Josh's eyes sparkled as he finally heard something that might make this world liveable. Magic.
Who didn’t dream as a kid once of going to Hogwarts, putting on the sorting hat, and getting into Gryffindor House or one of the many other fantasy stories that included magic? After all, fantasy stands for fantastic, and magic is double fantastic.
Magic, I can’t believe I’ll be doing a freaking magic.
Magic
MAAAAGIC.
He patiently waited for Elaria to start explaining it. While he himself acted as if a kid whose dad had gone to buy a pack of cigarettes had finally returned. And while returning, he brought back a whole-ass caramel cake—his favorite.
“First of all, the most important part to casting magic is sensing magic or more precisely, mana,” Elaria, with a thoughtful expression, explained to him. “Mana is everywhere, yet it’s nowhere,” she said, pulling out a book from her sack titled “Mana sensing for dummies” and handing it to him.
“I said we shall do magic, but you have to start with baby steps. Josh, so for today, I want you to read this book and try to sense your mana or, even better, try to gather it. If you manage to gather it, we will even be able to do an affinity test,” she said before leaving him alone to study the book.
B-but.
But my m-magic?
Josh was left flabbergasted, expecting to cast an [EXPLOSION!], yet left to read a book for dummies.
That’s okay, surely after this she will teach me magic.
Right?
Right ???
Knowing that until he reads this book, there are no grand spells or feats for him to be done, he delved into the book with intense enthusiasm.
The book started by explaining that, basically, there were four realms: the mortal realm, the spirit realm, the heaven realm, and the hell realm.
If left alone, the mortal realm would have no mana or feats of magic, as everyone would be just like on his home world, Earth, relying on science rather than magic and mana to progress, but by some coincidence, thousands of years ago, in a war between heaven and hell realms. A huge dimensional hole opened between the spirit realm and the human realm, which made baseless mana, which made up most of the spirit realm, seep into the mortal realm.
That’s why Elaria said there’s mana everywhere yet nowhere because mana is everywhere but should be nowhere. After that, the book finally got into practical stuff. It explained how to sense mana, which was basically like a sixth sense. It reminded him of all the monks in Shaolin monasteries who spent years meditating, trying to find the Zen.
The concept of sensing mana was basically the same: you sit down, you close yourself from the outside world, and try to sense something that is there that shouldn’t be there.
While having about half of a book left to read, Josh decided to try sensing mana. He sat down on the floor, doing his best to mimic a lotus position, his hands gently resting on his knees. He closed his eyes and breathed slow and steady.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
His body was feeling restless, unused to sitting still, his thoughts racing as he had no clue how to empty his mind, but knowing that if he wanted to do magic, he had to sense mana, he persisted.
A second turned into a dozen seconds, a dozen seconds turned into a minute, a minute turned into a dozen minutes, and a dozen minutes turned into an hour.
For the first time, he found a deep peace inside of him, his thoughts clear, his body not mattering.
Did I reach my inner self?
Knowing that he had taken the first step required to sense mana, reaching his inner self, he got excited and frantically searched for mana.
He broke his meditation with his frantic actions.
Fuck I got so close.
I just needed to find the world beyond my inner self, mana.
He picked up the book to try and finish it rather than going back to meditation straight away. Sadly, it seems that the spell his mentor has cast on him has run out, as instead of being readable, the book is back to being full of gibberish that made no sense to him.
Oh well, I guess I’ll go grab something to eat, then try sensing mana again.
***
At least a half-dozen hours have passed since he reached his inner self, and he has now attempted to get back to it at least ten times without success.
Fuck what I’m doing wrong. I almost had it the first time.
Knowing that further meditation would just be throwing his head into the wall, Josh decided to take a walk outside to freshen up his mind.
As he walked in circles in the garden of his manor, he gazed upon one of the most beautiful sunsets that he had ever seen. The sunsets themselves would not be possible back on Earth as his new world had two suns, one similarly colored to the ‘Sun’ back on Earth, and the other deep azure as if to contradict the yellow-orange one.
He was mesmerized as he looked at the orange sun descending and the azure one following right behind it, creating a stark contrast between the warm and cool tones and an even more amazing twilight to look at.
Life is beautiful.
He sat down on the grass, knowing that when he’s feeling at complete inner peace outside, finding his inner self to sense mana will be much easier.
It didn’t take him longer than a couple of minutes to find himself back in his inner self, feeling at peace, which did not feel as foreign as the first time anymore. Knowing that acting frantically would just kick him out of his inner world, he pondered what he knew about mana.
This was not much considering he only half-read the book entrusted to him by his mentor, but it was still enough to sense it as he tried to leave his inner self and sense the whole inner world around him, knowing that was the surefire way toward sensing mana.
It didn’t take that much longer for him to see various light motes of various colors. Most of them were red, followed by black and a couple of transparent ones as well; the other colors existed in his inner world. He knew that, but he couldn’t make sense of them.
How beautiful, that must be mana.
He appreciated his inner world for another couple of minutes before a sudden pain, as if someone tried to split his head into two, broke him out of it.
I did it, I sensed mana.
Excited that he did his task but even more tired, he wobbled back to his room, forgetting to undress as he fell into slumber. Even with a massive headache, it didn’t take longer than half a minute for him to fall asleep.
When he woke up the next morning, still with short bursts of lingering headache, he remembered the warning from one of the first chapters of the book. He knew that he had overused his mind.
He quickly changed into new robes delivered by Bella while he was asleep, putting the old ones with which he slept into a tidy pile beside his bed. He did not know where to bring the laundry.
As he entered the dining hall, he noticed the elven beauty already there having her breakfast and countless blue mana motes around her. He could sense them without having to enter his inner world anymore.
“Beautiful,” he uttered for no one but himself to hear.
Knowing that interrupting his mentor at her breakfast would be considered rude and probably ineffective, he sat down opposite her and started to dig into his food as well.
“So, did you do it, Ward Josh?” Magus Elaria asked him. “Did you sense the mana?”
Surprised, he choked on his food, not expecting his mentor to be the one to break the silence at the dinner table. After a series of couple forceful coughs, he replied to her.
“Lady Magus Elaria, my wiseful mentor, your humble student did, in fact, manage to sense mana last evening,” he said mockingly.
“In fact, I can even see the mana right now around you, Milady.”
Hopefully, that was enough honorifics for Her Majesty to consider me respectful.
She clicked her tongue, annoyed at his behavior.
“Stop with those forced honorifics, Ward Josh,” before quickly adding.
“Just a Lady or Magus is enough.”
“So, did you manage to gather it as well or only sense it?” She asked him.
“Lady Elaria, your ward is not so talented to know how to gather it,” Josh replied with overly forced, disappointed movements. "Forgive this one, as it seems he is a slow reader, and your spell, which allowed this one to read foreign texts, ran out as this one was only halfway into the book.” With a sigh, he finished.
“That shouldn’t been possible. The spell lasts at least six hours; you definitely had at least three hours to read that book; it’s only eighty pages?” ignoring his mocking tone, Elaria replied.
“This one might have tried to sense mana after only reading half of the book and then got lost in it for numerous hours.“ Josh, still keeping his happy mood from sensing mana and overly comic hand movements, explained to her.
She sighed.
“Finish your breakfast, we will be going to your study room, where you will try to gather mana and we will explore your affinities” she said.