Brockton Bays Marvelous Mage

The process of getting ready for the day without running water was a bit of a pain. I had to get up, walk to the nearby gas station, buy my breakfast from inside, and then fill up a large water container from a spigot at the back. I would then walk home, strip down in the shop's carefully cleaned bathroom, and wash with the water. It took some getting used to, but it was better than not getting clean at all.

"You know, you wouldn't have to do this if you joined the Protectorate," Alya pointed out as I walked out of the bathroom, drying my hair. "They would surely provide you with a home."

"Alya, we've been through this. It wouldn't take them very long to figure out my powers are weird, even with me being a Blind Spot," I responded, shaking my head. "And I have no idea how they would react to that. They are all terminally terrified of Masters, which I can't really blame them for, but how would they react to knowing that at any time, I could dump a couple of charges into a Master topic? I'm not saying no. I'm just saying not right now."

In all honesty, I was tempted to join up, as the benefits would be nice. But something about the weird, PR-heavy focus turned me off. I understood that maintaining a good reputation was important, but their stance just seemed over the top. That, combined with my own issues being a one-of-a-kind anomaly in this world, made me very wary.

I was also nervous about superhero shenanigans. The one universal constant to all superhero realities was that people with powers, or engaging with people with superpowers, always ended up in weird scenarios and happenstances. I'm sure that I would stumble into my own weird stuff sooner or later, but staying out of everyone else's, for now, could only be a good thing.

With my morning ablutions complete, including stripping back down to apply a geomantic absorption, I headed out into the city. I had already found the address of a place where I could buy slate tile, so all that was left was to walk there.

As I walked, Alya followed along, invisible to everyone, including myself, keeping an eye out for threats or avoidable issues. So far, since I arrived here, she had helped me avoid eight pickpocket attempts and three muggings. She was also a godsend for directions.

As I walked, I considered how the previous day had gone. While I was glad everything had worked out in the end, I was worried about having to reveal myself to Dinah. If I had been following her more closely, I could have stopped her aunt from ever being hurt in the first place. The problem was that I had been following them around for three days at that point, so maintaining a healthy distance was essential to keep from being caught.

I'm pretty sure stopping her from triggering would have been nearly impossible from the back of a police cruiser.

At the end of the day, all I could really do was hope the young girl would keep her promise to keep my secret. She looked to be old enough to understand the concept, and she seemed eager to do so. That said, I only needed her to keep my face from being spread around. Everything else was just a luxury.

When I arrived at the tile store, buying the tiles was pretty easy. People didn't ask a lot of questions when you pretended to be confident, and while I got a strange look when I threw two packages of slate tile over my shoulder and walked out, I assured them my ride was parked nearby. In truth, with the steel I absorbed that morning, I could have carried a lot more without breaking a sweat.

Of course, I got plenty of looks lugging the large boxes through the streets, but there wasn't much I could do about that. The weight wasn't nearly enough to get me labeled as a Brute or anything. After all, the guy at the store had carried them just fine.

When we finally got back to our temporary home, I was eager to get to work. The first step was clearing out more of the linoleum since I wanted to keep the older partional for now. Once the space was clear, I laid down a seven-foot square of the slate. The lip of the linoleum was just enough of an edge to keep it all in place, and once the tile was down, I got to work.

"Fuse simul lapis," I muttered, directing a band of mana between my pointer and middle finger, an arcane symbol appearing at each one's knuckle.

I ran my fingers along the seam between the tiles, and for a moment, the edges on either side glowed before they fused together, becoming one continuous piece of stone. This was one of several very low-level earth and metal spells I had learned from my levels in geomancy, focused on preparing materials and creating and repairing partionals.

Once the seven-foot square of slate was all fused together, I started sketching out the design. My first partional had been a seven-circled diagram, a specific version used to help stabilize poor ingredients and materials. Now that I was making a properly planned and drawn diagram, I was switching to a nine-circled version. It used slightly more absorption material and required much more precision in carving, but it would greatly extend the absorption's duration and potency.

It took me an hour to mark out all nine circles, the central sitting space, as well as all the arcane symbols, then another two to slowly carve them with Scalprum lapis, another minor earth spell. There were nearly double the symbols in a nine-circled versus a seven, which made me very happy that I was switching from using just my blood to using a mixture of my blood and beeswax melded together with a specific preparation spell. Not only was it more stable, but it also wouldn't burn away with every use, as long as I gave it time to cool after every absorption.

When I was finally finished, I was more than happy with the results. The inlaid arcane symbols, and the precisely carved lines were all nearly perfect. This was just about the pinnacle of what I could achieve with my current level of geomancy. Any absorption complete with this partional would last at least eight hours, nearly double the old limit.

Not only would it drastically increase the amount of time between rituals, but I could also perform an absorption before bed, and I would be protected most of, if not the entire night.

I spent a few minutes admiring my work, during which Alya stopped in with her physical form to congratulate me.

"It all seems quite well made, William," She said, walking around the slate square. "Perhaps we should invest in some better metal?"

"I do want some tungsten, now that I have a partional that can handle filtering out its weight," I admitted. "But if I start walking around, trying to buy tungsten and titanium, It's gonna get some attention... not to mention I don't actually know where I would go to buy those metals. Can't exactly check Amazon."

We talked for a bit long, mostly about what she had seen around the few blocks she was watching over before she vanished again to resume her patrol and observations.

