On a positive note, there’s enough space left to keep everything in the remaining packs with more to spare. Sure, some of the larger bits and ends are dangling off of the snags and tears outside of the packs that have slowly built up with my travels. However, I made certain that they’re all spaced out enough so as not to rattle and clank! Must remain sneaky and quiet, as is proper.
For the next destination, I’ve selected another village, referred to by the map as Vastra. The only redeeming quality beckoning me there is that it’s the closest that can be reached while exclusively travelling through only forest. I can’t imagine hiking through the plains or any other open areas, let alone out on one of their trails. A fool like that will once again be ambushed by more little, big ones the moment he lets his guard down. Fool me once. No thanks, I’ll only stick to paths offering many, many convenient shadows for hiding and cowering.
The long distance I must now travel is annoying, but on the upside, it leaves lots of time for reading every time I stop for breaks during the daylight hours. So much, in fact, that my genius shows again.
What a rush! The rapid spikes of song stealing fills me with so much vigor and drive. Every time another one arrives, I find myself hungering more and more for another. One or two, it’s not enough!
No! Discipline, discipline. I can’t lose my way. Need to focus on the contents of the reading or else this is pointless. One thing at a time.
For the first topic, I returned to the introduction to magic. I discovered that the beautiful, shiny focus stone that I found fascinates me so much because it’s emitting a barely visible, hazy, sparkling cloud. That seems very magical to me, so it made sense to dig into that text more. Following that instinct, an immediate fortune was found! Despite its refusal to elaborate on what the four foundation songs do, it did helpfully spell out their milestones:
Arcane perception - Lvl 5 - Passive detection
Arcane perception - Lvl 10 - Status integration
Arcane potential - Lvl 10 - Precision control
Arcane channeling - Lvl 10 - Active destinations
Transformation doesn’t appear to have any milestones until its later song specialties. In my particular case, I’ve passed perception’s level 5 requirement and gained Passive detection. This manifests as a sparkly, glowing cloud that emanates from all non-living magical phenomena in the world. For things like people or animals, their magic is almost completely contained inside. However, only objects are treasure, so who cares about the living? It’s essentially a “definitely steal this” flag conveniently planted for me in all the interesting places I should go. Very, very useful.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
All the other arcane milestones come at level 10. Status integration will give me better insights into the nature of the magical object during status appraisals based on my intuition. Precision control allows me to intentionally set the amount of arcane potential energy released from my “core”. Whatever that is. Finally, Active destination allows me to transfer arcane potential energy to explicitly chosen destinations on my body rather than only my natural talent nodes. In my case, I guess that’s my hands?
Aside from that, the text isn’t immediately useful for anything else, other than day dreaming about song specialties for the future. However, one particular day dream does stand out above all the rest.
The ‘Arcane transformation(Spacial)’ sub-skill specialty is a popular choice for the money minded. For one, the unique, highly sought after sub-space pocket milestone is treasured by all merchants. Moreso, far later mastery opens the incredibly lucrative ability to create spacial ports. This combination of skills allows the user to create simultaneous ‘spacial rifts’ at two locations that can then be attached to each other. After doing this, that user or anyone else can simply walk through one end of the port to instantly arrive at the paired remote location.
That’s it! The precious treasure at the town center. I must steal this song at all costs. I feel it so deep in my bones, deep in the mud. This is a special song. It calls out specifically to me!
Sadly, the intense, energetic celebration of that discovery drew the attention of a wild forest boar that relentlessly chased me until I managed to find a good hiding tree. This wasted so much time, especially since I had to double back to re-collect all my treasured possessions. Regardless, the revelation stands. Another priority goal dangling off of the long road to revenge.
Despite all this excitement, I’m still worried about how to even begin. How am I supposed to finish off these arcane foundations? I really don’t trust myself to perform another flame song without unnecessary and uncontrollable destruction. That kind of destruction will definitely attract unwanted attention. After all, the young one mentioned that the others with him left to go to investigate my sudden fire. Dangerous! Perhaps more dreams will come as teacher? However, I can’t rely on them. There may never be another.
“Akgh!” I release in a burst of agitated, phlegmy frustration, throwing my arms up in the air.
What use is actively dreaming of the future when these stupid, passive, built-in dreams keep acting the part of a stupid gatekeeper.
All these grumpy feelings send me back to safe, predictable mixing for a reprieve. A truly exciting art that’s fully open to me and my genius in all ways!
Now that you’ve mastered basic mixing, it’s time to choose a set of sub-skill specialties that will support your future goals. For example, take the following list as potentials: plants, minerals, biological, skin, metal, rock, hair, wood, saliva, and iron. A strange, eclectic mix, is it not? The reality is that you can sub-skill specialize in any material, substance, or concept at all. The sky is the limit! Perhaps you can even mix the sky? Whether you want to be specific (e.g., saliva) or generalized (e.g., biological) is strictly up to you and how you wish to approach your path.
Interesting. Does this mean that mud mixing is really on the table?
However, you can’t simply choose all things since your time to practice is limited and the possibilities endless. Therefore, there are inevitable tradeoffs to the limited choices. For example, later dependent syntheses will require specialization in specific sub-skills. Smelting necessitates that ore mixing specialization be completed first. Smithing requires metal, wood, and leather. Then even later descendents repeat that pattern again. For instance, ‘Smithing(Iron)’ requires that you first complete both ‘Smithing’ and ‘Mixing(Iron)’ before you can gain its first level of synthesized specialization.
“Urgh,” I exclaim out again in frustration.
This is all so tedious. Am I to smith or smelt mud? Metal mixing is probably a good choice, since it’s always been in the highest grade treasures. However, these choices are all boring! There must be a better mixing than these.