...well that's some wind alright.

...that was very surprising.

And surprises are very interesting.

Temple tries it again.

It works again!

Ok. He will try it once more this way. Then... Temple thinks, he will try in the hallway closet. Then he will try in the bathroom. Does it still work?

Yyyup.

Temple is nearly bursting with delight. MAGIC! Actual magic!

Well, the sink gives him an idea. He fills a water bowl and places it in the shower.

"Water, come forth, flow and wave as my will commands it!"

...it stirs a little.

Temple tries again with less water.

It stirs about exactly as much!

Temple shrugs. New experiment idea:

"Water!" Is all he says, and the he wills it to move.

Mmmmmaybe it vibrates a tad.

Okay. Maybe it needs instructions or something. Also, maybe Temple should try something that isn't moving

"Water, by my will I command you to... chill," Temple decides to rhyme at the last moment, magic always rhymes in stories and he did take the idea from a book.

It definitely becomes a bit colder, if he touches it. Not, like, freezing, but maybe a few degrees.

So it can do other things. Temple should test this very empirically, maybe make charts and think of a dozen variations for a test.

But it would be more fun to just try new things.

"Water, I command you to glow!"

...nah.

It's okay random bowl of water, you are allowed not to glow, Temple just discovered magic! Temple will try see if he can move the water without calling it specifically.

"By my will I command you to flow and wave!" Temple says in the hammiest way possible.

Nnnope.

Okay, now he will try something more scientific. He thinks of a few experiments.

"Wind," he says while pointing at water, "by my will I command you to flow and wave!"

"H2O, by my will I command you to flow and wave!"

"Liquid, by my will I command you to flow and wave!"

The first generates a soft breeze, the second makes the water stir a bit, the third does nothing at all.

And what happens if he keeps repeating the magical words over and over, can he get the water move where he wants? If he says "Wind and Water" can he command two elements at once? If he keeps asking water to chill does it progressively get colder and eventually freezes? Does it freeze if he asks it to freeze? What if he calls upon earth (using dirt from a vase)? Can he ignite a piece of paper in the fireplace? He gets a coin and tries to move it using the command "Metal, my will commands you to move!" then he replaces the world "metal" with others (earth, mineral, copper), what results does he get? Can he move something made of plastic by calling upon plastic?

Repeating the magical words helps not at all if they're all part of the same "unit of intent," and merely repeating the "spell" many times makes the same effect happen many times. Saying "Wind and Water" does let him move both elements at once, and a little bit better than each separately. Asking the water to chill repeatedly does eventually get it close to freezing—

—and then it blows up into steam (fortunately not on his face) and he can't do any magic anymore.

What? Not at all.

Temple tries and fails.

He paces and paces, did he imagine the whole thing? No, he didn't. He checks the book for any clue and after five minutes of reading and not finding anything useful he tries again.

The wind moves! And a bunch of flower petals appear out of nowhere right in front of him.

The hell? Temple thinks, but he smiles. He checks the petals.

What happens if he tries to move the air again?

Nope.

Okay, Temple thinks, maybe it's a mana thing. He writes down some ideas for the tests and waits for... ten minutes before trying again.

He is now drenched in peach juice.

Temple laughs. That was random.

Then he realizes, yes, that was random. Some kind of magical side effect?

There is no answer maybe Temple should check and see if magic can answers things.

He looks down at his juice-drenched self.

Better to do that after taking a shower and waiting. He wipes some of the juice off himself so his notebook doesn't get stained with juice and writes "check for magic ability to answer questions."

Then he goes and takes a shower, cleans his room, thinks more tests and writes down everything he can think of about the previous results (he seals the petals in a plastic bag in case he can send to analysis or something, some of the juice is stored in a small bottle). He browses the internet for an hour, searching for more people that got a magical result from the book, but doesn't find anything really promised. Some people claim to have gotten positive results, but no one mentions exploring it further. Temple might be a little disappointed in them.

And after the longest hour in his life, Temple tries to call the wind to move again.

Breeze! No side effects!

Temple sighs with relief.

He writes these down. He decides that... he can wait for fire related tests, if this the kind of thing that takes time to recharge, then Temple will do it after waking up. He performs the tests with earth and a coin.

The earth doesn't really move when he asks it to. It vibrates a little, maybe. He can move the coin (a little bit) by calling upon metal and copper, and plastic doesn't work.

That is okay tiny bit of earth, Temple believes in you!

(He believes more strongly he will be able to figure out magic better.)

Temple tries some other tests:

"I call upon wind, earth and water to move this coin."

"Magic itself, I call upon to do my will and move this coin."

He blindfolds himself and spins a little, enough so he can't tell which direction he is facing. "Wind, I call upon you to move in the direction of the North," he says, focused in the direction of the wind. Maybe it can move using information he doesn't have.

Wind, earth, and water fail to move this coin. Magic itself also fails to move this coin.

But the wind does know where North is.

Does the water knows where North is? He puts a water drop on a piece of paper and says "Water, my will commands you to move and show me the North!"

It skitters along towards the North but is absorbed by the paper before it can move much.

Temple pats the piece of paper affectionately.

He checks some of the previous tests. Does using wind, water and earth to move these three elements have a stronger effect than just moving wind and water? What if he combines wind and earth? Water and earth?

The earth inside the pot definitely moves more when he combines the three elements, and the breeze's stronger, and the water even spills over a little bit. Combining two elements is a little bit less good, with water being a slightly better combination with earth than wind is.

That is promising, Temple will follow with the testing he thought earlier:

“Wind, obey me, flow and fly as my will demands it!”

“Wind, please help, flow and fly as my will guides you!”

Does politeness help?

...not noticeably.

How about switching languages? Latin? Spanish? French?

How about changing the length of the magic phrase? "Water, move!" versus "Water, I command you by the power of my will to flow and wave like the tides of the mighty ocean"?

