Chapter 11, Research and Lessons

I rested on a nearby tree for a few hours before going back home to sleep, as I slowly got more and more tired while resting on the tree. As I was falling asleep my mind was getting flooded with ideas on how to improve on my two ideas, however, my mind went silent right before falling asleep, and my last thought was. 'Trees are surprisingly more comfortable than I would have thought.'

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I woke up to the sun shining directly in my eyes and two cats on my lap. 'Wait… Cats!?' sitting up, I stare at my lap and see two cats. One is skinny, lanky, and has white fur with a sun on its forehead and the other is fat, stubby, and has black fur with a full moon on its forehead. After I was done staring at them, I decided to pet the white cat, and upon contact with the cat, it purred. 'This is fine.'

A half-hour passed of me petting the cat, sitting there I heard my name being called from the house. But because there are cats on my lap, I could no longer move. Sitting there, staring at the two cats once more, I think to myself. 'What am I going to do? The law of animals states that I must not move if there are one(or more) animals resting on top of you.' And after a few more minutes of intense thinking, I came up with a brilliant idea. 'I can just pick them up and move them, but with magic.' using dark magic to keep the cats asleep, I slipped out from the cats and used fire and earth magic to keep the cats warm while I was gone.

Entering the house, I follow where I hear my name being called, following the voice I enter the living room. In the living room, I find my mom calling for me, My mom turned around and saw me in the doorway. "Oh, there you are! When you didn't arrive for today's lesson I started to worry." she walked over to me and grabbed my hands and raised them. "Today is an important lesson, so make sure to pay extra attention today." She let go of my hands and went upstairs. At the top of the stairs, she said. "And don't forget your practice wand."

As I search my room for my wand, I think. 'Oh, so that's what she gets worried about. She worries about me missing for a few minutes, but not me missing for a few days. Ok, sure.' I found my practice wand on my nightstand. 'This thing always seems to disappear on me.' Once I was done complaining to myself I made my way upstairs and into the practice room. Entering the room I see my mom finishing up on a drawing, then attaching the piece of chalk she was drawing with on the back of a long pointer.

There were multiple drawings but one stood out the most, the drawing had a human-like figure made up of lines with small dots on the said lines, there were a few bigger dots at the hand, feet, and head, and one large dot on the left side opposite of where the heart is. The strings also seemed to abound where the heart would be. There are large words at the top of the board that split the board into sections, they read "Mana Veins/Points", "Enchanting", "Secondary Elements", and "Theory of Magic".

My mom heard me enter the room, looked at me, pointed at a chair and desk, and said. "Sit down and we'll start." sitting down in the chair I open the war and pull out some ink, a quill, and a small stack of paper. As soon as I was settled down she started talking. "Before we start today's subject, I have important news for you. Since you seem to excel at magic over swordsmanship, we decided to replace the swordsmanship lessons with magic lessons, we will also keep you here for four more years and send you to a magic institution at sixteen."

Before I could take in what she said she continued talking. "Today we are starting four new lessons in magic and the human body. We are going to do the basics of Mana Veins/Points." she shifted over to the "Mana Veins/Points" section and started talking. "Mana veins and points are what allow the use of magic. There are three types of mana points, one allows mana to be brought into the body, the second allows us to expel mana from our body, these two mana points are commonly referred to as input and output points." Above the drawing, she drew two circles, one was empty and labeled "Output" while the filled in one was labeled "Input".

After drawing a smaller version of what was on the board I noticed that one point was missing. After the realization that she missed one, I asked "But what about the third point mom?" and she replied with. "Ah, yes I did miss the third one." above the drawing she drew a full square and labeled it as "Control" and started talking again. "As the name suggests, control points allow us to control the output points and create magic spells. Altho control points are all over your body, they tend to be much greater in your hands, feet, mouth, and head, in these four places they can be counted in the tens of thousands. But that's nothing compared to input and output witch number in the millions and tens of millions with the output having more points than the input do."

Once she was done with the points she moved on to the mana veins. Pointing at the lines that connected the dots she said. "These are mana veins. There are two types of mana veins, the main one is called the Artery vein, The second vein is called the sub vein. Sub veins split off of the Artery veins, and this allows for mana to spread to even the smallest part of the human body."

she circled the thick lines that came from a large circle on the left of the body and continued talking. "Artery veins push and pull mana to and from the mana core, this process is very similar to how your heart pumps blood throughout your body. However, the mana core and heart are two different organs." She took a deep breath in and out before asking. "Any questions so far?"

{Note. I'll answer almost any question related to magic you have, just comment on this line.}

Pointing at the void in the drawing I say. "Yes, why do the mana veins avoid the heart, and why is the mana core across the heart?" with a smile she answers with. "That's a good question, and altho we don't know the exact reason why, during research, mages noticed that when a mana core is merged with the heart it makes the core unable to push, pull, and refine mana. Meaning that if the core merges with the heart, you won't be able to use magic at all."

She took a small breather to redrew the picture, erasing the mana core and moving the mana veins. "With observations and research, we found that a few million years ago or blood and mana were the same, meaning that if they wanted to use magic they would have to force it out of their bodies or use their blood to make magic circles. Eventually, a core started to form, and veins from the core, this allows us to make magic circles without the need to cut or injure someone."

She put down the pointer and said. "And that's it for today's lesson! make sure to study and to be here before noon tomorrow." I picked up my notes and said "Love you mom!" as I left. The rest of the day went by fast, I studied my notes, practiced magic, took a bath, and went to bed. While I was laying in my bed I took the time to think about what my mom said. 'At least I no longer have to do hellish training in the morning' was my final thought as I fell asleep.

End