The room went silent after Isabelle's question.

“Wait, hang on,” my mother started. “Are you sure about that? He is still only eight, and you are always away.” I looked towards my dad, waiting for him to say something as well. It took a moment before he noticed my gaze.

“I can still teach you when I'm not working, and we still have sword practice in the evenings,” he said. “Elias, what do you want to do?” he finished. I took some time to think. It had only been a few days since I got here, and I want to explore this new world I have found myself in. and I figure that the best way to do that is to train, and here we have someone offering to teach me.

I looked towards them again, cleared my throat, and spoke, “I want to learn magic! Please teach me!”

——

Isabelle left soon after we had finished dinner. My mother was going to drop me off at her house the next day after breakfast to start training. My dad has also told me we would train swords tomorrow night when he got back from work, but tonight I needed to rest it was big day tomorrow.

A couple of hours later, I sat alone in my room trying to focus on the mana I felt the day before. Last time it was so easy to feel, but now it only felt like a flickering candle flame in my stomach

Had I not yet recovered, or was something wrong with me? I still felt sore and tired from using up all my mana like that. I decided that there was nothing I could do on my own.

I was going to meet Isabelle tomorrow, and I could ask her about my current condition. I took a look around my room and spotted the large wooden sword again.

I picked it up with both hands, held it pointing straight up. It was heavier than I thought. I took a few swings, and it felt natural.

From the back of my head where this body's emotions leaked through, I received insight on how to hold the sword and how to stand. Like muscle memory being activated and reabsorbed, I started following a familiar routine I didn't remember ever doing and was swinging my sword in a practiced motion.

It was far from great, but there was a routine and technique in there. This was fun...really fun, I thought to myself, not knowing if it was Elias's thoughts or my own. But at this moment, it didn't matter, all that mattered was... I felt like a badass.

——

The morning after, Anna took me to Isabelle's house. On the way, I finally got to see the rest of the town we lived in. Our house was on the outskirts and had to go across town to reach Isabelle.

Even though it was early morning, the town was busy, people were moving around, shopping, working. I saw children playing in the streets, and a group of them waved at us.

I obviously didn't recognize them, so I pretended to not notice them, but I made a note to ask Anna later. She also received several greetings from people when we passed.

The town was surprisingly clean and lively, I could smell fresh bread being baked from one of the houses on a busy street.

Towards the center of town, I spotted a tall clocktower. It didn't remind me of any church, just a tall tower with two people standing inside.

“What's that for?” I asked my mom, pointing towards the tower. It took her a moment to spot what I was pointing towards.

“That's the watchtower. If a monster horde moves towards town, they alert us to seek shelter,” she explained. “Does that happen often?” I asked, looking towards the tower with two men standing inside.

She gave me a tight smile and said, “Unfortunately more often than we would like.” She looked away from me, and she looked sad for a moment before shaking it off with a smile and said, “Come on, let's keep going.”

——

We finally reached the other side of town and arrived at Isabelle's house. It looked like two houses built together. The larger one was two stories high with several windows along the wall and it reminded me of a smaller hospital.

The connected smaller building reminded me of our house but smaller. The grass looked freshly cut, and there was no mess in sight. Maybe she decided to clean up when she returned home.

The door to the small house opened, and there stood my sapphire-haired teacher. “Good morning, Isabelle!” Anna shouted from where we stood. “ Elias, I will come pick you up later. Be good now,” she said before leaving.

I greeted Isabelle, my new teacher, and followed her inside to what seemed to be her house. It was small with only one bed, a kitchen corner, and a table, cosy was the only word that came to mind.

After sitting down at the table, Isabelle looked me up and down. “Have you recovered from yesterday?” “I feel better, I think. Still sore,” I said, rotating my arm and shoulder a bit.

“How much mana have you been able to recover? How does it feel if you try and sense it?” she responded after some thinking.

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I closed my eyes and focused on my stomach. Instead of a flickering candle, it felt like a steady candle flame burning, trying to grow bigger. I explained what I felt to her. “Interesting visualization of your mana, I can see how a burning flame is a good shape for it to take. Me, myself, I see a torrent of wind when I focus. In the end, it's only there to help you imagine the flow and tell the quantity you have.

“We are going to start today with you learning how to absorb more mana into your body.

My eyebrows lifted. “So I don't have to just wait for it to come in on its own?” After waking up from my mana loss, I was too tired both physically and mentally to even try anything. I just felt better over time, so I assumed it was a waiting game. But if I could learn to absorb more mana...

“What is the limit to how much mana someone can hold? You mentioned before that I would have been able to fly if I could wield more, right?”

