Thankfully Selaena is ok. I was really worried! I don’t want nice people to get hurt…

She got better after a few days, and so now I am going to school again. I still don’t understand most things in the knowledge class, but Selaena has been teaching me stuff after each day, and a few things in class are starting to make a little bit of sense. That being said, I love the combat classes! It’s so fun! The teacher, Mr. Beldizon is really strong and smart, and he is teaching me how to be better at using my sword. But at magic practice today, something weird is happening.

“Are you ok, Chalia?”

“It’s not working. I can’t control the magic.”

“Conjure some dirt for me.”

“Oh, ok”

I hold out my hands like he has taught me and imagine a sphere of dirt forming between my hands. I feel the mana flowing out of me and dirt starts to form between my hands, slowly. But then I suddenly feel really tired and have to stop before I’m finished. The part of dirt that formed falls to the ground.

“Hmm? What do we have here? He asks, picking up the dirt that I just made. He’s scrunching his eyebrows.

“D-d-did I d-do something wr-wrong?” I’m really nervous—that doesn’t look like a good face.

“No, not at all. I’m just a little bit confused is all.”

He’s running his fingers over the piece of dirt like it is some special thing. It’s kinda weird.

He scrunches his eyebrows even more before relaxing them most of the way.

“Chalia, hold out your hand,” he says. He then puts one of his hands on top of mine and sends some of his mana through my hand to my mana core, retracting it just a bit later.

His eyes open a bit wider.

“Chalia, what do you do when you are not at school?”

“Oh, I eat really really really good food, and do cleaning, and get supplies from the storage, and I do mana circulating exercises, and I make my mana core small—”

“You make your mana core smaller?!”

“Yes?”

“How do you do it?”

“I spin the outside part of my mana around the inside part of my mana.”

He’s staring at me. I’m getting uncomfortable.

“Oh, oh, I’m sorry. I’m just amazed. Usually mages can’t condense their mana like that until they are Silver rank, at least. Anyways, I know what your problem is. Your mana is so condensed that there isn’t enough to fully cast magic anymore! When doing your mana circulation exercises, are you able to fill all your meridians with mana at the same time?”

“No…”

“Then that is definitely your problem. You always want to have at least twice as much mana as you need in order to be able to fill all your meridians at the same time. So when you get to that little amount of mana, you should stop condensing your mana core.”

“Making it smaller?”

“Uh, yeah, basically.”

“So how do I make it bigger?”

“Right now, you don’t. The best way is to find more mana to add to your core.”

“Kill monsters?” I say quietly.

“Kill monsters? Oh, yeah, I guess you did say you’ve done that before.” Well, that would be one way to do it, but that is a bit more dangerous and advanced than we usually do in this class, but there is another way I can show you.”

“There is another way?” There is really another way? I don’t have to kill monsters to get stronger?

“There is. Now, I will warn you that it is a much slower process, but it will help you get a bit more mana, though that’s just a helpful side-effect.”

“To start with, sit down and get into a comfortable position. Next close your eyes. Now feel the mana in the air around you. Can you sense it?”

“No… not really.” I don’t feel it at all!

“Try to feel it, quietly, calmly. It might take awhile, but keep feeling for it. I have to keep watching the other students as well, but let me know if you find it.”

“Oh, ok.” He said to feel for the mana in the air. I have to be calm and quiet. I don’t get it at all!! I wish Gus was here… He would say something like “[Feel the glow dots in the air and pull them in]” or something like that, and it would work! Huh. Glow dots? Waaaait, is that what the guy was referring to? Let me try…

The dots, I can pull them in! It’s like they want to come towards me, just needing my permission.

“Woah, Chalia! Slow down there! I told you to let me know when you found it!”

Huh? Oh, oh no, I’ve done it now! I’ve messed up!

Run

Run! I need to run! His hand is coming towards me! D-dragon realms, dragon realms!! kill

His hand slowed down a bit, I can do this!! Legs, telekinesis, go!

I just barely dodge, I put so much effort in, that I’m literally flying through the air!

The guild, I need to get back to the guild, Selaena is there, she’ll protect me right?

A weird circular thing is appearing in front of me. What is that? I can see through it to another place. It looks like the guild, but everything in it is dark. What is going on? I need to get away, but I’m flying straight towards the weird circle thing! And in fact, it’s also moving, getting bigger and coming towards me, like it wants me to go in.

*Chink*

Frozen. Everything froze. Well, except for the circle door thing, and even that is moving very slowly.

*Whoosh*

Huh? Headmaster? He just appeared in the air beside me!

