Alforien Arlford (Brick)

I now knew why Arlun had healed so quickly. The poor man’s magic was hampered to an unnatural degree by a slew of wrong assumptions and ignorance. When my mana had been sent into his body, it had basically ‘taught’ his mana how to heal.

When before, his mana wasted a lot of itself trying to figure out what to create. It would try to replicate what was nearest to the injured area. But one thing to be noted was that in any humanoid body, every cell was different. They all had their own minor differences.

And the mana could not copy those differences. Not only that, but it could not get the angle and the exact thickness or length of any of the capillaries. Eventually it would figure it out. But it would take a large number of tries for it to do so. And that was not counting the dissociation into the environment that came with uncasted mana.

After my mana had shown him what to do, it had caught up quickly. That and it seemed that Arlun had a very high affinity, likely along with a high Grade. If I were to bet, I’d say that he was approaching Grade 1.

Now, it was time for me to explain to these ignorants how to cast. Well, one ignorant person. The eunuch just seemed to want to ignore me. Wonder where all his crying went to.

“Magic, in all its forms, is not meant to be used as a simple brute force hammer. It is meant to be used in concert with knowledge, natural forces and your own will.” I began.

“There are many ways to cast Magic. Some, like me, make it into thin threads that could even be of different elements. Some merely prefer the use of abstract magic that spreads across a region and then can be summoned at will.” I demonstrated both so that Arlun could understand what I meant.

“The first takes a lot more time to cast unless you have had significant time to train your mind to visualise it. The second is a terrible waste. What both have in common is that they allow you to cast mana.Now-” Suddenly I was interrupted

“uh…Your highness I fear I do not know what casting is…nor do I understand what -” Arlun interrupted and began to say before I interrupted him by saying, “I am getting to that. And stop listening and start looking. You will not learn anything unless you look at what I am doing.” TO demonstrate I twirled a few

“But you are just waving your hands around?”Arlun said, sounding nervous now.

Annoyed that now there was one more thing for me to explain, I asked, “You do not have mana sight do you?”

“No…” was the only answer a nervous Arlun could give.

“”Then I suppose it is time that both of you learned the skill.” I said, suddenly remembering that I did not have it as a system skill either. Wonder why that was so…Maybe the System had different standards? Or maybe the System’s skill was of a different variety? The Otherworldly Mana Manipulation skill did lend credence to that presumption.

I suppose I was going to now spread the skill around some more. Unless that Mana Manipulation was more complicated than I thought, the two of them would likely gain the skill after I taught them mana manipulation my way. Well, I had the better one anyway.

"The trick to the visualisation is to want to want to do it. I know what you are going to say, that you do want to do it. But it is not you that has to want to do it. It is your mind. And the mind will never ever want to do such a thing. Mana sight requires you to focus, and that is something that the mind naturally repels. It will want to do anything but what it should be doing. "

"How is it then that you convince it? The hard way would be to stave off all pleasure until Mana sight is what it wants to do. The easy way on the other hand is to make it sync with your mind. “

“Not to be confused with the 'find your true self’ nonsense, that is just you. Imagine your mind as a little child, full of wants and desires that it feels compelled to pursue. You just have to make it fun for it. Then you will see mana whenever you want to, your mind wants to. And once you have it? You can even go back. The trance that allows for the sight is extremely hard to forget.

“Now go and try it” I finished

As Arlun stood up to go, Carmil turned to me and said, “If it is alright with you, your highness, I shall also retire to my housing. It is on the other side of the camp so it will take a while for me to get there.”

“Who said you were excluded from the command? You too have to practice the skills, Carmil.” I said leveling Carmil with my best blank stare. Carmil looked like he wanted to say something, but in the end he kept mum and headed out along with Arlun.

As soon as Carmil left I let my body relax. About halfway through the lecture, my body had begun to ache. I suppose it was me once again using mana that brought it on. There was only so much self tuning the body could do with me constantly draining it of mana. And now it has reached its limit.

Starting from the toes to the head the entire body started to ache, like somebody had let the floodgates open. The sensation, together with the constant pulsing of my head made me want to get up and walk out. To do anything but let this continue. But I couldn’t.

My body was way too small to maneuver off this table without me using mana. Any movement would have me at risk of falling, and I couldn’t even move an inch without fearing that at the end of the move I’d encounter the edge of the table.

And so I lay, still on the table, uncomfortable as my body ached seemingly in concert with my pulse as I let my mana return to me enough that I could use it without permanently damaging it.

Old Reggie, the veteran guy[ Name: Regginere]

Regginere looked at the camp with complex emotions. In his many years, he had learnt to never trust a noble. To never allow one of those damn bastards to order you around without at least making sure that their command would not attract someone’s ire to you. And technically, he hadn’t broken that rule.

The princely brat’s command wouldn’t draw any ire to him. No, it was a largely beneficial one.Worlds, it was a straight up promotion. Right now, he might as well be the general of this army. And yet, it also went against all of his principles. It broke all the tenets he had held dear until now, for whether the brat realised it or not, Regginere was now a member of his faction. For the good and the bad.

But Regginere could not, in good conscience, refuse the promotion. It was the only way he could ensure that the army remained operative without handing everything over to a baby.

No matter how much the damned nobles extolled their virtues, Regginere refused to believe that a baby could ever be an able commander just because he was born a prince. Sadly, many of his fellow soldiers disagreed, their minds too deep in the noble propaganda to know better. Now Regginere had the distinct displeasure of running an army of stupid men.