Who is Jesus?

It had been 2 years since Alex started studying under Mr Hound. Alex had already grasped the basics of mana and had read almost half of the books from the library at home. Seeing Alex's drive had encouraged Mr Hound to teach him more.

"So, tell me, what is mana?" asked Mr Hound.

"Eh, not now. I'm concentrating on this new magic, don't disturb me!", Alex replied coldly.

"He used to be so cute", Mr Hound thought to himself.

Alex had learned all about mana in the first month of his training. Mana was everywhere in the world. There were two types of mana manipulation -one from the surroundings and the other from your own body. The mana from your own body depended on how much you had trained while the mana in the environment was free for all. Anyone could channel the mana from the surroundings but it was almost impossible to do so.

"It is like breathing underwater", Alex thought, "There is oxygen underwater but humans cannot harness that oxygen to breathe."

Alex was not allowed to use any spells for the first year of his training as proper training was needed to manipulate mana otherwise it could cause injuries and sometimes, even death. Alex found it very interesting that even though there was magic in the world, you needed to possess knowledge about a field to make proper use of magic. After getting hurt once he learned that doctors still existed in this world. They went through some years of education to learn about the bodies and diseases to cure them. The medical knowledge of this world was almost on par with that of earth maybe even more advanced. There was no simple spell as "heal" or "recovery". The magic system consisted of spells but one could not just simply say a spell and expect magic to happen. To be able to use a certain spell you had to associate it with the process behind the spell dictated by the amount and way of mana flow throughout the body. Since the magic system was of the association type, it was easy to come up with your spells and associate them with a convenient word and perform the magic easily. Alex was surprised to find out that many people didn't do this and the reason behind this was the mentality of the people. They thought that magic was something holy and did not want to mess around with the chants to see what happens.

Alex did not fixate on such things and had already shortened the spells to convenient chants that he could fire off at any point. Mr Hound was surprised and proud at the same time to see that his disciple had done the thing so early in his life that he had to learn the hard way on the battlefield.

Everyone could use every element of magic but not everyone could specialize in everything. The body type defined the affinity of magic. Alex also found out that magic affinity was inherited from your parents through generations and due to this, unlimited forms of magic and thus magic affinities existed in the world. Alex's father specialized in water and air magic while his mother specialized in earth magic. Alex had inherited all the affinities and could even perform fire magic with ease. He had developed his technique of channelling the mana throughout his body and associated them with simple algorithms. Since he was a Computer engineer it came easy to him as he had a lot of knowledge in that field which was of no practical use in this world without computers, but he had found the use for it and had written them down in his diary for future references. He did not know that he had created a revolutionary technique that would change the course of magic development and he wouldn't until later in his life.

One day, they decided to go to the pond in the forest to train Alex's water affinity and also Alex wanted to try and stand on water. The forest was a very dangerous place or so Alex was told many times by Mr Hound. There were two parts of the forest- The shallow part also called the shallows which were accessible to everyone and were filled to the brim with useful materials and trees. Then there was the deep part which was considered dangerous and only the people who had trained a lot could even enter the forest. This had the opposite effect on Alex, instead of getting scared of the forest, he started looking forward to his visit to the forest. The Deep end was a breeding ground for monsters which made it an ideal place to train as well.

"What?! You want to stand on water?", Mr Hound asked and was surprised.

"Yes, ever since I found out I have water affinity, I wanted to do this. Might as well see how Jesus felt." Alex answered excitedly.

"Who is Jesus?", Mr Hound was confused.

While he was asking the question, Alex was already at the shore of the lake. He concentrated his mana flow on his feet and imagined the mana forming a dish around his soles. He stepped on the surface of the water and it worked! It took him some time to balance but he recovered quickly. He was now walking on water! Alex started going further and further into the lake.

"Wait, don't go there!", Mr Hound shouted.

"It's fine nothing will happen", Alex replied.

Something touched Alex's foot and he felt like his mana was being sucked. This made Alex lose his balance and he fell in the water and at that exact moment, something grabbed him from inside the water. It started pulling Alex down deeper. Alex was stupefied by the unexpected attack from the monster. He was scared for his life and that's when the adrenaline kicked in. He could not breathe but he swiftly covered his nose and mouth with a pocket of air gaining some composure. This at least helped him by reducing the number of problems that he was facing. Along with the drainage of mana that the monster was causing him he also had to consider the water pressure. He had a flashback to his 8th-grade science class.

"Water, like all things on Earth, is pulled downward by the force of gravity. As you go deeper into a body of water, there is more water above, and therefore a greater weight pushing down.", this is what his teacher had said.

This was the practical demonstration that he did not want. The pressure increased to a point that it was too much for Alex to handle. He thought of a counter-attack against the thing that was pulling him but could not as he had lost a decent amount of mana. He still mustered up his remaining mana while still keeping the air mask intact. He used a concentrated blast of air on the branch that was pulling his leg. This attack could not cut the branch but it still loosened the grip on his leg. Another similar blast was fired but it was not Alex, it was Mr Hound who had dived in the water to save Alex.

He blasted the branch away and swam to the surface with Alex. This was the first time Alex had encountered a monster and it had scared him but also given him the taste of his power. This was the first time in his life, he had felt strong. Even though he had lost the fight and had to be saved by Mr Hound, he felt that he could save himself if he gets caught in a similar situation.

"I am so sorry, I should have listened to you.", Alex apologized.

"Don't mention it, still, it's rough that the first monster you faced was a fyto" Mr Hound replied casually.

"What's a fyto?" Alex asked his curiosity overriding his fatigue.

"It's the mana sucking plant monster that we just faced", said Mr Hound.

Then he told Alex all about the Fyto and why it was not destroyed. Fyto was considered the guardian entity of the lake. No one had seen its true nature or even knew how big it was. According to Mr Hound, it covered the two third's of the lake and only the shores were safe.

"Let's go home!", Alex said with difficulty. He was tired as most of the mana from his body was sucked out by the fyto.

Mr Hound had witnessed the whole scene from above. He had seen how Alex covered his face with air and that helped him breathe underwater. He was surprised once again to see Alex develop uses for the magic that he and his fellow soldiers had to come up, on the battlefield and it had taken him 2 years to learn just that.

"You never told me who Jesus is", Mr hound said while carrying Alex on his back.

"Jesus is...", Alex fell asleep mid-sentence.

"He is still a seven-year-old boy but his knowledge and technique is that of a hardened war veteran", Mr Hound thought.

What Mr Hound didn't know was that he had a storm coming his way once he would reach the Greymore Mansion.