“Are you being sincere, boy?” He asked, eyes narrowing down on my figure.

Again I was reminded why all of my coven members and Sven had tried to persuade me against ever interacting with Qixi more than necessary. The man was dangerous and unpredictable. To me though, Qixi represented my only chance at living past the Blood Rite and also the only person I could confidently confide in.

Sven worked for someone and Qixi had shaved off any previous naivety I had that he could be completely trusted. The human’s loyalty lay in his master, not his relationships with others.

“I am being honest.”

“Very well then.”

…What?!

He agreed, just like! I had expected the monster in front of me to ask for some unreasonable price like my firstborn or to send me on some devious quest of his and handle some dirty work. Something of more weight for such a prize. Quite underwhelming.

“W-why would you-”

“Because I can and because I want to. Nothing more to it. Besides, it's not like I’m teaching you anything anyone else wouldn’t for the right amount of coin.”

His tone implied that I best not pry as the tall man got up with his fluttering red coat and made his way over to one of the bookshelves. A hand surfed across the spines of many books, eventually coming to one of the identical ones that I assumed only he could distinguish. Qixi's eyes glossed over it with what I could only describe as a mix of nostalgia and longing before quickly reverting back to their normal unreadable apathy.

“Here we are,” he said, pulling the book out and dusting off its front. “You know Vannis, I always meant to give this book to one of my kids.”

“I-I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be, none of those snot-nosed shit’s ever deserved it or needed it. Scheming bastards take too much from me and never enough from their mothers.”

I honestly had no words to reply to that, stuck on the daunting mental image of what a little Qixi might look like. By the gods that was terrifying. I secretly prayed to Lord Sol that I would never meet anyone else even remotely close to Qixi. He was the only person I'd ever thought might kill me from shock more than anything else.

“Let’s see… hmm, yep alright. Hold still will ya Van, this is probably gonna hurt a little.”

“Wait wha- ARRRRRGGGG.”

Qixi skimmed through his book then appeared behind me in a blur and placed a hand on my back before I could protest, giving a minuscule warning as his hand shattered through something I wasn't even aware of until then, causing a frenzy of pain to envelop my entire being. I crashed to the ground thrashing against the stone alight in an Azure glow, begging for some sort of relief.

It was like I had broken a bone to an appendage I didn’t even know existed, except that appendage was present encasing my body, causing a domino effect all over. A hole to this concealed limb had been opened on my back, leaving me bleeding out in a sort of sense but with no way to patch it.

I screamed until my throat was raw, completely unable to bite back the pain. My clenched first had long bleeding marks from black claws and my gums had been bitten into by fangs protruding from the top and bottom of my mouth. It was unbearable, so much so that for a few moments I wondered if the release of death might be better.

“Focus on the pain, where you feel it, how you feel it and what you feel from it.”

With a mind already sent sprawling from the agony I struggled to string together a proper answer inwardly, let alone articulate it. It was everywhere, all around me. I felt it because it was a part of me, no different to a hand. Pain, absolute, unending, along with a desire to be repaired.

For a few seconds, I twisted my head from where it was resting on the floor, trying to give some sort of confirmation that I had thought it over. Qixi's face lit up for a moment, showing utter childish glee as he nodded at me sitting down near where I writhed.

“Good, good. Now, try to describe it to yourself, envision what you feel.”

Envision… that was difficult. Everything was becoming more difficult but I tried anyway. I let the feeling of pain guide me, closing my eyes to try and describe the closest thing to it as if to build an image or description from my own sense of feeling.

It was like a waterfall, a gentle non-stop waterfall, flowing in every direction over and around my body, not even inches away. All the individual droplets each had their own set course, similar to a stream that connected with itself to create a constant loop of water flow. It was akin to blood running through the veins on a direct course in some regard but the mass congregation and freedom of them all with lack of restriction made it so much closer to rain.

A graceful waterful of stream connecting veins, lacking any sort of constriction and free to flow how they desired. Even I found myself confused, but that was how it felt. By nature, it was simply contradicting itself at every turn.

Yet somehow I understood it.

“Yes! You’re getting it, the Ichor is loosening but you still need to force it back together. Focus Vannis, find your way of reconstructing it. Give the nothing that surrounds you a purpose, fuel it with desire.”

At this point, I was just happy one of us was excited about this process. My body spasmed, racked with pain making it a struggle to concentrate. He said to reconstruct… but that didn’t make any sense. Not to me. The Ichor as he called it was like a flowing free substance, there was no structure, to begin with, only a vat he had broken that funnelled and restrained it.

How am… I… even meant to… control this?

I asked myself. Another limb completely separate from all the others had been added to my body. So how was I meant to control it? Trying to individually contort the countless individual strands was out of the question but I still needed the metaphorical stone thrown in my Ichor river to disappear. There had to be something, some truth that pervaded my perception!

If I can’t control them as singular entities, then I just need to bring them together as a whole.

I thought, pulling a solution from the depths of my mind. So like that, I tried to squeeze the thin translucent snaking energy around me together as one whole. Then it clicked. Suddenly my body went from being pure agony to utter bliss. No better than bliss. For the first time since waking in the sanctuary, I felt truly alive again. Euphoria engulfing my complete figure in unrestrained content.