Spanish works badly, Latin and French not at all.

The short sentence causes some vibrations, the long one causes the water to drop the bowl onto the floor.

Temple cleans that up with a smile on his face.

(The smile might take a long time to vanish. Maybe it never will. Temple is doomed to a life of perpetual smile and magic.)

He tests if whispering or speaking loudly has visible effects.

Then he tests if he call multiple elements to boost another, "Water, I call upon you to wave and flow! Wind and earth, I call upon you to lend your power to give water the speed of the wind and the strength of the earth!"

The volume of the spell does not seem to have any visible effects, but calling other elements to help does significantly strengthen the spell. He might find himself covered in more than a few water droplets.

Temple also finds himself laughing. That was fun. Possibly dangerous, but fun.

He is about to go dry things up when he has an idea.

"Water, I call upon you to reverse your flow and undo the mess just created! Return to the bowl! Wind and earth, I call upon you to lend your power to give water the speed of the wind and the stability of the earth!"

Well that works all neatly and stuff.

And Temple is too busy giggling madly. If this is a dream, Temple dearly hopes he never wakes up.

Eventually, he gathers enough composure that he will be able to cast a spell without giggling madly.

Okay, the not-being-dramatic test: "Classic element known as the wind, I exert control upon you to move."

Then, the mathematical precision test "Wind, come forth and blow at a 45º angle between North and East." and "Wind, come forth and blow between North and East."

The first two work normally. Just before he casts the third one he feels a—tug. A very strange feeling.

And then his wall is suddenly painted blue-green.

Oh, okay. That is kinda of problematic.

Temple is aware he should be nervous or freaking out right now, that maybe his mom will react badly.

He can't, maybe that part of him broke because of magic (in one way or another).

Well, the real downside is that he is unlikely to be able to cast any spells for the next while. Not safely.

So... he examines the wall. It is uniformly painted? Does the paint look fresh? He searches for a imperfection that he remembers, it's still there? Does it look like a new coat of painting or that the painting changed?

Yes, no, no, changed.

Okay, he is in too good a mood to care. Part of him kinda wants to tell his mom the wall was like this already, but nah. He will just explain the situation to her.

Well, without anything better to do he will compare the multiple results and the things he figured out. Assuming the whole thing is some kind of video-gamey power reverse, Temple makes a conservative estimation of how many "mana points" he should have and how many he can recharge in an hour.

He browses the internet for magic, can he find anything that resembles his experiments?

There's nothing that screams "legitimate magical experiments on magic that requires you to ask" at him.

Oh, well. Temple can continue this.

I guess he won't find anything that points to "actual magicians community site"?

Well, Temple doesn't think he needs to wait exactly one hour until he can cast again, it is just safe (even if takes an eternity).

After 58 minutes and 30 seconds since he first looked at the clock on his newly colored wall, Temple repeats the second part of the precision test. "Wind, come forth and blow between North and East."

Then he does a test he was setting up during that hour.

They don't have an Ouija board, but Temple copies a design from the internet on a large piece of paper and finds a tiny crystal that he ties to a string (he considered a pebble, but he likes doing this with style, and maybe it will help.)

They have a dice cup and dices, for this test he uses a single die.

"Wind, I call the element of the sky for your speed and vision. Earth, I call the element of the ground for your stability and wisdom. Water, I call the element of the sea for your strength and determination. Answer this to me, safe and true! Tell me the result of the hidden dice!"

The wind does indeed come forth and blows between North and East.

And his divination attempt fails utterly.

Temple tries it again, but instead of the pseudo-Ouija board he writes down the numbers in a circle.

Nada.

Temple notes this.

Uh, what if he tries to have the crystal point north instead?

"Wind, I call the element of the sky for your speed and vision. Earth, I call the element of the ground for your stability and wisdom. Water, I call the element of the sea for your strength and determination. Answer this to me, safe and true! Show me north!"

The crystal turns to point North.

Ok, so maybe the crystal didn't interfere or anything. He will think of some new spell variations later.

Now that he thinks about it, maybe magic can't read?

He was going to do this later, but now that the question popped up in his mind... what if he writes "Wind, come forth, flow and fly as my will commands it!" and wills it to do magic?

The paper... shimmers a little.

But not even a little breeze happens.

Temple writes it again, also focusing. Does the shimmer happen again?

Nope.

Okay, shimmer is a new thing, so Temple is going to be distracted by the shiny.

He writes a third time on a second piece of paper, while also speaking the spell.

This time it shimmers and then starts being consumed by a cool cold invisible fire effect, and his spell becomes significantly stronger and more controllable.

"Eureka! More power!" Temple screams happily.

He takes the paper he wrote twice on and speaks the spell.

It's exactly as powerful and controllable as the previous one.

New spontaneous tests!

First, he writes the spell and recites the words a minute later.

Second, he wills the magic in the paper for a minute then he writes the magic words.

Third, he writes the spell without willing the magic in it, then he tries to will the magic into the words.

First test works just like the previous two, second and third test don't do anything to the paper.

He repeats the first test, but waits five minutes then, ten minutes, to see if the magic gets less effective.

What if he creates two different pieces of paper and recites the spell while willing for both of them to work?

What if he does the regular spell casting plus paper but puts the paper a meter away?

What if instead of repeating the written words he just says "Wind, obey these magical words."

It doesn't get any less effective the first time he repeats the first test, but the second time causes that weird feeling again, and a very strong gust of wind that messes his room up, and then he can't do magic anymore.

Okay... back on waiting. Maybe he will clean the mess.

Without magic.

Sigh.

He waits... ten minutes. And tries the test with two papers.

Only one of them works, and this time it catches actual fire after it does.

Temple puts the fire out.

Okay, he is going to...wait.

