Chapter 8

Curiosity almost killed the cat, part 2

Vlad was no ordinary child who could be easily fooled, but the son of a lord of one of the most powerful sorcerer houses in the Tartarian region. As a child prodigy that grew up in a family of warriors, it was hard enough to lie to him, and while she might have been able to satisfy his curiosity for the moment, she wasn’t sure how he’d react when he found something that made him question it.

Because of his stubborn nature, Elena was afraid that his curiosity might lead to a dangerous outcome for both him and Mana. That’s why the young instructor wanted to use her powers to lower his interest in Mana. If she was careful, Vlad would never know what had happened.

Mana felt her aura become much lighter and harder to see. Immediately after that, the mist spread towards the boy in front of him, who hadn’t even noticed.

"Mana is a natural born sorcerer of black magic," said a voice out of nowhere

Both Mana and Elena flinched at the sudden appearance of Seneca, whose hand rested gently on her shoulder. Her aura shrank back to its original form, only to become visible again.

"But... His aura is grey! I’ve never seen a person with such a dirty aura."

"He’s actually a sorcerer who can manipulate death energy, which is quite rare."

People can mostly only use two types of magic, white and black. Since both use pure energy from the sun as fuel, it is the way it is used that distinguishes them. White magic uses the energy of the sun in its pure form, which often takes the form of fire. Sorcerers who use black magic need to bring the pure energy from the sun back to its original form in order to use it in creation. Hence, in the doctrine of sorcery, the light is often referred to as physical creation, while darkness represents the origin from which light is born.

But unlike the two types of magic, death magic is fueled by spiritual residue from living beings which are highly toxic to most plants, but in particular to animals and humans. This type of energy is very easy to find because of its grey colour and even if it is found in nature, large amounts can lead to desertification. Being also very malleable, especially when it comes from a sentient being, it can give life to spirit parasites that can possess both living people and animals and their corpses.

"Him? He looks way too fragile for that. Are you sure he’s not dead?"

"Are you doubting my knowledge?" asked Seneca.

"Yes."

Vlad was indeed an intelligent child with an intuition far too good for his own good. But that wild intuition was a double-edged sword and Seneca had seen many children like him who ended up horribly simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Let me ask you something first. Where exactly is your letter of recommendation from your father? No child can come in here without parental consent and you are no exception." Once he saw that the child’s mouth suddenly snapped shut, Seneca smiled and continued to speak without giving away that he knew something. "Does your daddy actually know you’re here?"

Although the boy’s expression changed little, his complexion became at least ten shades paler until he could almost be mistaken for a porcelain doll. It took him a few seconds to work up the courage to speak.

"Why wouldn’t he know..."

"Well, I haven’t seen any letters, but I’ll take your word for it. For now..."

Before leaving, the man stopped at Elena’s side for a few seconds to talk to her telepathically, so no one could hear him. ‘You can deal with him later. Don’t let anyone see your skill, especially Mana.’

Seneca let them continue their lesson by heading back to the camp without a glance at Mana. The young woman returned to the group of children with an uncomfortable smile.

"Now that most of you know what kind of nature you have, it’s time to learn how to empower the soul."

The group of children came out of the forest and joined the other children a little more advanced than them, who took full advantage of the strong midday sun to charge themselves with as much energy as possible. At the request of their instructor, the children found a place to spend the few hours meditating. In order not to steal each other’s energy, each of them had to keep a distance of at least four or five metres, and Mana had to stay isolated from them in order not to be affected by the high amounts of energy.

The field was full of children lying on the grass meditating. Their bodies were motionless, surrounded by the magnificent light, and from afar, they looked like endless burning flames. At first, Mana didn’t even realize they were human.

"If you look at the other children, you can notice that their bodies somehow draw energy from the air. This technique is called soul cleansing, used to cleanse one’s aura of possible spiritual residue and even parasites that may be attached to a person’s aura. A simple technique that it is necessary to be done every day."

Elena sat down on the grass and within seconds of closing her eyes, her mind went into a deep trance. Her body became hazy with each passing second until nothing could be seen of the mist that surrounded her. Tiny particles of light appeared from the air that had been attracted by her aura and ended up being absorbed entirely by her body. Each time she breathed, her aura expanded, briefly drawing the tiny particles of light around her with it.

“Now you try it. Remember, as easy as it is important to empower the soul. You must learn to draw your energy from clean sources. For humans, the sun is the only sterile and safe source of energy. Please separate yourselves from each other. Whatever you do, you are not allowed to steal energy from other sources, especially from other living beings.”

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Everyone got to work, all except Mana, who stood and looked confused at the whole situation. Should he do something? Of course, the answer was an absolute no, especially after the first 5 minutes passed where it seemed he had little left for his body to burst into flames. Not only was he overheated, but the boy could feel the wave of energy around him slamming into his weak aura, occasionally triggering a panic attack.

“Mana, you don’t have to do that. All you have to do is sit here and build up resistance to this kind of energy, otherwise you won’t stand a chance in the competition.” She also handed him a crystal of a dirty grey colour that emitted a dense but soothing energy in all the surrounding chaos. “Hold this in your hand and try to learn with the feeling it gives you. That’s what you’ll do for the first few days until you learn to distinguish between types of energy.”

And that was what he did for hours in that infernal heat that was about to knock him out. While the other kids were invigorated and full of life to spend the next few hours playing, Mana just wanted to go to bed. He was so tired that he felt if he didn’t leave now; he could pass out there at any moment.

