Another popular use of scribing in combat are talismans and scrolls, single-use items which create spell-like effects. Anyone can use them, and they make for great, if expensive, life-saving tools.

  A first realm awakened with a scroll scribed by a grandmaster scribe has enough power to easily kill an opponent at the fifth realm.

  — Excerpt from Comprehensive Introduction to Scribing and Seals

  Day 126, 10:30 PM

  While water and fire gave birth to steam. Water and molten rock gave birth to steam plus boulders, which clogged up my realm. Worse, once created, an elemental source couldn’t be unmade, so I was stuck with an ever-growing pile of rock, which would eventually suffocate my growth.

  At least that was what I believed. After several hours had passed, the volcano and the water spring formed a balance, with a rock wall between them, and each trickled down the rising mountain, following their own path.

  Over the course of those hours I tested several things, and digging a new spring or crater was reversible until I broke the paper-thin layer which unleashed the mana into my realm.

  Then, as time came to expand my realm further, so I could sculpt the second layers as well. Since I was experimenting, I decided to just cram as much things as I could in as little space as possible and test out combinations, but I soon hit another hitch.

  I drew mana from the second realm crystal for an hour and a half, then entered my realm, but the dust was gone, the new expanse replaced by the volcanic mountain and the ever-growing crater and lake.

  I tried to create a tree and a metal pit, but neither formed the appropriate elements. The tree was made of rock, while the conveyor belt excavator drew stones and gravel, not metal.

  I’ll handle it in the next loop. For now, I should level up the realm mageknight class.

  And with the possibility for experimenting with multiple elements gone, I focused on leveling. After sculpting the second layer, I received a notification, despite being inside my realm and not in the real world.

  [You have sculpted two layers of your realm.

  You have leveled up.

  Select a skill within sixty seconds or a random one will be assigned to you.

  Advanced Mana Circulation - You control mana inside your body more proficiently.

  Initial Mana Finesse - You control mana outside your body more proficiently.]

  After seeing the choice, I couldn’t help but wonder whether Dandelion was unlucky with his random draws. Or perhaps he was lucky; what would a knight do with better control of mana outside his body?

  Once more, I chose an initial skill over an advanced one, and checked my next level up condition - use a mageknight ability.

  Deceptively simple, yet something out of reach for most first realm awakened, since they started learning spells and abilities only after reaching the second realm. I, however, have read and memorized plenty of them, but getting one to work took a while, despite working with Black Fist Arts, with which Dandelion once was proficient.

  Stolen story; please report.

  The alarm seal sounded. Two weeks had passed with me hardly noticing them in my attempt to circulate mana from my body and create the iron fist.

  I sighed, ended my misery and went back in time two weeks. My heart flared with the echo of the pain from a scalpel stabbing into it, and I checked my status. A level zero realm mageknight. Since the next level up condition had nothing to do with gathering mana and sculpting my realm, I decided to draw mana for a couple of hours from the second realm crystal, to give myself a bigger playground.

  Six hours later, I entered my realm, and it was huge and flat and featureless, covered in the same dust as the last time I began shaping it.

  Time flew without meaning, my mind focused first on creating a volcanic crater, three thousand yards across. At first it was just a lake of lava, but as hours passed it rose imperceptibly, the realm shaping itself according to my will, since no physical reason existed for the central part to rise.

  Newstar said it was the lava which increased the volcano’s height, but that was nonsense. Earth would have to swell before the eruption, and later, lava would have to overflow, then cool, then overflow again, until it formed a volcanic mountain. No, the realm adopted the shape the awakened had in mind for it, even if it happened subconsciously.

  I would confirm it in the next loop, by willing the lava to remain in a slightly elevated area, with a channel for overflow to expand my realm. But a mountain definitely suited my needs better. Then, with the volcano taken care of, a single wide river of lava flowing downhill towards my realm barrier, I started working on the spring in the third layer, just opposite of the lava flow.

  I dug the hole as deep as I did before but found nothing. I kept digging, the bottom of my realm further away than when I dug for magma, and finally, at the depth almost twice that of lava, I found water. The water gushed out, a yard-wide hole spewing water like a hose.

  I went to check on the lava. The flow seemed slower, and it made sense. My core could only draw a finite amount of mana, and if I split it across the elements, it was natural that each of them would draw less individually. Still, flow rates had become something I would have to measure in the next loops.

  With the water dealt with, wood came next. Newstar had described the pines he had made, which drew earth and fire energy and released them as crystalline pinecones, similar to spherical manarium pieces.

  I planned to shamelessly copy his idea with a twist of making real trees, which produced real wood-aligned fruit. They should also have cycles of growing and shedding leaves, which I could then use to create death or decay mana, assuming this world’s primitive magic allowed such concepts.

  Instead of a pine, I chose an oak. It was a mighty tree, bore fruit, and shed leaves while being massive, long-lasting, and with deep roots. Granted, the roots weren’t long enough for my needs; probably no natural plant would dig deep enough to penetrate the border of its world, which my oaks needed to do.

  Maybe a baobab would be a better choice? I considered one last time, but decided to stick with the oak. Baobab was too soft for my needs, even if esthetically more in line with them.

  I focused on the ground, and an acorn formed. It cracked, a soft green seedling shooting up, becoming a sapling in a blink. I moved my focus to the roots and subterranean development, forcing the roots to dig down instead of sideways as was their nature. The nourishment for the trees in my realm wouldn’t be water and light, but the wood energy they would draw from the outside world. The soft white roots dug down, thickening and hardening. They cracked and separated the soil for the new white tendrils to plow deeper, searching for the edge of the world. Each new wave failed, growing and hardening under the feed of my mana. A part of my mind registered that the water had died down to a trickle, as I used all of that mana to promote the tree.

  A soft white thread squirmed down and stopped. Sun and water were beyond. A beating heart, thrumming with life, pulsating with endless vitality. Wood element was misnamed life, I confirmed it at that moment, but naming mattered little.

  With an exertion of my will, the soft white tendril broke the film and touched the endless source of life energy. The tiny thread grew thick in a moment, pulsing and distorting as it sent the energy upwards into the tree, and other roots pierced the ground around it, drawing life into my realm.

  I opened my eyes in the dark cavern and gasped. The wood energy hammered against me in some profound way, which knocked me out of my realm. Then I realized I was dizzy, hungry, thirsty, and sleepy.

  “When was the last time I rested?” I said aloud, my lips cracked.

  With a flicker of my will, the blue screen appeared, Redo’s cooldown showing I was at it for two days straight. The speed at which I shaped my realm was shamefully slow. At eight hours per day, a pace the books deemed safe enough, a first realm awakened should sculpt their entire realm within a week. Meanwhile, I’ve taken forty-odd hours just for the first two layers, plus some details in the third.

  Never mind, even if it’s slower, I told myself. I was making mana gathering constructs, autonomous ones at that. Those would naturally take longer than regular sculpting. Not to mention I was already at four elements. The next order of business were the spell seals which would create frozen areas, making the air move all on its own in an attempt to balance out the temperatures, hopefully creating wind and drawing air mana into my realm.

  So many unknowns, so many things to test. My heart fluttered with excitement. It had been ages since I was as enthusiastic about learning something as I was while shaping my realm.