Chapter 8: Magic Training!

“Are you sure it’s supposed to be like this?” Anwar asked with a nervous voice.

“Yes, perfect,” Elwood said.

Currently, Anwar was somehow, somehow able to sit on his hind legs, with his hooves up in the air.

“Well, the meditating technique I’m about to tell you about is supposed to have you sit upright, but unfortunately you’re a horse, so… this will do,” Elwood nodded her head in satisfaction.

“I feel ridiculous,” Anwar commented.

“Nobody cares. Anyway, this technique is very powerful and will allow you to expand your the amount of mana you can use by absorbing and releasing it- the sooner you use this technique, the better it is for you. Thankfully, you’re only level 3.”

“Don’t all meditating skills allow you to do that-?”

“Shh!” Elwood hushed him. “This one allows you to do it at a faster rate, it will also absorb and release pure mana- rather than the gross ones humans absorb.” Gross ones?

“What now?” Anwar sighed.

“Close your eyes.” He did as she complied. “Now, slowly breathe in and out. Remember how your mana felt? Try searching for that.”

Anwar remembered the coolness of the mana, how it reminded him of mint. He then felt the same cool-as-mint feeling surrounding him. Then the mana slowly started entering in and out of him. As time went by, it began to enter in and out of him at a rapid pace.

“Hm?” Elwood frowned. “He already managed to do it?”

Anwar couldn’t remember how long this process took, but by the time he opened his eyes, it was dark outside. Crap! Ayda!

“I must go!” Anwar yelled and ran back home, where he found a worried-strucken Ayda and a stern-faced Zander.

“It’s Anwar!” Ayda yelled, tears rolling down her face. She ran up to him and hugged his neck tightly, at the same time, he felt the oxygen in him escape and a pair of arms forcibly stopping him from breathing.

Ugh.. is this how I die? In the arms of my supposed master? Anwar let out a few cut-off neighs, to which Zander took notice.

“Uh… Ayda?” Zander looked at the dying Anwar with worry. “Ayda? You might kill him- Ayda!” Anwar turned purple, before Ayda, surprised, let go of him.

“Oh, sorry, Anwar! I was just so worried,” she pouted. “Where did you run off to? This is the longest you’ve been gone!”

Maybe I shouldn’t have returned, Anwar muttered, as he pushed her away with his face.

“Aw, Anwar. You missed me, too?” Ayda sighed and hugged his face, concealing his nose and restricting his mouth. Again, he couldn’t breathe.

Devil! She’s doing this on purpose! Once again, he turned purple before she let go, wiping a tear from her face.

“Let’s get you back,” Ayda smiled happily. Meanwhile, Zander looked at the horse with worry, a few beads of sweat rolling down his face.

“...Does she know?” Zander mumbled under his breath.

…

Once again, Anwar found himself at his personal clearing, learning magic from Elwood.

“So, you’ve already mastered meditating, huh?” Elwood frowned. What else should she teach him? He doesn’t have any attack-based powers, so it was useless to have him fight now. Plus, she didn’t want a repeat of the mongrel situation, that was horrid.

“Did I? Was that it?” Anwar frowned. He was sure there’d be more to it than just that.

“Yes,” Elwood sighed. “Well, since you don’t have any attack-based powers, I can’t help you on that.”

“Can’t you help me level up my skills, then?” he asked.

“Unfortunately no, it all depends on your level, after all. Of course, the levels you receive your skills differ from person to person, and the higher level you need to advance a skill, the more powerful it is.”

“Do I just meditate then? How will I level up? How do I level up?”

“Leveling up is the act of either gaining experience and becoming stronger mentally or becoming stronger physically or magically. Well, meditating is one way to level up, although it’s a bit slower than the other methods, such as defeating monsters and earning experience,” Elwood said. Elwood frowned and placed a finger on her chin, thinking of ways to help him. “Ah! How about, mana manipulation?”

“Eh? Can I really do that?” Anwar questioned.

“Hm, if you’re alright with it taking a slot of one of your skills, then yes. Although, mana manipulation isn’t too uncommon, it’s still a unique ability that’s extremely helpful in combat and can even help make your skills that are mana-based stronger,” Elwood explained. “There’s many reasons to learn how to manipulate mana.”

“It’ll take a skill slot?” Anwar thought about his current skills. [/i]Well, it must certainly be more useful than metamagic and info with a question mark.[/i] “Alright, teach me this mana manipulation skill.”

