A new star was born

This thought, the thing he said just a second ago. "You will be allowed to stay here for two more days". I am his student but I won't be allowed to stay at his house? Well, I wasn't a student before. Never, even when I was still a child, I was never able to become someone's student outside of that prison…

"You thought I would allow you to stay here forever? You are my student but I never told you that I will let you stay here. You need to learn how to live without too much power. I know you already did that, but it was with no power that's first and second I don't have that much food for myself. You need to survive in the wild only by using your mana and intelligence, of course, I won't just let you go because it will be a waste if you die. Therefore after a day or two, I will contact you, maybe later but I will have to see how it will go for you. The better you do the longer I won't contact you. How about that? Hayden Moonshine." A smile appeared on his face as I looked at him from the shadow created by bookshelves. The light was barely shining through the books. The candles were flying in the air now instead of hanging on something, they were slowly making circles around us.

"Don't call me that. I am no longer a Moonshine, I don't want to be a Moonshine. What's the worth in a name so corrupted that even their own family member despises it." That question made the candles spin faster but their fire did not fade. His face went upwards, he was looking down at me.

"Then… You should change your name, don't you? It needs to be catchy and quite different, the name Hayden on its own will give you out too much don't you think. It's a name I heard for the first time in my life so it's quite… Unique. And of course, your family name, don't you think?" He is indeed right, he is the only person that could say something like that to me, I need a new name… A new identity, a completely new me. And the new world I just discovered, at the end. In the new world, I shall create, it all needs names.

"Then… Do you have any ideas? I suppose you wouldn't suggest it if you didn't have an idea." The candles stopped, then they slowly started descending down. All lights faded and a blue glow of mana appeared around us, it was a circle, something resembling an arena.

"Well, you are right and not at the same time. I have an idea but I wanted you to create one first if you wonder what this ring is all about. It's just there to show how much your new name will suit you, also changing that hairstyle and color would come in handy. Maybe black? You can conceal your hair with mana once you learn some of it." The blue glow started going even higher and a lot brighter. It was creating more pressure on me, he doesn't know one thing about me. I don't feel something like that, it's not something important to make me answer faster.

"Well, when we speak of mana and that deal we made just now, is that another test you are making?" A large smile now could be seen from under his beard. More than before.

"You are quite an overthinking person, but you are right. That was exactly what I did and that ring was here just to put pressure on you, you did well until now, you passed two of my first tests. They were pretty easy, but I need to see how dedicated you are and if you use some brains." The fog of blue light disappeared behind the shelves made from dark wood, the books covered the disappearance, nothing could be seen for a second in the great and long library. Everything from a dark wood beside the floor. Only now was I able to see it.

"Thank you, now let me focus." The candles once again shone with the orange light once again covering everything around me. Now I went into the position with crossed legs once again, I got the foundation of the world, I now understand how the stars are created and the flow of energy is the only thing left… But how do I learn that? Energy, what is energy? He said that mana is alive, mana can talk and think, do what living creatures do. Does it mean that… Life itself is the energy keeping mana going? It would make a lot of sense, and maybe that's actually it? But how can I imagine… Life? I have almost died five times, what is life at this point. Is it the ability to move, to breathe, to think? What is it actually? If living means breathing, then what about the things that don't breathe? Or have something else than that like sea animals. They are alive but they don't actually breathe. And I don't think animals actually think neither every lifeform can move. Then what is it? Having a soul is probably out of option as well, plants don't have souls right? They would feel pain, scream maybe? But they don't do anything like that. What can I change while thinking… Wait, change? Humans, plants, animals… Evolution! From all the stories I've heard so far, all beings were created from a small egg. It evolved into something more as the world was developing, the animals had to develop together with them. So, living means evolution or growth? Circle of life, being born, living, growing, reproducing, then dying, and creating an environment for another creature to live in. Is it a plant with just more space for humans? How long has it been since I started thinking about it now, how long did it take me to understand such a trivial thing… Living means evolution, growth. What a weird thing to actually understand. So energy and life are both the same when it comes to mana huh. Interesting, amusing even! Now I need to make it all into something, I need to use all that knowledge to create this thing I need to become a mana user. To create earth itself from scratch…

First, life flows in the air, in a black space between nothing. Life's… A gas that gives life to something I am about to create, imagine it flowing like a ball. Make a star, make a thing shaped like a star with the energy of life. Progress itself is what I need, making the star is energy itself. So I just need to imagine a ball, that's growth, that's evolution, that's what life is. The star itself is energy, now I know why stars are connected to mana… I wonder how long it will take me to get to a point in which I will be able to talk with that weird thing, that living and beautiful blue glow.

Create a shape… A ball of something, anything, the best way would be to create something that pulls something inside of it. Like a centrum, something that keeps everything in shape. A point in the middle that will pull everything inside of itself, the gas itself, that would create a star. A ball of living energy. It's right in front of me! I see it! It's… Yellow? The gas cannot have another color it seems, I don't know why. Maybe that's how it should be? But now I finally have the ball, life is literally flowing and spinning in the ball. Like water freely splashing against the 'walls'. There are no real walls there, it's how far it can go with the middle pulling it in. Now creating another ball will be easy… Huh? Why isn't it working? I can't, create another one? When I try, my hand is shaking, it's in pain even though I can't feel it. It takes more energy from me than the first one. The sweat flowing down my head, I felt it entering my eyes that I couldn't close because of it. They were stinging. I closed the hand with the created star and slowly started opening the second one. But it stopped halfway through, it was too small to merge… What am I doing wrong? Am I too weak? No… I can't be too weak mentally, I can't give up here. Hayden… If you want to show something, you need to be strong. Show resolve, please me. Let me do it.

"Let me do it! I can't lose here!" I screamed in the dark cosmos, the dark reality of nothingness with only two yellow balls of flowing energy. Now both being exactly the same, the sweat stopped flowing but I felt my shirt being completely drenched in the salty fluid. I was already huffing at this point, but I can't stop here. I am already quite exhausted but I need to go forward, I can't stop here and just waste the deaths of my friends and all those other people. Even if they weren't all so good, I can't stop here. With both of my fists far away from each other, I slowly started closing the gap between them. But the closer they got the harder it became to merge them. When I was about to make both of those touch, it just blew my hands away further than they were before.

"What? Why…"