This Hardly Qualifies as Science

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Kobold Eyefang
Item - Reagent
-Trash-
A Kobold fang that, for some reason, has an eyeball emerging from its base.
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Scaled Kobold Fang
Item - Reagent
-Trash-
A Kobold fang with some scales on it. Amazing
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Kobold Scaleye
Item - Reagent
-Trash-
A Kobold eye encased in scales. Serves no discernable purpose.
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Rope (100ft)
Item - Misc
-Common-
Two separate lengths of rope joined end to end by magic. Somewhat more effective than simply tying a knot.
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Kobold Helix Fang
Item - Reagent
-Uncommon-
A pair of Kobold fangs fused together. Given the rate at which Kobolds replace teeth, it is known that some occasionally form incorrectly. This is either one such deformity or the result of a complete waste of mana.
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Scapple
Item - Consumable
-Trash-
An apple made less edible by the addition of scaly skin. It has no reason to exist, and yet it does.
Restores 1 hp, if you can stomach it.
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Theyeball Knife
Weapon - Dagger
-Trash-
A carved length of bone shaped into a dagger. Inexplicably, an eye has been set into the blade. Objectively inferior to a regular Thighbone Knife in all ways.
3 Damage, Slashing/Piercing
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Bronzescale Dagger
Weapon - Dagger
-Uncommon-
A bronze dagger inlaid with dark Kobold scales. No more effective than usual, but at least it looks cooler.
7 Damage, Slashing/Piercing
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Potion of Minor Rejuvenation
Item - Consumable
-Uncommon-
The perfect blend of a Potion of Minor Health and a Potion of Minor Mana. The difficulty of combining the restorative powers of the two potions without losing efficacy makes these less common and much more expensive than their singular counterparts. Tastes like purple.
Restores ~15% of hp and ~10% of mp._

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Liam had spent the last hour testing the limits and effects of his powers with John. The only reason they stopped was because his power stopped working - also known as running out of mana, as John explained.

"C'mon, you get to know my mana but I don't?" Liam griped. "What kind of ripoff is that?"

"I get actual numbers, but you have to be able to tell where you're at somehow, right?" John idly flipped the scaled fang between his fingers while he thought. "Don't you feel any different than usual?"

"Huh, now that you mention it," Liam leaned against the work table and closed his eyes, "I feel kinda… empty? Not hungry or tired or depressed, just empty. It's weird and I don't like it. Fix it, magic man!"

"Relax, it'll come back on its own," John said. "It's a little inconsistent though; I think eating and resting speeds it up a little."

"Then what are we waiting for? I need me some nuggies!" Liam pushed himself off the desk and smacked the garage door control. John groaned as the door lifted itself, he hated when Liam used internetese in meat space.

"Come on, memelord, my treat." John got up and headed out as well. He hadn't yet spent any of his magically acquired gains, so fast food seemed as good a start as any. There was a McDonald's within walking distance of Liam's house. They could probably bug his dad for a ride, but the two preferred the walk, choosing to believe that the exercise counteracted the garbage that was about to go into their bodies. It didn't.

They reviewed some of what they had learned through experimentation along the way. Firstly, Liam couldn't combine two objects if one or both of the items were already fusions. Secondly, the size was limited, but they hadn't exactly pinned down what the limit was. It was smaller than a watermelon but larger than a loaf of bread, that much they could say.

Another limit they didn't know, or, more specifically, were unable to test, was if it worked on living creatures. It worked on parts of things, as the Kobold drops showed, and on living materials, hence the Appange and the Scapple, but the matter of a complete, living animal was left undetermined. Liam was understandably unwilling to experiment on his dog, Boofer, nor was he willing to catch and hold the spider they found in the corner with his bare hands. John couldn't really blame him for it.

John was willing to sacrifice a fingernail in an attempt to combine it with a scale, but it was a no go. Testing again revealed that the process was all or nothing. Liam couldn't combine a single page of a textbook with a scale, but he could if they tore the page out first. Theoretically, they could do the same with John's nail, but hp regeneration be damned, he wasn't about to volunteer to have a fingernail ripped off. They briefly discussed the morality of buying a hamster to experiment with, but decided not to tread a path carved by psychopaths and serial killers.

Liam was not shy about taking advantage of John's offer to treat him, which he was expecting when he made it. Fifty chicken nuggets, two burgers, a shake, and an unknowable amount of fries disappeared between the pair, during which John continued to explain some of the basics of the Abyss in hushed tones. The return trip was made at a much slower pace, each step made heavy by bellies full of questionably nutritious food. The food may not have been even close to the quality of the banquet offered by the Order, but it was every bit as satisfying.

"I wonder what happens to all of the lost matter," John said once they were safe within the confines of Liam's garage. "Einstein must be doing backflips in his grave."

"Says the guy who makes stuff appear and disappear whenever he wants," Liam quipped.

"That's different," John said, defensive for no real reason. "I mean, yeah, stuff disappears when it's in my inventory, but it still exists. It's just… gone, temporarily. I have no idea where it goes."

"Uh huh, real different." Liam rolled his eyes. "But for your edification, I, the genius that I am, have already been researching that exact question. Hence the popsicle sticks and glue." He swept an arm back towards the workbench, where an array of what looked like tiny furniture was piled.

"I'm not going to ask how the hell those two things are related because you're gonna tell me, whether I care or not, aren't you?"

"You're damn right I am." Liam smiled. "Please behold with thine eyes Exhibit A: the 'Chesk', a chair/desk hybrid made for optimal comfort and productivity."

"Liam, that's just a model school desk," John said.

