Beast's Forest:

Susan sat facing Adam who, for some reason, seemed even more excited than her, listening with rapt attention as he continued his explanation about the magical system that all the races used.

She gave it her all to follow what he was saying, while also trying to remember if she went through anything like that during the night when she got abducted by those spiders. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to remember anything about that.

"Each gate gives access to more and more spells," continued Adam as she tried to pull herself back from those thoughts and concentrate on him again, it would be annoying for both of them if he had to repeat all that he said because her thoughts wandered away as he was explaining, "each gate holds all the spells that an individual can learn and use while they are at that gate, they all would be floating there, manifesting as shining spheres."

Done speaking, he waved his hands theatrically with a big smile on his face, making a blinding white light flash out, surprising Susan who closed her eyes in shock.

"Ahh!" Without her control, a weak scream left her mouth, as she shrunk back with her heartbeats increasing.

She felt her heart contract as the blood left her face, leaving behind it a chill that travelled through all her body. The first reaction she had to Adam's casting of that spell was shrinking back in fear, but straight away she felt a weird and confusing sense of ease and security.

It felt as if the bright light from the spell woke a part of her memory that she had forgotten, the fear and horror she felt weren't from the light itself, they were just linked to it, as if seeing the light opened the way for her feelings to make themselves apparent.

"Are you alright? What happened?" Adam asked seriously as he walked towards her.

"I'm... I'm alright," she answered with short breaths, "I just got surprised because of the bright light... I simply wasn't expecting it..."

Not wanting to be more of a nuisance again, she said that with the calmest voice she could muster.

Adam gave her a deep look for a few seconds and she returned it with a determined and strong expression of her own. Finally, Adam looked away, shaking his head as he apologised:

"Sorry for that, I should have taken your reaction and what you have just been through into account, should we stop for a bit? Do you need a minute?"

"I said I'm fine," she grumbled, a bit irritated, "let's just continue, there are no problems at all."

Scratching his head, Adam sighed as he lifted his hand in resignation:

"If you say so," with that said he turned around and spread his arms apart, "tsk, the dramatic flare for this has passed but whatever, here look, this is what the space behind the gates and inside each floor seems like."

With his words guiding her, Susan finally had the chance to notice that the space around them was much different than it was before, flinching a bit in shock at how she didn't notice it, and how maybe Adam's suggestion for rest wasn't so bad after all, alas, it was already too late. She just gritted her teeth and went with it, she won't be getting back on her words so soon.

Right then, it was almost impossible to recognise the cave's original appearance. Rolling and flowing milky white mist covered everything in sight, limiting visibility and making the cave seem bigger than it should have been, even under her feet there was nothing but fog. In this fog, different sized and coloured spheres were floating peacefully.

The sight in front of her made Susan feel as if she was inside an endless space, with her mouth opening up unconsciously in shock.

"Well, at least this was a reaction I anticipated," she heard Adam murmur from the side.

She turned towards him with a light glare, Adam could be quite irritating sometimes. Adam on the other hand just chuckled at her glare and shrugged as he continued:

"As you must have noticed, the dominant colour here in this space is milky white, that's because it's the colour of my mana, and all the livitus', and if I'm not mistaken it will be the most prominent colour in your space too, even though that's just a guess.

"Anyway, back to what I was talking about, as I said spells that an individual can learn would appear as floating spheres inside the space of the gate that they are in right then. As you can see the spheres here are of different colours and sizes, they can be divided into three categories, The ones with the fewest number ones are the biggest and brightest milky white spheres," he said as he waved his arms to a big eye-catching white sphere, that was a distance away from them, "these represent the spells that only livitus or hybrids with the blood of livitus flowing through them can use, people with no links to the livitus at all won't be able to use them no matter what, you can say that they are purely racial spells."

"The second category is made of these..." Continued Adam as he made the big sphere disperse into milky white wisps that floated towards her. Before having a smaller sphere that had the same colour, just not as bright, float towards him, "they are smaller spheres that still have the same colour yet smaller sizes and dimmer brightness, they don't have specific sizes but they would never be as big or as bright as the ones from the first category. These represent the spells that are the livitus', yet individuals from the other races can still learn them."

like before, done speaking, Adam waved his hand lightly and had the smaller sphere disperse into wisps of energy that also went and started circling Susan, joining the wisps from before as a small cyclone started revolving around her.

Susan swapped at it with a bit of annoyance as she tried to concentrate on what Adam was saying.

"And last but not least, the third type," ten different coloured and sized spheres or so came and started circling Adam as he was speaking, "these spheres represent the different spells from other races that have no link to yours, they are basically the other races' second category of spells."

With a clap, Adam had the different spheres circling him disperse into the same wisps of energy as before and head towards Susan again.