“Aahhh” Wisped out of my throat, enjoying the sensation that felt like my very existence was in tune with the fabric of reality.

“Congratulations Vannis, You’re a mage now.”

I sat up taking in Qixi’s words and the world around me. All of it despite being bleak and underground seemed to… shine. In a type of natural lustre, I couldn’t put it into words. Nothing was new to my eyes, but a sublime understanding of its complex simplicity echoed through my soul.

Then, as quick as it came, the feeling of tranquillity left. Instead, I felt an aching streak across my entire body, leading me to fall back onto the ground unable to sit up straight.

“That… was amazing.”

“You're very easy to please, you know. All I really did was make you aware of your excess Ichor and force you to use your Arcana in order to repair it.”

“The stuff that surrounds me, that’s Ichor… right?”

Qixi sat back on his desk, nodding in response.

“Indeed, it powers pretty much anything beyond one’s basic ability. The term “Mage” is just a loosely given definition to those whose Arcana have fully developed, allowing them to control the excess Ichor they naturally possess. Even just then, you compressed your excess Ichor into your body, mimicking a very, very rough version of enhancement magic.”

“Is that why it hurts to move?” I asked through the numbing ache.

“Think of it like this, you just used something akin to a new muscle for the first time, of course, it’s going to ache a bit.”

It took a solid twenty or so minutes for me to heal from the first usage of my Arcana as Qixi called it, standing up again to further question the man calmly residing at his desk, reading through the book meant for me with joy like its contents were new to him.

“Q-Qixi, I'm s-still here,” I mumbled, now more scared stiff than ever of the blonde man with scarlet eyes in front of me. My world looked different after becoming aware of the Ichor that radiated around me, allowing me to have an inkling towards the tidal wave of crushing presence Qixi so casually exuded.

“I’m aware. First off let me preface with this, there are multiple ways to manipulate Ichor that fall under different categories. What mage’s, or those who use their Arcana, define as magic are the methods readily available to anyone and anything that possesses a fully formed Arcana. The further along one's road, the more detailed it gets but thanks to predecessors Vannis we can break it into broad two categories. Manipulation and enhancement.”

I stood completely still committing everything Qixi said to memory. That was one of the first times I had seen the man look so serious about something, So I would make sure not to offend him by not taking the same attitude. His posture and tone clearly indicated a desire for me to shut up and listen so I did so, assuming he would only explain it once.

“Both are uses of magic that are for the most part mutually exclusive in favour of effectively. All those who practice enhancement can use manipulation if they understand it, standing true for the opposite as well. The more conventional depictions of us Manipulators would be akin to the wizards in your folklore who weave together spells with nothing but their words, While enhancers would be your knights and warriors, bastions of swords and spears.”

“Enhancers, as the name suggests, use Ichor to enhance what is already in their control to the point of perfection. Manipulators instead, use Ichor to express their will and manipulate what they do not control, bending the Weave as they see fit.”

“Any questions so far?”

I… didn’t really know what to say. My first thought was asking whether my father was an Enhancer, which he most probably was. The next was asserting that my mother was definitely a Manipulator. So this was how the world worked? How had I not known this sooner? The cogs in my head got moving, realising breakthrough after breakthrough of why the world functions the way it did.

The best example was the separation of talent among noble families from a younger age. I had always found it peculiar how focused the fellow families among parties my family hosted were on finding a child's talent in either intelligence or physical ability and nurturing it. knowing what you were good at was a path to success but the obsession they openly bared towards their child's aptitude had seemed almost frantic. Now it was plain why

“Is the difference between them pronounced, to the point of being obvious?” I asked, curiosity overreaching my fear of Qixi like normal. My perception of him had changed but rationally I could understand that the man himself had not.

“It can be, but as a Grand Magus now very dead once said, magic is magic because anyone can use it. The distinction drawn is completely up to the user, meaning the line between Enhancer and Manipulator only exists for the sake of maximising one’s personal power. In reality, there is no line, just Ichor and desire.”

“Makes sense.”

“Can you read?” Qixi asked, tossing the book in my direction.

“Umm… yes”

“Then you don’t need me.”

“B-but yo-”

“Live past the Blood Rite kid, then I’ll teach you whatever you want.”

I tried to rebut that he had barely taught me anything besides what he himself called the vague basics but Qixi wasn’t a man that abided by others' logic. He very literally kicked me out of his dwellings unbothered by the countless questions I pestered during the process.

Instead of a full-blown multi hour-long lesson like I had hoped, I was stuck sitting on a cold stone in front of an earthy wooden door stuck with the smell of herbs and flowers that Qixi constantly gave off. Left with only my own curiosity burning brighter than ever now this translucent Ichor flowed around me.

“Looks like it will just be you and me for a while,” I said in a weary tone, looking down at the book supposedly inscribed with all the knowledge I would need.

Making my way back to my room I promised myself that I would thank Qixi if I lived to put the information to good use.