6 Fire Mage

"Show me again", Ava demanded, still not quite believing what she was seeing.

James raised his hand and willed his mana into his hand while remembering the feeling he had when he thought about fire. A red glow started emanating from his hand. He then slowly let the mana dissipate before changing to water and letting a blue glow emanate.

"And you're absolutely sure it's not an illusion? Experienced water mages are experts in illusion magic."

This was the part where James had to sheepishly admit he'd done more than just glow up his hand. "I tried Motion on the fire last night and it kinda worked although I wasn't able to control it."

Ava's eyes narrowed but before she could say something, he continued, "I realize now how dangerous that was. I'm sorry. I should have consulted you first".

Her eyes softened as she realized he truly was remorseful. "Good. There are far too many stories of children blessed with fire magic burning themselves or those around them."

James couldn't even imagine the horror and was thankful that he didn't burn the forest down around himself accidentally.

"The absolute rule for all fire mages is, never Motion a fire larger than one you can summon." Ava explained.

James nodded. "But I haven't even learnt how to Summon water yet".

"We can start there. But the one thing I still do not comprehend is how you're able to use more than one blessing. If others are capable of such a thing, they keep it under wraps." Ava had started pacing around.

James caught on. "So I'll have to only show one of them in public?"

"Yes. Fire will give us higher wages but also attract the wrong kind of attention. Water is more commonplace so I suggest only using water magic in public. I would suggest water but I will let you decide. We will have a lot more time to explore your limits, and test out if any of the other blessings are available to you but right now we need to focus on getting out of Selen."

James agreed with her decision, trusting her to know more. The sun was now fully clear of the horizon. Their departure delayed due to James' experiments, the reminder that they were on the run kicked them back into action. They hurriedly packed up camp and were back on the road within minutes.

x-x-x-x-x

"Summon!" James nearly fell off his horse when a small spurt of water erupted from his hand. He had been practicing over and over trying different ways but it wasn't until he shifted his mindset to not thinking of water as coming from nothing nor as the moisture in the air congregating but rather as an actual transformation of the air itself that he found some success.

He repeated the feat for good measure, improving the output on each cast. He was so focused on his task that his horse almost ran into Ava's. She had stopped and was observing him. She gave him a smile, "Well Done!".

James beamed in response. He also noticed that the trees were decidedly thinner around these parts. The forest was coming to an end. They jumped off their horses to give them a rest while they discussed next steps. Ava cut off a stick from a nearby tree and attempted to draw him a map.

The forest had taken them all the way to the edges of the Selen kingdom's domain. Beyond them lay a massive stretch of deserted land with little vegetation or life establishing the boundary with the Parus Empire. It was a no man's land teeming with burrowing lizard like monsters only broken up by occasional neutral strongholds necessary for stops for the traders. Trade caravans would only make the journey with a contingent of armed guards and for obvious reasons, that was not an option for them. So they had to decide between braving this journey alone, trying to sneak onto a trade caravan and hope the guards did not recognize their likeness or hoping for another armed group not containing any guards.

"So how big are these sand lizards?" James asked.

"Elrechs not lee-zards or whatever you call them. And it is not the size, they are only the size of a dog but that they hunt in packs. They sprout out of the ground with no warning and before you know it, they will be on you. I do not have enough mana reserves to deal with more than two and maybe you can take out one of them but they hunt in packs of at least half a dozen from the smaller parties all the way up to twenty." Ava explained.

James nodded. He was still not able to do any significant amount of magic. He was realizing that he needed to start getting stronger, fast. "We should maybe wait for guard less party and if we cannot find any in a few days, take our chances with a trade caravan?" James suggested.

Their food would not last beyond the week and while they could go foraging in the forest for more, every day in the forest increased their chances of getting caught. At least their water problem was now solved with James progress in summoning water. Ava agreed with his plan and they both made their way south along the forest boundary, trying to find the main path used by most travelers aiming to cross the "Barrens" as they were known.

It only took a few hours before they finally reached the dirt road that opened up into the barrens. There was a wooden post with a board erected bearing the mark of the Selen Kingdom. A coat of arms surrounding a diamond that eerily looked similar to his mark. James realized he had not had the chance to pay close attention to the insignia and now that he did, maybe he was in more trouble than he thought. The board was used to mark caravan passages. It was helpful for travelers who would often travel to this point to hitch a ride with a trade caravan.

James and Ava found a good hiding spot in a ditch behind a copse of trees where they could observe the road without being seen. They tied their horses some distance away. Ava put up her perimeter ward just to give them an early warning as they settled into their small area. James found that this was the perfect time to continue his magic experiments.

The first thing he calculated was that his mana capacity had grown from 30 to 32. And now he was able to cast both summon and motion with water. Based on his calculations, he wrote down his current status:

mana: 32

regeneration: 1 mana / minute when not being used

Water:

- Charge hand: 1 mana / minute

- Summon: 1 mana / second - he needed about 4 seconds to fill up their water skins

- Motion: 1 mana / second for a single mana link, can increase mana links to increase speed of motion or move a larger quantity of water or both.

Fire:

- Summon: ...

