A week passed by in an instant and the day had arrived where I would begin learning mana manipulation. I had just woken up and was waiting for my mother to come into my room to get me prepared. I decided to check my status because I hadn't checked it since before I was born.
Status
Name
Aila Lilica Westbrook
Race
Faerian
Gender
Female
Class
Primordial
Level
0
Mana
8628/8628
Health
93/93
Stamina
48/48
Strength
3
Intelligence
205
Vitality
4
Wisdom
104
Endurance
5
Charisma
6
Dexterity
18
Luck
37
Blessings/Traits
Primordial soul
Your soul was created during the creation of the universe. Do to the means of your creation you have a strong soul that only a god can break through. Your mana capacity is much greater than others and your manipulation of mana is superb.
+4000 base mana
+Mana manipulation
Mana Manipulation
You can control mana itself. You can cast magic faster than others and through practice, you can cast magic through the mind without a chant.
+100 base intelligence
Blessing of intelligence
You have been blessed with greater intelligence. Your learning speed is much faster than others around you.
+100 base intelligence
+50 base wisdom
Blessing of the mind
You have been blessed with a greater mental capacity than others. Your reaction speed is increased and can be trained.
+15 base dexterity
Blessing of mana
You have been blessed with a greater mana capacity. Your soul has been strengthened to allow more mana to be held within.
+2500 base mana
'Wow my stats are constantly growing, the body of a growing baby sure shows its benefits,' I thought to myself. Maybe I should not be too impressed as most of my stats are quite low, but I still feel impressed by the rate of growth I am experiencing right now.
I close the status screen and wait for mom to come and get me.
A few minutes later mom walks into my room with a box full of stuff. I look at the box and see it contains a bunch of random sticks, toys, and other random stuff. I question why mom brought this box of stuff to my room, as she places it down on the floor in front of the couch. She then comes over to me and moves me next to the box of stuff.
"Alright, Aila. Today is your first lesson in mana manipulation. Today I am going to familiarize you with the general uses of mana and how to pick up objects with it," she says.
"Yes mom," I respond.
"Good, then for the first lesson I am going to teach you about the Divine Ranking System. The DRS is a useful tool to access a general assortment of information about yourself. This includes your name, race, class, level, mana capacity, health, endurance, as well as your stats which show you the makeup of your body. The stats include Strength, the amount of power you can hit with, Vitality, how healthy your body is, endurance, how long you physically push yourself, dexterity, reaction speed and hand-eye coordination, intelligence, how smart you are, wisdom, how well you can apply knowledge, charisma, speaking skills, and luck, how lucky you are. After that are skills. Skills are a something you learn and acquire. When you learn a skill it is displayed under the skill section. Skills rank up and by how much training you put into it, and if you neglect a skill for long enough it will lose a rank or be forgotten entirely. When a skill reaches rank ten the next rank up will change its title. Titles go from novice, adequate, adept, expert, master, grandmaster, and godly. After skills are the Blessings and Traits. They are an innate title that grants you certain skills or stats. For example, the trait Mana Manipulation, this trait is a trait all faerian are born with and have an innate understanding of. Other races have different traits that have their benefits also. Most traits can be learned as skills, but it won't have all the benefits of a trait and you have to keep practicing them more often. Blessings are stat increases given to people by the gods. Now I shall show you how to open your status. In your mind imagine you are scooping out a small cup of water. When that water is filled you pour it out to the front of your body, and in your mind, you say [status]," she says as a blue screen appears in front of her. "And this is what you will see in front of you, here take a look," mom says as she moves her status over to me.
Status
Name
Elisandra Blake Westbrook
Race
Faerian
Gender
Female
Class
Elemental Sharpshooter
Level
86
Mana
17561/17561
Health
2118/2118
Stamina
1897/1897
Strength
113
Intelligence
307
Vitality
99
Wisdom
205
Endurance
95
Charisma
67
Dexterity
154
Luck
43
Skills
Archery (Master rank 5)
Aviary (Master rank 8)
Cooking (Adept rank 9)
Hunting (Expert rank 1)
Mana Control (Master rank 7)
Navigating (Adequate rank 6)
[Focus to show all]
Blessings/Traits
Mana Manipulation
You can control mana itself. You can cast magic faster than others and through practice, you can cast magic through the mind without a chant.
