9 Years, Village outskirts. The Sound of Magic

Wind is nothing but movement of air. This given, it should be easy to recreate with acceleration magic – in theory, at least. In praxis, how do I concentrate on something I can not see or touch? When I asked my parents what enveloped us all the time a while back, they stated “Air”. Its movement is wind, and without it we die. This is they knew about it, and it is not much.

It is easy to concentrate on a rock, or water, or the own skin. All those things are touchable, I can see them, and distinguish them from others. But something that I cannot even quite sense, and whose nature I do not understand? Even though I put a lot of thought into it, I cannot come up with an answer.

I sigh, and look at the ground before me. Ione and her Brother are sitting cross legged, with their cups of water in front of them. The result that they strive for is heating up the water in their respective cup, having it evaporate eventually. The goal of this is different, though: They are supposed to find the connection between their will and their ability to use magic, the, as I dubbed it, “Magic Muscle”. However, over the time I got the feeling that this is more an imaginary construct than an actual muscle in my body. This believe enhanced when, a month ago, I discovered that I could “split” this muscle, resulting in two separately controllable, but less potent muscles. They are both capable of doing anything that the single muscle was, although having to split the output will diminish the results, so I should only split up my muscle if I have to perform multiple magic tasks at the same time.

My main reason for researching this was the great inconvenience that befell me in winter, when I had to release my heat coating every time I wanted to use a different spell. Since the coating only needed about a tenth of my coefficient to work properly, I would still be able to use the remaining ninety percent at will. It is difficult to keep up two spells at the same time, and requires severe mental gymnastics. There does not seem to be a limit of how many times I can split the muscle, but under great efforts, I was only barely able to maintain three at a time. Perhaps with training, this could be simplified, maybe even allowing compound spells. But since my coefficient is low, splitting it up too far would render all of the spells ineffective, and there would be no gain.

For the siblings to find this connection, they first have to understand what they want to do, and how it can be done. They need to understand the nature of heat, and how to cause it in an object. They surpassed this point a long time ago now. I asked them regularly as what they see heat, and both Iones “An energy inherent to objects, and slowly evening out with objects in their surroundings” and Brians “A power to change things from one form to another” satisfied me, as they would be enough draw the connection between the magic muscle and the thing itself, to manipulate it.

Therefore, there is only one step missing for them to be finally, after all that time, able to heat water and make beginnings in magic, is for them to find their “Magic muscle”, and use it. This is the phase they are struggling with right now. We talked a lot about how they imagined it accessing it, and they spent a lot of time focused on meditation, searching for answers in their own head. In all honesty, I am impressed by their resolve and unwillingness to give up, despite not making any visible progress whatsoever over the course of half a year, and doing nothing else than sitting in front of a cup for all this time. I did expect Ione to make it, but I figured that Brian would throw the towel after a few days, when realizing that this is not something you can learn in a single afternoon. In reality, his passion for this topic even surpasses Ione, he works harder than her, and presents me more abstract theories than her.

The three of us grew together in a strange way, a relation like I never had before. Iones Brother has changed in his behaviour over time. He bursts out only very rarely, and he ceased his hostility against me. He actually seems to respect me a bit, even though I am younger than him. As a result, I dislike him a lot less. His determination brought me to start memorizing and calling him by his name, even though it felt weird. I still refer to him as Iones brother from time to time, out of habit.

When he heard me say his name the first time, he smiled. All in all, the situation now is favourable over when he went on my throat on every occasion he could get.

They tried to exchange jokes with me once, but I did not find their jokes funny, and they somehow interpreted mine as cynicism, or the pointe went over their head.

Again, I watch both of them. Brian seems to have the plan of boiling the water by staring it to death. Ione mumbles a few unintelligible words, and a strange impression hushed over her face, like she was experiencing something out-of-the-world. I tuck an eye brow, and get ready to ask her what happened.

A loud hissing sounds, and a giant steam cloud erupts from the cup in front of Ione. In a split second, her expression changes to shock, and she leaps backwards, pulling her brother with her. I lean backwards as well to avoid the burning cloud. Only a few seconds after, it dissipates, and Brians as well shocked face turns into wide, broad grin. “You did it, sister! You did it!” Brian celebrates, and Ione nods, still half in disbelief.

“It appears so.” I comment, and get up from the trunk I was sitting on. I pick up the cup, and inspect it. The insides are dry, but very hot, so I hastily put it down again to avoid speckling my finger tips with burn blisters. “How did you do it, Ione? What was the breakthrough? Did you find the magic muscle?” Needless to say, Brian and Ione were not the only ones thrilled about her success, it also was of great interest for me to see that my teachings finally bore fruit.

