It started with a BANG...literally!

Raka was lying on the floor, for the umpteenth time since starting this game. He looked at the white ceiling above him high up. A sweet laughter sprung nearby. 'She has a lovely laugh' was all the thought he could manage before the world lost focus. He had just been defeated by his own magic as the fire he was trying to conjure exploded at him.

"And that's what happens when you lose focus" he heard her voice say almost in his dreams.

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Raka had been continuing his practice. He went to the magic institute to try to concentrate and find the sense for energy, all day. In the evening he used to go to Neona's to make some money. So far he was making money much more easily than he was perceiving energy. He did not expect it to be easy, on the contrary he expected it to be quite hard considering there was no help forthcoming and he had to rely on luck as luck would have it. And even luck seemed to be unlucky. It had been over a week in real life, with Raka trying to get a feel of energy, forget learning magic.

He was getting frustrated by his complete lack of progress. Day by day, he kept trying and trying without success. Not that Lady Verina ever got upset. Everytime she came to check on him, she quietly observed him trying.

"Hmmm, keep trying" was all she said, and walked away with nary a hint of what he was supposed to do.

'Hah! This is impossible. The more I try to concentrate, the more I lose that feeling. What do I do?!' Raka reflected on his problem. He had gotten close to the feeling of that day, when he saw those colors, a couple of times. Just when he thought that he might achieve it and started to will himself, he would always lose the feeling.

'Lady Verina said that focus is required for magic, but everytime I try to focus I lose the feel for energy. But that is the requirement for magic! Should I abandon magic for now and just concentrate on getting the feel for energy? But those couple of times only happened when I am close to falling asleep. No no! I have to be able to do it willingly in order to learn magic!' Raka thought.

He was sitting on the floor of the large training hall in the magic institute, and looking up at the completely white ceiling. He sighed. He was tired of trying. He moved around again practicing his battle forms as taught by Lady Altia to take his mind off things. Considering he was an intellectual sort, he would have never guessed that exercise would become his favorite time pass. After a while he got tired enough. He laid down to sleep, hoping for a miracle. Raka had decided to focus on getting that feeling back once again. Maybe this time he could find some hints. He closed his eyes and let him fall asleep.

The colors were everywhere. He was again in a state where he could not think, just feel. (*Bruce Lee) But he remembered the facts. Who he was, where he was and what he was doing! This time Raka did not focus on the colors. He simply let them flow as they were flowing. He did not look at a particular color, just peeked out of the corner of his eyes.

This time Raka wanted to let the feeling continue as long as it can. He looked at himself again, a being made of lots of colors. He looked side from side, not focusing, but simply passing over things beside him. He saw his staff with which he was practicing, colors in the stick form. He tried to look at walls and ceiling, but he could not find their shapes. 'Maybe I can only see whats near me'. He tried to move his hands and feet around to get a feel of moving, he saw that the color shapes for his arms and legs moved. But somehow he did not get the feeling that he was moving. 'Why is that' he wondered. He walked where he thought was the nearest wall...and soon he found its shape. He changed direction, and reached the rooms near the door of the hall. He recognized them from their shapes. He tried opening the door to the weapons room, but he could not feel the door. On instinct, he walked on and found himself being able to go through the door.

'Amazing! Hehehe*evil grin I can go through walls!' Raka saw the weapons, and turned around repeating the experience of simply going through the door. He was smiling. Or atleast that's what he thought. He could not actually feel anything and he could not look at his face so he wasn't sure.

'Should I, hehehe?' having a thought, he tried going outside. He could simply walk through the doors now but he found a problem on the stairs. His feet just passed through the steps instead of climbing.

'What do I do now....WAIT a sec' Raka thought of hitting himself. How could he have been so dumb. Wasn't this the chance to learn how to control it, to willfully recall it! The other thing could wait. Without focusing on just one thing, which would cause him to lose it, he tried to look and remember everything around him. There were so many colors around but colors could form shapes of the objects. 'What if' and he walked straight back towards where he remembered he started from. He soon found his staff. He sat down next to it. Looking at the staff from the corner of his eyes, he tried to touch it. He could not. He tried moving his hands along the shape of the staff. He remembered how it was made, and imagined it as he moved his colorful hands.

