Learning

I stood in shock from the sudden splash of cold water. Had that been my first magic? "How embarrassing" I attempted to modify what I'd just done slightly so that the water would only rise above the basin by imitating the desired movement with my hands. As I raised my hands slowly into the air while focusing on the surrounding mana, the water from the basin rose sloppily before splashing me again. In frustration, I'd reverted to English and said "just rise up and stay there damn it!"

Surprisingly, the water did just that. A sphere of water had risen above the basin and was now floating. I watched in awe at the perfect sphere before noticing something. Mana from the surroundings as well as myself was moving towards the sphere before stopping and fading around it. This process was continual and seemed as though the spell would only be sustained if continually fuelled. A lot less mana was taken from me though. From this, I wondered if I could entirely fuel the spell so I tried to push mana from my core into it. My efforts resulted in the flow of mana coming from my body to increase which replaced the absorption of surrounding mana.

I continued maintaining the spell with my mana until I felt fatigued and withdrew. I was only able to maintain the spell for ten minutes or so which was a bit disappointing. The mana from the surroundings was once more being absorbed by the spell and the water continued to hover.

What I'd learned so far was that I could house a certain amount of mana that could be used to fuel spells. These spells could also be fuelled largely by surrounding mana. It seemed as though spells require a constant fuel source to maintain their effect. And finally, mana can be manipulated in three known ways: absorption, body movement or vocal command. I was most interested in the vocal command since using my body seemed sloppy or at least at my current proficiency.

I'd spoken in English the first time so I wanted to test if it'd work in the language of this world. I ordered another sphere to float up from the basin and the water complied. Now, two equally sized spheres floated side by side. It didn't seem to matter what language I used but I figured I'd use English since I both spoke it better and if anyone were to hear me do magic, they wouldn't be able to clearly discern what I was willing to happen.

I ordered the two spheres to merge with the water in the basin before deciding I could try some fire magic. If I was using voice commands it didn't seem like I could lose control and I'd only order a small flame to appear. Resolute in my decision, I commanded a flame the size of a candle's to appear above my raised index finger. Slowly, a soft glow began to appear which slowly became a tiny flame. This process had seemed very weak but the amount of mana that this spell was taking was easily the equivalent of that of both water spheres!

Absentmindedly, I tried to blow the flame out but it only flickered before reforming. I suppose that meant it wasn't fuelled by oxygen at all and solely mana so I ordered it out instead.

I'd learned a lot tonight but I was quite pleasantly tired from expending my personal mana so I jumped into bed and fell asleep.

—

When I woke up, it was still early in the morning so I had time before breakfast. I noticed that my mana core had subconsciously replenished itself over the night which was a relief but suddenly I had a thought. If I was able to order mana to do as I wished, could I not order mana to cultivate my core without meditating? This felt a bit like cheating but I quickly ordered it anyway. "All mana directly surrounding me will flow into my core." If I'd ordered for all mana to flow into my core, I'd probably end up alerting everyone this side of the spirit lands and whilst this was slower, it was an easy trade.

As I'd uttered the words, mana began to flow into my core at a steady rate. This wasn't as fast as meditating but it was happening subconsciously so I really couldn't complain. I contentedly sighed before mentally preparing myself for my tutors later today. I wasn't looking forward to them.

—

Three years had passed since Charlie had arrived in the spirit lands. Just last month, he'd celebrated his fourth birthday with his family. The party was a small celebration held with the family, Giselle, Geralt and Charlie's tutors and like previous years was really just a nice dinner for the household. Afterwards, Charlie had received a wooden sword from his mother and a small bow and quiver with arrows from his father. They were both well made weapons which Charlie was very excited to now possess since it meant Mr.Giles would start teaching things other than skinning and stealth.

These past years, Charlie had improved many things. His relationships, language proficiency, literacy, physical strength, mana core and knowledge of this world among some other miscellaneous skills had all improved greatly. Charlie was now easily fluent in the language which he learned to be called Tillish as well as was literate.

