“I still can’t believe it,” Mishel said, shaking his head as he walked me home. “It’s practically unheard of.”

  I hummed noncommittally, not wanting to risk oversharing.

  After my revelatory display, the former soldier had been easily convinced not to follow through on sharing my [Swordsmanship] skill. Still, he or Umbor had to inform my parents about my revelation and my new magic skill. Fortunately, they didn’t pursue the specifics, like the skill name, since the faith frowned on that. I could clearly display the ability; the details weren’t relevant.

  Despite that, things were moving beyond my control anyway, only in a different direction. Umbor was going to send the revelation up the chain, which would inevitably reach the Five Guardian Faith leadership, at least within Ivarnel. There was some conflict between the domains, so it wasn’t likely to travel further than that; they would hope to retain magical talent within their borders.

  It was quite possible, then, that the domain would summon me to attend a magic academy in Ivarnel’s capital.

  I welcomed Mishel into the house, only to find Hildan passed out from drinking all day. That was probably easier than explaining this to him while he was off his face, anyway. Instead, he sat down with Berrel and told her the important parts about the day.

  Naturally, Torra and Tomas eavesdropped with me.

  “Wow,” Torra whispered.

  “Tovar do magic?” Tomas asked.

  “I guess so.”

  “Maybe I can do it too. Is it hard?” Torra asked.

  “Uh… sometimes.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  I thought back to the first thing I did with mana. “Sometimes.”

  Torra made a face. “I don’t want to do it if it hurts.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “No hurt,” little Tomas agreed.

  Mishel had reached the point where he was talking about attending a magic academy in Ivarnel’s capital when Berrel started fussing.

  “Oh, I don’t think we’d be able to afford that,” she said, absently rubbing her stomach. “Too many mouths to feed. And with Hildan’s… well, Tovar’s needed at home.”

  I frowned slightly. I had figured money might be an issue, but I was surprised my mother might try and limit me beyond the financial burden.

  Mishel paused, before speaking slowly. “There’s a good chance the domain will sponsor Tovar’s education. A commoner with no backing acquiring magic on his own—and verified through divine revelation, no less—is surely important enough to grant a scholarship.”

  “But…”

  “It’s his path, Berrel.”

  My mother lowered her head. “Yes. It is. I understand that.”

  I glanced to my side, at Torra, who had a look of mild consternation on her face. Berrel’s worry wasn’t unfounded; if I left, life was going to get a lot more difficult around here for the family. Down the line, I assumed there was the prospect of good wages in a magic career, and I’d be able to send funds home. In the meantime, I would be causing a worse state for my family, even if not costing anything while studying under scholarship. I would not be contributing to the farm, and they required my contributions now more than ever.

  “I just… don’t want to lose another child,” Berrel said, her eyes watering.

  Mishel fell silent, since what could anyone say to a mother who had lost a child. I sighed, sympathetic to her pain—I missed Toldan too, even if I smothered that emotion as much as possible—but walked over and took her hand in mine.

  “I won’t be lost, mom, just away getting an education. I’m sure I’ll be able to come back to visit. And when I’m done and can make good wages, I can help the family with them.” I paused, unsure if I should make any promises I couldn’t keep, but I wanted to give her hope. “Maybe one day I can even learn healing magic for dad’s arm.”

  Berrel surprised me and embraced me, and I hugged her back, waiting for her to work through her emotions.

  Well, hopefully that’s possible. I’ll ask the administrator about it if school’s a bust.

  In any case, nothing was going to happen quickly. This was not a world with instant communication or rapid travel. With winter approaching, we likely wouldn’t hear anything back until late spring. I’d certainly be able to help with the planting, and hopefully Hildan would be recovered enough by then to figure out some way of contributing to the village.

  We saw Mishel off and after that, things mostly went back to normal, at least for a while. The main difference for me was that I had a new tool in my tool-belt for training my Will, so I hoped that progress would speed up a bit. I wanted to make up for lost time. With the harvest basically finished, we would be settling into the slower pace of winter living soon.

  The village gossip quickly spread and I got more than a few strange looks during the next sermon, which unsurprisingly was about revelation and the glory and goodness of the Guardians. I sat through Umbor’s fervent worship, internally manipulating my mana and feeling out the flow of mana around me in a room full of people.

  One of the things I had learned from the book in the administrator’s metaversal borderlands was about mana itself. It permeated everything, so there was a lot of it, but it was partially used up when magic was cast. As such, it also needed to be generated somehow, or it would have been fully used up over time.

