Clay and Quin had chosen their classes by now as well. Clay went with the combination of Mind and Shadow Arcanas and picked the ‘Kinesis’ class. Whereas Quin selected the ‘Berserker’ class based on his Blood and Weapon Arcanas. It suited his burly frame well.

  “Are you sure you want to go with that?” Clay asked when Thorin told them about his pick. “That old man knows much more than we do. If he says it’s flawed, there might be an issue with it in the long run.”

  “Its fine,” Thorin said, smiling. “I like this class. And if I don’t go to extremes like this, I probably won't be able to keep up with you two.”

  Quin chuckled. “It’s decided then,” he said. “Berserker, Kinesis, and Arcanist. We have our classes.” The three high-fived.

  “Let’s pick out the spells we need to initiate the class now,” Thorin said as the shop had other customers walk in. “I’m aiming for that theoretical perfection of my class with five arcanas. So, I’ll need one spell of each arcana.”

  Their classes gave them a direction this time. So, their selection of spells ended in minutes. At least Clay’s and Quin’s did. Clay picked

  for his Mind Arcana which worked the best with a sympathetic artifact, and for his Shadow Arcana. Quin chose for his Blood Arcana, and for his Weapon Arcana. Though he lingered for long before another spell.

  “Do you want that one too?” Thorin asked. The spell he stared at was the of the Weapon Arcana.

  “Not now,” Quin said. “I’ve always used an axe, so I’ll continue with that. But I want to use a greatsword too one day.”

  “This is not the last time we’ll visit this shop,” Clay said. “Once we earn some more mana shards, we’ll come back and buy other spells if we want.”

  “Hmm.” Quin hummed a nod then looked at Thorin. “What about you? Done picking?”

  “Almost,” Thorin said. He’d gathered another pile of booklets on the floor. Finally, after rummaging through them and eliminating one option after another, he ended up with a handful.

  Between and for his Space Arcana, he picked the . For the Death Arcana, he picked the . The Temperature Arcana had limited options, so he could only choose what was available—. The Paper Arcana had a few more options than its brethren of the same shade. Between its better choices of

  and

  , Thorin went with

  . At last, for the Potion Arcana, he decided on a spell with his future in mind—.

  The Arcanist class would allow him to attune to all five of his Arcanas. It meant that he had the possibility of brewing potions with his Temperature and Potion Arcanas. And for that, the spell was vital.

  Thorin exhaled a tired breath when he whittled his choices down to the final five. “I’m done,” he said, and the three put the remaining booklets back onto the shelves.

  “How much will it all cost?” Quin asked. “Do we have enough for all the spells? We also need to buy a book on all the arcanas, right?”

  “I’ll give up on a couple if we don’t have enough shards,” Thorin said. “The shop won't go anywhere. I don’t need to buy them right now.”

  “Nine spells in total.” The old man calculated when the three cousins handed him all the booklets they wanted. He sorted Thorin’s first, then checked Quin’s and Clay’s. “Including the books on your classes and the book about arcanas, it’ll be twenty-nine mana shards.”

  Twenty-nine was the exact number of mana shards the three had with them. The purchase broke their pockets and left them with nothing.

  “Grandpa, can it be slightly cheaper?” Clay asked.

  “It’s already the lowest price,” the old man said. As if the sly greybeard knew how many shards they had…

  “We won't have anything left after this,” Quin said.

  “Fine,” the old man said. “Pay me twenty-eight and take that one mana shard on a promise. If you hunt for undead in the future and get the ‘Ashes of Death’, you’ll sell them to me. I’ll give you an honest price, of course. Given you collect it properly. Remember to learn that collection spell before you go on a hunt.”

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  “Deal,” Thorin said after the three cousins discussed. At least they retained one mana shard. If the old man changed his mind, they would have to spend their dwindling mortal coins to spend the night in the nameless town outside. Where the thick mist of mana refused to visit.

  “Watch your backs when you hunt the Ghosts though,” the old man said. “There have been many incidents lately involving those Whitebloods.”

  “Thank you, grandpa. We’ll be careful.” The three bid their farewell and headed out to the streets again.

  “Where to now?” Quin asked.

  “Let’s find a place to stay first,” Thorin said. “Just hope we can find something with our only mana shard.”

  …..