“Are you already exhausted?”

“You will not leave me alone, are you?” asked Mana, drained of strength and will to live.

“Nope. I want to fight you.”

“Why?”

“Why not? Aren’t you curious to see how strong I am? I’m dying to see what you can do.”

Those were the last words before Vlad jumped on him like a wild animal. Of course, the child was aware that Mana was not on the same level as him, so he tried as much as possible to be more careful. But what he didn’t know was that Mana had a tremendous disadvantage that could lead to his death. Thus, what was for Vlad an innocent game was for Mana a gamble for his life.

Thankfully, his reaction was much quicker than the humans, which helped him dodge the attack without difficulty, allowing the child to fall flat on his face.

“I don’t want to play games. Go find someone else.”

Vlad lifted his face from the dirt as he spat out the strands of grass that had made their way into his mouth. Then he saw his angry expression and realised that the child would not let him off that easily.

“I’ll leave you alone after you show me what you can do.”

“I can’t,” he said simply.

“Why? Do you have something to hide?” His hand reached for his face, but Mana pulled back at the last moment before he grabbed the bandages.

“I don’t even know what the hell I can do!”

His breath was cut off abruptly by a heavy punch in the stomach.

It took Mana some time to recover and when he opened his eyes, all he could see was a silhouette of a child surrounded by fire and his own hand that was completely black from the wrist down. The shock had been so great that he couldn’t even feel the pain for a couple of minutes.

Mana did his best to defend himself, but his aura was far too strong and just a touch could burn his skin, even his flesh, if the physical contact was longer than five seconds. He didn’t want to continue the fight and even did his best to buy time, hoping one of the instructors would stop them. He knew full well that he was going to be held accountable and punished if anything happened to Vlad. But as life would always prove him wrong, this time he was going to be beaten up by an eight-year-old, possibly even killed if he wasn’t careful. At the same time, something deep inside him made him far too eager about the whole situation, like a wolf cub about to hunt for the first time.

Vlad’s eyes fell on the wounds on his hand, and the smell of burnt flesh. He even waited a few seconds for Mana to recover to continue the fight, unwilling to believe that was all.

“Aren’t you gonna do something? Or are you just patronizing me because I'm younger than you?”

Mana lifted his face and his fully dilated pupils watched him straight in the face without a trace of fear. His body filled with adrenaline fell prey to the instinct that made him insensitive to pain. Thus, no matter how hard it hit him, Mana seemed completely unaffected.

The scariest thing was when he saw the smile on his face. Mana had not been angry, but rather happy, even thrilled. That was enough to make him keep his distance, and for the first time, Vlad showed signs of hesitation.

But it was already too late.

His hair sprang to life and ripped the fabric that held it in place as it violently moved through the air. The hunger and excitement he felt was enough to make him lose control, and soon his mind snapped. He wanted to break something, and the only thing in front of him was that little child, who even at that moment didn’t realize what was in front of him.

“I knew it!” Shouted the little boy, ready to get serious.

But something was wrong for the boy realized that Mana was something different from what he thought he was. Not only did he not know he was voratomores, but he was petrified when he saw thousands of threads of hair darting towards him as if they were arrows.

Fortunately, his aura did its job and protected him in time before he was touched.

“What, that’s the best you can do?”

Vlad laughed and got close enough to give him a hard punch in the face, enough to knock even an adult to the ground. But Mana remained on his feet, unmoved.

Then he saw some bandages on his face were burned off, which revealed pale skin that had turned black with the contact of the sun. From his burnt skin came a thick grey smoke that smelled of ammonia.

Mana covered his face in vain in an attempt to protect his skin that was already badly damaged. His hair went crazy, flying all over the place as he tried to defend himself.

Then Vlad approached him, curious about his dramatic behavior. Too much for his own safety. So Mana, for the first time, had the chance to take him by surprise and without even a hesitation, lunged at him ready to kill him.

His powerful aura was the first thing that stopped him from being killed. But to his horror, Mana didn’t stop. His completely burnt hands dug into his fire armor and in just a few seconds managed to create small cracks in his aura through which he was able to slip a few strands of hair.

"You’re crazy! Stop it!"

The strands of hair made their way to his face, just mere millimeters away from his eyes, which caused him to freeze in horror. Even with the injuries the child’s aura caused him, Mana couldn’t stop. Mana had long since lost his consciousness and was now no different from a raging bull. He wanted him dead, even if it meant his end. He could no longer think straight, and his actions were entirely instinctual.

But the blow never landed. It froze inches in front of him.

“Enough.”

Mana was pinned to the ground and restrained within seconds, and they covered his head with a robe to calm him down. Seneca put his knee on his neck to make sure he stayed still while he checked Vlad. The child only had a few scratches, unlike Mana, who had his hands, part of his stomach and most of his face burned. Luckily, Vlad had been too shocked to understand what had happened, which is why Seneca immediately put him to sleep and then handed him over to Elena to erase his memory.

“I took my eyes off you for five minutes, but I guess that's enough to cause trouble.”

It took an hour for him to calm down completely, at which point his senses returned to normal and with that came the pain that was so dreadful that the boy cried and screamed for hours on end until he lost his voice.

Even for Seneca the image was terrifying enough to give him an icy shiver. His suffering was only one of his worries as the god did not expect Mana to become so violent. He was worried that he would lose control again and attack other children, which is why he didn’t trust him to let him go free. Thus, even under Felix’s close supervision, Mana was to be restrained and tied up in order not to cause trouble.