“You haven’t been taught about grimoires yet?” Elira asked.

Rai shook his head. Elira looked at Sin, who also shook her head.

“In that case, listen carefully.”

They both leaned in to listen carefully.

“Okay not that carefully, jeez, I need some space guys damn.”

Rai and Sin looked at each other, before leaning back a touch.

“Right. So, you know of books and tomes, I assume. Magical books are formulae compendiums, where you can find the exact breakdown of certain spells, as well as the theory and understanding behind the spell. Tomes are books that you’ll open, and the spell will embed itself into your body based on your prior knowledge and understanding of the spell. That’s why you want to read a book on a spell before reading its tome.

However, grimoires are very different.

Actually, I’m more surprised that they haven’t taught you about them yet in school... it’s meant to be more of an advanced or ‘hush-hush’ type thing, but Rodrick normally would’ve... anyway that doesn’t matter.

I wanted to teach you about this when you were younger, but I thought that it would be wiser to wait until you were a bit older to tell you Rai, so this works out.

Grimoires are essentially tomes, but for different types of fundamental mana instead of a specific spell. They teach a fundamental type of magic that draws from certain components within mana.”

Rai’s eyes burst wide open.

“Wait! Did you say counterparts of mana?” He asked, excitedly.

“No, I said components within mana.”

“What’s the difference?”

“This’ll be a bit of a long explanation, so get cosy.

How you break mana down depends entirely on whether you view it from within or without. What mana is made up of is completely different depending on its type. If you’re talking about the counterparts of mana, then that would be referring to a type of energy, or a fundamental part of the world that doesn’t exist. Mana is what makes Zenith function Rai, there are no real counterparts to it that work in the same way.

But since you seem a bit confused, I’ll explain it a little bit more. I know it’s not what you said, but there is such a thing as the components of mana. That phrasing is used to refer to the ways that mana manifests in the world. The components within mana are the tales told by every fundamental. An element, and what that element is formed from. Or a distinct flow that causes a type of mana to act in a certain way. You can consider the unique mana like I’m describing to be a primal force in the world that acts outside of the boundaries of ambient mana.

How you convert ambient mana within your body into an elemental type is to apply an attribute to it, but there are types of mana that are fundamentally different to the ambient mana, the lifeblood of the world, that we mages borrow and use.

That type of mana is what a grimoire instils in its reader. Some grimoires refuse to work for certain people, as the person might not mesh well with the fundamental mana within. But a tome will always work as described.

Hence why grimoires are so different.”

“That’s... completely different to how I thought mana worked...” Rai whispered to himself. He didn’t know what to think about this new information, as it diverged completely from what his understanding was.

“Well, to be fair to you, you’re like what, 18 now? It would’ve been worse for you if I tried to teach you about this before you were old enough to truly grasp it.”

Sin listened intently throughout Elira’s explanation, and she still didn’t understand what she was trying to say. Sin was in awe of this woman. She’d never seen someone so knowledgeable and understanding of not just magic, but mana as the lifeblood of the world.

Rai’s eyebrows furrowed. He bore a look of contemplation, as if he couldn’t put two and two together.

Elira noticed.

“Rai... you’re making that face again. When you can’t figure out a problem, but you don’t ask anyone for help because you think you can figure it out.”

Rai looked back up at his aunt. He gently sighed.

“There’s this one thing... I found a clue to help me understand Balance. But there’s so much missing! The book I read was a really old journal that mentioned the counterparts of mana as a way to obtain something called transcendence.”

“Transcendence? What’s that?”

“You don’t know?”

“Nope. Never heard of it. I suppose that would explain why I don’t know what you mean by counterparts of mana either.”

“Huh...”

“Anyway, I worked very hard to find you this present! VERY HARD!”

“... How hard are we talking?”

“AT LEAST 80 HELLHOUNDS! I killed so many of them Rai... But I finally found it! I tried to think of a fundamental mana type that would synergise well with your tendencies and abilities, and Hellfire is the best I could think of!”