+100 base intelligence
I look at her status for a while. I am not sure how these stats compare to others in this world, so I can't really say anything. However, I am still intrigued by all the large numbers in front of me. I pass the screen back to mom and she then closes it.
"Now that you have seen the demonstration, you should be able to copy my actions and make the screen appear," she said.
"Yes, mom," I say as I start to pour the mana outside of my body. I feel for the amount of mana that has been poured out and when I feel it's right I closed off the mana stream and thought [status].
My status page opened and I turned it over to my mom. She looks at the screen blankly for a while before muttering.
"Well, this proves it," she mutters.
Not understanding what she was talking about I looked at my mom with my head tilted confused. When mom saw me looking at her she stopped thinking deeply and started to talk.
"I was going to go into base stats for the average faerian, but with your blessings and traits giving you an extra 6500 mana capacity, it's not that necessary. It may be important for you not to brag to others though so let me tell you the average faerian stats. Most faerian's are born with a mana capacity ranging from 1500 to 2500. All faerian's are born with the trait Mana Manipulation which grants control of mana. With the increased intelligence from this trait, most faerian's are magic-oriented beings. Most of a faerian's other stats are similar to that of the human and elf, but we are slightly physically weaker than them due to having fairy blood. Though we are stronger when it comes to magic than both the elves and humans. The faerian life span is about two thousand years thanks to fairy blood, but although we have a long lifespan we have a similar growth rate to the humans. When we start growing our wings is a sign of the start of puberty, this happens around the age of eleven to thirteen in males and ten to twelve in females. The wings will grow throughout the first stage of puberty and reach maturity after two years. The body will continue to grow and develop for another four to six years before reaching maturity," she said to me.
I was a little bewildered by the information drop that landed on me and it was showing on my face.
Seeing my face, mom understood I was shocked by all the information. "I guess I explained a little too much information to you. I guess I will explain all this information to you again when it is relevant," she said as she took another look at my status. "Oh, right, can you show me what this 'Primordial' class is. Usually, children don't get their class until they turn the age of twelve," she said to me.
I take back my status and look at my class. 'Uh, how is it I was supposed to open this again' I think while looking blankly at the screen.
"Oh, to open more information about anything on the DRS you need to concentrate on what you want to know about and say its name," mom said.
Focusing on the part of the screen that had my class I thought [class] and the class information appeared.
Class
Primordial
A class unique to primordial souls. The class is an additional class obtained at birth in addition to the class obtained at the normal age of twelve.
On level up:
Strength, Vitality, Intelligence, Endurance, Wisdom, Dexterity, and Wisdom + 1
Class bonus:
All bonuses by addition class multiplied by 2.
I give this information to mom and wait for her response. She just stared at the screen for a while before she brought out a piece of paper and jotted something down. Afterward, she put the paper away and gave the screen another glance before speaking.
"Alright, well I guess we should just move on then," mom said.
"Yes, mom," I say.
"Then let's move onto the general uses of mana," She pauses for a second and thinks about what to say. "Well, where to start. The general uses of mana by people are for combat. Combat is fairly explanatory, it focuses on spellcasting and mana coating. Spell casting is a rudimentary way to manipulate mana though chants, and in the long run, this leads to extended casting time as well as wasted mana. Mana coating is a method to cover a specific or all of the body in mana; this technique is used to allow users to not run out of stamina by converting the energy of mana into the energy for your body. This results in the ability to attack with stronger power and increased defense from the mana layer coating your body. Mana coating is far more complicated than this though, as with higher control comes the ability to use the mana in the attack to further increase power, or coating objects outside your body in order to increase the power, or...' she trailed off in excitement. When she realized she went off topic she quickly stopped and brought back the topic of discussion. "*cough* Anyway, just know that although the general forms of mana use are lacking, there is always a way to improve and better use these techniques," she said.
"Okay," I said tiredly.
