I watched as the young boy whose hopes and dreams I was hoping to crush into oblivion, gained an entirely new light in his eyes that threatened to become a blazing inferno.
He flipped through the book in his hand rapidly as his eyes darted around the pages in a frenzy.
The only indication that he was actually reading anything was his constant mumbling to himself as his voice oscillated from excitement to shock to understanding and back again over and over.
Quiet anger filled my heart as I gazed at him.
The reason I gave him such a tight deadline in the first place was not because I thought he could easily be able to learn the information, quite the contrary.
Someone who was so talented with learning skills and manipulating stamina surely couldn’t have had a talent for magic as well.
My assumption was that it would take him the exact same amount of time to learn as everyone else if not slightly faster which was about a year assuming that the person in question dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to their studies.
My goal was simply to have him rush through it at the start until he was so overwhelmed that he wouldn’t want to learn it anymore, giving him the perfect jumping-off point to cultivate his astonishing talent in stamina manipulation.
Seeing his attitude now put a hole in my beginning assumption but there was still time, all I would have to do is put even more pressure on him until he eventually cracked.
It doesn’t really matter how talented someone is, they still need time to learn.
If I overloaded him with tasks he would not be able to find the time he needed to practice and absorb the information he learned.
No, that's not right. I shook my head internally.
I’m an adult after all. I shouldn’t stifle the potential of the youth simply due to misplaced pride, of all things.
Even if he is unable to complete my outrageous demands by the end of the month I will still support his growth in mana craft.
That is the only proper thing to do as his teacher.
My eyes shined with a light determination that had not been there in years.
Truly, when was the last time I had such a brilliant student 100 maybe 200 years ago?
I may not have even seen this level of enthusiasm to learn since I met the founder of this family.
With that thought, the fire that lit in my eyes dimmed a bit as complex emotions swirled in my mind.
It is truly a tragedy.
The flames that shine brightest are destined to be extinguished with time.
Who is to say that he will be able to maintain this level of talent as he grows older and the challenges he faces grow ever more difficult and complicated?
The road to tier 10 and level 100 has long been known to have swallowed many geniuses in the past.
With that depressing thought out of the way, I left the room as quietly as possible though I doubted that the distracted boy would have even noticed me slamming the door on the way out.
I wasn’t needed here and I still had documents to summarize reports to write and two beautiful girls who still needed instruction.
I liked it that way.
This was a life that I had grown accustomed to for hundreds of years now.
***
The book “Mana Principles I” by Eddy Shoemaker that Kent dropped on me has been giving me some interesting ideas.
Mostly because of the sheer lack of ideas given in the book itself.
Despite what its name would imply, it's not actually an introduction to how magic works on a theoretical level but on a practical one.
It simply gives the reader a number of basic exercises they can do to start using spells while slowly building a solid foundation for further more complex spell and ritual craft with only a bit of a basic history given as a preface.
It is for this reason that while I slowly complete the exercises laid out in this text my mind has been abuzz with numerous theories about what magic is and how it functions.
The first thing that the book taught in chapter 1 was how to sense mana.
One first needed to enter a meditative state.
Then they needed to push their Awareness outward so that they can “see” within a small radius around them.
Awareness was a stat that I have not actively been paying attention to so far but it was actually incredibly useful for learning sensory skills and is something that I have been unconsciously learning how to use due to my use of Spirit Sight.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
If one had a particular focus in mind when activating their Awareness they would be better able to sense that particular thing that they were searching for whether that be people, objects, or in this case mana and they were corresponding skills related to each of these avenues that people could “sense”.
By focusing more on that feeling one could get a better picture of what was around them but like over-taxing a muscle it was extremely tiring and since my stats were weak I had a lot of trouble using it.
I closed my eyes and outstretched my hand from the desk I was sitting on.
I began to count my breaths slowly until I had reached one hundred.
I had ironically not yet learned how to use the meditation skill despite being the one to have taught it to my sisters.
Once my mind was empty I began to slowly imagine a small red circle in the center of my body until I could almost feel it in my chest then slowly expanded it outwards until it touched three books on my shelf.
I knew exactly which three books were in my sphere.
It was like each object had its own emotion or sensation to it that one could experience through their Awareness and the more familiar one was with the object one was sensing the more accurate one would be.
I opened my eyes to see if the books I sensed were there were actually what was in front of me and to my disappointment, only the book in the middle was actually correct.
I released my Awareness as my head began to throb intensely. I didn’t have much talent and my natural stats were low in this area.
My only saving grace was that there was a skill called Basic Mana Vision outlined in the book as well, which allowed one to move stamina in my eyes activating a skill similar to Soul sight which allows one to see mana in their normal vision.
The reason Mana Vision was considered inferior to organically sensing mana was that one could only move mana within the sphere of Awareness meaning that it determined both the amount and the precision of your mana control along with your Will.
If one focused on one over the other they would quickly encounter a severe bottleneck that would completely halt their progress.
“Sign” I was now starting to see why Kent thought I would be garbage at using magic, both Will and Awareness were not my best stats though I wish he gave me a reason instead of basically saying no you can’t do it.
