He passed me a towel and I turned around quickly drying myself off.

It was rather handy that we didn’t need to actually clean any of our clothes ourselves, they were always done once we left the bath. A small repose considering we have to clean the source of the food drops on my clothes ourselves.

I refuse to acknowledge what they actually are.

Even thinking about not thinking about it still made me gag.

Before I could dry my hair, I was picked up yet again and carried downstairs. He sat on the couch and placed me on the floor between his legs before he started to dry my hair with a towel.

I stared at the floor flabbergasted.

I didn’t need to hide my face like this, but I could feel my heart start to beat faster. And my face and ears heat up.

“I’ll just do this since we aren’t facing each other even though I don’t want you using too much mana, Dot assured me that this wasn’t a lot to begin with.”

I chuckled once the end was written out in front of me. This time it was considerably slower.

“She’s right, it hardly takes any. Why is its speed different?”

“I’m still having trouble controlling things at a distance from me. Making it come out slower.”

“How did you figure out how to do this anyway?”

I was glad we had something else to talk about, I didn’t want to fully address what was actually happening right now.

“Well, I was talking with Dot while we were waiting for the second wave of undead. And she was trying to give me pointers. So, she said that she could see my activation when her mana sight was on. She used that to help direct me. As I’ve never used elemental mana before.”

Damn it! I didn’t get to help him with it, she got there first.

If it wasn’t for the speed, I would’ve missed the next thing he said.

“And I was trying to sign in a way that she could understand my questions since Dodger wasn’t in the mood to translate, Dot noticed that there was mana moving above my head. And she suggested that I try imagining the words as if I was writing them out. It took a bit of effort and concentration before I managed. And with time it came out easier and easier. It also helped me get a more consistent feel for my mana. But with how free flowing my mana use is, she said that she might have trouble teaching me to use my mana.”

“She’s right, convention when instructing the practical aspects of mana manipulation, especially among humans has issues in it of itself, let alone their flawed understanding of the theory. Up until now you’ve been using-”

His fingers suddenly ran through my hair to section it off.

“What’re you doing! I can do it!”

I reached my hand up, but he swatted it away gently.

“Let me do it. Keep explaining.”

My ears felt even warmer, but I tried to get back on topic, anything but acknowledging it.

“Uhhh what was I saying.”

“Talking about how mana manipulation is taught, and how I used physical augmentation before.”

“Right, uh, so physical augmentation on its own is more reflexive in nature. It’s not about using your mana to create something outside of your body. It’s simply about using it in mass to influence your body. Previously when I tutored those who had awakened an element in their young adulthood, it was quite difficult compared to those who had awakened an element as a young child. With the kids, we’d play with it much like it was an extension of ourselves, but always outside our body. The focus was on registering the mana as something similar to an extra limb within their brains without delving into the more detailed explanations of the theory behind mana manipulation.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed, there are some instances where Dot carves a magic circle in the ground to perform a manipulation. I do a similar form sometimes by engraving my calculations into my bow. The wood of my bow is special, in that it’s from a species of trees called stege. They grow in the Chabrenne forest in the forest elf territory. They’re naturally high in mana concentration and when chopped down properly, they are able to retain their natural mana concentration.

“Which makes them invaluable when constructing bows and staffs. Anyway, if yours has been immersed in your own mana for extended periods of time, like mine, you are able to essentially carve into them with your own mana. Which quite honestly resembles how you’re able to write in the air. Anyway, because of my age a lot of my mana calculations are engrained in me but when I have to do it-”

“Because you’re so much older than me do you see me as a kid?”

“What?! No! of course not. Many elves like to deny it, but humans mature faster than elves so in a more practical sense we aren’t that far away from each other. Before you explained it to me, I thought our age difference was why you were calling me Kahzhaw in the first place… not that it matters…. Anyway, even though many calculations are engrained in my brain and can be used like any other reflexive movement, I still have to write out the more complicated ones, or if I’m doing multiple at once I engrain some into my staff to hold them off before I do anything.

“My point is that it was really hard at first to teach the newbies, because the way we experienced and used mana up until that point was so contradictory. That’s why I think that Dot had trouble explaining to you, she’s very mechanical in her thought processes. I think the way that might help you at first is to just focus on your circulation and get a very solid feel for your mana.”

