Adam and I walked out to the back of the house - it was a large fenced off area with a wooden shed built under the rocky overhang sheltering it from rain or snow, the garden itself was divided into what looked like three areas, two of which held plants - although one had what looked like a greenhouse covering the plants - a path made from slabs of rock let to each of the areas kept separate by short fences.
The entire left half of the garden was dedicated to small clusters of plants growing with no greenhouse whereas about half of the remaining space was dedicated to two long greenhouses storing various plants I didn't recognise - they had metal frames with sheets of what looked like glass.
Lastly, the remaining quarter of the garden located close to the sound on our right was a raised-up wooden construction with three steps leading up to a flat wooden surface with a table and four chairs - a device resembling a charcoal-grill stood on the right side of the steps.
"This place looks fancy…" I commented upon seeing the nicely decorated garden.
"Yeah - well - believe it or not, I have a considerable amount of time on my hand," he replied - despite his dismissive words he sounded proud of his accomplishments as he looked onto the evenly spaced-out crops - flowers and herbs littering the garden.
I followed Adam to the table where he sat down - I did the same.
"Right, so if you want to learn some magic - I guess I should explain some basics first..." Adam began, I nodded.
"Basically - there are two core types of magic, voluntary and involuntary." Adam explained, "So if I create a fireball and shoot someone - that's voluntary magic - but if I'm born with a magic curse that makes people around me burst into flames - that's involuntary magic." Adam waited for a response from my side,
"That seems kind of obvious..."
"Yeah - but for example, some mages can't turn off invisibility - or they can make their wounds heal automatically"
"Alright..." I Wasn’t quite certain about the concept of involuntary magic - if anything it seemed odd to mention something so random.
"Now - in order to give you a slight advantage of the average magician in this world - I'll tell you the inner workings of magic - granted we have pretty limited technology in this world - but with the help of magic you can find the information if you know what to look for."
I nodded uncertainly,
"Basically you have to think of your brain as a computer - the computer can accept commands in the forms of the various different mediums and calculate the way reality needs to be shifted to execute the given command."
"The concept known as mana is actually just a type molecule in the body - it's kind of like ATP in a way, the body uses ATP to move muscles and stuff - you need mana to process spells and execute them - the mana itself is created from calories in the body."
"So if I want to cast a lot of spells I need to eat well?"
"Essentially, yes - there are some downsides to magic, the brain-computer never really turns off - so unless you meditate or learn to control it in another way it will burn out - either from the brain tissue itself becoming damaged or your body converting all energy into mana."
"Is it really that bad?"
"Most mages don't live past thirty..." Adam replied - the mood turned sombre for a second before the smile returned to hist face - "Anyway - you don't need to worry as long as you don't overuse your magic too much."
I nodded.
"Right, next is the spell medium." Adam said - he scratched his head, "The only really important ones you need to know are...cyclic, runic, sonic, idolic, kinetic and cognic."
"The Cyclic medium consists of creating a magic circle with mana - it's the least specific - you can't produce complex easily, it's also the most susceptible to change since the circles vary depending on one each user," Adam explained.
"Runic is more powerful but less convenient - they are also not limited by time - so enchanting weapons and making scrolls is a possibility, the characters you use can either be existing ones or custom ones you invent yourself - much like the cyclic medium this one is also heavily reliant on your perception of reality."
"The sonic medium - unlike the other two can come in a lot of different varieties - singing, chants, instruments or even just words - if you associate mana use and a concept with a phrase, note, sound or word you can give that word power - you could make the word 'acorn' make people burst into flames."
"Idolic relies on your faith it items like potions - dust and artefacts to produce a magic effect - like brewing a potion that makes things turn into slime or a bag of dust that puts people to sleep."
"Kinetic mediums are also useful - it lets you initiate a spell with the snap of your fingers for example - really it's just like the sonic medium except with body movements instead of sounds."
"The cognic one is the hardest to explain... it's like using your imagination...for example, imagining the phrase 'health' could spontaneously create a health potion in your hands - it's powerful but also dangerous - what if you get pissed and annihilate someone by accident." Adam concluded.
