Mage Among Superheroes

There were certain points in time where another in my shoes would have exercised greater caution if they had the same sorts of enemies as myself. But of course, I wasn't always going to know who I might come up against… and I couldn't really prepare for someone like Doomsday. For daily use a little bit of Force Armor, Nondetection, and Stoneskin on Contingency were sufficient. Stoneskin didn't last long enough to have it on by itself all day.

Anything else was best used in the moment, unless I knew I was going up against something specific in the near future.

I was going on regular patrols again after the whole incident with Midnight. Mided didn't want to talk to me, and I was magically unable to contact Master Uvithar even with boosted Sending spells. So I couldn't really push that angle much. Chances were, looking for random other apprentices would result in horrible side effects again… either way, I wasn't planning to try for a bit.

As for my personal studies, I was very focused on Summon Elemental. I was able to test the differences between Minor and Moderate rather easily. The results? Ignis was way hotter with more mana. I didn't know if that meant it was actually stronger or just able to call upon more of its original abilities- the difference was academic unless I found it in those particular planes.

Relatedly, Ignis was the name I had chosen for it. Since the elemental was always fire regardless of my intentions, a fire related name seemed appropriate. Midnight vetoed 'Fire Buddy' because it 'wasn't a real name', and my next few suggestions were turned down as well.

When I mentioned the name, I couldn't tell if it was excited about its new name or just because I was talking to it, but either way it seemed fine.

Returning to the testing… the sensors really freaked out whenever Ignis was in any sort of alternative mode. It was really fun for a bit until they calibrated them for 'power oddities'. In short, other forms of Ignis were different in one meaningful way- things didn't burn… much. It was really so little compared to what a fire elemental was capable of.

The quantity of water stored in Ignis' pot was related to the amount of mana I spent, with the Moderate version of course being quite a bit more. I really didn't know if it would matter, though, because the main thing I would want a bunch of water for was if I was going to put out fires… and Ignis was really good at that, in any form. Of course, the fire form tended to also start fires, which meant I'd probably never get to use that one in actual practice.

My main goal was to get a natural upgrade for Conjure Minor Elemental, hoping to get spatial- or dimensional or whatever it was called- mastery. For that reason, I continued testing.

I couldn't summon two of Ignis at once. I didn't know if that was a limit of Conjuration spells or if it was because I was only connected to Ignis. And no, using a mix of Minor and Moderate didn't help. That also included one total between Midnight and I, but he could summon Ignis independently.

It was my focus for a few days until I finally got the natural upgrade.

"Uuuugh, why didn't that work? Is it just impossible?" I complained to Midnight.

"I don't think so," he shook his head. "I don't have perfect recall of Dimensional Magic, but the book and Wrickle herself heavily implied it should be possible."

The book had been scanned, for purposes of sharing with Power Brigade recruits. At the very least Bolster needed it. I also got a copy for Jerome. Aside from Spatial Rift, he should find the subject quite useful as a utility mage. Or just for convenience. Storage was pretty great for everyday use.

Searching through Dimensional Magic, I saw a few references to mastery. One, as I remembered, involved contacting something that could be summoned. And a natural upgrade should be the progress I needed. Other than that…

"... Never forget the basics, huh?"

It wasn't like I had been slacking on my upgrades to Storage. However, even with 11 total upgrades I couldn't do anything like Wrickle did. Or at least, I hadn't been able to. Not that I'd tried after I broke magic.

What were the possible consequences of making Storage perform differently than expected? I went over them with Midnight, as we came up with them.

"Breaking stuff, obviously," I said. "Just dropping things."

"Technically that can happen already. Unless you place things on the floor."

"Usually it's into my hand, but I get the point. What else…"

"Losing access to things forever," Midnight said. "Maybe it just gets shunted out of the space and never comes back."

"Wasted mana… isn't really a consequence. Maybe imparting momentum?"

Ultimately, the main potential issues were breaking or losing something. There was some very small chance that I ruined the 'connected space' somehow and no longer had access to anything, but that was unlikely unless I did crazy stuff. I was just going to try to put stuff somewhere that wasn't immediately touching me.

The first thing I did was clear out my Storage.

"You should probably do that too," I suggested to Midnight. "Just in case."

"Right," he nodded. We dropped everything off in a temporary room. He had a lot of emergency supplies. Food and water… even if the food was mostly canned tuna. Other than that, it was… pretty much anything he regularly carried. Unless it was integrated into his Celmothian battle suit, he really had very little that could be considered pocket space. And it was just as easy to leave stuff in Storage instead of dropping it off at home if he only used it sometimes. As long as it was light.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I kept my magic books, my gun, and material components for the most part. Though, Midnight's practicality had resulted in me having a small emergency survival pack. A medkit and some Power Brigade energy bars. Their caloric contents were dense. I really didn't think I'd ever lack water, especially not now that I could magic some up. If I was somewhere without magic, I couldn't use Storage.

Was there some special meaning to conjuring a tea set? Certainly, one with hot tea was rather special, and there were other reasons. A wide layout with specific positioning and breakable vessels.

It shouldn't be too hard. I started with a cup and saucer. Ten minutes later, I realized I needed more tea sets. A lot more.

"Maybe you should start with something more durable?" Midnight suggested.

