Chapter 24: Playing with fire

Chapter 24: Playing with fire

“The one advantage of playing with fire . . . is that no one ever gets singed. It is the people who don’t know how to play with it who get burned up.”

Oscar Wilde

My Ninja baby practice has continued and now I am playing with fire or at least trying to. Many a night building and burning bonfires in my former life leave me cautious even if I am trying to do it magically.

I have left Mana Sense on all the time in the hopes of leveling it up and it is moving up but slowly. I might need to focus on my meditation if that is the start of my skill tree. Stronger skill tree roots might support quicker growth in the higher branches of the skill tree.

At night when I break out from the box as well as the physical and sense training I also sit in front of the fireplace and the dying embers of our hearth expelling my mana in the hopes of making a fire or rekindling ours. They let the fire die down naturally overnight banking it but never put it out. If I did manage to make a flame it wouldn't be noticed here.

I haven’t succeeded yet and the one time I thought I might be getting close I think I passed out from using too much mana and was woken up by my mother finding me there the next morning. They didn’t say anything about finding me there simply assuming I had got up earlier than them although I doubt they suspected quite how much earlier. Since then they double-check the latch on the door outside every night just to check I don’t go wandering out but they don’t seem too concerned about any possible sleepwalking or getting out of bed early and exploring the house.

Different era different concerns at least when it comes to baby safety.

They might think differently if they knew exactly what I get up to when they are asleep or exactly quite how early I was getting up. Nighttime is the best time to practice anything that would otherwise look beyond odd for a baby to be doing. With the high vitality and the ability to take naps whenever I want during the day I’m not particularly worn down by it.

Now, I practiced Expel Mana for half my mana and then try Absorb Mana. Absorb Mana has always been very slow in comparison to the Expel Mana and rarely regains all of it back in again. The next step in my Wizard training routine is trying Mana Drain on the logs in the fireplace. I managed to drain more Mana quicker than when I try to use my skill Absorb Mana but I am never quite able to remove all the Mana in the stick. Furthermore once finished the Mana in the surrounding starts to leak back into it. Changed slightly but seemingly porous to an extent the Mana reaches equilibrium through some form of osmosis almost.

Rinse and repeat. I have been able to level up the three skills and it has helped to add more stats to my Magic stat with each level I gain in the skills.

But it wasn’t going to be enough in the 3 months I have left.

So . . . I have started experimenting

Experiment 1: I started holding a little of the kindling.

This time when I tried to expel the mana I tried to force it into the little stick that I was holding rather than letting it dissipate into my surroundings.

I managed to get it to hold more and more of the mana until it felt like it couldn’t hold anymore and started leaking itself.

So far so good but I wouldn’t be able to get to throw any fireballs at this rate.

The next step was I tried to force more than it would take but it felt like I was pushing against a brick wall with my mind.

Seeing as I couldn’t get any more to go into it I tried to take control of my Mana that was in the stick to see if I could get it to do anything. I tried to make it freeze to stop its flow within and out of the stick but again I was unable to get it to do anything.

Thinking about old physics lessons and how atoms move when heating up I then tried to do the opposite of freezing them. Not adding any more mana to the stick but trying to get my mana that was already there to move a little bit faster, imagining being able to get the atoms to vibrate a little more.

It felt as hard as trying to get the stick to hold more mana than it was able to but eventually I felt like I could see more movement. So I kept pushing in a little mana, trying to get a little bit more control, trying to get it to move a little bit faster.

Slowly, ever so slowly, it moved a little faster and a little faster. Until finally, with a sudden whoosh, the piece of kindling burst into flames and I threw it onto the fading embers of the fire.

Senses: 94

Mind: 105

Clarity: 36

Magic: 67

Free Points: 20

Skills:

Tier 1: Time sense (LV 20) Listening (LV 20) Meditation (LV 20) Swimming (LV 20)

Humming (Lv 20) Sneak (Lv 15) Whistling (Lv 20) Singing (Lv 20) and Drumming (Lv 20)

Running (Lv 10), Acting (15), English (Lv 15), Spanish (Lv 15), Japanese (Lv 15),

German (Lv 10), French (Lv 7) Dodge (Lv 1) Breath Control (Lv 1) Sight (Lv 5)

Scent (Lv 5) Detect (Lv 5) Taste (Lv 5) Bulosa (Lv 1)

Tier 2: Sense Mana (LV 25) Eavesdrop (LV 20) Memorisation (LV 20) Composition (Lv 20)

Recall (Lv20) Pain tolerance (Lv 5) Piano (Lv 20) Violin (Lv 20), Trombone (Lv 20),

Saxophone (Lv 20) Linguistics (Lv 15) Translation (Lv 15) Stealth (Lv 5)

Tier 3: Echolocation (LV 20) Expel Mana (Lv 25) Absorb Mana (Lv 25)

Mana Manipulation (Lv 1) Ignite (Lv 1)

Tier 4: Mana Drain (Lv 11) Multiple Minds (Lv 10)

Tier 5: Mind fortress (Lv 15)

Skill experience: 800

Origin experience: 0

Combat experience: 0

Crafting experience: 0