CHAPTER 23: MANA MAP

Hiro's senses slowly returned but she couldn't make out what was happening. Bursts of color and sound crashed across her in waves. She raised her hands to cover her ears and squinted. A pocket of calm approached her through the storm of sensations. Soon it enveloped her. She blinked owlishly at a floating version of Professor Davenport. The center of her forehead had a bright spot on her dark skin. Her legs hung above the uneven metallic ground looking almost wispy.

"Sorry about that dear, you have quite the storm swirling in here and it took me a bit to find you," She said with her bright smile.

"Where are we exactly?" Hiro gingerly took her hands from her ears realizing the noise had been muted significantly. As she did so she also realized there was no crystal behind her ear. She fingered the spot where Button normally resided eyebrows furrowing.

"We're within you, of course! We're mapping your mana. I pulled you into your center so we could get a feel for what's going on. Every center is unique to the person and their concepts and it's the best place to start when mapping since it houses your core. The source of all your magic."

Hiro looked around it felt familiar, "I think I've been here before, but I couldn't see it this clearly. It felt flooded when I was working with it before." Hiro craned her neck, but she couldn't see much outside the bubble the Professor had around them.

"Yes, it is flooded with water mana, right now it's churned up into a storm, likely because it senses me and is getting defensive, or maybe it's from the last time you called lightning? New magic users have their mana stirred up about all sorts of things. Something has worked up. Not much would pass through it one way or another and I suppose flooded would be an apt term. After we map things out the first thing I'll be teaching you is how to calm it like I am right now. I don't have much influence in your center, that is why my calm is only a small sphere. Once you master it you can calm your whole system."

"Well, that's good to know," Hiro muttered examining what she could see from the bubble. With the colors swirling and splatting on the bubble, she was vividly reminded of the time she went to a friend's paintball birthday party in high school. There were more colors and fewer bruises, but the sprays of color felt the same.

"Indeed! For now, we are surveying any damage so we know how to best approach your healing program. No guesswork for us based on a guided meditation! I can walk through your channels with you to see it for myself! How fun!" She clapped her hands together and they didn't make a noise. She seemed insubstantial to Hiro. When she examined her hands to compare, she looked solid to her senses.

The professor turned to the center of the storm, "Alright, let us examine your core or maybe cores first. If you would be so kind as to follow I'll tell you a bit about what we know and what we're looking for." Hiro followed her floating form as she took on the cadence of a lecture.

"What we've found out from the histories is that incomplete transformations often show in the core and influence everything outward from there. This is backed up by my and my previous counterpart's research into magic and mana and how it interacts with the physical body. When someone burns out they can crack their core and their mana can leak for example. The histories theorized that the incomplete transformation was the core not blending all the concepts fully into one mana type." The two of them had slowed to a crawl as the storm grew stronger pushing against the bubble of calm.

"What was theorized based on those accounts I mentioned was that the concepts the afflicted had absorbed, instead of combining, stayed split to some degree. Each one becomes its own core and fights for dominance of the magical pathways carved by the transformation. In some cases, a few of the cores would combine, but the later ones would stay separate resulting in more than one core, but certain concepts married together."

The lights and wind grew brighter and more intense. Hiro took a calming breath and the wind seemed to dampen ever so slightly. "The question is, do you have one damaged core since according to your PGA's readings you touched the final concept mid-transformation? Or do you have multiple cores?"

As she posed the question they pushed into the place where Hiro could feel all the power that flared within her originated. She held her breath and the power seemed to pause with her. Time slowed, and in front of her were three shining beacons of power. One shined with the bright eye-searing brightness of the orb of light. Flashes of green, red, orange, and blue touched on its surface every so often. One was the bright blue of the sky with lightning flashing across it and clouds forming and dispersing in waves like it was in a sped-up timelapse. The final one looked like a ball of metal and its surface hid what lay beneath.

All three of the beacons, or the cores she supposed, were larger than her. Monoliths. to the powers they held. All of them were partially submerged in a lake of water that mimicked the one she woke up in when she went through her transformation. One major difference was the choppy water currently frozen in the air as it splashed against the three cores. Rivers of water flowed from the lake. Some followed the ground naturally, and some floated through the air. all disappeared within the storm before she could trace their passage through the color and lights paused around her.

The whole system of cores and water pulsed with her heartbeat. Thump, Thump, Thump, then the storm resumed and the Professor continued talking unaware of the stilled time.

