My first chance to learn magic. Lillith was adamant that I wait for a while and now that I am 4 years old, I can finally start learning some. We are out between our house and village wall in small play area for me and Lillith. She grows her own garden here, it's full of flowers and other sorts along with several odd-shaped types as well. She grows some odd smelling herbs and alchemy ingredients here as well. The area is still wide enough to allow one to practice magic though.

“This is where everything will begin my dear.” Lillith handed me a book on elementary spells. “I will have to supervise you, I can’t have my precious daughter hurt herself.”

Magic was divided into twelve elements and six categories. The elements start with the basic fire, wind, water, tera, and lightning. After those five come the natural element that focuses on the body. Then follows the shadows of the dark and brightness of the light elements. Then the holy divine element followed by the life and death elements. Finally, comes the world bending element known as space-time.

The six categories are offensive, defensive, support, healing, summoning, and lastly the illusive complex magic. These are self-descriptive aside from complex. Complex magic is a category that encompasses all elements for magic that use multiple elements, and for magic that doesn't seem to belong to a specific category. An example would be using wind, water, and lightning magic to manipulate the weather and cause a thunderstorm.

Learning to use magic involved manipulating one’s soul. One would either pour the essence of their soul into the world around them to manipulate it, or use their soul to manipulate the preexisting strings. This world is composed of strings, which are atoms with a general direction. The leylines are examples of large masses of string concentrated in one area, flowing down from the core onto the surface.

My first task will be learning to ‘see’ the strings of this world. It is the most elementary spell that exists that most individuals would be able to do it if they only tried for a bit. Ironically, it is labeled as complex. I focused the essence of my soul into my eyes to see them. At first, when I did this I could barely see anything, or another way to put it, I saw too much. According to the book and Lillith, what I needed to do was control how my brain comprehends what I see. To limit the strings I saw to, perhaps, individuals to see their reserves of magical power dubbed as mana. A specific point or object to understand it’s structure and maybe even fine tune it to place an enchantment of sorts. Or, finally, an area where a spell is being cast to understand what spell would be used, a task that, while it was under the most basic of spells, was one of the hardest things to understand, let alone do so in the middle of combat. It isn't just that the strings themselves move in complex directions and change in various shapes and sizes, but that understanding the strings, the fabric of Kavaas itself, is something that requires essence of one’s soul, a large amount of it.

“So you can do it…” Lillith muttered to herself.

“Yeah!” Wanting to make her proud I respond with glee while she flinched ever so slightly, showing she was actually talking to herself. Next comes a mystery. “Why am I empty when I look for my own strings?” When looking at my hand I can't see any strings, if anything, I see strings disappearing into me.

“It’s just something that makes you special,” Lillith said with a look of relief on her face. She must have been worried if I could have used magic at all.

Knowing that the strings simply vanish, I can conclude something from this. According to Lillith, the soul is visible in these strings. Seeing that I am a void, I either have no soul, or my soul is not in my body but still connected to this world. A soul is needed for consciousness and I am fairly certain I'm conscious, so my soul must not be in this realm, it must be outside of Kavaas. I conclude that I am really controlling this 4-year old girl's body via a tether, in similar fashion to a puppeteer.

Before I incarnated myself into this world, I was just floating formlessly  outside the universes. Seeing as how I can now use magic, the essence of my soul must be out there. The Primordial Dragon Akasha must have been created using this essence.

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For the rest of the day, I spent my time learning to control my own mana and used it to manipulate the environment. This is the most commonly used form of magic, the other, using ones own soul, is rarer the closer your are to a leyline. Close to the leylines, strings are thick and easier to manipulate with less effort while further away one uses one’s own soul, as the strings around them are too thin, making manipulating them en masse require more effort. Magic craftsmen that use elements such as earth, or water magic base their workshops far away from the leylines as it is actually easier to manipulate them on a smaller scale there.

I think I spent half the night reading about magic.