Ione, still flustered and obviously a little overwhelmed, mumbles: “I don't know... I felt like putting what I want to change into words, and spoke them, while imagining how to achieve that change. Suddenly, a strange feeling overcame me, and only a blink later, the cup exploded.” While speaking, she steadily regains her composure, and at the end, she talks like she does normally, thoughtful and levelheaded. “This feeling faded promptly after, and left behind a remark of emptiness.”

That fit perfectly to how I felt when I was confronted with magic withdrawal for the first time. While the effects obviously speak for themselves, this explanation further certifies the fact that Ione used magic. “You said you put your thoughts into words, a chant of some sort. Do you remember the exact phrase?”

Ione closes her eyes for a second, after which she answers: “If I remember correctly, it was along the lines of “May the Water in this cup boil!”.“

Brian has a perplexed expression on his face.. “Huh? How is that gonna describe that boiling water? That is simply ordering it, isn't it?” Internally, I agree with him.

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“Looking back, you are right. It made sense at the moment, seemed to fit. But now, it doesn't.” Ione even admits that. I do not think that what she says is important, but rather what she thinks, be it consciously or subconsciously.

“Could you do it again?”, I ask her. She nods, and I especially pay attention on her doing now. She reaches into a pocket, but Brian interrupts her: “No need! You can take my cup.” He is visibly excited, and looking forward to what is going to happen. “Thanks.” Ione picks up Brians cup, and plants it down in front of her, while keeping distance this time.

“May the water in this cup boil!” , Ione exclaims. Nothing happens. “Alright, I got to focus...” Ione inhales deeply, holds breath for a second – and exhales. She inhales again, but this time chants: “May the water in this cup boil!” Immediately, something in her expression looks different, and she takes another step back. After only a few seconds, the water explodes in to steam cloud, in the exact same fashion as it happened before. Ione bears a triumphant expression.

It is remarkable how quick the water began to boil. This power exceeds the coefficient of my starting days by far. I have to compare it to my current coefficient. Without admonition, I vault over the tree trunk, and grab one of the cups.

At first, Ione and Brian both were surprised by my sudden movements, but they grew accustomed to them after a few times. I dislike wasting time, and therefore I have the tendency to sprint short distances, take shortcuts, jump over things instead of taking the long way around. “I would fill this cup myself, but I have no water at hand.” I state this as a fact, but it is my way of making requests. Almost as much as wasting time, I dislike asking people for things.

Ione seems to understand, as she grabs her water bottle, and refills one of the two cups. I take it, and place it down on the flat stone. I concentrate, and direct my magic coefficient onto the water. Almost immediately after, the water starts boiling, and erupts in a steam cloud, in the exact same fashion like it did for Ione.

When heating water on a stove, there is no such thing as a steam explosion, of course. Since the heat is directional in that case, water at the bottom will start to evaporate, and leave taking its path through the water in form of bubbles. With magic, there is no direction to the heat, and every drop of water is brought to boiling temperatures at the exact same moment, expanding while evaporating, and therefore forming a eruptive cloud. If I specialize the magic to only heat up the bottom, this marginally dangerous effect can be circumvented, as well.

Right now, the time I needed to boil water is a lot shorter than Iones, since I can use a larger part of my coefficient. With practice however, Ione will surely and swiftly surpass me in this regard. I will the opportunity to conduct tests with someone that is able to handle higher firepower than myself, since I am rather limited in this regard, whether I like it or not.

“ -just wonder when I will find my power...” I snap back, only now realizing that Ione and Brian had a vivid dialogue while I was lost in thoughts. “I am sure your turn will come soon, little brother.” I leave them talking for themselves, and continue my thoughts. Ione was able to use magic with her voice, apparently. This was not what I expected. I expected that both of them sometime, if ever, learn using magic with the magic muscle, like I did. But Ione said she did not feel any sort of magic muscle, and I believe her. There is one possible explanation for this: There are multiple ways of accessing the magic coefficient.

Whether there are predefined ways everyone could, in theory, use, or if there are ways a user would come up with using their creativity, I can not possibly know at this moment. Iones ways has disadvantages, she has the verbal component, which takes time, but it is perhaps easier to concentrate on that my magic muscle. All of this is just pure speculation from my part though. The only thing I know for sure is that she got access to her coefficient, which is linked to the feeling, magic ecstasy. I got used to it and can neglect it by now, but it certainly is an intense feeling. I wonder if someone thought of a spell to create this feeling on purpose, without actually having and effect on the vicinity.