"Sorry Aila, I just love teaching people the way of using mana," she said looking at me. "I just want to educate people about what mana really is. It is the energy of the world and everything can be manipulated through enough control. There are so many uses that they are still being discovered," she says realizing my slight interest. "I won't go into full detail, for now, because I still have other things to teach you, but it is my goal to further the uses of mana to the whole world. You, Kristy, Keith, and Allan have all been entrusted with the task of educating the world. I want everyone to understand, even just a little, what mana really is," she says and looks deeply into my eyes. "Aila can I entrust this task to you?" she says.
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"Yes, mom!" I respond.
"Good, father's dream shall not disappear. I will recreate this dream into a tradition of the Westbrook family," she says with determination.
"Mom?" I say.
"Don't worry Aila, this matter is something you do not need to know about until you are older," she said as she turns her head towards the box. "Let's start the final lesson of today shall we?" she says.
I look over to the box and nod in excitement. 'I can not wait for a way to use mana to lift and control objects,' I thought.
"Then let me show you what you will be learning," she says as she picks up a small wooden sphere.
She concentrates on where the sphere is located and then removes her hands. The sphere just floats there and does not move. I crawl over to it and touch it and it floats in the direction I pushed it in. 'Applying a force to counteract gravity,' I thought.
I began to play around with the ball. It goes in whatever direction it is pushed in, so I have to keep following it around until it slows down. 'So the ball is still affected by air resistance,' I think. Since the ball was only under the influence of one command what would happen if more were placed on it. This question peaked my interest, but I had to wait until I learned how to manipulate mana. I sat down and waited for mom to finish her demonstration.
Seeing I was done playing mom stopped canceled the magic on the ball and let it drop to the ground. She then turned to me and said. "The concept of mana manipulation is to use your will to control the mana into doing what you want it to do. The possibilities for this are endless and are only limited by your knowledge and imagination. The flexibility of mana and how easily you can control it is by how well you can sense your internal mana. The internal mana is a collection of unique mana that only you can make use of. It is made through the unique purifying process contained inside every soul. Although there is no difference between your unique mana and all other mana, you can only control your own mana. The more you practice mana manipulation the better you will get at sensing your internal mana. Back to the point, we faerian's are able to control mana much easier than other races due to our mana manipulation trait which gives us an easier time sensing our own personal mana. Aila in order to make this ball float you will need to imagine the ball floating and when the image is clear then control the mana and make it do what you imagine," she says as she hands me the ball.
"I will try," I said with determination.
I sit up with the ball in my lap and begin to imagine the ball floating like how moms did. I spend a while trying to clearly imagine the ball floating in front of me, but after a few minutes, I finally make the image clear enough in my head. After that, I start to control the mana in my body. It was moving around with a bit of ease thanks to being able to sense a third of my internal mana. I immediately send some of the mana outside my body and start to will the mana to follow my image. The mana does not follow the order and continues to float in front of me. I keep trying to no avail and eventually slouch back in frustration.
"Don't get discouraged Aila, the process of willing the mana to follow your orders is an indescribable feeling that you have to figure out yourself. The only thing I can tell you is that you should make the mana do what you want it to do through any means necessary. The imaging method is easiest to accomplish, but as long as you find a way that works for you anything is possible," mom said seeing my frustration.
Hearing this I immediately try the imaging method again. Instead of ordering the mana to do the work I take action and make the mana follow my instruction with the image in my head. The mana flows out under my control and wraps around the ball. I feel the mana outside me and make it recreate the image inside my head. The mana slowly changes and I feel a connection between me and the mana around the ball. I slowly move the ball with my hands and let go of it when it is at eye level. The ball stays there and floats not moving at all. I begin to follow my tests that I did with moms ball and it seems to follow the exact same mana use. I stare at mom with excitement that I did it.