“I think I have a pretty good feel for it. It’s kind of like how I’ve always felt it, it just has a different weight to it in me.”

“Can you circulate it well? And I mean not in the way that you would normally?”

He paused in his braiding for a second but didn’t let go of my hair.

“I think it’s pretty easy, though I don’t know if the path is right.”

“Well, the path isn’t too important, the diversity in the pathways was simply caused by each person having their own method. One of my instructors was especially infuriating when it came to this and had us write several essays trying to argue the benefits of some methods over others. Which is meaningless. Arguably the only important aspect around circulation is to do it regularly. Failing to do so can make it hard, if not impossible if you have to move it somewhere you wouldn’t normally. As well as limiting your future potential, though that is theory dependant.

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“Some people side with the belief that everyone is born with a certain mana innately with them and that’s that, where you must be sure to collect it all at a young age and condense it into your core or you will never be able to achieve as much as possible. Others have come to an understanding that with proper technique and circulation you can draw the natural mana around you into your body, essentially boosting your own reserves. But for those that argue that birth is everything, are quite against the latter. Personally, I think they both have merit, and are worth further research due to my own experiences. Though, I’d prefer it if the biased reasoning of one’s blood wasn’t the reason the theory was popular to begin with. after all there are animals that hold more innate mana than even the most royal-”

“Paeris you’re off on a tangent again.”

It was Sailhin, I didn’t even notice she had come by.

“Brick, just tell him when he’s going off or he’ll never get to his point.”

He put my hair in one hand, I assume to respond to Sailhin.

“Your choice, but dinner is almost ready, and I don’t think Dot joining in the conversation would make staying on toping any more of a possibility.”

“I can stick to the topic just watch. Now where was I?”

Sailhin laughed but Brick wrote out, “Circulation.”

“Right, understanding your own mana inside you and collecting as much of it to one point is important. It needs to become a reflex, though with this speaking method I think you’re pretty good on that side of things. And I’ve found that people that previously used physical augmentation generally had a good sense of their mana, their difficulty came to containing it in one place without constantly thinking about it. The next thing is to consider two different paths for doing things. You could try to do calculations, or you could just work on the imagery of things.

“Eventually you should learn calculations, but you’ll be able to do them faster if you have a solid image to associate the symbols to, that way you won’t have to stop and draw something every time. Instead, you’ll only do it when it’s something complicated, and you actually have to time to do it. I noticed that a lot of the other newbies preferred the imaging way, and some never bothered with calculations and were still considerably stronger than many others that used a specific element from the start.

“I blame it all on that silly theory that people want to propagate about how your birth status determines things, its just another pesky way those shitty high elves like to control things. Students become lazy in their efforts but bully those that started with physical augmentation.”

“So, I need to work on my imagery? But I haven’t spent a lot of time around lava, what sort of images.”

He stopped braiding but I stayed in my spot contemplating his question.

“Well, lava is molten rock, so theoretically you could treat it like water. Only as a base for your image. Conversely you can’t discount the rock part of it, as the weight of it is considerable… But what would be the best place to start, I mean weight is something that you could use objects in the world to truly get a solid feel for it. But with water, its more of a watch and attempt to recreate it or if you have someone talented enough, they could help you feel their own mana path….

“But you have a completely different mana path than anyone I’ve met so its probably not easy to find someone to help you with that method… But even if we were to start with rocks, lava isn’t solid, the dispersion of weight and texture would be different. I mean the temperature factor could be similar to fire, but I think they’re too different-

“Paeris you’re going way to complex, just try with water. First and see where that goes. You don’t need to have it all figured out to start trying.” Sailhin said.

“I agree, but you can’t show me anything until tomorrow.”

“I’ll be fine after dinner we can-

“No, you should rest.”

“Food!” Dodger cheered running from outside.

“Yes, let’s eat.”

He lifted me to my feet and pushed me towards the kitchen.

Well, teaching an unwilling student wouldn’t get me that far… I guess it could wait.

Dot had dried Fluffy’s hair and after we ate dinner Quartz left for outside immediately. His level of agitation had risen during dinner. It was clear we would need to start the next floor tomorrow.

“So, what were you saying in the shower with a very bad accent?”

I glared at Lefty who was eating the desert he had made.

“Bad accent?” Dot asked.

“Oh” Sailhin snickered, “you tried out your Egalthi?”

