Maybe I was being a bit greedy wanting to improve a skill that could already kill a goblin with a single well placed attack. I didn’t see it that way. I was thinking of it more as research.

  Probably the biggest reason I’d gotten into the field of physics was because I had a deep desire within me to understand how things worked. I wanted to know why things fell, why light could only move so fast, and the underlying rules behind so many other natural phenomena. Finding out about mana was like I had just unlocked a whole new branch of magic, and I got to be the one to trailblaze the research on it.

  When I cast my mana bolt spell, I can feel the magic within my body moving. It is hard to grasp exactly how it was moving, but it definitely was moving. The only details I can really feel right now was that a part of my mana broke off from the whole, formed a ball, and shot out of my hand or my wand if I was holding it. I want to find some way to improve that, or failing that to make my own spell.

  At first I had started by repeatedly casting mana bolt, observing exactly how it worked. The first thing I had seen that looked important was that it did not fall as it traveled. It remained at a constant height. It would go until it hit a tree, or fizzled out after about 30 meters.

  Now, why wouldn’t it fall? Did it not have mass? Everything with mass needed to be affected by gravity, that was a hard and fast rule. Rather, it had been back when things were normal. Maybe it wasn’t quite the same in this “new universe”. I was still trying to wrap my head around that, but it was a problem for a later date.

  My working theory would be that mana wasn’t exactly a physical thing, instead being an energy. There were of course plenty of flaws with this guess, but as of right now it’s all I can really come up with. Now, if we are getting technical, energy can have mass, sort of. Energy can in theory be turned into mass, and vice versa. That would require technology far surpassing what we could have made before, but still a heavily used concept in many fields. E=MC^2, very useful equation.

  Well, it was a very useless equation with my current dilemma. This is all just to say that mana was kind of energy, and kind of physical mass, but seems to arbitrarily decide to not work in the ways that you would expect either to work.

  The way I want to improve my spell was to both add some more mana to the attack and to make it move faster. That would hopefully make it stronger and easier to aim.

  Before I learn to improve a spell, I need to learn to manipulate my mana. I spend some time trying to make it budge, and find it actually surprisingly easy to manipulate. It feels like moving around some water, with it having momentum behind its movements. I grumble a bit to myself again about how it could have momentum without having weight. Perhaps it worked like a photon, but if something like that could be recreated on a scale like this then that was worthy of an entire branch of study all on its own. It is a distracting problem I would need to figure out later.

  After I feel like I have a good enough grasp over my mana, I try creating a bolt of mana without casting the spell. It is weird, because the spell itself felt almost automatic to cast. I just try to copy the exact feeling. After only a few minutes I feel like I can recreate the spell without too much difficulty. Then, I try to add some mana, making it more potent. That works pretty well, as the craters it leaves in the trees are now noticeably larger.

  While doing all of this, I can feel the spell almost “adapt”. Using it, I can now automatically use more or less mana just by willing it. It seems that once I proved I can do it on my own, the spell helps to allow me to do it on the fly. It was nice and all, but I didn’t feel like I would have had much trouble making a bolt in the middle of a fight even without the spell.

  Next, I try to see what would happen if I push mana out of the end of my wand really quickly. Not in a ball or any other shape, but in an uncontrolled release all at once. That had different results than I’d expected.

  A cone of force erupts from the tip of the wand, and even though I don't feel any kickback, it seems to push the air in front of it. I try it again standing next to a tree, and it blasts apart a not insignificant chunk of the tree trunk. The only downside to this particular attack was that it was expensive as hell. Each blast used about a quarter of my total mana, meaning I could only use it four times if I didn’t use my mana for anything else.

  After casting this new spell a few times, I am pleasantly surprised by a notification.

  Mana Bolt (Common) has been upgraded to Mana Blast (Uncommon)

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Mana Blast (Uncommon)

  Fire out a bolt of mana, with the strength dependent on mana infused into spell. Alternatively, send out a blast of mana, dealing higher damage at a significantly shorter range and higher cost.

  Well, I’ve accomplished my goal. I had improved my one and only spell. I had been kind of expecting for the new effect to be its own spell, but instead it had been lumped in with mana bolt. It was probably due to them being the same idea in concept. Send out mana to do some damage. Maybe a more unique use of my magic could give me a new spell.

  Another notification pops up a moment later.