Catching my glance mom start to speak. "Pretty good, you have managed to recreate the image of the floating ball after about twenty minutes. This is pretty good for your first time. Your brothers and sister all spent anywhere from ten minutes to an hour to grasp the idea of making the mana work with your will," she said and then looks towards the ball. "You should feel a connection between yourself and the mana around the ball. This connection signifies the range of control as well as the amount of mana being used to keep the ball floating. I do not know how much mana you used originally, but if you open the status you can check how much mana is being depleted. You should open the mana information section by using the same method you used to open the class information," mom says.
I immediately open the status and concentrate on the mana section and think [mana] and open the mana information.
Mana
8597.765 / 8628.476
Mana Recovery
+ 0.2 per sec
Mana Consumption
- 0.1 per sec
I look at the screen and constantly see my mana rising. 'It seems the consumption for keeping the ball floating is less than my natural mana recovery rate. It also seems that the initial set up to create the connection costs more mana. I wonder if this amount can be decreased over practice,' I thought as mom soon answered my questions.
"As you can see the cost of creating the connection more than keeping the connection stable. The cost for connection can be decreased through continued practice of mana manipulation. You might also see that the information section of each stat shows a much more accurate depiction of your stats. On these screens show more information about each stat and what they do," mom says.
I sever the connection between me and the ball and see the mana consumption section disappears. I wonder about that for a while before asking mom.
"No one really knows why exactly it is just how it works," mom says.
I think about that for a little wondering why it was made like this but decide to stop trying because it's not important. Instead, I ask something that has been on my mind since I formed a connection with the ball. "Why does DRS not use mana?" I ask.
When mom hears this question she stutters a bit. "Ah, well, this matter cannot really be explained either. We know the gods created the DRS, so we have to assume that the DRS is part of every person and you need to input your mana signature along with the keywords to activate the system. Imputing your mana signature is theorized to not require any mana consumption, instead, it scans the mana used and opens the status of the person with that mana signature. Although this is just theory and cannot be proven at the moment," she says.
"I see," I say.
"The workings of this world are complicated, there is no reason for you to try to understand them now. All you need to do is get accustomed to the basics of mana manipulation. For now, try to recreate the floating ball again and try to lessen the time it takes to do this. This should not take much time because you have already done it once before. Once the time to cast takes around five seconds you can start to experiment with other techniques and objects. I will come back tonight to see your progress before putting you to sleep so practice hard," she says.
"Yes, mom," I say with enthusiasm.
I immediately pick up the ball and start using my mana to make it float.
***
Closing the door to Aila's room I start to walk towards Vail's office. The information discovered about her class is important. I walk down the hall and knock on Vail's door before entering.
"Oh, Eli what are you doing here so soon it's only been a few hours. Aren't you supposed to be teaching Aila how to manipulate mana?" Vail asks.
"Yes, I have already completed the topics for the first lesson and left her to practice, but that's not important right now," I say while taking the note out of my pocket and handing it to Vail. "I got the information of her unknown class, Primordial," I say.
Vail looks over the note before placing it on his desk and thinking hard. "Eli, do you have any knowledge of a primordial soul?" he asks after a while.
"No, I have never heard of such a thing," I say as I think of something. "Maybe the church has information of the primordial soul, should we contact them, Vail?" I ask.
"Maybe, but we should keep this secret and only tell Saint Brandon of this. We should have him investigate this matter to make sure Aila is kept safe," he says.
"Shall I go make the trip then?" I ask.
"If you can then please do. That would really help me out, work has gotten out hand lately. The kingdom is even calling all the nobility together to hold a council meeting to determine how it's going to deal with the terrorist group, Nightmare," Vail says.
Hearing the name Nightmare my face stiffens. "Why have they not been detained yet? Their actions caused the deaths of thousands of families of all races," I ask.
"I know this is a sensitive topic for you Eli and I feel the same way you do, but these matters are not as simple as you think. This group is located all over Belan, and even though each country is fighting them separately, whenever they fall into a corner they escape past country borders and we can't do anything about them then. The guild of warriors and the guild of mages have both sent quests in order to locate and subjugate the group, but there are too few people in the guild strong enough to take them out. Due to this, the kingdom has sent a demand for all noble family representatives to go to the capital and make a decision on a continent-wide treaty in order to thoroughly destroy Nightmare," he says.
