Pi’ve awoke after having been sleeping for several hours. He had spent a long time in the dark forest, only lit up by a puny amount of light from his staff, and now the sun almost blinded him. Pi’ve picked up his staff, and at once, he felt the disconnect from it. It was strange, because yesterday, the staff had felt like an extra limb. One he always had. He must have broken the link through the night.

  Surely enough, that was the case. As he held the staff, and placed it in his mind, he felt the tiny strings mana flow through his hand and they once again linked. It was a feeling of fullness. A feeling of something missing being back in its rightful place.

  There was no time to waste. He had to learn more. Explore more. He was not yet a real wizard; only an initiate mage, and that was all well and good— but he wanted to be great.

  Pi’ve carefully walked down the slope leading to the bottom of the small hill before him before he grabbed the rock from his pouch and threw it down on the ground. He stared at it for a short while and wondered what he was missing. Granted, he had not yet tried to manipulate the rock, since he got distracted with learning how to conjure light. That had been a massive success, but with that breakthrough, he should now be closer to another, he felt.

  The small wisps, or strands, which he felt moving around in his body, he had understood to be mana. Through controlling them, he could move them to his extremities and into the staff. This was the way he had linked with his staff, and this was the way he could get the staff to light up. The problem was— How do I move these strands of mana from the staff to the rock?

  He had already linked with the rock, but that was not the problem. The problem was that after linking with it, he would have to channel his intention from the staff, over to the rock. Would he give the staff a left, right, up, down instruction and the rock would move? He doubted that.

  No, it would be harder than that. There was some information he was missing. The system, or the Jin, gave him information. From the words of the entity teaching him, mentors taught the wizards in their early stages of learning magic. Pi’ve wondered if the system was a good substitute for having a mentor, or if he would be worse off by it. The entity frustrated him sometimes, but he could dismiss him if he wanted.

  ‘Entity! I wish to speak to you.’ Pi’ve said, and the entity was there before he was finished speaking. ‘I have come to a bottleneck in my knowledge and ability. I know how to link with something. And I know, or I feel I know somewhat, how to use mana. But—,’ Pi’ve said, and he was pointing at the rock in front of him. The entity seemed to look over to the rock before it looked back at Pi’ve. ‘There is a, seemingly, vast distance between myself and that rock. How do I channel my mana over to it?’

  ‘After the link, you will have to make what is called a bridge—,’

  Pi’ve sighed loudly. ‘A bridge— how nice! and after the bridge? Do I need to go over to touch the rock? Lift it myself? Eat it!?’

  The entity stood silent for a second. Long enough for Pi’ve to feel a cold shiver run down his spine as he regretted his tone adamantly.

  ‘Eating the rock is not necessary. The most important element in all casting is a calm mind, for that is where the casting happens.’ The entity said, and Pi’ve hoped and wished that it carried as much feelings as its non-distinct face conveyed. ‘A bridge is a medium where the mana is allowed to flow through. But that bridge is exclusively in your mind. It is a closing of the distance between yourself and the staff, and the object of importance. Once the bridge is in place, you can force your will upon it.’

  ‘Ah.’ Pi’ve said, nodding his head. ‘Does not sound so simple.’

  ‘It was never meant to be simple. It just is.’

  ’I guess it is’ Pi’ve answered. After the crab had taken his father and his friends away, he had been on the verge of crying every few hours, as he had realised now that it was all real. It really happened. Every few hours he remembered, and then the floodgates would open slightly, but he would distract himself with a task. There were so many novel things happening in his life that he had the ability to place his mind elsewhere, and that was a good thing, he thought.

  ‘Apologies for barking at you.’ Pi’ve said sheepishly, knowing the circumstances affected him more than he would admit. The entity just stared at him.

  Anyways… he wondered if the crab had levels, and if he could even fight it at all. Would it be foolish to seek out the crab first thing after coming out of the tutorial? He would need some way of breathing underwater, as he doubted that he could get it up on shore. That was too far away anyway. Would he be able to see its level if the crab had them? Pi’ve tried to inspect the entity to see if it had levels, and if he was at all able to inspect sentient beings.

  [Jin Tutorial Entity (lvl N/A)]

  Why had he not tried to inspect it earlier? Well, it seemed like it did show the level, but this entity either did not have any, or something else was blocking him from seeing it.

  He knew that he would have to get stronger if he wanted to act out his revenge on the crab. It was the only thing that would make his situation right again. Even if becoming a wizard was somewhat consoling, nothing would be like getting revenge on the crab. After that, he could become a real wizard. He could live in Thergiam as before, only difference being that he would be one of the other hundred and fifty or so wizards in the City of Wizards.

  Pi’ve readied himself. Even though he did not know how to build this bridge the entity was talking about, he had the link down, and he had some control over his mana. Indeed, his mana was back at 56 after having been used up the previous night. He had more than enough to experiment for some hours. Even if he used it all up, it would regenerate back eventually.

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  At the bottom of the slope on a flat little area, Pi’ve got to work. He was already linked to his staff, and it felt like it would follow his command as he went. He looked at the rock, and having familiarised himself with it, it went without much fuss to link to that too. But now there was the real problem. The bridge.

  If he were to explain what he thought the bridge was, he would say that it was a link between the staff and the rock, where the mana could transgress over to the rock. He was linked to the staff and the rock himself, respectively, but the staff was only linked to himself. The only thing missing was the link between the staff and the rock, creating a triangular connection between them all, a crucial element in his bridge-theory. Having everything linked to each other would create a strong bond between them all.