“That’s not the point, the point is about the healing situation with Quartz.”

“What about it, didn’t he say it was all cause of Mezu?” Sailhin said.

“On the last floor, with the help of a spirit or some floor mechanism I awakened light mana. Now that I can use it, I can see it and I saw it healing Quartz earlier. That’s how I healed Brick, I just mimicked the movement but faster.”

“Well, it could just be Mezu using it? Though he hasn’t ever seemed to use mana before.”

“It wasn’t him. I couldn’t see any of it in him. I don’t know what it is, but I think it has nothing to do with Mezu.”

The rest of them sat in silence for a bit.

“Do you think he knows?”

Dodger shook her head, “With aura sight you can eventually see mana, but it doesn’t work in the same way that I think yours works.”

“What do you mean?”

“Its color less. Its just like a shifted tone when we see it being activated or not. I don’t think he’d even consider looking at himself. And even then, he probably doesn’t know that it’s light mana.”

“Wait, can mana and aura even live in the same body?” Lefty asked.

“No, well at least I don’t think so.”

“It must have something to do with his elf half then,” Dot looked and Sailhin and I.

Sailhin was silent, I knew when she was trying to avoid talking about something. That was usually when it came to high elf situations. Did she think….

“If he doesn’t know, then we won’t get anywhere by asking him. At least not now. We’ve got one more floor till our hypothesis will be confirmed or not, lets wait till after that.”

I kept an eye on her. I knew a lot about my old friend. We met at school years ago, but it took me a while for her to even briefly explain why we started our journey. And even then, it was just in vague statements about her being requested to look into the human nobility, and that we would deliver our findings to someone on the fortieth floor.

I couldn’t avoid my curiosity about the tower and any knowledge I could gain from it. Especially given the fact that I was getting bored of my research assignments. Which was my only reasoning to accompany her, but I wanted to know more. Just who were we going to meet?

I woke up early the next day to find her.

She was outside, doing her morning circulation.

I sat down next to her in the morning sun and spoke in our native tongue.

“I think you should tell me first.”

“I thought you didn’t care.”

“I only said that at the time, but I didn’t expect the situation between the guilds in the tower. How that slowed our climb, and on top of everything we know have the unknown of Quartz and whatever these solo trials seem to be. Let’s not even talk about the reason Kayden was hiding his status as an elemental kin. There’s so much the rest of us don’t know. Keeping it all to yourself, planning it all on your own… You should just let me help a bit.”

She stood up.

“Let’s focus on one thing at a time. These solo trials are the more pressing matter. And it seems I’m next.”

She headed inside. I stared at the morning sky.

Yet again she was refusing to share. Think that she alone should bear the weight of any decisions to be made.

Thinking about what I don’t know wouldn’t help the situation, and the only way to stop myself was to circulate my mana despite having done my morning exercise already in bed.

In any of the literature I read, light mana had always been compared with water since both were used with healing. But feeling it, I didn’t understand why. There was a warmth to it. And it was a familiar warmth.

It felt closer to fire mana. The way it flows was similar too. When I circulated my mana, the elements tended to separate from each other. Flowing around in order of its common transformation. Fire, water and then air.

Light now followed fire and water moved after air, as if it was trying to get away from the light. I could ask Lefty his opinion of his own newly acquired dark mana. Light and Dark were considered opposites, but with how rare they both were, they probably had more similarities than differences. Then again, Lefty only had air and now had dark. The order in which they moved wouldn’t really tell anything.

I wish I knew someone else that used light mana, I could learn a lot from them. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of whatever mana element, always seemed to be the best foundation so that I could fully utilize it.

It was frustrating. But there wasn’t much I could do at the end of the day. Unless I could somehow go back to that library. I’m sure there were some great books on light mana. Maybe some details about its relation to other mana types.

Ugh, that treasure trove of knowledge, just sitting there out of reach. It really sucked.

The only thing I could even try looking forward to, is gaining something when we head up to the fortieth. Maybe there’s another elemental kin there, maybe Kayden knows something about light mana or light elemental kin.

Yes, think about that and-

Brick tapped my shoulder.

“Come on, lets go eat” he signed.

I nodded.

He turned around and headed back inside.

…..

……

Light mana.

That’s totally the best thing to happen since I’ve entered the tower.

Totally.

There’s nothing else that could possibly be better.