Alice woke up early. She couldn’t stay sleeping knowing what was happening today. Today she was going to start training with her dad! Even if she wasn’t sure exactly what that meant. After getting her room clean, she bounced downstairs to see mom off on her way to town.
“Byeee! I love you mom!”
“Love you more. I’ll see you later.” she said before giving dad a kiss. Alice had already told them how she felt about kissing, but it didn’t stop them the last 20 times, so now she just made sure they could see her cringe. She watched as her mom walked out the door before turning to her dad.
“When can I learn to be like you!”
“You’ll never be as good as me but, maybe with a lot of hard work you might be able to come close,”
Before she could respond the door opened again.
“Nope. Not one person is leaving for town.” Alyssa said while making an overdramatized ‘X’ shape with her hands, “Bad things are going to happen there and we’re not going to be a part of it.”
“Think it’s that damn cult making trouble?” he said while getting visibly annoyed.
“Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean everything is their fault,” Alyssa playfully rolled her eyes, “could be a plague, or a backed up sewer system for all we know. You don’t have to jump to conclusions.”
“Why do you think something bad is going to happen?” I wonder.
“I don’t think something bad will happen, I know it, I can feel it in my bones. But on the upside, this means I can spend more time with my wonderful daughter and maybe even help with your training.”
*****
“Now, Alice do you know what magic is?”, Alice’s mother questioned while pushing up a pair of glasses that materialized out of thin air a few seconds ago.
“That!” Alice shouted while pointing at the witchcraft before her. If that wasn’t magic she didn’t know what was.
“Nice try, but this technically isn’t magic. It’s classified as a miracle.”
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“What’s the difference? Magic is magic.”
“No and yes, there is one small yet very important difference: A miracle is the magic of a god. For example, if you were to pray for a fireball That is a miracle. But, if you make the fireball yourself, that’s magic. And naturally, miracles are normally too powerful for use outside of emergencies, the fireball you get from a miracle would probably be enough to destroy an entire city, at the very least.” After a short pause she continued. “I’m going to be teaching you magic and the first step is sensing and manipulating mana, the building block of everything magical. Any questions? “
“Mmh..” Alice mumbled while trying to organize her thoughts, “Wait! How are you using miracles if they’re too powerful?”
“I said they are normally too strong, always make sure to remember that there’s an exception to every rule. Any more questions?”
“Umm… What makes magic possible? How can a human make their own miracles?” Alice asked after a bit of thought.
“Good question. A human and a god might be different in all kinds of ways but they will always have one thing in common: their soul. The soul is made up three parts: a very incredibly teeny tiny speck of divinity,the essence of godhood, a thick shell of solidified mana around that. The part of the soul not made of divinity is sometimes referred to as a persons mana core, since this is where all of a persons mana is generated. The mana that falls off the core is what is used for spells as it is already separate from the soul, while using the core itself is possible and can create stronger spells, it could also cause permanent damage to the soul, and while there is ambient mana in the air, the steps you have to take to use it are long and tedious.” Looking winded from the long tirade about the basics of the soul she took a moment to collect herself. “So in short you need to connect to your soul before anything else can happen. Even though the theory part of the lesson was rather short, that’s because a lot of practice has to be put into this. And just some information that might help you, a person is made of their body, mind and soul. The body acts as a way to interact with the physical world, while the soul is the animating force that makes you alive, your mind acts as a kind of interface between the two. The person I know as Alice is a combination of all three. Good luck!”
In her excitement Alice completely disregarded the last part of what her mom said. Immediately trying to find her soul. Then the realization hit her like a bag of bricks, she didn’t know where her soul was. She tried focusing on feeling the mana in her body, with no results. She tried mentally following her blood to see if her soul was where it ended. Perhaps breathing was the key? Apparently not? Through out many iterations of trial and error she noticed that in all these attempts, she could always feel something at the edge of of awareness, flitting in and out of view like a dancing sprite, but the more she tried to grasp it the more fluid it became, evading capture no matter what she did to contain it. It was a confusing situation to say the least; she couldn’t contain it, but she needed it to stay still enough for her to use it, maybe she could try—
“Time’s up!” Alyssa shouted, following it with two whistles from a small, wooden whistle, “This can be your homework for today. But don’t stay up too late, you’ll have all the time you need to get it right.”
Alice was feeling quite annoyed. Why was she stopped when she was so close! Alice looked around with slightly tired eyes. How long was she doing that for? She looked up at the sky and saw stars. They looked quite nice, but Alice couldn’t help but wonder what happened to lunch. How in the world did she spend a full day on barely anything!?
Still a bit annoyed Alice went for dinner . She also had to get ready for hunting tomorrow.
*****
“So. Any luck with that magic stuff.” Adam asked, looking particularly tired.
“No. But I was so close too! I almost had it!” Alice said happily.
“Well all the better. You don’t need any of that mystical mumbo jumbo for hunting, especially since that’s what we’re doing tomorrow.”
“Really! Is it fun?”
“Yeah, just be prepared for a whole lot of hard work. If you’re not tired tomorrow, you’re doing something wrong.”
“I’ll make sure to enjoy it! Also where’s mom?”
“Don’t worry, she’s just resting in bed for a bit — seems like there was a price to pay for playing around with miracles so much.” The hunter chuckled lightly.
After talking for a bit more and saying good night to her mom and dad, Alice went to bed, after all she had a long day ahead of her tomorrow.