She walked down the stairs and made her way towards the door, almost falling on the weight of the grimoire. Her abruptness had made her blind for a short time; shading her eyes with her right hand, Nefaaya looked around. Learo was practicing his sword outside, she could hear the sound of his sword as it cut through the air.

"Don't you think it was too early for her to have that book," Learo said.

"I think that it would be good that she had taken interest in it," her mother, Nefri, replied.

Nefaaya followed where the voice was coming. It was already past morning, the sun had mostly ascended above the distant mountain ranges. But there are still thin flocks of clouds scattered on the horizon.

The leaves of the nearby tree rustled as the wind started picking up. Scaring the birds and carrying the fallen leaves on the ground to her direction.

She finds Nefri crouching before her garden fields, hands stained with dirt. She was wearing a wool dress and leather boots paired with her gardening apron where she put seeds and other tools. Beside her was her father, Learo, in white shirt and brown trousers. He was slashing his longsword in the air. He aimed in a straight line and immediately pulled back the sword, and spun around to slashed again in the direction of an unseen enemy.

Learo stopped and sighed inwardly, "I'm just worried... that she might feel just like how you feel." Nefaaya noticed the uneasiness in the way her father phrased what he had said.

Her mother turned in her direction and waved her hands. Nefaaya walked slowly, she felt tired carrying the thick book with her.

Nefri rose and walked towards her.

"What is it, Nefaaya?" She said, crouching before her.

His father continued his sword practice. But Nefaaya got a feeling that he was listening to what she would say.

"What is Pulling? I was trying it last night, but it seems I cannot do it," she said.

She smiled.

"First let me ask you one thing, can you read what was written here," she touched the book's cover with her fingers.

Nefaaya blushed, shaking her head. How could she forget! She was even a teacher in her previous life. The basics in wanting to comprehend a concept was being able to understand. How could she understand it when she had no means of understanding it in the first place!

"This language was a variation of Lilian Language used in the Nortic Empire. It was called High Lilian," she said.

Nefaaya abruptly said, "can you teach me how to read it?"

"Your mother wasn't a great teacher and up until now I'm still having a hard time in comprehending that language," she started and glanced somewhere.

Nefaaya traced where her mother was looking.

"But I know someone who could," she said louder than usual.

Nefaaya tilted her head, wanting to know the answer. And then she saw Nefri glanced at the direction of her father. When Nefaaya turned at him, Learo was no longer practicing his sword. He was sitting cross-legged in the grass, a longsword laying beside him. His long black hair unbraided and was being whipped by the wind.

He breathed heavily. "Okay, okay, I'm teaching her High Lilian... But."

Learo turned to her with a smile, "you also have to learn how to use a sword."

Nefri gasped.

"Nefri don't pretend, you know that this daughter of yours would not stay in this high-mountain village forever. The first sign had already shown that someday, Nefaaya would go down to explore the world for herself. And when that day comes, I want her to know more than Pulling. She needed a reliable weapon, and the sword could do it for her."

Looking into her father's suggestion, she realized it was true. Nefaaya had fix her mind on the idea of being able to explore this world. But, she didn't even think of leaving this village! All she wanted was enough skills to survive. But it seems her father misinterpreted her enthusiasm to learn this thing they called Pulling.

"She practiced the sword three hours after the first light and then I'll lend another two hours for teaching her High Lilian," her father said and started walking in the direction of their house. Learo stopped and glanced at her from his shoulder.

"What are you waiting for, we still have an hour before the schedule for High Lilian ends," he announced.

Nefaaya's eyes widened. *He's strict,* she thought. It reminds me of one of my professors in college to whom I shaped my teaching. The nostalgia had made her longed for her old life.

She stood before the door waiting for Learo. And as she does, her mind keeps going back on her previous life—almost in a trance.

Only the sound of Learo's boots had pulled her back from her reverie. She saw him carrying scrolls, fountain pens and bottles of ink. He stopped, eyes searching for something. When he saw his daughter staring at her, Learo announced that the best way to learn something was to find a comfortable place.

Her father settled in the tree beside their house. There was a wooden table placed before it; her father built it last summer against Nefri's wishes. She insisted that there's no need for another table, well it turned out there was. She thought it was perfect since the table was shaded by the tree. Learo murmured to himself as he scattered the things on the table.

"As you can see from your book, High Lilian was a writing with an appearance similar to the waves. It is because the first users of this language had come from across the ocean. Or so what the scholars said,'' he said. "High Lilian was characterized by having its letters connected to one another."

Oh, much similar to what we call cursive in our world.

"But High Lilian has a rule that only thirty letters are allowed per line."

Nefaaya raised her hand, "no matter how long? What if the the thirty letter rule was not enough for the other wor-"

His father cut her, "thirty letters, if the last word in your sentence wouldn't fit, you have to put it in the next line, just add a dash to indicate that it continues the letters below. That's High Lilian, thirty letters no more, no less. You only break the rule if you're ending a paragraph."

Seasons passed. Nefaaya was already four years old. In the course of those months, she always found her father eyeing her suspiciously when he was asking bizarre questions about the language.

