Ehryinae's magic classes begun bright and early the next morning. The four girls hadn't even found an opportunity to have breakfast yet, though they had been told there were still plans for a breakfast break.
Mhyl hadn't been fond of delaying breakfast. Taking a breakfast break, when considered in English at least, seemed a bit ironic. In either Celesi language, breakfast didn't include the word 'break', so the irony was lost. However, there was something more to the current situation that she didn't like. Mhyl watched a fish skip around in the nearby river. Something about demonstrating fire into water being safer than most alternatives. Mhyl was even imagining how a steam burst from fire hitting water could cause plenty of problems. Falling in was still a concern for her.
Looking at their arrangements, there was yet another concern for Mhyl. Lwyn however had also noticed the problem. "Ehryinae, just a question. Do you know Elaethyx? Because if we're just going to start with only the five of us, that might make it pretty hard for Mhyl." Lwyn knew Mhyl had been making good progress with Izhaethyx, but not enough for learning about magic at the same time. Ehryinae paused, realizing in her planning that she had forgotten all about language barriers. The citadel handled all of it's tasks in Izhaethyx, absolutely everyone there knew it. Considering how Lwyn might be taking over the place one day, the days of being single language might not last forever.
Catching the impression of Ehryinae's pause, Lwyn filled in the blanks. "I guess this time I will have to be translator. Please go slow enough so that I can translate while trying to learn for myself." This time Lwyn would be the translator, Yuxzn or anyone else wouldn't be available to step in for her. As Lwyn informed Mhyl, Mhyl became further determined to learn Izhaethyx even faster.
Ehryinae thus begun their first lesson. "In a way, the gift itself can be though of like another feature of your body, like another hand or leg. Much like how your mind expresses messages for your body to act upon, your mind also imprints expectations of your gift for it to enact. However, while your hand might only have a small selection of distinct commands it can be given, the gift can support a large variety of distinct requests. Thus, the hardest part about using the gift is the mental focus required. Even slight alterations can impact the result. A candlelight could become a fireball." Ehryinae demonstrated with one hand lighting as a candlelight and the other resolving as a fireball.
"The closest thing to compare this to is, for example, drawing. A slightly different request for motion in your hand can shift exactly what kind of picture is drawn. Similar to that same process, it's important to envision what sort of result you are attempting to produce. If it is a candlelight you seek, envision the candlelight, wish for it to appear exactly how you want it to be formed. Much of this is important because the gift itself resides within your blood. Imparting strong impressions will get your blood rushing, which will help develop the intended result. If you aren't focused enough, and are instead too relaxed, your blood won't be able to circulate fast enough to produce a result." Ehryinae's demonstration of this resulted in both flames flickering out together, and disappearing.
"To keep a clear focus of what you intend, you need a clear focus of an origin for your gift. You can focus on a point in the distance, but that can be harder. Having a tool handy with which to use to focus your gift makes creating a focus of origin much easier. Such a tool doesn't need to be complicated at all, it just need to be an object you have on hand. The easier it is to focus on the finer details of the object you are holding, the easier it is to apply your gift to that focus of origin." Ehryinae pulled out the staff she had used before, and conjured a flame to sit on top of it. Even moving the staff around kept the flame where it was on the staff.
"While your own hands can work as a focus, that can also be dangerous. I assure you, not even I am eager to demonstrate the idea of lighting my hand on fire. Having a separate focus reduces a lot of the strain on yourself. Keep in mind that, since the gift is itself within your blood, using the gift will thin your own blood. Much like other forms of exercise, using your gift can tire you out eventually. The more of the gift you need, the faster you will be exhausted. More so, your blood also shapes your gift as a whole, and defines what it can and can not do. Everyone with the gift has their own unique capacity of the gift, it takes its own unique shape. This is why you will need lessons from those of your bloodline, as what you can do with your own gift will not be the same as the other three girls around you. It is entirely possible that the fireball I created might not be within the possibility of any of your gifts, but instead you will be able to do other things." Ehryinae held out a hand as if to conjure something, but didn't, as if the lack of anything was demonstration enough.
"Once you create something with the gift, it is still an extension of yourself. While you are keeping it going, it will drain you further. But it does still exist. For example, fire burns. If it has nothing to burn from, you will need to keep creating it. If it has its own fuel, you can sustain it much easier." Ehryinae took out some simple wood and set it on fire. The fire burned away at the wood, although it still held to it's shape. Ehryinae was obviously still controlling the fire, but they assumed this was still easier for her to accomplish.
