Over the next few days, we learned a lot of different things in school. We learned about mana cycling, the way to train one's mana veins, pores and organ since everyone now had their magic mark.
It is a process of drawing in mana, leading it through the intake mana veins to the mana organ and from there to the magic mark through the channelling mana veins without activating our mark. Then you need to let it go back out, releasing your internal mana and letting it turn fully back into ambient mana. This way the mana pores, veins and organ widen, although not physically. Apparently, no one really knows why it works exactly but it does.
We also learned about a way to increase the speed at which your magic mark spreads or contract. It reminded me of running a bit. At first, you might be slow, but as you get more and more stamina you can go faster and faster. It's similar with a magic mark, at first it will spread slowly and contract itself but the more you did it the faster it happened.
I was happy to learn about magic but once we learned those things we were told to keep it up and wait for now since the practical magic lessons needed more preparation. Instead, we got to learn more about our own kind and history. I didn't mind these lessons too much since this world was so new to me I was even more interested.
We learned things like that most, more humanoid, magic-races have a wild ancestor, some of which still live. Like ours for example. The ancestor of the wood elves was the wargus. They were humanoid figures with long legs and arms, dark fur and a stag skull-like head with large antlers. Other examples would be ogres and orcs, gremlins and goblins and kobolds and dwarves.
I also finally learned that my family is, or at least used to be, a very important one. The Lyrius family, along with the Galvira, Umarion, Visiora and the Pudamies families, is one of the five great founding families. But after the war between the moon elves and the wood elves, the Lyrius family largely disappeared and is believed to have fled by most.
Most other stuff was things like locations and such, knowledge that might turn out to be useful when I'm older.
"Alt when are you going to be done writing in that weird book of yours?" someone suddenly asked.
I immediately jumped to my feet, leaving the leather-bound book along with the wooden pencil behind in the green grass.
The person that had spoken was a boy, larger than me, with short teal coloured hair and golden eyes that looked like gemstones. It was Ilmar, the boy I had met on the first day of school. Standing behind him was his sister, Alyra. She looked much like her brother, except her hair was much longer and her features much finer. These two were siblings, he eight and she six but soon to be seven, as she always liked to point out. Right now she was hiding behind her brother, carefully studying me with her golden eyes.
I know I'm beautiful but I'm five.
"What's up?" I asked, picking up the pen and book, putting them into the small pouch on my belt.
"Just checking out what the five-year-old prodigy is up to," Ilmar said.
"Stop calling me that," I said.
It annoyed me when they called me that. Even in class, everyone just called me the five-year-old prodigy or the one better than us all. I did enjoy the attention, a lot actually since I rarely got any in my past life. Just thinking about it let a shiver run down my spine but it was better than becoming dizzy, nauseous or even fainting. My problem was that the names were used in a mocking way.
I would often get challenged by the other kids, asked to fight against them using magic or show them how well I could already use my wood elven magic even though I know only how to activate the mark but had no clue what to do beyond that. In all of that annoying . . . chaos . . . these two were the only ones to actually talk to me normally, probably since both of them are well above average as well.
"Anyway, our father said that the practical magic classes would finally begin tomorrow," Ilmar said as he tried to get his sister to come out from behind him.
"How do you know that?"
"Our father is the village chief, duh." Alyra began nodding quickly at her brother's words. Almost as if she was trying to . . . brag?
. . . Of course, they are. Why wouldn't they be the children of the chief? Pretty sure I read something along these lines in a novel before . . . Something flashed across my mind but I ignored it, instead moving on to the next topic in my head. But what's with Alyra?
I found her a bit strange. She didn't seem to be the shy kind but somehow she always hid behind her brother, studying me with those golden eyes of hers. Was she trying to guess what I'm capable of? Well sorry to disappoint but not even I have a clue about that. I might be special due to being reincarnated or I might not be.
Something flashed across my mind, something I had forgotten. I knew that something happened between my death and my reincarnation but as I grew older I had forgotten before I could ask . . .
Could ask what? I had no idea.
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A snap brought my attention back to reality. I saw Ilmar's hand right in front of my face, still in the position a hand would be in after snapping.
"You good?"
I nodded. "Everything's fine."
"Good, then shall we begin?" Ilmar asked, impatiently jumping from one leg to the other.
"Yeah, yeah," I replied before positioning myself next to him.
He pointed to a large tree just across from the clearing we were in, there was a large black "X" made of wood nailed to it.
"Last one is . . . the last one I guess, I dunno." I chuckled at his words.
"Anyway. One!" And so Ilmar began counting to three.
"Two!"
"Two and a half!"
I almost started running and he used the short moment in which I was unprepared. Sly bastard!
"Three!" he yelled out as loud as he could.
Both he and his sister immediately began sprinting towards the marked tree. I was hanging behind.