He reads the book some more, browses the internet some more. Paces around his room some more. Decides to write more spell ideas, but after being too tempted to give power to the words he decides to stop.

Instead he goes out and walks so he isn't tempted to cast any spells by being in public.

After walking aimlessly Temple finds a bakery that he hadn't visited much and eats a new kind of cake. It tastes good, but not as good as magic.

His mom is back home and it has been little more than an hour.

Temple considers explaining things to her, but he isn't in the mood, right now, maybe on the weekend.

He continues testing, at intervals that his observations deemed safe.

He cannot consume two different pieces of paper with the same sentence on the same spell. Putting the paper a meter away works, if he's focusing on that specific paper. The wind cannot obey magical words not spoken by him at the time of casting.

What if he tries to do this with a paper whose location he knows, but can't see?

That one doesn't work.

Does it work if he tries to cast it normally, or is it spent?

 What if he puts the spell into two different pieces of paper? "Wind, come forth!" and "flow and fly as my will commands it!"

The paper was not spent remotely, and can be used.

Two different pieces of paper with different pieces of the spell make it stronger and better still.

Yes!

He tests this property again by breaking it into three pieces: "Wind, come forth!", "flow and fly" and "as my will commands it!"

Better still!

Ok, so he is going to.

His mom call his for dinner, and then asks him to watch some TV, which Temple decides to actually do, just in case his "mana" can get to full again. But before the movie starts, Temple writes the first wind spell down.

Two hours later he gets back he tests the nearly two-hours old wind spell to make sure it didn't lose power during that time.

Then he starts writing the words "Wind, come forth, safely flow and fly as my will commands it!" in individual papers each, casting the spell afterwards.

All papers are consumed, and the spell is noticeably but not significantly stronger than three papers separately.

Maybe it was a result of the word "safely"? He is not sure is worth it to repeat the test with the same spell, not while his mother is at home.

Next tests. Figure out if he can get away with subtracting or adding parts to the written spell.

(Maybe Temple should just call them scrolls. You are wizard now, Temple. You have magical scrolls)

First, he writes "Wind, come forth, flow and fly as my will commands it!" and tries to cast the magic by just saying "Wind, come forth!"

First-and-a-half, if there is still paper left from the first test, he will use the words "flow and fly as my will commands it!"

Second, he only writes "Wind, come forth" and says the full "Wind, come forth, flow and fly as my will commands it!"

The first spell works weakly but doesn't consume the paper, the first-and-a-halfth does not work, the second one does.

And how does the second test compare power-wise?

Stronger than just "wind," weaker than fuller sentences or more papers.

What if he tries "Wind, come forth, flow and fly as my will commands it!", which he is just going to label The First Wind Spell (TFWS for short), leaving the "it" but speaking it out loud?

Works but doesn't consume the paper.

Uh, maybe it is a grammatical problem? Temple didn't even consider that each scroll needs to make sense by itself.

Can he add "it" to the incomplete TFWS scroll and cast it normally?

Yep.

Ok, next series of tests, calling the aid of various things to see which ones count as valid.

Then he will write multiple scrolls of "Wind, come forth", "flow and fly, as my will commands it!" and a set of various scrolls following the formula "by the power of [words]," where [words] will be any of the follow: Sky; Zephyrus; Boreas; Atmosphere; Moon; Sun; Mercury; Venus; Earth; Mars; Jupiter; Saturn; Uranus; Neptune; Pluto; Jesus; Buddha; God; Angels; Heaven; Magic; my words; my voice; my magic; the elements; and then various wind deities until it is time to sleep. He will keep safe intervals between, of course.

Then Temple will cast them using the following pattern: "Wind, come forth"+ "by the power of [words]" + "flow and fly, as my will commands it!"

Well, his sleep time will arrive before he's done even writing the "Sun" paper, but if he's willing to spend about four or five days testing those combinations he might be able to do them all.

Temple will do the batch he got (that goes up until "Sun") and experiment with those before deciding what to do next. He will experiment with those after school.

He wakes up early and the first thing he does in the morning is to sit bolt upright in bed and cast the TFWS. Relieved that it wasn't a dream, he then looks at the clock. He definitely could sleep some more but...

...Well, he could use this time and cast a spell to fix his wall.

He composes the following scrolls:

"Earth, come forth with your stability!"

"Water, come forth with your adaptability!"

"Change the pigments of this wall!"

"Safely undo the effects of magic gone astray!"

"As my will commands it!"

Then he casts the spell.

Lookit go! All neat.

Eeeeee! He can do magic! He will proceed his morning routine with a spring in his step. His mom asks why he is so happy and Temple just replies "the world is an amazing place."

He woke up early enough that he should be able to perform a couple of tests before school. What happens if he calls upon the power of the Moon or the Sun to aid his magic?

Well that depends on what exactly he's doing.

He wants to see if there is any noticeable difference when using: "Wind, come forth"+ "by the power of Moon" + "flow and fly, as my will commands it!" or "Wind, come forth"+ "by the power of Sun" + "flow and fly, as my will commands it!"

The first one is much more powerful.

That is weird... and his mom is calling him to go to school already. Sigh.

Okay, he can go through the day of boring institutional education, motivated by knowing he will be able to cast magic after school, sure.

This is gonna be a long day.

Okay, between classes he will just cast a simple spell in a quiet corner, just keep the practice. What happens if he calls upon the power of "Sky" instead of the "Moon"?

About as powerful as when he calls the Sun.

Temple writes down this result. He should probably pay attention to class... but his mind wanders away into thoughts of magic and what he can do, when he does pay attention to something it gives him an idea for a new spell.

Some of his friends wonder if he got a new girlfriend and if that is why he smiling so much. He just laughs.

He finds a quiet restroom and casts the spell again using "Zephyrus".

Works, and is stronger than when he used the Moon.