"While formed, it moves as you will, even if you have it leave it's point of origin. You control it right until the moment you lose focus of it, or it otherwise can't keep going." Ehryinae picked up the burning wood with her other hand, and created a new flame. That flame danced around in the air, until she dropped it into the river. A burst of steam erupted, exactly as Mhyl predicted, which also made her jump. Ehryinae also used the river to put out the wood she was carrying, and then also took of her gloves and even threw those in the river. The gloves also generated a lot of steam, clearly having been used to protect her own hands during the demonstration.
"So, now for the fruits of our demonstration." Ehryinae pulled out some fried fish from the river. Clearly her actions weren't done without complete sense of causality. She setup a nice space to further roast the fish in a nice wrapping of amber-leaf. All of them walked a distance away from the setup, as Ehryinae had them burn safely from a fair distance, a process that would have been very difficult to do by hand and not suffer from the smoke of the burning ember-leaf. Once properly cooked, with careful precision of temperature, she handed off their freshly prepared breakfast to each of the girls. Ehryinae then sat down with her own portion, getting a little tired from the effort of the entire demonstration.
Mhyl was contemplating all of the theory Lwyn had passed off to her. Not all of the actions had been perfectly in step with Lwyn's translation, but she generally was able to figure out how it all worked together. The words were honestly probably the most important part, there wasn't much visual to worry about. Apparently, because most of it went on in their heads. Mhyl wiggled her fingers in front of her face, measuring the mental concentration required to reproduce that effort. In principle, some of this made sense. Even some scientific principles made sense, blood was a carrier for things like oxygen, if we could assume that blood on this world carried a few more things than it did on Earth, just as oxygen was transported to the brain, so would.. whatever chemically constituted as the 'gift'. As it would pass through the brain, in theory receiving electrolytic responses, and thus would shape a command in those cells or whatever, similar to how muscle responses work.
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Specific to her, she considered points such as blood expenditure and degrees of focus. Being an elf, with less stamina then humans, that means she would have less overall.. energy? She was still mentally constructing the term 'mana' from Earth, but that didn't work. It wasn't a separate resource, it was exactly the same stamina she has less of than a human. She would tire from using magic faster than the others. However, the principles of focus and detail of focus was exactly what elves had in strength. She would need to make use of her greater focus potential, to make up for the loss of stamina.
The greatest concern right now was, like an infant, this was a part of herself she didn't actually understand how to control. She didn't even understand what she was even capable of, none of them did. But much like practice and exercise builds fine tuned movement and grace for one's hands, the same would be true with one's gift. Expecting a hand you have never used in your life to move, it might not be graceful at first, but it should at least twitch.
Having herself finished her portion of breakfast, she picked up a spare Ember-leaf, and stared at it. She followed the intricate lines of it, focused on the tip top of it, and even turned it upside down to stare at the broken stem instead. Nothing. She didn't know what she would have expected to have happened, but having nothing happen was still disappointing.
Lwyn noticed what Mhyl was doing and reached out to her in English. "What's so interesting about the leaf there? Figuring out new medicines or something?" Being caught off guard by Lwyn's questions, Mhyl put the leaf down. "Oh, uh.. I was trying to see if I could figure out anything from today's lesson. Was trying to use the leaf as a focus, but.. nothing happened." Mhyl noticed Lwyn had picked up the same leaf, after Mhyl's explanation, and attempt to reproduce the same exercise. As nothing happened, Mhyl could only guess it had yielded the same results. Thanrie and Qheria, having heard the conversation, went to make their own attempts, with the same results.
"This is always hardest at first, trying to figure out how to reach out for your own gift. The problem is typically making expectations of yourself that you just don't know how to deliver. Most first time activations occur.. almost by accident. You just have to keep trying, while staying aware of what you are doing, experimenting with new approaches. When you finally trigger your own gift, keep track of all the thoughts and feelings you invested into it, exactly what kind of focus you had, and then try to reproduce it. When you can repeat that one action at will, you can start to reshape your intent in other areas, and achieve other forms of results. The chances of getting anything like this working on the first try were basically nothing. Just keep at it, you'll figure out how it works eventually." Ehryinae's statement composed the harsh reality behind their circumstances. Something like this certainly wouldn't be something they could casually do at will so easily. For now, they would have to depend on their other more established skills as they continued to practice on eventually reaching out for their gift.
