Magic 101

Dor dor dor. Phew phew phew.

The echoing sounds of 5.6 bullets and lasers were the only sounds that filled that town except for the sounds of spark from the nearby burning building. Although their first goal was to exterminate the remeaning target, it quickly turned into a class of magic for Gerald.

Gerald: "You know, I used to think that magic is unreal. Until I came across this planet."

Laura: "You've never heard of it, sir?"

Gerald: "Nah, I'm too busy fiddling with tech and stuff, I'm too busy to be bothered by supernatural things. If you reach my level, you will know what I mean."

Laura: "Aye that sir."

To conserve ammo for explosive weaponry, most of the hard work was taken care of by Laura who had magic on her disposal. Though, Gerald always watched her back.

"Blazing Infurnro!" A whiplash of flames appeared and cut down a building in half and cleared a path for them.

"Could I try it? Blazing inferno," Gerald put his hand in front of him and nothing happened. He did it multiple of time

"There is a way to learn it, sir. Still, I'm more amazed by this thing," Laura aimed his anti mech missile launchers at the only standing building around and it evaporated it without leaving anything behind except for carbon.

"Great, now we only have one anti mech missile left," Gerald commented.

"Sorry," she said.

"No worry sweetheart," he said as they finished the first wall and move to the second wall.

During the way, Laura explained how magic works in a certain way that amused him.

Magic was a kind of energy that was available for use by every single creature on the planet. However, available for use didn't mean that every single creature could use it. Most of the time, the one who could control magic was mostly humanoid, such as a demon, human, beastkin, ogre, orc, elf, and many more. However, when asked about the dragon, Laura said that a legendary creature could control magic because they were born by that magic.

"But Laura, you said that every human has magic, but why I am not?" Gerald asked.

"Quite easy actually," Laura said.

She explained that most of the person that was born would not know how to use magic at first, it mainly because they didn't know how to harvest it at first. After they entered the school, they would at least know how to use a basic spell for cooking or for heating up something in general. Laura was an archmage, that was the main reason why she was invited to the Royal Guard. So why did she become a mech pilot?

"Kind enough you ask. That's mainly because riding a mech requires a large amount of Mana to control it. If not, then the control simply won't respond. I will say that among 1000 people, only 20 of them qualifies as a mech pilot."

"So... What kind of school did you enroll in? I doubt that was a normal school."

"Good that you ask. I was enrolled at Yornstein academy when I was 14. That was a reward from the Ailenborough kingdom after they discovered my huge Mana pool," She said.

"And so..."

"I learned magic there. Is it that hard to be understood, sir?" He asked.

"No, I mean. That's it? No more things that you can tell me?" Laura asked.

"They teach us the basics of magic, where they are coming from, and how to use it. Right now, I can proudly say that I'm already overqualified to be teaching there."

"Teach me something then."

"If that's your wish. Then sure," She said as both of them stopped running and sat down on the ground.

"Please give Laura a whiteboard interface so she could teach me."

A virtual whiteboard appeared in front of them. It seemed to be there, but it wasn't.  Laura was fooled by it and he grabbed chalk and started writing stuff on there.

"So... Imagine that this is a person and the air around him is condensed magic." She drew something similar to a stickman and a cloud of air.

"If this person breathes air, he could also be breathing Mana inside his lungs. This natural process happened over time as a person grows up. Eventually, you realize that you are having a Mana reservoir inside your lungs. Recent research on the morgue of Yornstein academy suggested that a dead person lung was colored semi-pinkish. From that theory alone, we could conclude that Mana's color is pink."

[Adding Mana to Database of Clarisse A.I.]

"Please go on," he made Laura continue her speech.

"From this reservoir, you can draw Mana to make a magic thing. In theory, magic could be everything as long as the spell spelling is right. It can be a flammable material or it could be a solid material depends on how you use it."

"However..."

"However what?"

"Mana is like drugs too. The more Mana that a person uses, the more dependant they become. That's the main problem with magic."

"Wdfdym?"

"You see..." Laura drew a pair of lungs.

"The alveoli where our body exchanges the oxygen and carbon dioxide through diffusion would be changed into Mana assisted diffusion. As a result of it, the more Mana that you use every day, the bigger the reservoir becomes, but the more you become more dependant on it. You must also know that Archmage like me has a low life expectancy because of that."

"How long will you live sweety?"

"At most, maybe around 3 to 4 years from now before my body decided that it is time to give up on breathing. Anyone that has a history of living as a mage always dies of lung disease. Though those who overused their magic to their limit will be suffering from that too and if not given help immediately, they would die eventually."

"I will say that all mages are dying from an extraordinary case of Pneumoconiosis which made their lungs colored from the type of particles that entered the lungs, but I will take that as another form of lung cancer because the alveoli mutated and can't do diffusion of air anymore."

"Whatever you say sir, but I agree with that. Though, I'm more worried about the princess."

"Rosa? Does body strengthening spell has its downside too?" Gerald asked.

"Yes, but it is actually worse than what mage could get, well, you see," Laura drew an artery that leads to heart and made a miniature of the circulatory system.

"The way that body strengthening spell works is quite different than any spell that happens outside the user body. The mana..." which she drew as a pink dot with her chalkboard, "...will be circulated across the entire body and stayed in a place somewhere and made a residue behind."

"This is mainly a good thing for a mage because it won't be causing any lung disease because we actually don't lose mana, but the residue that is floating inside the blood will be the problem. It can block the kidney or other blood vessels, and guess what will happen if that blockage happened inside the brain artery."

"Kaboom. She will become a vegetable."

"I mean that she can't move anymore. But, I will take the vegetable term."

"So basically, I'm hanging around with a girl that has a stadium 4 lung cancer and a woman that will have a stroke soon. Damn, my life is good isn't it?" Gerald said, but he noticed something. "Why don't you cough yet?"

"I will die from the lack of oxygen, not from cancer something."

"Whatever you say, but I know that I only revive both of you to buy you more time."

"I know, and you got my thanks," Laura said as she finished her lesson and the sun started to rise from the east.

"Let's finish our job shall we," they stood up from the ground and continued cleaning up the enemies.

[Data has been uploaded to Clarisse A.I]

All of a sudden, an army from the kingdom of Ailenborough came from the horizon as a reinforcement. Here we go again, Gerald thought as he aimed his rifle at the crowd that looked like was going to ram him.

[Teleportation Grid Standby]

"Let's get out of here Laura," Gerald said as he grabbed her hands and they got teleported back to the ship.