Michael
The retainer dining hall was buzzing with life even at this early hour, the sun had just risen over the horizon, but Michael was already up and sitting alone enjoying his breakfast. His siblings were normally eating their meals in their rooms, but Michael was sick of being stuck in his boring room when there were so many interesting things to see. For example, the guards sitting behind Michael were talking about dire wolves down south getting more active with the end of summer.
“I heard there was even a dire wolf alpha sighted and that is why Lord Rowan himself went down there to hunt it down,” one of the guardsmen said.
“That's rubbish, mate,” another man replied. “You never see a two-skull monster evolve two times since the cataclysm.”
“Why would Lord Rowan go there otherwise, smart ass,” the first man grunted.
“Nobles like to hunt obviously,” he replied.
Michael was thinking about turning around and asking them what they were talking about but before he could do that Sister Sola sat down in front of him a plate in hand.
“Hello there, little Lord,” she greeted him with a warm smile.
“Hello,” he answered absent-mindedly as he tried to keep listening to the soldiers.
Sola didn't give him a chance though. “What are you doing here in this dining hall this is not a place where you normally find a noble and where is your escort.”
“No idea, he wasn't there when I left my room and I really don't like the main dining hall too many annoying people and I might run into the twins,” he shrugged.
The woman laughed and said, “Well, by now Sir Lance is probably running around frantically looking for you but he won't find you here I reckon.”
Michael shrugged again and frowned disappointed as the guards left their table, then he said kind of annoyed, “I don't need a guard anyway, so whatever.”
Sola looked up from her meal and said with a strict tone, “Michael, that is not nice, he is there to protect you and if you don't give him a chance to do so that is kind of your fault as well.”
“How is this my fault,” Michael protested.
“Did you tell him you would be up and about at this time of day?” Sola raised her eyebrow. “You are already done with your meal and had to get here, and it is just a little after sunrise. Do you expect him to just stand guard the whole night on the off chance that you decide to get up early? He has other duties as well, you know.”
Michael got red, not because he was in the wrong but because he should have known better.
“You are right. I should go and find him,” Michael conceded.
“Don't worry he knows where you are,” she said smugly. “He found me first and asked me where you are and I decided that this can be a little lesson for you, good thing you accepted fault so easily or you probably wouldn't have liked the next step.” She was actually looking a little scary right now and he asked with a slightly shaking voice, “What was the next step?”
“Well, you will never find out,” Sola said winking at him and going back to looking friendly. “Oh, I have some news for you.”
She took a bite from her bread and Michael got impatient, “What is it?”
“I will be your personal teacher from today on, well if the church agrees,” she said with a big smile.
“Why,” Michael wondered. “My siblings are being taught by Father Albion.”
Sola chuckled, “You are special Michael, so you get special treatment.”
“Special? How”, Michael asked, he couldn't think of anything that would make him special in comparison to his siblings and most certainly not to Matthias and he was also taught by Father Albion.
“You remember the day you woke up and a light shone from your chest?"
Michael remembered and he nodded.
“That was a test that proved that your mana has an affinity to light mana.”
“What does that mean,” Michael barely understood what they were talking about.
“It means you can be a light mage like me, and it makes you special,” the priestess looked him in the eyes.
Michael was horrified, mages are bad, and he was now one?
“This can't be, I was always good, how can this be,” he started to tear up.
“Hey hey,” Sola reached over the table and grabbed his hand, she probably didn't expect this reaction. “Being a light mage is good, we are blessed by the god of light Idas.”
“Father Albion said all mages are evil,” Michael said with tears in his eyes.
“No, not all mages, I am going to explain it to you but don't cry, alright,” the young priestess tried to console the boy.
Michael sniffed and nodded.
“Not that mature after all,” Sola said quietly while wiping away his tears, but Michael heard it.
After Michael had calmed down a little Sola began to explain, “A long time ago there was a great war, humans fought the great evil of the demon realms. At the height of the conflict, many mages from the different schools betrayed the gods, and this led to the death of all gods but one, the one that remained was our god Idas and he survived because the mages of the light stayed loyal to the cause and their patron.”
Sola let the weight of the story hang in the room for a moment and then continued, “This is the reason why light mages are exempt from the mistrust around mages in the eyes of the church - a special unit of anti-mages as well but that is a thing for another time - so you and I as light mages are also exempt from it.”
“So, there are different kinds of mages?"
“There are different kinds of mana and different ways to use them too,” Sola explained.
“What are they and how can I use mine and am I going to be as strong as Father,” Michael got excited with the prospect in front of him, all fear gone on a moment's notice.
“You know what, let's go outside then I can show you some things,” Sola smiled and stood up.