"Can you guarantee that this treaty will go through with all the countries?" I ask.
"Considering the damage that every country has taken I would assume that it will go through very quickly. Anyway I will be leaving next week and will be gone for at least the whole week, so I need you to keep watch over the house," he says.
"Don't worry honey, this is not a problem. I will make sure nothing happens while you are gone. Now, I will go report to Saint Brandon about this class," I say.
"Have a safe trip, dear," Vail says.
"I will. See you in a few hours," I say as I exit the room.
***
A few hours have passed since mom has left the room and told me to practice. My casting time has gone down significantly and I am able to create a connection in about four seconds. I decide this is enough for now and decide to start experimenting with other ideas.
I keep the ball and start to imagine different ways to control movement while it is floating. I think of ways to apply force to only one direction and how to control that movement. I start by imagining mana propelling the ball forwards and establish a connection to the ball. The ball immediately starts floating forwards. The ball is not moving that fast but is still hard for me to catch up to it while crawling. I think of a way to slow the ball and limit the amount of mana that is fed through the connection. The ball starts to slow down gradually from the air resistance and I finally catch up to it. Taking this experiment as a success I begin to think of how to control the ball better.
Through many hours of thinking and multiple trials I finally came up with a method to control the floating ball. Compared to my other trials of placing individual connections for each direction on the ball, I decided to combine all the directional components into one mana sphere surrounding the ball. It operates by having me decide on where I want the ball to go and have the mana push the ball in that direction. The first test felt awkward when trying to control the ball, but eventually, I understood the basics of it.
I began to think about the floating aspect I gave the ball and think of a way of integrating it into the directional component. I think of how the floating works. 'There is a constant upwards force that is allowing the ball to resist the effects of gravity. If I was to integrate that could I just make the force that is applied to negate gravity into the upwards and downwards force of the directional component? It should work the same as before, but it would not float at the beginning. Wouldn't that be harder to control? Ugh, let's just try it and see,' I thought. I arrange the mana how I want it to function and establish a connection with the mana surrounding the ball. I start to control the ball and make it fly around the room. The way to control the ball going up and down was the same as it was before, but it was harder to keep it up in the air without a constant anti-gravitational force applied to the ball, but I got the hang of it after an hour and a half.
I continued to experiment with methods of controlling the mana by making the ball spin or using the other objects in the box. I ended up spending the entire day experimenting with different ways to use mana.
***
Getting out of the car I walk into the cathedral. I walk past the staff and go straight to Saint Brandon's office. I knock on the door and once I get a response I walk in.
"Saint Brandon, I have brought some secret news regarding Aila that I would like you to look into," I say to him as I pass over the note.
He takes a look at the note before nodding. "You must be wondering about the primordial soul right?" he asks me.
"To be honest yes, My husband and I have never heard of a primordial soul before and want to come seek assistance from you. However, we wish to keep this matter a secret because we don't want Aila's identity being leaked," I say.
"Don't worry Mrs. Westbrook I will use my power to search the files of the church and see if there is any mention of a primordial soul," he says.
"Thank you very much, Saint Brandon," I say with a bow.
"No need to show such respect to someone lower than you. It is my job to help others in the place of the gods," he says.
"Still I thank you very much for your kindness in keeping this secret. Please just send a private letter containing the information you received to the Westbrook estate when you are done investigating," I say.
"I will do that. May you have a safe return," he says.
"I will," I say as I leave the room.
I walk out of the cathedral and back to the car. Once I get in I message Vail the details of my conversation with Brandon. I put away the phone and enjoy the scenery as I am driven back home.
***
I am currently resting from all the mana manipulation practice I have been doing. The process of creating an image of how the mana should be controlled is very mentally taxing after a long time. I decide to climb up onto the couch and take a quick nap before resuming my practice. Due to my fatigued mind, I fall asleep rather easily.
After about an hour of sleeping, I woke up with a scream and was breathing heavily while dazed and confused.
"Ahhhh! ha...ha...ha...haaa," 'What was that dream? Did I die due to a mana explosion? What is a mana explosion? What was that?' I think as my mind trails off. As I continue to breathe heavily I see mom run into my room with Kristy looking from the door.
