Chapter 21
Baby Sized Books (Mana 3)
Mary wakes with a jolt, biting back a scream of despair and anguish. For a brief moment, she allows her eyes to sweep across the dark room, glaring at shadows and searching for enemies before reality hits her.
With a sigh, Mary shakes her head, blinking away her terror. With the will of an adult, she begins to forcefully modulate her breathing in an attempt to get her tiny heart to calm down from the frantic beat of the defeated to a more regular, healthy pace.
‘Another nightmare.’
Mary thinks with a grimace, ‘I really need to get this under control.’
Mary exhales again; glancing around her bedroom, she finally notices what she had dismissed during her panic.
‘…It’s night. What time was it when I went to sleep? Was it around noon? I remember Sylvia saying good morning to me when I woke up, don’t I?’
Mary thinks, frowning, ‘Come to think of it, I haven’t asked the time since I arrived in this world, have I?’
Mary hums considerately.
‘Sylvia said she would be bringing me books to study. Would she have gone to get them as soon as I went to sleep? She said she’d get them for tomorrow. That would mean the next time I wake up, right?’
Mary nods to herself in affirmation, completely convinced by the logic.
‘Clearly, she will have the books I need when I call her.’
‘Is there anything I need to do before I call her?’
Mary frowns in thought.
Currently there are several roadblocks stopping her from doing any magic development. Is there anything she could create at this moment that would immediately help her?
Or should her top priority be self-sustaining spells?
‘From yesterday I know that running two spells at once is my current limit. I could probably create more spell circles, but the complexity of formulaic logic means that I’ve already reached a limit there. That’s inconvenient considering I need to have several passive spells always running, and spell efficiency is in part enhanced by having properly consistent logic rather than symbology.’
Mary nods to herself, mentally adding another spell, one that would allow her to better multitask, to the list of magic she would need to create.
‘That’s another mental magic spell to be added to the list. I also need a persistent magic library spell to replace these so-called grimoires that Sylvia told me about.’
Mary takes a moment to reflect that most of her current priorities are ultimately mental, which is unsurprising considering she’s still a baby that can scarcely move.
‘And of course, I need something to help me take control of my sleep.’
‘That’s three mental magics that I need to create, and worse, not only are all of them going to be logically complicated, but they’re all going to have to be interconnected too.’
Mary grimaces; the library would have to be the priority for mental magics, followed by a multitasking spell.
‘So, of my immediate priorities, solving my nightmare problem is going to have to come last.’
Mary sighs bitterly.
‘All of that is dependent on forging an ambient mana rune that can allow for those magics to last indefinitely. Especially any library spell; if that spell ever dies, then all my magic research would disappear… In the end I will need a physical backup, won’t I?’
That would make learning about grimoires a longer-term priority; she would have to create some sort of physical medium to store all her spell work and research in.
‘Mother had a magic library, Sylvia said as much. Perhaps she has an answer there?’
Mary sighs again, nodding to herself in acceptance.
‘In the end, I can only rely on Sylvia. Probably for years to come.’
Before Mary can continue, she feels an uncontrollable movement in her bowels; instantly she closes her eyes in dismay.
‘This is my life now.’
Mary, with soul-deep resignation, takes a deep breath and summons her maid.
With Mary's involuntary mess cleaned up and her morning fast dealt with, Mary quickly creates a telepathic link with Sylvia, intent on moving on with her nascent education.
“So did you get the books that I’d asked for?”
Mary asks the maid hastily.
Sylvia looks down at her charge in amusement, her uniform flashing back into existence.
“I visited the royal library and Elizabeth's personal collection. There were many books about mana and its nature; I brought the ones that I thought would help.”
Sylvia answers proudly, pulling a small leather pouch out from her pocket.
Mary stares at the small pouch, carefully gauging its dimensions.
She blinks, allowing her mana sight to the forefront, and attempts to get a better feeling for the bag in front of her.
Mary frowns as the high-quality leather of the pouch disappears, replaced by a dense cloud of multicoloured mana with what could be dozens of runes woven into it.
‘Some type of bag of holding then?’
“Yes, Princess, bags of holding are the usual term for them. However, this one is more accurately described as a pouch of holding.”
Sylvia answers in amusement before noting the look of surprise that Mary was throwing her.
“Are you surprised that you got the name right?”
Sylvia asks in confusion.
“I tried to think that rather than say it. I guess my control over the telepathic link isn’t as firm as I thought it was.”
Mary answers, her embarrassment clear.
“Ah!” Sylvia exclaims with a chuckle.
“Hiding your internal monologue can be a bit difficult when telepathic spells are active. The trick is to maintain the connection and only transmit what you want.”
Mary answers the explanation with an accepting nod.
“I see, I’ll work on that then. So, the books are in the pouch of holding?”
"Yes," Sylvia answers.
Mary watches in fascination as Sylvia's arm reaches into the almost hand-sized pouch, her arm quickly disappearing up to the elbow, far deeper than the pouch should be physically capable of going.