"Hmm. The fragility is definitely supposed to be a factor, but…"

Before I broke twenty or thirty more teacups this afternoon, I could instead start with… an orange. There was still enough I could do.

When I put my mind to it, I could conjure it away from me, upright, on its side, or in pretty much any orientation. And that included when I didn't know what direction it had been facing to begin with… as long as I pictured something when it was coming out. Through repeated experimentation, Midnight and I determined that either of us could also maintain an orientation, though only if we remembered it or never saw it. In short, knowing that we didn't know which way something was facing actually could be an advantage if we wanted to retrieve it that way. If we had some idea, we might just influence it to be that. It happened more than a few times.

I couldn't repeatedly place things beyond arm's length, not even for a single orange. And no, it didn't make a difference if it was a banana or a grape. For Midnight, it was more or less the same distance from his core.

The best part was storing things from that distance. I could do so many things like… take things out of the pockets of villains?

Not out of their hands though. I tested just to confirm, but even in my current broken mana state I couldn't do it. Not with anything resembling the normal amount of mana, and I was worried I might toss a whole person inside if I went beyond a handful of points. There were a couple references to Wrickle storing herself at some point. I had some serious concerns about that, especially about where she came out. Her book never said, but I could imagine that she would have immediately chastised me for assuming it was 'where she was before'.

After all, Storage wasn't next to you. That, she had been clear about.

"... I could probably get out with Gate," I said to Midnight. "But let's avoid having to find out."

"Agreed," Midnight said.

Back to pockets. Things carried by people loose on their persons were far easier than things in their hands, by which I meant I had successfully done it. So far, touching skin had been sufficient to make it impossible. Or fur. Again, that didn't mean it was actually impossible. Just that I wasn't sure what the consequences might be if I screwed it up.

Midnight could test a bit more safely, since his magic wasn't broken. Even though we'd fooled around with Storage previously and didn't have any significant changes, just knowing we could place things further away had made that more immediately possible. Even if we'd tried it before, it hadn't been wholeheartedly.

We could still drop things from Mage's Reach. Maybe I should get an anvil.

-----

"Yes!" I raised my fist high in the air. "Look at that!"

"... well," Midnight said slowly. "At least all the broken ceramic is on top of the tablecloth?"

"And in the right spot," I said. "More or less."

I was onto the level of trying to pull out several things at once, spaced out. I found greater success when I waved my hand over the area, but I was pretty sure Wrickle had done that for flair. Pretty sure. My distance limitation didn't seem to be from my arm. Nor my center of gravity, quite. Just my… core. Or something. It might not even be a real limitation.

I could cast Storage about bit less than once per minute if I used the 'natural' amount of mana, and that was what I was doing. It gave me just enough time to envision what I wanted to do. I would store as much as I could at once. I'd done some experimentation on whether anything cared when or how it was stored- as a group or not- but I hadn't noticed any changes, as long as I was conscious about what I had.

My natural upgrades for Storage hit 5, then 6. That wasn't enough. However, singular focus for several days was making me get pretty constant progress.

Then, suddenly, everything clicked. It could have been a coincidence, but it was when I hit 8 natural upgrades… 1 more than my total number of point upgrades. Or a total of 15 upgrades. It would have been my highest natural upgrade number except that Familiar Bond also improved with Midnight and I working together all day.

I looked at a whole no-longer-steaming setup of tea nicely placed on a cloth in front of me. Time still passed for things in Storage, though I wasn't sure where the heat went. Maybe it was best not to ask such questions, because magic and mana already broke so many rules. Maybe it took more mana to store hot things, and then it just bled off that energy with the excess mana.

Or something. I certainly didn't always need all of the mana I spent on Storage, especially for very small things.

I finally had proof. Basic Spatial Magic existed. I checked a few times to make sure I wasn't actively manipulating my display- because I could do that. Ultimately, Midnight's independent confirmation was the clincher.

"I was really hoping for that to eat more lines, to be honest," I said. "It was just a fusion of two things. But it has a mastery name, unlike when I combined opposite or related spells of the same tier."

Haste and Slow were opposites, like Shrink and Enlarge, but Physical and Mental Freedom weren't.

I sighed. "That was so much work. Wait, I can't even hurt people with any of this."

Midnight made a face. "Unless you drop things on them. Though, stealing from enemies might be worth experience?"

"Or breaking things I toss out of Storage," I commented. "Breaking stuff is worth experience."

Unlike my usual magic training, I had been pretty constantly training instead of doing it in batches. After all, I didn't want to sit in place for half an hour to cast a single Teleport or something. Or a twenty or so minutes for a Chain Lightning. Just to be clear, however, that was way better than standard. I recovered mana about twice as fast now- even when in the positives- and with the improved ambient mana levels in New Bay I was closer to five times expected. Either way, unless I was casting spells that cost less than a single point of mana in a way that took concentration it was still a lot of waiting.

But since I had been doing that, I'd stayed nearly topped off and ready for active duty. Was it a coincidence that I got called in shortly after I achieved something new? Absolutely. Because I'd also been called in a couple hours before that, so I merely happened to have some free time.

Same area, too. Weird. This time we were getting Acid Man, Knives, and Antagonist. We'd learn more about the situation along the way.