Yay! And Temple writes this result down and starts thinking on how he can use this indication to all kind of spells.

It takes sometime to consider the theological implications of all of this. He was considering tests that call the name of Jesus and Buddha...

...Heh, he will figure it out after class.

Which takes forever to end, and he doesn't find any other opportunities to cast a spell until he is finally back at home.

So... what happens if he calls upon the power of Jesus instead of Zephyrus?

Same as Sun.

Well, coming back to the scrolls he already wrote. How about calling the power of "Boreas" and  "Atmosphere"?

Boreas works as well as Zephyrus, Atmosphere works a little bit better than Sun but not much.

Okay... the greek myths worked, but not Jesus? Maybe that is a limitation because they are wind gods? But then, what does this mean? Are any of them real?

Also, Temple kinda wants to do more than wind tests now, he was going to check on the power of various planets and wind deities but that would take forever.

He hasn't done anything with fire, he should be able to set it up safely but there is no reason to believe he can't do it, or at least if he can't it will be because he can't do fire at all (maybe there is some elemental affinity in place).

Ooh, he will try flight! The most obvious super-power. He clears his room of fragile objects (there weren't that many) and puts the mattress on the floor for safety.

"Wind, come forth with your weightlessness! Earth, come forth with your safety! Fire, come forth with your speed! Water, come forth with your strength! As my will commands it! Grant me the power to fly!"

He's flying! Whee! He has quite a lot of control over his movements, too.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Temple takes a deep breath.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

(this might go on for quite awhile, even after the spell fades.)

The spell takes about eight minutes to fade, but fade it does!

And then Temple does a celebratory dance.

It goes on for quite a while.

He is still dancing when he sketches the next spell: Invisibility!

"Sun, you are the master of light! Moon, you are the mistress of illusions! Wind, you are powerful yet unseen! I call upon you all of you to grant me the gift of invisibility!"

He becomes invisible!

For about ten seconds.

That is short, but it was mostly so he could see if he could do it at all...

What if Temple tries the invisibility again, but instead uses only calling the sun and wind? and then only moon and wind?

Sun and wind lasts three seconds, moon and wind lasts a bit more than five seconds.

Temple guesses it might just be more complicated, and that he needs to work in the other elements too.

Well... What he tries combining the two spells and saying them both in order like a unified whole?

That depends very much on how he phrases it.

He literally says both spells one after the other:

"Wind, come forth with your weightlessness! Earth, come forth with your safety! Fire, come forth with your speed! Water, come forth with your strength! As my will commands it! Grant me the power to fly! Sun, you are the master of light! Moon, you are the mistress of illusions! Wind, you are powerful yet unseen! I call upon you all of you to grant me the gift of invisibility!"

He is trying to figure out how that would interact, specially with spell-duration.

Flight lasts about eight minutes, invisibility about ten seconds.

Well, on one hand he can't exploit multiple spell effects, at least not easily.

On the other hand: Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! He is flying again, this time he makes a circuit of the house.

Okay, new spell:

He gets inside the closet for darkness. "Light, I call upon you to shine and glow! Come to me to illuminate even in the darkness!"

And there is light! Sourceless light illuminating the closet.

Sourceless? Does he cast a shadow anywhere?

Nnnope. No shadows.

Weird. He opens the closet. Does the effect stay inside or is it following him?

It stays inside.

Hmmm... Temple wonders if he can edit the effects of am active spell?

"Light, I called upon you and you came to shine and glow! Leave the darkness and follow me."

Nnnope.

Okay. He will try the opposite spell.

"Darkness, I call upon you to shade and hide! Create a shadow that moves as my will commands it!"

There it is.

Cool, does it last long? How dark does it gets? What is it shaped like? Just a bi-dimensional shadow on surfaces or a tri-dimensional volume?

It's a bidimensional shadow on surfaces, shaped like a circle right under his feet, dark but not enough that you can't see what it's hiding. It lasts about a minute.

Next spell: He plants a seed inside a small vase and chants. "Life, I call upon you to germinate and grow! Make this seed sprout as my will commands it!"

Just before he casts he feels a tug—

Temple stops himself just in time.

He really needs to find a way to make mana potions.

He waits by cleaning the mess and then doing his homework, there is a lot of it that he neglected recently. He is suddenly annoyed that magic works like this and he needs to wait until it's safe to cast again; it motivates him to go outside. He is going to buy some extra materials for magical tests, but it's still a not-actually magic activity.

Two and a half hours later he is back home and sees some birds on a neighbor's garden...

He goes inside and writes a scroll: "Wind, home of the flying creatures! I call upon you to gain the power over to tame, calm and make a bird fly into my hand!"

The scroll doesn't take.

Did he feel a tug or anything?

Nope.

If he tries writing a regular wind spell does it take?

Yep.

How about "Wind, come forth to grant me control over birds!"?

Nnnope.

What if he tries "Sun", "Moon", "Sky" or "Nature"? (He will stop if it works).

None of them do.

Sigh.

Well... What happens of just try drawing lines in the "scroll"? Scribbles?

Nada.

Okay, he will get back to that later. He writes another scroll

"Wind, come forth with your weightlessness! Earth, come forth with your safety! Fire, come forth with your speed! Water, come forth with your strength! As my will commands it! Grant me the power of telekinesis!"

That one takes.

Cool. How much can he lift? How fast and precise are the movements? He will pick increasingly heavier furniture to figure it out (being careful not to break anything if the telekinesis stops abruptly).

Well, once he consumes the scroll, he can lift stuff up to abooout five kilograms, not very fast, for approximately seven minutes.

Does this mean he can't nudge things that are heavier? Does it give him any sensory feedback?

He can't nudge things that are heavier, and there is no sensory feedback.

"Wind, come forth with your lightness! Earth, come forth with your stability! Fire, come forth with your speed! Water, come forth with your strength! As my will commands it, open what is closed and locked!"

