Chapter 22

The vial proved to be harder than the cube. Aaron initially thought that once he was successful with the cube, he would quickly learn magic. But it wasnt so.

2 months already passed by and he didnt have any results with the vial.

The vial had two components to it. The actual glass vial and the stopper on it. It made it harder to correctly visualize it. Vial and the stopper were made of different materials. Had different texture and properties. Concurrently visualizing them accurately wasnt as easy as it sounded.

Even though he failed, he kept up his studies. He had learnt a lot recently. The state of science and mathematics in the world. How magic worked and its theory. He was interested a lot in how magic worked. Although he didnt had access to top books but he could see that the will and imagination played a big part.

You had to imagine the magic happening in your head. Visualize the whole scene. And impose that image to your surrounding through your will. It sounded simple enough. But the world fought back. It resisted the change. As a result only mages were able to effect it with the supply of magical power. Else everyone would be able to do magic.

Another month passed by. Aaron could now successfully float the vial. Also the height he could move the cube also increased.

He showed the results of his success to Marcus.

"Took you long enough. You might have understood the reason behind why it took so long, right?" Marcus questioned Aaron.

"Yes, I think so. It had different materials it was made up from. That made it harder. " Aaron answered.

"You are right. How many materials did you consider?"

Aaron found it strange. He could see the two materials. The vial and the stopper. Why did he ask then. He still answered two.

"What do you think is in the vial. Is it empty?"

How could have Aaron forgot about it. Ofcourse the vial wasnt empty. It had air in it. It was basic science. He had completely overlooked that part.

"No, it has air in it."

"Right. So you do know your basics. But you still didnt consider it. Thats the reason it took you so long to succeed. I could have said it to you earlier, but a little setback now would do a lot of good to you. "

"The reason it took so long was because you tried to move the vial. Not the air in it. Only once your will was strong enough, it could move the air in the vial. Without you thinking about it. "

"Do you follow me so far?"

"Yes Mr. Hawkins."

"Good."

He then took out another exact looking vial with a some sort of brown coloured gas in it.

"Try moving this one. "

Aaron took the vial and repeated what he did before. He was successful.

"You can see your will is strong enough move the vial and the air in it. "

He took out another similar looking Vial. This had a small worm in it.

"Now, try again. "

Aaron failed this time.

"What do you think went wrong this time."

Aaron knew Marcus asked these questions to increase his reasoning power.

"I couldnt properly visualize the worm. Its heavier than the air so it couldnt move with the vial?"

"Correct in theory. But you didn't consider the will of the worm. Every Living being have their own will. They resist direct magic imposed upon them. Raising this worm is harder than raising a chair. "

"Forget people, even raising small animals is very difficult, even for advanced mages. The more intellegent your target is, the stronger their will. "

"This experiment was to tell you about the limitations of magic. I hope you are clear about it."

"I would also advice you to not try this on animals and humans for now. The backlash against a will that strong would be brutal to you. You might faint and have severe headache for a few days. And if you try something impossible, say try and lift this whole building, you might die. So, be careful. Other than that, I want you to practice with different day to day objects now. A book, a piece of cloth. A piece of stone. Whatever you find. You need to practice that you become proficient enough that you dont need time to make yourself familiar with an object. You need to see and should be able to move it immediately. Also, I want you to try to move them in different directions. Any questions?"

"Ms. Elena told us about the yearly evaluation. I wonder when will that be conducted?"

"When Elena referred you to me, you cleared your evaluation for this year. Your next yearly evaluations will be done by me. You should do your best to keep me happy. There is this sore spot on my shoulder which needs a little massage."

Hearing him Aaron had blank expression on his face.

"No sense of humor at all in these kids."

Marcus was a really good teacher. He just had this habit of pulling these sad jokes.

"You may leave if you have nothing to ask now." Marcus said dissapointedly.

Aaron turned around to leave. But he remembered something he wanted to ask. "Mr. Hawkins I read in a book that it was possible to do magic even if you didnt understand what was happening. Is it true?"

"It is indeed true. Looks like you are reading a lot. Thats good for you. But going down this line of thought is not encouraged. I mean about doing magic without understanding. It takes insane amount of will and really strong imagination to pull it off. There are lot of ascpects in science which is in theory only. It cant be seen with naked eyes. Like the world is made up of tiny particles. You cant see those particles. You cant convince most common people about it because they cant see that. Similar situations arise with mages. Although they read about stuff, it fails to convince them. But they still try and do magic with the force of will alone. They are supremely confident in their power and ability and they will the world to obey. And some of them succeed using much more magical power than required. If you have strong enough will, you could even bend some rules of science. But it takes ridiculous amount of will and magic power. Its much more easier to follow the rules of science. If you are struck somewhere, its easier to choose a different direction. Their are countless abilities you could master. You dont need to focus on something you dont understand. No one can understand everything. "

" Thank you Mr. Hawkins."

Aaron took his leave from Marcus.

He decided he would master this displacement magic or what common people call it, telekinesis.