"Aila are you ok what happened are you hurt?" she says frantically as she picks me up off the couch and holds me close to her.
"Bad...Dream," I say back out of breath.
"Bad dream huh? Don't worry Aila it's alright it was just a dream it was not real," she says while rocking me in her arms.
I instantly relax in mom's arms and calm down from the nightmare that I had just experienced. I think back to what I was doing before I fell asleep and look at mom.
"Is it time to show my practice?" I ask her.
"If you want to you can do it right now. I want to see how far you have gotten with experimenting to see what I need to teach you tomorrow," mom says and she places me back down on the couch.
Following her order, I grab the ball and create the image of the free moving ball in my head and establish a connection. I then start to control the ball all around the room. I increase and decrease speed and even make the ball spin as it flies around the room.
While the ball is flying around the room, mom switches between looking at the ball and me. When I stop the demonstration she starts speaking.
"You have learned how to combine different components into one, impressive. I guess I shall come up with a different plan for tomorrow then," she says.
At this point, Kristy decides to come into the room. "Mom, today was Aila's first-day learning mana control right?" she asks.
"It was Kristy. I spent a few hours in the morning the teach her the basics of mana and then introduced her to mana manipulation. She ended up understanding how to create a connection in twenty minutes which is rather fast," mom said.
"What she beat me by ten minutes. Aww~ now I look stupid," Kristy said.
"Kristy, understanding how to make mana do as you want is a process of luck. You, Aila and your brothers are all rather lucky being able to understand it within an hour. The faerian race is gifted with this talent and every faerian will be able to understand within a few hours of trying. But some spend days to years trying to grasp an understanding, although these people are mostly of the other races," mom says.
"I understand mom, but she has also learned to combine different component to create this flying ball. I was happy being able to do it on the third day and now Aila has done it on her first day by herself. Isn't that a little fast?" Kirsty asks.
"In a sense it is, but your big brother Allan also managed to do this on his first day. If you wanna know surprise it was when I saw him trying to establish the flying component onto himself when I had entered the room to see how his practice was going. That right there had truly caught me off guard," mom said.
Hearing mom saying that I could apply the components of my mana manipulation to myself made me realize the error of my thinking. I thought mana manipulation was a way to control mana is mana ways around you, but it is actually utilizing mana to control yourself and your surroundings. Knowing this I grow excited waiting for tonight to test out my flying component on myself.
"Wait you never told me Allan was able to do this on his first day. I knew he was talented when it came to magic, but I thought it was by his dedication and hard work. That's what you told me," Kristy said pouting.
"I never told you because I thought it might discourage you, but I did not lie about his hard word and dedication to studying magic. He was an inspiration for both you and Keith to work hard and improve your magic. Because of this motivation, Keith has not fallen under his brothers' shadow and continues to shine himself. Kristy, you are only four but you should never become discouraged. Always push forward and confront your goals with that fantastic smile you always have and shine with your own light. You are unique, you aren't your brothers, you aren't your sister, you are you, and no one will tell you otherwise, understand?" mom said passionately.
"Yes, mom," Kristy said.
Mom's words were very inspirational not only to Kristy but to me as well. They filled me with the passion for always chasing my dreams no matter how hard it is. I could see Kristy's eyes starting to well up with tears as she held herself back from crying.
Mom got up and hugged her. "Go ahead and cry, Kristy, let Aila understand your tears. Let Aila understand the stress you have built up from trying to match your brothers. Show Aila yourself, don't imitate others. I don't love my children based on their abilities. I love them because of who they are, so go ahead and let out your tears Kristy, and show the world who you truly are," mom said.
Kristy cried for a long while in mom's arms. Afterward, Kristy left the room with a smile on her face. The same beautiful smile I always loved to see. After she left mom fed me and then put me in my crib. She said it was pretty late and I should get some sleep for tomorrows lesson. I nod back to her and lay down. We say our goodnights and mom walks out of the room. I grab the stuffed rabbit and fall asleep once again.
