Chapter 3: What Makes People OP?

What is mana? Some might say it’s the essence of magic, the energy that supplies skills, a magical essence that exists around the world.

However, Anwar says, mana is the thing that makes people OP!

Filled with the desire to become stronger, similar to the evil people he vaguely remembers from the stories he read, he decided to try and find mana - following Elwood’s words. Speaking of Elwood, Anwar thought he’d never see her again after he left the forest, unfortunately…

“Hey, young one. Young one! Young one~! YOUNG ONE.”

“IT’S ANWAR,” Anwar yelled back, getting up to go inside the barn. Okay, let’s do this again. Find the mana, find the mana, find the-

“You’re doing it wrong,” Elwood pointed out.

“Then how do I do it?” he asked, slightly frustrated.

“I told you to concentrate, not to think about trying to find it,” Elwood, once again, pulled out the blue flame of mana and blew it rudely in his face. “This feeling.”

“So… I just wait ‘til I get that feeling?”

“Yes, young one-”

“Anwar.”

“Alright then,” Anwar, lied on the hay while closing his eyes. He begun to concentrate and focusing on finding that cool-to-touch feeling Elwood’s mana gave him. While doing this, however, his thoughts who sometimes stray away…

I wonder what I should make for dinner? Oh, wait.

That reminds me, what’s D*sney?

What’s h*rseland?

He didn’t know how long he continued in this state, with Elwood floating around and calling his name, until he felt a small, cool-feeling. It was deep within the pit of his stomach.

“ELWOOD. QUICK- WHAT NOW?” Anwar panicked, unsure what to do once he found the feeling.

“Wow, it’s only been years,” she yawned. “Anyway, try grabbing it and stuff.”

Stuff? Anwar frowned, but closed his eyes once more.

“Wait. How do I grab it?” To which Elwood made a grabbing motion with her hand. I’ll just visualize it, Anwar frowned.

So, he imagined his han- hoof. He imagined a hoof grabbing it. He suddenly felt a something hard go against his hoof. Wait, I can actually feel it? Anwar felt surprised.

Anwar tried grabbing it, but it only moved around his hoof. He sighed in frustration. How does a horse grab things? Let’s try this…

He raised both hooves and tried catching it together. Yes, both hooves. He probably looked like an idiot. It moved around his hooves like the elusive snake it was. Anwar growled in frustration and in one last attempt, quickly stuck his hooves together, successfully grabbing it.

The small, cold area spread throughout his body, starting from his chest to the rest of his body, even down to his… private area. However, the nice, cool feeling did not retain and a burst of warmth replaced it. The warmth soon raised in temperature, burning his body - just like when he first recieved it.

“WAAAH!”

“Oh, it looks like you’ve found it,” Elwood said casually, picking her nails. She didn’t even spare him a glance as he rolled around in pain. “Hmm.. it looks like I’ll have to shut you up, before that silly elf comes back.”

A small dome of earth covered Anwar and concealed the neighs and yelps he gave out.

“Better,” Elwood commented, giving herself a small smile and a pat on the back.

…

After an hour or two, the pain finally stopped. He twitched on the ground, panting from the left-over effects from the pain.

“D-do I have to go through that again?” he asked, trembling with fear.

“That’s for me to know, and you to find out,” she grinned cheekily. “Now get up, horse, before the elf finds you twitching around.”

“His name is Elwyn, and he’s not just an elf! He’s the elf I somewhat dislike!” Anwar defended, suddenly feeling sensitive to everything. The pain must’ve gotten to him.

“Stop being a wuss,” Elwood glared. “Get up.”

Anwar sighed and stood up, his legs trembling.

“Stop trembling,” she snapped.

“I can’t help it,” he complained, wanting to hold a tantrum.

Just as she said, Elwyn came walking around, whistling a random tune that came from the top of his head.

“Good evening, Anwar!” Elwyn smiled, bowing down to him.

That’s right, you better bow to me. In fact, eat the dirt, Anwar snorted. Elwyn took that as a greeting.