Elwood grinned, “good.” She began to explain to him the concept of mana. First of all, mana is, basically, the energy that fuels mana-based skills, which were all skills that weren’t mental-based or spirit-based, such as elemental power. Vita, however, is a magical essence that’s the uncondensed version of mana, living creatures can’t use and it exists in the atmosphere. It’s too strong for living creatures to use and, if one were to use it, their skill would become stronger than them and they would lose control of it. Albeit, it’s not possible to use vita, anyway.

Every magic-user has a Mana Core, Anwar’s was a … sword-shaped core. The mana core was the “organ” that allowed a person or beast to interact and “use” vita. The person or beast themselves don’t use vita, but rather their core processes the vita and transforms it into usable energy known as mana that living creatures can use. To manipulate mana is to actively control your mana core to process vita and transform it into a usable, physical form.

“Okay, and how do we do that?” Anwar asked, slightly giddy. Manipulating mana sounds awesome! It sounds like a skill that main characters would use!

“First, you must train your mana core to become stronger. It’s like a muscle, the stronger it is, the more you can control it better, something like that,” Elwood said.

“And how do I train it?”

“I was getting there. In order to train your mana core, you have to exhaust yourself of your mana every single day-”

“Hold on a second… It’s incredibly tiring to do that! How am I supposed to exhaust my mana, anyways? I don’t have skills that can use mana!” Anwar frowned.

“Give me a second,” she glared. “Since you’re a special case, in order to exhaust yourself of mana, you must attempt to manipulate mana, despite not being able to. Trust me, it will exhaust you.”

“Is it painful?” Anwar asked.

“Hm… no, but the exhaustion will knock you out,” Elwood simply said. “Which is why many don’t train their cores this way, as they’ll be knocked out… for a long period of time and be unable to recover their mana for a few days. Of course, the more you do it this way, the time you’ll be knocked out and the time it takes to recover will decrease.”

“Hah?! Isn’t that dangerous?!” Anwar exclaimed.

“No,” Elwood grinned. “Since I’ll be teaching you a way to recover your mana.” Anwar felt a bead of sweat roll down his face. “And since I’ll be teaching you this, as soon as you exhaust yourself, you will recover your mana and exhaust yourself again… over and over again.”

“Can I say no-”

“No.”

“...”

“Shall we get started?”

Might as well.

Anwar closed his eyes and asked, “how do I ‘attempt’ to control mana?”

“Easy, remember how you first grabbed mana in the beginning?” Anwar vaguely remembered doing that, as it was more than 6 months ago. “This time, after ‘grabbing’ mana, you’ll try and moving it to your will.” When it came to explaining how to do things, Elwood, once again, fell short.

“I’ll try,” Anwar sighed. Although he didn’t understand what it meant to will it, he’ll still try anyways.

Anwar recalled the cool-as-mint sensation he felt whenever mana surrounded him. Lately, it’s been getting easier and easier to bring forth mana. Maybe it’s due to meditating? Although he just started training his magic just yesterday, he could already feel the results weighing in.

So, do I just turn it or something? How do I will it? Do I ask it to move or something? Anwar sighed. What Elwood meant wasn’t exactly “grabbing” the mana but being able to gather it in one place, which is what he sort of did last time. He gathered the mana in his hands, which then spread to the rest of his body like a plague.

Of course, when he first did it, it truly felt as if he was “grabbing” the mana, since it went in his hooves and everything, but now that he’s got a better understanding of mana, it meant that he moved the energy to one point of his body.

Once he gathered the energy to his hooves, Anwar tried moving it elsewhere. However, it stubbornly refused to move from his hooves.

Why my hooves, out of all things? Why not my forehead, or something? It’d make sense, since it wasn’t facing the ground 24/7. How would I release a mana attack from my hooves, anyways? Do I get on my hind legs and start casting spells that way? The visual thought of him walking on his hind legs caused him to sigh. At times like this, it sure would be helpful to be human, Anwar thought.

When Anwar tried moving the energy elsewhere, he started feeling slightly tired. Is this what she means by controlling it? I’ll try moving it more forcibly now. Now, with more force, Anwar tried moving the energy to his forehead instead.

“It’s not working,” Anwar sighed.

“What isn’t?” asked Elwood.

“The mana isn’t movi-”

The horse dropped to the floor suddenly, as if he were knocked out rudely.

