Descal

Wow. Umm. Talk about a surprise. To think that I would meet someone with "his" power after this long. Well, he was a pretty impressive person with a high limbo so... Maybe it isn't so surprising. Anyway, it turns out this princess right here had magic eyes the entire time and never realized it. Now that I think about it, it makes sense. She can't use magic very well because those eyes of hers consume all of her naturally generating mana, and she mentioned something about "seeing" the truth. Not only that, it may explain why she is so good with ranged weapons. Just like her ancestor.

"I have magic eyes? What do you mean?" (Cecilia)

"Well, from what I know of your ancestor, he had the ability to see the truth, see things extremely far away, see extremely tiny things, and see a little bit into the future. What was even more terrifying was that he could even dispel any magic attacks in his line of sight.  It was because of him that his country made massive advances in ballistics and medicine. Also, he was a terrifying sniper. Unparalleled in archery." (Descal)

"Why? What exactly are magic eyes? Can you teach me how to use it? Cause right now I only have the truth part of those eyes." (Cecilia)

"I don't know. You are already subconsciously using it. It explains why you are so god damn good with that musket, but I don't know how much I can teach you. For one, I don't know what they actually are and their full potential. I couldn't exactly study his eyes and how it affected his body. I only know what he could do with it. And I don't even know what magic eyes really are. I just know that they exist and that there are a wide variety of them." (Descal)

"Didn't you say you worked in a research institute?" (Cecilia)

"I did not specialize in that area. Hell, almost nobody wanted to study that area. Besides, magic eyes were rare cases, and only people in or will be in important positions had them so scholars couldn't really just walk up to them and ask if they could study them. Also, this world never fully developed or allowed autopsy or dissections of the human body because the necromancers completely fucked that area over and gave it bad publicity. When they tried to study the magic eyes of monsters like certain species of basilisk. Well, it turns out that those eyes can still paralyze even after they have been carved out of the body. So magic eyes was and probably still is a very underdeveloped area of magic research. I only know what they do." (Descal) 

"Well, then what did you study?" (Cecilia)

"Well one of the things I studied was relationship between mana and humans." (Descal)

"That sounds cool. So during your research did you discover how to use magic without chanting?" (Cecilia)

"A thousand years ago chantless magic was a given. Almost everybody could do it. My field of research was how to incorporate mana within the human body with multiple elements in order to further increase the efficiency of mana utilization." (Descal)

"Umm what?" (Cecilia)

"Well, back then magic was believed to come in the form of 4 elements: fire, wind, water, earth. By changing our physical body to better accommodate these elemental forms, I believed we could achieve a greater mastery over magic." (Descal)

"Did it work?" (Cecilia)

"No, because our understanding of the foundations of mana was entirely incorrect. It wasn't until a rising star in the community completely revolutionized the magical field that I realized I spent a large portion of my life on something that was pretty much doomed to fail from the very beginning." (Descal)

"Oh... Sorry." (Cecilia)

"Why apologize? It wasn't your fault. Besides it wasn't a complete waste. At least, I wish it was a complete waste at times." (Descal)

"What?" (Cecilia)

"Nothing. Just some mindless rambling." (Descal)

With that final note, I began walking, pulling Cecilia with me. What I learned from that research was my greatest mistake. A long time ago, in my world, we understood the laws of conservation of mass, energy, and mana. Although, I now know that mana is essentially energy but energy that could be directed or converted with varying degrees of precision through willpower, I wondered something that has baffled many researchers. How did mana even come to existence in the first place? I began to wonder this exact same question myself when I was cleaning up my rendered "useless" research. That was when I noticed something quite interesting in many of the ancient religious texts of this world. All of them had this quote: "Out from the abyss came....". Some said life, some said the earth, some said gods, but all of them had out from the abyss.

What exactly was the abyss? I began to delve a bit deeper into this subject and what I discovered changed me forever. I was bored one day, and I decided to have some fun with colliding matter with anti-matter in a extremely high density mana orb. This was probably the stupidest idea ever because I was releasing huge amounts of energy in an orb that was already saturated with mana. It was practically begging for a massive chain explosion. But during the collisions, I noticed something weird; every time there was an explosion, small amounts of mana in the vicinity of the collision literally disappeared. Just gone. I crunched the numbers, and the amount of energy that should have been in that orb didn't add up. I checked the glass to see if it was the one responsible for absorbing the mana, I checked for leakage, and I checked the safety release system. None of them were the culprit. So, I began to enforce my will onto the orb while the explosions occurred with the focus all on the exact point of collision between the matter and antimatter, and then... I almost died. My will almost got deleted. I chickened out at the last minute and at the moment I was withdrawing my control, the abyss showed itself. I went into a coma for two days, but I confirmed the existence of the thing called the abyss.