An interesting thing occurred then. The colors of the staff and his hands, started to mix together. The more he remembered the staff and moved his hand, the more the colors mixed. Soon the colors were completely mixed and he could not tell where his hand ended and the staff began. 'Now what do I do' as he was thinking, he remembered Lady Verina setting fire to it. But he also remembered her warning of not trying to manipulate energy.

'Is it worth the risk! If I try to set it on fire.................................."AAAAAAHHHHHHH HOOOOOOOOOT!!!"

With a scream he woke up in his real body. The colorful world gone, the white walls back and for some reason an intense amount of heat coming from his hands. He looked. His right hand had been close to the staff when he had slept, but now there was a roaring fire. He had woken up from the intense heat from the fire. His right hand looked like it had burned causing him intense pain!

Raka quickly slid away from the fire, blowing on his hand. He quickly got out some canteens of water and poured them over his burnt hand to soothe the pain. After he calmed down, he looked closely at his hand. It was almost red but fortunately it did not seem like he had been burnt a lot. Maybe Lady Verina might be able to heal him and he stood up to go look for her. But as he turned around he saw her walking straight in with a very scary look. He knew that look. His mother made that when she was going to get really volcanic. Raka thought of running away, but there was only one exit to the hall.

"WHAT in the names of all the DEVILS were you DOING? DIDN'T I WARN YOU NOT TO PLAY WITH MAGIC?! Did I not clearly say you DO NOT DO any transformation without ME PRESENT!"

Raka felt storm winds blow, literally. Lady Verina's anger was transforming wind into gale speeds as it passed him. She looked at the him from top to bottom. Looking at his hand, she sighed and quickly waved her hands. Raka felt something reach inside him again and also something covering his hands.

You have been healed! Pain lessens.

All recovery rates are increased.

With the pain gone, Raka breathed a sigh of relief. Then looking up, he gulped again. The angry lady was still looking down on him.

"Speak!" one word with the force of storms.

"Um...you see it was actually an accident. I hadn't intended to transform. I was just trying to understand energy, um...I mean my world of colors and I suddenly thought that I would not want to set fire. And I woke up with a fire on the staff with my hand burnt anyway. I am sorry but I seriously had no idea that this would cause magic."

"Hmmm. Is that the truth?"

"Yes Lady Verina, I swear!"

Lady Verina looked at Raka very closely. She gazed in his eyes almost reading his innermost thoughts or that's what it felt like to Raka.

And then she sighed.

"Well seems like this was really an accident. So can you recall your perception of energy now?"

Raka thought for bit. He closed his eyes and remembered everything about the colorful world he felt. And there he was, seeing the colors again. He tried focusing on one color and it disappeared. He opened his eyes to look at Lady Verina.

"It seems I can."

"Good! Keep practicing till it becomes second nature. We can now begin your instruction of magic."

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"Hmm, I have already explained that Magic is simply applying the rules of transformation on energy. What you just did was magic. Do you remember how you went about it?"

Raka nodded remembering the mixing of colors.

"Right, now that you remember, also TRY to remember that you can only transform the energy, not change the properties of the elements. If you create fire, it will burn, you and anyone else around, if you do not protect yourself from it before hand. OR you create it some distance away. This time you set fire to the staff lying next to you which is why your hand got burnt."

Raka nodded again.

"This time you caused magic accidentally. Remembering that feeling, why don't you willingly try to ..hmm.. lets see" she went into one of the other rooms, not the weapons room, and brought out a lot of splintered wood. Seems they had a store room down here.

She put the wood a little away from where they were standing.

"Alright! Now try to set fire to this. I will be standing next to you and watching so go ahead without being afraid!"

Raka nodded. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes trying to remember the feeling again. He soon felt the colors again. He looked around in his colorful world and found the stack of wood Lady Verina had put down. Remembering not to focus, he walked to that place. The last time stuff had happened spontaneously. This time also he sat down next to it, and simply waited for the colors to mix. Pretty soon it started mixing, and then he thought 'Fire'.

