'Great timing! I'll be out of town doing some hunting requests with mom for the afternoon, so I'll be busy too. Have fun with your work, Amara!'
I smiled at Ciara's response as I got to work on my hammer's shaft. It would be a bit bigger than normal, so I could get more momentum with it, but not so big I couldn't use it for forging anymore. I also had some design ideas that would be fun for the parts closer to the head, where I wouldn't really be grabbing it.
Overall, it would closely match Ciara's sword, and I would be using the same grip material as well. We hadn't had an opportunity to test what really happens when you have all six base aspects flowing through the weapons at the same time, but it may be different for each of our tools. I couldn't wait to start practicing for combat with the hammer once it was ready, but that was for later. I still needed to find a teacher anyways.
Back to the hammer, it took an hour or two to get the shaft shaped, afterwards I started on the head. Right around the base of the hammer, where the head and shaft would fuse, there were going to be three sockets for the gems I was having made. The head was flat to accommodate its use in smithing, and it had a large spiked head on the back, resembling a thorny knot of vines. there was an engraving of a carnation and lavender flowers on the flat of the head, and the flowery motif followed along the rest of the hammer head. Once I had both pieces fully finished, it was about time to go home for dinner, after which was magic training. Mr. Darius knew what I was up to and put lessons on hold until I finished up with the hammer.
----------------------------------------
Dinner was short and nothing special happened, then I went into the clearing to meet Trix and Ms. Jasmine. "Oh, no Ciara today? I'm surprised she's not with you. It almost feels strange to see you apart now. Well, back to our usual training then?" Ms. Jasmine and Trix were getting ready for our session.
"Actually, would we be able to train in healing magic tonight? It's something I haven't focused on so far, and it would be very helpful to know how it works. Especially once I start going out into the forest with Ciara, right?" I was excited to have something like this in my arsenal, and understanding how light interacts with healing would help me make more insights into it.
"You're making sense with that argument, but neither of us is really well versed in healing. Fire has a really hard time doing it, and Trix is specialized in combat with her air and fire mana. We can give you some of the theory, but the rest you'll need to meditate on, like before." Ms. Jasmine looked apologetically as I sat down cross legged.
"Alright, that's good enough for me. Let's get started then!" I focused on them, and they began explaining how healing magic has been taught to others, followed by a few examples of actual instances of light and water being used to heal.
Apparently, water mana uses a completely different type of healing, involving blood somehow, while light supposedly purifies and reverts things to their original states, which also sometimes works on inanimate objects. That last effect would be really handy in the forge to fix mistakes and repair equipment without using up materials.
"That's about everything we can teach on the subject, so it's up to you to gain some insight on your own now." Trix pat me on the head and walked over to the little camp we made out here.
I began to meditate on light again, trying to further my understanding of its properties. As before, light was all, and everything was light. Following this line of thinking, if everything was light, then light could replace anything. And because I was light, I could replace part of myself with light as well, then change it back as it was before. It should be the same as it was before, or a similar state that I wished it to be. The same should be possible for others. They were all light as well, so it makes sense that I could manipulate that light in a small way at least. In order to heal or repair, I would need to know how the light was meant to be, and change it to match that form in the areas I wanted to affect.
I could feel my eyes start to feel off, so I opened them. What I saw was like my mana sight, but much more intense. I could see streams of mana like before, but they all had a tinge of the yellow of light mana, even the dark mana had a halo of light surrounding it. I looked towards the sun, and saw something unbelievable! Instead of the glowing mass that would burn my mundane eyes, there was a ball of mana surrounding something that looked vaguely like a humanoid shadow. It was very small, and so very far away, but I could see it was there inside the roiling mass of fire and light.
I was so shocked by this revelation that I didn't notice Trix and Ms. Jasmine shout in surprise behind me.
"Amara, are you okay?" They rushed over to me.
"I'm fine, just seeing some concerning stuff with this new insight I gained." I was still a little dazed by the vision I gained, which I could luckily soften so it wasn't so overwhelming.
"What happened to you?" Trix grabbed my shoulders and looked me straight in the eyes, seemingly concerned.
"What do you mean? I meditated on the stuff we were talking about to find my way to heal, and gained some more insights. Afterwards, I felt my eyes change a bit, and I started seeing more light mana around, but then I looked at the sun. I saw something really strange, and then you started shouting." I explained what I did, but Trix just looked at me dumbfounded.
"Okay, first off, it should take much longer than that to have any sort of breakthrough in understanding on any aspect, especially after having another one recently. Secondly, you were glowing. Like, really brightly. You lit up the clearing like it was daylight out. I don't recall ever hearing about a revelation doing something like that before. Is there anything strange with your [Status] after all that?" Ms. Jasmine helped me off the ground, and I looked into my [Status]. There were a bunch of new messages.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
You have discovered an aspect of your self!
