As soon as I made it into the brewroom, I grabbed a mug from the office and poured myself a glass of barista brew. I specifically wanted a stout for this, but our local porter would do. I activated my [Manasight] again, and peered into the depths of the mug. The Mana of the brew was mostly white, with hints of blue and yellow. According to ‘Professor’ Richter, that indicated the presence of gaseous Aethers and liquid Aethers, as well as some minute solids.

The elements in Erd were different from back home. There was no periodic table, and certainly no fantasy concepts like Earth, Fire, Wind, Water. Instead, there were the fundamentals, which were split into the Fundamental Elements: Aether, Matter, Nether, and Mana, and the Fundamentals of Life: Chaos, Law, Spirit, and Spark.

Mana was a building block that defined how the other Fundamentals acted. So, for example, Nether that was infused with Gravity Mana pulled things towards it. Our bottling system used Void Mana aspected Nether. Fire was Aether infused with Fire Mana. Light was Chaos Mana in Aether. So on and so forth.

To perform magic, you took Mana from your own body, and using a standardized formula of Sigils, or in Berry’s case, music, changed it to a different kind of Mana. Then you pushed the modified Mana into a surrounding Fundamental, changing its form to match the new Mana.

For example, a person who focused on fire spells might take their personal Mana, change it into fire Mana, then push it into the Aether of the air around them. Fire mana in Aether made pure flame, resulting in a jet of fire. If they instead infused it into the ground, they’d get something more akin to lava. There were limits of course, with some Mana types repelling others, and the Mana of other sentient beings being nearly impossible to affect.

Each use case required a different Sigil with modifications for everything from distance to how you wanted the new Mana to act. As a result, learning how to do anything beyond one or two spells was hard, especially since you were usually forced to learn the sigils without the [Manasight] necessary to do the magic in the first place. Students at Archis Academy studied for years to gain Archis’s approval and the Blessing necessary to see Mana.

I reached into my desk and pulled out a simple beginner wand that looked like a pen with a ruby on it. I’d been working on a specific Sigil with Richter for the past few months, drawing it on the table and then in the air with nothing to work with beyond my wand. It’d been hard, and often boring work, but it was now paying off.

I glanced down at my hand with [Pete’s Poor Manasight] again. Bright green rivers flowed up my arm, lazily tracing paths beneath the skin. The confluence of all those rivers was my heart, making it the best place to pull Mana from. Not too much, of course! I wouldn’t want to remove so much Mana that I wasn’t me anymore. I placed the ruby on my chest, and with a deft twist, caught a wisp of Mana and pulled.

Then immediately dropped the wand, swearing. “Ow! Slaggin’ elfin’ friggin’ fraggle’ rock’n sunnuva-nannygoat!”

It was… an interesting sensation. Kind of like touching a van de graaf generator, or rubbing my socks on a shag carpet – a tingly feeling that reached down into my very soul. I shuddered as I placed the ruby to my chest again, this time prepared for the sensation. I slowly moved the wand away from my heart, pulling the green Mana out in front of me. The line of green traced my motions perfectly, leaving glowing lines hanging in the air, and I simply watched it for a while, marveling. I switched off [Manasight] and the bright lines disappeared, only to reappear when I switched it back on.

I restarted once more, and began tracing my first proper Sigil. As I added more and more Mana to the Sigil, the light grew brighter and brighter, until I could see it even without my [Manasight].

With joy in my heart, I pushed the Mana into the glass of beer beside me.

Aaaaand, nothing happened. I’d screwed up the sigil.

I swore and tried again.

And again.

And again.

I began to feel lethargic, and with herculean effort, forced myself to stop. Using up the body’s Mana could be deadly, and Richter’s instructions were quite clear – stop when you feel tired.

As I sat in the office waiting for my Mana to regenerate, I popped open my status again. I had a lot of Milestones. You only needed 5 to Specialise and I had… significantly more than that.

Barck had told me to Specialise using [Pete’s Poor Manasight], and now seemed as good a time as any. I chose five brewing related Milestones and then took a moment to consider my selections.

Specialisation Possible! Please select 5 Milestones to combine into a Specialisation!

You have selected [Check Quality], [Infuse Mana], [Pete’s Poor Manasight], [Rapid Aging], and [Extended Bottomless Barrel].

Merge Milestones? Yes/No