Static screen dissolved into damp chill. The scent of PC and DEVICES vanished, replaced by mildew, wet stone, and the faint, metallic tang of... something else. Reika's consciousness slammed back into focus, not in her familiar gaming chair, but somewhere cold, hard, and echoing. She wasn't looking at a monitor; she was staring down at trembling hands submerged in a basin of murky water. Her hands? In water? Where is keyboard?
She blinked, trying to clear the residual white spots from her vision. She was in a large, grey stone hall. Water dripped somewhere rhythmically. Other figures stood nearby, maybe a dozen of them, all wearing simple, dark robes similar to the one currently hanging loosely on her own frame. They stood before identical stone basins filled with water, their faces pinched in concentration. Training dummies? No, students. A classroom? It felt more like a dungeon.
Where was her stream? Her chat? Dave and Sarah? The memory of the game, the book critique, the blinding light felt both immediate and strangely distant. A dull ache throbbed behind her eyes.
"Focus, Initiate!" A sharp, commanding voice cut through Reika's internal chaos. A stern-faced woman with severe grey hair pulled back tightly strode down the line of students, her own dark robes swirling around her ankles. Her eyes, sharp as obsidian chips, landed on Reika. "Daydreaming again, are we? After two years, one would expect some progress. Shape the water. Now."
Initiate? Two years? Shape the water? Reika stared blankly at the basin in front of her. This felt like a tutorial level, a basic magic skill test. She knew mana from countless games – the blue bar, the resource pool, the energy you channeled for spells. But feeling it? That was the problem. She focused, trying to sense some inner energy, some mystical flow like the tutorial prompts in bad RPGs always described.
Nothing happened. The water remained stubbornly still, reflecting the flickering torchlight on the damp walls.
A snort of laughter came from the student next to her, a smug-looking boy who effortlessly had his water swirling into a perfect, shimmering sphere. "Still can't manage a simple ripple, Mizono?" he sneered quietly, not looking away from his own creation. "Maybe stick to scrubbing floors. Some just don't have the Touch."
Reika's eyes narrowed. Mizono? Another wrong name. Where did they get that? And this condescending prick... "Oh, enlighten me, O Great Water Wizard," she retorted with biting sarcasm, turning slightly towards him. "How does one acquire this mystical 'Touch'? Do you feel a tingle? Does the water whisper secrets only the 'talented' can hear?" She was genuinely curious, hidden beneath the sarcasm. How did magic work here if not like game mechanics?
The boy scoffed, losing concentration for a second as his sphere wobbled. "You just... do it," he said dismissively, refocusing. "If you have the Talent, you feel the flow. If not..." He shrugged, clearly implying she didn't.
"Initiate Mizono! Initiate Martel!" The instructor's sharp voice cut in, directed at both Reika and the smug boy. "Cease this chatter and focus on your own deficiencies! Martel, your sphere lacks stability. And Mizono," the instructor stopped directly in front of Reika again, arms crossed, "your lack of aptitude is becoming tiresome. Even the most basic elemental sympathy eludes you. Do I need to assign you remedial meditation again?" The woman's voice was laced with weary disappointment.
Reika bristled internally. Lack of aptitude? Remedial meditation? 'Feel the flow?' Useless advice. This was insulting. She was RuinMage, glitch exploiter extraordinaire! This simple water shaping felt like a level 1 spell, yet whoever this 'Mizono' was supposed to be, apparently couldn't manage it. And two years? Pathetic! No wonder 'Mizono' failed with instructors and classmates like these.
Fine. If the 'proper' way – the 'feeling' way – didn't work, time for a different approach. Forget 'elemental sympathy'. Forget 'the Touch'. Reika ignored the instructor's glare and closed her eyes briefly, accessing her gamer brain. Okay, analyze the system. Magic exists. It uses a resource, let's call it mana like in the games. Source? Internal or external? Martel implied internal ('If you have the Talent'). Assume internal pool for now.
How to feel it? Trying to 'feel' wasn't working. So, don't feel. Scan. Like checking system resources or looking for the UI element. She turned her focus inward, not searching for a mystical sensation, but methodically probing for an internal energy signature, a reserve, a quantifiable pool. Ignore the woo-woo, find the resource bar. After a moment of intense concentration, she detected something – a faint, subtle reservoir of contained energy deep within her chest, like a dormant power source. Not a feeling, more like... data located. Okay. Mana pool located. Estimated capacity: low, but present. Current level: full.
How to use it? Forget 'sympathy'. Think commands. Direct action. What's the command to interact with the water? Need to establish a link, then apply force. She visualized the process like scripting a spell effect. //establish_link(source=internal_mana_pool, target=basin_water). She focused on pushing a tiny thread of that internal energy towards the water, not gently 'coaxing' it, but directing it with intent.
This time, she felt a definite response – a faint drain on the internal pool, a subtle connection humming between her and the water. Link established! Okay, command: lift. Vector: upwards. Magnitude: low. //cast_lift_water(target=linked_water, magnitude=5, vector=up). She pushed a little more energy through the established link, focusing the intent.
The water in the basin stirred, then slowly, hesitantly, began to rise, coalescing into a wobbling, misshapen blob hovering inches above the surface. It wasn't elegant, but it worked.
A small gasp came from Martel. The instructor raised a skeptical eyebrow but didn't comment immediately.
Progress! Reika thought, a flicker of her usual competitive satisfaction surfacing. Okay, basic manipulation works if you treat it like code, like game mechanics. Forget the 'feeling' nonsense. But just lifting it wasn't enough. This instructor, this whole situation, grated on her. Time to break the script. Time for a little chaos. Can I change its state? Freeze it? Like an ice spell?
She focused again, pushing more 'mana' from that internal pool, visualizing not just lifting, but altering the structure. //cast_alter_state(target=water_blob, state=frozen_solid, efficiency=max). She felt a stronger surge this time, a sharp coldness blooming from the energy source within her as she channeled more power. The wobbling blob of water instantly solidified, cracking audibly as it turned into a cluster of jagged, razor-sharp ice shards, hovering menacingly in the air.
Another collective gasp echoed through the hall. The instructor took an involuntary step back, her eyes wide with shock.
Reika grinned, a fierce, challenging expression taking over the face they called Mizono's. This felt more like it. And for an encore... She locked onto the large, carved stone emblem set high on the far wall – the sigil of this dreary academy, whatever it was. Target acquired. With a flick of her wrist, purely on instinct, she executed the final command: //cast_launch_projectile(target=academy_emblem, velocity=high).
The ice shards shot across the room like bullets, striking the stone emblem with explosive force. Chips of stone flew, and sharp cracks radiated from the point of impact, marring the ancient symbol.
Silence. Utter, stunned silence descended on the hall. Every student, and the instructor, stared first at the damaged emblem, then back at Reika – or rather, at the unremarkable second-year Initiate Mizono – with expressions of disbelief and shock.
Reika felt a thrill, the familiar rush of finding an exploit, of breaking the system's expected limits. Then, the confusion crashed back in. She looked down at her hands, flexing the fingers that had just commanded ice. Okay. Magic is definitely real. And apparently, I'm good at it, even though they call me Mizono, once I apply logic. She glanced around at the stunned faces, the damp stone walls, the flickering torches. This isn't Aethelgard. It feels... older. More solid. The instructor – Master Elara, someone had whispered her name earlier – was still speechless. Is this the world from that book? The thought felt both terrifying and exhilarating. But this academy, this Master Elara... they weren't mentioned in Aelric's story, were they? Uncertainty lingered, a dissonant note under the thrill of newfound power. Where exactly was she?