When she was gone, I made my way to the couch, sitting down and closing my eyes.

When I first arrived here, I was given a small introduction to magic and how it worked. It wasn't much, since the entities clearly expected me to use my charges to gain any real information. Still, just because it was basic didn't mean it was useless.

The first thing I learned was that mana was the fuel, or at least the catalyst for almost all magic, and was generated by any creature with a soul. Essentially, a soul would give off mana as a natural part of its existence. This process did not drain the soul or anything like that. I was not at risk for using up all of my mana, save for some minor discomfort.

Generally speaking, the more complicated a soul was, the more mana it generated. For example, a wolf would have much more mana than a dog, while a whole pack of wolves combined would have nothing on even the lowest forms of draconic lizards. It wasn't just based on intelligence, but it was generally considered to be a good first sign. Age also affects the complexity of a soul through experiences and maturing. That's why magic users grew more powerful with age.

You could also improve how much mana you could bring to bear with practice, either repeatedly casting spells and using your mana, draining your reserves over and over again, or by meditating and circling your mana through your body. Meditation also improved your body's condition, as your mana basically purifies your body. I wasn't going to turn into Steve Rogers, but I had already noticed a slight shift in my natural flexibility.

As I sat down on the couch and slowly began to circulate my mana, weaving out along my limbs, dancing it across my body, through my skin, and all around me, I let my mind wander. As of this night, I had exactly seven days left before I regained all of my Marvelous Mage charges. Combined with the singular point I had gained from my quest, I would have seven.

Plus, I had prevented little Dinah from triggering, saving her aunt in the process and keeping her from a life of… well I didn't quite know what her life would have been like, but Marvelous Mage was giving me the sense that she wouldn't have been having fun.

Hard not to be proud of that.

Alya and I had discussed a lot about what I would focus on for my next round of points. Eventually, we settled on an idea, or at least a general concept, one I would need to refine before using.

A common thread through a whole lot of magic-centric stories from my old world was the idea of the wizard's home. Whether it was a massive magical tower, a floating city in the sky or, a pocket dimension sealed away from danger and influence, or even just a small house with magic built into every board, they were a mainstay of the genre.

And I wanted one.

Not just because it would be cool as hell, because it would be, but because I needed a place where I was safe, protected, and secure. A place where I could work on my magic in peace, and start to really make a difference. There were a lot of aspects of my powers that would attract a whole lot of attention, and I needed to be sure that I had a place I could go to be safe from the worst of it.

Even more important, though, was the fact that I needed secure and permanent workplaces for my magic. Spells might go with me, but as in the case of geomancy and so many other types of magic, I needed a secure place to install cauldrons, carve in ritual circles, and purify workshops. While making the geomantic partional had taken a few hours and only cost me three or four hundred dollars in materials, geomancy was widely considered to be a very basic field of magic. What I knew was pretty close to its top level, and while I'm sure there was more to learn, its ritual-esque partional reflected its relatively simple scale.

Beeswax and blood were one thing, but there was no way I would make a gold inlaid healing ritual circle in some random abandoned shop, not until I could confirm it was safe.

That's why I was considering spending all six of my incoming charges on three levels of wizard homemaking, or something of that nature. Judging by what I got from two levels, having three would mean some serious information about making my own little slice of magic paradise.

Of course, it would also mean that I didn't gain anything else new, and while I was satisfied with my lighting spells, the durability and strength I gained from geomantic absorptions, as well as my healing, dedicating all of my points for a two week period to a single topic was a rather significant commitment.

The best case scenario, in my mind, was that after buying the first and second level of whatever the wizard home crafting topic settled on, I would be able to tell if I needed to invest in a third level immediately or if I could wait. The worst case scenario would be me spending any of my points, only to realize I had barely uncovered anything and that I had basically wasted the points. The chances of that happening were not zero, which was way too high for me to be happy with.

Overall, it was hard to plan what I wanted to do, at least beyond the basics, since there was no real way to know what I would get for each stacking level. I did know that if I ended up having points left over, I was absolutely spending it on something I could use to generate minions. I didn't really know what it would be, exactly, since I already knew elemental binding would be a high-potency topic that would require a whole lot of points before it was useful, but I definitely wanted more minions.

I continued to meditate until I felt my steel absorption run its course. Eager to test my new partional, I quickly distributed a few piles of steel rebar that had been scavenged from an abandoned construction site. Once I was done, I stripped down and sat in the center circle, letting out a deep breath.

I put my hands down in front of me, my fingertips just touching the inner circle. I pushed and guided my mana out of my hands and into the carved slate, letting it spread around until the whole partional was filled. It took significantly more mana than the seven-circle partional, but as the ritual was completed and I stood, I could feel the difference immediately. I was less stiff, and I could feel my steps were lighter as well.

I flexed and stretched for a few minutes, getting used to the slightly increased enhancement through jumping jacks and push-ups. When I was done, I was just about to sit back on the couch when I could feel Alya return. Before I could greet her, she whispered urgently into my ear.

"How much longer does your steel absorption last?" She asked.

"I just reapplied it half an hour ago," I said, now on full alert. "Why, what's happening?"

"There is a man, just a few blocks away. He is severely injured… his breathing is very shallow."

I cursed, hesitating for a moment. I could feel Alya holding back, waiting for me to make my decision. For a moment I almost asked her why she would tell me that, before realizing that that was unfair, considering I would be upset if she hadn't as well.

"Alright. I'll grab my mask."