He could see the colors moving like the flames of a fire slowly moving the colorful wood stack form. Out of the colorful world, he saw the actual wood stack with a roaring fire blazing.

"Good work! Seems you can use magic now!" Just then,

You have learned the skill Magic.

Focus stat has been created. Focus allows transforming energy to create magic and control over the magic but requires you to understand the process of transformation of energy. The

transformed energy available for any magic varies. The control is provided with mana.

Based on your efforts you get 10 points to Focus. This stat increases based on your actions.

Energy, Mana and Mana recovery rate attributes have been created.

Energy: 0 (increases as the energy transforms)

Mana: 30

Mana recovery rate: 1 per 10 seconds.

Perception stat has been created. Perception allows perceiving of energy around you but requires you to realize the existence of energy and the ability to sense it.

Based on your efforts you get 5 points to Perception. This stat increases based on your actions.

"Skill description, Magic."

Magic (Beginner lvl 1: 1%): Ability to perceive energy and apply magic. Requisite to learn elemental magic, magic language, magic theory and spell writing. The skill increases according to your actions and/or equips.

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"Right, so now we have to move on to the next step! Control!"

"What do you mean by that master?"

"Well you can create fire and you set fire to the stack of woods. Did you burn them one at a time or whole?"

"I think I burned them whole."

"So what if I wanted to burn only a piece of wood in the stack?"

"But wouldn't the others catch fire anyway?"

"Maybe. But burning a small piece would require a smaller amount of energy, achieving the same effect."

Raka thought that might be better. After all he had taken almost 15 mins before he started a roaring flame which consumed the entire stack in one go. But if he could only burn one small stick he could probably take less time to do it.

'So that's what the energy attribute is. It will tell me how much energy I have transformed.' All magic requires transforming energy, but transforming a smaller amount would be faster. And he could do it more easily and frequently. A larger amount of energy would be more powerful however.

"Also in a lot of situations, you do not want to apply magic on the whole area or you want to use it fast, like for attacking or defending. Precision in applying magic is essential for a good magician. For the basics, applying magic is divided into two parts. Preparation is when you are perceiving the energy. Application is when you set the rules and create magic. Transforming less energy lets you speed up preparation. Precise control helps you make the magic efficient so a small magic will be very effective. All in all mastering both parts makes you a master magician able to apply magic in an instant. For example like this..." a tiny piece of wood which had fallen off from the stack and not burnt completely rose and shot towards him like a bullet. Raka dodged and it flew past his head and fell down.

"Why don't you try again?!" Lady Verina said smiling. That same piece came towards him again but a bit slower. Raka dodged and followed it with his eyes. The piece of wood simply stopped in the air, and headed back towards him. And it continued homing on to him like a missile.

Raka kept dodging like nineteen times but Lady Verina did not seem like she had any intention of stopping. When he looked towards her, he found her laughing her ass off, enjoying his tiny bit of misery. Raka sighed.

"Alright, enough fooling around. Lets see you try this" said Lady Verina. "It will be difficult so for now try to work on limiting your energy usage. For practice you can take out some more wood from the storeroom. Make a stack like this and focus on setting fire to a small piece. Once that is done, try to do it faster. Any questions?"

"Master, before we begin, is there magic which requires speaking and some not? I saw you perform magic without a word but that day Cynthia spoke out the magic incantation?"

"Ah you noticed that did you. Well tell me, when you set fire, did you say it out loud?"

"Um I think I thought of it in my mind."

"Exactly! Magic does not require incantations. If you are able to focus your thoughts, it is enough. However for complex magic having many processes, it is far easier to give them a name. The name helps you focus on that magic. The magic Cynthia used, is small but complex. Preparation does not require any time, but the application is combining and controlling various magics. A name in that case would help her focus on the processes and provide control."

Raka thought a while hearing this difficult explanation. "So if I use the same name, can I use the same magic?"