“Chalia, listen to me closely. You have summoned a portal, but it is not a portal to a place you want to go to. If you don’t cancel it, I have no idea what might happen to you. So you need to cancel it, ok?”

I would say “Ok,” but I can’t exactly do anything right now…

“You need to feel the strands of void energy…No, strings, feel the strings attached to you.”

Strings? Oh, I know what he’s talking about! I can sense them.

“Once you have found the strings, you need to detach them all from you. I repeat, you need to detach ALL of them from yourself. Once you begin there is not going back, or something even worse might happen. You can do this though, I believe in you. Feel the strings and imagine them snapping, or detaching from you. One at a time, I can hold out for a while to buy you some time, but work steadily.”

Ok, threads. One at a time. I start working, finding one thread after the next, but there are a lot of them

There are so many!

One, at a time. He said one at a time. So I’ll start with this one. Uh, how do I make it snap? Do I just think the word “snap”? No, I guess that isn’t working. Uh. Do I just try to reach out an break them? But I can’t even move…

I don’t know! How am I supposed to snap these stupid threads?! What will I do?

…

*sigh* “I’m sorry, I should have known that would have been too much for you. It’s not over yet, though. There is one person who still might be able to help.”

Help? Someone is stronger than headmaster? Oh, I hope so. I’m scared again! What’s going to happen? What is happening now?

Headmaster doesn’t look too good. He is sweating, and every once in awhile everything unfreezes.

Huh? What is this feeling? Everything is still frozen, or actually it is even more frozen than it was. Even the circle thing is not moving at all! And even though I am frozen, I feel a bit more comfortable, like it is a natural frozenness.

“Well, well, what do we have here.”

“Master, can you solve this situation?”

Master? I though he was the headmaster, though… Who is he calling master?

“Hahaha, who do you think I am, Tellus? My unruly apprentice still has much to learn, so I suppose this old man must still be able to make a few miracles, haha.”

That voice. It sounds familiar. Where did I hear him before?

“Chalia, child. You still have quite a future ahead. We can’t let you go to that place yet, now can we?”

“Chains of the nether, I summon you!”

Eh? What? All these creepy back spots are appearing around me, and purple chains are coming out of them.

“Song of the mute, Ear of the deaf, I call upon thee to compose for me a note!”

Ai, I don’t even know if I’m more scared or weirded out! His words don’t make any sense, and those purple chains are moving around me, crossing each other and making weird symbols.

“Agápi, mísos, thánatos, anastolí!”

*Ka-thump…Ka-thump, ka-thump*

I can’t feel anything, and all I can hear is my heartbeat. I can’t see anything, either.

…

*Ting*

…

*Ting ting*

…

*T-t-t-ting*

They are snapping! I can feel it—the threads are starting to snap! It started slowly, and they were snapping — one at a time, but then it started speeding up. Faster and faster! It’s so fast I can’t even count how many have snapped!

*T-ting…*

*Ting…*

…

*Ka-thump* *Ka-thump, ka-thump*

Ugh, I don’t feel so good. I think everything just unfroze now, though. I think I’m falling.

*Flop*

Oh, someone caught me. I can’t see him though, because everything is really blurry, sometimes dark and sometimes lighter, but always blurry.

Everything is going black.

*** *** ***

*Sniff, sniff*

Hmm? I smell a reward, or err, I mean breakfast. Selaena said I shouldn’t call it a reward, but I don’t know the difference. But I don’t even have to work for it, so I like it.

I open my eyes. Ooooh, my head! What happened? I feel like something happened last night, but I don’t quite remember…

“Chalia, good morning!”

“Selaenaaaa”

“How are you feeling this morning?”

“Seelaena, my head hurrrts.”

“I’m not surprised—you gave us all quite a scare yesterday! The nether plane is not good!”

“Mmm. And… my meridians feel weird, like something was there but it isn’t anymore.”

“Ah, so you could tell. Well, I suppose I should tell you then, Master Lorovan sealed your Void abilites for now.”

“He what? I don’t understand.”

“Yesterday you tried to teleport, but you didn’t have enough control over your magic, and so you almost teleported to the nether plane, where you probably would have died! So Master sealed your void ability, which means that you can’t teleport anymore. When you get stronger you will be able to unseal it by yourself, but for now this is to keep you safe by making sure you don’t teleport yourself to somewhere dangerous.”

“Oh.”

“Well, don’t think about it too much. You can still do everything you have been doing up until now, so it shouldn’t make much of a difference. More importantly, it’s time for breakfast!”

“Yay”

“That’s the spirit! Come come, let’s get you washed up and ready to eat. We’ll make sure we have a good day today!”