Beast's Forest:

Adam found the situation he was in quite surreal and made him look back at all he went through the last few days, wondering how did he find himself at that moment sitting in front of a human while trying to teach her the basics of magic.

If anyone else told him that they had tried to do that before, Adam would have laughed right in their face, treating them as someone delusional or someone with a lot of time in their hands, how would you even start teaching a human how to use magic? With them not having mana and therefore a Source to get back to.

But there he was, facing a human with the end goal of getting her to cast an elementary spell.

But if he had to say, it wasn't that bad really, it was actually fun and quite interesting.

Adam thought about what led to that moment and what happened in the last three days as he looked at the anticipating Susan who could barely sit down calmly.

***

Looking at Susan's face, which went through so many changes in the last few seconds, Adam started reconsidering if she was just shocked or if he had to start worrying.

Susan was then sitting on her bed, having just woken up after taking the mana poisoning remedy. It was clear from her expression and ragged appearance that she hadn't returned to her usual state, not that he had ever seen her in her usual state he guessed, but she was much better than she was when she first woke up before.

"I... I used magic?.." Disbelief and anticipation were dripping from her words as she looked at him with wide eyes.

For a second, and in a deep dark part of his mind, Adam considered the possibility of saying 'no' to see how she would react, but he soon silenced that desire, that was too overboard even for him.

"Yes, that what seems to have happened," he answered as he scratched his chin, "while you were wrapped in that spider's cocoon, you somehow cast an Illuminating Sphere. You can't remember anything about that?"

"No... I... I can't remember, the last thing I can remember is being pulled by that thin thread and wrapped... Everything after that is so foggy..." Answered Susan as she balled her hands and her eyes moved around in confusion.

She seemed honest and he himself didn't see a reason that would make her lie, so he left that train of thoughts aside and tried looking into another reason.

"Hmm..." He thought for a bit before starting, "casting spells you never learned in a dangerous situation isn't unheard of, and it has happened more times than once in the long history of Tellor, but there are clear differences between those cases and what happened with you last night."

"The biggest difference is, of course, you being a human, I know it sounds somehow obvious but hear me out, each race has a type of spells that can only be used by that specific race, purely racial spells. And it's mostly this type of spells that gets cast in dangerous situations because they are the easiest to grasp for individuals from that race and it would usually only take a bit of training and reaching a certain level to be able to cast them..."

"Are you with me till now?" Adam stopped to make sure that she got what he said, he was trying to make his explanation as simple as possible.

Susan gave a slight nod and from the expression on her face, Adam got the impression that she truly understood what he had said.

"Good, in that case, you can for sure understand what I meant with all of this," he continued, "humans, being a none magical race, obviously don't have such spells, and even if they had them, I doubt Illuminating Sphere would be one of them."

"So how did I do that?" Asked Susan with a small frown, "and what does that mean?... Does it mean that I can use magic..."

And there it was, faced again with that same question, Adam studied his options for the second time in a day, but this time he had more clues to go with and many more guesses, so he didn't give the same answer this time.

"For how you did that, I don't really know," he answered truthfully, "but I do have some guesses, the first thing that caught my eyes was the spell you used, the spell itself is as simple and elementary as spells can get, so there are no problems there, but it still gave me a clue about how you were able to cast it, here look."

Finishing his words, Adam waved his hand dramatically, because he liked setting up an atmosphere, and made a bright milky white sphere appear in front of him, it was the same as the one Susan cast the night before, if a lot weaker.

"Does this seem familiar to you in any way?" He asked as he let the sphere float towards her lightly.

"Yes, it's the same as the ones you used yesterday to light the cave, no?" She answered with a thoughtful expression.

"That and what else, something from even before last night, one that is exactly like this one here, try again," pushed Adam, he had gone through the trouble of making that sphere look the same as the one he used that time, so he believed that she would recognise it and realize what he meant eventually.

"Even before that... Wait, it's the one you used as an example..." Susan was confused at first before seeming as if she remembered something and recognized what he had meant.

"Exactly," he smiled, "it's the same spell I used yesterday to show you how you were able to absorb mana."

Adam watched in amusement as Susan's face went through another round of fast changes as the realization dawned on her. He liked putting things like that and watching as the pieces fall in their exact spots.

"The spell I've cast... Was a spell I had absorbed before...?" Murmured Susan as if she was asking herself more than asking him.

"Exactly, well kind of," he answered as he shrugged, before explaining as he saw the confused look she gave him, "well, you actually only absorb a part of the spell, a small part but it's enough for the spell's structure to become unbalanced and disperse."

"Wait, does that mean that I'll be able to cast all the spells that I've absorbed?" Asked Susan with burning excitement.

It seems as if he had pushed it a bit further than he should have, Adam thought to himself with some worry as he saw Susan's big reaction to the realization. Even though that seemed to be the right and proper conclusion to reach with all they had and knew, there was still a lot of other things to take into consideration before labelling this as the final conclusion, especially with how if this was true, that would be quite something to take in.

"Hmm, it seems so..." He tried to get her to understand that that was only one of the possibilities without discouraging her completely, "but that's still only one of the possibilities, who knows what really happened, and who knows what other conditions are in effect here..."

As he was still talking and trying to come up with a good enough explanation, Susan suddenly interrupted him:

"So... So help me know for sure how I cast that spell and what really happened..." She had a serious expression on her face as she looked at him with strong determination.