Scroll doesn't take again.

Uh, he crosses out and then adds, now the scroll reads:

"Wind, come forth with your lightness! Earth, come forth with your stability! Fire, come forth with your speed! Water, come forth with your strength! As my will commands it, open what is closed and locked! Grant me telekinesis!"

He will also pay attention, does it feel like anything more or less magical is going on?

Doesn't work at all.

Uh, what if he writes "Wind!" in a different part of the paper, and not as continuation of the other enchantment?

Nope.

Shrug. It is rather consistent.

Temple will perform slightly different tests now. He writes "Wind" on a long roll of paper and then casts the spell, does the entire thing get consumed?

Yep.

Now Temple tries that in a small piece of wood, plastic, tissue paper, construction paper, a dead leaf and a fresh leaf just to see if it works in principle.

All of them work.

And if he attaches a post it note to something does the something gets consumed too?

Nope.

Temple glues the post it to another post it first, then writes "wind". Then he takes a piece of paper and tapes it into a cylinder and writes around the seam "wind" such that the first two letters are on one side of the seam and the last two are on the other.

When the word is written across different surfaces it doesn't take at all.

Now he wants to test what happens when the paper is damaged but isn't confident on trying, it sounds like something weird would happen.

Well... if something weird happens it's likely proportional to the magical energy used... What happens when Temple tries to invest the magic into the scroll and aims for only a fraction of the usual amount?

Nothing, really.

...Aaaaand what happens if he tries the opposite? Putting more energy in the scroll?

That one... sorta works. As in, first the scroll shimmers, then it continues shimmering for a bit longer.

Does the scroll work properly?

Yep! Maybe a bit better, but maybe that's wishful thinking.

He tries again with The First Wind Spell instead, that ought to make the result clearer.

Not really, that was a pretty weak spell and the difference, if it exists, is not that great anyway.

He tries writing a TFWS scroll again, but he "pushes" the extra energy more strongly.

The shimmering is proportionally more shimmery.

Can he keep going on? Regardless of the answer,Temple will take another break, do some house chores (which he really should figure out how to do with magic) and come back maybe forty minutes later to cast it.

He can, in fact, keep going on!

For how long? After a minute or two he will put the thing down and do his chores.

He can go that long.

Cool and what happens when he gets back and casts it?

Stronger spell! Noticeably so!

Temple makes a celebratory dance, it goes on for a while.

Okay, he will try the TFWS again, but he will try to "push" the extra kick for thirty seconds, stop for ten seconds then try pushing it again for another thirty seconds and cast it.

Tug.

Temple's new nemesis, the tug!

Well, he will have to wait. Sigh.

He spends this time productively by thinking of new test ideas, especially revisiting failed spells that might work better with the new trick.

He waits about an hour before casting that scroll again.

Not as strong as when he'd spent two minutes charging.

Still, that is evidence he might pick up a scroll later and charge it with extra-power. Oooh, maybe he can figure out how fast he recharges or at least how long each spell baseline costs in terms of minutes.

Temple will try to do just that. First step, is creating a scroll, for flight if he has enough mana for that, maybe TFWS if he doesn't, then he will spend the mana until he feels the tug. Does this step work?

It does! And he can spend about twenty minutes dumping power into the scroll before feeling a tug, except the tug happens way too fast for him to really notice it while he's dumping the mana and oops the scroll is soaked through and turned into sludge.

Ew. He cleans up. At least it didn't explode or anything, which is a sign that scrolls can be damaged without causing something weird. Still, what a waste.

Well, Temple will wait about a minute before trying writing a TFWS scroll, he will pay very close attention for that tug. If a minute doesn't cut it then he will wait for another minute, and so on, moving to five minutes intervals after five minutes of failure.

After the second five-minute interval he can do it again.

Yay! He tries again after six minutes and then waits another minute if it fails, until he can figure out where exactly between five and ten minutes it fails on.

Somewhere between seven and eight, apparently!

Temple rubs his hand gleefully. Some laughter might be involved. He will repeat the process with just the "Wind!" spell and then Flight, followed by Telekinesis.

Wind takes about two minutes to recover up to, Flight takes half an hour, Telekinesis almost an hour.

Any difference from "Wind" if he tries "Water" or "Earth" instead?

Water and Earth seem to cost the same as Wind.

Temple will see if casting spells interferes with recovering the "mana" by casting Flight and seeing if he can cast "Wind!" Two minutes after that.

He will need to wait a while to recover enough to cast Flight, and will not have recovered enough to cast Wind two minutes after having done that.

Will he be able to cast it at all while Flight is active or he will only recover after that spell expires?

Only after the spell expires, as it transpires.

Extremely useful, next time he will see if there is a way to end the spell sooner as needed.

Next test: Is the recharge time influenced by whatever you are doing? Temple will try casting two TFTS after spending 16 minutes reading, listening to music (because sitting still is too boring) and jogging.

...it looks like it recharges faster after listening to music, and faster still after jogging?

What? Really? If he walks does the mana recovery look slower?

Faster still, actually.

Not that he is complaing, but... what? He repeats the reading and listening to music tests just to be sure...

Yep, faster, too.

Also at this point it's evening again.

Temple looks at this results... they sure look like he is simply recovering mana faster no matter what.

This does have the downside he can't quite trust his previous estimates of how much a spell takes to recover and... He yawns, maybe he could do a quick test with napping...

He wakes up at least four hours later. He finds a note from his mom telling him that she left him dinner in the fridge and he shouldn't mess up his sleeping habits too much.

Well, in this case, he will write a scroll for flight and charge it for a minute (if he can, and he will pay a lot of attention to that tug). How much better is a minute-charged Flight scroll when compared with regular Flight?

Much! He can go for quite a while with it.

