Chapter 5-Mana?
The force of the aura the commander unleashed was targeted only on Raven. Once the yellowish aura hit him, it threw him all the way back to the door to the room. Raven had no time to react because the concentrated aura moved at such astronomical speeds that he only understood what had happened when he was flying through the air.
Raven hit the door with a repulsing crunch. After the two archers saw what happened they immediately got up to go help Raven.
“STOP!!”
The commander shouted at the two, he used a bit of his aura to paralyze them. Eren and Folin could only look at Raven with worry in their eyes. They couldn’t even speak, the power the commander was forcing on them was just too powerful for them to resist.
Once everything went silent, except for Ravens labored breaths, the commander spoke “You haven’t answered my question yet, I do not have a lot of patience.” The question was obviously directed towards Raven, but Raven didn’t answer, he was too distracted by his wounds. Raven was still on the ground and his left arm was bent in an unnatural way. After the unheard answer from Raven, the commander stood up and walked over to the boy. The commander was around 6’3 and had a built physique, he had scars on his hands and arms but there was a noticeable scar running from the right side of his scalp to his chin. The man looked imposing.
When the man got right in front of the boy, he looked down. “I’m waiting.”
Raven looked up. Anger could not even describe the amount of fury that was hiding in his eyes. The feeling of being weak was a reminder of not being able to help his father, and he has only felt weak since coming to this village. He failed to outrun the archers and now he failed to even resist this man’s power. This all led to him being furious.
“I’m no different than any normal elf. SO WHY HAVE YOU HURT ME!!” Raven yelled, he let all of his fury into those last words he had said. The reaction of the commander was what one expected. The commander threw a kick at Ravens stomach. The kick was too fast to react to, so Raven felt the full force of it.
“argh” Raven let out a sound that came all the way from the gut. The kick had knocked the wind out of Raven and had broken at least two of his ribs. The once labored beathing became wheezing as he could not get air into his lungs. Eren and Folin only watched with concern, the power forced onto them had been removed a little bit ago but they didn’t want to anger their commander so they could only watch, not able to do anything to stop it.
The commander made his way back to his leather chair behind his desk and sat down. He looked down at his papers and started to write. After about 3 minutes of writing, he stopped. He then looked up and said to the two archers “You may leave.”
Eren and Folin looked at the commander, then they started to walk towards the door. They went over to Raven and started to pick him up, but then the commander spoke again “Leave him”, this confused the archers and even Raven himself.
‘Why does this bastard want me to stay’ Raven thought. His fury had become less than it was because the kick instilled more fear than he had before. He came to terms with the man’s power and if the man wanted to, he could kill Raven in a second.
Eren and Folin reluctantly left Raven and made their way to the door. As they were walking out of the door, Eren gave Raven one last look, there was concern and regret in his eyes. Then he turned around and walked out of the room.
Once the sound of the door closing permeated the room, the commander said, “Sit down boy”. Raven looked at the commander, from an outsider’s perspective it would have looked like they were having a staring contest. Not one of them blinked. Then Raven started to get up, very slowly.
Raven could feel the splinter of one of his ribs rubbing against his lung, this feeling could be described as unpleasant. Raven got up eventually, and then started to walk towards the chair, Raven’s left arm was dangling to his side while his right was wrapped around his stomach. He looked like he could keel over and die at any moment.
When Raven got to the seat right in front of the desk, he reluctantly sat down. He felt pleasure in not having to walk anymore, but he was also fearful of what the commander had to say to him. What had made him look so different from the other elves?
After a few seconds the commander said, “What is a human doing in the Elven kingdom?” He said this looking at Raven, hoping for a reaction. After hearing this, Raven’s mind was chaos. His anxiety started to rise, and he started to become nervous.
‘How the fuck does he know I’m human?’ Raven thought this was the worst possible case scenario. He was going to die, if the commander knew then he would have all the reasons he needed to execute him in front of all the inhabitants of the village.
“I don’t know what you are talking about” Raven said trying to keep a calm voice, he tried his hardest, but it still sounded like he was found out. Raven cursed his shaking voice and waited for the commander to answer. All the commander did was look at Raven, blatantly examining his reaction.
“Don’t deny it, you are human. But I’m not worried about that, I’m wondering how you made your way into Akro village?” the commander said, his tone going from unbothered to hostile near the end of his question. He seems he wasn’t worried that Raven was human but how Raven had gotten into the village.
Raven didn’t know how to calm the commander down; Raven might have been furious at the commander, but he still wanted to live. He had things to experience in life and how was he going to get back to the Salir kingdom and find out what had caused the death of his family and legacy.
So, with all that was at stake Raven answered honestly “I just walked in the forest until I found a big wall of trees, I didn’t know where I was, so I walked towards the newest thing I had seen in my four hours of walking. That’s when I stumbled across this village.” Raven was hoping the commander would believe him.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Surprising the commander said with a sigh “Ok, I believe you.”
“What? “Raven said, way too confused to understand the question.
“I said, I believe you.” The commander said again, knowing how this may sound after how suspicious he was acting towards the boy.
Raven was too confused to think of anything else. ‘Why does he believe me’ was the only thing Raven was saying in his head. There were so many reasons not to believe Raven, like who just stumbles upon a hidden elf village. It just doesn’t make sense!
Raven then came to the conclusion that the only way to find out was to ask, so he did.
“Why do you believe me, if I may ask?” Raven said, trying to be as respectful as he could. He didn’t want to get kicked again, that’s for sure.