Michael followed the priestess through the hallways to the training square, the whole way imagining himself as a great warrior next to his father in battle. He had heard so many stories of his father's accomplishments but never had he dared to think that he might join him on the field or even be helpful.
They reached the training square and Michael could see the men training but this time Sir Godfrey was nowhere to be seen.
Sola guided him to an open spot and turned around, “I will explain the basics of mana and the three general ways to manipulate it. Later in your studies, we will go much more in-depth.” Michael didn't feel good here, many people were watching them like they were some sort of circus, but he nodded.
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The priestess closed her eyes and made a circular motion with her hand and said, “Mana is everywhere, around us inside of us in plants and animals even the ground. It is the central energy that connects us to the elements that define our world be they physical or more arcane.”
While she talked her hand pulled a dim silver afterimage behind it. “This is mana, in its pure form mana will have a silver color associated with it.” - She flicked her hand and the string vanished - “Now, mana can also take the properties of an element or concept of existence for example light.” Sola turned her hand palm up and a small ball of bright yellow light formed, “The different types of mana are divided into two categories the elemental mana and the arcane mana.”
She closed her hand and the ball of light disappeared. Michael was mesmerized by the priestess's magic as she took a wooden sword from the rack and began to draw on the ground while talking.
“The difference between the elemental mana and the arcane mana is that for the elemental mana, you need a personal affinity. You can work your whole life on trying to gain this affinity and you will never gain it. Arcane mana is different; through an understanding of the concept behind the type of mana you can learn it but the journey is hard and most won't achieve anything,” while she talked her drawing began to take shape.
“The elemental paths are fire,” - she tapped on the symbol representing fire - “water, air, earth, and lightning,” - tapping on each symbol arranged in a circle.
“These five are the basic elements and they are completed by the twin elements light and darkness.” Sola tapped on a sun and an empty circle both of which were drawn separately from the other elements.
Michael noticed that some people had interrupted their training and watched the lesson.
Sola turned to the second drawing. “The arcane paths are more complex; they don't have a simple element as their basis but a concept that defines our world. They are life, death, time, space, blood, and pure.”
She tapped the symbols this time they were far vaguer and drawn in pairs, with life and death, time and space, blood and pure next to each other.
“As you might have noticed these concepts are quite complex and the understanding you have to have to create arcane mana is very difficult to achieve.” Sola inspected her student and asked, “Do you have any questions, was that too fast?”
Michael stood there in silence pondering and revisiting what he had heard and came to the conclusion that he had understood the basic outline the priestess had explained to him.
“I think, I understand. Every question I currently have would dive deeper than this explanation probably requires,” Michael answered.
A ripple went through the audience at his answer and Michael could even see some disturbed and doubtful faces.
Did I say something wrong, Michael wondered.
“Good.” Sola smiled. “Quick learner, it seems.”
“Now we come to how mana is actually used,” Sola put the wooden sword aside and turned to the audience, “If you are gonna listen make yourself useful, I need a volunteer with a reasonably sized mana well.”
She turned to Michael and said, “Oh right nearly forgot a mana well is ...”
Michael jumped in and said, “The mana well is the place where mana is stored in the body, right?”
Sola nodded and said, “Very good, where did you learn that.”
Michael shone with the praise and said, “Sir Lance explained it to me.”
Sola turned around back to the audience and a man had stepped forward as a volunteer and introduced himself with a respectful tone, “Sir Geron, knight of House Rowan, sister.”
“Good, please get a training dummy that can withstand your manaless strike and a training weapon of your fancy,” Sola instructed.
She then turned back to Michael and began her explanation, “The first and most common type of mana manipulation is the internal art called augmenting.”
Michael thought about telling her that he had learned about it as well, but he decided against it, he liked her explanation more.
“It is centered around moving your mana around your body and strengthening it in the process,” she turned back to Sir Geron. He was standing in front of a straw training dummy, a wooden sword in hand.
Michael inspected the knight, he looked strong and dangerous somewhat like a younger copy of Michael's father with his black hair and brown focused eyes, but their faces were a different kind of hard.
“Would you do us the honors and hit that dummy as hard as you can without using mana,” Sola instructed the knight.
He nodded and lowered himself into a stance that Michael had seen often when watching the martial training. His body tensed up and he swung his sword with both hands. Like lightning, the sword hit the dummy and rocked it to its core, but it held.
“Very impressive,” Sola commented. “Now do the same thing but use as much mana as you can.”
The knight complied, fell back into his stance, and prepared his strike. After a moment he stuck but this time the strike was barely visible. On impact, the training dummy gave way with a horrible cracking sound, and the upper part was sent flying.