Great! He will do that... for science.

Does he has energy for a ten-minute charged flight scroll? And how much better does that performs?

He does! It does not perform ten times better.

Uh, diminishing returns. Temple shrugs and writes this down, he will try to get a third data point later. Maybe he could check how much better multiple-scrolls Flight is...

...he could try coming up with a proper invisibility spell since the previous one didn't quite work. It would mean he would be able to fly outside.

Temple writes multiple scrolls, just in case writing a single one takes too much mana.

"Wind, come forth and give me the invisibility of air!"

"Water, come forth and lend me transparency of water!"

"Fire, come forth and lend me your power to aid me in this task!"

"Earth, come forth and lend me your stability to aid me in this task!"

All scrolls take.

So he will try cast it... and if there is no dreaded tug, how long does it last?

Given that he didn't charge any of the scrolls, not a whole lot.

It's long enough for him to take flight or land outdoors. And this was meant to find out the baseline. Does he have enough energy to do that again and then charge the "Wind, come forth and give me the invisibility of air!" for a minute?

Nope.

Oh, well, he will sleep it off then do it in the morning and test it in the afternoon.

It lasts about a minute longer.

Oh? What if he tries just a "Wind, come forth and give me the invisibility of air!" with a one minute charge, how does that compare?

Lasts a little bit longer than with the four uncharged scrolls.

Fascinating. If confusing. Temple really is not sure if he is spending more energy this way or not, but it is certainly practical information.

Okay, next thing to try... magic detection? Magic detection.

First, Temple creates a TFWS scroll to have something to detect.

Then he writes:

"Light, come forth as I call upon your power to grant me enlightenment. Grant my eyes the power to sense magic just like it was light."

After seeing if it takes or not he will try writing another scroll:

"Light, come forth as I call upon your power to grant me enlightenment .

Wind, come forth with your ever-reaching might to bypass the obstacles of the hidden unknown.

Water, come for with your powerful strength to wear down the barriers of the untrue deceptions.

Fire, come for with your passionate energy to banish the darkness of the undiscovered secrets.

Earth, come forth with your enduring stability to protect from the overwhelming revelation.

Grant my eyes the power to sense magic just like it was light."

Both scrolls take.

And he will cast the first one and then the other after the first's effect expires.

He can definitely see his scroll glowing.

Can he see his own magic?

Apparently not.

He writes another "Light, come forth as I call upon your power to grant me enlightenment. Grant my eyes the power to sense magic just like it was light" scroll, then a scroll with just "Water" and casts the first scroll to compare what the "Water" scroll and TFWS scrolls look like.

Then he will write:

"Light, come forth as I call upon your power to grant me enlightenment. Grant me the power to see my own magic and its strenght just like light allows me to see my own reflection."

"Light, come forth as I call upon your power to grant me enlightenment. Grant me the power to see any magic my own or others', weak or strong, close or distant, simple or complex, drawing from any element or source. Give me the vision to perceive magic just as well as I see light!"

The two scrolls don't look different at all to his magic-vision, and the two new spells he tries to scroll don't take.

Sigh. Maybe it's a property of magic inside people? Or he can only perceive magic outside himself?

Actually, he isn't at all sure other people have magic. Certainly someone else tried the kind of things he did, billions tried variations of what he did. He can't be the only one that got it right, can he? His internet search on that book remains unconclusive. Urgh.

Okay, what he is going to do now is go out for a bit and search for groups of people and cast the "Light, come forth as I call upon your power to grant me enlightenment. Grant my eyes the power to sense magic just like it was light" spell quietly to himself and see if any of them turns out to be magical under this spell. He will try that for an hour and change tactics if no one turns out to be magical.

Someone turns out to be magical! There's this boy returning from school, glowing in a different way than the two scrolls.

(Oh my magic, he is cute.)

Temple approachs the cute magical boy.

"Hello, I am Temple. Sorry for bothering you, but do you mind talking for a minute or so?"

"...uh, sure, I'm not busy," he says, but doesn't stop walking.

Temple follows. He takes a notebook and pen from a pocket (which he was carrying in case of emergency scrolling).

"You can treat this as an amateur survey. Don't be weirded out by the questions: First, do you believe in magic? And if yes, why so?"

"Sure, 'cause I can shapeshift since I was a baby," he says somewhat sarcastically.

Temple takes a look at him in surprise, then grins. "Cool, and I can do things like make the wind do my biding."

"That's nice," he replies neutrally.

"Of course, I said this is just an amateur survey. So the thing I am going to do next is clearly a trick."

He takes out a TFWS scroll and casts it quietly.

"Uh huh."

Temple will just smile at Sadde.

Sadde notices he has stopped walking. He resumes walking.

"So I'm Sadde, by the way. Why are you talking to me?"

"Magic detection! Just came up with it... I have been haphazardly testing things and I was trying to see my own magic, but couldn't and then decided to see if other people had magic, you are the first."

If Temple thinks that the plan "speak with the first magic person you meet" has any flaws, he definitely isn't showing it.

"Uh huh. I'm gonna need more evidence than that, though."

"Sure, what kind of evidence? I don't quite want to do anything more obvious than the scroll vanishing thing while in public like this... Maybe you could see if the magic detection works for you?"

"Um, if you think I can do this magic myself that'd actually be pretty compelling evidence yes...?"

"Oh, okay. Keep in mind I don't know if this works for you."

He writes a magic detection scroll and hands it to Sadde. Then he instructs the other on how to use it, warning about the "tug".

It works.

Okay.

"Okaaaaay I was going home but I'm sure mom will love to know I just got somewhere with the magic thing."

Temple does not dance in public, but he does manage to convey the sentiment through sheer joy.

"This is so great! How far did you go with magic? You mentioned shape-shifting as a baby, is that true?"

