Chapter 42: To Study
As Runa had been assisting Jien with his mana control, she had been paying close attention to him as well. Though the bulk of her focus had been on the control of the mana she had noticed that not long after she had completed the correct path Jien's eyes seemed to lose focus and his body relaxed as if in a trance. Though this worried her a bit it was still within the realm of possibilities. Though she hadn't been following the path for a spell, in turn focusing on a martial mana manipulation technique to enhance eyesight she knew of cases where one would be overwhelmed by the feeling or the extra sensory input and would require a few moments to acclimate to the new feeling.
Just as she had suspected, it wasn't more than a few short moments before his eyes refocused and he seemed to gaze at her once more. She smiled gently at this reaction and slowly retracted the mana flow, ensuring not to let it go wild lest Jien have his eyes damaged in the process. "It appears that you had some level of success even though this was our first time working with that technique." she stated calmly. "I think that that will be enough for the moment. Though the amount of mana used was minimal this at least gives you some experience with ocular arcane arts and mana manipulation."
Runa stood up from the bed and began to walk towards the door. "You should rest for the time being. Using these techniques can put a lot of strain on the user. I will grab you a snack from the kitchen while you recover some." With that said she left the room, closing the door behind her and leaving a silent Jien to his thoughts.
Jien was thinking over what the shadow had said in what he assumed was a vision. He didn't have any idea of what else it could have been, though that was likely because of his inexperience in the arcane arts more than anything. For now, he was more focused on the advice that the figure had given him. He would have to think through his approach for the spell and move carefully with it. He didn't want to end up comatose due to being too eager to use a spell that he was not even all that familiar with yet.
Beyond the advice that was given, the other piece of information that piqued his interest was that Runa had referred to what she had done with the mana flow as a technique, not a spell. This meant that despite her attempting to help him use a martial technique he had been able to use it to cast a spell. This brought him to the conclusion that the spell must only require mana flow to the eyes, and not that it required a specific pattern. If he was to liken it to other arcane arts, it would be that with most arcane arts you could release mana from just about anywhere on the body and then once it was outside the body it would be given purpose and become the spell you were casting. In the same way he was simply releasing mana into his eyes while giving it the same type of purpose rather than using it as an amplifier like most martial mana manipulation.
This was definitely interesting because usually one would never cast a spell using mana still within the body. Doing so was asking to cause bodily harm to oneself. That being said, in desperate situations doing so could save a person at the potential cost of a part to their body like a limb. He mulled over this concept for a short while, wondering if there were perhaps other spells that fell into the same category, and if so, what they were and what they could do.
It wasn't long after he paused these thoughts, knowing that they likely wouldn't lead anywhere for the moment, that Runa returned with tea and some snacks that she served Jien in bed so that he could continue to rest and recuperate. He accepted them with a smile and though he didn't mention what had happened to Runa he did ask her to grab a few books regarding several different topics as well as a pen and some paper. He wanted to start planning how he would use this new spell and begin his studies toward it.
Though Runa didn't know the exact reason for the request she didn't find it particularly odd. Jien had always enjoyed reading and he was going to be couped up in bed for a few more days at least while his shoulder and leg finished healing up. She quickly went to the manor's library and picked out the requested books, most of which were basically textbooks on a number of different fields from history to basic arcane theory. He also had some survival manuals of varying types and more. As she was walking back to his room it would have looked quite hilarious if an outsider had seen her walking with a stack of books that reached a good foot above her head.
Despite not being able to see clearly in front of her she still maneuvered through the halls of the manor with a practiced precision as if she could walk the path with her eyes closed, which she likely could. She soon arrived back at Jien's room and placed all of the books at his bedside along with a few pens and a pad of paper for him to take notes on. After completing the delivery and asking Jien if he had anything else he needed from her and receiving the answer that he did not she left the room once again to let him rest.
With that he picked up the pad of paper and a pen before writing down the name of the books that had been delivered and organizing the list by subject. He then noted next to the title of each book which of the two methods the shadow had mentioned that he would be using. There were some subjects that were fine to summarize such as history, but others such as the basics of the arcane arts were better recorded verbatim.
After finishing this beginning list Jien took a deep breath. It was time to start what was bound to be a monstrous study session.
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