Free The Dive: Birth of a Wordsmith by Justin Miller Page A

I’d be without
you.”

    “ Oh, now that I can
answer. You’d be in a gutter somewhere begging for gild so that
you could afford that fancy tuition of yours!” She laughed
after saying that, and I couldn’t help but agree.

    “ Alright. Well, I’ll
be spending some time in the library for a bit. I need to really
think about what I want to do. The entire history of mages, and I
need to create something new..”

    “ See you tonight?”

    “ You know it. You’d
come bust down the gates if I was late.”

    “ I would, too!”
She laughed again, and we said our good-byes.

    Okay… Let’s
get started! Cheered up by my chat with
Denise, I went about looking for books. I wasn’t going to be
able to use the Spell Creation window for this. Anything with so few
runes would either be used already, or would be a failure.

    No, I needed something
new. Something only for me. The problem was that everything I thought
of, there was already an example for it. Lightning storm, lava fonts,
whirlpools, earthquakes, even gravity and void magic. When I asked
Luc, he told me that when he took the test, his creation was a
diamond golem. Of course something like that is beyond me, simply
because I don’t have the resources for it.

    As I studied the history
of the college, I began to realize that in the last few years, that
has been the trend. Rather than a spectacular magic, people have been
submitting spells that had some large requirement to achieve. Since
it’s a spell you can only do under specific circumstances, of
course it wouldn’t be something that’s been used before.

    What I needed… was
impossible. I spent the entire day in the library, and the only
result I could find was that nothing I’d be capable of casting
would be new. I even tried selecting runes at random and referencing
them. Who knew that there was a spell for the runes ‘A’
‘Yellow’ ‘That’. Apparently, all it did was
turn the user’s eyes yellow, but still.

    The energy I had gotten
from talking with Denise was slowly draining away. The only bright
side was, with all the studying I did, I earned three more levels in
Magical Knowledge. Maybe if I get enough levels in that, I’ll
get an answer?

    I pulled out my journal as
I walked, and at the corner of my awareness I could hear other
players complaining. Most of them had thought it would be awesome to
be a mage.

    “ I can’t
believe I died three times trying to cast that spell. My stats took a
big hit!”

    “ Yeah, it’ll
be easier just picking a fighting class.”

    “ Maybe we should try
holy magic?”

    “ Are you kidding?
The requirements for that are even worse. It’s not a matter of
effort. From what my friend told me, you have to actually believe.”

    “ So, the only way to
grab holy skills is to join religion? That’s lame.”

    I shook my head as I
passed them, shutting out their voices. They were still thinking of
this as a game… And maybe that’s it? Don’t
think of this as a quest. Think of this as proving your abilities.
You’ve already done what nobody else has, so just take that
next step.

    What can I do that nobody
else has.. Something from my world to bring into this one..

    I spent an entire week
trying to puzzle it out. My last week of tuition. I gained several
levels of Magical Knowledge with all the studying I did, but I was no
closer to an answer. Against all odds, it was Denise that gave me the
clue I needed.

    “ Why don’t you
just use some of the magic you use to get here?” She asked
innocently, after I had all but given up. “I know you said that
you can’t use your magic here, but maybe you could imitate it?
Surely that’s something that’s never been done!”

    I smiled to her, wanting
to tell her that there was no way I could use magic to enter a game
within a game. But maybe I can? I don’t
need to enter another game. Just make one. Something that only I can
do. A scholar and mage of another world…

    “ That’s it!”
I grinned