Chapter 9 Melodia

I sat at my desk staring at a new notebook. After we had made it home yesterday, the first thing Pickati did was tell me I was going to need a second notebook for my magic. Apparently I would fill it out way too fast if I only had one. So now I had two notebooks, one for general magic lessons, and another for my spells in specific.

We spent the rest of the night writing into the general magic notebook. Mostly little stuff I would need to know before we started casting spells. One in particular stood out to me.

Something Pickati had called 'the hierarchy of mystical targeting complexity'. I had needed to track down a dictionary to learn how to spell the word hierarchy, but it had apparently been way too important to skip. To make a complicated story short, spells were harder depending on what you were casting them on.

Apparently, it was going to come up when I learned my first ever spell. I could already start making guesses as to what it could be. Not like I'd be left guessing for long.

Today was a rare Saturday. Arturo had left early to go to the mall with some friends, and Mom and Dad had a dinner thing with some old friends in the afternoon. Between the two of those, there would be a short two hour window where I would be home alone no one had noticed until my brother was already heading out the door.

It had taken a lot of begging, many promises, and a whole lot of unneeded worrying, but I had convinced my parents I could be trusted to stay home by myself for two hours.

So now here I was, watching my parent's car from my window until they left and I could start learning magic.

"They're starting up the car," Pickati narrowed his eyes as I took my pencil and flipped the spell book open to next blank page. "I'll let you know if they start coming back. In the meantime, start writing down what I tell you."

"Got it," I answered back as my pencil started writing on the page. I kept going, taking a couple of breaks for the sake of my hand, and a few minutes later I had a full page of information in front of me.

"And that's it, did you get all of it?" I nodded as Pickati landed on my shoulder. Mom and Dad must have been long gone if he was here instead of the window. I picked up my spell book and started reading through the 'Internal Stabilization' spell I had written up. From what I knew of magic so far, it made sense as a first spell. If I was going to be hanging upside-down, I was going to need a way to keep myself from getting dizzy.

Once I was done, Pickati gave a quick nod. "Okay, everything looks good here. You remember your promise to not practice magic on your own right? This spell in particular can be dangerous if cast incorrectly."

"I promise not to practice on my own," I repeated, wondering how bad it could be.

"Well that's good. If you cast it wrong, you run the risk of locking up all your organs and killing you instantly."

Well it turns out the answer was pretty bad. My shock must have been clear on my face, because Pickati gave me a slight smile.

"Like I said, don't practice that spell on your own. It's all for your own safety," I gulped as he gave me a little smile.

"So how do I do this?" I looked down at the spell book, hoping that learning to use magic the right way would help me calm down.

"The same way you're going to learn every other spell I teach you. You're going to learn how to create the concepts one at a time. Each time you make a concept, I'll check it to make sure you've done it correctly. If you have, you can try to apply it to your magic. If you didn't, we get rid of it and you try again," he placed his paw on the notebook where I had written the word 'self'. "We're starting with this one. Do what you did to create a gravity concept, but instead of gravity, try to create the concept of 'yourself'."

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The concept of self. When Pickati had told me I could learn magic, I never expected one of the first steps to be 'learn who you are' but I guess we were doing this anyway.

I closed my eyes to make it easier to imagine the concept. Pickati told me the day before I should close my eyes when trying to make new concepts and practice them with my eyes open only after getting them down.

I followed the now familiar steps to call upon my magic and imbue it with the concept of gravity. Once I had some gravity magic ready to go, I tried to think of who I was. I had looked at myself in the mirror a few hours ago, and that memory was still fresh. I thought back to it, the way my reflection moved when I moved. She was me and I was her.

I was pretty sure I had the concept ready to go, so I opened my eyes. I looked at Pickati, ready for his judgment. And going by the way he was frowning, it wasn't going to be good.

"Well that's odd," he stared at me and titled his head, "you somehow managed to create a concept of 'mirror' instead of self. How did you do that?"

I created 'mirror'? I looked back at the concept and felt it myself. It was strange to describe, but it did feel a little 'reflecty'. It felt like me at the moment, but only because I was the one looking at it. And the 'further away' I was from it, the less it felt like me. Pickati must have seen himself when he checked the concept.

Yeah, this was a mirror. Kind of cool, but maybe best saved for later once I know how to cast other spells. And as for Pickati's question…

"Well… my reflection…" I quickly told him about what I had used to form the concept. He nodded his head at the end of the explanation.

"I see the problem. You were too focused on the view of yourself from the outside. This concept isn't about how others see you from the outside or how you see yourself in the mirror. It's about you and just you, not another version or reflection of you."

"So in order to cast this spell, I need to know who I am as a person?" I grimaced. I had been half joking when I had thought so earlier. If I actually needed to do it, we were going to be stuck here for a while.

"Oh no. It's not that complicated or introspective,"

Pickati came in with the save as I felt myself calm down a little. "You have to think of yourself in the most basic form. Try limiting it to 'you are you'."

I closed my eyes only to hear a small chuckle fill the room. I opened a single eye and pouted at him. "I'm glad my magic troubles are funny to you."

"No, it's something else," he smirked, "I'm remembering my creator's first apprentice. He had the same trouble with the concept of self you're having right now."

"Well… I guess it's nice to know I'm not alone in this," I smiled before leaning back with my eyes closed. Since the mirror concept was no good, I had to drop it along with the gravity magic I had prepared.

I pulled from my stores again, leaving the purple flame a little low. I would have to be careful to not let it drop all the way. Pickati had told me about mana exhaustion, and it did not sound like a good time.

I set up the gravity magic again before thinking of myself. No mirror, no outside view, I focused on myself. I felt my own breath, my own heartbeat, everything which let me know I was me.

"That's it," I heard Pickati say. "That's the concept of self. Now add it to the magic." I did as he said and layered the concept like he had taught me. I looked at the new piece of magic and smiled. I now had a spell which would apply gravity to myself, which was more than I had before. Step by step, I was getting closer to real magic.

"Okay, what's next?" I smirked before looking back at the book.