Michael was so stunned by the display of strength that he didn't recognize the voices of protest as a couple of bystanders had to dodge the flying target dummy.
Sir Geron turned around to the priestess and looked down at the training sword, it was just a stump, the rest of the blade gone. Without a care in the world, he went over to a barrel and threw the useless piece of wood in, it was already filled nearly to the top.
Sola clapped her hands once to regain the attention of her stunned student.
“Thank you, I think this example really hammered the point home, Sir Geron,” Sola thanked her volunteer. “That would be everything for now.”
The knight made a small bow and returned to the audience.
“Augmenting can make you stronger, faster but also more resilient or heighten your reflexes but there are of course limits. The strengthening is based on the body, so if you are weak the strengthening will be weak,” Sola concluded.
“Now my favorite type of mana manipulation, magic. Magic is the manipulation of mana outside of your body, this is of course way harder to do as your control over your own mana lessens considerably the further away from your body it is.” Sola raised her finger and continued, “The biggest difference between augmenting and magic is that in magic you have to make your intentions clear to your mana. You can cast without openly stating your intent,” - her fingertip began to glow- “but only simple things and mostly with a connection to your body, as keeping your intent clear in your mind with all the thoughts and things that can distract you is hard."
“The real magic needs some kind of statement of intention, like an incantation or a ritual, let me demonstrate.” Sola closed her eyes and began to chant, “God of light, follow me into darkness and illuminate the way forward. Guiding Light!”
In front of the priestess, three bright lights materialized. “For now, it seems like I just made a couple of lights,” then she took a few steps forward and the lights moved with her. “It is a simple spell; you can do much bigger things but the more complex the spell the more complex the show of intent.” The spectators watched on with interest, it wasn't too often that you could see magic, especially in the open and while not fighting for one's life.
Michael reached for one of the lights and his hand went clean through it. Sola smiled at this and continued, “Magic is the most versatile version of mana manipulation and the one I will be teaching you.”
“With that, we come to the last form, artificing, the art of imbuing mana into an item and inscribing instructions upon it. This is rare and I honestly don't know too much about the technical side of it but items that are built by them are called artifacts. They are very valuable as they can have magic or augmenting-like effects for the wielder or just be very sharp or durable,” Sola seemed a little put off by the fact that she couldn't say more to this type. “Questions?”
Michael thought about it and then asked, “What is stronger magic or augmenting?”
All eyes fixated on the priestess as they awaited her judgment.
“That is a very volatile question to ask a mage when she is surrounded by augmenters.” Sola chuckled taking the tension out of the situation, and then continued, “It depends, a mage can do more different things and is stronger on range normally but if an augmenter gets close it gets difficult. The problem with this thought experiment is that a mage normally has higher mana reserves as an augmenter, and he can also augment while an augmenter mostly can't do magic.”
Michael could see some of the knights frown but Sir Geron stepped into the conversation, “Milord if I might offer my experience on the matter?”
Michael nodded and the knight approached them.
“There is no clear answer to this question in my opinion,” Geron explained and kept his gaze on the priestess. “Even though augmenters are pretty similar to each other, even when considering the effect that a mana affinity has on the augmenter, mages are complete wildcards. Every element is so different from the next, a fire mage might burn down the whole area and make it impossible to fight him but a water mage without much water access might be useless.”
Some of the older men nodded to the assessment as Geron continued, “So the question is an augmenter or a mage stronger doesn't lead to a satisfying answer, the question should always be is a certain augmenter type stronger than a certain mage type, and even what the circumstances are.”
Michael nodded eagerly and asked, “Are you stronger than Sister Sola?”
Silence and awkward looks followed his question. Geron inspected the smaller priestess with serious eyes and finally said, “I haven't fought many light mages yet but generally their element is considered pretty useless in a fight except for trying to blind people.”
Eyes moved to the priestess to see her reaction, but she stayed calm and said, “He is right, light magic is generally more of a supporting form of magic but of course, there are exceptions like the Master of the Order of Purity, Grand Master Gradel Thule.”
Geron nodded and said, “True, there are always exceptions”.
Michael was bummed non the less, he had imagined himself standing next to his father … how laughable.
Sola seemed to notice and announced, "Enough of magic, fighting, and all that stuff this lesson is over we are gonna head to my room next and see what you know already and start your general education."
She thanked Sir Geron again for his help and led Michael with a hand on his shoulder to the buildings. Some people were whispering with each other and gave Michael weird looks, much to his discomfort. On their way, Sir Lance joined them, and he didn't look happy at all. Michael's mood was at rock bottom now, he felt guilty and useless all over again.