"I guess I can't use all of them?" I asked,
"No - as a general rule of thumb you get to use one or two well, and then three or four are completely out of your reach," Adam concluded.
"Alright - so do I get to pick the ones I want to be good with?" I asked, Adam, let out a laugh in response "S-sorry, n-no ... you don't get to pick." He covered his mouth with his palm to try and hide the laughter - I just continued to stare at him coldly until he stopped.
"A-alright...ok...sorry..." Adam took a second to compose himself again.
"You just have to try them out...and see what you're naturally capable of doing," Adam replied.
"I see, what are you good at?" I asked - I was hoping it’s the same magic type as my one, he could teach me more then if I had a medium he didn’t.
Adam's cheeks turned a bit red as he awkwardly replied, "Cyclic..."
"Just cyclic?"
"Yep..." He replied avoiding eye contact.
"..."
"..."
"Damn, that must suck..." I replied,
"Actually, I don't even use magic all that much - so it's alright," Adam said with a shrug - his smile faded slightly though,
“Still - you seem well informed on the topic…”
“I’ve got some experience, I went to this fancy magic academy a few years back.”
"How'd that go?"
"...I'd rather not talk about it."
"You failed."
"Don't just assume that!"
"You totally failed."
"I quit of my own free will if you must know."
"Whatever you say."
"Right, let's check what I'm good at…" I suggested - "Alright - one more thing - the amount and strength of your magic is dependant on your mana -" Adam's explanation was cut off by me, "I think I get the gist of it… use mana to cast spells - mana is some sugar or something." I replied dismissively waving my hand away.
"Fair enough." Adam laughed, "First of all you have to make sure you're releasing mana - it's different for everyone, just try to visualise some way of releasing it." Adam explained.
"Technically you're not releasing mana - but triggering it to be transported, but it just seems that our monkey-brains don't like that idea so we just visualise it like this..."
"I don't need an in-depth dissection of everything, you know," I replied, fed up with paragraphs of fantasy-science-talk.
"Alright, alright - just one last thing, your mana will get thicker over time, but for now you're going to run low on mana pretty quickly so be careful."
I closed my eyes - at first I was uncertain as to what mana is supposed to look like - my first instinct was a blue liquid but that's just because of the typical depiction of a mana potion...
For some reason the image of mana as a white light came to me naturally - so I imagined white light radiating from my centre of mass out, "I think I’m doing it - what now?"
"Alright, now try a simple fire spell - you can't just come up with it on the spot - so I'll describe it to you," Adam explained...
Adam went in-depth in his explanation of every aspect of the spell I was meant to remember, from the colour - feel - temperature and even the speed, to imagery and words I have to keep in mind while creating it.
"Right... now make sure to memorise this spell as 'fireball' " Adam instructed.
"Okay - I think I got it…" I said uncertainly - I already forgot most of what he described.
"Now, try one of the methods..." Adam instructed,
At first, I tried the cognic method - no matter what I imagined - nothing happened, next I tried the kinetic method, I snapped my fingers creating a small spark which disappeared almost instantly.
"Alright - looks like that's one of your mediums - it wasn't too bad for the first time too..." Adam said,
I wasn't sure how to do the idolic or iconic medium test - so I picked a pebble off the floor and imagined the same spell from before....nothing.
That left the cyclic, I extended my hand trying to create the magic circle...Adam mentioned the image of charred leaves and the sun as one of the important things to visualise... but a leaf-shaped circle? That's a bit misleading... so I just decided to make a simple fire pattern circle - I opened my eyes and saw that I was in fact, creating a magic circle, it looked like suspended neon lights glowing an amber-orange light - "Alright - looks like cyclic is also something you can do, to fire it - try mixing in some kinetic - for example clench your fists or spread your fingers." Adam instructed,
I clenched my fist - to both the surprise of me and Adam what came out was an endless stream of flames, I could feel the heat on my face - even though my clothes. The entire area around us became illuminated with a fiery light - the shock seemingly broke my concentration because the flames stopped coming at very quickly.
I turned to Adam, "You promised a fire-ball, not a flame-thrower, glasses-dude!" I complained - “I can’t see myself casting this in a city next time I’m being attacked by masked figures…”
"I have no idea what you did there - but that was amazing!" Adam exclaimed, "...but how did you do that?"
