Mia was being escorted back to her house by the principal and someone who was probably his wife. Mia and the principal got a little too caught up in their discussion and experiments that they completely lost themselves in it and may have blown a hole in one of the reinforced walls of the academy. The fact that it was already night didn't help much to cover what happened.
When the principal's wife appeared, Mia got a little too scared of the scolding she gave to both of them that she didn't really take in her appearance but looking at it now she was quite a looker for someone who is probably over 100 years old. She had long straight dark greenish hair down to her shoulders, green eyes, tanned skin, she was using a robe similar to those of the academy professors but dark green like her hair. She is around 155 cm tall so strangely enough, they see each other eye-to-eye. Once she saw the woman, for some reason, It finally dawned on Mia that she will be really tall in the future.
Ignoring all of this, Mia was over the moon. The principal, instead of handling the train that is Mia so it would stop when needed, put more fuel to the fire and now they are running off the tracks. In just a matter of hours both of them managed to find out some things about how the world worked that they couldn't really prove due to the fact that most people can't see what they saw without tools none of them knew how to make.
One of the first things they found, to Mia's surprise, is that the world is not made out of atoms and it's parts like in Mia's old world. At some point it might have been but as of now, their theory is that the world is made out of hard and soft mana.
Hard mana is mana that is solidified in a form and will not change unless via a spell or something of similar effects. Things like turning iron into gold, something that was possible even if it was impossibly hard.
Soft mana is the mana that everyone uses. The mana that is in the atmosphere and that people generate, the one used for spell and cultivation.
They tested on a leaf that was part of a tree that repelled soft mana in reasonable quantities and found out that even it was made out of hard mana. They tested some other things to make sure they weren't turning things into things made out of hard mana with the spell they were using to see the objects in an atomic level but they came to the conclusion that it either happened too fast for a mortal mind to comprehend or they were always made out hard mana.
Due to those experiments, they also found out, somewhat, how Mia's magic works, at least on a physical level. The node alignments used for spells are shit versions of what happens naturally, at least in the case of a spell mimicking something from nature. When mana vibrates into a certain frequency it becomes something more solid. Naturally only one node, one speck of mana, needs to vibrate to become an element instead of the chain of nodes mages use. When Mia creates any element out of her mana, she basically copies what nature does instinctively and since she isn't working with a few nodes of mana stuffed with 'blank' mana that is more used as fuel than anything else, her spells where a bunch of mana specks doing the exactly same thing.
It was like comparing the 3D models of the first 3D games to the more modern ones of Mia's old life in a way. The older ones had less polygons to be worked with while the new ones can have more polygons to be worked with just in the face of a character than some people had for the entire game. The difference is that when it comes to spells, the more focused the mana is , less waste is made. Since Mia's spells don't need 'blank' mana to fuel the elemental reactions, she can just shape her spells without having to take into account the mana necessary to maintain the reaction.
There is still no explanation as to how Mia can just think about stuff and make it happen for the most part but one day they would get there.
As for what they were actually trying to find. As it seems, light as in the light generated by fire, the sun, etc... can be replicated using magic. It is just really stupid to use. The element light, as most mages know, is akin to brilliant glass. The reason for that is that normal light is more akin to soft mana than hard mana. Light, as they saw, is mana that is barely vibrating. On that note, natural darkness or shadows are when mana is either not moving at all or 'reflecting' another speck of mana.
It was all very strange, mana either just worked that way or was trying its best to look like it was following the natural laws of the universe. Mia was betting on the second theory.
“Here we are. Welcome to my house.” Mia said as they finally found themselves in front of her house.
“Mia! It's already night. Where were you?” Marry, her mother asked, more than a little worried.
“I'm sorry, miss?” The principal's wife asked.
“Marry. What can I help you with, ma'am?” Marry asked as she hugged Mia.
“Nice to meet you Miss Marry. I am Hita, the wife of the principal of the academy, the one who kidnapped your daughter for a few hours. I'm sorry about that.” She said while pointing at the principal.
“He didn't kidnap me!”
“I didn't kidnap her!”
“What am I going to do? He already managed to corrupt this young soul.” She said as if in a TV drama, with all hand gestures and everything.
“My green star. Mia here is a very smart girl with lots of insights into the world.” The principal tried to explain.
“Yeah we found and did a lot of fun stuff.” Mia added.
“Like exploding the walls of the academy?” She asked in an intimidating way.
“Mia?” Marry asked, half-angry, half-worried.
“It's not my fault that the walls are that weak. And the principal fixed it right away. It's even better than before.”
“How did you even manage that?”
“The principal showed me how to use dimensional magic. It is really hard, you know? I only managed to create a space the size of my fist so far. I think I put too much mana into it and it exploded inside the wall.”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“You! Dumb! Old! Man!” Hita said as she materialized a staff and began to hit the principal with it. He on the other hand just accepted his punishment.
“Why don't we enter and have dinner? And maybe talk about it while we eat?” Marry asked. Hita and the principal accepted the invitation and followed Marry inside.
After quickly greeting everyone and washing their hands, everyone sat at the table to eat. It looked like everyone was a little more hungrier than normal since they had been waiting for Mia so everyone were eating more than talking.
“So, how is the academy?” Huang asked Mia.
“It's nice. I am in a special class. We will do different stuff from the rest of the students because we are stronger than them. There is also a big library full of books I can read for free. I am also part of the book club now so I will be in the library after the day ends most of the time.”
“Hmmm? Really?” Lin said to herself, as if she found a gold mine in plain view no one saw.
