While inspecting the half-assembled bone construct, I felt something odd—
a faint tingling in the air around it.
Mana, obviously.
I'd been using mana without thinking about it, much like breathing.
But this… was different.
This mana wasn't mine.
It drifted through the cavern like dust motes swirling in a sunbeam.
Wild mana.
Unclaimed.
I observed it, curious.
The particles moved unpredictably, but not randomly.
They responded to the shape of the cavern, to airflow, to the life within it.
To me.
A little nudge from my core sent them swirling.
Another nudge condensed them.
A more focused push made them spark faintly, like embers catching breath.
Oh.
Well, that's interesting.
Magic.
Not the dramatic kind.
No fireballs.
No glowing circles.
Just raw mana behaving like a polite guest who suddenly realized the host is awake.
I reached again, more deliberate this time.
Mana obeyed.
Not perfectly.
But enough.
It swirled tighter, thickening into a faint mist near the corpse-pile and the half-born construct.
The mana shard embedded in the creature's chest glowed accordingly, feeding off the concentration.
A thought occurred to me:
Magic is just mana doing what you tell it to.
Or what you convince it to do.
I pushed further, curious where the limit was.
A simple test:
condense, compress, release.
Mana collected above the bone construct like a small, invisible cloud.
I compressed it.
It resisted.
Understandable—mana has its own temperament.
I compressed harder.
The air shook.
A faint crackle of energy skittered across the stone floor.
The construct twitched.
Not alive—just reactive.
The mana shard pulsed in response.
So:
mana influences material.
material influences mana.
life influences both.
There were probably rules.
I didn't know them yet, but that never stopped anyone worthwhile.
I shifted my attention outward, into the tunnels. The wild mana there felt different—thinner, weaker, but still present. It followed patterns, currents. It preferred places with more life, more mineral variety, more… potential.
And it also responded to fear.
Interesting.
Something had died in my cavern.
Mana drifted towards that.
Something had grown here.
Mana drifted toward that too.
The dungeon wasn't just a room.
It was a magnet.
And I was the center.
I nudged the mana toward the alcove with the prototype.
The air thickened slightly, gathering into a thin stream feeding the shard.
The shard pulsed again—
twice this time.
The bones tightened around it subtly, as if acknowledging the energy.
If I kept feeding it, the thing might actually move.
Magic wasn't just an external tool.
It was a process.
A cycle.
Death → Mana → Growth → Strength → More Mana → Life → Death.
Efficient.
Very efficient.
Another thought slipped through, unprompted:
Magic belongs to those who use it first.
That sounded right.
Magic clearly had rules—
but I wasn't planning on asking permission.
I pulsed mana again, a thin, controlled stream.
The construct shifted.
Not much.
Barely a twitch, like a muscle remembering it once had purpose.
But it was enough.
Magic, I thought,
is going to be very useful.
A new question rose—practical, inevitable:
If I can move mana…
can I store more of it?
Shape it?
Weaponize it?
The dungeon hummed faintly, as if to say:
Try it and see.
And I intended to.