Understanding magic

Back at Olak's place Zora had at least a million questions to ask right away. The first order of business for Olak was to dig up an old dictionary. It was incredibly lucky that to keep one after so many years. He bought it decades before, when he started attending the magical academy. With the writing problem he unfortunately couldn't help at all. The family was supposed to spend tons of money on paper and ink if they wanted Zora to meticulously take note of everything noteworthy. Again, not a viable option.

Next there were questions about things written in the book, but those were too numerous to talk through in one sitting, Zora had to leave fairly quickly, as his mother won't wait for him to have a class with Olak, while she stands around doing nothing.

Soon a routine formed of Zora periodically meeting with Olak to go trough whatever questions he had, while also keeping the student updated with a steady supply of reading material, but they only ever had enough time until Lilly finished her business in town. Nevertheless, with only that much tutoring Zora was able to handle most of the hardships of learning the basics of magic.

First he had to learn about controlling mana itself. He was able to do it effortlessly, but simply because of his vast experience. Everyone else had to rely on spelling out words of magic, or even chant for harder spells, that acted as some sort of catalyst for the magical processes to begin. Everyday mages couldn't control pure mana simply with the power of their will, it was too alien of a concept for them. Zora came from places where many kinds of energies were present and used everyday, he got used to a certain way of thinking that was extremely useful in such environment, where natural magic was wild and bountiful.

Usually mages use words of power, which describes whatever they were trying to control in an ancient language that nobody knows the origin of. Some speculate its the language of the Old Gods, others say it is the language of nature itself, considering it can help control the natural elements. Next to knowing the language, an aspiring mage needed to have a very good imagination and strong willpower. Even if one managed to conjure water out of thin air, to form it into a perfect sphere they needed the aforementioned qualities.

If one wanted to conjure ice spears, for example, then they needed to know at least the name of the element, 'ice', and depending on how good the magician was, they could forego the 'spear' part, but would have to have the desired shape crystal clear in their minds for it to turn into a proper spear. It doesn't really matter what that shape exactly looked like, many different forms were good for different purposes, but at the very least they had to be given a spear-like form to avoid it turning into a jumbled mess.

It is said, that there is a level of mastery over an element, where one doesn't even have to use the name of the element to conjure its effect, but it is extremely rare, and the last records of it date back many-many decades.

The elements are the following: earth, air, fire, water. Also there are the light and dark elements, but they are a bit special. They are, by themselves, neither good nor evil, but their unique properties make them useful for different applications. Because of that, many formed a certain prejudice against the users of each of these two elements, one that is not entirely baseless, but is obviously far from the whole truth.

Dark magic is more enduring, harder to move and control and is very hard to remove, once applied, contrary to light, which is supposed to be instantaneous, 'light', as in easy to direct, but hard to keep its effects over long periods of time. Dark magic is frequently used in something related to crafting magical items, creating golems or in magical traps. Light magic, on the other hand, when properly used, can promote regeneration, so its used for healing, or when a mage is strong enough and can condense the light element properly, it can be used as a means of attack.

Now on top of all this, the elements had the capability to interact with each other. Meaning, if two or maybe even more elements were conjured at once, and if combined properly, they assume a completely new form and effect. For example air coupled with fire results in lightning. The process of combination is all up to the conjurer, though. If they fail to properly harmonize the elements, then the magic can backfire, releasing all the used energy at once, resulting most likely in an explosion.

Understanding all this was good and all, but what Zora needed most was practice, more practice, and even more practice. He had to memorize all the commonly used words of power, while also honing his ability to clearly form objects in his mind. Also studying the effects of each element had its own difficulties.

It took him months to be able to use every single element in their simplest form, then a year to properly give shape to them while only using the elemental word. He also practiced combining elements, but only lightning came along easily, which seemed to be somehow connected to his very being as a higher form of element, while the other combinations were hardly working out.

The second combination he was in dire need of is water coupled with light, to produce healing effects. Light itself was somehow able to promote cell regeneration, but it was too unstable to work by itself, so a medium had to be conjured alongside it to stabilize and properly apply its healing effect. The best element to use is water, but sometimes ingenious people can be seen to use other elements together with light, also to heal, but in a different way.