Since father obtained the information from Novela, he investigated more on higher quality mana and mana pool formation. I do not know the exact details as he would go to a place he referred as the ‘Open Archives’, and he would tell me what he discovered.

Magical foundation was interesting as it was something alien to me, but the most important part were the changes to my training. It looks like the perils of mana intoxication in sal men’ora came from absorbing excessive mana quantity, not quality. So, for me, someone who had a lower regeneration rate, I could extend the five-minute period further.

I asked father what was sal men’ora for him when he was a child, to get a better insight on the matter.

“Hmm… It was long ago…” He pondered. “But if I recall correctly, it was like a powerful wind, a rapid torrent.” Father responded with doubt.

His description didn’t match with what I had experienced. Every time I did sal men’ora, the flowing of mana wasn’t exactly easy, like blowing a breeze, neither difficult, as to move sludge. It was alike using a pump designed with water in mind and putting in blood. Both are liquids, but the latter is thicker than the other and could mess with the machinery.

Following that analogy, I was more like a blood pump trying to move water. There would be no damage to the machinery, but it was overkill, wasting so much power. Yet, I felt blood fell short on the comparison. It was more akin to the sludge the River of the Damned had for water. Impossibly thick, yet it flowed.

Father and Novela’s solution was to increase meditation time, yes, but also change the fundamentals. I wouldn’t liberate the old mana after a cycle, rather I maintained it until the end. According to the female mage, this provoked a stimulation in the old mana to absorb the new. Making it denser, therefore, more suitable to my ‘pump’.

The whole idea behind this procedure was to make my old mana ‘renewed’ with fresh mana, and then gather this amalgamation into a tighter state. Not that different from making a ball out of mud, and then applying another layer on top of it.

Words and analogies really do not work that well when describing magic.

That was everything for the time being. Father couldn’t find a lot about my special case, so for the time being, we reached the end of mana pool formation optimization.

What a mouthful, huh.

Today I found myself in Thal’mer, the park. Mom brought me here in what had become a sort of rutinary stroll. There wasn’t anything to play with as the ellari idea of a park was an artificial forest, rather than a playground or a leisure zone. So, I kept entertained with my compendium.

I commented before that the compendium started with ellari flora, which served to distract and instruct me further.

The book wasn’t fond of pictures, but long and complete descriptions that I wouldn’t come up with even if I had a week. It was like Edgar Allan Poe had come to write it… Who in damnation is that guy? Arghhh…

Oof. That was a big one. Damn.

Thankfully, mother hadn’t noticed my theatrics. I had been hit with such a migraine, that I wouldn’t doubt if someone had smashed my head with a hammer. I methodically breathed in order to reach a better state of mind. One, two. Three, and four.

Right.

No, not really. I wanted to die on the spot. My cranium was split open and my head was gushing up blood like crazy. Pain drowned me.

Of course, these were but illusions. But pain itself was an illusion, and in that case, it was very real.

Thanks to the detailed image created by the words, and mom’s help, I discovered the trees forming the park were called ter’nar. Or more accurately, they belonged to the ter’nar family. The ones with pink leaves were the na’al ter’nar, for example.

Reading was cool, but the compendium was extremely heavy for someone’s mind. One single page felt like an entire book. And it had around a thousand pages!

I tried to distract myself. It was rather easy as the view was astonishing as always. I may not remember my past life, but damn me I am sure it wasn’t as beautiful as this. The fallen myriad of leaves gracing along the wind, in a chaotic yet peaceful dance, only to lay onto the dark blue undergrowth.

Such landscape took the poetry out of one.

Mother and I walked around Thal’mer for a while, which proved to be the size of an actual forest. When they said the word park literally meant hand-crafted forest, they really meant it. We didn’t deviate from the tiled path. Just followed the cobblestones and enjoyed the view. A nudge in my mind told me the path should be made by yellow tiles, instead of grey ones. But I dismissed that thought.

That’s when we found a familiar face, Marissa and her mother.

Mother waved at them, and we approached.

“It’s been a while, Sala.” Mother saluted.

“Liliana, it sure has!” Marissa’s mother was clearly more excited at the reunion.

Sala, Marissa’s mother, wore a white blouse and a long skirt just like my mother. It seems that was the fashion currently, though I hadn’t seen a lot of ladies in such attire. A coincidence, or maybe is it reserved for mothers?

I’m overthinking this, aren’t I?

I left the adults to their adult things and went with Marissa.