The amount was so big this time that she closed her eyes in surprise, opening them again, she noticed that everything around her returned to normal, she was still sitting in the cave and Adam was still standing in front of her as he regarded her with a light smile.

Rolling her eyes at him, she stood up before saying:

"So those are all the types of existing spells?"

"Somehow yes," he answered as he shrugged, "there is another part but it doesn't interest us much here, I only told you about those you will face inside the castle and source, the fourth type is the spells that don't have any link to any race, and they are usually just some extremely simple spells, so I didn't mention them."

"Oh," she nodded as her eyes moved all over the cave without focusing on anything, "so that's how all of this works... But what about me? How do you think that I'll be able to use magic?"

"Well, we will try the usual method first of course," Adam scratched his chin as he thought loudly, "we will try having you locate your source..."

She frowned slightly as she heard what he said, from his explanation she was able to find out that Sources were things all the races that could use magic had, but humans didn't have such an ability which meant that that experiment won't probably work.

"Hey! What's with that look?" Noticing her expression, Adam added, "I know that this seems like something that won't work for sure, but you're a human that was able to cast a spell, we've left the realm of common sense a while ago, so let's just try this and see how it goes from there."

"I... Sigh, okay," she answered as she massaged her forehead with a heavy sigh, she had nothing to say to that.

"Great, first sit down with your legs crossed and back straight," He clapped his hands as he sat facing her, demonstrating the right way to do so, "sources have a reaction of some kind with the mana inside an individual's body, and that is, as I already said, what people from other races search for when they try to enter their source for the first time. I doubt you will find something like that but we will try anyway. And don't worry, even if it won't, I have something in mind that has a higher chance of working."

Susan took his words in and breathed deeply as she sat straighter with her legs crossed. She found the position a bit uncomfortable but she didn't complain about that and just released the breath she had been holding, before nodding to Adam with a determined gaze, she was ready for this experiment.

"Due to your ability to absorb mana, I don't know if you have any coursing through your body, which means that this might not work, but let's give this a try first, and don't worry if it doesn't work," Adam said as if to comfort her.

"What you have to do is try and concentrate your senses inside you, searching for mana. Take deep breaths and try to empty your mind, just focus on my voice and your inner self, let everything else fall away..."

Adam's voice was soft and gentle. It made her body relax. Loosening up muscles she hadn't even noticed how tight they were. She tried not to think about that too much and to empty her mind of all distractions. Surprisingly, she found doing so easy to an astonishing degree, and soon enough, she found herself in a state she never had been in before.

Everything around her fell away as if she fell into a deep lukewarm lake, with everything around her becoming silent and still, as if all had disappeared.

Susan felt a sense of excitement start to blossom as she entered such a state and hurried to calm herself down before starting to search for the Source.

She searched and searched and searched, yet, she wasn't able to find anything. No source, no mana reacting with it, nothing, just an empty still void.

The longer time passed while she was in such a state, the harder she found keeping her emotions in check, the idea of failing and not finding anything, the impatience and fear, all those started sanding waves through the still void, and finally, the small island she was wasn't able to hold on any longer and she was thrown out.

As if a newborn taking their first breath, she gasped for air as her eyes opened wide and her back met the wall as she tilted back.

She felt weak and tired as if she had been running for hours and not trying to meditate. She had no idea why she felt like that and so she looked at Adam searching for an answer.

"So? How did it go?" Adam instead seemed to be more interested in what she had been through and he asked in confused excitement.

"I... Phew, I didn't succeed," she said while panting.

Adam frowned at her words before starting with a somehow hesitant voice:

"For a short while there it seemed as if you got it, as if you had got into the state that would have led you to interact with your Source, but that didn't last long and you soon left that..."

"I couldn't find it," she interrupted as she tried to sit straight again, "I felt this special state that you're talking about but other than that, nothing, I felt nothing. I lost my cool and control over my emotions and thoughts..."

Her grumbling and annoyance soon turned to a big smile as she looked at Adam, it was true that she didn't succeed, but it was a start, she was sure that it was only a matter of time before she saw results.

"Huh, that's interesting..." Murmured Adam before shaking his head and continuing, "don't worry, your success is already more than enough and more than what I had expected. Now, all we have to do is find your source... Or what corresponds to it for you. And I have an idea about how to do that fo..."

Susan listened with interest to what Adam was saying, while she considered what was going to happen next, but suddenly, and without any warnings, Adam disappeared from in front of her without leaving any traces behind.

She froze for a bit then looked all around as a bad feeling bloomed inside of her, as expected Adam wasn't inside the cave.

She staggered to the mouth of the cave fighting her tiredness and weakness just to realize that a semi-transparent barrier had covered it.

Straining her eyes, she was able to make out the far-away shape of Adam who was being pulled through the forest by several long white arms.

He was chasing something.

~~~~~~~~~~

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