CHAPTER 4: MAGIC AND GENETICS

This picture is driving me insane! Every time I think I discover a pattern, it breaks moments later. It’s almost been six months since this thing downloaded from absolutely nowhere, and I haven’t discovered a thing!

I can only come to three conclusions. It’s either incomplete, requires a key, or work of all, it’s just random data. I’m guessing along the lines of one or two…. But, sometimes I just wish it was three, so I could move on with my life.

It’s almost as confusing as magic. I’m no closer to understanding why magic has preferences, and from what I can tell; affinities are a very real thing. Why? I don’t know. All I can tell is that some people seem to be able to use one or more types of magic significantly better than any other.

Apparently, affinities also seem to be inherited.  So much so that if a child is born with a different affinity to the rest of the family, the parents will immediately accuse each other of adultery.

From this, I’m going to speculate that affinities are certainly genetic. But just how many genes are associated with certain affinities? The only way I will ever figure it out is if I can get a full genome sequence of people with varying affinities.

Hearing a knock on my door I run over to open it. Honestly, opening doors is hard when your less than a metre tall. “Are you ready?”  says dad as I give him a quick nod. “Fine, I’ll go get Evan” replied dad as he walked across to Evan’s door. It’s finally time, after two and a half years, I finally convinced dad to teach me magic. It was surprisingly easy, given I promised not to tell mum.

A while later, me, dad, and Evan entered the small forest just outside town that housed my Laboratory. Ok, I say laboratory, but it’s really a wooden hut with a ruler, scales, and the designs for a thermometer.

“I think we should go around the back just in case you have an affinity for fire” says dad while looking at the hut. Yea… that’s probably a good idea. To come to think about it, what is dad’s affinity?

“dad, what is your affinity? You said ‘just in case it’s fire’ so you must have something else, right?” dad gave a small nod as we approached a small clearing with a creek. “I never told you? I have an affinity for water”

Hmm… mum is fire and dad is water. Represents their personality well. I internally chuckle while dad starts clearing the area of branches. “Evan, take off your shirt. I don’t want it catching fire again.” Yells dad after he’s done.

Evan who was in a happy mood until now, gave a sour look but eventually complied. “Just so you know, I don’t lose control anymore”

“So, how do we start?” I inquire, more than a little excited.

“The first thing you need to do is to try and feel the mana inside you” says dad as he points to his head. “generally, most people feel it here. but sometimes people also feel it in other places.”

Well that’s explanatory.  “And how do I find this, ‘mana inside of me’?” It’s not like I haven’t tried to just feel magic since I got here, obviously, I never found anything.

Dad pointed towards Evan. “go stand next to him, he will try to pass fire mana through you. you did learn that in school right Evan?” Evan scowled at dad before placing his hand on my head. Did something happen between these two?

I was about to ask what exactly fire mana was, when I felt a sudden tingly feeling towards the front of my head. I’m guessing that’s fire mana. It certainly wasn’t strong, but it was there. “Did you feel anything?” asked Evan. Taking a moment to regain my focus, I smile.

“Ha! told you I was right dad!” boasted Evan, now looking rather conceit. Were these guys betting on my attribute? “Just because she has fire attribute doesn’t mean it’s her primary one” said dad as he walked up to me placing his hand on my head.

I feel my entire body shudder as his mana flows through me, but the feeling quickly changed into that of comfort, like I was drifting peacefully through the ocean. But at the same time, I feel a familiar tingling sensation in my head. I’m sure this is where my mana is, I can just feel it. Acting quickly as to not lose it, I send a few million nano bots to map the area.

I look up to see a smile on my dad’s face and a look of shock on my brother’s. “of course she would be a water mage like me. We couldn’t have two fire mages, now could we?” says dad as he lets go of my head.

So, I have the water attribute? But, I felt the fire mana too; just weaker. “So…what do I do now?” I ask dad saving Evan from his defeat. “Now, just try imagining a ball of water appearing above your hands. However, while doing so, you also need to try and feel what you did before”

Wait… “But don’t I need to chant first?” dad just shrugs. “you can, but I doubt it would improve your water magic much. Chanting is only needed to cast something outside of your main affinity” oh… I guess that’s why I’ve never heard mum chant when boiling water before.

“But then, what does chanting do? Why does it allow you to use other affinities?” This time it’s Evan who answers. “In school, they said it’s because the gods take our affinities mana, and give us their own” that sounds awfully mythological, but then again… this is an entirely different universe.

Trying to bring back the feeling from before I imagine water molecules converging just above the palm of my right hand. I can’t quite describe the sensation of what it felt like for water to suddenly appear above my hand, after so many years of waiting I almost expected nothing to happen. Yet, there it is. A floating ball of water right above my hand, glistening in the sun.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

“heheheHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHa” I couldn’t stop laughing, I don’t know why but I found the simplicity it hilarious. I can’t help but remember all those times I spent as a child trying to use the force or make a harry potter spell work, All the physics, all the mathematics; everything I did told me there was no such thing. But right here, right now. I’M using MAGIC!

“Umm…Lucy are you ok?” calls out Evan who appears to have taken a step back. I finally stop laughing after realising I may have scared him. “I’m fine Evan…. I just got a bit excited is all” dad simply raised his eyebrows.

Trying to play with the ball of water above my hand, I concentrated on moving it around. It was quite difficult at first, but then It suddenly felt like I had done it before. After I had moved it around, I tried to spin it, once again it was hard at first but It soon felt trivially easy.

 “Lucy, you did say there was no magic in your old world, right?” The ball collapsed after I lost concentration for only a moment.

 Now drenched, I turn to face dad. “yea. But this is so fun! If I could have studied magic in my old world, I doubt I would have even left my Lab”

“it’s just that, normally people take years to gain that sort of control” says dad as he looks at me curiously. Really? But it felt so easy… no, that’s not right. “I don’t know why, but…. I felt like I’d done it a thousand times before” yea… that’s exactly what it felt like.

