The boy who asked the first question about the dragon suddenly became still. “Or my dad?” he added, quietly. With a pang of sadness, I realized that the fur which the kid was wearing had probably belonged to his father. Most of the children gathered also nodded in agreement and I felt the sadness hit me again. All of them were around my age, and suddenly they had become orphans. We were indeed needed here.

Seika took a long, deep breath. “I cannot say as to why The Divine did not intervene in this battle. Perhaps It did in a way we cannot understand. I do not know how The Divine thinks or acts. Only The Divine knows Its plans. What I do know… is that your families stood strong. They fought bravely against those raiders and invaders. And that is the thing that we should focus on. Fighting for what is right.”

"But how can we fight, Miss,” asked an older looking girl. “We haven’t had our liturgy yet, and haven’t received our mana.”

"Magic does not only require mana. Granted, you need mana to cast any spell, and this mana is drawn from the pool you have received from The Divine once you have participated in the liturgy. But, what you also need are the incantations… the movements and the memories of the spells.”

Seika touched her wand on the ground and started to speak under her breath, while she formed a circle in the air with her hands. A small flash of light had everyone close their eyes momentarily and a basket of delicious-looking red apples appeared in front of her. She took the basket and walked through the crowd of gathered kids, giving them one apple each. Once everyone had received one, she took one of the two remaining apples and took a bite out of it.

It was silly to think I could have stayed out of my sister’s sight. That extra apple was meant for me. There was no reason to lurk anymore, so I moved forward and sat with the children that had watched her play.

"The gifts of The Divine are unique among the Apocosmos in that we are given vast amounts of mana and access to spell that can make our lives better. The spell I cast just now was a rather simple one, but even that does not mean it only took mana to cast,” she continued. “Spells have many components. Mana, complex somatic movements, lengthy incantations, and some even require material components.” She took a breath. “Even for this simple spell, I needed to chant an incantation and move my body—in this case just my hands—in order for the spell to work. Most of all, I needed to know and remember the incantation and the movements. The first step to casting any spell is learning it.”

She reached into her basket for the remaining apple and threw it toward me. “This is my brother, Adel. He has not yet received his mana. Yet, he is a dutiful student of the arcane. Would you please illustrate the spell I just cast brother?”

I stood up, put the apple in my pocket and walked to her. I turned toward her audience, which had now become my audience as well. I started chanting the incantation of the spell, more loudly than she did before, and performed the exact same movements with my hands. No apple basket appeared in front of me.

"Thank you, Adel,” started my sister once again. “The only thing stopping my brother from doing exactly what I did was the absence of mana. Do you understand what this means?”

"That right after he gets his mana, he’ll be able to cast the spell,” interjected the young dragon enthusiast.

"Exactly. And not only that but every spell he has learned until that time. You see the skills that we get from leveling up are independent to the mana we received from The Divine. Those spells are only available because of Its grace.” My sister put on her most teacher-like look and continued. “For this reason, you should study and practice your spellcasting, even before you have mana to cast spells. This way, you will already have many useful spells under your belt by the time you use the dagger.”

An excited mumble took over my sister’s audience. As my sister picked up her wand, sure that that the play had ended, another girl raised her hand.

"Yes, little one?” Seika said.

The girl stood up. She looked at the other children at first, nervous, and after they nodded slightly to her, she began to talk.

"Miss, since all of our priests are with The Divine now… would you teach us spellcasting?”

Seika smiled and squatted to meet the children’s eyes.

"Our family moved here for this reason. Well… not just for this reason but passing on knowledge is one of the priests’ greatest responsibilities. I know for a fact that, as long as we have a house here, both my mother and my father will gladly aid you in your learning. As for me, I will also be happy to teach you to the best of my abilities. That is, until I decide whether I am going to study at the Order’s university or travel the planes like my older brother.”

Seeing the smiles on their faces made me happy, and it most certainly made my sister happy as well. She stood straight and addressed her audience one last time.

"Should you have any more questions about anything—anything at all—please come ask me or my parents. We came here to help, and we would love to be able to do just that.”

