Neat! So for ones he should be thinking of things that are smaller than making a sandwich, and for twos he can get things of that level. What can he think of that's smaller than making a sandwich…

Well, maybe he can try getting rid of the crumbs that were left behind when the sandwich appeared in his lap with no plate. After he finishes eating.

The one handles this just fine.

Oh cool. Can he use a one to clean his teeth? Brush his hair?

Yes and yes.

Okay, so now he's got three ones and two twos. He can probably get at least another two from smacking his face, then - he's not sure where to go from here. He doesn't really want to meaningfully injure himself, not until he figures out how many points he'll need to do healing, but for now there's something pretty amazing about literally slapping magic out of himself like he's a video game monster.

By the time he gets bored he's produced nine more rocks, one of which is a two-pointer.

Okay, cool. That's enough that his hands are meaningfully full when he cups them around his drops magic rocks. He picks out one of each kind to keep on his person and gets out a pillowcase to dump the rest into. Probably he should secure them slightly better, but - his mom doesn't snoop on him, and even if she did find these he's pretty sure she wouldn't figure out what they're for, and even then he's still pretty sure she'd be chill.

Maybe he shouldn't let her find out about the pain thing, though, that might freak her out.

Whatever, the pillowcase will do fine.

It's pretty easy to settle into a pattern, over the next few days. Most of the time, he doesn't actively think about making magic - it happens naturally when he stubs his toes or gets papercuts, though, and he takes to making sure he has easy places to discreetly store it on the spot. (It's surprisingly appealing to just have the magic and not even use it.)

He isn't sure what to tell Sylas, though. It sounds pretty unbelievable, and even if he's able to get Sylas to believe him, he'll definitely freak out over the details of how getting magic works. Maybe he can do it once he unlocks the three-pointers? Then he'll be able to show off, at least.

About a week after he found the first six-pointer, he wonders if he can figure out what the rocks are made of and if he can break them. He definitely can't snap them in two with his hands… maybe he can smash one with a hammer?

THAT WAS A BAD IDEA

Okay, so on the plus side, now he knows how to get a three. And a couple ones - looks like banging his thumb was just past the threshold. And he can still move his thumb okay (that's worth a two, when he presses it against the side of his forefinger), so it isn't broken…

He should still probably try healing it.

A two does the trick.

Okay, cool, good to know. He… should probably test how that does on cuts before he tries cutting himself for magic.

The weird rocks offer no comment on this.

Yeah, he didn't expect them to. They're pretty quiet, which makes sense, given that they're rocks.

… Then again, he hasn't exactly asked them for comment.

Holding a one-pointer and a two-pointer in his hands, he wishes for some sort of guide. The player's handbook of weird magic pain rocks, or a table of rock shapes and what pain levels and wish sizes they correspond to, or maybe even a note that whoever left that six-pointer might have left for whoever found it.

Nope.

Well.

He does have a three-pointer. It's possible he just hasn't been applying enough magical oomph and this one will do the trick… at the cost of using up his only three-pointer. He's hesitant to use it before he's made another - it feels wasteful.

Maybe he should try thinking about this more logically.

If he doesn't use the three-pointer now, he probably won't use it at all until he's able to make them reliably. Unless there's an emergency and he has it on him? … he can put off deciding whether to keep it in his pocket or in his stash until he's decided whether he wants to try using it to get a cheat sheet.

And if he gets a good cheat sheet, then maybe it'll have a guide to churning out threes or even (he shudders a little) fours. He hopes that he can make fours; he'd feel like a pretty shitty wizard if he was capped at less than half his full potential on account of wussitude. Maybe it won't be that bad if he's expecting it? It'll make it harder for him to apply the required force, but… maybe if he leans really hard on admiring the pain through his magic senses, thinks about the rewards of magic - and magic healing especially.

Then again, he might get a bad cheat sheet. He's not sure what to do about that possibility or how he'd even tell if the cheat sheet was bad.

He's starting to feel like the logic is telling him to try the three. He picks it up and…

Nothing happens.

Oh. Okay.

He should probably think about what sorts of things he wants to try the three on. Maybe he can let that sit on the backburner while he does more magic experiments?

There was one that occurred to him while he was thinking about how to possibly make a four. He reaches down to his inner knee and pinches the sensitive skin with his nails, "watching" the pain increase until it's just before the threshold for a two…

Then bites down on his lip, again being careful to not cross the threshold.

He's able to make a two-pointer and a couple ones.

Cool! That means that even if pain past the threshold for threes (threeshold?) isn't something that he can deliberately inflict on himself, he can give himself a bunch of more manageable pains. It'll still add up, but the idea of spreading it around his body still sounds a lot less scary.

On to the next test. He pinches his leg again, this time hard enough to make a two. Can he make ones instead?