After giving her speech about apparently being the main character of the world, Sally reached out her hand to Leo, helping him stand up. As she pulled him to his feet, Leo noticed a stinging pain in his shoulder, where one of the doors hit him.

  “To be honest, I’m kinda worried about my ‘Thorn’ spell, do you think I could have killed you by accident?” Leo shot a pained apologetic look the girls way.

  “...I really want to say no, but I’m not sure how strong it actually is. It could be just fast without packing much of a punch. Also, why the hell were you defending when I jumped over your shrubs?”

  “I heard your mana and thought you were using an attack… Actually, about that, how the fuck were you flying?”

  Sally’s eyes widened a bit at his statement.

  “You could feel my mana? How is your mana sense that good already? I have to concentrate a lot to feel the mana.” Leo was a bit surprised to hear that, as he had thought it was normal up to this point, “Anyway, that wasn’t flying - I made a trapdoor catapult me over the bushes.”

  “That’s so sick! By the way, how do you feel the mana? I remember you raising your hand when we talked about it for the first time.”

  “For me, I actually can smell it. Smells like when you open the door to your home and the scent of freshly cooked food comes out.”

  “I see… So looking at how we’re done here, I think I’m gonna head home. I really wanna do some experimenting and refine my wordchains.” Leo scratched the back of his head unsure of what to do.

  “I get you, me too. But wanna hang out on Sunday? We could go do some field tests with our improved formations.” Sally suggested as she gathered her things she left nearby during their spar.

  “Sure sounds great.” Leo, having already gathered his stuff, walked up to her and after she was done went for a quick hug, “See you on Sunday then, we’ll talk out the details via com-tablet.”

  “Yeah, see ya.” Sally said and jogged away.

  *****

  Man, I hope I didn’t weird her out with the hug. It should be fine, right? Like, she hugged me first.

  While he was walking home Leo was still overthinking the hug he gave Sally earlier. There was really no reason to worry, but he really didn’t want to fuck up one of the two friendships he had. Although he had only talked to her for the first time the previous day, he was really enjoying her company.

  Leo finally arrived home and walked straight to his room only stopping to hug his mom, which sent his thoughts spiralling again. In the end he decided to just write her a short message on his com-tablet.

  ‘Hey, sorry for hugging you so suddenly earlier, hope that didn’t weird you out.’

  With that done Leo decided to stop worrying and got back to the more pressing issue at hand - his sides really hurt. He had put on a brave face earlier, not wanting to make Sally worry, but now, when he took off his shirt he could already see some bruises.

  Shit, judging by this, maybe I actually could have killed her with ‘Thorn’. I’ll have to find out its strength somehow.

  After pondering for a while how to deal with the bruises, he got an idea. There was a very rare plant native to Elum - Glowleaf. It actually didn’t glow, but got its name because it only grew in the giant glowing mushroom forests in the south. It was very sought after for its ability to stimulate the natural flow of mana in the body, draining it a bit, but in exchange drastically increasing the body’s recovery rate. You just had to wrap one leaf around any body part, and already after a day bruises and shallow wounds would be gone

  Basically, I have an unlimited source of recovery. Leo grinned and immediately took out a paper slip and his brush, he also took out the runic dictionary specifically for plants. Hmm let’s take a look… Nice, there is one for Glowleaf. Okay, let’s try… Potent Glowleaf Leaf Bind Single. Hypothetically, that should make one leaf appear and wrap around my arm on its own.

  Leo laid the formation on his table and gathered mana in his hand to activate it. He noticed that this spell took a lot more mana than his others - about five to ten times, he wasn’t too sure. A pretty long leaf, teal in color, appeared and, as he had predicted, wrapped itself around his forearm. But then Leo noticed that it started draining his mana.

  A lot of his mana. And just as he thought that maybe adding ‘Potent’ wasn’t such a good idea, he felt his consciousness slip…

  *****

  Leo woke up staring at the kitchen ceiling. He groaned as he got up and looked around and realized he was in the kitchen. His body felt like he hadn’t eaten in a week. But at least he wasn’t in any pain, so the Glowleaf seemed to have worked.

  Then he saw his mother rush over from the table she sat at just a moment ago. She gently embraced him in a hug.

  “Thank the forefathers you’re okay!” She released him a bit to look him in the eyes, “Tell me, Leo, are you an idiot? I heard you fall from your chair and when I came in to check I almost had a heart attack. I didn’t even realize what was going on until I saw the wordchain you wrote down before making the formation. Do not use it again unless someone is right next to you.”

  “Why? It seems to have worked really well. Sure, I passed out, but if it can heal dire wounds it would be a lifesaver!”

  “Okay, so first of all, you were out cold for 6 hours.” Leo’s eyes went wide, he thought he was asleep for maybe an hour, “And secondly, I had to unwrap the Glowleaf from you. Normally, it would have unsummoned itself after the mana you put into the formation ran out, but the leaf was sucking out your mana to feed itself. So if I wasn’t there, you wouldn’t have been able to recover your lost mana and probably wouldn’t have woken up at all, or maybe in a long time, if the mana needed for it to sustain itself was higher than what you could provide.”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  “Wait, I thought that it just increased the natural flow of mana, why was it sucking my mana out then?”

  “Actually it normally just sucks it out a little bit to feed itself. That increases the flow of mana is a side effect of that. Anyway, are you feeling okay?”

  “Yeah, a little lightheaded maybe but that’s all.”

  “Okay, you can go back to whatever you were doing, just please don’t overdo it. If you need me, I’m gonna be laying in bed reading for a bit.”

  As Leo was heading back to his room, he suddenly got a flash of inspiration.