“E-llo.” She greeted me first.

Even if she was a year older than me, she still had troubles talking. She may be a six-year-old, but ellari time perception is screwed so much that she may as well be a baby. I need to find what is the exact factor of the time dilatation.

“Did you come with you mother?” I asked out of courtesy, I already knew the answer.

“Yeshh.” She responded while flailing her arms around. “Waz that?” She pointed at the leather-cover book.

“A compendium.” I told her.

“A com-waa?” She didn’t understand it.

“A book that teaches about a lot of things.” I explained with more clarity.

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Her face became saddened, with a hit of disgust. “Books are boring!”

I mean, what did I expect? I was talking to an infant. Obviously, it wouldn’t like books past the bed story time ones. But hey, her hatred to books made her talk surprisingly well.

Hmm, the conversation will become stale if I don't say anything. “Did you do the tal’men’ora?” I asked about her achievements in the magical field.

“Yessssss!” Marissa answered happily. “I am mage!” She twirled on the spot, an overly energetic whirlwind of happiness.

She skipped a few steps, but she got the spirit. Now I was curious about her elemental affinity. Is it something you can openly ask or is it considered rude? I went to my mother to resolve my doubts.

I grabbed her from the skirt. “Closer.” I whispered to her, interrupting her conversation with Sala. Mother squat down and lend her beautiful long mesme— ahem— her ears to me. “Is it rude to ask someone its affinity?”

“Did Marissa ask yours?” She whispered back, her face becoming worried.

I sway my head in negation. “I wanted to ask her hers.”

Mother expression relaxed. “It isn’t rude asking one’s affinity. On the other hand, presuming yours is bad. If someone asks, you are a high arcane user.”

“Isn’t that lying?” I asked her, with childish innocence. It was funny to tease her from time to time.

“No, no.” She negated nervously. It was incredibly amusing seeing her internal dilemma, thinking if it should be alright to teach her child to lie. “You are being humble. You’re not lying, just acting inferior to your current status. Don’t worry about it.” She was totally lying, I could even see the gears turning from her mind gymnastics. “Now go play with her.”

I could understand why she was lying. Superb affinity was something super rare and powerful according to my father’s teachings, even if I have nothing to compare that statement with. Something a child shouldn’t have. I decided to follow my mother’s advice.

“What’s your elemental affinity then?” I asked Marissa.

“I am medium-high!” She boosted a practiced essay, like someone instructed her to be able to say that phrase easily. I looked at Marissa’s mother with malice.

Also, excuse me what? She had a higher affinity than my father, a magical crafter. Sure, father wasn’t a true mage, but still. I may be an anomaly, but Marissa was still above average by a great margin.

“What’s yours?” Marissa asked back, her smiling face bursting with curiosity.

“I am a high user.” I told her about my elemental affinity with a deadpan expression.

“You lie!” Oh, Marissa. I was indeed lying, but for the exact opposite reason you were probably thinking off. That, may or may not, put a cheeky smile in my face.

“I am not.” I lied once again. I lessened the corners on my mouth, appearing as stoic as possible.

“You lie!” Marissa was having none of it. “You lying, lying!” She began jumping on the spot and wiggling her arms around.

Now that I think about it, this was perhaps the first childlike conversation I had. Two children shouting each other about who was lying. It felt awfully familiar. Perhaps even natural.

“Mom! Edrie a liar!” Ah yes, last children’s resource. Crying for one’s mother.

“What happened, sweetie?” Sala asked.

“He said he a high user!” Marissa explained, both mothers looked at me.

“It is true.” I responded without further assessment.

“Is he?” Sala asked to my mother, an obvious glance of suspicion on her amber eyes.

“Oh, yeah.” She was taken a back a bit, as she was distracted. Hey, this whole operation was your idea, you shouldn’t struggle now. “He’s a high arcane user.” Mother spoke. “He did the first manaflow years ago, but he’s struggling with the formation of his mana pool.”

“Oh.” Marissa’s mother exclaimed surprised. “How is that you never told me about it?”

The reason was obvious, I was the walking expression of ‘dropping a bomb’. It makes sense why mother has never commented it with any friends. The only person that knows it besides my parents is Novela. Either way, I wanted to hear what excuse mother will say.

“Well,” she began “Edrie is a humble boy, he doesn’t want toys and doesn’t like to boast. He’s happy enough with his books.”

A standard true statement yet decorated with some half-truth. It wasn’t that I didn’t like to boast, I didn’t want to be in the limelight. Which was different. Everyone likes to boast.

