Chapter 30

““WHAT?””

Silva flinched as both of her friends loudly exclaimed.

“Really?” Steven demanded.

“Are you sure?” Mika wanted to know.

“Yes?” Silva helpfully explained.

“Okay! Okay, let’s calm down!” Steven stopped for a moment. “WHAT?” He shouted again.

“Now you are just making fun of me.” Silva sulked. “But yes, we actually can.”

“But how?” Mika was incredulous.

“W-, well,” Silva started to explain. “Steven was actually right about these little specks.” She waved her hand at the ever-present floating particles. “They are kind of like mana.”

“No way.”” YES!”

Silva’s friends spoke at the same time.

“I won’t ever live this down,” Mika lamented.

“I was right! And you were wrong!” Steven pointed at Mika.

Silva nervously looked over her shoulder at the cashier who was watching the commotion from the counter.

“If you would quiet down I could explain more.” Silva tried to diffuse the situation. The surprise she had prepared had a larger impact than planned.

“You better!” Steven shook a fist at her, which made Silva smile. It was nice to see her friend regain his liveliness. If only for a while

“Okay, you know how for a while I have been trying to move mana around.” Silva’s friends nodded. “Well, a couple of days ago I had my first success.” Silva proudly declared.

Honestly, calling it a success was a bit of a stretch. She had moved a single mana particle. And after a whole day of practice, she had moved two particles, at the same time.

But, weirdly enough, that had been enough for something else to happen. At the same time as trying to figure out the mystery of mana particles, she had also tried to find out what the strange presence, that she now called her Master, had done to them.

That night, after she had moved mana particles she seemingly also had accomplished a condition for another revelation.

As strange as it may be, she had a visitor in her dreams. Silva hardly could recall anything concrete about the dream. Well, apart from the new information she was now intimately familiar with.

After gathering her thoughts she continued.

“Next morning when I woke up I realized that our Master,” Silva ignored Mika’s displeased expression, “had imparted new knowledge in my mind.”

“Of course that apparition can do that.” Mika bitterly spat out.

Silva did think that Mika was a bit too persistent in her attempt at hatting on whatever the being was. Silva was sure, as sure as she could be given the circumstances, that the being meant no harm to them. She could hardly blame Mika for the attempts though. The three of them very not given any choice in the matter.

Truth to be told, even for Silva, who was taking it much better than her friends it was a deeply discomforting feeling. It did help that her ability had improved a lot due to that.

“So, anyway,” Silva kept talking as she ignored Mika’s remark, “I think me controlling mana was the condition for that to happen.” Mika groaned, which did not stop Silva. It did seem to bother Steven though.

“Shh,” Steven shushed Mika with his finger on his lips. “Teacher is talking.”

All Steven got in return was an eye-roll. Not a bad result for him all things considered.

“Anyway, it works like this. When you have reached the point I have, you can use, what essentially is, a chant to activate a spell. Effect of a spell depends on your chant and how you string mana together. Then, as you get better at chanting and moving the mana you can use more and more spells, with an increasing variety of effects and strength. Neat, right?”

“So you can cast something for us to see?” Steven asked impatiently.

“Not here, this is a public place.” Mika hissed.

“Oh, please, we are talking about real magic here. And you didn’t mind us talking about all this secretive stuff here.” Steven returned. “Well, I guess I can wait until we get somewhere more remote.

“I am enduring this place only because it’s always empty, the music is loud enough, workers are apathetic and my parents are too noisy.” Mika pointed out.

“And because of the tea, right?” Steven tried.

“Ugh,” Silva let out a sound full of disgust.

“Um, you guys like the tea here? Right?” Steven seemed to be genuinely confused.

“Sure, let’s go with that. Anyway, Silva, can you actually cast anything?” Mika asked, and rightfully so.

Under Mika’s gaze, Silva started to feel her cheeks grow red.

“Um, I c-, can actually.”

Both of her friend ears perked up.

“It’s just that, you know…”

“Is it something flashy? I thought normal people could not see mana, does casting changes that?” Steven wondered.

But Mika had the right idea.

“Spit it out, Silva.”

“W-, well, it’s like this. It’s not anything flashy and no, normal people can’t see the casting process. I discreetly tried when I was cooking and my dad did not notice anything.”

“But?” Mika tried to pry out Silva’s confession.

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“B-, but, well, I can only do it partly. And it’s… It’s a translation spell. I don’t know any other.” Silva finished with a whisper.

There was no way for her to hide it, Silva had known that from the start. But she had gotten a bit carried away and had made it sound grander than it actually was.

“That’s how you knew what Esha did!” Steven suddenly pointed out. Then he frowned. “Does that I won’t be able to throw fireballs?”

“You probably could,” Silva hurried to explain. “I just don’t know any other chants. All I got was this one spell. There is no way to tell what else is possible. But! There definitely are more spells. I just have to unlock them?” Then she tilted her head. “Maybe?”

“So you don’t know,” Mika concluded.

“No, I do know!” Silva protested. “I was just not given more chants.”

That was the truth. While Silva had only gained a single spell it was already almost too complicated for her to cast. The fact that she failed while casting more than she succeeded also was not something she will mention.

“That’s a lot less cool than I expected,” Steven mentioned.

“It’s plenty cool,” Silva shoot a hurt look at him. “And I am still a beginner.”

Silva wanted to bite in her tongue. Telling her friends that she was a beginner would not reinforce their impression that she was a reliable teacher.