Every noise was drowned out by the wind raging around my ears. My eyes even began tearing up slightly as my vision blurred a bit. I saw leaves whirl around above as if the forest was responding to our, less than impressive, sprint by taunting us. I could see the two of them right in front of me. Despite their short head start, I had caught up a bit. I was right at Alyra's heel when I heard Ilmar let out a cry of victory. At that moment I forced my five-year-old body to go beyond its limit and sprinted past Alyra. My hand touched the rough wood of the black "X" just a split second before Alyra's did.
"Looks like you're in last again Alt," Ilmar said, looking at both our hands which were still on the wooden "X".
"No, pretty sure I was second this time," I responded, looking at him with an annoyed expression. He pulls this every time...
"Hmm, debatable." He responded before turning away as if nothing happened.
"Now let's get to mana cycling!" he called out.
Why am I friends with these people?
The three of us sat down in front of the tree with the black mark, Ilmar and Alyra crossed their legs while I simply leaned against the tree, letting my head rest against a soft patch of moss.
I began drawing in the ambient mana around me. It felt like I was sucking in air through thousands of little holes in my skin as I did, letting it run through my intake mana veins towards my mana organ situated below my navel button. Normally I would let it rest there to let the ambient mana turn into internal mana but instead of doing that I forced it through my channelling mana veins close to my mana mark and back to the organ and then out of my body before repeating this process over and over again. It felt like letting something slightly cold move through your body over and over.
By the time the growling of our stomachs broke our concentration it was already late afternoon.
"Guess we should get going then," Ilmar said, looking at the sun above the trees, shining down on us with its warm rays. It was something I hadn't really appreciated and only really noticed in times like these when I was still concentrated on my body. Since reincarnating I had far fewer problems with temperatures than I had in my last life.
Yet again something flashed before my eyes. I saw a steaming room before my eyes for a split second before I once again heard: snap and my attention returned to the present.
"You good?" Ilmar asked, sounding more concerned than usual. "You kinda turn silent like this at times. It's weird." Somehow he sounded more like an eight-year-old than he had at any other point in time over to past few weeks we had been hanging out together when he said: "weird."
"I'm fine," I responded, not wanting to start anything.
After we said our goodbyes, during which Alyra still studied me, which she always did, I went home to my parents. I was warmly welcomed like always, shortly after we ate and around that time my body also began to get tired. I mean I was practically forcing a body, for which the recommended amount of sleep is between nine and twelve hours, to work out and sit still for hours with barely eight hours of sleep, sometimes more around six.
This whole: becoming powerful enough to live a good life here might actually get me killed. But at this point, I might not even mind. Even though my last life was five times longer than this one I had so much more fun living this one than the last. I sank into bed thinking about how good this life has actually been for me. I was reborn as a new race, even if it wasn't that different from being a human there were still nice advantages to being a wood elf. They were stronger, faster had better stamina, eyesight and hearing. Life was much easier this way. I quickly drifted off to sleep as these thoughts continued to spiral around in my mind until I was woken hours later by my mother.
I prepared myself, ate breakfast and dressed in a leather armour like outfit that seemed to be made to withstand impacts, but for some reason it only had very short sleeves. I looked at my parents slightly confused. I did know that today was the day we would finally have practical magic classes, thanks to my friends who just so happened to be the children of the village chief . . . I should play that connection well, but I had no clue why we would need this . . . armour.
"You'll see once you get there and once old Elster starts explaining," my father said with a smile on his face as he stroked his long goatee in what seemed almost like anticipation.
I nodded in understanding and finished my preparation before my mother took me by the hand and brought me to school. Usually, I would have thought it was embarrassing but somehow it was more comforting than anything, the warmth of her hand as it tightened its grip around me every time I would stray too far from her was something I hadn't experienced before. I didn't know my old mother and now I had one that treated me like any other child even though I'm pretty sure she knows about how mature I actually am.
Once we reached the open area where our lessons had been held regularly just a week ago I was shocked. Replacing the few tables, chairs and the board was a large, complicated-looking obstacle course, a wooden platform with training dummies made of what looked like hey and even something akin to a boxing ring, just larger. There was also a large blanket set up with pillows and cushions set up.
"Ah, Alt you're here early!"
I turned my head and saw Ilmar approaching together with his sister who was already studying me, but today her look was filled with anticipation.
So she was really trying to guess what I can do!
"I'll leave you and your friends to it them," my mother said with a bright smile on her face.
She left and I went to the two siblings.
"So, what's all this?" I asked.
"This my friend, this is what my grandpa calls the course," Ilmar said, pointing at the complicated looking obstacle course. I now also noticed that it went up a tree at one point.
Do they expect children to survive that? Is this a cultural thing? Probably. They did say we used to eat strong opponents out of respect back in the times of beginning . . . I take back what I thought about this actually being easier.
Sweat started rolling down my face as I followed "the course" with my gaze. But alongside that, there was also a certain excitement building up within me.