“He’s actually angry from time to time because he can’t form a mana pool after a few years.” Thanks, mom, for invading my privacy.

“That’s strange.” Sala said. “Marissa has no problems with sal men’ora whatsoever. True, darling?”

“Yes!” The previous sad Marissa responded with exaltation.

She obviously didn’t have any problems with her mana pool because whilst her elemental affinity while rather high it was still in rational limits, not deviated a lot from the mean. In other words, it would be strange if she did face the problems I had.

“I think she will be able to cast magic in no time.” Sala stated. “What about Edrie?”

Was the world always a competition for her? I could not care less about it. If I had a competitive spirit in my previous incarnation, it was mostly gone now. Probably byproduct of boredom. Boredom always was the problem.

“Tel’am and a friend of his say Edrie has still about a year of training before his pool is stable.” Mom responded, alienating Novela from herself.

While the whole mana pool thing bothered me, it was a matter of time. And I would be stronger than any child of my age either way, according to my father. Sacrificing time for power was a sensible thing to do. Because that is literally the definition of training. Like, literally.

I grew bored of the conversation, and I went away, sitting beneath a tree with my compendium. Marissa’s mother being so sassy didn’t help either.

I opened the page about the ter’nar trees once again. The compendium didn’t only describe the ter’nar, but also explained their physiology and how it worked. Was the word physiology correct for trees? I actually didn’t know.

The book contained a handful of words I couldn’t make heads or tails of, even with context and my previous knowledge, maybe the word I was looking for was one of them.

The book told about how these trees absorb mana through something called ‘Leylines’. It didn’t explain what leylines were, so I expected to find it later in the book or it was common knowledge. Ter’nar who absorbed more pure mana, coming from the center of the leyline, was going to have a more purple tone. Those of blue leaves absorbed mana, just in lesser quality. Whilst the pink ones, like the one I sat below, were in a the lower point of the spectrum.

The compendium’s terminology was a bit advanced for me, so I couldn’t certify everything said was true. Call me sceptic, but I didn’t buy everything I read.

I rose my head to find a bored Marissa in front of me. The endless conversation provoked by two mothers talking was overwhelming for you, eh.

I didn’t say that, obviously. Mainly because I didn’t know some of the words in ellari I just thought.

She took a look to the compendium, only to become deadpanned at the sheer quantity of words it contained. “Book boring.”

“Honestly, this part is.” I admitted. I could picture the writer being an old man rambling about plants. “But I like to learn.”

“Learning also boring.” A suspicion started to form as she seemed to repeat one word all the time.

“You need to learn to do magic. Is magic boring?” I asked her.

“No!” Marissa denied fiercely. “But learning boring.”

“Well, it’s like a journey.” I opted to use an analogy.

“A journey?” The child tilted her head.

“Yes.” I replied. “Learning is a journey, what you learn is the destination. You may not care about the journey itself but making it comfortable and less tedious can help to arrive at the destination in a better state.”

Even if the analogy was incredibly simple, it wasn’t a thing a toddler could come up with. Marissa didn’t seem to care. Though, I should watch my speech around adults. Well, watch it even more.

“How I… make it funnier?” She asked with her limited vocabulary.

I didn’t expect a response. I used difficult words to lose her, so she stopped bothering me. Props to her for trying to continue, I guess.

“That depends on you.” I vaguely stated. “Every person has a different idea of fun.” I pointed at the two mothers arguing. “That, is fun for someone.”

“Ew.” She cringed.

Same, little Marissa, same. As she stood there, I knew she wasn’t going to go away. I sighed.

“Let’s make a deal.” I called for her attention. “If you manage to cast a spell before me, I will tell you how to make learning funny.” Funny how I knew the word tedious in ellari, but not ‘entertaining’. I need to read more.

And also to be at less tedious situations.

“Really?” Marissa’s eye sparkled with excitement.

“Really.” I affirmed.

“It a promise.” She said and walked, or more accuratedly, waddled, towards her mother as to start as soon as possible.

She did forget that sal men’ora had a cooldown and it didn’t matter if she rushed home.

Either way, even if it was a simple innocent promise, I would not fail it. I would cast spells before her. To be honest, the main reason for this is that I didn’t know how to make learning entertaining, I just pulled that card out of nowhere so she would leave me alone.

I sighed once more as my mother approached me. Well, it seems I would have to learn magic now.