- Motion: Possible but dangerous

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James had realized that using a spell to track mana capacity was not a great idea since his efficiency might improve but would show up as a mana capacity increase. After asking a few questions about how it felt like to charge your hand with mana, he came to the conclusion that it was very rare for the amount of mana that consumed to change. So using that as a baseline to determine mana capacity was a far better option, even though it took far longer to drain his mana reserves that way.

"How long can you keep your hand charged with mana?" James asked Ava, explaining his reasoning and calculations.

"I have never measured and I will be honest, a lot of this does not make sense to me. I will guess it to be roughly 20 minutes but I will not experiment right now. I do not relish the idea of being without mana this close to the road." Ava explained before settling down to meditate and try to recover the mana spent on the detection ward.

James wanted to ask her more questions but settled with waiting until they had a sense of safety, if that ever happened. For now, he concentrated on trying to figure out how summoning fire was different from summoning water.

The first thing he wanted to confirm was that charging his hand with fire mana took the same amount of mana as charging it with water mana. After a little over half an hour, he finally felt the sense of exhaustion that signified having very little mana left in his body. The exhaustion repeated exhaustion and then recovery cycle were taking a toll on him. He was feeling mentally exhausted even though he didn't know how connected they were. One thing was for sure, in all the fantasy books he had read, the more one used magic, the stronger they became so he was willing to push his mind to its limits.

The next thing he needed to figure out was how to summon fire. Based on his insights from summoning water and his understanding of the chemical process behind fire, he was fairly sure it shouldn't take him a long time to figure out summoning. But first he had to wait for his mana to recover.

Suddenly Ava sat up, closed her eyes and focused on something. "There are multiple people and animals headed this way."

They both sat in silence with baited breath while they waited. After only five minutes, they saw a set of guards on horseback, armed with leather armor, swords and shields behind their back. Behind the guards, they could see a few strangers also on horseback, two massive carriages being pulled and a contingent of people surrounding the carriages walking on foot. Bringing up the rear was a lone figure in brown robes. Ava pulled him down as soon as she saw the mage cursing under her breath.

They stayed hidden while the caravan marked their passage on the sign board before making their way towards the Barrens. It was only when Ava gave the all clear that they dared look up from their hiding place.

"Yeah, that's not gonna be easy to try to slip our way into". James observed. Ava could only nod in response, deep in thought still.

James turned back to his experiments, feeling his mana near capacity.

x-x-x-x-x

It took another two hours before James finally succeeded. "Summon!" finally produced a small flame above his index finger the size of a candle flame. Ava too was excited by his progress.

"Fire is also a good deterrent for the Elrechs. Even at your prodigious pace, if we had a few more months to elevate your abilities, we might have been able to brave the barrens ourselves."

"A few months? Try a few days!" James quipped back, still focused on keeping his conjured flame active.

"We shall see", was Ava's only reply.

"Motion!" it didn't take long for James to try out the motion spell on his conjured flame. The tiny flame blew forward before dissipating in the air. He knew he needed to keep the fire burning throughout the motion if he was ever going to be flinging fireballs around. And that was his eventual goal, once he could make tiny fireballs, it was only a matter of time before he could throw around bigger fireballs. James was so focused, it took Ava waving a hand right in front of his face to break him out of his reverie.

"You had a weird look on your face." Ava questioned, concerned.

"Oh, just thinking about how I'll be able to throw around fireballs pretty soon."

Ava just rolled her eyes at this. "Come on, it is getting dark and we should head closer to the horses before we make camp."

James was still feeling rejuvenated by his work on fire magic. It felt intoxicating in a way that was completely different to the sense of calm with his use of water magic. Even though he could feel the stirrings of mana exhaustion looming, he wanted to re-summon the flame again. He put that thought out of his mind though until they made camp, and they both got up and gathered their things. The sunset made the forest an eerie sight.

Just as they were about to head out, Ava gabbed James' arm roughly and pulled him down again. "I sense another person heading this way."

"A single person?" James inquired and Ava nodded. They both settled back into their spot and looked towards the road again.

A lone figure soon emerged, walking at a leisurely pace down the road. He was wearing gray robes that signified he was a mage of some sort and the large staff held in his hand exemplified this image. They both hid again, not even daring to look while they observed the sound of footsteps and the staff the mage was using as a walking stick hitting the ground occasionally. When the man got closer, they could even hear the man whistling as he made his way forwards.

When the man was at the part of the path closest to their hiding place, he suddenly stopped.

"You both can come out now." He asked.

They both locked eyes and nodded before emerging from their hiding place. Now that James had a chance to take a closer look, he could see that the man was quite old with graying hair and a large gray beard. He could have been cast as Gandalf the Gray in a Lord of the Rings movie if he were honest.

He could feel Ava tense up besides him, "We mean you no harm. We were waiting for a travel caravan to join for a crossing across the barrens." She declared.

James realized how it might seem like they were set up to ambush the traveler.

The old man smiled as he looked them over. "Ah well, just my luck. A death mage and a water, no fire? Or both? So interesting!"

Ava had charged her hand at the mention of her blessing, ready to cast. Before she had the chance to do so, the man waved his staff and a blast of air hit them both. It wasn't strong enough to move them but James noticed that Ava's hand was no longer glowing.

"Enough of that child." the old man declared.