"I kind of forgot most of what you told me to memorise for the spell...so I improvised,"
"Wait.... what do you mean...you improvised? - you can’t do that!"
"Well...fire is orange and looks like fire so I made the magic circle orange and look like fire...that's it..." I explained.
"Well, at least we know your dominant element..." Adam said seeing the smoke trail left after the flame.
"My what?"
"You see, elements are divided into four classes - rated from class A to class D, where D-class is stuff like air, fire, water, air, light, electricity or ice."
"C-class elements are more like... iron, grass, lava, sand..."
"B-class elements are less physical concepts - reflections, space, gravity, speed, music,"
"A-class elements are things like...time, memory, emotions, "
"So do we only get one?" I asked,
"No, most people can use a dozen or so - but only one or two are dominant." Adam clarified.
I created a blue magic circle with a wiggly outside, to look like swirling wind - when I opened my palm I created a massive cyclone, I shut my hand for fear of damaging the rock overhand.
"...A-alright...guess you may have two dominant-" I cut off Adam by creating a long beam of lightning,
"Ah...ok...three" Adam's voice began getting more and more defeated the more elements I tried - from the looks of it I can use any element from D to B, I haven't been able to time travel or make myself happy - "Looks like B is my limit..." I said.
Adam clicked his tongue a few times,
"You done showing off?" he asked jokingly.
"Yeah - I guess-" before I finished my reply I fell face-first into the wooden platform we stood on - tasting a metallic substance in my mouth.
I snapped back to reality a bit latter laying down on two chairs outside, "Thank God, you're alive..." Adam said relieved,
"What happened?" I asked placing my palm against my forehead where I felt a throbbing headache.
"You used up too much mana - I have no idea how much mana you have to be able to cast even that many spells - it's safe to say you have some unique magic abilities… but you’re not immune to mana depravation."
We decided to wrap up the magic lesson for now…
Adam and I sat in the garden - “So - what did you mean yesterday? About the other worlds?”
“Before I was born on Earth - I lived on this massive desert planet of slime-people, a few lives as human-like creatures, one super high-tech one, one basically in the stone-age - I lived at least two lives as a goat…”
“Really? How was it? Like did you ever meet someone from one world in another world?”
“...”
“...”
“...no…I didn’t…”
“Oh… me neither… I was just asking because I hoped my family from Earth world come into this world sometime - I guess it’s possible that won’t happen then…”
Adam’s expression didn’t change - but somehow I knew he was sad,
“Well…how is it to have lived collectively for hundreds of years?”
“I’ve been conscious for two-thousand-eight-hundred-eighty-two-years now - but allegedly we were in this loop for a lot longer than that…”
“TWO-THOUSAND YEARS?!” Adam exclaimed in disbelief - but as he looked onto my sombre expression he knew I wasn't bragging,
“Yeah… I can’t say I remember the details of the first few by now… but I remember my last twenty lives or so in great detail… but I can remember bits from every life, friends - family - deaths...”
“Guess that must’ve sucked…”
“I guess I just got used to it.”
A while of silence passed before Adam spoke up.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Well, I’ll be heading to town now, you wanna’ tag along?” Adam asked.
“The one from yesterday?”
“Yeah, but not the shady part, I’ll have to run some errands and stock up on supplies, you can go stock up on whatever you need in the meantime,” Adam replied.
We left through the modern-looking front door leading to a smaller front garden with several flowers, specifically these strange plants which stood vertically, coiling in circles as they climbed higher, changing from a pale white to green to vibrant red, where the red started thin, long, hair-like red strands stuck out.
“What are those?” I asked pointing over to the flowers.
“Weird aren’t they, they’re called spring flowers, because of the stem looking like a spring,” Adam explained.
“So, are they just decorations?” I asked.
“Sort of, you can technically make some very strong hallucinogen from the hairs,” Adam explained.
“Right, so not only did you bring an eight-year-old to your house in the middle of nowhere - with the promise of teaching them magic, no less, but you’re also cultivating drugs here.”