There was an instance when a mother and kid was passing on them while they're busy translating a poem. Learo looked at the boy, he was the same age as Nefaaya. Learo looked at the crying kid, complaining to her mother about something. Then Learo gazed at her with suspicion in his eyes. She stared back tilting her head. It was after when she felt too stiff from looking down on the book that she had realized what was behind in that look.

Learo was wondering why she didn't behave like that—why she was different from how the kids her age should be.

Nefaaya closed her eyes in frustration and slammed her feet on the foot of the bed. How could she forget! She was a four year old kid. And kids this age were supposed not to ask bizarre questions. She doubted that kids like her should study a complex language used outside this mountain!

She sat on her bed and shook her head. Her white hair had already grown long, her mother had given her a cloth to tie it every time she was practicing sword or learning language. Nefaaya searched for her mother's grimoire. Throughout the course of a year, Nefaaya had been able to summon the waterball that her mother was using to water her garden.

Indeed, the key to learning something was the ability to comprehend. After learning the language, and with Nefri's guidance in describing how Pulling was done, she was able to Pull a waterball.

"For someone to be able to Pull, one must be one with the Creation. Pulling is an art of shaping the Creation around us by manipulating the Flow," Nefri said. She closed her eyes and opened it, revealing a gold glowing eyeballs that look almost like swirling fumes of smoke.

"When you Merge yourself to the Creation, you would be able to see bright Colors. That is the Flow. You could touch it ," she raised her hand, fingers twitching, "and bend it to your will."

Blue Pieces started appearing around her, swirling and restless as if dancing in a beat that they couldn't hear. She learned that Pieces appear when a Pull is about to be complete. She asked her mother about the swirls of moving light. She said to her that there wasn't a real explanation about Pieces, but people believe that when Pieces appear around you it is because you're still following the Flow. Deprives were apparently creatures who disobeyed the Flow, thus no Pieces appeared when they Pulled. What Deprives were was something her mother refused to explain.

A waterball appeared before her hand, swirling as it grew larger, creating a gushing sound similar to a rushing flood. "That's Pulling, bending the Creation or the Flow to your will."

When she blinked, her eyes were back to normal. But there was still a remnant of trance on it, as if she was blinded.

Nefri rubbed her eyes. Nefaaya asked, "was it blinding?"

She nodded, "The Raw Colors are bright."

After Nefri discusses what is Pulling to her, Nefaaya finds herself short of breath. She felt the hair in her skin stood straight upon realizing something. Perhaps Pulling was not entirely magic. But a branch of unexplored physics in this world. She realized it when her mother didn't use the word 'conjuring'. At first she thought Pulling was about conjuring things but now it seems to her that Pulling was about giving something that was already there, a definite shape.

"In short, Pulling is the process of changing matter at the anatomical level."

But it also left her uneasy, if the properties of matter in this world were changeable. Then does it mean that what she knows about the conservation of mass doesn't apply in this world?

When everyone is asleep, Nefaaya heads outside. This time she wanted to try something different. She resisted the urge to close her eyes. Nefri warned her about this habit. She said that a Flowmage who closed her eyes in the process of Pulling is as good as dead as there were other types of Flowage who can enhance their physical abilities. Being unable to track their Color would be a big trouble. Nefaaya raised her hand upward and felt the world around her. When she blinked the darkness of the night had vanished. Nefaaya was surrounded in different color moving in their own unique paces. Two meters from where she was, she saw what seemed like a raging blue fire, placed atop a slow moving thick bright brown light. She figured out that it was the tree where she and her father did their lessons.

The words of her mother floated back to her mind.

"When you have successfully Merged yourself to the Creation, sparks will appear around you. They're the Creation, but others called them Pieces, for some reason Pieces appeared when someone had successfully become one with the Creation. High Mages believed that they're the manifestation of the human will. While people believe it means that you're still following the Path Of The Flow."

Nefaaya raised her hand, Red Pieces appeared around her hanging behind her and at the corner of her eyes. A surging ball of fire slowly appeared before her palm.

In most of her training, Nefaaya had never tried to put too much strength in what she did. But this time she intended to put half of what she can in this ball of fire. The fireball grew brighter and she felt its heat warming her face and her palm. But this was the type of warmth that didn't burn, even if she increased the strength of the fire, the heat didn't increase enough to burn her skin, but she knows that her fireball is getting stronger. She looked up and threw the ball upwards. She blinked, pulling back from Merging with the Flow. For a second she found herself in a dizzying state, confused and dazzled. She looked up, trying to search for the fireball that she intended to explode.

A booming sound. Nefaaya finds herself covering her ear. All around her she saw the lights from the dead houses poured on their windows.

"What was that?" Nefri asked somewhere inside the house.

Nefaaya looked up from the ball of fire that she Pulled to explode. From where she was crouching she saw remnants of the fireball. Small fires descending towards the village, similar to how a meteor shower would appear in her world. With a start, Nefaaya immediately gathered her thoughts. The fire that didn't die as they descended on the roofs of the house were her targets. She raised her hand and threw a speeding waterball in the fire. He heard the hissing sound of the fire as the water hit it.

The door of their house flew open, and her father saw her throwing waterballs on the descending fire. Nefaaya didn't know what to make out of the situation, Learo was looking at her sternly but Nefri was smiling like a child as if her almost burning the village was something to be proud about!