  As it turned out, when living things died, they had a mana-based decomposition process. The speed of the decomposition was directly related to the amount of mana initially held inside the lifeform, so heavily infused creatures would fairly quickly break back down into mana after dying, with their physical body being partially converted into new mana.

  Even the most mundane lifeform—say, a normal tree—would have some amount of mana decomposition. It took quite a long time for a dead tree to decompose biologically, but then, over that same natural decomposition term, mana decomposition would also ramp up. It was slow enough that you could still use wood for firewood, or even build with it. There seemed to also be something about the building process, converting raw wood into an object in its own right, that imbued the object with a new mana circuit which allowed the mana to cycle rather than decompose. So houses didn’t randomly dissolve into mana, when they were lived in and cared for and used.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The main difference between regular decomposition and mana decomposition was that the latter didn’t require oxygen and water.

  It was incredibly unlikely, then, that this world would ever see a hydrocarbon based industrial revolution. Instead of dead biomass turning into fossil fuels deep in the ground, it had long since turned into mana. This world could only ever use charcoal to work metals like iron, as it had no coal or coke, which would limit industry unless there was a way for magic to fill the gap.

  Of course, more things were dying and converting into mana across the world than was being used up by mages, which were relatively few in number. Eventually, excess mana would coalesce into something called a dungeon. These would, in turn, continue to convert mana into biological creatures: monsters, like the goblins that had killed my brother.

  Most monsters stayed in the dungeons that created them. Clearly, though, not all did.

  “Psst, Tovar,” Torra whispered, poking me in the side. “Get up. Sermon’s over.”

  I blinked, and noticed people were getting up and meandering out of the chapel. A few milled around, chatting, as this was a good time to catch up with neighbors. I didn’t want to get too caught up in the gossip, so I quickly skedaddled.

  The beginning of winter was incredibly rough on my family. Hildan’s behavior was getting worse and worse, and he was spending money we couldn’t afford on more alcohol.

  I was growing anxious about it, with Berrel approaching her due date. If the man was going to remain worse than useless, by spring the family would be in dire straits, and it would be hard to leave for an education.

  Fortunately, the baby was its own salvation. A healthy little girl, with brown hair and dark eyes like her lost elder brother. They named her Tomelia, and she brought Hildan back to life.

  What a simple man, I couldn’t help but think, that a child who takes after him, specifically, has such an impact.

  It was certainly a different bond than his lost bond with Toldan. He was raising Toldan in his image, but with Tomelia, he simply fawned over her. It got him off the drink, and he started working at pulling himself together. He was still crippled, and would need to relearn how to live a life without his dominant arm, but he finally seemed willing to try.

  * * *

  I wiped the sweat from my brow and glanced up at the sun. It was a bit too warm for spring, which would be nice if I wasn’t stuck out in the fields helping to turn over the soil.

  Glancing over at Hildan, I saw my father making his way down the plowed rows, pulling seeds from a pouch on his belt and evenly spacing them out along the way. Last year, I had planted seeds while he had plowed, and while we were slower in this configuration, at least we had found a way to all do our part and make progress.

  Movement at the edges of my vision caught my attention, and I turned to see Torra waving from the roadway. Happy to take a break, I set down my tools and jogged over.

  “Hey,” I said when I was close enough I didn’t have to shout.

  “Tovar, there’s someone at the chapel here to see you,” she said excitedly.

  “Yeah?”

  “I think he’s a mage,” she squealed.

  “Probably someone to inspect my skill, from the domain,” I muttered. I glanced down at my filthy clothes. “Hmm. I should probably change. Go tell dad that I have to head over.”

  Torra’s face dropped. “Is he going to make me till for you?”

  I shrugged. “Probably.”

  Leaving her groaning behind, I jogged home, quickly stripping down and wiping off as much dirt as I could and changing into some cleaner clothing. Without delay, I told my mother where I was headed and made my way to the chapel.

  Along the way, I pulled up my System and confirmed my stats were as I remembered.

  I had trained with [Mana Manipulation] all winter, as well as continuing my breathing exercises as well as my usual mindfulness meditation, mental exercises, swordplay, and physical training. As I already had the skill for [Swordsmanship] and with no concerns about my path, Mishel had been happy enough to engage me in sparring, and it was good training for my body.

  I had a decent amount of confidence in my stats, overall. With a little prodding, Torra had confided in me her own stats, which were far behind mine, even accounting for the age and level difference. Of course, she was an actual child and a bit of a slacker, so that was no surprise. I wasn’t concerned that my stats were low compared to other village children in Redding, but it was possible that children trained from noble houses in Ivarnel were far ahead of the curve.

