Garnedell shook his head, “No one can see mana. It is impossible”
“The mana points?”
“No one can see mana or mana points or anything to do with them. Those who are incredibly sensitive and lucky may feel the brush of another mana point against theirs and attempt to capture it with their mana, but, as I said, it is basically outside the ken of our senses.”
Joe was a bit stumped, but hoped a demonstration would still be helpful and pushed for one, “Well, do you mind still showing me then? And maybe … uh… how about infusing your staff with mana and do it in a way that … like… can you make a glowing light? Can you have the glowing light move with the infusion as you see it?”
Garnedell frowned, an embarrassed grimace tugging on his lips as he glanced down, “I… am no mage. I cannot create mana manifestations. I am sorry, Joe.”
Joe waved his hand away, “Don’t. Let me… look, its fine. Just do your best. And to be honest, you are doing your best right now. But, would you still be willing to imbue your staff with mana? Can you do it as slowly as possible? Let me see if I can sense anything.”
* * *
Garnedell opened his mouth to deny Joe his request once again as it was pointless, but he sighed and decided to do it anyway. He remembered excitedly asking his father and mother to do the same as well when he was a child, only to be as disappointed as Joe would now be when nothing could be seen. Shrugging his shoulders, Garnedell squared himself and then closed his eyes as he held out his staff before him, concentration dripping from his figure.
Garnedell breathed deeply, pulling in his breath before taking his few mana points and began pulling his mana from them in a very soft pull, not wishing to waste much, and felt it enter his body, swirling through him in an intense yet alien slither into his torso before splitting into two even streams into his shoulders and down his arms towards his weapon. He struggled to slow the movement as much as possible, having long practiced to make his mana movement as fast as possible. The mana roiled, twisting up his arm in chaotic movements, sometimes as a raging river, sometimes as twining braids, sometimes as a billowing cloud, sometimes swirling in strange twisting motions around some central invisible object.
The movement of the mana was always the most difficult aspect to control, especially, he now realized, since he was moving his mana so slowly. The mana split once again, evenly, across all five of his fingers, a perfect and almost completely smooth expansion of the mana independently but in harmony down his fingers.
Once in the staff, he began controlling the movement more deliberately, although such skill was still far beyond him, yet he pressed on and guided it down the core of his staff before sending out knife sharp edges looping outwards in ever traveling swirls down the staff, edging out from the staff’s surface before diving back in and twining back into the core of mana suffused into the center of the staff from end to end.
Once he was complete, he calmed himself before holding his hand out once again and showing the staff to Joe, “As you can see. There is… nothing to see. It’s… I only know of its infusion since I am the one who did it.”
“Huh. Then… how long can you hold it?”
“As long as I have mana.”
“OK. So… a bell? A Great Bell? What?”
“Well… if I were to leave it infused the entire time, I would lose my mana rather quickly, although I have never tried to see how long I am able to do so. But most people are able to infuse weapons for an entire day easily, as you only need to infuse it when striking. I only did it slow since you asked.”
Joe remained silent, peered intently at the staff, eyes tracing up and down the staff. Garnedell almost giggled seeing Joe’s actions. He is… just… like a child! Regardless, laughing at one’s master is quite poor form, so he kept quiet and waited for Joe’s curiosity was satisfied.
“Can you move your mana points?”
“Huh?” Garnedell replied with some confusion, “It is possible, but I’m not certain that it is… not many would do so.”
“Can you do that now?”
Garnedell shrugged and began moving his mana points blindly, swirling them around his body slowly. Doing so wasn’t difficult. It was something almost all did daily in their pursuit of seeking out more mana points. Moving one’s mana points was a more difficult skill for most, usually for those older and better trained. His own skill in it gave him no small measure of pride as he continued to swirl the points. Might as well take my chance getting lucky and getting another mana point!
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Garnedell started the points at his head height, as he always did, and had them drop down his body, orbiting him in a twisting spiral down his torso until it reached his feet and climbed back up. He didn’t let it travel to much lower than his shins as he didn’t want to attract too many earth mana points. He completed several orbits before opening up his eyes and letting the points travel on their own. He usually closed his eyes and meditated when attempting to capture mana points as it allowed him to more easily feel the brush of a foreign point on his own when he did so. Since his master was watching him, however, Garnedell felt awkward closing his eyes in front of him, and looked up to answer any other questions.