“Liar, it just did,” Elwood cackled.

…

Anwar woke up, his body feeling sore and thoroughly exhausted, as if he couldn’t move a single muscle. Well, I guess I succeeded?

“Good morning,” Elwood grinned, her eyes moist and her cheeks red. It’s clear that she’s been laughing for quite awhile. “You’ve been asleep for 5 hours, not too bad. Maybe it’s because you’re a beast?”

“What!” Anwar felt shock course through him. The sky, thankfully, wasn’t too dark, but the sun was setting.

“I’ll teach you how to recover your mana tomorrow. For now, your… master, pfft-” Elwood coughed to cover-up her laughter. “Is waiting for you, so- ahah- sorry, see you tomorrow!” Then, in an instant, the red-faced Elwood disappeared.

Anwar raced back home, to see a worried Ayda and Zander. Ayda was worried that Anwar died from something horrible or ran away, while Zander was worried that Ayda would accidentally kill Anwar from suffocation.

“Anwar!” Ayda yelled and ran up to him once again. She embraced his neck and squeezed tightly. “I missed you so much! Why do you stay out so late? It worries me.”

Zander bit his nails, carefully watching Anwar, incase something bad happened.

Ugh! Not this again… Can’t.. breathe…

Anwar dropped to the ground. Ayda, panicked, held him up- by the neck.

“W-what!” Ayda let out, “Father! Anwar- he-!”

“Yes, child.” Zander sighed, “I know. He’s just exhausted, so just… carefully let go of him and-”

“B-but, he needs me,” Ayda pouted.

“Shh, just let him rest. I’ll drop him off, so… let go of him carefully.”

“Alright,” Ayda sighed in defeat. As soon as she let him go, Anwar felt oxygen enter his lungs once more.

My savior… Anwar thought, staring at Zander with new-found respect and affection.

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Stellar's Box

Alright, so I have something to confess. Yes, I was busy (I had a few exams and tests these last few months), but at the same time, I couldn't find the motivation or juices to write something worth-awhile for this story. My writer's block just gets worse and worse as the story continues. x.x;

Here is a recap, since I haven't written a chapter in awhile:

RECAP

Abilities/Mana

Skills

- Each person can only have 6 skills

- There are (from what you know) mana-based skills, mental-based skills, and spirit-based skill

* You will earn skills based on your level, i.e. a person levels to level 24 and gains his 3rd skill, etc.

** ANWAR WILL NOT EARN A SKILL OR ADVANCE IT EVERY SINGLE LEVEL (THIS WAS NOT EXPLAINED WELL ENOUGH/CAUSED A MISUNDERSTANDING IN CHAPTER 4)

Mana

- Pure mana, or the uncondensed form of it, is called Vita, it can't be used by humans.

- Energy that fuels mana-based skills (not spirit-based or mental-based skills)

- Mana will allow people to live longer and retain their youthful appearance

Mana Core

- Processes and transforms vita into a usable energy called mana

Character Recap

Anwar: The protagonist of the story, yay! A human-turned-white-horse that has weak skills and is unfortunately (painfully) fortunate. Currently has two skills: metamagic and info?.

Elwood: The Goddess of Nature; "granted" Anwar the ability to use mana. A beautiful lady with long, green hair tied in a loose braid, brown eyes, and milky white skin.

Elwyn: An elf with blonde hair and good looks; he tames animals and is somewhat hated by Anwar.

Sheila: Elwyn's wife and the other animal tamer, has good perception.

Ayda: Anwar's "master." A 14-year-old half-elf with red hair and daring, green eyes. She will soon become an adult in 2 months (age 15). Due to the fact that she's a half-elf, she experiences unpleasant treatment from others, aside from her father, Sheila, and Zander.

Zander: Ayda's father and a warrior. Has long, blonde hair and striking green eyes.

King Kyros: The King of Cyrus. Has lush, black hair and golden-like amber eyes.

Gabriel: A tall, burly man with thick curls. A warrior who is one of the captains in Cyrus's military regime.

Silence: Chief of Information of Cyrus. Has black hair and eyes, as well as pale skin.

Places

Kingdom of Cyrus: A powerful kingdom that opposes the kingdom of Hartwin; their hero died and is now searching for a new one.

Kingdom of Hartwin: A powerful kingdom that opposes the Kingdom of Cyrus; is attempting to summon a hero.