“Hey, did I ever tell you about the Kingdom of Cyrus?” asked Elwyn, grabbing his pitchfork and working around Anwar. “Apparently they’ve chosen a hero to defeat the Demon Lord. Supposedly, she’s a girl - a very beautiful one, at that.”

Demon Lord? Anwar listened more carefully.

Some days, Elwyn would come in and tell him boring stories or things that occurred to him a few days ago. Other times, like now, he would give important information to him.

“Yep, and now the other human kingdom, Hartwin, is planning on summoning their own hero.” Elwyn babbled on. “Unfortunately, it’ll take them 2 years to summon that hero. They plan on training him for 1 year - that’s when Cyrus is going to let their hero leave.”

Elwyn laughed, “oh, it looks like I’m boring you-”

No, no, no, no, no!

“Shall I tell you about the time I accidentally punched Sheila-” the other elf “- in the face?”

Anwar groaned, he’d much rather hear about the world outside of this stupid barn.

Currently, what he’ve gathered so far from Elwyn, is that he’s in a world called Solum - a place full of magic and mystical creatures. Besides elves, they had the standard humans, dwarves, beastmen, vampires, and other races he didn’t care about.

Emphasis on the ‘didn’t’.

Also, dragons existed in this world. He wanted to meet one, but he knew that the dragon would kill him. In the movies, which he could recall, he always saw a dragon carrying away a horse or a sheep. And now that he was horse, well… he’d rather not face that experience.

“This guy is annoying,” Elwood frowned.

“Wait! Can’t he see you?!” Anwar looked at Elwood with worry.

“Please,” she snorted. “I’m a goddess.” Could’ve fooled me. “I can choose who can see me or not see me.”

“I see,” Anwar replied dryly.

“...Anyway, I gotta go, Anwar. Bye!” Elwyn leaned in to kiss Anwar.

OH GOD, Anwar quickly reacted and turned around, kicking Elwyn in the face. He was out cold.

“Pfft- AHAHAHAHA!” Elwood laughed, pointing at the knocked-out Elwyn. Tears rolled down her face as she stared at a star-strucked Anwar.

“H-he tried to kiss me. It was self-defense. Right,” Anwar tried convincing himself of the murder he just committed.

“Elwyn, I thought- OH MY SOLUM! WHAT HAPPENED?!” Sheila came in, rushing towards Elwyn’s body. “O-OH MY… Oh, he’s still alive. Nevermind.” Sheila looked up,” oh! Good evening, Anwar. Did you do this to daddy?”

Anwar snorted, his shock quickly went over his head, who’s daddy?

“Well, good job!” Sheila gave him the thumbs up. “Punishment for being a player,” she muttered, dragging the body out of the barn. Before leaving, she looked around, a confused look on her face.

“Anwar, did you bring back any friends with you?” she reached her arm out, feeling the air.

“Ooh,” Elwood clapped, wiping the tears from her eyes. “This elf has good perception.”

“Her name is Sheila,” Anwar said.

“They all look the same anyway,” Elwood replied with ease.

“Racist.”

“I guess not?” Sheila frowned. “Oh, well.” She continued to drag Elwyn’s body out of the barn. Anwar watched the couple until they were out of sight.

“What do I do now?” Anwar asked, as if nothing happened. Mana coursed through his veins and every particle of his being.

“What am I? Your teacher?” Elwood shot.

“Well, why else are you here?” Anwar shot back.

“Hm… well,” Elwood recollected her memories. “I saw a horse get shot down pitifully by a monster, only to care more about the rabbit, who left him in that situation, getting killed. It was quite funny, so I decided to bless him with mana so I can entertain myself as I watched him crawl in pai-”

“I get it,” Anwar sighed. “Can you teach me?”

“Try recalling the feeling of mana and concentrating it in one spot,” Elwood explained. “This could take up to an hour to… maybe… 10 years? It depends on your affinity with magic. I wouldn’t doubt yourself too much, though. After all, I was the one to bless you.”

