Ripple In Time - Chapter 3 Starting Flame

As I had mentioned previously, I was confident that my time ripple spell would work. And so it had. At the moment of my unfortunate demise at the hands of the humanoid giant, my time ripple spell rewound all of existence, bringing me, along with the rest of spacetime, thirty years into the past, essentially “reviving” me from the dead while simultaneously allowing me to keep all my memories intact. In this regard, I can say with pride that the spell worked exactly as predicted. That doesn’t mean, however, that all aspects of the spell had gone according to plan. For one, the disappearance of my clothes had been an unforeseen side effect of the time ripple. For another, I had not planned to rewind so far back that I was but five-year of age.

I will explain what I meant by that second point. But before I do, I just want to preface by saying that spacetime is by no means an easy matter to comprehend, manipulate or predict. It is nothing like the hocus pocus that the mages at the Magisterium call “science”. It requires a certain finesse, a certain genius, which I have by the way, in order to coax it into doing what one wants. And even then, even if courted by an exceptionally talented mage, which again I am, spacetime can be a fickle mistress. With all that being said, it is easy then to see how, despite the immaculate calculations of an exceptionally talented genius mage, one could still end up thirteen years further into the past than one had initially intended when one had set up a reality altering super spell.

Basically what I’m saying is that it’s not my fault I ended up five-years-old instead of eighteen. I’d like to see any other mage try to accomplish even half of what I did. Fools would probably end up creating a black hole singularity that’d destroy the universe. Scratch that, they’d probably just blow themselves up first.

I let out a laugh, then flex my two small, chubby hands into fists. As I stare at them, I feel myself coming to terms with my new reality.

Yes, this won’t be so bad. Sure, the plan had been to rewind back to the point where I was eighteen and fully an adult. But being five-years-old is still fine by me. I’ll grow into it. Literally. Though, I’m not really looking forward to going through puberty again. But I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

With the matter settled, I realize that there is still one lingering issue that I need to address, namely, the state of my magic. I need to know if the time ripple spell had any unintended side-effects on my magic, as it had on my clothes. Also, I need to know if my suddenly juvenile form would impact my ability to cast spells.

For those unaware, magic is a lot like riding a bicycle. As the saying goes, you learn it once, you never forget. And to some extent, it’s true. Even now as a five-year-old, I still have memories of what using magic “feels” like, of what I need to do to access each of the six branches. The problem is, like riding a bicycle, the prerequisite muscles must first be trained and developed before the action can be completed. Without leg strength, one cannot pedal. And therein lies the source of my uncertainty.

Having time rippled to when I was five-years-old, my “magic muscles” may have atrophied to such a degree that I’m no longer sure what magic, if any, I’m currently able to exercise. Can I use basic spells? What about the more powerful and complex ones in my arsenal?

For a normal mage who finds himself in such a situation, he may experience great consternation at the potential loss of his repertoire. For me, well, geniuses don’t have such worries, I suppose. Rather than fret from the uncertainty of the situation, I take the logical step to try and find the answer, as is my style. I decide to do a quick experiment to test my magic levels. Looking around, I find a small leaf and pick it up. “This’ll do.” I close my eyes, focus on the leaf and whisper, “Flame.”

Flame, a tier three spell of the Thermal Branch of the Six Fold Path of Magic, and about as straightforward as a spell can get. Concentrate the thermal energy around an object until it combusts then manipulate the resulting fire as desired. A literal warm-up spell that I have casted a thousand times, one I could cast in my sleep. Simple. Or so I think.

As I continue to concentrate, I can feel my body manipulating the thermal energy in the surroundings, coalescing it into a steady stream that moves towards my hand, then to the leaf. For a moment, I smile as the familiar feeling of flowing mana returns to me. It is the same as feeling blood flow through one’s veins. It is faint and only perceptible when one is very still, but there is a vitality about it, a sense that one is truly alive. I hold onto that sense, knowing from experience that the climax is fast approaching.

When the climax does hit, my eyes open wide and focus onto the leaf. As expected, it spontaneously combusts into a small, red flame. I smile, glad to see that my magic still works. But then a second later, my smile vanishes.

Without warning, a jarring pain shoots up my arm. I can only describe the feeling as having every capillaries in my arm torn out one at a time. The pain is excruciating, and I let out a shrill scream followed by a steady stream of curses. I instantly let go of the leaf, and it falls, whereupon hitting the ground it rapidly expands into a ball of fire the size of a horse. I stumbled backwards to avoid the explosion and being burned alive. Then I watch stupefied as, within fractions of a second, the fire dissipates, leaving behind only a thin trail of smoke in air and some burnt black residue on the ground.

“Well, that’s new.”