“So, you are saying that you can understand languages without knowing them? Does that work with written word too?” Mika gently asked rescuing Silva from self-torment.

“Oh, yes! It’s possible. But right now I can only do one of the things.” Silva started to explain, giving up her attempt at pretending to be a teacher. Not that it went well anyway. “I mean, if-, when I get better I will be able to listen, speak and read all at once, but right now I can only do one of the things at a time. For example, I have to specifically concentrate on what I need and guide mana to the corresponding sense for the spell to activate.”

“Okay, can you read this?” Steven suddenly slid his phone in front of Silva.

“I can? Give me a moment.”

Silva took a deep breath going through the motions and preparing herself. It would not be funny if she failed at this crucial moment. Slowly she opened her eyes. The world once again permeated with the ever-present mana. Another breath and she started the chant under her breath.

Words slowly influenced the mana around her moving and twisting it. At least it was easier to get mana to do something, anything, with the chant. It made her wonder if, maybe, it was possible to cast spells without chanting, but for now it would be too hard to even try.

At least the spell itself was very simple, but even this simple spell left Silva in an awe of how it could do something effortlessly what she could not do with all of her might. If what she suspected was true and this was an entry-level spell then what would a more advanced spell look alike? The way chant interacted with these small particles was marvellous.

The unfamiliar string of sounds did not spread far and her friends leaned in to hear her. Actually, wasn’t Mika a bit too close?

Silva almost fumbled her words when she felt the faint scent of her friend, barely managing to finish her chant. Slowly the text morphed and moved. From Arabic text to words she could read.

As Silva’s eyes went over the text she felt her cheeks starting to burn.

“Huh, so you can actually read it,” Steven said with wonder in his voice.

“What did you give her to read?” Mika snapped at him.

“Nothing that bad. It’s just porn.”

Silva barely managed to catch the shadow of the spoon before it hit Steven’s head. Of course, there was no effect, apart from the tongue that was now sticking out of Steven’s mouth. At least Steven was feeling better, but Silva still wished that he would show it by not making her read about an energetic pounding.

“How did you even found it.” Mika glared.

“What do you mean how? I just searched for it.”

“Let’s move on, please!” Silva begged and her friend relented. “Okay, there is one more thing that I have to mention. With the information of spells, there was another thing that is important. The thing about spells is that they should be as a supplement to our own abilities and that we should not rely on them.”

“Why is that?” Mika asked.

“I am not sure, but Master-, yes I know, I know, don’t look at me like that, it’s easier for me this way.” Silva attempted to avoid Mika’s accusing glance. “Anyway, Master made sure that I understand that. And, um, I think I got encouraged to continue experimenting with mana.”

“As always nothing is ever easy.” Mika sighed and Silva agreed.

“So we just have to get to your level and we could get a different spell, right?” Steven suddenly asked. “That dude would not give us all the same spell, right?”

“I guess…” Silva supposed.

“Neat!”

“Don’t forget your homework.” Mika reminded.

“Sure, sure, I will.” Steven absent-mindedly answered as Silva started to shuffle in her seat.

“Silva, do you have something to say?” Now Mika’s attention on her again.

“No?” Silva felt herself start sweating. She managed to hold for long enough for Mika to return to grilling Steven. Still, Silva made a small note in her head to actually study when she got home.

Luckily Steven managed to change the subject quickly enough.

“Silva, could we go over the process of gaining that mana sight once more?” He asked seemingly brimming with motivation.

Silva used this chance to quickly launch into another explanation and tried her best to give Steven any pointers she could think of. It took almost another hour before they finally decided to call it a day. Mika had received a call from her parents and Steven had his own plans as well.

It left the better part of the evening free for Silva. Homework already long forgotten she started to plan out what she should do to improve her mana control.

As they exited ‘Shan-Tea’ and started to walk down the street before splitting up their gazes were drawn to something strange on the horizon. What had grabbed their attention was an unmistakable sound of thunder.

The sky was still clear and sunny. There was no wind and the air was crispy and fresh. But one of the mountains was not the same. It was not strange for some of the low hanging clouds to get stuck on the mountain peaks, but what they were witnessing was far too removed from anything else they had seen.

One of the mountain peaks was covered in an impenetrable blanket of clouds. Even from the large distance, they could tell that these clouds were spewing out wast amount of snow as if to spite the weather forecast.

Even stranger was the lightning bolts flashing inside these clouds. It stood against everything they knew about how nature worked. No second passed by without a bright flash and thunderous sound following.

A heavy feeling seeped in Silva’s heart as she turned her head to take in the rest of the sky. It was still clear and sunny. Just as it had been for the whole day.

“What are we looking at?” Steven let out in disbelief.

Silva duly noted that they were not the only ones watching the horizon. There were several people standing around and pointing at that mountain’s peak. Some had taken out their phones and started to film.

They continued to watch the unnatural wrath of the world. Speechless before the grand power before them the trio did not notice the time passing. Then…

“Awoooooooo!”

A loud animal cry, full of fury resonated trough the city. The association that occurred to Silva was immediate.

“It’s that wolf…” She whispered loud enough for her friends to hear.

Soon after the mountains seemed to loose their for and started to dissipate. The flashing of the lightning now gone and city noises returned to their dominant position.

“Should we… Should we do something about this?” Silva wondered. Whatever had happened on that mountain top was too close to them. Too unnatural.

“Nothing we can do.” Steven shook his head.

“Let’s go home and see what the news come up with.” Mika agreed.

Silva spent the rest of her way back home in contemplative silence.