“It’s not like that - I just like the way they look - you have to appreciate the little goodness in everything, y’ know?” Adam laughed.
“I won’t be taking life lessons from someone with those glasses, glasses-dude,”
We walked down the hill until we reached a forest of tightly packed trees, the forest looked weird, the trees looked like at-least ten different varieties with colour ranging from dark red to bright yellow, but none looked green.
We walked through the forest - there was a surprisingly well-kept road leading through the forest - the leaves sheltered us from the hot sunlight as we walked.
Suddenly I felt something grab me by the arm - I looked back only to see what I can best describe as a loose collection of grass and leaves - stacked on top of one another into a tall wobbling tower, reaching slightly higher than Adam’s height.
“Oh got the plant is eating my arm - it seeks revenge on the vegans!” I exclaimed - despite my sarcastic remark I desperately tried to get my hand loose of the thing’s grip.
“It’s called a dryad. They live in the forest and generally avoid coming out.” Adam explained no taking his eyes off the creature.
The creature stepped closer towards me with every word it spoke,
“Yes - it is I, the mighty dryad of the forest, crawl before me mortal-” just as it was about to finish it stepped on my foot and instantly recoiled - “Oh - sorry,”
“Don’t…worry about it?” I replied uncertainly.
The top of the dryad turned towards Adam slowly, “I see you’re not alone today…” the dryad said leaning towards me, if it had some sort of spine, it would have to be broken by now.
“Yeah, this is my friend who will remain unnamed,” Adam said.
“Actually, if I come up with a good name, I’ll let you know,” I said looking at the dryad, “Bold of you to call us friends, glasses-guy.”
“Right, this is my unnamed acquaintance.” he reiterated with a sigh,
We continued walking - “I don’t know why, but it seems like Adam isn’t a big fan of the dryad thing…”
When we reached the gates we continued walking towards the centre of the town - it was filled with stalls and tents selling all sorts of items - Adam handed me a small pouch. “Well, since you don’t have a way of making money yet, here,” he said.
“It’s exactly ten silver, for comparison, I’d say one copper is about one pound, dollar and or euro,” Adam explained. “And one silver is one hundred copper.”
“Thanks, I guess, what are you going to be doing?” I asked.
“I have to buy some supplies and check out the florist if any of my orders came in,” Adam explained, before handing me another thing, a silver ring, with a blue gem.
“If you try to propose to me I’m calling the guards.”,
“Oh, shut up, it’s a ring of recalling. It’ll teleport you back to the house. Just use it of you’re done shopping or in trouble.” Adam replied.
“Alright,”
Adam left the alleyway and headed off somewhere, stepping out of the alleyway, I was greeted by many blocks of neat houses with pointy blue roofs, the houses were mostly built from brick and the roads in the town were paves with large white stone slabs, when I stepped onto what I assumed was the main road I could see that the entire town or rather a city was built at a slope going down from where I was until I reach a massive body of water I could only assume was the sea, I looked in the opposite direction seeing that I could already see the large walls and gate which presumably led out of the city, so if I wanted to find any interesting shops I should head down in the direction of the water.
After about twenty minutes of slowly walking down, seeing various carts and carriages pulled in most cases by weird ostrich looking birds, except they had a long grey feather and short beak resembling a chicken’s beak more than an ostrich’s.
Eventually, I made it to what was more or less the centre of the city, it was a massive open area devoice of houses and except for a few statues and a massive fountain, it was exclusively filled with stalls and tents.
The area was very crowded and actually quite difficult to move around in.
I walked through the stalls looking at several weapon stalls, and armour stalls.
Eventually, a stall selling something resembling bread caught my interest, when I approached the stall I was greeted by the large looking man, he had a fuzzy, dark red beard and was seemingly balled. I gestured at the bread and he said something to me, this was when I realised I forgot to tell Adam I can’t understand anybody here.
That was when I got a genius idea, I gesture to my ears and shook my head to show I’m deaf.
The man scratched his chin before showing me a one with his fingers.