The commander looked at him with a slight smile and said “I can hear your heartbeat; it was beating normally while you were answering my question. I can’t say the same for when you tried to lie about not knowing what I was talking about.”
Raven was surprised, how is it possible that he could hear his heartbeat? That shouldn’t be possible for a normal person, but Raven could already understand that this man was no regular joe. The man had knocked him across the room without even moving for example.
The commander started to speak, knocking Raven out of these thoughts “I can see why you tried to lie though, I presume that you know how much hate the elves in the village have towards your kind. Don’t worry though, I’m not like those other elves who are blinded by their prejudice.”
After saying this, Raven let out an audible sigh. The tension of the conversation and the lack of knowledge of what the next few minutes were going to look like took a toll on him. He had started to suspect that he was going to die, but all that worry was all for naught due to the commander’s last sentence.
Raven was confused though “Why did you have to brutally beat me if you knew I was a human and had no prejudice against me?” Raven could not understand why the commander had done that. There had to be another way, right?
“Well, other than being disrespectful, I wanted to see how strong your body was. You have different mana than most humans after all.” The commander said nonchalantly. The commander might not have put much importance on his words, but these words sounded alarms in Ravens head.
‘What the hell Is mana? Why is he saying I have it?’ Raven thought to himself, he truly didn’t know what the commander just said. So, he asked “Sir, what does that mean?”
The commander looked at Raven and said, “What do you mean “What does that mean”? You have different mana than what I have seen before.”
Raven then said again “I mean what is mana?”
After he said this, it was the commander’s turn to be confused. He looked at Raven with a questioning look. “How do you not know what mana is? I know us elves call it something different than humans and other species, but you have more than the normal person, you should know what it is. How do you not?”
“I lived a very sheltered life. I barely left my home, when I did, I was always with my father.” Raven said bluntly “but could you tell me what it is?”
The commander looked at Raven and then finally said “Ok, I will” He stood up and went to a drawer inside a table to the right of the desk. What he pulled out was a piece of paper that had drawings on it, the biggest drawing on it though, was of a human body.
When he retrieved the piece of paper he then walked back to the desk and sat down. He handed the paper to Raven and said, “look at that.” After he said this, he started to answer all of the questions Raven had.
“That piece of paper contains all the rudimentary knowledge needed to become an apprentice” the commander said and then paused for a second “I’m only showing this to you because you have potential to become stronger than any normal person, so don’t go sharing this or I will not be able to save you. People limit this knowledge, people a whole lot stronger than me.”
While Raven was listening to the commander say this, he was also looking at the sheet of paper. In the depiction of the humanoid species, it showed an area of colorful mass at the center of the head and another one in the middle of the chest. Raven saw this and said while pointing to it “What are these?”
The commander looked at what Raven was pointing to and said “Wow, you really do have no idea” the commander uttered with surprise “Those are what us elves call the pools of power, its where almost all of the power mana users use comes from. Those contain the power I used to push you across the room earlier, noted I used the dantian which is the pool of power focused on your chest, but that move I pulled is far from the level you are at right now.”
Raven took all this information and absorbed it. He started to pick through and found multiple things that he didn’t seem to understand in the commander’s sentence. For example, what was mana, the commander had been talking about it like Raven naturally knew what it was. Another question he had was what did the commander mean by “almost”? Where did the rest of the power come from?
These were the main questions Raven had, so he continued with his forwardness and asked “What its mana? You’ve been talking about it a lot and it seems like a main component of how this strange power works.” The commander heard this and facepalmed.
‘I hadn’t even told the kid what mana was, what is wrong with me.’ The commander though. He then looked at Raven and said “Mana is the base energy that encompasses the world, as far as all mana users know. It surrounds everything, every living thing has mana, and some items do but we will get into that later. What you need to know for right now though, is that everything has mana, but mana users like me and possibly you have more of it than normal people. Unlike normal people, mana users were born with mana pools or dantians inside their head and chest.” Raven heard this and interrupted the commander “I have a pool of mana in my body? Wouldn’t I be heavier?”
When Raven said this his face was completely serious, the commander on the other hand burst out laughing. He could not contain his laughter, and he didn’t stop for close to a minute. When his laughter subsided, he had traces of tears in his eyes. The commander wiped them away and said “No, boy. You do not have a pool of mana inside you. If you did, you would feel it swish around when you walked” the commander chuckled again, imagining mana users falling down because of the offset of gravity it would cause “instead we are able to tap into a kind of spiritual storage of mana, I do not know how to describe it fully but from what knowledge I’m allowed to that is the gist of it.”
The commander then said with a sigh “That is the best I can describe a mana pool and mana in a short amount of time. You should get going, I’ll have a tent in the military camp made for you. You can stay in the village, but I won’t be able to save you if you are found out to be human so be careful. Some advice, leave before your ears grow back.”
Raven got up and said “Thank you” he then started to limb towards the door, he must have hurt his leg when he was pushed also. Raven got to the door, he then turned around and asked the commander “When can I learn more, will I be able to ask you?”
The commander looked up from his papers and said with a grin, “Don’t worry, we’ll be seeing each other sooner than you think.”
Raven looked at the commander’s creepy and imposing face. He opened the door and walked out, he wanted to leave while he had the chance to.
‘That didn’t go so bad’ Raven thought as he was walking down the hall. He was heading to Eren and Folin who were standing by the entrance to the building, waiting for him.
‘As long as I keep my identity a secret, I should be able to live my life peacefully here. Shouldn’t be too hard, right?’
Raven thought this but he couldn’t be more wrong, this next year would change and shape him unrecognizably.
This next year would be the hardest he has lived yet.