  With his imagination, he tried first to bring the rock closer, lessening the distance between the rock and himself. He did this while having his eyes closed, and feeling the mana flow through his body to his staff. It was no problem imagining the rock being closer, but he felt after a while that this did nothing to develop his staff’s connection with the rock.

  He tried imagining the rock being as close to the staff’s gemstone as possible, as if the staff could somehow glue itself to the rock. While he did this, he felt that the mana in his body still flowed, and as he checked the status, his mana was dwindling slowly but steadily. He was down at 40 mana now.

  That did not work. As the mana flowed, and the staff was energised, it kept urging him on as if it wanted something that was just outside of its reach. Pi’ve kept telling it ‘Come on! Link to the bloody rock!’ But that did nothing but irritate him further.

  Pi’ve felt that his staff was a separate entity, in a way. Not living, and not thinking, but with some will of its own, and that was what he had felt when he had linked with it. This was what gave him his next idea:

  What if he could not force the staff to link with the rock, but rather let it link on its own. Pi’ve was already linked with the rock, so trying to link with it again, only harder, would do nothing. Giving the staff the instructions on how to link with the rock could be the right way to go about it.

  The staff was the medium in which his mana went through, or was guided by, so it needed to know where that mana was supposed to go. Pi’ve smiled covertly and started guiding his mana slowly. He fed the staff his knowledge of the rock. It was a basalt rock about the size of two apples. He showed it where it was on the ground, and how heavy it felt. Energy seemed to strengthen the bond with his staff as it accepted the information. He was getting closer.

  Then it happened. A three-way connection. Pi’ve was connected to his staff and the rock. The staff was connected to him and the rock. The rock was in the clutch of them both. It could only obey as Pi’ve guided his mana through the staff and forced his will upon it.

  *DING*

  Race [Human] has levelled up: lvl 2 -> lvl 3. +3 free points. Stat points from class [Wizard- Initiate Mage] has been allocated, +1 free point. Max health is increased with one (1) point.

  It was an exhilarating feeling. Not just because he had received another level for his accomplishment. He had managed to understand and accomplish something which he had worked for, and that was exciting. There were several concepts involved in corporeal manipulation. Linking, and it was not enough to just link with your own staff, or just the rock. No, it had to be linked in three ways. And then it was mana, and how to control it through your body. There was will and intent, and the fact that you had to understand that your staff was not an extension of yourself, but rather a separate entity in conjunction with you. All this, and more still, worked together to create the foundation of corporeal manipulation, but there was still one more thing to do— actually moving the rock.

  Then Pi’ve began to feel a tingling sensation in his body. Something felt off. He checked his status and saw he was down to 15 mana at this point, and he wondered how it had been spent so quickly. Was magic so incredibly consuming? If so, when he would be doing actual magic, his fully filled up mana pool would be used in seconds. Now the mana was just moving through his body to his staff and holding the links. That had to be one of the least consuming of the magical abilities, he assumed.

  He cut the links, and his mana stopped flowing. His mana had dipped below 15 for a split second, but went up again right away. He wanted to see what was new now that he had levelled up, and what he wanted to use his four free points on.

  Status

  Name: Pi’ve

  Age: 20

  Race: [Human - lvl 3]

  Class: [Wizard - Initiate Mage]

  Profession: N/A

  —

  Health - (91/92)

  Mana - (15/100)

  Stamina - (68/80)

  —

  Stats

  Strength - 9

  Toughness - 8

  Intelligence - 18

  Wisdom - 10

  Willpower - 7

  Perception - 12

  Endurance - 8

  Free points - 4

  —

  Race skills

  Inspect (Unique)

  Class skills

  [Conjure Light (Common)]

  Profession skills

  N/A

  Titles

  [One and only (Unique)]

  Why had he not yet gotten the corporeal manipulation skill? He had not actually done any, but he had cracked the code. Well, he was close, and he guessed that when he lifted the rock, he would get the skill.

  Looking at his status he saw that his level was shown as 3 in his race. His mana was at 15, as he already knew from the tingling in his body. Stamina had sunk from the nearly full 80 points he had after waking up. Stamina had been used, even though he had stood still for a while, but he could not shake the feeling that stamina had something to do with mana too; maybe it used stamina for the production of mana. Or maybe mental fatigue also played a part in using stamina. He did not know yet.

  Intelligence was up two points, now at 18, which was twice what he had started with when he had first checked his status. Wisdom was raised to 10 from the previous 8, and his maximum mana points had been increased to 100 as expected. He had discovered how mana-consuming magic could be, so any increase in his mana pool was sorely needed. Perception had also received two points, and like last time, he felt his vision had improved. It got sharper and sharper as perception rose.

  While he waited for his mana to replenish, he thought about where he wanted to place his four free points. He was unsure about strength, and had no idea what it actually did. Maybe it was the strength of magic. More powerful mana? Physical strength? Possibly a combination. If it was stronger magic, that would be great.

  Toughness did not raise his health points, but had another function for magicians. What could that be…

  Intelligence and wisdom he already got from his class, and he had already used five points on intelligence last time he levelled up.

  Willpower seemed nice, although like the other stats, he did not know what it did specifically. But a strong will was always good, his father had told him.

  Endurance would directly increase his stamina points. Maybe even make every stamina point worth more.

  After a few moments of reflection, he settled for willpower, as he had a feeling that it would be good for a wizard to have a strong will. He assumed it would be good for his magic too, as that was the whole purpose of a wizard: doing magic.

  Four points were added to willpower, and now he had 11 points. Not much changed; Pi’ve felt nothing out of the ordinary, except for a vastly inflated confidence that he could do anything he put his mind to, and that was what propelled him to his next action: Actually doing some corporeal manipulation.