“Anyway, enough with this. I have another question. The ring of water that you made, you said it was not an ability. What was it ?” Sanya’s curiosity was visible on her face. Now that she heard an explanation about what happened to Talia and knowing what she was safe, she could ask without restraints. Seeing her, Talia showed a small smile. Then, her face turned smug.
“Fufufu.” Talia was currently sitting cross-legged. She then opened her right hand with the palm over. Suddenly, A ball of water formed on top of her hand. The ball was not very big, around the size of a fist. Then, the ball levitated in the air and orbited around her. Seeing this, Sanya had her eyes shining. However, Talia didn’t stop there. something like rock started to be created a few centimeters above the top of her palm. The rock became bigger until it reached the size of the ball of water. Then the cluster of rocks also orbited around Talia.
And this was not the end. One after another, Talia created fist-sized orbs of elements. When Sanya saw a ball made of blackish matter, she was quite frightened. Same when a mass of lighting appeared. The apparition of an orb of ice and a ball of wind cooled the room. However, a fireball rose the temperature easily. Finally, something like a light orb also appeared on top of her palm and grouped with the others.
In total, there were 8 spheres of elements orbiting around Talia. The view would have surely astonished anybody. Of course, this included Sanya. She was just amazed by what she was seeing. The blue-haired girl with orbs of elements circling around her gave a mythical and almost unrealistic feeling.
“Wow…” This was the only thing that Sanya could say. She found what she was seeing beautiful.
“This is magic.” Talia calmly explained the origin of her power. “I use mana inside my body as a energy to form magic. There exist a lot of magic forms, spells and other applications for mana. The one that I am using is the magic system developed in the Arkalium dimension.”
Sanya decided to stop being surprised. Otherwise, she felt that it would always be the case. Instead, she queried about Talia’s power.
“This is magic? Amazing... However, is magic only limited to elements?Like, You can’t do things like flying in the air, transforming a pumpkin into a carriage and so on?” She only saw elements based magic, but she heard Talia talking about curses, which was not really something that you can find in nature.
Talia thought for a moment, then grabbed the mass of lighting in her hands. The lightning cracked the air as its form distorted. A continuous flow of electricity started to flow around her hand in a calm way. Sanya was quite fascinated by the spectacle as her eyes were glued to it. It seemed like the gold and blue sparkling lightning was tamed by Talia and obeyed her instructions.
“I think you have a small misunderstand.” Talia’s voice woke her up from her daze. Sanya raised her head to look at her. Talia’s gaze was still fixed on the flowing electricity. She then also raised her head and smiled.
“There is a difference between magic and a magic system. Magic is the name of the physical manifestation of mana. A magic system is the methods or the forms chosen in order to manifest mana. The word magic is common for all the worlds that use mana as an energy, while a magic system is basically different from a world to another. The Arkalium Magic System that I use is based on the 7 elements, Water, Fire, Lightning, Earth, Wind, Darkness and Light, and one non-elements attribute. The water and the ice are just one attribute. It’s just that I lowered the temperature of the water to make it freeze.”
As to prove what she was saying Talia reshaped the electricity into an orb to make it orbit once again around her. She then moved the balls of water and of ice in her hands. The water's density started to change while water droplets appeared on the ice ball. Talia seemed to voluntary do it slowly as to show it to Sanya. A short moment after, the water transformed into a sort of a fog, while the ice became liquid. “The Water attribute in this magic system has two states of matter, liquid and solid. The nearest to a gas state that I can reach is this kind of mist. After this, the water becomes a gas and it falls under the domain of Wind magic.”
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“The non-element magic is just the magic that doesn’t use the 7 previous elements. It can be body-reinforcement, illusion or even teleportation. Do you understand?”
“Mmmh, Somehow. So, if someone uses another magic system, the resulting magic will not have the same form.” Sanya held her chin as she tried to process everything.
“Exactly. If I have to give an example it would be the difference between the Arkalium Magic System and the Prol Magic System. Unlike the former, Prol uses magic carving on objects to cast magic. It’s called magical equipment. So, there might exist magic systems where you can fly and transform a pumpkin into a carriage, even if I think that the latter is less probable.”
“I see. Is it possible to use different magic systems at the same time?”
“Well, that is a tricky question. Technically, yes. I could learn magic systems during my training in the Stellar Temple, but there are some issues when learning more than one. The first problem is the compatibility. There exist magic systems that will create conflicts in their manifestation and their rules in the later stages, which would make the person unable to continue making progress in both. Either they stop training at their current level, or they give up on one magic system. Of course, that is not the case for all of them. For instance, the Prol Magic System is basically compatible with anything as it doesn’t affect directly your body. The Prol Magic System can be viewed as electrical circuit technology in our world. Just a bit more complex.”
“The second problem is the innate condition of the person. For instance, beings, such as elves in Arkalium, are born capable of wielding magic. Using the Arkalium Magic system is like a second nature for them. So, it’s near impossible for them to understand the basic rules of another magic system.”
“As for me, for some reasons, I can only use the Arkalium Magic System. Anyway, each magic system has pros and cons. The one that I use is quite balanced and varied.” As she said this Talia released the spheres of ice and water and held her palm in the air. In the air above her hand cyan-colored light particles, like fireflies started to appear and formed into something. Seeing the 2-D image that was created, Sanya had her eyes wide open. The cyan-colored particles formed an image of Fluffypaw.
“This is basic-level Illusion magic from the non-element attribute. At a high level, it can be used to disturb someone’s senses, but the most that I can use it is to create floating images.Well, it can be quite useful to show things.” As Talia said this, she erased the floating image.
“I understand, but how do you use a magic system? Are there spells or something like that.” Sanya’s attention was entirely focused on her explanation. It could not be helped. It was too much interesting! Even if abilities were impressive themselves, they seemed not as varied as magic.
“Yes, there are spells to cast magic. Generally, it’s in the form of an aria that you have to say. However, if your control and understanding of the system are deep enough, then you can directly use your mind to cast magic. Spells are just a way to learn about the rules of the system. It’s like a manual that familiarizes you with the magic system and the use of mana. When you reach a certain proficiency you don’t have to use spells anymore for a particular level. For example, I can cast basic-level Illusion magic without using a spell, but I would need to use a spell to use higher level Illusion magic. If I try to force it, I can lose control of the mana, which would cause a backfire.”
“B-Backfire? Is it dangerous?” Sanya was surprised by this. She thought that if you tried to use higher level magic without having the capability, it would just fail. At least, this was the case for abilities. If a D-ranked ability user tried to push their ability to a higher rank without having the power to do it, it would not work and the user would just tire rapidly. This was the case for Sarah in the Test Ability Chamber. In her case, she did succeed in reaching the threshold of the C-rank, even if there is still a long path until she could be called a real C- ranked user. In the end, the use of this power had greatly exhausted her.
In response to her question, Talia bitterly smiled. “Well, It depends on the level of the magic. If it’s a magic that uses a lot of mana, then yes it’s dangerous. The most common backfire is a mana explosion. Mana is a form of energy, so if a high density of mana is not controlled it will go wild, resulting in an explosion.”
From her expression, Sanya could read that it must have happened to her. “H-Haha… Anyway, you said that there were basic-level magic and high-level magic. Is it comparable to the ranks of our abilities, like the highest level is equivalent to a S-ranked ability user?"
Hearing her question, Talia had a stunned expression. It was like she just heard something really dumb. However, she shook her head as to deny her thought. “No, I can’t make fun of you for this question. You only heard about magic through me. I will show you the common different levels of magic in the other worlds, and then you will understand why I reacted like this.”