"Yeah, though I never got any farther than that. It's, um, not very thorough, kinda intuitive, nothing—I'd never tried just saying things out loud with papers like that."

"Oh, I only discovered it because of a book. Not a magical book, it was a very sarcastic fantasy novel, where the author proposed the experiment of casting a spell as a means to disprove magic in the real world, except it did the opposite for me. I've been experimenting with magic since then. There this annoying energy or mana or fuel limitation problem that I am still trying to figure out or at least find a way to measure."

"I've never run into a mana problem by changing."

"Cool, how does your changing work? I haven't tried anything like that. Once tried to making a seed germinate and felt the 'tug', be careful of the damn tug."

"Mm. It just—does? Like I want to change and I do."

"Huh, how much can you change? Are you using it right now? Maybe the spell picked up on the fact that you are using magic instead of being magical. I haven't checked to see if anyone can do it, but the book is moderately famous and there weren't a lot of fans in the internet claiming that the book's exercise worked."

Gosh, this Temple character is very chipper.

"Not using it right now, no, but I use it to practice my horrible vice of being genderfluid in a more thorough way than mere makeup."

"That is a more practical use than I expected. Can you use it to heal small wounds?"

"Mmhm, bruises and such."

"Cool, I wonder if spellcasting can expand on that, but I suspect it's something to be careful about. Hey, wanna come to my place and do magic experiments?"

"...nnnooooo, we've just met, you could be from a magic conspiracy wanting to kidnap me."

"True, for all I know you could be from a conspiracy too. Uh, well, do you want to find somewhere neutral where we can do magic experiments or something?"

"You're the one who approached me!" he protests. "Anyway, got a place in mind?"

"It was an impulse decision! I don't know how rare magical people are, maybe we are the only ones in the city! Well, there is that park nearby? I think we can get enough cover that no one would notice the scrolls disappearing, as long we don't do anything too attention-getting like flying."

"...you can fly?"

"Yup, it lasts like, 8 minutes by default and is a lot of energy, but yes! I can probably get it to work better, but I keep getting distracted by new things."

"How do you get distracted from flying."

"By trying to figure out how to stay invisible long enough so I can fly outside."

"Just go out in the evening, humans don't look up."

"Thought about it, even considered doing it by casting invisibility to go up and again to go down, but then I got distracted with figuring out how the other things work. I think I discovered how to extra-charge scrolls in the same day? My notes are back at my house, but I am sure something kept coming up."

"Hmm, fair enough, I guess, but still, flying."

"Oh, believe me, I know even just inside flight was great!"

Where is this the conveniently located park?

Just over there, and there they are.

"Okay, so, show me the goodies," he asks when they're reasonably isolated.

Temple doesn't have his notes, but of course here are some goodies: Here is what he has been calling The First Wind Spell (he pats the paper) and you can make a scroll by writing a spell down and willing the magic like this, and you can also charge it up further like this. Temple had no luck with things like invoking the power of the plastic but he managed to call upon the power of fire (hasn't set anything on fire yet), wind, water, earth, sun, moon, sky and so on. Writing on non-paper surfaces also works. Quality of paper apparently doesn't matter. This is his magic detection spell. This is the flight spell. This is telekinesis. This one is for light but he is not sure about its range...

He writes.

It shimmers.

He ooohs.

Cool. Does Sadde want to experiment further? See if they can charge up each other scrolls? Maybe they could figure out casting together?

Duck yeah.

"Duck?"

"I don't like swearing."

"Cute." Temple says sincerely. "Wanna try the scroll co-charging?"

"The what now?"

"Oh, I mean. Like, I said earlier I can charge scrolls. I am curious if the both of us can charge the same scroll."

"Ooh, let's try it!"

Okay, so they will use magic detection scrolls: one as a baseline; one charged for a minute by Temple; another one-minute charge by Sadde; and one charged for a minute by them both. Is Sadde okay with this test? If yes, then how does the twice-charged scroll behave?

Yep. Sadde's scroll is less effective, and theirs together isn't as effective as the other two added.

"I wonder if I am getting stronger? The other day I tried to time how fast I can get the necessary mana back and I noticed it was recharging faster."

"Means I'd probably be behind."

"But it could also be a bunch of other things. Maybe it's like a skill, or a muscle, or something about the intent of how we are pushing, or the fact that I wrote the scroll, or maybe something else entirely including combinations of all the alternatives..." By the end of it Temple seems to be talking mostly to himself. Then he appears to remember that Sadde is there. "So, want to try a variety of this again or something else? I almost want to have you try feeling the tug, but I am not sure it would be safe. Even if it just covers this place with petals or something."

"Sounds flashy. You said you had notes, do you have hypotheses listed in these notes?"

"Flashy? And I do have some hypotheses! They are a bit of a mess to decipher, though. I was writing them purely for myself."

"Lots of petals appearing out of nowhere would be flashy, I mean. Anyway, we should do this more systematically, I think."

"Oh, yes. Do you have suggestions?"

"Spreadsheets! With the exact time each spell takes, and when it was cast, and which spells were cast before we felt a tug, and the evolution of that over time."

"I have some of the times written down, but don't have those notes with me and they aren't in spreadsheet format." He makes a note of that. "I tried to time the tug thing by pouring all the mana-slash-energy-slash-whatever in a scroll then waiting until I could cast a spell safely, but stopped that after it became apparent that I was recharging faster and then tried seeing my own magic... granted I gave up on that avenue of research because it's annoying not being able to cast something."

"Not very scientifically-minded of you, is it?"

"Nope, not really. My general approach was generally, write a bunch tests down, get a new interesting result and then forget all the tests that I wrote. I mean, I am working on limited energy reserves."

"All the more reason to be systematic! So you can learn the most efficient way to test."

"I know but it is so distracting! The magic is right there, tempting me."