***
Over the past month and a half, I spent my time learning and practicing mana manipulation.
I would practice my image and connection training, as well as try to come up with new components. I have gotten the image and connection training down to a point where I can set up a known component onto an object in about two and a half seconds. When trying to create new components I got stuck at the basic movement type components. Mom then taught me how to cast magic without chanting though a similar method to setting up components. The method was to make the mana and change it into one of the seven elements, water, fire, earth, wind, light, and dark. I tried to imagine the mana changing into an element, but could not understand how the mana would change forms. Mom decided to make me learn the chant for the basic spell of each element to figure out how the mana moves.
Using the spells I gradually came to an understanding of how each element is formed. The water element is formed when mana used its energy to rip away oxygen and hydrogen from the atmosphere to create water. The water element also causes a natural cooling effect, so I came to the conclusion that water magic also contains ice type magic. The fire element was simple to figure out as well. To create the fire element you would use the energy of the mana to heat the mana to a high enough temperature. Once the heat of the mana was high enough it would rip the oxygen from the atmosphere and burn to create a fireball. This fire was the mana itself so I could manipulate it in any way I wished. For the earth element, the mana absorbs the dust particles in the air to form stones that you can control. You can also break apart the stone into smaller sand like particles. To create larger structures you have to pull earth from the ground and shape it. The wind element is by far the easiest to grasp, you have to use mana to collect and disperse into the wind. Once it is dispersed into the wind you have full control of the area of wind that the mana is covering. The light element uses mana to collect light into a single point to fire off a laser of sorts. This magic type also involves using light to manipulate how things are perceived like illusions. The dark element focuses on manipulating within the shadows by eliminating light. With this magic, you can manipulate the shadows and hide in the darkness. There is also healing magic which does not fit into the category of the elements and is the process of converting mana to body cells and heal a wound. The mana replicates cells and creates duplicate cells to heal injuries. I feared that this might invoke cancer, but discovered that cells infused with mana more durable and less susceptible to immunodeficiency diseases. I also learned that there are much more non-elemental categories of magic that are in research as well as combining elements together. I have not practiced much with this yet, but from what I have heard from mom it seems like mana different elements can synergize with each other to create more complicated magic types.
I also learned how to apply the components for flying to myself. I was able to fly around after some practice, but I could not use the ability long as I was limited to about twenty-seven minutes due to the mana consumption rate of 5.6 mana per second. Mom suggested that I use the anti-gravity component for learning to walk, which I thought was a brilliant idea. Apparently, this is how she taught my brothers and sister how to walk easily. I created an upward force component that I could control and applied it onto myself. I felt lighter and slowly stood up and tried to use my legs to walk around. I had barely any gravity applied to me so I was able to walk around without much difficulty. Slowly I increased the gravity on myself and familiarized myself with walking before increasing the gravity more. I eventually found myself able to walk without assistance after five weeks of practicing. I would still fall sometimes, but I could my own strength to keep my body upright. As a reward for learning how to walk mom told me I was to stop sleeping in the crib and move to the bed. I was very happy about being able to sleep in the big comfy bed that I cast the flying spell and flew around the whole house.
Over the month and a half, my mana capacity also increased due to all the practicing.
Mana
8857.928 / 8857.928
Mana Recovery
+ 0.205 per sec
My ability to sense my mana has increased as well from my practice, and also with the help of mom teaching me a few techniques to sense mana better. I can now sense up to forty-five percent of my total mana. I asked mom how long it would take before I can sense all my mana and she said that it depends on mana capacity and how much you practice. Since I have such a large mana capacity it is going to take much longer to sense all my mana compared to others.
It is now mid-December and snow is falling outside the house. Today is the day my brothers return home from the academy. This is the first time I am going to meet them, so I am really excited. Mom told me they would arrive around noontime, so I prepared myself for their arrival.
A little before noon, mom, dad, Kristy, and I walk outside into the snow wearing heavy clothing. Dad casts a small heat barrier around us to keep us warm while we wait for the car.
After twenty minutes of waiting and playing in the snow with Kristy, I hear the sound of a car pulling up to the house.
***