Mhyl turned to the others in English, which left Ehryinae still feeling not part of the conversation. There was no helping it. "The principles behind magic here are at least interesting. It means everything is plasma fueled, it runs on our blood. Plasma energy is at least an interesting source, much more than fabled mana. It at least feels more, scientific." "I don't think the point is to be so scientific, this isn't Earth. The rules here are Celesi, not Terran, so the earth sciences of everything shouldn't mean shit." Mhyl was busy still considering the science behind everything, but Thanrie didn't like the idea.
"If it's something in our blood, doesn't that make it more like.. force?" "Qheria, please don't go there. The idea of space wizards would just make this harder to understand. Besides, wasn't that supposed to still be a kind of fantasy thing? Also, it looked way easier than this, this is actually hard. Like Mhyl said, there is probably some kind of scientific element behind this in our blood, and a deep study would probably dissect exactly what we're working with, but still wouldn't help with using it. Even elven vision doesn't go down to the cellular levels, so that can wait until later." Qheria was bringing earth fiction into the fray, complicating the situation, while Lwyn was trying really hard to not overwhelm her brain. Too many questions to answer at once.
Lwyn shifted back to Izhaethyx. "Could you go more into detail what your own thoughts are when you create a candlelight? While it won't work for us exactly the same way, at least having a sample to work from might help us go in the right direction." "When I put a candlelight on my staff, I clearly envision the candlelight on the staff. I strongly will it to be there, not exactly expecting it should be there but instead thinking that it makes no sense that it isn't there. This is all while looking at where the candlelight would sit, clearly watching the place it would stand on, and using it to frame the surface for the flame. In the end, the same vision I have of it in my mind is the same I end up seeing with my eyes, as if it was only inevitable. The mental focus would yield a lot of intent and resolve, which is required too.
Qheria could see a big problem in this process pretty quickly, she had no real amount of self-confidence. It wasn't like she just believed it would happen, in fact she doubted herself and was waiting for reality to prove her wrong. Being stubborn in these regards really wouldn't be helping either. Knowing the others, there was a lot of concerns in resolve for them too. Lwyn still honestly hated herself, especially her blood, so a natural belief of her own ability was rather distant. Thanrie's mental focus was probably a disaster, as the clash of two views within her mind was probably a constant ongoing distraction. Mhyl herself was being far too scientific about it, which would itself make her doubt how it worked until it could prove how it works. They were each mentally defeating themselves, even before the whole concept really started.
"So, I might already know what we have to work on first, in order to many any progress in this at all." "Huh? Really? What is it?" "We would need to start with some mental exercises, stuff to train our minds in how to adopt to the idea of this gift, before we stand anything close to a chance of actually using it. How we are thinking in general is being our biggest problem, more than anything else. The whole issue itself has been affecting other stuff that we have done, even myself, so it's a rational place to start." Qheria shared her Izhaethyx views of the matter, sparking Lwyn's curiosity.
Ehryinae was impressed that Qheria had figured out what was usually the next lesson for students. She really did have such a marvelous leadership potential, something else that should be nurtured. "Qheria has the rights of it. Mental training and mental exercises is usually the very next step of the process, something we will be getting into next. The way the lessons are supposed to work is that I'm supposed to ask you why your gift has had no chance of working, which most students give wild answers like not understanding what they should be doing, but.." ".. but the best answer is more unique to each of us. I have no self-confidence, Thanrie has no mental focus, Lwyn has no self-respect, and Mhyl is being too critical. None of us are being calm and accepting of this unknown part of ourselves, it hasn't been in our nature." Ehryinae was very impressed at how specific Qheria had been able to go, Qheria's answer was the best Ehryinae had ever heard of in any previous lessons.
Qheria's answer also made sense to each of the others. It's not something they could deny at all, but it was also something they had no idea how to exactly fix. "It's usually best at this point of the lesson to give students a chance of self-discovery, to ponder everything in further detail, and to come back with some further insight into the matter. Qheria herself seems to have a good grip on the situation, so the four of you should work together on some path of self-discovery. We'll have further classes after lunch, where we'll talk about what you tried to do to realize your goals. Though, in consideration, Xyithy is due back also after lunch, so there is a chance that everything might be more of a field lesson rather than a simple lecture. Don't worry, this part of the process is usually slow, and takes a while. There is no exceptional hurry, all four of you have been talented in other areas in the meanwhile, and the Reavers and Embers already have access to the gift, no one is expecting you to get at it right away." Ehryinae provided everyone with some homework to do for the rest of their morning.
With that, their first lesson was concluded, and the five of them returned back to the facility. They had a lot of things to consider at this point, and a lot of things to work on.