Mana was ever present. It existed in all things. Big or small. Living or not. If it existed, mana was a part of it.

It came in many different forms. Too many to count. But the most common were earth, air, fire, water, nature, light, and darkness magic. These were the most basic elements, but they could either be combined, or could mutate to become something entirely new.

There were limitless possibilities and everything was attuned to at least one element. Which is what made it all the more surprising that a living creature would not be able to use any magic at all.

For living creatures, their attunement to the elements was determined by two things. Who their parents were, and where they were born.

Mana would be siphoned from both parents during conception, and would then be released into the baby’s body as it was being created in the womb. It would infuse into every cell, and this would continue until the child was born.

Mana would then converge from the surroundings when the child is born, filling up any remaining cells that didn’t have mana. And in some cases, if the mana in the area was dense enough, it would even push out the mana that came from the parents, although this would rarely result in any complications.

There was also the rare chance that mana would mutate at any time during this whole process, meaning that the child would have a type of mana that didn’t come from either of their parents, nor their surroundings.

To give an example, if both parents were solely attuned to water mana, but gave birth to a child inside the wasteland Lucien and Lynn were passing through, the child would have a mix of water, fire, and lava magic.

There was ultimately an upper limit to the amount of mana that could be stored in the body. And this limit determined the maximum strength that someone could unleash with magic.

The more types of mana that a person had in the body, the weaker their maximum strength would be with any one particular element. Simply because there wasn’t enough of that type of mana in their body.

This is why most people couldn’t cast powerful spells. Their bodies simply contained too many different types of mana, lowering that maximum threshold to a pitifully weak level.

So logically, even if one side of his family was cursed to not have magic, he should have gotten magic from the other side of his family, and from his surroundings when he was born. But that didn’t happen.

He had nothing. And he had to work hard to offset this disadvantage with experience and skill.

“Huh?”

Lynn was confused. She looked over at him, trying to figure out if he was telling a joke or not. Everybody could use magic, that’s just how it worked.

Even a baby could do it, assuming they were talented enough and had been taught how.

She couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that a nearly fifty year old man couldn’t use magic. She didn’t want to believe it, as it would go against basically everything she had been taught from a very young age.

“I know what you’re thinking. I can’t explain it either. I’m just as confused about it as you are. No one in my family could use it,” Lucien said.

“But what about Ernest? It was said that he had incredibly powerful magic.”

“I don’t know. Either his magic came from the weapon, or maybe because he was so powerful, the rest of us were cursed to no longer have it. I...” he paused. “I used to think about it a lot when I was younger and I saw all of the other kids using magic.”

She was still in a daze, her mind filtering through every scrap of information she knew to try and explain it, but couldn’t find anything. “But-”

“It goes against everything you’ve been taught, right?”

The two were lost in thought for a moment as they continued to travel around the giant footprint, Until Lucien broke the silence with a question.

“What kind of magic can you cast?”

Lynn paused for a moment and held out her hands. She took a deep breath, all of her attention honed in on the space above her hands.

A light blue, wispy smoke flowed from her palms, curling up in the air. The mana spun as it pooled together. Slowly, the mana was replaced bit by bit with water, as if the force of its rotation was pulling in water molecules and smashing them together.

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A small ball of water floated above her hands for a moment. It looked almost pitiful when compared to the amount of mana that was used to create it.

“Normally it would be bigger. But it’s a lot harder here,” Lynn said.

Lucien’s eyes lit up, noticing how useful this would be. It wouldn’t completely substitute them having to refill their water at villages and towns, but in a place like this, it was a game changer.

“What can you do with it?” he asked.

His words left her momentarily distracted, allowing the water that had been pulled together by mana to slip back into the air.

She looked back at him, slightly embarrassed. “That’s all I can do.” She mumbled as she scratched the back of her head.

“I can’t even make it move without it all just disappearing.”

She always felt embarrassed about her magic back home. Other people her age were already able to do something with their magic, but all she could do was create a useless ball of water.

She would often compare herself with the neighbours kid specifically, who was also a trainee for the guard. They were the same age and started their training at about the same time, but he could already coat his sword in fire and use it in a battle.

She asked her father to teach her how to wield magic constantly, but he always insisted that she should focus on her swordplay first before she went on to something else.

Lucien noticed that she was feeling down, and felt empathetic towards her plight. He knew what it was like to watch everyone else around him do things that he couldn’t, although his situation was slightly different.