A very asynchronous “Thank you, Miss” was heard from the children as they all stood up and went on their way. Seika turned toward me as I was taking a bite of the apple.

"I hope you like that apple, you sneaky little gargoyle,” she said.

"I am no gargoyle—” I started to protest.

"Well, I can turn you into one,” she interrupted, smiling.

"No! No sister!” I replied hastily, laughing and taking a step back with my hands stretched and palms facing toward her as if I’d be able to somehow reflect her magic. “I was only waiting to talk to you.”

"Come now, little gargoyle, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?” she asked, as she grabbed my hand and pulled me toward her. She kissed the top of my head.

"I was in the forest that mom created,” I said. “I have never seen her perform a ritual so big. The trees are so big and beautiful.”

"Both our parents, but especially mother, are very powerful, Adel. You know that. They wouldn’t be archpriests if they were not strong. It’s not just levels. They got massive amounts of mana during their liturgy.”

"I know that. It’s just that I’ve only heard stories… I had never actually seen them perform anything that was not as dull as building or crafting something.”

My sister smiled at me.

“Crafting magic items may seem dull to you, but it is one of the most essential forms of magic we have. In any case, this is the first task our parents received as missionaries for quite some time. I can barely remember the last time we lived outside the capital.” She paused and took a better look at me. “Do you like it here, little gargoyle?”

"Oh, but I love it, Seika,” I answered, with genuine enthusiasm in my voice. “I liked our house in Elysia, of course, but playing outside of it was limited and there was not enough space to run indoors.”

"I’m glad to hear that. We will be staying here for quite some time and you will probably pass the rite here as well. Then you will be able to reflect my magic at last…” She let her words linger, and then began casting what looked like a metamorphosis spell on me.

I quickly jumped on her to interrupt her spellcasting and shouted “Wait, wait! Father sent me to get you.”

"Why didn’t you say so from the beginning? Do you know why?” she asked, while trying not to laugh at the way I had tried to defend myself against her spell.

"He was casting some enchantments on our new house and asked for your assistance, my lady,” I said, imitating the courteous way of speaking I had learned from our time with the Order, as I climbed back off of her.

"My, my, such a gentleman you’re becoming, little gargoyle. I will spare you today… but make sure to continue studying while we are here, rather than just running from one hill to the other.” She pinched the back of my neck and set off on her way toward our father.

The words of my sister fresh in my mind, I decided to find a nice patch of grass under the shade of a massive oak tree and study my daily spells.

The first spell I had to study today was, coincidentally, related to crafting magic items. Specifically, it was about creating a magically magnified horn. The spell was fairly easy and needed no incantations, only a series of coordinated hand and leg movements for a total of about an hour. If this spell was performed correctly, any mundane horn would become enchanted and would be heard across a distance of up to one hundred fifty miles, according to the wishes of the person who blew it.

Practicing somatic component-only spells was not really my favorite, as by the end of the spell, I was usually tired and dripping sweat. Which was exactly the case today.

To my delight, the second spell was less taxing on my body. It needed a total of thirty minutes of concentrated casting, which involved a 16-word incantation repeated over and over. Nothing particularly difficult for me, as I could easily keep my concentration for up to two hours even with 32-word incantations. That was, of course, nothing compared to Seika’s ability to memorize and perform 1,024-word incantations by heart for an indefinite amount of time, or our parents’ ability to cast non-repetitive incantation spells that lasted hours or even combined smaller ones.

In my case, the spell needed a material component of—three grams of aluminum per casting—and my Carta Magica stated that multiple castings could be fit into the same spell according to the weight of the aluminum used. With this spell, I could make my mind remember something at a specific point of time in the future, even if I had completely forgotten it beforehand.

This meant that with thirty grams of aluminum, I would be able to set ten future reminders. There were many limitations to it in terms of how large the reminders would be and how far in the future they could be set, but this spell looked like it could be very useful for my sister in her studies. Though I had no doubt she probably knew about it already.

As I started practicing the verbal and somatic components of casting the spell, I wondered whether I would be able to use the spell to keep more spells in my long-term memory, without having to review them every now and again. And then my mind began to wander further, back to the girl in the forest.