"Wonderful!" She said excitedly to Hiro, "Looks like we have a partial merge. Three cores and your records said six concepts. I don't know what to make of this pool of water though. Hmmm,"

"It matches the one I nearly drowned in when I picked up the water concept mid-change." Hiro supplied. They could only see the edges of cores through the storm-swept landscape now that the swirl or magic resumed beating against everything including the calm bubble.

"Ah, so I might categorize that one as incomplete formation of a core. During the changes, we've had the rare opportunity to study. So few people want to be strapped into a machine during their change!" She muttered the last part with exasperation, "We've only been able to see the process of a complete change twice. And only in the last hundred standard years or so. Don't tell him I said this, but Professor Gendry was the one who pioneered the technology for it, and it's amazing what we're learning with it."

"Why shouldn't I tell him that? Aren't we using it to help fix me right now?" Hiro asked curiously.

"Because we have a bet! The first one to impress the other one enough to utter a compliment has to support the other in a budget initiative and take the other out to dinner! The Mana and Magic department needs a new crystal grotto!"

Hiro's eyebrow raised at her. "So you want him to compliment you first so you can get a new crystal grotto?"

"Yes! And I'll make him take me to the nicest restaurant in the residential district." She said cheerily. "But back to the matter at hand," she said switching back to her lecturing cadence, "The two times we've been able to watch a change the magic absorbed through the concept orbs flowed through the body and reformed in the center of their magic. That's somewhere different for various races, yours seems to settle in your chest near your heart. Once they reform they are drawn together. You had confluences, so when you gained your concepts the concepts that got along with one another come close and interact, almost like a handshake. Until the change, they are still separate, but they get along as they start to form and come closer. Usually, this makes the change easier." They approached the edge of the whitecapped pond together Hiro listening intently to the Professor's words.

"When the change starts, concepts will merge, and a custom form of mana forms. As the concept orbs combine they continue to merge until there is one singular core left. At that point, the new combination of mana will expand through your whole being carving pathways or reinforcing them if you're a magical race. It will adapt your body and pathways to work specifically with your personal mana type. This is why some families encourage their offspring to pick similar concepts to their parents. They would be born with pathways already well adapted to that type of energy often making their connection stronger especially at first. However, I have found that students who buck those traditions tend to do just as well, but it takes them more time to adapt. There is no actual correlation between family legacies and power levels. Not that you can tell some families this."

Hiro just raised an eyebrow at the professor and she coughed a little, "Right, anyway, it looks like you must've touched the water concept while the cores were joining. It will take more study to be sure, but my theory is it did not have time to form a solid core. You almost drowned right?"

"Yeah," Hiro thought back to that moment and how scary it was, but she had been able to push through it with Time.

"Well, your body couldn't wait for the water core to form, it needed its power right away, I think your need caused this concept to skip a step, instead of forming a core, it waterlogged the other ones as it expanded and carved your magic channels to allow you to breathe under water. Either the force of its rapid expansion or maybe the press of its magic outward form here prevented the other cores from joining." She waved her hand at the three cores floating in the pond. Whatever it was, those didn't finish forming into one, and the water concept never formed at all. Instead, I suspect we will find it dispersed all through your channels."

"Ok, so what does that mean Professor? Is it fixable?" Hiro said nervously. The storm outside the calm bubble intensified with her nerves. This time the Professor raised an eyebrow at her. The smile that never seemed to leave her face softened with kindness.

"All signs point to yes. The cores you do have seem stable, The main concern would be if they were clashing." She held up a finger, "It will be a lot of work, but we can work on consolidating your water core and getting all of the pieces talking and working together. The histories lay out a good groundwork for us to build from. Once we can get your magics working together we can clean out your mana channels from the overflow of water magic and do some strengthening to make it suitable to your power."

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Her grin got bigger, "In the end, you will have pristine mana channels and three cores you can grow instead of one. Maybe even four depending on how the water one integrates. Maybe less if during the water integration, more concepts decide to combine. Either way, Your overall mana reserves will be massive."

"Why doesn't everyone have pristine channels?" Hiro asked.

For the first time, Hiro saw the Professor's face darken, "Because they don't have to. Most of the time the change gives a Spark the ability to use and channel their magic without the need to reinforce it. Beyond my introductory classes on how to not burn yourself out and how to hasten recovery after heavy use, they don't take the more advanced classes to harden their channels. They simply don't need to and it's not a required class. But," her face brightened, "Every cohort I get a few students who wish to push themselves to the top of their game. Those are the ones who rise through the ranks and excel!"

Her smile took on an intense quality as she looked at Hiro, "You, my dear, don't have a choice. You will have to have excellent channels or your magic will burn them out." She tried to clap her on the shoulder, but All Hiro felt was a breeze as her hand puffed around her body like a mist, "Nothing is better than a highly motivated student! Now let's go map out your channels!"