  Skill gained, Basic Mana Manipulation (Common)

  Basic Mana Manipulation (Common)

  Manipulate your mana to perform various tasks. Slightly increases the effect of your mind stat while manipulating your mana.

  Well, there was yet another bonus to adding to my mana bolts. With how things were looking, I would have a pretty easy time dealing with any other goblins I ran into. I look around at the forest, seeing if I could see any signs of goblins around me. I’d come back to floor two to practice with my spell so that nobody would see me and figure out that my stats were a good deal higher than theirs.

  A bit of quick mental math told me that if I didn’t have my pioneer title at the tier it was at, my stats would be the equivalent of somebody at level 5. If somebody thought I was around that level, they’d probably assume I killed other humans to reach this level so quickly.

  That thought sat there for a moment. There probably were people out there who’d be perfectly willing to kill their fellow humans to gain some easy levels. If I had to fight back against somebody like that, how well would I be able to defend myself?

  I look at the craters littering the trees around me, some of them the size of watermelons courtesy of my mana blast spell. It was both comforting and unsettling knowing that if somebody came to try and kill me, I probably would not have a significant amount of trouble defending myself.

  I shake those dark thoughts off. Now wasn’t the time to be brooding alone in a forest. Now was the time to go explore and find the way to the next floor. I decide to head for the direction that I’d seen the previous goblins I’d fought. If they’d been around that area, then there was likely a goblin city not super far away from there.

  After walking for a while, I run into a lone goblin scout. It was just wandering around, not seeming to have any particular destination it was heading for.

  Instead of going up to fight it, I keep my distance, making sure to hide myself behind trees as well as I could. I had to take off my robe and stuff it under my shirt, since the purple garments would almost certainly give away my presence.

  I can’t lie, it is boring as hell. I spent probably about two hours tailing this thing until it finally seems to decide it was time to head home. The sun had begun setting, which is probably what made up its mind. Still keeping my distance, I followed it. I make sure to keep a mental note of the direction of the entrance to the floor. If the city proved to be too much for me to handle, I would need to head back for the night.

  After a while, the goblin reaches a break in the trees where a massive circular clearing sat. In the middle of the clearing is a wooden wall just a bit over the height of my head. A could see a few goblins standing atop the wall, watching the perimeter and making sure nobody was trying to sneak up on the camp. There are several torches dotting the field, and I couldn’t go past the tree line without entering the light. I stop following the goblin for now, feeling that I’d found my target.

  I circle the clearing once, getting a good view of the wall. There are two entrances with them being on opposite sides of the perimeter wall, with three goblins defending each entrance. They each look pretty similar to the goblin scouts, wearing leather armor and having wooden clubs. Unlike the scouts, these goblins have some sharp looking stones sticking out of the ends of their clubs. Definitely wouldn’t want to try and block one of those with my arm.

  I spend some time trying to think of a plan to take on the goblins, and honestly I think my best bet is to try and avoid going into or even near the city. The goblins atop the wall have bows in their hands, and even though I don't see a quiver on their backs that didn’t mean they couldn’t have the arrows stashed somewhere else. Even if the goblins didn’t have great aim, I couldn’t gamble on one of them not getting a lucky shot and piercing my skull with an arrow.

  No, instead my plan was to just pick them off at a distance. I’d be at the very edge of the clearing, just outside the range of the light, and would first try and take out the guards at the front of one of the gates. If I could kill them all before they reached me, I’d try and aim for the archers. If not, I’d use a mana blast once they got close, then aim for the archers.

  I am well aware that goblins would probably flood out of the front gates once I alerted them. The system had let me know that goblins were at their strongest when grouped up. I would have to think on the fly a bit, but I was still confident in taking on a dozen of them if I had to. Thanks to the extra mana I could store in my robes, I could afford multiple uses of mana blast if it really came down to it. I’d likely be cutting it close, but overall I should be able to do this with a relatively low degree of risk.

  With a plan in mind, I put my robe back on and waited for my mana regeneration to saturate it with magic. It took almost 15 minutes, but the wait was a small price to pay for the amount of utility it afforded me.

  Taking a steadying breath, I walk out into the clearing and fired my first mana bolt. The blue bolt zips through the air, taking full advantage of its higher speed and range than my old ones. After nailing the first goblin directly on the forehead, the fight was on, and I begin to feel the thrill of the fight.