  The better inns in the central area of the street market were beyond their reach. The abundance of mana had launched their price. However, the spectrum of the rental situation here still favored them, though barely. Their only requirement for a place was the cheapest cost possible, so the woman handling the register sent them to the northern outskirts of the street market with a token. The price of the shacks here by the foot of the mountain amounted to six mana shards per year. They could get a discount of one mana shard if they paid for the year at once. But the three could only choose what they could afford. They paid their only mana shard as rent for two months and booked a shack.

  “This feels familiar,” Thorin said, standing before the rickety shanty.

  “After all this time, we come back to living in a shack again,” Quin said. “What’s worse is that I’ll have to live with you two in a single shack.”

  “Feeling is mutual,” Clay said.

  “That girl definitely looked annoyed when we only paid for two months,” Thorin said. “We’re the poorest in this market for sure.”

  Clay checked out the defensive barrier around the shack that covered the woods as well. It opened a gap for them when he passed a thread of mana through the token then closed its curtains when they came inside. “We’ll make do with what we got. We’re not here to enjoy our time. We need to use these two months to learn the spells and become stronger. We need to finish that task in ten years too.”

  “That’s good and all, but what do we do about food here?” Thorin asked. “Go to the town to eat?”

  “Yeah, that seems like our only option,” Quin said. “How many coins do we have left?” he asked Clay.

  “We have enough for now,” Clay said. “But we also need to think about earning some mana shards in the meantime. We can go to that battlefield to hunt some Ghosts after two months, but let’s look for ways to earn while we’re staying here.”

  When they settled down in the shack, after the three cousins claimed their areas inside the wooden shanty, they finally had the time to check out the spells. Their silence spilled into the woods outside, and even the birds hushed their chirps for their concentration.

  Thorin started with

  . He took his time and became familiar with the curves and the bends of the spell model. But before employing his mana for his first attempt, he had to touch his soul space first. The diary had explained how to observe his soul space, his ‘vessel’, and how to trace the spell model around it.

  It said to watch the dot in the blackness of his closed eyes, then fall into it. Thorin leaned on the wall and went for it. He followed the instructions of the diary to a tee and looked for that dot. Yet, there was none. He maintained the darkness for minutes, squinting his eyes tightly to evade even a shred of light. He even covered his eyes, but only for a futile attempt.

  Finally, his frustrated exhale marked the end of his first attempt, a failed attempt. He watched the unconcerned forest embrace the life in the wild through the window and let its enamoring vista enthrall him. What did he do wrong? He wondered as the wind rustled the leaves. The diary said to watch the dot. But where did that dot come from? No matter where he looked in that darkness, there was nothing there. Should he imagine the dot? The idea flashed in Thorin’s head, and he straightened his slouch.

  Without wasting another second, he went for the second try. The blackness greeted him again, but he marred it with an imaginary dot this time. It was a feeble star in the pitch black of his sightless world. Yet, as to assure him of its existence, it didn’t fade away even when his active thoughts interfered with his imagination. And when he envisioned his fall into that dot, he really fell. A new space expanded before him.

  It wore the same darkness as before. But it wasn’t empty. A fleshy spherical ‘vessel’ occupied its core position. It throbbed and squirmed, and the bluish veins wriggled around it. Its hollow insides brimmed with mist—milky white fog. It was mana. When he willed it, the mana rushed out to his fingertips.

  Thorin opened his eyes and squinted at the thread of fog in his hand. Though it followed his command, his control over it left much to be desired as he strained at its turns and spins. Nonetheless, he’d crossed the first hurdle and earned a hearty grin.

  The next step was to trace the spell model around the vessel. There was zero information on how it worked. The book just said to run his finger along the model and imagine carving the same trace into the darkness of his soul space with mana. Thorin did exactly so.

  As his skin caressed the soft leaf of the booklet, along the edges and the curves of the spell model, his touch pulled the mana from his vessel and fashioned an imitation around it. His inexperience had twisted some lines and bends, however. The result was a crumbling spell model that soon faded away. The mana he used dissipated around him. Yet again, his first attempt ended in failure.

  He didn’t lose heart and tried again. His second try failed as well, and the spell model fizzled out. The third and the fourth try showed promise as his practice bettered his ability to trace the spell model. The fifth attempt, though failed, finally looked hopeful. His carving was far from perfect, but the spell model was intact and on its way towards completion. Then came the sixth and the seventh attempt.

  At last, when his vessel only had enough mana to trace the spell model one more time, he succeeded.

  [Spell Added: Papercut]

  [Papercut: Neophyte Level 1/5]