“Hey, there’s nothing to be ashamed about. You’re still young, and you have plenty of time to learn. Besides, I can still think of a few uses for this.” Lucien hopped off his horse, motioning for her to do the same as he attempted to cheer her up.

She joined him on the ground as they continued walking for a bit, eventually coming to a stop a bit further away from the sweltering heat of the footprint.

“This should do it, let’s stop here for a little while.”

They took the time to give the horses a bit of a rest. It wasn’t time for them to set up camp for the night just yet, but it would still do them some good.

“Can you do that again? Try your best to keep a hold of it.”

“Okay, give me a minute.”

She once again focused her attention on the space above her outstretched hands, allowing the mana to flow through her body and out her palms. Water started converging on the area above her palms, once again forming a ball.

While she was doing that, Lucien took out a pouch and opened it as wide as he could. He waited for the ball to finish forming, then immediately pounced forward, catching the water and sealing it in the pouch.

Lynn’s concentration was broken, and the water wanted to disperse just like before, but was this time stopped by the walls of the pouch.

Lucien could feel it rumbling in his hand before it eventually calmed down, realising that it couldn’t escape.

“There we are.” Lucien smiled.

“Thanks, but I've already tried this before. It’s useless,” Lynn said, her shoulders slumping. “I tried to drink it when I was younger. I was sick for a few days after that.”

“That’s because it has more mana in it than normal drinking water,” Lucien explained. “While our bodies contain mana, we aren’t exactly that good at digesting it. At least, normal people like us aren’t.”

“It might be different for powerful wizards,” he mumbled.

“Then do you have a plan?” Lynn was fully focused on him, just like she would be when her father was teaching her how to wield a sword.

“Yes. Come here and place your hand above mine.” Lucien’s hand was wrapped around the pouch just above where the water was, pinching it shut.

Lynn followed his instructions, putting her hand on the pouch’s opening.

“Put your other hand beneath the pouch. I’m going to loosen my grip slightly. I won’t drop it, but it’s better to be careful.”

With her other hand below the pouch, Lucien did as he said, allowing a small gap to open.

The mana sensed the change, immediately moving to try and escape, bringing the water with it.

Lynn flinched and almost took her hand back as she felt the water smacking against her, but she stayed still.

“The mana is trying to escape, and because all of the excess water mana is moving, it is pulling the water with it. That’s why the water would always disappear when you cast your magic. The mana is taking it away when it leaves.”

A look of understanding dawned on Lynn’s face as he spoke. She had never understood why it was always like that. It had always stumped her, but now she felt like she was getting closer to actually being able to use her magic.

Ideas flitted through her mind constantly, and she wanted to sit down and experiment, but knew that it could wait for her to finish here.

“Won’t the water escape as well?” she asked.

“Some of it might,” he nodded. “Can you feel the water moving on your palm? It should be trying to go to the edges, right?”

Even though it wasn’t happening to him, Lucien seemed to know exactly what was happening.

The water was smacking against the middle of her palm before flowing to the edges, where it would once again meet the fabric of the pouch.

“Most of it should stay in there though. Just make sure you’ve got it all covered. Mana is a lot smaller than water, so it should be able to slip out just fine.”

They sat there for a few minutes as the mana slowly seeped out. Eventually, the water fell back into the bag with a quiet splash and stopped moving.

“There we are. Have a taste.” Lucien pulled the pouch back but left the gap open, showing that the water was no longer trying to escape.

“Okay.” Lynn took the pouch and looked into it wearily. The water didn’t look any different from normal, so she cautiously brought it to her lips and took a sip.

She was worried that it was going to make her sick, just like the last time, but she felt fine. It tasted just like normal water.

Lucien smiled inwardly, praising her caution. Good. At least she won’t just rush head first into something just because I tell her to do it.

“Put the rest of it away and let’s get going.”

Lynn poured the remaining water into her waterskin and hopped back onto her horse.

They continued to ride on, keeping a distance from the footprint while still being able to keep an eye on it to make sure they were heading in the right direction.

They had a long journey ahead of them, and this new discovery just made things a little bit easier.

She had plenty of time to figure out which of her ideas would actually prove useful. But she felt like she was finally closer to achieving something with her magic.

When I get back home, I’ll finally be able to show that smug jerk up and beat him in a fight.