I will, first off, confirm whether Ione actually has to chant or not. Disregarding the conversation Ione and Brian were having, I ask: “You felt this feeling, right?” Ione looks surprised by me taking word, but nods. “I call it magic ecstasy, or magic euphoria.”

“A fitting name.” Ione comments, but continues to listen.

“Now, this feeling. Could you try to evoke it without actually chanting? Alas, could you try to chant without chanting? Bring the water to boil?” If my theory is correct, the chant itself is only a crutch, and she should be able to cast magic without it. After all, I am totally non-reliant on a verbal component. Ione, however, gives me a puzzled look.

“How that? The feeling is deeply related to what I speak, they are not two different things I could simply separate.” She does not even seem to consider that option for a second.

“How can you know if you have not even tried?” Just brushing it off because it “wont work” seems like a stupid thing to do.

“Listen, Reiland... I know I found this power only a few dozens of minutes ago, but let me say this: Let me compare my voice to your magic muscle. What if I asked you to now use magic, but without using your magic muscle?” Ione seems upset over my proposal, for some reason.

“That would be impossible, no? How should I use magic without the very thing that allows me to use magic....” As I speak this sentence, it dawns upon me. “You actually have a point.” This time, I made a mistake, and I dislike it. Instead of grieving over it, I should learn from it to not repeat it. “Think about what I said, if against the odds something crosses your mind, do not be shy to pursue it. Until then, let us drop this topic.”

Ione nods. “Lets do that.” She still seems a bit upset, but it wont affect our further doings.

“Let us do some testing, shall we?”

In this point, Ione and I agreed. I try to give Ione all types of different materials at hand, and have them incinerated with her magic voice. The hours pass, and overall with interesting results. Ione was perfectly capable of heating up other things. I placed samples on the flat rock, to prevent potential fire from spreading, and told her to heat them. Grass burned, stones turned unbearably hot, and small pebbles even started glowing, and melted away. This seemed to impress Brian quite a bit. Several hours later, I started giving Ione techniques to think about, namely point-focused heating and coefficient regulation. While on the surface our ways of magic seem to differ a lot, they actually are quite similar. Her chants did not follow any specific rule, and multiple wordings of the same sentence would have the same effect, as long as she wanted them to.

She described this process as “speaking words in a specific way that perfectly describes the specific wanted result”. This has a striking resemblance of my “Moving my magic muscle in a way that has a specific effect as the result”. Are we doing the same thing, but under a different cover? What does that mean for my current magic theory? Is it flawed? Even wrong? This will require a lot of though, and testing.

The sun dawns, and the three of us still lurk around the training place. This is unusual, even unprecedented. Normally, the siblings leave after two to three hours, but they are just as thrilled to explore this power as I am, and we totally lost track of the time over it. More time passes. It is a cloudless night, and the moon provides more than enough light. In a sense, it reminds me of the time I started learning movement manipulation, a similar kind of fever has us in its tight grip.

We shake out of this craze as a ruckus starts forming at the village entrance. A shouting crowd leaves the entrance, torches in their hands, even a few oil lanterns.

“Brian, Ione! Where are you?” A loud voice sounds through the field, a voice I recognize. Ione and Brian seem to recognize it as well.

“Father?” Ione startles, she and Brian seem to get aware of the current time. “Crap! We're out too late!” Brian Hastily takes his cup, and wants to relieve the search group of its duty, followed by Ione. Before they get the chance to run off, I grab both of them by the wrists. Had they wanted, they could have easily dragged me with them, considering I am smaller and skinnier than they are. They refrain from doing so. “You are aware of the promise you made?”

They both nod, and Ione adds: “Nobody is going to know from this.” I release their wrists. When I grabbed them, both of them looked a bit surprised, but it did not seem to bother them. They run off, and I follow them at a steady pace. When I reach the crowd, Ione and Brian are already in the mayors arms, and defusing the situation. The other participants seem to be relieved that the mayors children were so easily found, and they headed home since they were not longer needed. They did not pay me much attention. People already know that the three of us meet, and while some seem to wonder why the mayors children would be with me, of all other children, they are not surprised by seeing me here.

“Ione. Brian. Why did you not come home? It is late in the night! Your mother was worried. Hell, I was worried! Who knows what could have happened so late into the night?” The mayor seems psyched about the possibility that something happened to his children.

“We're sorry, Father! We were so engaged in playing, we did not notice how late it was...” And so on. I bailed, before the mayor could come to the Idea of reprimanding me. I ran home, and unsurprisingly, found my parents asleep, and a bowl of stew on the table. They were used to my nightly escapades, after all. I eat mechanically, and go to sleep.