She went up to one of the streams coming out of the pond. Hiro assumed that it would be flowing into and feeding the water and was surprised to see that instead, the water flowed away from the pool. She rolled her eyes at herself, of course, it was flowing away it was a physical representation of the magic inside her. The professor just said it flowed away from the center.

The professor tapped the bright light on her forehead twice and in a booming voice said, "Three cores located. Mapping channels. Before turning back to Hiro who had winced at the loud noise. "Had to signal my body to speak. Sorry if it was loud. The bright spot on her forehead flashed twice. "And it looks like the signal is strong. Come along dear, let's figure out where all this goes.

What followed was hours of traveling along various streams, rivers, and trickles of her water-like power. Sometimes when they were close to the core flashes from her other powers would flicker with the water. The professor claimed this was a good thing.

"That means they are primed to work together!" She has said enthusiastically before continuing with their mapping. Hiro even told her about the time she was able to send her blue light through the water to form a swimsuit and the Professor happily explained to her the concepts she had figured out and used to get past the water-logged channels.

"If you can do that without any guidance, you should pick up on the rest of the basics fairly quickly." Professor Davenport said with her trademark smile.

Hiro did get stuck when the Professor went to follow one of the twisting streams floating through the air. As she rose she left Hiro on the edge of the calm bubble when she called out. "Uh, Professor? Um, How am I supposed to follow you?"

The professor turned back pure confusion across her face before understanding then a deep belly laugh cascaded out of her. "Ah! Yes, I see I was wondering why you were walking everywhere. Hiro dear, you are in the center of your power, you are the one who controls it. You subconsciously create an avatar that matches how you see yourself. It is like a lucid dream. You can control every aspect of what happens here if you have the willpower to make it so. Once you understand shielding you could even throw me out without a second thought. All of that will come with time, but if you imagine yourself with wings you will sprout them," She demonstrated as her avatar sprouted baby cupid wings behind her back, "If you will yourself up, you will go up. I've guided students who thought of themselves as three feet taller than they were with muscles as big as a minotaur!" She demonstrated but making herself look three feet tall and buff as a body builder a character of what she looked like normally.

"My point is Hiro, Don't hold yourself down. This place connects to your physical body but isn't strictly physical. It's pure magic. Metaphysically anything is possible." She smiled as Hiro absorbed this slowly shifting back into her normal ethereal appearance.

Hiro closed her eyes and thought about floating around as Professor Davenport did. when she opened them she was three inches off the ground. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, she had floated like this before and had been itching to do it since her change stopped her. This time she took a measured approach and only did a little spin of joy before joining the professor a few feet in the air.

"Alright professor, let's get this done!" She said excitedly. The Professor just smiled back as they finished exploring the tunnel-like system that ran through and around her body always seeming to loop back to the center.

After some more time, Hiro had taken to transforming her hand into various things, claws, talons, rock fingers, anything she could imagine when the glow on the Professor's forehead flashed again and she paused. They were near her cores.

The professor cocked her head to the side as if she was listening. "Alright, Hiro it seems we have gotten the vast majority of them. There is only one more channel I can sense."She guided the calm bubble back to the center pond. The storm inside Hiro had calmed as Hiro got bored and turned into heavy rain with flashes of lights and color still breaking but not as tumultuous as before. The pond had swelled with the water dropping from the clouds to flood its banks.

The Professor pointed down into the water. "There's a thick connection I can sense coming from the bottom of the pond." She turned to Hiro, "Most cores, untrained or not, will not allow a foreign presence near them without lashing out. I don't intend to get burnt out by your cores today, so I'm going to ask you to go down there and tell me what you see then we'll be done mapping." She grinned at Hiro who looked skeptically at the Professor.

"You've been traipsing through my mana channels all day, but that last thread is a no-go?" She said incredulously.

"I have not been traipsing! I have been floating" The professor said mischievously, "But notice I have never gone close to your cores. Not only would it be unimaginably rude but it would be like an attack and your cores would react instinctively to it. Remember I said the storm could be in response to me being here? It would definitely flair up and lash out if I stepped into the pond. Especially since it is most likely an unformed or partially formed core. So pop off down there and see where that last thread leads and then we'll be out of here!"

Hiro nodded in acceptance of her explanation and waded into the pond's choppy waters. It felt cool and tingled on her skin. Her body hummed with power the further she waded in. She reached the edge of the drop-off that matched the one in the caven before steeling herself and diving in.