However, I still did not know what it was. In what was one of my most dangerous life-threatening experiments, I managed to isolate the abyss by inducing an artificial vacuum that was not even influenced by gravity at the time of a massive collision of matter and antimatter. Its very existence was paradoxical. One day it's there, the other day it just disappears off the radar. No magic tools I had could confirm it, and suddenly some time later, my tools confirm the existence of "something". It exists yet it does not exist. It has mass, but it doesn't. It can be influenced with other forms of energy, but at other times, it remains stubborn to the exact same influence. But most importantly, it had the powers of creation and deletion. No joke. There were times when it just randomly spouted out stuff... I could only identify 10 percent of those stuff as certain types of matter, light, and mana, but the rest I had no clue what they were. I only found out about its ability to delete when it began to "eat up" the space and light around it. Then, I began to start thinking in a dangerous direction. My former research was a failure. I was unable to incorporate elemental properties into flesh because of issues with flesh breaking apart under incompatible types and levels of mana. But what about the abyss? Could the abyss be combined with the physical body for unparalleled levels of power?

The experiment was a success, and I rue that day.

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"DESCAL. SNAP OUT OF IT. It's that way. Jeez. Let me take the lead." (Cecilia)

Not good. This is NOT the time for nostalgia. I am still in a forest that can kill me quite easily right now. We decided to take a break when the sun began to go down. The trees weren't climbable so we had no choice to sleep on the ground. I brought out some food and blankets from my storage.

"I wish you told me about your storage powers earlier. The pickled food was horrible." (Cecilia)

"Yeah. You already gave me an earful about it earlier." (Descal)

"Selfish prick." (Cecilia)

"I heard that." (Descal)

As we quietly ate our dinner, the forest seemed to get even mistier than before giving it a creepier feeling. When I began to nibble on my last rabbit leg, Cecilia suddenly picked up her musket, pointed it straight at me and WHAT THE HELL WHO ARE YOU POINTING THAT AT. As I dived to the ground, Cecilia shot the musket and a dead monkey came tumbling out of the shrubs.

"Shit. Can I not get a break? Get ready Cecilia. That monkey's friends probably heard the shot." (Descal)

"What are these things?" (Cecilia)

"Invisible monkeys. Well, I guess they aren't invisible to you though. These bastards love to attack in packs. Watch my back." (Descal)

Damn. I really wished that I could use my magic radar. Then even if these monkeys could become invisible, I could pinpoint them using thei mana signature. Sadly, this forest is saturated with mana so it is interfering with my radar.

Cecilia immediately moved to cover my blindspots, fixed her bayonet, and began reloading her musket while I took out my two pistols and switched to ultraviolet vision. Then, we waited... quietly. 

"Descal! Three to the right!" (Cecilia)

I rapidly pointed my two pistols to the right, and even with my uv vision, I saw nothing. Shit. However, I noticed that the branches were moving in an unnatural way. I heard Cecilia take the first shot, and a monkey fell to the ground. I decided to take my best guess and fired at the most likely places the monkey would be by watching the branches of the trees. One of my guesses was wrong, the other was spot on. 

While I brandished my two arm blades, trying to see any abnormalities in the surroundings. Behind me, I heard a wet shink and guessed that Cecilia got a monkey with her bayonet. Suddenly, I heard a large step to my left so I made a wide slash with my arm guards. I scored a hit and a huge squirt of blood came out and a blood-red figure appeared before. Now that I had the monkeys position, I immediately stabbed at where the neck should be and felt a satisfying slice as the monkey collapsed and bled out.

"Descal! Start running! We have more than ten coming this way!" (Cecilia)

"You take the lead. It turns out my countermeasure doesn't work anymore." (Descal)

While we were running, I began taking out a couple of bombs to work as distractions. Every time I saw a tree that was tall and had a thin enough trunk, I smashed a bomb into the tree trunk and set it off causing the tree to collapse. Despite this, the monkeys were starting to catch up so I picked up Cecilia and sped up our progress by jumping from tree branch to tree branch similar to the monkeys. Cecilia told me which of the trees were illusions so we could stay on the path and picked off any monkeys that got too close. Once the monkeys lost half of their numbers, they decided to retreat since it was extremely dark with little light for the mist did not allow much moonlight to enter the forest. 

"You *pant*... Alright?" (Descal)

"Yeah... I don't think we can continue on Descal. It's too dark." (Cecilia)

"Let's take... *deep breath* a rest over there. In the meantime, let's use this resting time to help you train those eyes of yours. I know for a fact that King Elisgrand's magic eyes could see extremely well in the dark. Hmmm. Do you know the basics of mana or how to conjure a spell?" (Descal)

"Well, I was taught that while you chant, you attach each word with a sort of order or direction for the spell. That's why the more complicated spells are longer. That's as much as I know cause after the mages saw my magic reserve, they told me that I lacked the ability to even conjure a flame spell so they told me to give it up." (Cecilia)

