Two days after my first meeting with Amara, James took me to her shop early in the morning.
Luckily, I didn’t have to wake up at midnight to hear them. I thought to myself, remembering the last two nights, as I had to stare at the ceiling, wondering if I was going to wake up in the middle of the night.
I shook my head a bit before we entered the shop.
Inside the shop, Amara was selling something to a dwarf.
“Thanks, ya old hag” the short dwarf said, his voice rough.
“Go on, get out of my store Koll, I don’t want to have insects coming out of your beard and infesting my shop.”
The dwarf grunted and turned back, facing us, “Oh, James, what are ya doin’ here? And who’s tha brat?” He looked between me and James.
The dwarf had black hair, his long beard had a single ring on it, a single rune scribbled on the ring.
James gave a small smile, “Ah Koll, this is my son Dante, I was just walking him to Amara so that she could teach him magic.”
Koll looked down at me and at James. His eyes widened, “Well I'll be a bearded halflin’! Didn' know ya had a son.” he slowly scratched his beard while looking at me, “ain’t he too young ta learn magic, how old is he, four?”
James lifted his head “actually, he is only five years old, and he wants to learn magic so who am I to say no”
“yer clearly not smart.” Koll barked a laugh and gave a small smack to James on the waist, for a small moment James almost lost balance.
I took a small glance at the dwarf’s arms, and noticed that his arms were as solid as stone.
“A five-year-old won’t have patience for this, nor would he have any intelligence for it, just call it a babysittin’ and be done with it James.” Koll strolled past us and out of the shop.
James looked at Amara as the dwarf got out, “he looks better than usual, I half expected him to glare at me, nod and leave”
Amara sighed in response, “he’s only this cheerful next to me, after all I’m the only one he can share his battle stories without puking or getting depression.” She cast her eyes down, “honestly I feel like some sort of a nurse for him.”
I looked behind us, trying to see through the windows of the shop if he was still there, but he wasn’t. “Can I ask what happened to him?”
“He served in the couple first years of the war, that’s all.” James gave a small answer and continued. “Now Dante, you’re going to stay with Amara for a couple of hours until the lesson is done, don’t make any troubles and make sure to listen to her alright?”
After I nodded, he gave me a big hug, and left.
“You are a quiet one aren’t you, child?” She tapped her lips with her finger. “Well, on second thought you are only five years old.”
Speech is silver, but silence is gold. The thought passed through my mind and I shrugged. “I just don’t have a lot to say.”
She hummed in response. “Well, let’s not idle around and start our lesson, after all, you wanted to learn. If you have any questions or if something is unclear, don’t stay quiet, I’d rather have you understand everything and have a solid base instead of just repeating answers”
With that, we sat at the table, and the lesson began.
“To begin with, you need to know a couple of things about mana. To start with, mana can be found everywhere, usually it gathers in places that have a lot of energy, the sage forest that has the largest tree in Inyslian, or the underground mines, that are close to magma in the dwarf kingdom Kamrvhm.”
She paused for a moment and looked at me, as if to see if I understood, “please continue.” I nodded.
“Very well, the second thing you need to know, is that mana also gathers in places full of people’s emotions or forces of will, so that essentially, in this small town there might not be a lot of mana compared to Dreokpis”
I furrowed my eyebrows, “Amara, I know that it isn’t really related to the lesson, but could you teach me about the continent?” I asked clenching my fists under the table.
Amara fully opened her eyes. “Oh! Where is my mind, a five-year-old would barely be taught anything.'' She gave me a small smile. “I believe that it will take you a while to learn how to control mana, so you should learn about Inyslian from your parents. For now we will only learn about mana.”
I nodded silently and waited, while Amara gave me a second look and pressed her lips together. “Wait a moment, I have a map somewhere here.”
Amara got up and went to the near bookshelf, taking out a large scroll, and opening it on the table. “This will help you at home.”
The map was very huge, everything from mountains to deserts was in it, it even showed a couple of other continents besides Inyslian. I skimmed through the map until I saw a small chunk of the map that included a mountain, named the ‘Spire Mountain’, with a giant X marked on it.
“Amara, why is this mountain marked with an X?” As I asked her, she went pale and shook her head.
She waved her hand, closed the scroll and handed it to me. “Let’s not delay the lesson any longer, you could go over it at your home.” It took her a moment to reorganize her thoughts to where we stopped.
