The mana moved inside him, like a snake. From one point to the other, then to another one and another one, until it returned to its original position. It circulated in exactly the same way every time. Flowing along blood, it congregated in the brain and heart. While there were two points with the most concentration of mana inside Adam's body, they weren't the same.

The heart was like a vault, in which mana was segregated and sent to the rest of the body. The brain though, was more like a fireplace, where firewood was replaced by mana. nearly all energy sent there was spent and disappeared mysteriously.

Apart from those two, there was another phenomenon happening around him. His body acted like a swirl in the water.

Adam heard somewhere, that even though swirls are very rare in the lakes of Derdania, they are incredibly dangerous. At the surface, water comes in, and is sucked inside with incredible force, but on the inside, deep underwater, all that was sucked inside is dispersed across the lake, sometimes in a linear fashion, sometimes chaoticly.

Something quite similar happened with mana around Adam's body. Mana was attracted towards him, towards his heart. Then, as it spread across his body, some of it seeped outside. The mana was constantly being attracted to him and leaking from him, while it was a weird situation, it was true.

This cleared up something in Adam's brain, as a mage, Edgar must have felt this, as he agreed to help him. 'So that's why he seemed to be so nice to me!' Thought Adam. While this cleared things up, it also made Edgar's persona as a wise and polite man shake a little inside Adam's brain.

Ending his search inside himself, Adam moved to what proved to be the more difficult part.

At first, he tried to move the mana outside his body directly, but that was hard as hell to do. It moved a little, but not enough to call it a 'move'. Adam felt like a child trying to lift a heavy rock, it twitched a little as he tensed his muscles, but just as he loosened a little, the rock returned to its original position.

'Head guard told me to 'project' it outside. A weird word indeed, but I think I understand Mr Edgar's intention, I need to take the mana from my own body.'

Adam tried to move mana inside his body towards his right index finger, and he instantly regretted it. Mana burst out of his finger, making a small but bloody hole in it, while mana moved through his whole body to the finger, he noticed that it hurt, but not in all places. Veins and blood vessels felt secure, and unharmed by his rash action. 'Maybe I need to use them, just like mana circulates through my body?"

He tried again. This time, he tried moving only a small amount of mana, thru his veins towards his index finger.

Mana flowed nicely, accommodating veins inside the finger and waiting for further orders. Adam prepared himself mentally for some injuries, and willed mana to flow into the atmosphere. This time, unlike the mana that escaped his body naturally, mana in the outside world tried to suppress his own. He didn't retreat from the challenge though, he steeled himself and fought back, eventually winning against the unruly world. After a moment of struggle, atmospheric mana seemed to retreat a little, while it still fought against him, it wasn't that bad. Controlling it was easier than Edgar told him it would be.

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For the next few hours Adam played with his mana, he made a few discoveries, such as that worldly pressure is generated each time he manifests his mana in the air and is greater in accordance with the amount released. Also, he realised that when he leaks mana outside his body and clears space for more, his heart sucks atmospheric mana faster and faster, like a whirlpool hungry for more water. The less mana he had in his body, the faster was it sucked inside.

He made his mana move with different speeds and directions, changed its density, making it smaller or bigger on a whim, and changed its form drawing different figures in the air.

The thing is, he played with incorporeal mana. Form which doesn't interact with the material plane. Thus counting more as a trick, means to amuse children, than magic. To evolve it into something more useful, Adam had to figure out how to change its form, to one that could be more corporeal.

He arrived at the only possible solution, the only one he thought of, and could potentially perform. It was to increase the density. While he changed it before, he didn't really focus on making it as dense as he could so, now came a time for that.

In the next hours, Adam made serious progress, on how to make material projections. The trick he thought of worked well, when it couldn't compress further, he needed to will it to stay in that state. By itself, mana can't become tangible, but in such a compressed state, the barrier between tangibility and intangibility became so thin, that the outside could finally affect the mana physically.

This outside interference was the missing piece. When Adam punched his construct, his fist was stopped and he felt his control over the mana waver, and return to normal as it returned to its fluid, nearly incorporeal form. Controlling solid mana was too hard for Adam's current skills, apparently.

'That's problematic, if I want to defend using it, I can only withstand short bursts, not a continuous push.' He thought.

Now, Adam decided to create his first spell. When Edgar explained the process, he mentioned that at first, he needed to become familiar with the soon-to-be spell and name it, so that the spell is anchored to his brain by something.

The first spell he wanted to create was a defensive one. After all, what purpose does attack capability have, if you can't defend yourself?

To his luck, the arcane magic he just learned was very compatible with defending. But to create one, he needed to think of a form and name for his first incantation and train it enough so that the name acts somewhat like a muscle memory.

As Adam was making his first spell, night fell. By the time Derek started to worry about his nephew, the boy in question returned home.

"Uncle, take your bow and come with me I want to show you something!" Shouted Adam as soon as he barged into the house.

"What's the matter, can't I go to sleep already? I waited for you enough today." Barked back, clearly tired Mr Puffypaw.

"Come with me, I promise you won't regret it! I'm waiting outside!" Said Adam as he was leaving the cottage.

After going outside, Derek was asked to shoot Adam with an arrow, Thinking that his foster child had gone nuts, he hesitated, but who would refuse to shoot someone, when they want it? Especially after that, someone frustrated them.

So... Derek prepared his bow and shot an arrow towards Adam's leg.

"[Shield]" Uttered Adam, the name of his first spell scattered in the wind. As he cast, a transparent, bluish barrier rose from Adam's outstretched hand.

The arrow stopped as it encountered the magic obstacle, and ricocheted to the side, as the magic shattered, then dissipated after breaking out of Adam's control.