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Rai seemed to have found a new kind of respect for his aunt. He almost couldn’t believe that his aunt killed that many hellhounds just for him.

“Thank you. Thank you very much Aunt Elly! I’ll use it well!”

Rai was about to store the grimoire in his seals, when Elira slammed her hand on the book.

“I didn’t bring this here for you to store it away! Read it, now.”

“EH?!”

“You heard me. Read it.”

“B-but what if something goes wrong? What if I accidentally destroy the building or something?!” Rai said, before slowly panning his head to Sin.

“... ONE TIME! It happened only ONE TIME RAI!” Sin said.

“... That actually happened?” Elira asked.

“Long story short, Aunt Elly, I helped Sin evolve her forbidden spell, and she almost destroyed the building with it.”

“Huh... that’s pretty cool.” Elira mused.

“Th-thank you! But it was still an accident!...”

“Doesn’t matter, I think it’s awesome that your spell was that powerful! I’ve seen a few powerful spells like that, but they’re often limited to the most powerful people I know.” Elira said, smugly pointing at herself with her thumb in a not so sneaky way.

Sin giggled.

“Alright alright enough of that. Let’s get this over with then.” Rai said.

Rai was about to flip open the grimoire, when Elira slammed her hand on the book. Again. Rai looked up at her.

“What. Now. Aunt. Elly?”

“You’re gonna blow the whole building up if you start like that.”

“Maybe you should TELL ME THAT BEFOREHAND THEN!”

“Oh... Oops. Hehe.”

*Pfft*

Sin had to hold back her laughter. She really liked Aunt Elly.

“Okay Rai. Here’s how you do it. You want the grimoire to like you, right? So that it’ll teach you its fundamental mana, but if it doesn’t like you... then the building goes KABLAMMO! And KATOOSH! And BIG BOOM BOOM! Got it?” Elira said with big waving arm gestures that made Sin laugh even more.

“Oh why yes thank you Aunt Elly, thank you for putting as little pressure on me to read a single book as possible. Thank you so much.”

“Ugh fine, you’re no fun. Make sure you’re in Stormflow while you open the book, or it’ll hate you.”

“Great, thank you.” Rai said, genuinely.

“... You don’t seem genuine.”

“It’s ‘cus I’m not.”

“Fair enough.”

Stormflow.

Rai felt a surge of electricity within him. Part of Rai’s mind wandered, and thought about the possibility of his lightning being a fundamental mana. It seemed likely to him, but his understanding of fundamental mana wasn’t as robust as he’d like to make such a conclusion. Aunt Elly’s explanation only left him with more to think about on that front.

He flipped open the book.

Instantly, Rai was surrounded. No longer was he in the same room with Aunt Elly or Sin. But now, he stood alone in a great hall of purple flames.

It sounded as if a stove was on, but its volume was multiplied by a thousand. The heat surrounding him was... so hot that it was almost unnatural. But Rai wasn’t getting hurt by it. It was a strange sensation to be able to feel the insane heat around him, and not get burned to a crisp.

Further down the hall was an opening of some sort. Rai saw no other way to go, so he ran through the elegantly designed hallway of flames into the opening.

As soon as Rai passed the archway through the opening, he heard the ringing sound of an anvil.

*Clang*

“So... Ye wish tae command Hellfire?” Boomed the voice of a massive man, who was whacking a hammer against a massive anvil. He had long white hair and a great white beard. Though, Rai thought he could’ve done with a shirt or something.

Rai also thought that this man was probably as tall as that tree golem he fought in the Phoenix’s Trials.

*Clang*

“I do. I wish to command Hellfire!” Rai eventually declared.

*Clang*

“Then withstand her heat. Tame her, and make her submit. Or die in her arms like a weak babe!”

*CLANG!*

Rai began burning.

Purple flames surrounded him, enveloped him, devoured him.