“Alright, so we already talked about what Mana reacts to, let me explain to you how it can be used.” She extended her hand to the side with an open palm, a sharp bolt of stone formed in an instant. “Matter.”
She pointed her hand in the direction of a prepared dummy she had nearby, the bolt flew off and pierced the dummy in its chest, “energy; by using your will, mana can be used to create both matter and energy, but for example if I created matter or energy, and then stopped supplying it with mana.” She created a bolt of stone again only to toss it on the ground.
The stone slowly dissipated into nothingness, “it will return to its former state of mana, only now temporarily uncontrollable.” She looked at me again and I nodded in return.
“So, now the real question, how do you start to manipulate mana outside of my body? Well, without a magic core it is impossible, there are up to nine tiers of magic cores, and in order to create your core to begin with, you need to gather ambient mana slowly and gather it to your stomach area, with it, it will naturally begin to form.” She smiled as she ended her explanation and waited.
Wait. I looked at the ground with furrowed brows. “Didn’t you say it’s impossible to manipulate mana without a core? So how can I gather it in order to create my core if I don’t have one?”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
In response she chuckled, “very well, those are good questions, you may not be able to manipulate mana into matter or energy without a core, but that does not mean you cannot control it with…” she raised an eyebrow towards me.
I took a couple of seconds to think, “my will? Or maybe a large energy source?” I asked, not knowing the answer.
Amara nodded, “you can control mana with your will without a core, to a certain extent of course. With the passage of time, a large energy source might be able to create a magic crystal around itself. But you are not that big of an energy source, none the less well done.” She said with a smile.
“Then, let’s get a first look at gathering mana.” Amara got up from her chair, and sat down on a carpet laid on the floor. “Come and sit with me child.”
After I sat as well, she continued, “remember, we are just going to try, it can take a long while until you succeed. Now, concentrate, feel the mana in the air and use your will to pull it towards yourself. you can try to remember a powerful moment in your life, one that holds many emotions, happiness or joy, that should cause the mana to be drawn to you.”
With her advice, I started to concentrate with closed eyes. After a moment of deep concentration, I could sense something outside of my-self, like fluid waves in the air, I tried to pull them towards me with will alone. It was slow, but that outside force did seem to get drawn towards me and become a part of me.
Amazing, it actually works, this is surprisingly easy. Just as that thought went through my head, my concentration broke.
“How…? Spectacular… Usually, it takes time for beginners to even notice something different around themselves…” She stayed silent for a couple of seconds. “Keep on going, and again, try remembering an important moment that you had, try immersing yourself with some deep emotions you have.”
I concentrated again, this time I tried to bring up a couple of memories, me playing with James, both of us laughing without a care. Charlotte, singing a lullaby while looking at me with a mother’s eyes. The mana was attracted a bit faster.
Not. Fast. Enough.
My mind jumped to my first day, the cold feeling when the white-haired mother was running through the woods, hunted like a dog, all the while people died to protect us.
Mana started to gather much faster.
The burning anger when we had to leave her ignited in my heart, she was alone, in the woods, the last thing she did was to give a lonely smile to me.
The crushing sadness, when I had to hold my cries, so that no one would find us.
“Child?” I could faintly hear Amara call out to me a couple of times, but I just kept playing that moment over and over in my head, my teeth, and hands clenched.
“That’s enough!” Amara gripped and shook my shoulders. “Stop!”
My concentration broke, I took a deep breath and looked up at Amara seeing her stare at me with wide eyes, sweat rolling down her forehead.
I regained composure and looked Amara in the eyes. “Did I do something wrong?”
After she wiped her sweaty head, she looked at me with a frown “child, what memory did you remember?” Amara quietly asked.
Before I could answer her, my mouth shut. There is no telling what would happen if I told her about my birth, I should just lie.
Silence overtook the room, my stomach turned upside down as I thought about lying. The moment I start lying, I won’t have any trouble lying again and again. I don’t want that, even if it hurts, I should always say the whole truth.
"Child?"
I opened my mouth to tell her about my memories, only to shut it again.
I could also stay silent, telling her about this will only bring confusion, and pain to the people who raised me, I shouldn’t be a burden.
“Dante.” Amara’s voice snapped me to reality, she started softly rubbing my shoulders.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I said bluntly, the feeling of nausea passed, and the room seemed a bit lighter.
