When we got back to the mansion Ann watched me try and start a fire and laughed while she showed me how she could materialize a flame in the palm of her hand. She also showed me how all the magical appliances worked. All the devices were drained of mana so she just had to infuse some of her mana into them and they started working again. I still didn’t know how mana worked so would need to wait for her to show me. It seemed like Lux and Lin could do it as well even though they weren’t mages. I guess everybody had mana in this world.
Lin and Ann insisted on making the meal this time so I was forced out of the kitchen. Lux was doing some kind of sword practice in the front yard so I grabbed my spear and decided to practice also. I had some training dummies set up so started jabbing them. When I stopped for a break, I noticed Lux had been watching me. He gestured for the spear so I handed it over and he began to practice with it. It seemed he was proficient with the spear as well as the sword.
I watched him closely and tried to remember what he was doing. Lux was certainly light years ahead of my poor skills. Soon the girls called us in to eat and the fish smelled amazing. I thought I was a decent cook, but the girls put me to shame. I complimented their cooking between bites and they both looked pleased. They sat on either side of me again and it might have been my imagination, but I thought Lux wasn’t glaring at me quite as much this time.
After the meal, Ann and I went to the study for my first magic lesson. Lin and Shadow followed along seemingly to watch. I was both nervous and excited and hoped I didn’t embarrass myself too badly in front of the girls. I couldn’t help worrying about the possibility that I couldn’t use magic since I was from another world. The fact that my body and mind seemed to have been enhanced when summoned made me slightly hopeful that I would be able to do it.
We sat down and Ann took my hands. “The first thing you need to do is feel the mana inside you. I’ll transfer some of my mana into you to cause your mana to move around. Now, close your eyes and concentrate on the feeling.” Ann explained while closing her eyes. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as well. At first, I couldn’t feel anything but then a strange sensation, almost like a feeling of vertigo along with getting a chill down the middle of my back took place. Then I could feel something in my chest slowly starting to rotate, it was a very odd feeling.
“I can feel something. It’s rotating in my chest.” I said in wonder. “Good. Keep concentrating and see if you can make it rotate faster.” Ann instructed, letting go of my hands. I did as I was told and tried to will the strange energy to turn faster. I almost lost it a few times but finally was able to get a feeling for it and make it do what I wanted. “Ok, it’s working. Now what?” I asked, still concentrating.
“Good. Now make it flow up your arm and visualize a flame on your palm.” She continued. I tried to visualize a flame like I had seen Ann perform earlier and opened my eyes to see an orange flame resting a few inches above my hand. “Wow, I did it!” I exclaimed. The flame wasn’t burning my hand and it just felt a little warm. “Um, now how do I get rid of it?” I asked staring at the flame dancing on my palm.
Ann just laughed. “Just will it to go away and move the mana back to your center.” I tried it and the flame poofed out of existence. I blew out a sigh of relief. Ann went to the bookshelf and started examining the other books. “Now that you can move your mana, the introductory magic book should be a piece of cake for you. That book is fairly common, but I’ve never seen most of these others. There could be lost spells contained in them that no one has seen in centuries.” She added excitedly.
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She talked to Lin who was sitting down in one of the chairs petting Shadow. The discovery seemed to excite Lin as well. “Does that mean the books are valuable?” I asked, glancing at them. If I could get through the introductory book then maybe I could learn some of the spells in the other books as well. “If they contain new spells then they could be priceless.” Ann said, pulling a couple of them out. “We should look for more in the surrounding mansions then.” I said. I had stopped exploring the mansions after the run in with the dog sized spider.
“I think this might be a magical sword also, but I don’t know how it works.” I said, pulling out the sword to show the girls. They both oohed and awed over it so it must be special. Ann carefully took the sword and seemed to concentrate and the blade started glowing blue. “It’s a magical sword but I’m not sure what its enchanted with. We’ll have to test it.” She said, handing it back. “To activate it, you just need to push the mana out through your hand like you were making a spell but continue to push it into the sword instead.” She instructed. I followed her example and sure enough I was able to make the blade glow blue as well.
I put the sword aside for now and concentrated on the books. “Why didn’t you learn any offensive spells?” I asked as we flipped through the books. “My master didn’t know any. Spell books are hard to come by if you don’t attend the university and mages guard their secrets even more so than master craftsmen.” She replied. I nodded in thought. If that was the case, then these books really were priceless and Ann would be learning along with me.
Ann explained that for more complex spells, incantations were required unless you had memorized them and knew them intimately. This is where the books came in which showed the spell forms and incantations. I hadn’t noticed Ann doing incantations which meant she was a better mage than I thought. It would be a while before I was able to learn anything complicated but I was motivated now to get through the introductory book as soon as possible.
Lin had a frown on her face while she watched us conversing so I tried including her. “Lin, would you like to learn magic as well?” I asked. Ann translated and Lin shook her head no and said something in common. “She says she isn’t smart enough to learn old empire.” Ann said, frowning. “Why hasn’t anyone translated the old empire spell books into common?” I asked curiously. “The same reason spell books are hoarded and jealously guarded by mages. They don’t want to share their secrets and power.” Ann replied, still frowning. “I’m not even sure if the spells would work if you spoke them in common, some of the words don’t translate over very well and you have to be very precise in your pronunciation to get the spells to work properly.” She continued.
For the rest of the day I studied the introductory book while Ann looked through the other magic books. I occasionally had questions for her but as she said it was pretty straight forward after I was finally able to feel my mana and somewhat control it. Lin got bored and left with Shadow to find Lux. Tomorrow I wanted to tackle the lightning rod again before the next storm hit. I had seen other lightning rods on buildings around town and at first just figured it was standard for protection but the talk about the city being preserved got me thinking that maybe they served a bigger purpose.
If the summoning circle was powered by electricity then maybe whatever was slowing the city’s deterioration was also being powered by lightning. The next time I went by one of the buildings with a lightning rod I would inspect it. The city might be falling apart slower but it was still falling apart with the jungle and wildlife taking over. With my new houseguests help I wanted to continue to explore the city and it sounded like they wanted to as well. If Ann and I could learn some powerful spells that would go a long way toward making things easier for us. Who knows, I might need a bigger loot room.