---

The next morning I was on fire, literally. Normally one would panic upon seeing their hand engulfed in flames, I only stared in wonder at seeing fire so close for the first time since I was never allowed near the fireplace. Then I panicked realizing I could burn myself, however, the fire was only pleasantly warm.

“Don’t worry sweetie, most of your own magic can’t hurt you” Lillith told me. What I am trying to accomplish is to mold fire into a ball above my hand. To form fire I use my soul to dye the space above my hand precisely into a sphere. I failed a couple of times but it wasn’t too hard. I theorized that only foolish actions such as throwing one's own magically created ball of dirt at oneself is what Lillith meant.

Normally, it seems magic is done through incantations, something Lillith bypassed entirely as soon as I chanted my first spell. It seems words have the power to affect us in more ways than simple communication, it is something related to spiritual communication via the soul, that each word spoken is unconsciously said with traces of mana in the sound. Using this fact, one could empower their surroundings using intent and language laced with mana.

Lillith told me I have very pure mana, something which is reflected in my soul, something she could only tell after I used my first spell, since I am a void. Those with purer mana are very talented at magic and languages. This must be the reason I understood language and literacy immediately. I was the indirect creator of this world, I breathed life into Akasha and in turn she breathed life, quite literally, into the world of Kavaas. The breath she used was imbued with all of the elements and reached far and wide into the void Akasha was in, as the breath dissipated, the surface of Kavaas was created. I must have created Akasha using the essence that's outside of the universes. Therefore, my mana, must be the purest of all in existence.

Normally mana is something that has been, not corrupted, but shaped and dyed from it’s original pure formlessness. Mana is shaped by the container it filled, one’s soul, and dyed with one’s thoughts as one lives, good and evil. The mana imbued in the strings of this world are shaped and dyed as well.

---

I was walking around the village alone for once. I thought of an interesting trick to seeing strings and souls. If souls are dyed by one’s thoughts, couldn’t I read minds through this? I practiced and found the best I could do was read someone's intentions.

A merchant swindling an outsider or a bully picking on a weaker child. Speaking of bullies, there is one right now.

“Go away dog!” a child with striking blonde hair is yelling at somebody or something in front of him, I can't see who or what as he is in the way. “You and your disgusting family shouldn’t even be here!”

This is what humans are, is it not? This is my first time seeing discrimination. I wonder how the one receiving such a lash felt. I walked over next to the blonde kid and gazed upon whom he was abusing. What I see is a small golden eyed girl with black hair, along with pointy ears above her head and a thick tail to her side. She is covered in mud and shows no signs of giving in. In fact, she seems on the verge of exploding.

“Kassia! Help me shoo this thing away! It’s hogging up space in the park!” I payed no attention to the boy, nor how he knew me, and saw the wolf-kin make her move. Her teeth sprouted small fangs and her fingers shaped into claws. She attacked the blonde haired boy with a swipe. I was not a combatant and could do nothing to stop her.

“Aah! The dog attacked me, everyone! The dog is attacking me! Haha!” he shouted in fear and victory as he ran away with a scratch torn through his clothes. He was indeed victorious, beast-kin in general were prohibited from even defending themselves let alone attacking someone on provocation.

“And what about you?” she glared at me expecting a similar response. Contrary to her expectations, I looked at her ears and tail with excitement as she tried her hardest to appear threatening.

“Can I touch your ears?!” I blabbed before I could think through my actions.

“Err… what? Wait sto-” I was already touching them before she could react to my tomfoolery. She let out a tiny cry before jumping back and glaring at me, this time with embarrassment on her face. “Beast-kin ears are precious! Don’t touch them!”

“Oh, right...” I lost some motivation after realizing what I had done. To beast-kin, the ears and tail of one are of precious value, one did not let them be casually touched. “Um, you might want to run now.” I advised her as I saw some villagers running towards us. The wolf-kin girl ran in the opposite direction, probably never to be seen again.