“Child, did James and Charlotte, did they do something bad to you, in any way? Don’t feel scared you’re safe with me.” Sweat kept on rolling down Amara's forehead.
I blinked, “What?” I stared at her with wide eyes, “they are my parents, why would they ever do something bad to me?” Amara shook for a moment and took her hand off my shoulders.
“Child, you don’t understand, they. I...” All of a sudden Amara stopped talking, she wiped herself again and took a deep breath.
I looked at Amara with furrowed brows. "I still don't understand, did I do something wrong?"
She pressed her lips for a moment and stared at me. “As I said before, mana reacts to emotions, however I did not mention that when it is controlled, it can also transfer an inkling of those emotions to other people. I just didn't understand what could have made you feel like that.”
For a moment I sat dumbfounded, I nodded slightly “I still don’t want to talk about it, Amara.”
In return Amara nodded “very well, maybe not with me, but your parents must know of this, today. You are just a babe, you shouldn’t have such intense emotions.” She muttered while gently touching her neck and looking away.
“For now, we’ll wait until James returns, we have done more than enough for today.”
Silence took over the room as Amara went to a corner of the room. I could see her massage her nose bridge.
I stood up, and kept looking at her. With the silence setting into the room, I started to think about the couple of frantic minutes that had happened, slowly feeling my body tense up.
"Alright." Amara nodded to herself, "forgive me child, I had lost my temper, sit on the table and relax, I will bring you some sweets." Amara gestured to the table, and smiled at me, any sign of her small frenzy was apparently gone.
She went to her counter, and started to search a couple of drawers. “And there I thought it will take you a couple of months to even learn how to sense mana, I wanted to teach you something basic, like when you should use it in public, and what you should be careful of.” She babbled and then stopped, looking straight at me, her smile plastered on her face.
“But you are already gathering it. A five-year-old, on his first try.”
After Amara seemed to truly calm down, we sat on the table, she brought some sweets that were way too sweet for me, and lightly asked me about what I do at home.
“Oh… So you play sword fights with your father,” Amara hummed with tight lips. “...So. Who wins the most out of you both?” She asked as she took a tiny bite out of a biscuit.
I could feel my lips rise to a smile, “well… of course I win most of the time, until he uses mana that is.”
Amara shook for a moment, “Ah, yes I see, just wondering, does he hit you back while he uses mana?”
“Well yeah, but not too hard, sometimes he stops before he hits me.” I raised an eyebrow at Amara. "But it's a part of the sword fight, he doesn't really want to hu-"
Amidst out talking the door opened, and in came James in a wobbly walk. For a moment I saw Amara’s eyes narrow to a slit only to return to normal.
“Hey there kiddo!” James gushed, his arms spread to the sides waiting for a hug.
With a smile on my face, I dashed and jumped into his embrace, my entire body relaxed, until we disconnected.
“So, did you have fun learning about mana? I bet you will be able to gather it in no time.” James chuckled.
“He already started to gather mana.” Amara stared at James.
James chuckled again, only to stop, he looked to Amara with blank eyes, “I have a trouble hearing I guess, did you just say, he already started gathering mana?”
She nodded with a small thin smile, “You heard correctly, your son really is a extraordinary prodigy but-“ before she could finish her sentence, James grabbed me by the waist and picked me up with a broad smile, almost bashing my head to the ceiling, “My son is a genius!”
I quietly gulped as he kept me right near the ceiling, yet again my mind turned cold. James, the ceiling, please. I silently thought to myself.
“James.” Amara’s voice turned cold. “Put him down, there is something that I would like to talk about with you and Charlotte, today, so it would be best for you to go and bring her”
James’s smile faltered a bit. “Ah, well actually Charlotte is a bit, um, very tired right now, she had some, exercise, is something wrong?”
A moment of silence passed through the room, Amara closed her eyes tightly.
As I stared blankly at James, one thought went through my head. you didn’t need to say it like that.
Amara opened her eyes and looked at James. “We’ll talk about it the moment you bring Charlotte, I need to talk about it with the both of you.”
James’s smile wavered a bit more “alright, I’ll go bring Charlotte, meanwhile Dante could stay here.” With a farewell James got out of the store and made his way back home.
I furrowed my brows and looked at the ground, feeling Amara’s eyes stare at my back.
I know how to get out of this mess.