Her whole body buzzed as she swam through the mana acting like water. She willed it to clear so she could see through the bubbling and churning liquid. It bubbled for a moment before clarifying. Her eyes widened at the sight before her. Her three cores half submerged in the water mana were held up by a whirlpool of different types of mana coming from the cores. Flickers of power leaked out of the cores and then were whisked away by the whirlpool before getting pulled down to a central point. She followed the path with her eyes and it flowed into a single thick stream of power flowing out of the bottom of the pool where the pedestal had been in the caverns.

She swam to it, cautiously touching then, when nothing happened, entering the whirling vortex of mana created by her three cores being pulled to the bottom of the pond. The channel the rest of the cores created was wide enough for her to swim through and she followed the churn through the gap in the floor.

The mana in the channel felt different than the magic she had been walking through all day. She could feel the different concepts it held. They were familiar to her as the day she touched their orbs. A huge grin crossed her face as she felt them all there. They didn't seem blended like Professor Davenport said they would become, but they were mixed. Like a tossed salad rather than a cake.

The path her power took was short. She swam down through the channel before it emerged into another cavern-like room. It mirrored the one above but without the pool. The power she had followed her ran into another large monolith of an orb floating in the center of the hollow room. Her eyes widened as it dawned on her what it was. Another core.

She crept closer in awe. The power fluctuated as it neared it. Sometimes speeding up so quickly she couldn't follow its strands, sometimes slowing to a crawl. It swirled and dipped following pathways across the core's surface she could not see. Inside there were three images.

The first image she examined was of a single unified core. The mana tendrils that entered blended to form that image of a properly unified core. The second one was of three cores circling a fourth, like planets around the sun. The central core was filled with water swirling in eddies and waves but frozen in place. The other three matched the three she saw in the above chamber but they were no longer half-submerged in a pond. The magic flooding this image maintained their separation but braided themselves together as the Orbs tirled around the center core of water magic.

The final image was of a massive orb of water with four cores floating inside it like buoys in the ocean. The main signature going in and out of this image was that of the very familiar water magic. The other energies seemed to feed it and make it stronger but were not expressing themselves like the one before.

She flicked her eyes back to the first image. The unified core didn't have any of the water magic of the other feeding it.

"Holly shit Batman," She said to herself. She looked over how the power behaved oddly in certain spots before reaching out and touching it. Everything slowed as her hand approached and stopped completely as her hand made contact. "I have a fourth core for time. Is it trying to show me how I can handle my cores?" Her eyes slid to the first one. "I can revert to a single core, but it looks like water isn't a part of it. Her eyes slid over. I could combine Time and water and use them as the heart of the other three?" She guessed this one, but her intuition said that was right. "Or I can use water to dominate all others and force them to work within it."

She frowned at the vision captured in the core of time. There have to be more options than this. Or are you showing me the best possible options? Or are these the worst options and I should find another path?" She muttered. Time remained frozen. No voice echoed to her about these visions. She sighed and pulled her hand away. The swirl of magic resumed around her.

She cocked her head hoping the voice would offer some helpful advice beyond the ominous "don't trust people" bit it had done before.

"Nothing? No sage advice on which path is best? No echoing words of caution?" She called out into the empty cavern. Silence greeted her question and she blew out an exasperated sigh. "Alright then. I will figure it out myself."

She began pacing. "I like Professor Davenport, but I'm not sure if I should trust her enough to let her know about this final core. It looks like it gets mixed up in the others one way or another once this whole mess is fixed so maybe for now I keep it quiet, see what she says about everything, and if it becomes necessary loop her in when there aren't two other professors with us.

She was still wary of the organization, especially with how they threw her into the cavern with no information, but the people she had met so far seemed decent. Were the folks she met the rule or the exception to that? After all, if Genisis and her beasts came from here, what else could the shiny facade be hiding? Maybe there was something wrong and Genisis was fighting it? Maybe she was crazy? All Hiro knew was that she made some crazy beasts and wanted to collect anomalies.

She shook her head surprised how easily she could go down rabbit holes when she was literally at the bottom of one. She needed more information and the help the Professors would provide. Davenport seemed like she genuinely wanted to help her, but it could also come from a place where she wanted to be a part of the study of an incomplete transformation. Her friends always said how nice her mom seemed after all. Being nice in front of others doesn't mean she's good. Not that she thought the Professor was anything like her mom. Either way, Hiro would need to figure out if she could be told about the platinum concept she hid in her magical basement.

Chuckling to herself she ascended the channel of magic pushing herself against the stream. he wouldn't lie, about where it went, but she would forget to mention that there was a core at the end of her man brick road at the bottom of the pond. For now.