Even Henrietta looked stunned by what had just happened. She took a moment to gather her thoughts and work out what to address first. “It appears like the both of you were very quick to mobilise your mana, which is impressive. I have very rarely witnessed healing magics used before, so I count this as a welcome event.”
She then turned to look at Danny. “Could you tell me what you felt as you used the cube?”
Danny paused for a moment and looked around the room, everyone’s eyes were now locked on him. “Uhhhhh, well. The cube changed its feeling all of a sudden, like it wanted my mana. When I tried to give it my mana, that happened,” he gestured at the still-burning cube, which was slowly evaporating the water around it.
“Hmm.” Henrietta put a finger to her lips. “For everyone’s knowledge, once the cube detects that you have located your mana pool, it will change function to help you begin to move your mana, building on your control. This should usually take a few days to get a proper grasp of.”
Henrietta then excused herself from the room, quickly coming back with a tall Asian fellow dressed in long white robes. “Everyone this is Samanera, who is here in Madley to educate anyone who shows affinity for the healing arts. Linh, DeMercy, Samanera will be teaching you. I was going to introduce him in a few days, but I believe the talent in the room was underestimated and our scheduling will have to adapt.”
The athletic African guy, DeMercy, grinned, looking impressed. Linh lacked the same energy. She appeared to not like the look of Samanera. “Samanera isn’t a name,” she said softly.
The tall man smiled softly, “You are right, it is a title. Come, there is much to learn.”
DeMercy and Linh followed the man out of the room, leaving ten students remaining. Henrietta instructed everyone to get back to playing with the cubes and approached Danny. “I believe that your abnormal mana pool is likely to be the cause of what happened, you mobilised what would have felt like a small amount of mana, but our equipment is based on the human standard.”
Danny felt like her words weren’t entirely accurate to his experience, he very much felt that everything had moved, not a small part. He didn’t know how to verbalise this and was aware that everyone in the room was listening in, so he said nothing.
“I believe we’ll need specialised equipment to assist you, so I will get in contact with our resident engineer who will likely want to meet you. For now, I will teach you the next step in mana manipulation, come with me.”
Another member of staff stepped into the room to supervise the remaining students, while Henrietta led Danny through the building. She was surprisingly talkative. “You know Danny, it is a very exciting time. After decades of stagnation, we are discovering talents only seen once in a hundred years in dozens. Take your mana pool for example, something completely unheard of, perhaps only in legends or myths. It has become the talk of the country!”
“That sounds… bothersome,” Danny replied honestly. The last thing he wanted was to be the talk of the country.
“That’s the fun part Danny, you’re only one of several amazing cases in the country, let alone the world. We’re seeing things previously thought to be impossible cropping up everywhere, it is truly a time of much-needed change.” There was genuine delight dancing around the eyes of the woman as she spoke.
“Much-needed change?”
“Hmm,” the woman nodded vigorously. “Especially here in Madley, things have been stagnant for a long time. The world needs a good shake-up.” They arrived at a new room, one that was a bit smaller than the hall, but still quite spacious. The walls and ceiling were covered with grey stone tiles that had lines carved through them. “This is a room for practising magic, built with reinforced stone to protect it from damage. A perfectly safe place to try things out for the first time.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
As if to demonstrate, Henrietta held up her hands and began chanting, a large blob of water appeared in the air before rapidly spinning and forming a spiral. The spiral then shot forward and slammed into the wall, in response the grey stones emitted a red glow and the water vanished.
“The stones will turn a certain colour depending on how damaging the spell is. Green is harmless, yellow is harmful, orange is seriously harmful, and red is lethal. This is all concerning a normal human.”
Henrietta then walked Danny through an exercise. She had him connect with his mana pool and then imagine a projectile, such as an arrow, bullet, or ball. The final step was to compel the projectile toward a direction. She demonstrated this by forming an arrow in front of her. The arrow was small and blue, looking more like a mediaeval arrow with a feathered tail than any arrow that is truly used today. The arrow then flew forward, colliding with the wall which emitted a yellow glow.
Danny then focused on what he had recently discovered to be his mana pool, which was his entire body. He then tried to imagine a projectile, the first thing that came to mind was a cannonball. He always had a soft spot for pirate movies. A large orange cannonball appeared in front of him, ominously glowing. Danny missed Henrietta's eyes widening in shock as he focused on compelling the cannonball toward the wall. “WAIT!” She tried to call out.
The cannonball jetted through the air at an almost unimaginable speed, crashing into the wall with an incredible bang. The grey stones briefly turned red before cracking and crumbling, literally disintegrating beneath the might of the magical cannonball. The projectile didn’t stop there, it continued through the wall, the next room, and then the following wall as well.
Suddenly sirens blared. “Oh shit.” Henrietta cursed. Before the words had even fully left her mouth she was diving toward Danny. Several figures appeared in the room, surrounding Danny. Hands raised and glows of different colours manifested. Chains and shields appeared in the air around him, some made of earth, some of water, some of fire, and some that didn’t truly have a colour but looked like moving air.
The chains shot toward Danny, coiling around his arms and legs. He immediately felt his mana reacting to these odd constructs. His body burned and raged, he felt himself heating up internally. He felt his mind heating up as well, anger surfaced, he felt the desire to charge forward and destroy these people who had appeared and assaulted him. His rational mind did its best to wrestle down these irrational thoughts, but as more chains connected with him, the anger rose.
There are no solutions, only trade-offs, was something Danny had heard a lot from his old coach and it had really stuck with him, especially after his passing. In the spirit of the saying, Danny decided to let the anger have its way, but made the rational choice of direction. He pulled his left arm inward, which dragged the people connected to the other end of the chain closer to him.
“He’s resisting!” Someone cried out.
“WAIT!” Henrietta screamed.
Danny’s mind grew increasingly cloudy, he grabbed one of the chains made of stone and began pulling the person on the other end toward him. He tried to take a step forward but found that other chains were pulling against him, preventing him from moving. So, he continued pulling the chain toward him. The person on the other end responded by disconnecting themselves from the chain, quickly forming a new one in the air.
Danny grunted as the chain in his hand dissolved into nothing. Suddenly he felt a presence approach him from behind. He spun on the spot, dragging those people holding the chains along with him. A large man was approaching him with glowing hands, reaching for his neck. Danny bent his knees, dropping his forehead below the man’s nose-line then thundered his head forward.
The action clearly caught the man by surprise and he was defenceless as Danny’s forehead collided with his head. The man dropped like a sack of potatoes, unconscious.
The gathered wizards were momentarily stunned by the sight, which gave Danny more than enough to pull one of the smaller female chain-wielders toward him. Now Danny took no pride in punching a woman, but morality was lost in the angry clouds of his mind. His large fist was almost the size of the poor woman’s face. The impact and resulting unconsciousness momentarily alleviated the rage clouding his mind. This isn’t right.
Clarity began to return to him, he realised his body was burning up and he was sweating buckets. He stopped pulling against the chains and went still, confusing his assailants. They looked royally hacked off that two of their peers had been rendered unconscious. Danny watched as one of the angrier looking men raised his free hand and summoned a ball of rolling fire.
That looks like it would hurt.