I reached into the pocket and pulled out one copper coin before handing it to him, in return he gave me the piece of bread, it was more of a loaf, I tore a piece off and bit into it, the crust was crispy while the inside was soft and fluffy, the crust itself was seemingly flavoured somehow, upon closer inspection the crust had cheese caramelised to flaky crisps on it, the man was watching me this whole time - seemingly to get some feedback.
I showed the man a thumbs up to which he grinned and returned the gesture, thank god a thumbs up still means the same thing here as it does on earth… Imagine if it meant like “your bread tastes like ass.”
Next I moved over to t clothes stand, it sold a lot of fancy dresses, some casual clothing, It was a bit hard to pick something out, Considering my current size I had a choice between some skirts and shorts, obviously, I took the shorts. There was a grey-blue jumper which I also picked out, I repeated the same deaf act with the clothes merchant and paid fifty copper coins.
As I made my way past the other stalls I noticed a lot of merchants selling tall blue bottles of some sort, my first guess was that it was some sort of potion, but now I think it might be alcohol, I decided to buy a bottle to check it out.
The merchant looked at me before shaking his head and gesturing me to go away, that’s right, I forgot I look like a kid.
I sighed and moved on, I saw a sign with a big black boot, I guess it’s a shoemaker's shop, it was located at the very end of the open area.
As I stepped inside I was struck by the strong smell of wax and some other chemicals I wasn’t sure of. The interior was dusty and pretty empty except for a table behind which sat an older looking man hammering something into a leather boot.
I moved up to the till and just placed a silver coin on the table, shoes were always expensive back on earth, I guessed that trend would be the same here.
The old man took the coin, looked down at my feet which were currently in what I will refer to from now on as my starter gear, that being sandals.
The man slowly made his way through a wooden door behind him with the silver coin and re-emerge with three pairs of boots, a taller pair of sandals, seemingly high quality. A pair of light brown boots, they were pretty long but I think they’d fit, and what looked like generic black leather shoes.
I decided to go for the tall ones because I always wondered what those would feel like… they felt horrible, at least until I figured out I can loosen a string on the back to get some more flexibility.
Right, I got the clothes… what would someone typically get next… a weapon!
I went back to the weapons stall, and hoped they’d sell a kid a weapon… they did.
The stall belonged to a bearded man, he was thin and wore a metal breastplate, from the looks of it, excluding weapons I could never hold like great-hammers and long-swords I was left with the choice of a dagger, a wooden sword and mace, there was also a bow but the man kept talking about it, obviously I didn’t understand anything he said but I assumed he was saying it was old and potentially broken.
I decided to buy the dagger, it was made from what looked like one solid piece of some metal with a grim of leather and it cost me one silver coin.
Alright… that’s two silver and fifty-one copper gone, leaving me with seven silver and forty-nine copper, the clothes vendor even threw in a bag for free.
With a large sack of clothes, some bread and a dagger I used the ring to return to the mountain, at first I didn’t know how to use it but I just imagined pouring mana into it and I just kind of appeared back outside the house.
It's hard to describe the feeling of being teleported - there is not flashing lights or the world going black - you just go from seeing one thing to seeing another thing in an instant - personally, it made me a bit sea-sick
When I walked into the house, I realised it was still empty.
I decided to use this as an opportunity to work on some spell casting, I headed to the garden where I sat on the patio and repeated the steps from before, but this time I wanted to create some ice.
I closed my eyes, I imagine a light blue, almost white circle its outside would have little bits jutting out like the branches of a snowflake, I imagined the circle in my hand, I opened my eyes and the circle was, in fact, floating in front of my closed hand, I opened my palm ready to have a giant ice crystal but instead I unleashed an ice-Gatling-gun which spewed the ice bits everywhere across the garden.
I saw the ice fall into some flower beds and into some bushes, I didn’t know much about plants but I don’t want to kill any of Adam’s flowers…
That was when the idea struck me, I could try to make a spell which would pick up the ice or just trash in general, It’d come in handy with all the magic I’m testing out here.
I closed my eyes and imagined a blue snowflake circle, except now there were magnet shaped branches too. I opened my eyes and opened my palm causing all the ice to fly in from all direction into my palm, it was filled with dirt and leaves.
“Well, that worked better than expected”…I decided to get rid of the evidence by tossing the chunk of dirty ice over the wooden garden fence.