"If you do things more efficiently you can have more magic in the future!"

"I know." Temple pouts. "Well... if you help at least I will have some external pressure to actually focus."

"External incentives are always a great idea. Or, at least, frequently a great idea."

"Yeah, or at least working with two people... Uh, I wonder if it's a good use of our time to search for others..."

"It is! They could have all kindsa knowledge we don't!"

"We could try the method of walking around and using the magic detection on large groups of people. Hopefully you are an indicator that magic is sort of common, instead of being a coincidence."

"Once is chance," he nods. "Sounds like a good idea."

"Sure. Do you want to do that now or talk a bit more while we are still relatively private? I mean, I should cast magic detection just to be sure no one around is magical."

And he does that, looking around to see if the joggers or people walking their dogs have magic.

They do not.

"Is there anything we need to talk about that won't be speculation which can be resolved by finding someone more knowledgeable than us?"

"Nooot off the top of my head and not without my notes..." Temple admits. "We should, like, take turns casting magic detection to avoid exhausting ourselves."

"Sounds like a good idea. How long does it last?"

Temple gives him the duration, since they were just playing around with that spell anyway it shouldn't be hard to remember. "It might be a good idea to wait until we come across large groups of people, but that depends on how long we are going to search and we don't have to go through the entire city in one go."

"You have it active right now, though, right? We can just go look around for people."

"I do, no one in sight is. Do you know places with a lot of people nearby? I already searched around..." and Temple describes some places. He has been searching in a vaguely spiral-pattern.

"I'm not sure any pattern's really justified, people move a lot, but continuing that pattern's as good an idea as any I think."

"Sounded like the natural thing to do," Temple shrugs, "I skipped a couple of places that were too empty but I remember each ones in case the door to Diagon Alley is in there."

Sadde starts leading the way.

"I don't think I'm a metamorphmagus."

"Maybe, maybe not. The important question is to which House you would get sorted."

"Slytherin, of course."

"Ravenclaw here. Why Slytherin?"

"Cunning and ambition!"

"Ambition?"

"I'm gonna take over the world, of course."

"You forgot the evil laughter."

"Why evil, I wanna make everyone immortal and solve scarcity."

"It's traditional! But we can wait until we figure out a dramatic thunder spell. Also, immortality and scarcity?"

"Those seem to cover most problems in the world, yes."

"Wouldn't that be mainly altruistic instead of ambitious?"

"Why 'instead of'?"

"Sounds like the most relevant motivator," Temple shrugs, "at least for things on the scale of immortality and scarcity."

"This still does not make it mutually exclusive with ambition."

"I didn't say it was mutually exclusive, I said 'mainly altruistic'. Granted it is not a relevant trait for House sorting. I don't think any House has a specific claim to it?"

"You said 'instead of,' though, that implies it's an either-or thing."

"It is an either-or thing for which motivation is more relevant, but doesn't exclude multiple motivations being relevant. Meaning, you could be motivated by altruism and ambition, but one would still win out over the other."

"I never said ambition was the main drive behind this goal."

"Fair enough. I still think you should've done the not-necessarily-evil-but-still-dramatic laughter."

"Doesn't give the correct impression, you grimaced about it even without the laughter."

"Did I? Well, personally I think acting like a cartoon villain makes it less likely people are going to think you are real-world villain."

"Enh. Anyway, I don't think there are main drives behind this goal, or a proper rank. The ambition and the altruism work as motivations for different aspects of it: being ambitious determines the scale, being altruistic determines the project."

"That makes sense, although I can't see the appeal of like, actually taking over the world, sounds like too much work even if I would like to help with the immortality and no scarcity parts."

"That's why you're a Ravenclaw."

"Nope. I'm a Ravenclaw because I am curious about experiencing everything there is to experience including inventing new experiences. But I won't complain about helping with immortality research."

"I mean you're a Ravenclaw-and-not-a-Slytherin because you do not understand the appeal of taking over the world."

"I can see the appeal, it is just not enough given the time and effort of ruling the world even if you are non-interventionist despot."

"No I'm a very interventionist despot and it is very much enough. You can be my researcher-in-chief or something."

"Works for me!" Temple rubs his hands gleefully.

No sign of other magical people yet?

Nope! And his spell runs out.

He tells Sadde as much and would he like to cast the magic detection this time around.

"You know, I almost want to go around conspicuously using scrolls, but what you said about a magical conspiracy sounds plausible."

"Chesterton's Fence, man," he says, then casts.

"Who?"

"It's the name for the thing where, like, you shouldn't change the state of things until you understand why they are the way they are."

"I am not sure how it applies?"

"We don't know why magic is not common knowledge, and until we do it might be a terrible idea to make it so."

"Ah, I didn't mean like that. I was thinking about coming up with some story about being a magic trick - the stage kind - that we are practicing or whatever, except anyone who knows would be able to identify it." Temple shrugs. "I mean, still not a good idea because there might be Aurors that would take exception to us doing something so flagrant."

"Well, yes, that falls under the thing, too."

"The underlying purpose was different, but okay. No magic yet? Ooh, you know what we should do? Cast that at school."

"Oh, yeah, that'd be a pretty good idea—how old are you, by the by?"

"Sixteen, and you?"

"Sixteen, too, what are the odds."

"No idea... Ooh, and maybe all adult wizards are at work and wizard children too small to walk the street themselves are at home..."

"That still leaves quite a range, and we don't seem to be finding any of any kind anyway!"

Temple pats him in the back. "Hey, we found each other so at least magical people finding each other outside the presumed-magic conspiracy is still possible."

"Again, still don't know that you're not a conspirator."

Temple sporfles. "That is just what you would say if you were a conspirator tricking me into a false sense of security!"

"Likewise."

"Sigh. I guess I will have to invent truth-detection. After the dramatic thunder spell. Got to have priorities."