She smiled and said, “Correct. The limit of mana can depend on many things, talent, genes, or just dumb luck. In the end, however, the ones who can wield it the best are the ones who work for it! And that's what we are going to start with today!” she said with a grin.

A shiver went down my spine at that. Elias clearly had some fear for this woman, but she is offering to teach me magic, so we are just going to get through this! “Please instruct me!” I finally answered with the same grin.

——

We eventually went outside where Isabelle had set up what looked like a training area with a fence surrounding it and some training dummies made out of wood. The dirt was kicked up and was clearly already well-used. We sat down on the ground that was dry under the morning sun.

“Now I don't know how much your parents have taught you or what you remember, but let's start with the basics,” she said, waiting for me to nod.

“Start by closing your eyes and try to sense the mana around you.”

I closed my eyes and tried to sense the same feeling around me that I could feel from my stomach... Nothing. “I can't feel anything.”

In front and back of me, I heard a quiet “Fwomp.” “Try now,” she said. I did as instructed and tried to expand my senses.

Breathing deep, I focused on the flame in my stomach and sensed parallel around me. There it was! Two flames in front and behind me. “I can feel it!” I opened my eyes and saw two small purple and green flames on each side of me. “What are these?” I asked her raising one of my eyebrows.

“Haha, you got me. Starting to feel ambient mana is easier said than done. But it's easier to sense focused mana, so this is how we start. Now close your eyes and point to where you feel it.

——

We continued like this for an hour before I was sweating. I was sitting still and wasn't using any mana, but it was exhausting. Eventually, I had gotten the knack of it and could sense it even when the flames she made were smaller and weaker.

“That's enough for now. Let's do something else,” she said, standing up from the ground and brushing the dirt off her pants.

I got up, following her motion and stretching. I felt less sore, and it did feel like I had a bit more mana than this morning. “What's next then?”

She put one finger to her cheek and tilted her head in thought. “I would like to see what you did to blow up that tree before.” She then pointed towards a log with an angry face painted on it. “Defeat the evil monster, Elias!” she said with a stoic and confident voice. My ears turned red from embarrassment.

I raised my palm towards the log and imagined the blast. This time I was careful with how much mana I dragged out. I focused the mana in my palm, imagining it spinning with speed and gathering more energy.

Nothing took shape in my palm, but that didn't happen before either, but I could feel the warmth inside my hand. I imagined the ball of energy stop spinning, and then I fired. The yellow bolt shot out of my hand, this time it was smaller but with the same speed, it struck the log and with a “BANG!” broke it to pieces. The blast was smaller this time, but the effect was undeniable.

Isabelle looked at the now broken log and whistled. “Wow, good job!” she said. I felt embarrassed again from the praise but decided that it was a good job, not that I had seen any other mage cast anything besides my mother's scan magic and my dad's tinder spell.

“Isabelle, can you show me one of your spells?” I finally asked her. She smiled at the question. “Sure thing. Take a step back! Let me motivate you.”

She raised her hand, and her eyes turned bright green; she started chanting. “Forming wind, cut my enemy,” she chanted, and a blade of wind shot out, cutting the remains of the blasted log in half.

“WOW!” I Exclaimed as the wood slammed into the ground. But why did she chant? None in my family had done it before, so I asked.

“Hey, how come you had to chant to cast that?” She smiled and looked down towards me. “I didn't have to, but it helps form the spell. Words have meaning for you, and if you say them aloud, it helps your mind in shaping the spell.

"Forming wind, cut my enemy" are triggers to help me get the spell right. For complex effects, it's ideal to chant something to assist you. Forming wind into a blade can be easy in practice, but for it to cut something you see as an enemy is not,” she explained.

So chanting was a tool mages used to cast their spells. A thought struck me, when my favourite characters in anime chanted their attacks, it always sounded cool. But what if I could use that here to cast more effective spells?

I closed my eyes and felt the mana I still had in my stomach after tje blast, it was lesser but still quite a bit remained. Should I try it out now, or wait until I learned to absorb more?

My childhood memories overcame my common sense, and I took a stance, something easy that didn't need all my mana to work. I chanted loudly “ENERGY BULLET!!”

I spread both my hands out and imagined two balls shooting out in quick succession, but two didn't come out. The first two came out, and then two more and two more until I was rapid-firing magic blasts towards the dummies.

“BANG! BANG! BOOM!” and they continued to strike. I focused hard, imagining it to stop, but they kept shooting out. I slammed my hands into fists and felt the heat stop.

“Holy shi...” I caught myself with a foot forward, preventing myself from toppling over. Not passing out again! I thought to myself.

“Wow, kid! That was not what I expected, and look at you still standing.”

I looked up at her, hands on my knees, breathing heavily. Smirking, I gave her a thumbs up and a confident smile. “There's more where that came from.”