“OW!” Cried a deep voice and a thud followed.
“Well… that’s the sound of somebody else’s problem” was the first thing that came to my mind, but since it was kind of my fault I decided to go have a look at whatever was on the other side of the fence, I considered the idea of walking around the house, before I got another great idea, why complicate things, when I can use magic.
I decided to try and keep my eyes open this time, and I imagined a point exactly where I was looking, I imagined a greyish-white circle of swirly patterns suspended in mid-air, I placed a foot on it and while it wasn’t as solid as I’d have liked it would have to do. I repeated this process a few times making a staircase leading me up the fence, I decided to nickname this spell air brick, creative I know.
I looked down only to see the dryad, or rather what remained of the dryad, for instead of the usual leafy green giant, I saw three small, green humanoids scrambling on the floor to get back into the costume.
For just an instant my blank expression was replaced with a surprised “What?…” expression.
“Are… you guys alright?” I asked.
The three stopped their movements before looking at me, I could see the figures more clearly now, they looked like children, although I guess that’s a bit of a common trope for nature-related stuff, it’s always a child or an ancient tree man with a leafy beard… it’s weird.
The three huddled into a circle as if they had something important to discuss, occasional looking back at me.
They broke the circle up and turned to me, from what I could tell it looked like there were two boys and one girl, although they all had long hair and similar features so it was just a guess - the tallest one was holding his hands over his head - I guess I must've bruised him pretty badly.
“So…are you guys alright?” I asked again hoping they’d say yes and I could go back to messing with magic.
The tallest one of what I presume are dryads spoke to me, “Yes, we are alright.” he exclaimed before being knocked on the head by the girl who, assuming age and height was proportional for the dryads was the middle child, “No, he’s not. Some maniac threw a chunk of ice at him.” she explained.
“Whoever did that must be a real monster,” I mumbled putting on my best surprised expression.
“It’s pretty convenient how they speak English, I guess Adam must have taught it to them.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Asked the shortest of the dryads.
“Do you have any evidence?” I asked.
“It must have been you!” Asked the tallest one.
“Yeah, like that's going to hold up in court.” I sighed.
I hopped over the fence and gestured the tallest dryad to come closer.
“Come here, I’ll try and heal you,” I said - this was a great chance to have a shot at some healing magic.
The tallest dryad walked over to me and moved his hands apart revealing the massive hole the ice created in his head, pieces of the ice were still lodged in the head.
"Ehhh... are you feeling alright?" I asked looking at the clear green liquid pouring from the wound.
"I think so - don't worry about it, I'll heal in a few days."
"I don't think you will, tree-child." I said thinking of a way to heal him - what am I supposed to use, is there some generic "healing magic" that works on everything?
I poked at the green, rigid flesh in his head - it was just one solid mass of plant with some holes, presumably for the blood-like green stuff.
"How do I do this?!" I thought frantically, "Plants need...water! and sun-light!"
I created a light blue magic-circle, it's outside wobbly and wavy like water, the moment I clenched my fist a jet of water shot out, water sprayed everywhere blocking my view - I relaxed my clenched fist and as the spell ended I saw that the dryad was now headless, sitting in a pool of shredded grass and mud.
"Aaaaaaaa......" I stood there unmoving, turning my vision to the other two dryads who watched on, seemingly unphased by the decapitation.
I turned back to the headless dryad - much to my surprise he lifted his hand to feel the stump of where his head one was.
I moved his hand back away from the wound and started thinking again - I decided to try the second idea - sun-light, that said I don't want the dryad to burn up in a ray of sunlight.
"Is that part of the treatment?" asked the middle dryad.
"M-hm, yep - that's the... French Revolutionary Technique..."
"What's French mean?" the smaller dryad asked.
"It's this one place famous for deca- for healing a lot of people!" I explained.
"You're putting to much power into it! Can you seriously only use one magic circle!?"
"Relax this is all part of the plan!" I replied, meanwhile I thought "THERE IS MORE THAN ONE CIRCLE!?"
I created a golden magic circle with a second ring - I kept the phrase "DON'T BURN THE CHILD!" in my mind whilst creating it.
