“How many of you managed to control mana?” Some 3 or 4 students raised their hands, Adiel raised his hand too.

How unexpected, I would have asked him instead of Eleven if I knew he managed to control the mana he had gathered.

“The ones who managed to do so are to continue to control mana everyday, try to mold it into a needle or staff like shape. Just make sure it is thinner than the size of your thumb.” He said, addressing the kids who had managed to control mana.

“As for the rest, meditate and read some good books from the library, after a month or so your consciousness should be strong enough to control it.”

After saying this he suddenly turned his gaze towards me.

“As for you Eric, you sure you followed each step perfectly? Your consciousness should be able to control the mana gathered for 6 hours, speak less of 3 hours.”

Ehhh, I guess I see the problem?

“Does the amount of mana gathered affect anything?”

“Just how much mana did you gather?” He, realizing that I had gathered mana in excess.

His eyes glowed blue for a second and then he looked at me in annoyance.

“Seriously? You should be patient Eric, No mage ever achieved anything without being patient and calm”

Saying this he tapped his staff on the floor and I felt a little empty all of a sudden.

“I left a appropriate amount of mana for you to work with, complete the carving after the class and the math worksheet.

Anyways, I will be talking about mana circles today, just like the one you will be carving on the walls of your soul spaces, If you notice it carefully there are 4 spirals in the circle, they transmit the 4 elemental mana into your soul. And in the middle is a small dotted circle with many lines extending in all directions, this is where you will feed the mana you gather everyday for the next 1 year, there is no varying depth or 3 dimensionality to the circle, such elements lead to an unlimited amount of things that you can do with such circles as long as you have enough mana.

When you become a tier-1 mage your soul will dissolve into the soul space thus the following…”

…

“And I am done” I said as I stood up from my seat in the library and after bidding Adiel and Delsa farewell I basically ran towards the garden.

Sitting down, I calmed myself and entered my soul space.

I saw that in the usual colorless grassland, the amount of floating lights that had filled the empty space were now quite a lot sparse.

I willed them to come together, nothing happened.

I tried many different way and slowly but surely the mana started listening to me. It was kind of discovering that you had a 3rd limb all along and trying to figure out how to use it.

As I willed the mana to come together I noticed that it was gathering in the shape of a sphere.

I tried to only squish the circle from 2 directions, it worked after about 15 mins and the sphere became a flat circle.

I floated towards the circle as the small orb I became in the soul space and touched it.

It felt slightly warm.

I relaxed my control over the mana and it spread again. I once again started condensing it but in the shape of a skewer.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Even though it felt akward to move the mana it still listened and formed a skewer shape.

But can I move it?

The only possible answer being to test it out I tried to move the mana skewer forward. It did, I started moving the skewer all around the soul space.

It even passed through my soul uninhibited.

Remembering the pattern that had been on the page I went towards one corner of the wall.

What if I remembered wrong?

Just to make sure I relaxed my control once more and exited the soul space.

The sun had started approaching the horizon in the meanwhile. Maybe in another hour the sun will begin setting.

I took out the page that had been given to us and looked at the magic circle once more. 4 spirals connected by lines with a circle bisected by 1, 2 … 16 lines, in between.

I once more entered the soul space and after condensing the skewer shape brought it close to the wall. The moment I touched it with the needle I felt as though..

I felt a exposing sensation so intense that it blanked my brain for a second. Almost like that time I had been forced to go naked for a week as I had been caught by some sort of satanic cult which I had approached to see if Satan was real.

The only thing I realized that it doesn’t matter if Satan was real if people like these existed. I would have probably been eaten if not for those dumb fuckers forgetting to lock the door of cell they had thrown all sorts of people in.

Even though it was traumatizing for the 38 year old me, I remember telling the story with quite a laughter to many people, most didn’t believe me though.

It was not bad enough to freeze me, so I kept going.

4 spirals, circle in the middle, 16 lines.

The moment I drew the last line the feeling of being intensified for a few moments and then disappeared.

I looked at the pattern I had drawn on the wall.

Following the last step I willed the mana to disperse. As soon as I did the circle in the middle of the circle started absorbing the mana at a pretty slow rate and with the absorption it started expanding.

The 4 spirals started glowing in red, blue, green and brown colors each.

It looked surreal, color in the soulspace that was black and white. After the circle had covered the entire spherical wall everything turned darker…

And then the the grass turned green, I looked at myself and I had turned from a white orb to a bluish orb.

The mana that floated all around glowing just like stars in the sky created a sight beautiful beyond belief. The spirals that had been glowing till now started dimming down and then they stopped glowing. All the mana had been consumed.

I exited the soulspace and saw that the sun had set and the skies had darkened.

I walked back home to the seen of Adiel and Eleven playing chess and Delsa carving a little wooden owl with the help of a small knife.

“You know how to carve?” I asked

She nodded and continued.

I played a few games of chess and then decided to go to sleep.

…

“Today we will be talking about the soul space and the dangers of other people entering your soul space.. For this we would need a student here, Eric! Seeing that you have become a initiate mage now you would be perfect.” Edward said after appearing on his seat in class as usual.

I stood up and went forward.

“Now enter you soul space, I will probe your soulspace with mine and you have to try to not resist.”

I entered my soulspace, now filled with color, and as soon as I did I saw a little blue dot in the distance visible through the walls of the soul space.

The dot slowly grew in size and slowly a huge floating ocean came into view. Another smaller part separated from the ocean and touched my soul space.

I felt as though someone was touching my organs, I resisted the urge to resist and soon saw a small fox? Enter through the soulspace.

A sense of incongruity went though my body, a feeling of something being wrong, and then I was back in the class.

“Now students, I entered his soulspace through a small spirit and now I will show you the dangers of something like this happening to you.”

He suddenly turned to look at me.

“What is your name?”

What’s with this question? Did he make me forget my name, but I clearly remember it. My name..

“My name is Gaylord Chickenegg”

“HAAHAAHA!” A loud laughter rang throughout the class. Almost everyone was laughing.

Is something on my face.

“Ok so gaylord, go back to your seat and we will continue with the class.”

I sat back down while checking if my face had anything on it.

“Now the risks of someone entering your soulspace, specially by someone much stronger than you should be clear to you all.

This is related to the fact that your soul space is basically your consiousness. Any changes made in it reflect immediately unless these changes were made by you yourself. And unless the change is small and done by a demigod like what happened with gaylord-”

“Pfff”

“Silence! So like what happened with him, the soul will be damaged and it will slowly turn that person into an complete idiot.

Anyways, there are various…”

…

I walked to the library with Adiel and Delsa in tow. They would look at me and try to stop their laughter and when I would ask them what happened they would just say nothing.

After completing today’s work I went to the garden and sat dwon while trying to figure out just wtf happened today.

“How are you Eric” Eleven approached me.

But who’s eri- Wait a second, my name was Eric wasn’t it? But then who is gaylo-

“fuck”

“What?”

“FUUUUCK!”