Cecil woke up early in the morning the next day. He quickly finished up his 2-3 hour routine, and then waited for Mrs. Anna to instruct him about magic.
"You really are eager."
"Of course, I take this seriously!"
"All right, now let's begin then. Lucia you too, come over."
"Okay~"
Lucia walked over and stood beside Cecil. Cecil also saw Silver sitting on the ground nearby, it seemed that even his wolf wanted to learn too. With everyone ready, Mrs. Anna began the lessons.
"Now, pay attention okay~"
""Yes!""
"Woof!"
Mrs. Anna began explaining the more practical method of using mana and magic. She even used a few magic spells to show the two children and the wolf as an example. She even helped Cecil and Silver on how to sense the mana within their bodies and in the atmosphere.
After a few more rounds of explanations and examples, Cecil thought that using magic was pretty simple. He had read many fantasy novels containing magic and the explanations were somewhat similar. To cultivate mana, you have to first be able to sense the ambient mana in the surrounding air. This proved to be somewhat difficult for Cecil since he once lived in a mana-void world but with Mrs. Anna's help, he was able to somewhat feel it.
The only problem was that once Mrs. Anna let him try by himself, Cecil wasn't able to sense it. Lucia already had the basics drilled into her since she was much younger, so she could already feel the mana in the atmosphere.
On another note, Silver, after just one demonstration, had a good grasp of how to sense mana right away. Cecil wasn't really sure how to tell, but Mrs. Anna had exclaimed when Silver started to "gather" the mana in the air into his body. It made Cecil envious since Silver could do it right away while he was still groping around in the dark despite the two being given the same degree of assistance.
'Mrs. Anna said that it was all about feeling it, but I'm not even sure what to feel. I mean I felt something fuzzy the first time she showed me, but now I can't find that anymore...I feel nothing but the breeze blowing on my skin!'
"Fuuuhh… Mrs. Anna, without your help, I don't even know how mana even feels like... I mean, I can't see it and I don't even know what it is either so where do I even start? You showed me earlier how to do it but when I try it myself I can't even grasp that feeling again..."
"Hmmm… Well, you did once live in a world without the presence of mana, so it might really be hard for you…"
"Ugh… Well, I'll figure something out, I guess..."
"I'm sorry. Teaching a rare case like you really stump me too."
"It's okay Mrs. Anna. It's not your fault anyway."
Cecil sat cross-legged on the ground and closed his eyes. He started to meditate just like how he would back on earth before and after every training session.
'Feel the mana, how the heck am I supposed to feel it? I wish I could just see it. Maybe it works like how the nonsense my dad and grandpa used to keep saying when they talked about internal and external energy. Qi or chi or whatever.'
Back on earth, Cecil's father and grandfather would always keep babbling on and on about internal and external energy. They said that every human has it, but most couldn't tap into it because of bodily limitations. It was also listed in the Silvaria family's ancestral training manual about something like that, but to Cecil at the time, he felt that it was mostly nonsense.
Of course back when he was younger, he did believe in it. His father said that he could use internal energy to crush rocks with his bare fists, heal bruises, cuts, and other injuries by just placing his palm and channeling the 'energy' into the injury.
His father even showed him once. So there was evidence from how his father had treated his bruises and other injuries he got from training, but as Cecil grew up, he started to doubt whether this 'energy' really existed or not because his father stopped healing any of his injuries from his training ever since he hit the age of 10. His father kept saying to him that it was better for men to have some "war trophies" carved on their bodies. It was basically just an excuse because he knew he could no longer fool Cecil into believing.
'Well, I mean this could be a start to something right? It's better than to just grope around blindly in the dark.'
Cecil continued his meditation and concentrated his mind on his whole body.
'Since I could light up the mana-testing sphere, that means I must have the mana somewhere inside my body. Mrs. Anna said that the mana point was located in the navel area of the human body. Dad also said that internal energy also originates from the navel area and spreads throughout our bodies. So it's best if I focus around that area.'
Cecil kept meditating like that for almost an hour or so before opening his eyes and looking around. He noticed that everyone was already doing their own things nearby. He saw Silver shooting pressurized wind from his claws towards a tree nearby and creating deep gouges on the tree's trunk.
Mrs. Anna and Lucia were at the other end of the yard. Mrs. Anna was teaching Lucia about the general magic system of Alterna since Lucia was concentrating so hard just to produce a small ping-pong ball sized water ball in front of her. Seeing as everyone was working so hard, Cecil reaffirmed his goal.
'I'll do it within 3 days!
He then closed his eyes again and started meditating.
Before long it was already noon and Mrs. Anna had called for them to go and eat lunch. Cecil had to stop his meditation and training to eat. No matter how serious he was with his training, he would never neglect food. In a healthy body therein lies a healthy mind as his grandfather would always say.
After eating lunch with the family and Silver, Cecil rushed back outside and began his meditation and training once again. This continued for a week…
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"…"
"…"
"…"
Lucia was staring intently at the meditating Cecil, her gaze threatening to burn a hole on his face.
"Lucia! Leave Cecil be," her Mother called out to her.
"But Mom~ he's been doing this for a week now!"
"Well, that just goes to show how serious he is, okay?"