The moment I clenched my fist a white light illuminated the area, after a few seconds of this I stopped the spell and turned to see if the dryad healed.
To my horror, the dryad looked shrivelled and dry each move making a crunching noise.
"Are you sure you know what you're doing?"
"Yep - absolutely!" I exclaimed grabbing fistfuls of the mud from the ground and smearing it onto the dryad in hopes of him regaining some moisture.
Seeing the dryad slowly soaking up the water around us filled me with relief but at the same time, he was still missing the head.
I began to panic as I looked around me - I decided to try the generic healing spell, a lime-green circle with vine-like tendrils coming off from the outside, when I clenched my fist a green light appeared - I noticed nothing was happening so I touched the stump and a head popped into existence - and kept growing and eventually exploded into green slime.
"I think I healed it too much!"
"And is that also a part of-" I interrupted the dryad's question "YEP - THAT'S THE JFK METHOD!" I replied.
I repeated the process but this time making another circle to specify the strength - the results were the same except slower.
After some more circles and more explosions, I discovered something useful, I created the circle and only moved one finger in, instead of clenching the whole fist.
The head appeared and much to everyone's surprise - didn't explode!
"Alright - good." I said satisfied with my handywork and relieved that my kill-count in this world remains at a stable zero.
"So you can heal after all!" the female dryad exclaimed.
"Yeah, what can I say - I'm a bit of a professional." I replied.
"Thanks for the help! Are you Adam's friend?" the dryad I just finished healing asked - "More like Adam-supported free-loader." I replied.
A "pop" noise from behind caused me to turn around - it was Adam returning from the city - large brown bags filled with bottles and jars.
"Hey, did I leave the door locked by accident or something?" Adam asked seeing me standing around in the field on the side of the house.
"No, no - I was just healing one of the weird green people after someone attacked them with ice."
"Ah - I see... wait the what?"
Adam put his bags down and walked over to me seeing the three dryads, they didn't say anything upon seeing him but instead just remained silent.
Adam pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration - "I thought I told you guys to stay in the costume."
"We did - but we came over to see what all the magic was about and when suddenly a chunk of ice flew out and hit us."
When they mentioned the ice I averted my gaze and began the in-depth inspection of the house - anything to not admit I treated that child's head with my ice like it was the titanic.
"Well, unless you want to get hunted down and killed I suggest you get it fixed."
Their eyes lit up as they heard the threatening news - in a panic they started picking up the leaf-tower costume.
"Now get back into the woods, you shouldn't be out in the open like this."
"R-right!" the oldest dryad gestured the other two to go to the forest and then he too retreated into the woods.
"Why would anybody want to hunt them down?" I asked confused about why Adam was so concerned.
"They wouldn't - it's just that I don't like having them out here..."
"So you scared three children into spending their lives living in the woods wearing the leaning tower of leafs as a costume because you don't like them being up here?"
"Yes - essentially, although technically a passing human could attack them just because there is no real repercussions to doing so."
"Fair enough - I just wanted to make sure."
"Anyway - why did they come here anyway?"
"I was testing out some spells, and a chunk of ice flew out and crashed into the dryad's head - so I hopped over to heal him and then you showed up."
"Damn mana vampires - they can heal themselves, there was no need for you to waste your mana."
"Yeah they did mention something about beign able to heal but at that point I was in too deep to stop."
"What?"
"Metaphorically."
"..."
"..."
"Too deep in the process of healing." I clarified.
"The more you explain it the worse it sounds..."
"You're the one dragging children into the your house in the fucking mountain..."
"Touche..."
Adam let out a sigh as he looked over to make sure the dryads were already out of sight - "Seriously though, you don't want them draining your mana - you won't realise until it's too late."
"I'm fine, see?" I asked gesturing to my still being alive.
"Still, you should always keep your distance - don't let them trick you into spending time around them - they may look and act like humans but in the end they're monsters."
"That's a bit harsh..."
"It's a scientific term here - it's something that isn't either a recognised race, like humans, elves or dwarves and is not a farm animal, pet or insect." he explained.
"Besides - maybe they can choose when to drain the mana and when not to."