“Well, I guess there’s no harm in teaching you some fire magic now then” says dad as he signals for me to move closer to the creek. “you’ll probably need to use a chant, but we should check first.

Opening my right palm like before, I try to imagine forming a fire. And…nothing. Oh, So I guess I do need to chant after all. That’s kind of disappointing.

“So how do I chant?” Dad pulls out a piece of paper from his pocket. “first you need to say the god’s name, then what you want, and then say you need help. Unfortunately, this only works for simple magic. If you want to do something more complex it can take years of practice, and incredibly complex chants.

“So can I use magic from any affinity then?” dad just gives me a simple nod. I want to ask more questions, but I also want to burn stuff. Storing my questions for later, I glance over the paper dad gave me; it’s just a list of chants to the fire god. Wait, they’re all In Rangarian. Can I use other languages as well? Well, I guess I should start with the local language first.

“O Nir, please light fire in my hand, for I need help” and…. nothing happens. What? Why? I look at dad but he just stares at me for a moment before smiling. “you forgot to ‘feel’ the fire mana, didn’t you?” oh, that!

I try summoning the feeling from when Evan sent fire mana through my body. “O Nir, please light fire on my hand, for I need help” a tiny flame suddenly appeared above my palm, flickering in the breeze.  I felt relieved that something happened, but at the same time a little disappointed. I only got a tiny flame….

I try playing with the flame like I did with the water. I could move it somewhat, but overall it was like trying to drive a car on black ice. That is to say, I couldn’t.

“That’s pretty good Lucy, most children older than yourself can barely get that” says dad as he walks over to me. Oh, it is? Still, I really want to try chanting in another language. Specifically, one not from this world.

“O Nir, please light fire on my hand, for I need help” I say chant in English while trying to feel the fire magic. A sudden burst of flame erupts from my hand catching my hair on fire. I jumped in freight and headed straight for the creek. Obviously I should could have used water magic but I didn’t think of it.

The water was freezing, but it was certainly better than being burnt. “Lucy! Are you ok!?” I lift my head out of the water to see Evan holding his hand out to me. “yea, I’m fine. I’ll need to cut my hair though”

I see dad finally arrive beside Evan. “Lucy, your face is burnt. Let me heal …. it” Says dad with a look of shock on his face. Well, I guess he’s never seen an automated skin repair before. Still, if it had of been bigger I might have taken days to heal.

Eventually dad just let out a sigh. “I’ll never get used to you. What did you do anyway? I’ve never heard that chant”

I grab Evan’s hand as he pulls me from the water. “I just used the same chant, but in my native language. Judging by the results, I’m guessing there’s more to chanting than is currently known” Still, why did the results change so much? Understanding of the language perhaps?

After trying several the chant several more times in varying languages (imagining the flame further away), I eventually came to a conclusion. I have no Idea how this works. French, German, and Spanish gave me similar results to English. But then I tried Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean, I barely got a flame. At this point I hypothesised that perhaps the grammatical structure that was the culprit.

But as if to mock me, when I tested Dutch, it was even worse than Chinese. Perhaps one needs an instinctive understanding of the language to work? I guess that might be true, Simbrain’s language capabilities aren’t exactly instinctual more like going through a translator.

Eventually the sun started to set and dad was worried mum would get home before us. I’ll have to find an excuse for my burnt hair.

As we approached the house I noticed a rather luxurious ulnag and carriage outside our gate. “Dad, who is that?” asked Evan as we got closer. I couldn’t help but notice scowl on dad’s face. “I don’t know Evan. But if their using a royal carriage, it’s nobody you want to meet”  

One thing I’ve defiantly noticed over the years is my family’s disdain for the royal family. I’m certain some of it’s to do with vixen, but I think dad has something else against them.

Once we approach the door it immediately swings open, revealing an incredibly large man wearing quite extravagant clothes and is grinning from ear to ear.. “Ah, the hero has finally returned” announced that man with exaggerated gestures before laying his eyes on both me and Evan. “And these are your children? How lovely” Said the man, who quickly lost interest in us.

By the way my father’s face twitched, I could tell how much he loathed this man. “Good day, Lord Bergenfield. I can’t say I was particularly looking forward to our next meeting”

The grin that was on the man’s face immediately disappeared, replaced with an irritated expression. “You shouldn’t talk to your lord like that, even if you are the ‘hero’.” The man then let out a small chuckle. “Of course, you and I both know the truth. If I ever told everyone, just imagine what they might do to your poor children”

I couldn’t believe the man in front of me, how can he even speak like that? Just as I look at Evan I notice dad’s first clenched. As much as I don’t like this guy, I can’t give him a reason to hurt us so I wrap my small hands around dad’s arm. Thankfully he notices and seemed to calm down.

“May I inquire as to why you are here, my lord?” the grin reappeared above the man’s double chin. “you see, the new king doesn’t much like you being away from the capital. He wants to keep a closer eye on you. Thus you will be moving there as soon as possible”

“And he couldn’t send someone else to tell me this?” asked my dad his hands slightly trembling again. “He did. But when I heard you had been making some allies on the opposing side, I couldn’t possibly leave such information alone. Not to mention coming here is much more fun.

Allies, What allies? Does he mean the people involved in creating the standardised unit system? “I have been doing nothing of a sort. Now tell the king I will comply with his order, but let him know I’m by no means happy”

The man’s face lights up again, “Oh, I will” says Lord Bergenfield as he walks towards his carriage.

“Dad, how long do we have until we need to move?” asks Evan with a clearly solemn face. Dad doesn’t reply as he just keeps watching the carriage move off into the distance.