But then again I should have also learned my lesson after the whole melee weapon thing to take his advice seriously so I’m definitely still the idiot here.
After you learned how to sense mana in chapter 1, the book outlined numerous minor activities one needs to complete to form the complete skills of Internal Mana manipulation and External mana Manipulation.
I reclined back into my chair while stretching my hands upwards while yawning deeply.
I rubbed my eyes to get rid of some of the exhaustion I felt from practicing reading so much for the past couple of days but I couldn’t let myself relax, it would soon be dinner and I still had so much more to do today.
I moved the black ebony flower which was sitting on my desk to the side then leaned onto my mini library in front of me picking up a fresh notebook.
I then got up to pick up the book that was thrown onto my unmade bed then walked back to my chair dropping the book onto the desk next to my notebook.
I then picked up my pen, and dipped it in ink before writing on the cover of my fresh notebook “Magic book” and opening “Mana Principles I” to Chapter 2 and reading its contents.
First Step:
Grab onto as much mana as you can within your sphere of Awareness using your Will.
This will cause the mana you are interacting with to vibrate violently in random directions.
Once you can hold onto a clump of mana without any noticeable vibrations move on to Step 2.
Step 2:
Condense a small clump of mana as hard as you can using the force of your Will then let go of it.
Once the mana you affected can remain in a condensed state for more than five seconds once you let go of it move on to Step 3.
***
Step 8:
Form a clump of condensed mana into the following three-dimensional shapes: a cube, a pyramid, a cylinder, a cone, and a sphere.
Once you are capable of forming these shapes with a smooth surface move on to Step 9.
***
Step 24:
Remember how in Step 8 you were expected to form mana into basic three-dimensional shapes and how in Step 10 you were expected to form mana into a flat sheet. Then during Step 18, you were expected to fuse mana shapes together to form an intersected shape.
Well in this step you will first form mana into flat sheets, then you will fuse those flat sheets together to form the same shapes you did in Step 8 except this time you will be trying to make them as hollow as possible.
If you can form all the shapes with a smooth surface and a hollow inside you can move on to Step 25.
***
Step 100:
Combining all the steps you have learned so far your target is simply to create five hollow shapes out of raw mana (whichever you like as long as all of them are different).
You must then repeat that shape inside itself so that it does not touch the shape it is surrounded by five times (the size of the shapes created is all up to your discretion).
Once you have done this with all five of your shapes connect all five of them together however you would like to make sure to leave a hole between each connection.
Once that is done form a clump of mana into a thread and then move this thread through each of your connected shapes without touching the walls of any of them.
Once you have completed this step you can move on to Chapter 3 - The Six Schools Of Magic.
***
Once I was done taking notes on what I read and formed a basic idea of what I was doing I began to ponder my next couple of moves.
I had already skimmed most of the information in this book beforehand but now that I had thoroughly read through it and gotten a better idea of what I was working with I realized just how much work was ahead of me.
All the steps listed in the second chapter needed to be performed twice.
Once using the mana within you to learn Internal Mana Manipulation and a second time using the mana in your surroundings to learn External Mana Manipulation which was vastly more challenging to control.
Underneath each individual step, there was a little drawing at the bottom showing exactly what you needed to construct to complete it.
Each exercise was more exhausting than the last, often causing me severe mental strain often to the point where my head would begin to throb twenty-four-seven despite me only practicing this stuff for at most five days.
And I was only currently at Step 6 of my first go-through.
I had absolutely no faith that I would be able to finish the book by the end of the month like Kent wanted.
Despite my disappointing results, I learned a lot about how magic worked by reading some of the stuff in this book and through my own personal experimentation.
I put the book I was reading onto the shelf neatly before repositioning the notebook I had been writing on to a more comfortable position. I then re-dipped my pen in ink and flipped the book until I was at its center.
My heading was “Thoughts on Magic”.
I began to quickly write down my thoughts, theories, and opinion on the phenomenon that I had submerged myself in for the past couple of days.
Firstly, a spell required three main components for it to function; The Elemental Equalizer, the Spell Forge, and the actual Casting Ritual.
The Elemental Equalizer: A mana construct that is used to turn raw mana into an Elemental/
Fundamental mana type or in the case of a spell that requires neutral mana would simply purify the raw mana until it became usable on its own.
The Spell Forge: A mana construct used to take in the Elemental/ Fundamental mana and encode the desired effect onto it.
The Spell Ritual: Then takes this encoded mana and casts it into the real world. This ritual can be spoken, and gestured and even require things like a sacrificial knife or an altar depending on the particular spell or caster.
For example, say you wanted to cast the basic spell fireball.
You would need to first convert the mana in your body to fire mana using the Elemental Equalizer.
You would then encode the instructions of Projectile Movement and Form Shere into the spell using the Spell Forge.
After which you would shout the words “Fire Ball” to cause the ball of flame to shoot out of your hand or where ever you wanted from your body for that matter as the Spell Ritual.
Despite the fantasy and lack of knowledge people have about magic, there is a clear logic and repeatability found in magic casting and where there is logic and repeatability there is science.
With that understanding out of the way, I started to experiment.