“Here, this is an introductory text to mana runes; it focuses on their creation. Considering you want to increase the level and power of your runes, I thought that you might want this.”
Sylvia explains as she pulls a book larger than the pouch out of it, its mouth visibly extending to allow the book an exit.
Sylvia places the book beside her before reaching into the pouch again, pulling another equally massive book from the pouch of holding.
"This book serves as an introductory text to mana, and I verified that it includes a section on ambient mana. But I couldn’t see any books that were solely about ambient mana; if they exist, then they are restricted.”
She says this while placing the second book on top of the previous one, and then she moves again to retrieve a third book.
“This is the last one I retrieved, an introductory text to formulaic magic; it focuses on mana logic and creating efficient spells. This one was one of Elizabeth's favourites when she was younger.”
Sylvia explains happily.
Mary stares in dismay at the three monolithic magic tomes that Sylvia has brought to her. These were not short magazines or pamphlets; they weren’t even the size of a short story.
Instead, these tomes were massive, one-thousand-page doorstoppers.
Alexander had no experience with real physical paper books; they were the sort of thing that pretentious, rich, old-money folk would own to demonstrate how old and storied their families were.
In front of Mary were three books that individually were larger than the reading material of an entire school module.
‘This is going to be more complicated than I thought it was.’
Mary thinks to herself in dismay.
“Hehe,” Sylvia chuckles again. “What’s wrong, princess? Eyes bigger than your belly.”
Sylvia says teasingly before continuing considerately, “Or well… eyes bigger than your brain?"
Sylvia pauses to think about what she had just said and finishes somewhat embarrassed, “Forget that last.”
Mary throws a scathing look at Sylvia.
“I didn’t think the books would be this big. And they’re introductory texts too.”
She answers, mystified.
“I don’t understand; introductory texts should be shorter. This looks more like three or four volumes slammed together.”
Sylvia smirks in response.
“That’s because they are.”
Seeing Mary's look of abject confusion Sylvia opts to continue seriously.
“Magic texts are, of course, controlled by the mage guilds; the major guilds of the world actually have their own introductory texts. Those introductory texts have different writers, so they read differently; they have different themes, so chapters are not organised in the same way.”
“Depending on the kingdom they were written in, they might even have different focuses. The main magic texts of Midgard usually focus on ice and, to a lesser degree, fire. A desert kingdom would probably be the opposite or focus on water instead.”
“Worse, guild texts are not interchangeable; volume three of one guild might be a repeat of volume two for another.”
Sylvia shakes her head in disgust.
“The solution would, of course, be to buy all of the volume from one guild, but unless you have the right political connections, that isn’t happening without being a member.”
“It’s all part of the scheme to force every independent mage to join the guilds.”
Sylvia explains disdainfully.
“These books were taken from your mothers’ personal library; she didn’t necessarily write them, but she did edit them. So, there are no cheap tricks in these books; there are no references to later books that make it necessary to buy all of them from the same guild.”
Sylvia smiles at Mary, happily explaining her friend Mary's mother's defiance against the mage guilds.
“Unlike guild-sanctioned works, these books are as self-contained as practical. Any references to other books you find in these tomes will be aimed at books that also exist in Elizabeth's library, rather than being guild works.”
Mary exhales in fascinated glee; if Sylvia's explanation was correct, then her mother's personal library was an even greater resource than she had hoped.
‘Each of these books is going to take days to fully read, let alone digest.’
Mary reminds herself.
‘And unlike Alexander, I don’t have a perfect memory or means to instantly recall everything I’ve read either. That mental library I’ve been thinking of will need a way to scan physical books too then.’
Mary grimaces as she adds another spell to the list of things she needs to create.
‘Then I need to prioritise. Obviously, I must read the mana introduction first, then the rune creation book. Formulaic magic can be last.’
Mary frowns; she needs to maximise her gains, and spending several weeks doing nothing but reading would seem like a waste. Could she actively expand her mana reserves while she was reading?
‘It probably wouldn’t be worth it to have a spell running while I read. It would even be beneficial if I could increase my mana reserves over the coming weeks while I try to understand these books. I guess I will just have to be content with expanding my reserves through Sylvia's milk…’
Mary blinks in thought for a moment as a realisation strikes her. She looks at Sylvia, who raises an amused eyebrow in response.
“So, what’s the plan then, princess?”
Sylvia asks in amusement.
“I’ve decided that I’m going to read the mana book first. Before I read the mana book, I was wondering if running the standalone ambient mana spell I created last time internally would expand my mana reserves.”
Sylvia hums thoughtfully, “Just spending mana does marginally increase your reserves; it’s somewhat like a muscle in that way. But you mean forcefully expanding your reserves using ambient mana, don’t you?”
Sylvia continues after Mary nods in affirmation.
“It’s like cultivation, so it might. With the correct spell logic, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.”
Sylvia answers before throwing a questioning look at Mary.
“But can you successfully keep a spell running while reading?”