"It is now, but it wasn't always! ‘Twas once a bespoke chair and desk, similar to these two bad boys." Liam picked up and held aloft popsicle stick models of the aforementioned objects. "See how the chairs are the same size, but the built-in desk of the chesk is smaller than the model one? It lost mass. I used a scale to check if the weight was the same - you know, in case it got denser to compensate for the loss of volume - but it wasn't."

"Okay, it lost mass," John agreed. "But what does that mean besides 'fuck physics?' When you think about it, every fireball ever cast by any mage anywhere spits in the face of entropy."

"Not necessarily, my friend." Liam held up a finger, then turned around and produced a new model. It was a chair with a second stacked on top of it. " Exhibit B: the 'Bunk Chair', the most useless thing since the smart fridge."

"Was that really the best idea you could come up with?" John asked.

"No, it was the worst idea I could come up with, and that was the point! I reasoned there wouldn't be any way to combine two chairs that wasn't either just sticking them together or doubling the size of the chair. Either way, the mass should be about the same. I was right, the bunk chair has exactly the same mass as the sum of the originals."

"And this proves?"

"Nothing!" Liam exclaimed. "On its own, but there is a remaining variable: effort. When I stopped to think about it, making the bunk chair felt a lot easier than making the chesk, even though both pairs had about the same mass. My theory? The amount of effort I have to put in goes up the more matter I have to displace."

"By 'effort' you mean mana, right?" John asked.

"As far as I can tell based on what you taught me, yeah," Liam said.

"Okay, that makes sense." John pursed his lips in thought. "I have an idea. Do you have a fresh set of the same stuff?"

"Two, actually." Liam nodded. "I am nothing if not prepared."

"Then it's time for the third phase of the experiment. Combine them both again, and I'll watch your mp bar. It'll give us a solid number to work with. A little more scientific than 'it feels easier', don't you think?"

"Yes, yes, good idea!" An almost devious smile crept onto Liam's face. He'd entered analytical mode again now that his mental energies had a focus. "If you tell me my max mp and I record the costs of different fusions, I should eventually be able to quantify effort using hard numbers. We'll need to do a bunch of different tests and organize the data by mass difference, apparent effort, and mana cost. Maybe a hundred will do? Scientifically speaking it's a pretty small sample size, but it should be big enough for us to extrapolate off the data and figure out where to go next. If we're lucky, we might be able to find a ratio for the correlation between mass and mana. From there we-"

"Liam." John placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. "One thing at a time."

"What?" Liam snapped out of his trance. "Oh, right. Yeah, okay, phase three coming right up."

John had to admit that Liam's enthusiasm was contagious. The pair were, after all, huge nerds. What kind of nerds would they be if they didn't get a kick out of experimentation and data collection? If he was being honest, John envied Liam's drive. Since getting his powers John had spent most of his time floundering in the dark for lack of understanding and getting his ass kicked. Liam, on the other hand, had immediately begun to study himself. He didn't look for outside help, he saw an opportunity to learn by doing and did it. Not only that, he began to study the nature of magic itself with what limited resources he had. If John had anything to be gained from the night, it was a reassessment of his own self-reliance. For all his histrionics, Liam had a surprisingly rational head on his shoulders - when he felt like it. John decided to emulate that aspect of his friend. He needed to do more things like messing around with Sleight of Hand and less reckless diving into unknowns.

The latest batch of tests was fruitful. As hypothesized, Liam's subjective sense of effort was connected to the mana cost of his spell. Notably, Liam's remaking the bunk chair was cheap, but creating a second chesk cost about as much as Alter Body did when John had first acquired the skill. It drew his attention to Liam's maximum mp for the first time. His eyebrows rose in surprise; Liam was half John's level and his mp was already in the 400's. He felt envy tug at his heart despite his assortment of free skills and generally cheaper costs. Sure, Liam only had one spell, but how did that justify him getting access to so much more mana?

Ugh, no, stop that. Don't be jealous of your friend. If he had lower mp, he'd barely be able to cast. Besides, what's good for him is good for you.

"So, I think I can make a claim vis a vis entropy, relativity, and thermal dynamics," Liam said after reviewing the results. "Mana doesn't break the rules, I think it's a part of them. It's a part that doesn't get used or observed by people without magic, so for all intents and purposes, it doesn't exist for them, but I wouldn't be surprised if some scholarly minded mages have already figured out how exactly mana fits into the puzzle."

"So you're saying that physics works normal until magic is involved, but once you toss it in, there's a second set of rules?" John asked.

"No, but actually, yes. I think that's a better way of putting it than I did." Liam nodded. "The question is, then, how much mana is there?"

"I don't know." John shrugged. "I never asked."

"I'm willing to bet that it's not infinite, but maybe that's just the scientist in me talking," Liam said. John took a moment to consider the implications of what unlimited mana would be.

"Because if it is, then physics is total garbage and we'll never have to worry about the heat **** of the universe?" John posited. "To be honest, I prefer that scenario."

"You're not wrong," Liam sighed. "But I don't like the idea of a reality without rules."

"I dunno," John laughed. "Sounds pretty great to me."

"Yeah, yeah." Liam waved John off. "Look, if you ever find a book about mana and how it works, throw it my way? I need to know."

"You got it."

Just the two casts had pretty much drained Liam of what mana he had regenerated over dinner, so further tests would have to wait for another day. John called his mother to come pick him up, and they discussed their plans for future experiments over a few rounds of Smash Brothers while they waited. Even if it was only for a few minutes, John relished the opportunity to be normal and play video games. For a guy called The Gamer, he'd done frustratingly little gaming lately.