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"That..." Adam froze for a second before a certain feeling started blooming inside his heart.

He soon chuckled and said with anticipation that he was sure rivalled that of Susan's:

"Sure, why don't we work on that. I was already thinking about how to get you to use magic last night, I came up with nothing back then though, but now, now I think that we are going to be able to work with some things and try them out."

Seeing happiness and excitement filling Susan's face, Adam felt the need to mess with her rise up again, so he hurriedly added:

"But not now, and not anytime soon for that, you're still ill and you have just gone through a minor mana poisoning just last night, you have to rest for a couple of days."

"Seriously? Argh, damn it," groaned Susan as she fall back down to her bed.

Adam couldn't help but laugh, winning himself an annoyed glance from her, one he decided not to care about as he added:

"Anyway, you have to rest for a few days so we will be stopping our journey to the next town for now. This will be our home till then, get used to it."

"That's good I guess, I needed a rest anyway, and the place here isn't as bad as I thought it would be at first... Giant spiders aside, of course, I can do without those," she said as she looked up at him.

"Good," he stood up, "I'll try to make you something to eat, I'm sure that now that your stomach isn't actively trying to leave your body, you're feeling hungry, right?"

"Now that you mention it..." She said as she touched her stomach.

"Lay down for a bit then," leaving that behind, he first went to the side where their things were before getting the water bottle and giving it to her.

That done, he started making something to eat for the both of them.

Two days passed without any other strange thing happening, Susan was getting better fast and she was already well enough to move around without any problems

Adam was also able to notice all the sideway glances she had been throwing him at the end of the second day and all the hinting that she was already well and ready to start learning.

But Adam didn't bring anything about that up, it wasn't because he wanted to mess with her, at least not entirely, but it was because he was trying to understand what happened with those spiders.

The arrival of those spiders and them being under a concealment spell was odd. That night, when Susan was kidnapped, Adam already had the possibility that the spiders were under someone's control in mind, maybe even the one who wanted Susan, and after getting her back, he was extremely alert that night, fortunately, nothing else happened and no one showed themselves.

Even still, Adam didn't let his guard down, he still cast many protections on the cave and the area around it, he also went in patrols and scanned the area looking for anything unusual, he was making sure that nothing like what happened before would happen ever again.

Finally, in the morning of the third day and after having breakfast, Adam looked at Susan, whose mood was getting a bit irritated and said:

"Okay, I think that we can start working on getting you familiar with magic and mana."

"Finally," half shouted Susan before adding in a relieved grumbling voice, "these days were some of the longest in my life."

Adam smiled, he was happy and relieved to see that Susan was showing more and more emotions these days. He wasn't naive enough to think that she had dealt with the shock and pain that she had been through from losing her family and neighbours, but he knew that she was at least slowly improving, learning to put the sadness and pain behind her for the moment.

He was also sure that what had happened those days and her getting a chance to use magic had a big part in that, that gave her new hope, one that opened many doors for her.

"Okay, okay, calm down a bit," he answered as he chuckled, "the first thing we will go through is the system all the races use."

Susan sat up straight with attentive and bright focused eyes.

"Hmm, where to start..." Murmured Adam as he tried to organise his thoughts, "the first thing you need to know is that each race has their own mana, no one from another race can ever use the mana of the other races, well, except for the omegas, but they are a special case and even they can't go from a Source to Source whenever they want, as depending on their levels they have a certain period after each switch when they can't change the Source they are following. Also, only their ancestors' Sources are available for them."

"I haven't even started and here I stray from the main subject," joked Adam, "and it won't be the last time that happens, this subject is linked with many other things that have to be mentioned, even just so we acknowledge them before moving on.

"Anyway, as I was saying, each race has its own mana, meaning a somehow isolated magic system for each race, again I have to add that there are links between the different magical systems of different races, but let's leave that for another time, we will be looking at thing on a surface level for now.

"Now, let's get back to a term I've mentioned just now, Sources, as I said each race has its own mana and each mana has what we call a Source, we don't know if they are really the sources of mana, but we give them that name because they appear to be so and they give that impression when you're inside them.

"Everyone from every race, except humans, of course, is already linked to a Source but most of the time they can't sense it, to sense them for the first time they have to find them, doing that is somehow easy and most don't face any problems with it.

"What must be done is emptying your mind and concentrating inside you, trying to feel the mana move through you and finding the point where the mana is connected to the Source. After emptying your mind and getting this step done, you have to push your awareness through that point you found, which will lead you to the Source.

"The Source would usually be a vast expense filled with your race's mana, the you inside it would be a projection of sorts, you would be able to move and interact with the place around you as if your real body was there. The next point would be building your Castle there, which is also one of the easiest steps, you would only need to imagine a castle and will it there, and it would appear in the empty void of the Source.

"And again, a new term, Castles," he announced as he smiled and waved his hands.

"You are enjoying this way too much, aren't you?" Susan rolled her eyes at him while massaging her temples.

"Of course," he replied, and he really was, "anyway, the Castle would represent an individual's level, each Castle would have ten floors and each floor would have a Gate that would lead to the next level, an individual's level is referred to as Gate, with the tenth Gate, that is at the ground floor, being the weakest and the first Gate, that is at the top of the castle, being the strongest."