Chapter 6 - First Lessons

The night had arrived, a cool smooth breeze started to blow, it had been a hot day and that wind was a nice change, having a good feel to it.

They walked to a clearing between the camp and the Endher forest, no one was around and there were no clouds in the sky... he could see for the first time the biggest "moon", sure he saw bigger on games and movies but the real experience was on a complete new level... it was astonishingly white and covered over a full palm of the sky, the night was very bright because of it and they could clearly see in the night. And maybe because of that clarity the other stars were scarce, the most of the sky were a black darkness with faint glimpses of light dots every now and then... but that moon, that moon was something else.

Maximilian looked at Riou appreciating the sky - "Do you have one of those where you are from?" he asked

- "Yeah, we call it moon... but it is not as big or near as bright as this one..."He replied...

Maximilian stopped - "I think this is far enough..." and raised his hand showing his palm up... - "Lets begin with an easy one... I believe you know the foundation of fire am I correct?" and a flame burst above his palm, it was a dancing red flame, big as a fist, Riou took the same position and seemed to be following the mage instructions with the utmost concentration, the mage continued - "All you have to do is to concentrate the mana and imagine its formation, but here is the trick, imagination means nothing without knowledge to support it, use your knowledge of the foundations of fire to...."

Suddenly a humongous flame took place above his hand, it went big and high up in the sky, it was formed by a twist of yellow and red flames taking a form of a flame tornado, it shined so bright that it felt as day light, it was raging around with scary loud sounds gushing out of it, as if trying to break free from his hand vigorously, wanting to consume everything in its path.

As sudden as it appeared so was Riou reflex desperately trying to end it, in a fearful attempt, extremely concerned of what the heat would do to his hand, but for his despair he was not being able to.

- "What are you doing!? Stop it!" screamed Maximilian taking many steps back to protect himself from the fire

- "What do you think I'm trying to do?! You didn't explain that part yet!" Riou screamed back

- "Stop the emotion fueling the fire!" Screamed the mage

- "What the hell are you talking about?! That makes no sense!"

- "Cease the emotion link to the fire!..."

Riou tried to calm down, ignoring completely the nonsense that the mage was shouting... a bit more centered now he finally noticed that his hand was not being burned... inspecting it he understood what was happening, his hand was acting as a channeling device to fuel the flame, and it was so strong that pushed the heat away from him, so thats why he was not burned in the process, and caused the flames to rage on vigorously... he then realized the fuel was his own mana, he had to cut its flow to the hand somehow... and began experimenting while the fire tornado was trying to rage off...

Took him a few tries to understand how the mana flow worked through the body, once he got it right the tornado disappeared into the night sky... and the night veil once again covered them.

"Very interesting... I think I got the general idea now..." Said Riou contemplating his achievement...

Maximilian approached him - "What happened!?" Asked the mage in a mix of anger and surprise..

- "You said to think of the foundation of fire, and so I did, you said to concentrate the mana and imagine its formation, using the knowledge needed to produce the magic, YOU said to use my knowledge of the foundations of fire... the fire come out and then you started that non sense of emotion crap, what was THAT all about?" Riou replied back clearly irritated because he clearly needed more explanation than the one that was provided...

Maximilian was getting more irritated as well - "What do you mean by non sense!? The foundation of fire is the emotion inside oneself, the stronger the emotional link, stronger is its flames... you was the one that went on creating that.. that, thing, before I could finish the explanation!"

- "What you are saying makes no sense! The foundation of fire is "air", heat and fuel! and that was what I did!" - Said Riou angrily back to Maximilian.

The fighting went on for a while, until both vented out and realized that their discussion was pointless, at that moment they realized that the differences between them both were greater than they had previously imagined. And a silence covered the field while the cool breeze started to blow again.

- "Riou, you will have to explain to me how you did that thing... I had never seen fire behaving like that... I know a fire Mage that would go crazy if he saw such a fire" - Said Maximilian calmly and smiling while thinking on that person reaction.