Anwar gasped, “don’t tell me… I’ll get crappy nature abilities, too-?”

Elwood karate chopped his head. “No! As a divine horse, you’ll have a different set of abilities.”

“Ouch,” Anwar muttered, unable to rub his head. He’ll end up punching himself.

“Now go meditate,” Elwood huffed.

“Yes, mother.”

Anwar closed his eyes, trying to recall the coolness of the mana. However, everytime he thought about it, he stopped mid-way, afraid of the burning feeling. It was like he had the yips for magic. This continued on for a few days.

Every day, he got closer and closer without stopping. Albeit some would tell him to just concentrate it already, he would tell them he was making progress, despite being slow. Slow and steady, his new motto. Well, not really. His motto was ‘feel the fear, but do it anyway.’ However, this didn’t apply to magic.

That pain was out-of-this-world.

Elwood sighed as she watched the small horse meditate. At least he was faster than… 70 percent of the world. However, he would’ve been able to achieve his goals by now, if he wasn’t so afraid of the pain.

She must confess, most people in the world didn’t feel pain every time they leveled up their mana. However, Anwar was a special case. She saw a large amount of sleeping potential in him, and she.. well, awoke it forcefully. If someone didn’t wake it up, who would? He was a horse with no clue of magic.

The pain wasn’t due to his mana being forced awake. It was the fact that his mana was unusually large and required a lot of time to level up. Most of the time, the pain passed by so quickly, a person wouldn’t realize it was there.

And so, she decided to tell Anwar this. It was up to him, whether or not he would want to feel the pain in return for getting stronger.

“What?! You should’ve said so sooner!” Anwar frowned. “I was more afraid of being unprepared, but at least I know when the pain will happen.”

“Anyway, as soon as you’re able to concentrate and control mana, you’ll be given a set of abilities called gifts. Well.. one gift. Every time you level up your mana, you’ll be given another gift. The maximum amount of gifts a person can receive is 6. However, upon leveling up your mana after receiving your gifts, it will strengthen them. So don’t get lazy, got it?” Elwood explained. “A full-fledged magician… er, divine beast… will have all of their gifts. Right now, you’re at the bottom of the chain. You’re even lower than those elves.”

Anwar froze at this. Weaker than Elwyn? But he fainted in one kick!

“Don’t underestimate those elves,” Elwood scolded him, flicking his ear. “Now start meditating.”

“W-wait! Let me prepare myself for the pain,” Anwar inhaled deeply, closing his eyes.

“Alright, I’ll just wait another millennia until you’re done,” Elwood replied cooly.

He grunted. “It’s a steady progress. Steady!”

“Yeah, yeah.”

__________

Stellar's Box

Much longer chappie today. :) [Finally picking up the pace, too... well, ish.]

Also, what I wrote on my other ff:

I'll be slowing down updates/writing since I was stressed out about my other novel (posting 7-13 pages a day) and decided to stop since it was eating up my summer. Also, I'm starting my online courses for summer (gaaah, I hate it, but since I refused to do it during school year, I'm stuck with it now...), so I won't be able to write as much.

However, it'll probs take me a weak and half to finish (if I do 4-5 hours a day),..

ANYWAY, COMMENT BELOW ON WHAT YOU THINK/GIVE FEEDBACK, It'd be great if you told what you want to see more of. c:

Alsooooooo, ta-dah. A different (sort of) magic system! :) I wanted everyone to have a specialized power to themselves, it makes everyone more unique and defined in a way.

Side note: 1st gif is from one-punch man (w/ an edited horse head). 2nd gif is from a random video of a horse kicking a lady.

EDIT: OKAY, SO THERE IS SMALL MISTAKE OR NOT AS EXPLAINED CONCEPT IN THIS CHAPTER. ANWAR WILL NOT GET AN ABILITY EVERY TIME HE LEVELS UP, THAT WAS MY MISTAKE.