More than pain, it was like his soul was being broken down into nothing but ashes.

He was... losing.

... I’m losing?

... I don’t want to lose...

Not to something like this!

STORMFLOW!

20%!

Rai burst with power. He pushed his lightning to combat the heat, to take it down. Hellfire or not, Rai refused to cower in fear and lose.

It’s... not... enough...

40%!

Rai doubled Stormflow’s potency.

Now, he was able to hold on. But it still wasn’t enough to subdue the primordial power that Hellfire boasted.

60%!

It’s still not enough!

80%!

The world around Rai began to fold in on itself.

But he couldn’t feel the heat from Hellfire anymore.

“Rai! Are you okay?” Sin yelled.

The purple flames around Rai dissipated, and he felt the dregs of Hellfire left on his face slowly fizzle into nothingness.

Rai quickly realised that it was a mental trial that the grimoire had put him through. He didn’t know who the blacksmith was, but they seemed to command Hellfire completely. Since it was a mental trial, Rai hoped that his pushing Stormflow to 80% didn’t have any actual consequences.

“I... think I’m fine. Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah! When you opened the grimoire, it transformed into a massive ball of purple flame that surrounded you completely!”

“Well...”

Rai held out his hand. He felt Hellfire in his mana reserves, mixing in with his normal mana.

Rai called upon it.

Swiftly, an energetic purple flame flickered to life in his palm.

Rai held out his other palm, and called upon a normal magical flame in it.

The difference was striking. Rai felt the immense canyon between the two. Basic magical fire is just a shitty version of Hellfire... but even the Hellfire that I can call upon now... it doesn’t feel anywhere near as strong as the flames from that trial...

“Woah... Rai that’s so awesome! The grimoire accepted you!” Sin said, excitedly.

“Indeed. I’m not surprised that Hellfire accepted you though.” Elira said. “It made sense to me from the start. Hellfire is a very energetic and chaotic fundamental mana, which I felt synergised best with your lightning. With your mana acuity, you can also call upon it much easier than a beginner would.”

“It’s... amazing.” Rai said. He clenched his fist, dispersing the purple flames from his hand. “Thank you again, Aunt Elly.”

“Yeah, you better be damn thankful, considering how many forsaken Hellhounds I had to kill to get this!”

Rai got up and hugged his aunt.

They spent the rest of the evening chatting about the things they needed to catch each other up on. After talking for a couple hours, Elira left to her room on the few floors below them to get some well-earned rest.

Sin enjoyed meeting Rai’s aunt, and was now even more excited to meet his mother when they went on their trip through to Udra’s capital.

Wait... isn’t that happening this week?!

“Rai... tomorrow’s the briefing for the first dungeon exploration right? We didn’t go in today because it’s our week off, but we were told that tomorrow the headmaster is going to brief us all for the expedition that we’ll go on next week...” Sin said.

“Yeah... I’m the leader now thanks to that tournament too... Well, hopefully Tullian’s calmed down since Saturday.”

“I hope so too. I don’t want to have any awkwardness between us all tomorrow. But the thing I wanted to talk about was actually the history assignment...”

“Ah right! We’ll be leaving tomorrow at noon, since the briefing is in the morning. Have you packed?”

“Uh...”

“Oh, don’t forget that we’ll be travelling by horse to the farm so we can spend the whole Wednesday there. We’ll leave the farm on Thursday morning, and take that portal Kallad set up for us. That’ll give us a few days in the capital to explore, and see what we can learn about the clan.”

“See now that’s a great plan and all, but I should really pa-”

“I’m so excited for you to meet my mum!”

“Me too! OKAY I’M GOING TO GO PACK NOW!”

Sin quickly got up from the sofa, and dashed upstairs.

Rai didn’t even realise that she hadn’t packed. Though, maybe he should’ve listened when she answered him...

Regardless, Rai was excited.

First the briefing, then the trip to Udra’s capital, Draconis.