Your Race has been discovered:
Lightborne
A Lightborne is a young race of beings that are made of light, and can manipulate it in all it's forms and slowly absorb it to regenerate mana. They see the world differently to other sentient races, and have an innately creative mind. Once they mature, most can actively use the light around them to heal, or manipulate it in any way they can imagine. As a Young Race, there are very few of them in existence, but they have a bright future.
You have deepened your understanding of the light aspect:
You can now manipulate light aspect mana with little to no personal mana cost.
Special Interaction: Race [Lightborne]
As one made of light with such a high understanding of yourself and your aspect, you now passively absorb small amounts of light mana to strengthen your physique.
This set of messages was both mind blowing and incredibly informative. It let me know what I had become, what that meant, and coupled with the "First of a Kind" Title it let me know that, even though none of my race existed before now, the {System} had knowledge of what I would become in the future. While this wasn't totally unbelievable, as there were some minor effects you could put on time with mana of a few aspects, it was still surprising. There were still a few messages and stat increases, but these were the most important. Well, aside from a title I gained, which was so mind boggling, that I didn't really want to think of its implications right now.
You have glimpsed upon something beyond your level and understanding, and have gained a Title.
Unfettered Eyes
Your sight is not bound by barriers or restraints. You can never be blinded, you can will your sight to pierce through objects, physical and spiritual. You can more easily glimpse upon the mysteries of the universe, and begin to work towards understanding them. These eyes are both Blessed and Cursed. The knowledge you gain can be helpful or harmful. Always use discretion.
This title seemed to remove and incorporate my [Mana Sight] skill, meaning that it was as high as it could get now. I couldn't improve my vision through use like the rest of my skills, I had to find something else to improve them somehow. It let me know that I wasn't supposed to know about the person at the center of the sun, whoever they were. It also said I could see through things and see mysteries, whatever that meant. I could probably use it to improve the quality of my work if I figured out exactly how it worked. I could also use it to improve healing by looking through someone to see exactly what was damaged. It had a lot of applications that I could think of, but probably just as many that I wasn't.
"There were a few messages, but one of them let me know that I'm a Lightborne, so that's useful. My eyes are also much more powerful, and I can see more than before. And lastly, I learned how to heal using my light. That's about everything that I see here." I skipped over the small details, because it would take a lot of time to go through all of them without being asked.
"What do you mean you're a Lightborne? What does that mean? Is it some sort of title?" Ms. Jasmine was clearly confused, and I could see Trix making a funny face off to the side.
"Oh, no, that's my race. That's probably why I was glowing with such a bright light earlier. I'm made of the stuff, and I guess it took that revelation for me to fully realize it." I was trying to be calm about this in the hopes that they freaked out less.
"I thought you were human, Amara? And why wouldn't you know your race if you weren't?" Trix wasn't from this town, so she didn't know much about me.
"I was human until a while ago, I guess. I got a title a few months back that tipped me off on being a different race after being combined with the whole "Evolution Options" thing one of the titles I got last night had. We talked a lot about it this morning and we don't think it's a huge deal, and it should turn out okay if I'm careful. Also, I will be evolving at some point around my apprenticeship graduation, if it works like other non-humans do." This was a big info dump on the two of them, but this was my third time explaining it, so I just wanted to get through it.
"Okay, so last night, you got a bunch of stuff from the {System} for giving Ciara her sword?" Ms. Jasmine didn't understand very well, so I had to explain a bit more before we could continue the conversation in a productive direction. "I think I understand now. That means that you probably stopped being at least fully human around the time you had your breakthrough in how light magic works for you. That's my best guess at when and maybe even why that happened. But knowing now that she's going to evolve, especially after being friends with Valerie so long, it's strange to think that her daughter isn't human. I don't mean anything negative by it, but it's just very uncommon around here." She was rambling a bit like always, which was a good sign.
Just to make sure she was fully okay, I walked up and gave her a comforting hug. "Thank you for not thinking of me differently after all this. You're an amazing teacher, Ms. Jasmine."
"Aww, thank you so much Amara. I'm glad to be your teacher. I've had my worldview broken a few times, but it's always a pleasure to teach and watch you learn." She hugged me back, and Trix joined in, probably because she felt left out at this point.
"Amara doesn't really make sense as a person, but I'm glad I'm here as well. Thank you for letting me join this little group you've got. I feel like I'm going to have a lot of fun over time with everyone." She smiled at me and winked.
"I suppose it's time for me to head home now, isn't it? I don't wanna worry Mama or Papa, and should also probably let them know what I learned tonight." I let go of the both of them, and started saying my goodbyes for the night. "I'll see you two tomorrow night. Sleep well."
I headed home and told Mama and Papa everything that happened tonight, and that we pretty quickly figured out what my race was. There wasn't a whole lot of new information, so I got to bed pretty early. There was still one more person I needed to talk to about this stuff though.
'Ciara, there's something I need to talk to you about in person. Are you free either before work or before magic practice tomorrow?'
'It must be serious if you think we need to be together to talk about it. I can definitely make time to meet you around time for magic practice. I'll see you tomorrow then, yeah?'
'Yeah, see you tomorrow! Sleep well, Ciara.'