“Hybrid? Is that bad?”, I ask in a worried voice. After being told of my massive potential, I didn't want to find out that I had some bad talent. That would just be one big downer.

Jakob laughed at that, for a few seconds, before turning slightly serious.

“Time will tell. Some Hybrids get bad combinations, while others get overpowered ones. The only way to know is to test it out. Let's go do that, right now”, he said, getting up from his comfortable chair.

I get out of my own and quickly follow.

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We walk down the hallways, the decorations changing with each of them we pass. The first, where we came from, was decorated to look like something from the Victorian ages. The second was something from… a long time ago. Maybe, it was Georgian, but I wasn't sure. The third hallway was even weirder. The changed, originally being stone and now being timber. The fourth, the fifth, and the sixth hallway changed, each time showing something new and unique.

It was exciting to look at, not knowing what came next.

“So, is it some architecture design or something?”, I said, taking a second to realize I had said that out loud.

Jakob looked at me, surprised by my voice. I had generally been quiet doing my whole time here, so he wasn't really accustomed to my voice.

“Its a long story, but I´ll just give you a recap. When we were building this place, we had arguments about how it should look. Some wanted the old medieval look, while others wanted something more modern. After weeks of discussion, we simply to decided to have the outside look modern, while having the inside changed every few years. I believe that most of this place should look more on the modern side”, Jakob said, continuing to walk without stopping for a second. I didn't either.

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“How are we going to test this again?”, I ask for the umpteenth time. We were currently in a large room. It was completely empty, with not even a single light switch. All of the surfaces were made of a bright, hard material. When I asked what it was, Jakob said it was a magical alloy.

Jakob sighed to himself. While he was slightly irritated by my continued questioning, he did understand my thoughts behind it. If he was thrown into an unknown world and was told that he had some sort of power, he would be damn sure it wouldn't kill him, before even trying it out.

“Fine. I have made you drink a potion that doubles the amount of mana you can have, which is called your Mana-reserves. To test out what your magic does, in a safe environment, we have put ourselves in this room. Its durability has been tested numerous times, with not a single scratch ever left behind. I am here to stop anything from happening to you. If anything even appears to damage you, I will forcibly cancel your connection to your Mana-reserves. Did you get that?”

I nod to this question. We had been going over this for some time, and I knew it was my doing. I had been delaying this test for as long as possible. What if this summoning thing was all a misunderstanding? My neighbor had the looks, and body figure, for this kind of thing. Maybe the summoning spell had teleported me instead of him? What if I wasn't actually gifted with any magical ability? While it was definitive that my greatest talents were Soul and Summoning, there was still the chance that I had garbage talent in them.

´No better way to know than to try´, one of the voices in my head said. I hadn't heard it before. Sounded like a middle-aged man. ´I would more say old man, but that's just my opinion´, I hear the sweet voice say. More old, I suppose. But, the man was right. Had to try to be sure.

“I'm ready”, I said, my eyes full of pure determination.

“Good”, Jakob said, smiling. “Too start, we need to get the mental imaging out of the way. To do that, we need you to have seen your Mana-reserves to imagine them. For that, you have to look within yourself. To do that, you need to-”

What was next was ten minutes of me, trying and failing to get this inner eye to work. While I could look within myself in under five minutes, the image was all blurry. I needed it to be clear. So I spent the next five minutes refining this technique, making the image crystal clear.

I looked at my pool in disgust. While the one half was natural and beautiful, the other… wasn't. This was the product of drinking the potion. It gave the Mana-reserves bigger size, but it wasn't pure. The temporary half looked artificial and disgusting. A clear knock-off product of the original. I tried to ignore that, though. I just needed a mental picture of it.

After forcing myself to cram every single detail of it into my memory, I left the inner eye within myself. What I saw upon opening my real eyes, was Jakob looking in surprise.

“Hm. It usually takes over twenty minutes to do it for someone's first time. Yet, you did it in half that amount. Impressive”, Jakob said. “Let's move on”

“Now, that you have gained a mental image of you Mana-reserves, it time to put it to good use. Think about your Mana-reserves. That deep blue pool of energy. Think about all the small strands its composed of. Try to move a couple of those strands… Yes, yes, you're doing very well. This time, try to guide those strands through your body. First the shoulder… then the elbow… yes, very good. Then, direct it down to the palm of your hand. Be sure to have it pointing at somewhere different than yourself”

I did as he said, and out it went. It wasn't the flashiest thing in the world. Just a simple ball of light. The color being a clouded green. While it wasn't much, it was enough to completely amaze me.

I did that. I created that ball of light. With my mana. That I have…. This is awesome!

“Well done!”, Jakob said. “From the color of the light, it does seem like a mix of the Summoning and Soul magic. In their purest forms, all Talents have different colors associated with them. While some may be very similar, no one is precisely the same. The Soul talent is quite unique in the way that it doesn't have a color. It is… colorless. Simply see through. The Summoning talent, though, is normal. It has a pure green color to it. When you mix those two talents together, you get a clouded green color.

Now that we the basics covered, we should move on to the more advanced. Instead of just summoning pretty lights, let's instead try to summon a creature. With you being a Hybrid, though, there's only a fifty-fifty percent chance of it working. I'm not sure what your capabilities are, as of now. So, let's find out. To do this, while channeling your mana through your body, focus on the creature you want to summon. This can be really specific or just something general. If I were you, I would choose something generally”

I begin doing as he says, channeling mana through my body. Instead of making it go around my arm, I make it go around my chest, slowly picking up more and more strings. While doing this, I begin picturing what I want to summon. It was, of course, nothing specific. I just focused on one single detail. I had to be able to summon it. No matter what it was, I needed the capabilities to summon it. Even if it was some special, and unique, creature, I need to have the capabilities.

I swirled the mana faster and faster, putting more and more mana into the stream of my own creation. I did this for ten minutes, it ends as a massive stream of mana constantly being channeled around my chest.

´Time to release´, I hear the old man's voice say, excitement being felt from him.

I release the mana, through my palm, while focusing on my single demand; Something I can handle.

I open my eyes and look at my creation. The wave of mana had finished pouring from my palm and was quickly forming into some kind of creature. No idea what though.

It… round? Yea, that its. Some kind of arms sticking out around its body. Maybe… tentacles? Not sure.

The colors were now forming, and I was beginning to see what it was. Its body was quite small, consisting of one giant eye, a mouth, and several eyed tentacles. While it would have been terrifying to look at, if it was bigger, it only had a maximum height of forty centimeters.

´Guys, something strange is happening! I feel… weird´, I hear the voice, sounding like an old man, say.

´Could you describe this feeling a little more?´, the sweet voice asks.

´I… I can see. Not with the guy´s eyes, I mean. I can move around and see in multiple directions. This is awesome!´, the voice said.

I quickly realized what he meant. While he talked, the giant eye began moving around, floating in midair.

“My, my. It seems you summoned a Gazer”