Adam didn't reply, sensing the sombre mood I decided to end the conversation.
“Never mind - forget the mana vampire thing, a little mana loss never killed anyone!” I replied.
Adam stayed silent, leading me to believe it may have actually killed someone.
“Now I feel like the bad guy…” I though.
"Still - on the off chance they're not walking plant monsters - I think you should consider at least explain the situation to them."
"Maybe... since when are you a good person though?" Adam asked with a smug smile.
"Let's just say I spent one too many lives living in the woods because someone lied to me about there being people after me - granted the moment I got my memories back which was at the age of ten or so I decided to off myself since this life was kind of shit."
"That's depressing."
"Yeah, so I went out and it turns out there were no giant owl demons waiting for me, much to my disappointment might I add."
"...ok - well, I guess I should at least tell them they don't have to wear the costume I guess..."
I let out a sigh, “Well, It’s getting dark, tomorrow you can go down to the forest and apologise - I might as well go and say I'm sorry for the ice incident.”
Adam sighed too, “Yeah, I guess I should.” we made our way inside of the house where Adam sat down on the couch.
"By the way, how'd you heal that dryad anyway?"
"Well, I tried a few way - but eventually resorted to a generic green-circle healing spell." I explained.
“I doubt the magic did much, you don’t know that kind of spell.” Adam laughed.
“I just improvised.”
“Yeah, I was going to ask you about that, do you actually know a healing spell?” Adam asked.
“Yeah, I used it to heal up the dryad.” I explained.
“That’s pretty unusual, I mean the fireball spell could have been pure luck…but to just come up with a healing spell…is too unusual.” Adam explained.
“You shouldn’t be able to just invent spells like that,” Adam explained.
"The story we were taught back in school for how spells work is that in the realm of the Gods there is a massive stone tablet - each time a spell is cast it gets chiselled into the stone - with our mana being water which will seep into the carved pathways which represent spells - instead of creating new spells."
"So new spells aren't a thing?"
"They are - it's just that they are stupidly rare, an exceptionally trained mage, with in-depth knowledge of the laws of magic as well as a legion of mages sending him their mana is able to slowly 'carve' a new spell - but there is a whole ritual to it, no matter how strong you may be - nothing justifies what you did."
"Guess I managed to guess a spell." I shrugged.
"I guess that must be it..."
“Actually - on the topic of magic, earlier today I did this weird thing, I made two magic circles.”
“Basically, each circle is like a command, so the first circle is the element and place of casting, and the second could be anything from the strength of a spell to its shape.” Adam explained.
“Is there a limit to how many circles you can have?” I asked.
“Yeah, although it varies from person to person - four is the generally accepted limit, granted in your case I wouldn’t be surprised if you could have ten since you can apparently pull new spells out of your ass,” Adam commented looking kind of salty about the whole ordeal.
A short while later - we split up and each went to our beds before going to sleep…
"Tomorrow is going to be one awkward day for Adam." I thought as my conciousness left me.
Meanwhile on the outskirts of the woods surrounding Adam's house...
A group of armoured men marched deeper - "We're meant to take them alive - but the prince demanded we slay one as an incentive." said one of the men in a hushed tone - they were all human - wielding swords and staffs.
"How can we be sure there are actually any dryads in this forest?"
"The local town informed us about them, the kingdom wouldn't touch the job - but the prince isn't like those paper-pushing idiots..."
"Silence, both of you! You'll alert the dryads of our location!"
Finally they came across one of the small clearings in the forest - where the grass grew longer to form a soft carpet on which slept the three dryads.
"Shouldn't they be in a village?"
"The villages were exterminated by the monster hunters you idiot!"
"Still - what if there aren't any more of them?"
"Three children can't survive in the woods alone - there has to be a whole tribe."
"It doesn't matter - burn the tallest one, we'll take the other two back." said one of the men before approaching the dryads.
The next morning in Adam's house...
The warm red morning light illuminated my room,
I got dressed and headed out through the white door to the living room.
"Hey, you're up!" Adam asked, he was standing in the living room by the front door, he was tapping his foot so fast it's a miracle I didn't hear it up until now.