"Yeah. Your magic is really pitiful... Even King Elisgrand could use magic. But don't be sad! It could be possible that your magic pathways are only small because your magic eyes are more powerful! That could be a possibility!" (Descal)

"Really? My magic eyes are more powerful than my ancestor's eyes?" (Cecilia)

"Most likely. You see... It is awfully rare for a royal to have that pitiful magic reserve. For one, the royal family tends to have children with people with high magical abilities. Unless... was your mother a weak magician like you?" (Descal)

"No. My mother was a strong mage. As was the king." (Cecilia)

"There you go. So I am pretty sure that your difficulty in channeling magic is merely because of those eyes of yours.... Hmmm..." (Descal)

"What?" (Cecilia)

"Do you think you could shut down your magic eyes?" (Descal)

"What do you mean by shut down?" (Cecilia)

"If it really is your eyes that are taking up much of your mana, then wouldn't turning your "magic" eyes to normal eyes free up your mana usage so you can use spells?" (Descal)

".... Problem is that I don't know how to do that.... Can you even turn off magic eyes?" (Cecilia)

"Don't know. Food for thought. Anyway,I'll give you a quick rundwon on magic that does NOT include chanting. I am guessing that magic runs on similar principles of chantless magic. So magic is essentially a form of energy that you can apply your will onto. Now how you "will" the magic is different among everybody. The chanting that mages of this period tells you about is merely a sort of "guide" for them to force the mana to behave in a certain way. It is kinda like conditioning the mana to behave this way if this word is uttered. Truth be told, chanting is the easy way out. It's slow and pretty easy to predict and unravel with anti magic measures. To truly control mana and have them behave in a way that you want them to, you must have a certain background of knowledge and imagination to work off of. Do you understand what I am saying so far?" (Descal)

 "Not really?" (Cecillia)

"... okay. umm.. Let's just sum it up to this. If you know the basics of how something works and have a good enough imagination, you can make it happen with some mana." (Descal)

"Okay. So... how does this relate to teaching me to see in the dark?" (Cecilia)

"Well... do you know how certain animals see in the dark?" (Descal)

"No. Aren't they just born with it?" (Cecilia)

"Well, yeah, but there is a basis to how they can see. Let's start off with the easiest one. Certain species of snakes see in the dark by using heat." (Descal)

"Heat?" (Cecilia)

"Yup. Now you probably will have a hard time even imagining or guessing what "heat" looks like so I'll try to see if the strategy for teaching mages to see heat reactions applies to magic eyes as well." (Descal)

Even though it was extremely dark, I had Cecilia put on a rag to cover her eyes to make sure she couldn't see  the light that came from heating metals. Once I made sure that the blindfold was secure, I took out a metal rod and began to heat up the metal by forcing the molecules to vibrate using mana. Then, we played a small game where I had Cecilia guess the location of where the metal rod was. I varied distance, location, the temperature, and the amount of rods as well. Once Cecilia could guess about 75 percent accuracy, I told her to imagine "seeing" the heat and begin to apply mana to her eyes. I asked her what color would heat be, how bright a hotter object would be, and etc. Once I felt she had a good grasp on how she should apply her mana, I undid her blindfold.

"Whoa. You're so red like REALLY red... Is that normal? But... I don't feel your heat? I mean... When I look at my body, it's not as red as yours...." (Cecilia)

"Ahh.... just forget about that. It's just a perk of mine" (Descal)

"Everything is really wierd though. It's gonna take some time to get used to this..." (Cecilia)

"Take it slow. It's not like we are in a dangerous forest with blood thirsty monsters everywhere." (Descal)

"Thank you for mentioning that. How could I possibly forget where we are."  (Cecilia)

"Not to fear. Your hero is here." (Descal)

"I hate you." (Cecilia)

"I figured. Well, Let's just take it slow and start moving. From what I can tell, staying too long in one place in this forest is probably a bad idea. If you feel sleepy, tell me. I'll carry you." (Descal)

"But what about you? Don't you need sleep?" (Cecilia)

"Nah. I can hold it in. I'll just strengthen my brain with mana." (Descal)

Hmmm... I wonder how long I can keep up that lie. I really need an extended rest. From what Cecilia tells me my body is burning up from mana overload....

"DESCAL! WATCH OUT!" (Cecilia)

Suddenly, I felt an extreme burning sensation on my eyes. Immediately, I shouted in pain and began rubbing my eyes which only made the pain much worse. I fell to the ground writhing, and I felt something on my shoulders.

"Are you allright??? Some sort of snake shot some liquid in your face. I killed it, but what should I do?" (Cecilia)

"Water. GIve me some water to wash this off!" (Descal)

"Here. Move your hands... I'm gonna need more. Can you take some more out from your storage?" (Cecilia)

I began to feel lukewarm water flowing down my face as Cecilia desperately tried to wash off the poison. After washing down my face with 8 canteens of water, she began to wipe down my face with a cloth. I opened my eyes and saw nothing. Fuck.