- "Sure... but it is difficult to put into words... it's like mixing a lot of concepts, calculating their interactions toward the desired effect, Like forcing the mana to act accordingly, creating, shaping and enveloping the necessary attributes to achieve that objective... Like fire for instance, "air", heat and fuel... my mana provided the fuel and heat source, the environment the air... causing the reaction" Spoke a calm Riou trying to make sense of what he just experienced.

- "To think there were other ways to use magic... what will happen when you learn how to tap into the more complex subjects? The thought of it makes me kind of feel that I wasted my years studying for nothing... So much for a "Magus"" - Commented the mage slightly depressed giving out a small short laugh, making fun of himself and his shameful situation.

- "Don't think like that Maximilian, you used what was at your disposal to the best of your abilities and raised above many in that regard... I heard and saw the high esteem everyone have towards you, you are like a hero right? Think about all the good you did because of your years of study... and compare that to what would had happened if you acted differently..." Spoke Riou calmly impersonating the role of the wise elder teaching the troubled youth, while looking into the night sky.

- "You are way too wise for your age Riou... and please, call me Max..." Said Max giving a smile, reminiscing the old days of his youth, also gazing into the night. - "I'm afraid of what will happen when people hear about you and what you are capable of when we reach the castle..." - Complemented the mage...

- "Yeah, I was thinking the same thing... perhaps would be better to avoid that... I do want to get used to this magic thing, but I don't want the attention that it would bring... at least for now"

- "You mean you prefer to hide your capabilities? That would deprive you of a lot of benefits, you could easily become a noble and have a lot of riches...and... on other hand... you would have to deal with other lords... some would kill to get their hands on you..."

Riou nodded agreeing with him - "For all interests I'm just a poor orphan boy attacked and left to die in the wilds, luckily found and taken in good sympathy and welcomed by the soldiers..." He spoke as if telling a story...

- "If that is what you want, I will keep your secret..." Noticing some soldiers coming in the distance from the camp he turned and waited for them...

- "Mister Eindenwald! We saw the flames and came investigate... so it was you?" said the soldier still surprised by the pillar of fire that was seen a few ago.

- "Yes my friend, I was just practicing and showing some tricks to this young man here" Explained the Magus

- "As expected of the Dragon Killer! Truly an amazing feat, we could see it from the camp and it was huge!!" - Spoke the exhilarated soldier -"Thank you sir!" Completed the soldier starting to run back to camp.

- "Eindenwald... sounds like one of the tongues of where I'm from... what does it mean?" Asked Riou

- "Well, my name meaning lost itself during the years my mother moved back into to the kingdom and the elven name was translated, it would mean something as "forest" or "from the forest" the fact that you find it similar is not of my knowledge, perhaps this is the necklace way of working..."

- "Elven you say?!" Spouted excitedly Riou by the realization that there are elves in this realm as well... - "How old are you then? usually elves are long lived... so could it be that you are the opposite of me? "

- "I'm always surprised by how fast you reach your conclusions..." He responded - "Indeed, I'm around 272" said the old man

- "Wow, now you are officially the oldest person I ever met..." He said jokingly, and continued now pondering - "Now that you mentioned it... I do feel kind of different, it's way easier now to remember stuff... and seemed strangely intuitive to put together the fire... its hard to explain but I do feel different... like my subconscious is doing a lot more work than it used to... also my body feel lighter than it used to be, I thought it was because I kind of shrank, but it really does feel different"

- "Something must have happened during the event... the situation you are in was only heard on the legends, I planned to study them in more detail later on... we will have a few weeks before reaching the capital... until then let's make sure you get more used to it... now lets return to camp, all this talk got me hungry and thirsty!" Said Max joyfully starting to move back in direction of the camp... joined by Riou which walked by his side...

- "I thought you'd never say it, I've been hungry all day long! And please let me know what you discover, I do want to investigate it myself as well, and perhaps find a way home." He said happily thinking about the food he was about to get... returning to camp...