  Could I actually use the Glowleaf as an attack? If I make it wrap around someone else it could suck them dry…

  Deciding to leave it as a backup option, Leo decided to instead focus on his most disappointing formation first - ‘Bark’. Though after checking the clock and seeing that it was almost midnight he decided to go to bed and start the next morning with a clear head.

  *****

  The next day after some brainstorming Leo came to the conclusion that he wouldn’t be able to make bark usable - at the very least not as a first level spell.

  When he went to the kitchen to make breakfast for his mother and himself Leo also decided to check his com-tablet, so he tapped it against their house’s connection stone. He did indeed have a message from Sally.

  ‘Damn, bro, are you stupid? Of course it’s fine, I would’ve spoken up otherwise. Tho it’s cute of you to be so considerate. Anyway, does ten at the stadium work for you?’

  Leo grimaced as he read through it. In hindsight he did realize that he was being overly cautious. After typing out an affirmative reply he finally got the cottage cheese pancakes done and went to his mom’s room to tell her. She was still laying in bed and reading.

  “Thanks, sweetie. I’ll be there in a sec.” She replied after laying her book to the side.

  After breakfast he decided to get back to making his formations better.

  Okay, I think this one should work as a replacement for ‘Bark’. And I also had an idea for two other spells. First I’ll work on the ones I have tho.

  Leo was looking at the new defensive wordchain he decided to use - Strong Bamboo Sprout Fast Many. Instead of trying to make a single plate of ‘armor’ he decided that it would be easier to make something like a small forest that would have many layers. While he was at it he also altered ‘Thorn’ a bit. The new Thorn Fast Eject Forward Triplet wasn’t as strong, but offered more control. He was pretty happy with ‘Barberry’, so he decided to just leave it as is.

  While thinking about their fight with Sally Leo also wanted to find a counter to her ‘jump’ so he made a Cactus Spew Wide Field Many magic circle. He also remembered that when making ‘Thorn’ he had first thought about making it a thorny vine and decided to make another formation that played with that idea - Vine Eject Reach Bind End, which should, hypothetically, if he held the paper slip in his palm when activating it, bind itself around it while also binding itself around the thing it would reach first, though he was unsure if and how this one would work.

  As he didn’t want to only find out how well his new formations were during his upcoming spar with Sally, he decided to head out and do some tests in their front yard.

  The lawn was well kept and a couple of flowers were planted at the edges, though they didn’t do anything more serious or edible. Leo didn’t see any of their neighbors around, which was good, as he honestly wasn’t really in the mood to answer questions about what he was doing.

  He placed the small piece of wood he selected as his victim at the end of the front yard that was closer to the street and walked back to the entrance to his home. Leo firstly took out his new ‘Thorn’ and, after doing what he would assume was aiming mentally, activated it. Three small thorns, about the length of half his pinky flew towards the piece of wood and… missed.

  Leo found out that he was really bad at being precise, as after drawing up ten more formations for practice he was able to hit his target a grand total of two times. And none of those he was able to make all three thorns hit, so he decided to change his approach a bit.

  When concentrating on activating a formation Leo normally only thought about the inherent effect of the wordchain, not on his intent. So, when activating his last remaining magic circle he didn’t just imagine the thorns appearing and flying forward, but also hitting the target. He immediately felt an unknown resistance, as if the formation was telling him that he was trying to make it do something it wasn’t meant to do. So Leo pushed in more mana than he normally would and finally the spell relented. The three thorns all shot out in the direction of the board and all found their mark.

  Fuck yes! I’m so good at this, they call me the best to ever do it. Leo was punching the air and swaying his hips from side to side in a weird victory dance.

  “Mommy, what is that guy over there doing?” A small child a couple houses down the road was pointing in his direction while tugging on its mother’s sleeve.

  “Don’t look honey, I think he’s unwell, let’s go.” With these words she took her child’s hand and walked away in the opposite direction.

  Leo slowly closed his eyes and put his hands over his face to hide his shame.

  I’m never going outside ever again. In fact, I’ll tell my mother that we have to move…

  After contemplating his life choices for a bit he decided to just continue with practice. Next up on his list of things to test was his new ‘Bamboo forest’. He laid the magic circle on the ground. But instead of activating it with his hands he decided to try something different - he put his foot on it. Channeling his mana through his feet was an unfamiliar feeling but it didn’t feel too different from what he usually did, but Leo just couldn’t channel any mana into it.

  After a couple of seconds he finally realized that his shoes were probably interfering, so after taking off his shoe and sock he tried again. This time he could feel everything work as usual and following the already all too familiar sound of a tree breaking in half that preceded a formation being activated.

  Dozens of bamboo stems shot out of the earth, though they were a bit slower to appear than what he usually expected. After about a second they reached neck height and stopped. Leo walked over and tried to shove one of the stems. It only budged a little, but otherwise gave no signs of moving.

  Nice, using sprout instead of spew or something else was worth it. Even though they appear a bit slower than normal they’re also way more sturdy.

  About ten seconds later the mana in the formation ran out and the bamboo disappeared.

  Next up Leo tested the ‘Cactus field’ spell, which worked about as expected, creating cacti in a wide circle around him, which almost ended in disaster, as he had forgotten to put his shoe back on.

  The ‘Vine’ formation also worked as intended. Concentrating on hitting his target the same way he did with ‘Thorn’ he focused on the spell and successfully grabbed onto his wooden target. Leo then tested how strong it was and tugged on the vine with all the strength he could muster, successfully hitting himself in the shin with the piece of wood.

  Satisfied for the day and with his mana low he picked up all the paper slips that had previously had the magic circles on them and headed back inside to make some last preparations for the next day.