The world was called Ardae and was populated by three main civilizations. The land mass that Gillingham was on was known as Paloma and was along with the Spirit Lands a part of the Republic of Korinth. To the North, was a single land mass called Soarva which was populated by the Soarva Empire. To the east, were the two land masses that made up the Jansana Empire. The northernmost land mass was called Sajeo and the southernmost and more populated was called Deokya which housed the capital.

While the spirit lands were technically under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Korinth, they were comparatively weak in terms of wealth and military so they were often bullied into unfavourable trade agreements by the empires. The only reason that neither empire had seized the spirit lands was because the spirit lands were so far out of the way that if one empire went for it, their army would be spread too thin and the other would take advantage of their weakness and attack. This stalemate had led to both empires steadily increasing their military might while the Republic of Korinth watched in fear.

Both empires were monarchies but the republic was a democracy which Charlie thought was nice. Korinth still hadn't entirely removed the nobility from government though so the term democratic was debatable especially since the prime minister had always been a member of nobility.

At the age of four, Charlie's body had grown to the average size of a seven or eight year old which he realized was an affect of cultivation. It seemed cultivation had the affect of steroids on Charlie's body that was now also much stronger than that of a four year old. The more relevant change for Charlie was that of his mana core. After his last upgrade he'd done so twice more. The first time was only a few months after in which his core turned solid red but the second upgrade took over a year which had resulted in a red-orange tone. Charlie had begun to see a pattern in his core which resembled the rainbow but he couldn't be sure from just red and orange.

While only two upgrades might've seemed small, the second one had increased Charlie's potential exponentially. It seemed as though switching tones within a colour had a minor affect in comparison to a colour change which explained the jump in required cultivation. Even using the spell to subconsciously cultivate as well as cultivating at night didn't hasten progress greatly which gave Charlie a theory. What if his tiny body was unable to hold such power so all the mana he was cultivating was going to his growth. If that was the case then Charlie could either wait for his body to mature naturally or force it to grow faster which may cause harm. Charlie had deduced this a year ago and since then, no longer meditated. He would try again soon since it'd been a while but not yet.

These physical changes had not gone unnoticed by anyone around Charlie but everyone just acted like it was normal around him. Charlie's parents had ordered everyone to remain quiet so as not to make Charlie self conscious but if he hadn't stopped growing so fast about a year ago, they would've summoned a doctor.

Charlie had also been practicing magic but the vocal commands had drawbacks. While they were very precise, they required instructions that were just as precise which was taxing both on Charlie's mouth and his mana core. The more precise the instructions, the more mana required from the caster which was very limiting. On the other hand, body movements barely required mana from the caster but were hard to produce precise actions with. Charlie was practicing these body movements in what appeared to be an obscure martial art but staying in his room to not get caught had limited what he could do without alerting someone.

Charlie had been a star with both of his tutors but was dying on the inside. Mr.Adler hadn't taught a single lesson without bringing up god and often brought back scientific subjects to them. Mr.Adler had eventually gone over most of the information that Charlie wanted to know but he still hadn't said anything about magic users or schools. Maybe they were extremely rare so there weren't schools but individual apprenticeships. It was still odd that Charlie had never even heard of a mage in this world before but maybe it was something that was brought up at a certain age?

Mr.Giles had remained the same as he was during their first session, quiet. Most days, he'd just start walking into the forest when Charlie showed up but he did speak when necessary. Mr.Giles had taught Charlie a wide variety of things like skinning, first aid, stealth, and about various forest herbs and berries that could be used as food or medicine. Charlie had become proficient in all of these aspects and was only improving since it was all that he'd learn with Mr.Giles until recently. After receiving bow and sword from his parents, Charlie was being taught how to use them. He hadn't gotten past learning the stances yet but that was because Mr.Giles revealed that he was a perfectionist when it came to weaponry.

Charlie's days had continued much like this until one day at lunch he was informed, "We'll have guests coming around for dinner Charlie" by his father.