"Hah! If only it were that simple. First of all names are only ways to help you focus, not the magic itself. Simply learning the name won't help. If you learn the magic itself, you can set some other name for it and it will still work for you. If you write down the magic and make a spell scroll, then you will be able to use that magic also. Oh that reminds me, would you like to learn magic language?"

"What is magic language, master?" Raka remembered the magic skill description.

"Ah it is the language of power. Long long ago, in ancient times when magic was discovered, there was only one language spoken everywhere. The first magicians used that language to define the energy and magic itself. They used the language to embed energy and write rules to make magic itself. It enabled the magicians to use complex magic by storing the steps on a writing surface and naming it. The same language is used even today by magicians to record their magic processes. For complex magic, it is an essential tool. It also helps others as you can make a spell scroll, magic embedded in paper. A lot of magic students learn this. So would you like to learn magic language?"

Magic Language: An ancient language which can define energy and magic. Can be used to write magic processes down on a writing surface. Writing requires you to learn the magic language alphabets and grammar. Ability to translate texts written in magic language. You can learn magic language. It is part of the Ability to learn languages skill.

Requirements: Needs the Ability to learn languages skill. Needs Magic skill.

"Yes! I would like to learn magic language. Also you mentioned something about spell scrolls. Could you teach me that as well?"

Magic language: 0%

You have learned magic language. When the learning of the language reaches 100% you will be able to use magic language.

Skill Spell Writing: Ability to use writing surfaces like paper to make scrolls of energy. Using magic language, magic can be embedded on these scrolls. The magic written has to be named. Invoking of the magic can then be performed by calling the name. It transforms the scroll's energy and hence the scroll itself can be used only one time. Magic embedded scrolls can be shared/given to magicians or non magicians for use. Lady Verina agrees to teach you the skill.

Requirements: Need to learn magic language. Make a spell scroll without help from Lady Verina.

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Raka was busy, what with learning magic, which was tough in itself and then he had to head to one of the classrooms to get lectures. Yeah he attended classes on magic language. Usually, he was taught by other instructors along with the other students, the other players.

The first time he entered the classroom, which was certainly getting noisy due to being full of people, everyone looked at him. Some even greeted him and tried talking to him. But finding him a silent type, they simply let him sit while carrying their own conversation. Well it was kinda like real life so he was glad that he didn't have to speak much. He heard people discussing the forum posts made by players who hunted and travelled. Some even reached the capital of their island. Ofcourse as the 'age limit' was higher in Ilmentia, no one had yet gone outside. He also heard of the actual hunting. The room was full of excited people who discussed the doings of other people.

And then the class started. As classes usually go, it was quite monotonous. They had to memorize strange looking symbols reciting their sounds, learning words and what else. A few people in the class had moved on to practical lessons which started after their languages class. Most people did exercise building up the body. Raka had to do that as well. Ofcourse his stamina being higher, he hardly gained any stats during these exercises. He did them just as part of warm up for eventual training with Lady Altia down in the training hall. There he was alone with her.

During one of these sessions, while he was exhausted from magic training, Lady Verina asked him to dance. Yes, that's what he heard.

"So Raka, seems like you like moving your body while your mind is tired. So instead of battle skills, wouldn't you like to dance?"

"Um Master, I don't know how to dance. I am sure I would suck at it!"

"Nonsense, dancing is a way to express joy. It makes you happy and everyone who is happy can learn dancing! So lets dance. Here is some music" and she waved her hand and brought out a large shell. She pressed it on top and it started playing music. It was a beautiful tune which Raka had never heard before.

"Here take my hand, and the other goes on my waist like this, ho ho ho~ now you look at my face and that is not my face.........

..............

Skill Dancing: A rhythmic movement to music. Can be used to express feelings and emotions. Can be used to impress ladies. Highly regarded by the nobility of the land. Lady Verina offers to teach you the skill.

Requirements: Impress Lady Verina with your dancing.

In addition to all the training he was already doing, he was now learning how to dance. Not that he could refuse in such a situation. He was clumsy even with the most basic movements. But somehow there was a smile on his lips!