  My main concern was that this inspector would identify the [Mana Manipulation] skill, which the world’s administrator had told me would be a problem. Though, if it were that easy to identify, I presume he wouldn’t have given me the skill, since I’d be caught immediately.

  Approaching the chapel, I found cantor Umbor waiting for me with an even older man. He was exactly what I would have expected from a mage; he had a long white beard and spectacles and a look of wisdom to him.

  He was even wearing a robe, although it was probably just a fashion choice.

  I didn’t see any kind of wand or staff or tome on him, but it might have been inside the chapel.

  “Hello, cantor Umbor, sir,” I said, greeting the two men.

  “Magus Somnial, this is the boy, Tovar,” Umbor told the other man.

  “Good to meet you, Tovar. Do you mind if we borrow the chapel, Umbor, so I may speak with the child in private?”

  “Of course, Magus. Good luck, Tovar,” Umbor said with his characteristic warm smile, before bowing slightly to the mage and walking away.

  Somnial ushered me inside, closed the door, and then turned to look me over again.

  “So. Is it true that you were given a magic skill through divine revelation?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Show me.”

  As I had the previous year, I collected mana in a glowing orb between my hands. Obviously, I couldn’t show something else, lest the reports differ. There was no point in showing off—this was just to get me through the door towards the path of the mage.

  “A chantless light spell,” the Magus muttered, studying it as it dissolved. “How curious.”

  He looked back at me, his eyes intense, then looked over to the statues of the Guardians. After a moment, he walked over to the pews where a pack was resting, and began rifling through it.

  From the pack, Somnial pulled out a grapefruit-sized orb, and a small pillow, upon which he placed the orb. “Come here, child,” he said, and I stepped over in front of him. He lowered the pillow and orb towards me. “Place your hand on this and concentrate.”

  I hesitated only a moment before following the Magus’s order. Worst case, it would reveal my skill and I’d probably get killed, but I didn’t think that would happen. After a moment of contact, the orb began to glow slightly, and the Magus stared into it.

  “Hmm. Will of… six, give or take?” he asked, raising his eyes to mine.

  I glanced over at the statues of the Guardians, then back to him. It was, as far as I was aware, an inappropriate question in the Faith, but it’s not like that was something I particularly cared about. “Seven, sir.”

  “And with no formal training? That is somewhat impressive,” he said. “May I ask how? This preceded your revelation, correct?”

  “Yeah. Uh, yes, sir,” I corrected. I debated my answer, but the truth still seemed the wisest course of action. “Breathing exercises, mostly.”

  “Hmm,” was all the Magus said, inclining his head slightly.

  A silence stretched between us, and Somnial’s gaze changed slightly.

  “Did dry snake a lot paver?” he asked, suddenly.

  I blinked, cocked my head, then blinked again. Did I mishear that? In my early days learning the local tongue, I sometimes struggled adapting from English, occasionally mishearing local words as English when they sounded similar. This was a bit like that. I was pretty sure I was parsing what I heard in the local tongue, but what I heard made no sense.

  “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

  “Dij drai essun akulot pavur?” he asked again, intensely.

  Is this a test? I had no idea what he was getting at if it was, though. I debated my answer, thinking as fast as I could, but the Magus’s gaze softened.

  “Never mind, child. I was mistaken.”

  I definitely wanted to ask what he had thought that he was mistaken about, but before I could, Somnial straightened.

  “You’ll need a sharp Mind as well, if you intend to study magic,” he said, brushing past whatever that test was. “How was your education, growing up?”

  “My family mostly farms, sir,” I said, catching up. “I was only really taught how to do that. Oh, and a local taught me how to use a sword.”

  The Magus hummed, pulling out a coin. “Do you know your currency?”

  I grimaced, frustrated that I didn’t, having handled no money in this life. Somnial simply continued, unconcerned.

  “This coin is worth ten raab,” he said. Raab was the local currency; I knew that much, but not denominations. “If you had two of these coins, what number of raab would they be worth?”

  I nearly sighed in relief. Simple math wouldn’t be a problem. “Twenty.”

  Somnial pulled out a second coin. “This coin is worth one hundred raab. If you wanted to buy something worth sixty raab, what coins would you get back in change?”

  “Four of the ten raab coins,” I answered immediately.

  Somnial nodded. I wondered if math was necessary for magic or if he was just checking to see if I could function in society.

  Since he didn’t ask me much more math beyond that, I figured it was the latter. He drilled me on a few other general problems, mostly word and logic questions.

  “Your Mind seems strong enough,” the Magus stated after a while. He stroked his beard for a moment, studying me, before coming to a conclusion. “Yes, I think you’re worthy of my sponsorship. Prepare your things. We leave tomorrow.”

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