“Did you like the food there?” Marry asked.
“There was a lot of stuff there I never saw. It wasn't bad but not as good as your food mom.” Marry seemed to be a little flustered by the comment.
“I heard something about you exploding something. Care to explain?” Huang asked.
“My dumb husband taught your daughter magic he shouldn't in a place he shouldn't.” Hita cut in.
“But it only took her 10 tries to make something and she doesn't even use magic like us. Imagine what we can find and do in the future?”
“I don't care, you stupid principal. You yourself said that you need to practice that type of magic in a very secure environment when you are a beginner because things can easily go very wrong. And what would a 10 year girl even do with dimensional magic?”
“I want to capture a dragon.” Mia said between bites of her food. Everyone was more than a little shocked.
“Why?”
“To defend my castle, of course!”
“Which castle?”
“The one I'm gonna build for Onyx and his family. He is going to be the King of the Wolves!”
“Who is Onyx?”
“Woof!” Onyx said himself.
“We will also study dragon magic and see if we can farm inside a pocket dimension.” The principal added.
“Yeah! Dragon magic is cool. The principal has one wand that a dragon made that can summon these small drakes that do what you ask and it's not summoning magic. Imagine being able to do that but summon actual drakes?”
“Shame that the size is not based on the quantity of mana. We never managed to summon anything bigger than a rat. The mana is also very strange in that thing. Shame we didn't have more time to observe the spell before the item fell asleep.”
“Maybe it's a ritual of some sort and we are only doing the bare minimum to make it work? What if we need an actual dragon present? What if we don't even need mana and we are just forcefully activating the wand?”
“That is a good theory.”
The entire table was shocked, confused, aghast and lots of other things. Mia's family couldn't help but sympathize with Hita as she had a Mia of her own it seemed.
Dinner continued with everyone doing their best to not hype Mia or Maximillian too much. Mia talked a little more about her day, who she met, her classes, etc... She also declared that her father was the strongest one around and that he should teach the students of the academy how to fight for real. Something the principal began to consider.
Mia soon began to get sleepy and her mother took her to take a bath and put her on the bed. Before they even left the bath, Mia was already asleep. When Marry put her in her bed, she couldn't help but laugh at her daughter's situation. She was a terrifyingly strong person but so cute when you just looked at her. She didn't fear Mia anymore, she couldn't, really. She had experienced true fear, her daughter leaving her, and nothing else could shake her again after that. Aftr kissing Mia's had, Marry went down to the living room where Huang, Lin, Maximillian and Hita were talking.
“How is she?” Hita asked.
“Sleeping like a rock. Sometimes I wish I could have the energy she displays.” Marry said.
“When she fully heals you can expect her to be awake and full of energy for a few days at a time.” Maximillian said.
“Well, we had a few years of normalcy, didn't we?” Marry said in defeat to Huang.
“Hey, it's not like she will be running around, shouting to the heavens. She looks smart enough to not wake you up for no reason.” Maximillian said.
“Well, Mister Maximillian, you have some experience with kids but you can probably see our point. As much as we love Mia, she needs supervision, now more than ever. We don't sleep as much because we are physically tired, but mentally.” Lin said.
“I know how you feel. Who would have guessed that most headaches could be cured by a simple nap?” Hita added. Everyone laughed a little after that.
“She is a lucky girl to have you for a family.” Maximillian said, somewhat sadly.
“Yes. You managed to instill humanity into that girl, even when she is that powerful. Now that I actually got to know her, I can't help but feel angry at doing nothing when I heard about what happened to her.” Hita said, hinting at what happened to Mia during the time she ran away and fought the demon.
“Those were dark times. Ones that I train to defend all my family from.” Huang said.
“Then I suggest you train harder.” Maxiillian said in a strangely commanding tone.
“You shouldn't talk like that to people Max.” Hita said.
“What do you mean?” Huang asked.
“The only thing you will ever be superior to your daughter will be your base physical strength. I am sure that if you had left her in the dark about everything related to mana she would have discovered how to cultivate by herself. Now? If you just leave her alone without anything, I could see her getting almost on my level in 5 to 6 years. If I treated her like a normal student in my academy, she would probably get a little stronger than me, overall, during that same time frame. But now that I saw what she can do, I refuse to let her be just another student. I will be taking her as my personal apprentice, I will fight anyone who has something to say about it, I will resign on my position if necessary, but I will make that girl stronger than me by the time she graduates! And unless you become stronger than that, you will never be able to protect her from the real dangers of the world as she will have to protect you instead.” Maximillian said as seriously as he possibly could. There was a drive in the man's voice that Huang couldn't help but admire.
That also lit a fire in him. Huang was strong even before Mia was born. He was stronger than at least half of the people in the world as his master told him. Right now he is probably stronger than 70% or the people of the world, give or take some, going by what he was told. But unless he tries to reach the level of the man in front of him, a man said to be among the top 10% of the most powerful people in the world, Huang couldn't call himself a man. Because a man's job was to be the sword and shield of the family. He had to be the strongest for as long as possible so his family could prosper in the safety he provides. He had to be strong enough to not repeat what happened to his grandfather, father and most uncles. They all died protecting their families, which was noble, but none of them managed to prepare the next generation before passing away. He almost committed the same mistake once, he would not let something like that happen again.
With his message said, Maximillian and Hita left the house after saying their goodbyes.
Huang went to bed almost restless. Now he had a goal and a time frame. All that was left was practice.