know why. The whoosh sound told John that they were in fact behind him, where he imagined them forming, so he imagined them moving forward and into his peripheral vision. Once he went to look for them again he could see the darts sitting at the edges of his vision; they were transparent, and seemed to be made of some unknown material that was shimmering and blue in color, their thin forms looked like darts, but reflected the area around them in a way no dart could.

New skill: Arcane Bolts

John examined the popup; it told him much about the skill he had just gotten. For one thing, it seemed to do very little damage, each bolt only hitting for about 3 HP if his calculations were correct. John assumed that the damage would increase once he had levelled it up and that the number of bolts he would eventually be able to create would also compensate, plus the MP cost was quite a bit cheaper than he had expected. He wanted to create the spell in order for him to have some offensive capability, and that is exactly what he now had. The popup also called them bolts, unlike both the original spell and John’s mind up till now, so John decided it would be more appropriate to call them by their seemingly real name instead of the one used in D&D, so he decided to call them bolts as well. Now that the first spell was created, John decided to move onto the second one.

John thought for a bit on how he could modify the light spell to suit his needs then he remembered how much the bolts had glowed, seemingly only from their source as Arcane magic. That led him to believe that if he formed a sort of light source out of mana, it would glow naturally and when he thought of a light source, a floating ball seemed simplest. To start, he simply imagined the orb forming, just as he did with the darts. After doing so for a moment, John opened his eyes. To his surprise, the orb was there, it was both glowing, and also emitting a light so strongly that John needed to avert his gaze. John attempted to move the orb behind him as to allow him to look around, he did so by imagining it floating to a point behind his head, and so it did. When he opened his eyes again, he could still see the light of the orb flooding his backyard. A moment later, John attempted to dispel the spell and succeeded, he had done so simply by thinking of the sphere once more, but this time attempting to break it in his mind. The sphere had disappeared, and a popup had taken its place.

New skill: Orb of Light

John could now guess as to what breaking the sphere had done, it had severed the connection between his mana and it and thus made it unable to function. John guessed that is what the popup meant by being able to dispel the orb, though he wasn't sure. Having now completed the second spell as well, John moved onto the third, now thoroughly excited by the tremendous progress he had made in just a few minutes.

Just like the second spell, John began the third by planning how to modify the two spells he had taken inspiration from for his needs. Both spells had a common element that he had identified earlier, their use of magical barriers as protection. John required some spell that could be used to that extent, a spell allowing him to have defensive capabilities that would serve as both backup and insurance. John thought long about how exactly he could use the same methods he had used up to now to create something like that and reached a conclusion a few minutes later.

’**** fields. I might be able to create something that would work in that way if it used magical **** fields. Perhaps I can manifest mana in a physical way and allow it to work as a **** field.’ John decided. He proceeded to imagine something new forming in his mind once again, for the final time this day. He imagined a sort of wall, but an invisible one, one that could only be seen by its shimmer, standing before him. When John looked around to find the wall, he could just barely see it, and when he moved forwards, he did not hit it. When he held his hand out, however, it struck something hard, broke through it, and left a part of it as empty as before John had created the wall. John could feel the mana pouring out of his body to refill the hole he had created in the wall, it felt like blood pouring out of an open wound, but it wasn’t painful. Just like he had done with the sphere he went to break the wall, but this time it was different, once he had broken it in his mind it had not disappeared, it was still there. John assumed that it meant that unlike the orb the wall didn’t require an upkeep cost, so he reached out to the wall in his mind once more and found it was still whole, this time instead of attempting to break it, however, he focused on the wall fading away. Just like the wall in his mind, the wall in reality faded away into dust, and just like with the darts, that dust disappeared almost as soon as it touched the ground. The wall in the real world was quickly replaced by another popup.

New skill: Arcane Barrier

When John saw that popup he knew that he now finally had defensive capabilities and that meant one thing, and one thing only.