"Ceehh, no fun~"
Cecil had already been repeating this routine of eating and meditating all day long for a week now. Although he had set his goal to be able to perceive mana in 2-3 days, it was much harder than he had expected.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Of course, it wasn't without results. To his surprise, Cecil was actually able to find the 'energy' his father had mentioned. It was intangible, but he could surely feel that it did, in fact, exist inside of him. Cecil believed this to be mana, but no matter how much he tried to familiarize himself with this energy, he still couldn't find that same feeling in the surrounding air when he directed his senses outside of his body.
It was as if mana only existed inside his body and not anywhere else. This was a sign that he still hadn't achieved his goal, so he kept on persisting. Silver, on the other hand, had grown more and more proficient in his use of mana, he could now cast wind and lightning elemental magic with ease and he would occasionally flaunt it in front of his master which not only ignited Cecil's envy and jealousy but also his competitive spirit.
Of course, when Silver started using lightning element magic, Lucia's family was really surprised. Silver's increasing proficiency in mana seemed to also have some sort of impact on his body. In just this week, Silver had physically grown to twice his original size. Before he was only around 1.5 meters tall and around 2 meters long, but now he was 3 meters in height and 4 meters long, and he was still growing.
If this change persisted, Silver would soon grow to a size that could compare to the monster animals of this world. In fact, it could be said that he was practically one of them now! It was a good thing that nothing besides his mana proficiency and size changed, if Silver turned into a bloodthirsty monster due to cultivating mana that would seriously ruin Cecil's heart.
Cecil was of course proud of Silver's achievement despite being jealous of it at the same time. However, it served as his motivation to quickly get to the stage that Silver was at. If Silver could do it, then there was no reason as to why he couldn't. So Cecil only started to train even harder and harder.
Another week passed and once again, Cecil was sitting on the ground, his entire consciousness focused on the faint 'energy' that he felt in his body. After an intensive training session yesterday, Cecil was now able to perceive that not only was the 'energy' located at the area near his abdomen, but it was actually equally distributed all around his body and permeating every cell of his being.
This came as a surprise to Cecil since he only knew that mana could only be stored and found in the mana point of a person. Never was there any information about mana being stored all over a person's body like in his case. Then again this 'energy' might not necessarily be mana. It could be something else entirely.
As Cecil kept his focus on this energy, without him noticing, the surrounding mana in the atmosphere started to act strangely. The mana started to revolve around Cecil's body in a clockwise vortex. The more focused Cecil was, the stronger the vortex became. Eventually, it turned into a mini cyclone that surrounded his body which started affecting his surroundings.
If someone was to stand near Cecil, they would actually be able to clearly 'feel' the mana vortex that was revolving around him. With Cecil at the center, this phenomenon persisted for around 5 minutes, and then the vortex of mana slowly started to converge on him.
Cecil wasn't aware of the strange occurrence that was happening. It was only until when the surrounding mana started to enter his body, permeating throughout his entire body and settling down inside did he finally notice. Cecil was surprised and he immediately opened his eyes.
"This… could this be mana?"
A large portion of the mana that settled down in his body was focused around his mana point, his heart, his eyes, and his brain. Although his eyes hadn't condensed a mana crystal that could grant him mana sight, the abundant amount of mana that was already located in his body, added onto the mana that just settled down in his eyes was enough to give him the partial ability to see mana.
Another reason why he could see the mana with his partial mana sight was that the density of mana in the air from the result of his training was enough for even a normal person to vaguely see. The golden-colored mana swirled all around him and this greatly fascinated him.
This was only the preliminary stage of mana sight that every person who was born with mana eyes would develop while still being inside their mother's womb. This preliminary stage would soon develop into complete mana sight after the person was born. This meant that Cecil would soon be able to gain mana sight after another 1-2 months of mana accumulation.
After accumulating enough mana into his eyes, it would then start to crystallize and he would then gain complete mana sight. Cecil didn't know this, but he was still ecstatic to find out that he was finally able to sense mana and partially see it now.
"Finally! All that hard work wasn't in vain!" Cecil cheered. If someone found out that a 13-year-old boy was actually able to sense mana only after a little over a week of training then their minds would be blown away.
The average person even on Alterna would take at least half a year to a whole year or even more. The talent that Cecil displayed could be called freakish and almost on par with the elementals that were born from the elements themselves and the monsters that could manipulate mana from birth like dragons, phoenixes, and the like. Of course, Cecil didn't know this. He was just jumping up and down celebrating his accomplishment like any other kid would do once they finally reached their goal.
"Yes! Now, let's try and use magic!" Cecil said as he readied himself only to then be interrupted by the sudden shock of a person jumping onto his back.
"Cel~! It's lunchtime! Come eat already!"
"Eh? Okay, Lucia…"
With the vast intake of mana that permanently resided throughout his entire body, Cecil finally felt the pangs of hunger hit him. He was in dire need of food right now and the elation of his achievement had caused him to not sense how hungry he currently was. Good thing Lucia snapped him out of his odd trance.
"Strange? I feel so hungry all of a sudden… like I haven't eaten anything for a day or two."
'What the heck? Did something wrong happen?'
Cecil was worried, but when he smelt the alluring aroma of the food from the kitchen, he immediately threw all his worries into the wind and rushed inside the house with Lucia still on his back. While feeling the oddness in his body, Cecil ran to the kitchen to eat his lunch with the rest of Lucia's family. Seeing the two children come in, the two adults gently smiled and quickly rushed for them to eat.