Joe’s eyes flitted back and forth over his body, tracing from the top of his head down to his shins then back again, over and over again. Wait… Garnedell froze the movement of his point. It stopped around by his right hip. Then Garnedell, himself, froze in shock when he saw Joe’s eyes flicker back to the points sitting just off his right hip. No! That… Impossible! It can’t…
Garnedell brought his points up slowly in front of his chest and saw Joe’s eyes rise with them. Garnedell felt his heart pounding and his breath growing unsteady. There’s no way! No one… no one can see points! No one can see mana!
Garnedell looked at Joe in ever increasing shock before he decided to do something a bit stupid. It would be a waste of mana, but… Garnedell breathed deep and then suddenly expelled almost half his mana away from him, directly into Joe’s face. Such a thing was completely harmless, and also totally meaningless. It was nothing more than a waste of mana. Nothing’s going to happen! He’s just lucky…
Garnedell’s breath hitched and then he found his jaw dropping when Joe flinched back and raised his hand even as he ducked down and away from the explosive outburst of mana. He can see mana! He can see mana! He can see mana points! He can… Garnedell felt his mind begin reeling and thoughts growing disordered as he stumbled back a few steps. He can see… Joe almost stepped forward to catch Garnedell as his knees buckled a bit under him.
* * *
Joe flinched as a mist flowed out and washed across his face, bringing up an arm in autonomic defense. The mist flowed across him and he felt a deep sense of respect and connection influenced by a deep pleasant happiness. Joe didn’t think much of the emotions, more focused on the sudden perceived attack and tried to cleanse his eyes of any residue. After finding himself relatively fine, he took in his surroundings and saw Garnedell staring avidly at him. He stared in shock before crowding in closely to him and standing stiffly before Joe.
“You can see them! You can see mana and mana points!”
Joe sighed and shook his head. OK! Looks like it’s a pretty big deal! Donno how I’m seeing it, but… once the kid pointed it out, they were pretty easy to see!
“What did you see! Tell me… what did you see?”
Joe shook his head, frowning slightly, “I’m not really sure, to be honest. Something just kind of suddenly… appeared from in you, although I couldn’t really see anything then, but it felt like it simply came into existence in your body, then traveled up into your arms, down to your fingers, and then into the staff.
“I couldn’t really see what you were doing with the staff, but I did notice that you have some nasty looking loops twirling up and down the staff. Are those as sharp as they look?”
Garnedell seemed to be panting heavily, awed excitement shining through his face, “And?”
“And what?”
“The mana points?”
“Ah, well… if they…” Joe trailed off when a cloud of a dozen or so motes of light almost like dust seemed to come into existence, fading in from a distance that was not any distance that Joe could recognize in any way with his senses, and then floated up to dance slowly in front of his face. He reached his hand out and trailed it through them but felt nothing.
“Are these them?”
“I… I believe so! I have them about in front of your face, maybe. I cannot see them. I only know where they are… generally.”
“Yeah… you’re about right then. They’re right here,” Joe offered in reply while waving his hand through the motes of mana points. Look a bit like just… points in space… no… no substance… no physical presence… literal zero dimensional points… its…
Garnedell said nothing, only watching Joe play with the space in front of his face. Joe likewise stared with some amazement at the strange mass of points that seemed to vibrate in the space in front of him. Suddenly, they disappeared into a distance that was no distance from him, seeming to leap away from him at massive speed but not vertically or horizontally. Just, away, but not in any of the three dimensions that Joe could visually recognize. Joe blinked in surprise, looking down at Garnedell to see him staring up at him. Joe coughed a bit and smiled wryly.
“Ah… right. Then… how do you come… know … What do you do to get mana and mana… right… you’ll teach me at home later. But how … what does it feel like? Where do you feel it? Is it like moving an arm? Or something?”
Garnedell grimaced at that and shook his head, “It is a long process taking years for children to finally and luckily express what weak mana they have. Then even longer to luckily express mana at just the right time in just the right moment to capture a mana point then finally learn how to control the point before it escapes the grasp of the child. After that, it comes much easier as mastering the first point gives experience and the next is not so easily lost.”
“So… a long time.”
“A very long time.”
“Years.”
Joe replied with a sigh, “Years.”
Both sat in silence for a few moments, Joe morose. After a few moments, Joe came back to himself and shook his head. It would take time. He knew that. His own martial arts training took years a well. How could he not understand the dedication necessary to master any craft.
“Well, then teach me tonight. We better get working on fighting for now.”
Garnedell nodded eagerly and the two were soon deep in combat against the goblins, Joe putting a bit more effort into slaughtering the goblins because of their long delay on the discussion of mana.