Creation, all of creation

I was now sitting in the dark, little strength both physically and mentally left inside of my body. Sweat was all around me but I can't give up here, at least holding those two spheres is not taking too much energy from me. What can I do… Forcing it will put even more pain on me or it may be just pointless. But at the same time, I can't just stop here and go away. Walking out somewhere, walking in a forest, unable to rest after so much. I can't regain anything, even my thoughts. I need to stay here for longer.

I closed my eyes, I don't want to look at what is going to actually happen. I started closing the gap between my hands and that followed a surge of lightning sparking around my face. I felt it touching my skin, it was going under it. I opened my eyes and saw two things, my hands were both broken but somehow I was able to make the ball touch each other. The lightning was coming out from it, that's… Power. That's the energy of life, the two balls of energy just coming into one. With the broken hands, I was still able to close them. The gas of energy started collapsing onto each other, they were now halfway through connecting. I was screaming now, taking all of my will and life force to just push it through.

I did it, now, it all was together. There was no gas nor anything else, it was a ball of a red glow. Something like magma with a ball of true matter. It's… It's a planet! Finally, I did it. But I have no idea what's with my hands, are they actually broken? There is no pain coming from there. It was more like… My head was hurt instead of my physical body. It hurt… I screamed loudly, it was just a pain. Somehow it didn't feel right, I don't know why it was so painful. Now I can rest, but how can I rest with something like that. The pain is just taking me over, but I can't stop! I can't just stop here… I have to ignore the pain, for now, I don't care how painful it is now. I need to finish creating the first realm.

How do I start… There is a lot of magma on it, a dark mass with strokes of flowing rivers of lava all around. How do I start it? I think the best idea is water right? It will take a lot of it but that's just an element, right? Something touched me on the outside, it was a hand. I opened my eyes and Erlos was there, he was looking at me.

"Congratulations, you got hold of it a minute before our small deal would finish. Lucky you!" What? Since when was I finished? I still have to create vegetation and animals and everything… It will take me more time, I have only a minute before it will be done. But I still have to do so much.

"I am not finished. I only created the planet, what about the plants and everything?" The question left my mouth but the man was not moved. He is smiling quite a lot and now he also smiled, started smiling and it didn't seem that he would change that.

"That's something else, I wanted to put more pressure on you just to see if you will be able to do it. And you did it, surprisingly, even faster than me when I was young. It shows how much you care about doing all of that. I didn't tell you one more thing, when you finish making your planet it will still take some time until it will be able to develop. The lava has to cool down, then you may proceed." He once again warped somewhere and came back, it's… Weird. Why is he doing that all the time? Won't it take a lot of energy? Just like me when I was creating the planet itself.

"How long can it take?"

"About a day, maybe less depending on how big the planet is. I think it might take you longer, it feels like you created quite a large planet actually. Larger than my own earth, well I am so far in front that it doesn't matter because it was a thousand years ago, but you have talent."

"I have several questions… Why are you warping everywhere? Won't it take a little too much strength? How do you know how big a planet I've created? And then… Did you intend to send me out before I would be able to create my first planet!" He smiled, I hate it already. Stop smiling! He is arrogant, even for an old man… It seems that he is either overestimating me or underestimating the outside world.

"I am warping everywhere because it's convenient. I have so much mana that this little spell is just like a small ball of fire compared to things I can do. For you now it would probably take about one fourth of your power for every warp. That's not bad for someone as new, that means that your earth contains a lot of power inside of itself. How do I know? It makes sense doesn't it, I can just feel it around you. The energy, mana, started clinging to you like glue. It seems that it likes you, it likes you a lot! It's either because there is only me as someone else who is using it or you might actually be… Nevermind." He got jinxed by his own words, it seems like he already said a lot too much than he intended before. "The third question, right. I did exactly that, I wanted to send you to the forest for you to try and learn how to fight with mana, how to get mana while fighting or in bad conditions."

"Regenerate mana while fighting?"

"Well, I knew that this question would come up when I asked about that. You don't have dark therefore it makes sense that you don't know how it works. For people that use darkness, it regenerates once it's not used and there is no way of working around that. That's the only disadvantage besides changing people that it has. Mana, can be regenerated while fighting but it needs a lot of focus. Secondly, we can't do exactly what they do, they can recreate their imagination with some being just especially potent for an individual. But we can create other things, we can create devices, circles imbued with mana. Creating spells is a little more limited, you can choose an element you can use each time you create a new realm. Besides pure mana of course. Even dark itself but it works completely differently than that of them, it's completely independent of the dark sorcerers and the old worlds." He snapped his fingers and the darkness appeared in his right, another one, it gave another feeling was in his left.

"Aren't those the same?"

"Not exactly, the dark in my right is just a dark mass, you can change the shape but you can't do anything besides that. But when you look at the left hand, it can actually be fire, it has some light around it, when I change it into water it actually becomes water. You can't do that with the one in my right, that's a big difference, even if it looks like real water. It will only look like it but it won't be actually wet."

"Don't you think that choosing an element may seem weird? I mean, they can do anything whenever they want. And what can we do? We have to choose one each time we get another reality, it might take a long time actually."

"Becoming powerful is not something that easy, it shouldn't be, don't you think? They also need some time to gain power, they need a lot more. When your first planet finally forms I will tell you how it works afterward. We also gain power a little differently but as I said, it's a topic for a little later." The man was looking down on me while standing, I was just sitting on the ground huffing and holding my head. The pain from the astral plane was still in there and completely attacking my mind. The broken hands were now affecting my mind since… All of that actually happened there.

"What can I do after learning that though?"

"I already have a really great idea, I know what you want to do so I got a very good idea of what you can do after learning here." A paper appeared in his hand, he handed it to me. Something on there, something I could finally read.

"Academy?!" I screamed while asking, I was both happy and… I was scared about actually reading it just now. I don't know what I should do with it, I-I can't go there…

"Exactly, you will go to the academy I selected."

"But why? I will be using mana and not dark!"

"That's why your first choice is already done. You will have to choose darkness, the manalike darkness as your first element."

"..." Darkness, the power that is completely despising me, that still does and probably will. But this one is mana… Is it wrong? OR is it not wrong, it can't be correct anyway. Is there a better bad and worse bad? Is there not just bad? What should I tell him, what should I do…

"You will also receive a new name to be allowed to get there and not get recognized out of the bat." He handed me another paper, it was blank.

"And what would that be?" Words started appearing on the sheet of paper, two words.