Back to Jack's home, in the port town of Bravo.
Now properly dressed, Jack had repeatedly attempted to go to sleep with yet no success. He wanted to use the wasteland as a testing ground for the pressure.
Keeping his eyes closed, he began to plan how to actually use the pen to make charms. From his previous experience with the metal ink, he made the safe assumption that he didn't have much mana.
So he wanted to make them store energy on their own; by doing so, he could use them whenever he wanted.
And since the spell could work if it's simply written with the pen in plain English, he came up with the first part of the spell.
It was quite simple: "If the word 'Ignite' is spoken, activate." But then came the first question.
Will it really activate only when spoken? Or the same as before?
He remembered many different shows and comics on magic, and he tried to find the ones that matched his current situation the closest.
Only two came to mind: a show where magic was written down in the forms of runes and symbols that tell it what to do, and another in which magic was like a programming language.
Of course, he didn't stop there and thought about the pressure itself, but it seemed like something a fairy tale would have: mage comes about, speaks what he wants, and poof! Magic!
With the little knowledge he had, he took the two and attempted to come up with an idea.
First he would write it inside of the activation line like this: "If the word 'Ignite' is spoken, activate(Let there be fire)."
But then how do I make it use its own mana? Oh!
He then changed the spell to be: "If the word 'Ignite' is spoken, activate(Let there be fire) Using stored mana."
No... Let's move it back a little. "If the word 'Ignite' is spoken, Using stored mana, activate(Let there be fire)."
Jack opened his eyes and stood up, took another piece of paper from the cabinet, and sat down at the table.
He couldn't contain his desire to attempt to make this charm; it was the only thing that took away his current boredom as well.
But how do I make it store the mana?
Jack stood there looking at the paper, thinking. He eventually came to the conclusion that he should write it the same as before.
If the spell didn't activate and still took his mana, then it would have stored it. As for how much it was, he didn't know.
He took the pen and began to write, but not before he ripped the paper into three smaller rectangles.
Beginning his writing, he wrote with the desire of storing mana into the writing for later usage. The ink came out much differently from before; it also took a lot of energy from Jack.
It was like having your blood taken when you are at the doctor: draining and weird, especially if you don't feel the needle.
The ink glowed in a white light and was thick; you could light up a small area around the paper with this.
Eventually Jack was finished. With his previous experiments, he felt almost as drained as before, but he could still walk around. The charm itself took about forty-ish percent of his total.
On it was written in plain English, following the longer part of the rectangular charm, in semi-decent handwriting: "If the word 'Ignite' is spoken, Using stored mana, activate(Let there be fire)."
Jack began to smile as he picked the charm and walked outside towards the well. The streets were as desolate as before, with no one else on it—perfect for magic experimentation.
He went near the well and drew some water just in case of an accident, and then he held the charm towards the empty street, keeping it as far away from his body as possible.
Here goes... "IGNITE!"
The charm began to quickly heat up the air. Jack, feeling it, dropped it and stepped back.
In less than a second, the air lit up in a chaotic orange centered around the words, and within the same second, it turned bluish before expanding into a flame the area of a hand and a half in length.
Heh... This is even better than I expected.
Jack sat down near the well and began to drink from the bucket.
I think the quote was 'Watch a true magician!'
He kept grinning while sipping on the water.