Serias woke up this morning with his bed drenched with icy cold water and the blue crackling of lightning that scorched a “little”. He is now sitting on a chair in the dining room slowly eating the slightly burned toast that he makes using Stella’s magic tool. Stella, the perpetrator that made his bed’s mattress lying under the sun was slowly sipping her tea with a white porcelain cup. Today she is wearing some type of white tunic that is worn loosely against her body.
“Today you’ll start your magic training with me in the forest where you came from.” Stella started their first conversation that day. They didn’t even talk when she woke Serias up roughly from his sleep.
“But....”
“No but. You’re late when you should wake up early. But you woke up near noon already. Just what type of person are you. You didn’t even awake when I used icy cold water on you.” Stella sneered at him with a tint of anger in her eyes.
“Well you I....” Serias stuttered
“What!? Not a morning person is what you want to say. Am I right?”
“Ah yes. Exactly.”
Stella just let a heavy sigh escaped from her small mouth, didn’t know what to say further to his new disciple. She stands up from her seat and walk slowly to the window that show the blue azure sky with the two suns in the background and the small hill from where Serias came from. She points her pale white hand to the hill.
“Change your attire first. The white one. I’ll be waiting at the hill only 30 minutes. Run fast as I’ll give you punishment this time if you’re late. And don’t forget to wash the dishes that we used. And I meant it now!”
Stella spoke in shrill voice when she sees that Serias still eating his toast slowly, savouring every bite like he is eating a thousand dollars steak. Serias after hearing Stella’s voice quickly stood up bringing down the chair that he sat on its back. He dashed quickly to the sink and wash the cup and plate that they had used for their breakfast. Stella just shook her head. She then just teleports to the meeting place.
Serias change into the attire that Stella had mentioned before. Exiting the double door of the tower, he dashed quickly like mad rabbit to the hills as he is running late. Although he think he is running if someone who see him would be rolling on the laughing as his running speed would even lose against kid.
Serias panted heavily when he arrived at the foot of the hill. He himself knew he is running late from the appointed time and physical activity was not his forte as he just worked in room only before. Waiting on the top of the hill was Stella who is glaring at him intently. This time he got his head knocked with a wooden pole that is longer than her height.
Stella ask Serias to sit down in front of her. Taking a deep breath she started her lectures.
“What you’ll learn today is the concept of mana. The energy that the precursor named. Mana is a type of energy that be freely manipulated by someone that is trained in mana manipulation. Mana is used to bend world logics according to the user’s own imagination and a few certain rules. There are two type of mana, the first one is the internal mana. Second is the ambient mana that surround us.”
Serias could only tilted his head in confusion, hearing the multiple type of mana. Stella just ignored him while continuing her explanation that internal mana is contained in every body regardless of living or non-living things. Internal mana as she explain could be cultivated without limit until someone dies. It also prolong someone’s life, but not infinitely.
“You’ll need to meditate to feel the mana. Clear your mind from any idle thought and focus only on sensing the mana that is flowing in your body and the mana that is in the surrounding. You better get started now. And come back before the sunset.” Stella walked away from him, returning back to the tower.
Serias sat down and tried to clear his mind from any thought. After a while he could make out the feeling of his blood flowing in the vein, the feeling of his lung filled with air. From his surroundings, he could hear the sound of the water flowing in the nearby stream and when he focused more, the sound of whistling wind moving past the trees in the forest could also be heard.
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He continued his meditation until the two suns started to sink beyond the horizon, but he still could not feel the mana. Not wanting to walk to the tower in the darkness, he end his meditation in frustration. Slowly he makes his feet moved slowly.
After almost one hour of walking in haste he arrived back at the black obsidian tower. He moved to the stream that flow at the back of the tower and drink directly from the river. He also take this chance to wash his face.
A few hours later, both Serias and Stella were sitting in Stella’s study room sipping tea slowly. Serias is frowning at his own development.
“Nearly a day of meditating, and I can’t even feel even a sliver of mana.”
“Take it easy. It’s only been a day. Even genius people would take at least a month to feel the mana. And you need to be reminded the first step is always the hardest one. Oh and another thing is I don’t really an expert in teaching others, so please forgive me for a bit.”
Stella left her seat and took out a book from one of the shelf at the back of her study desk. The book was in red color with 2cm thickness. Browsing through the pages, she stop after a few tens of pages and place the book in front of Serias with a “read it” expression on her face. Sighing slowly he took the book and started reading from the page that Stella pointed at. It reads “The Archivist Guide”.
The Archivist is an entity that protect the knowledge of magic from vanishing. It doesn’t matter if the knowledge is dangerous or not, the archivist will preserve this knowledge. The Archivist itself can analyze any magic they’ve seen in a moment, so that they can store this knowledge. It is an Archivist responsibility to protect the Tower that store all kinds of knowledge. This book wrote by me, The Second Archivist as a guide for new Archivist. I’ll not give out my name as The First Archivist had said “We, the Archivist, is a single entity that work toward the preservation of knowledge. That is why we always didn’t give out our name, only our title as an Archivist that we take pride in”. We did not only store the knowledge, we also research and develop new magic that piqued our interest. This book is wrote for the sake of introducing the world of archivist to the new apprentice.
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“That’s a lengthy introduction” Serias mumbled slowly. As he read on he found out some mana cultivation technique that could only be used, well after he could sense his own mana. He also read about how the knowledge was stored in the form of memory crystal that is located in the basement of the tower under maximum security.
“Then you should go and rest for today and wake up earlier tomorrow to continue your training.”
Hearing those, Serias stop is reading and quickly went to his bed.
After several days of meditation, Serias could feel the flow of mana in his body. It is a refreshing feeling of something cold flowing in his body and the feeling of something familiar swirling around his body. These two feelings are the internal mana and ambient mana respectively.
Opening his eyes, he could see a myriad of colors billowing into his sight. Calming down slightly, he tries cutting off the mana supply into his eyes gradually until he could not see the colors of mana. Reminiscing the feeling of mana streaming through his body make he feel happy.
A moment later, Stella approached him from behind. Putting her hand on Serias’ right shoulder, he who is focusing on the feeling of mana was dumbfounded. Seeing that it was Stella who is smiling a vicious smile, his heart shudders.
“With this, let’s start the phase 2 of your training”