Step by step

"What, on the God's green earth, was that supposed to be." INT scratched his head, not knowing what Damian tried to accomplish.

"I tried to gather some water." The annoyance this answer carried surprised even Damian himself. Something made this particular failure strangely frustrating.

"The hell, you did. You just said some random word and in the middle of it you had a seizure. I'd having a hard time justifying your movements otherwise. it's 'Gata' not 'Gahtah'. What's with the weird pronunciation. Casting is just like having a conversation. If I wanted to talk to a drunk, I'd call Karathya over and let her vent about her wife over a bottle of hard liquor."

"First, stop lashing out at me. I've never done this before. second what do you mean with conversation." the frustration in Damien was now at full display. it was uncharacteristic for him to stand up to a person of authority but he himself didn't even notice that fact.

His reaction prompted a deep sigh from INT:" I really have to start remembering that you don't have the foggiest idea of what I'm talking about. OK, from the top. magic is constructed through runes. that's the catch-all-term for stimuli that provoke a reaction from the entity we refer to as universe, the great mother, the-outer-will or whatever you want to call it.

"Picture it like this. you are standing on a hill and want to talk with someone on the next hill over. you are a good distance apart and neither of you is able or willing to go to the other. how do you communicate." INT stopped talking and waited for Damien to give an answer.

After a bit of time passed Damian realized that and started thinking. he also started stuttering incoherently to gain even a second more of thinking time.

INT sight again, put his hand on Damien's shoulder and gestured to breathe in deeply. after that he sat down on the ground and said:" I don't think you have anywhere to be and neither do I. there is no rush".

After calming down and a bit of silent pondering he answered:" If it's something simple I can gesture what I want and if it's something more complicated I will have to shout loud enough for the other one to hear me."

"Good. the next problem is that the other person doesn't have to listen to you. They still do but more or less out of courtesy. can you see where I'm going with this."

Another few minutes passed until Damien gave his answer in a non convincing tone:" if I don't bother to make myself clear why should the other one bother with trying to understand me."

"Exactly. if you are not clear with your instructions there is going to be no effect. now try again. I am going to show you one more time so watch and listen closely."

INT repeated the water spell from earlier while deliberately slowing down to make it easily understandable. after getting to appreciate the full spell without being dumbstruck Damian made his next attempt.

"Gata," this one didn't produce any visible result either but INT was nonetheless satisfied.

"So, how was it?" he asked. pretending he hadn't seen everything with his mana sense. his pupil was staring at his own fingers. obviously there had been results. even if not apparent at first glance.

"I think there was something running through my fingers. something cold.

like a thin stream of cold water." Damien didn't notice it himself but there was a huge smile plastered on his face. his first spell, even if incomplete, provoked a dopamine rush from his body.

"Great now you have to focus on getting the water attribute mana you just produced out of your fingers. that's where the hand signs come in. those are more individual than chants so feel free to experiment. like I said we have all the time we need."

after a few attempts with INT's hand-signs, which produced subpar results, Damian tried to increase the flow with many different movements, which was a thoroughly frustrating process. half an hour later he finally succeeded in conjure a small water bubble and managed to hold it for about two minutes.

"Congratulations to your first real spell. So, what do you think." even though the grin on INT's face was pretty broad, Damien's eclipsed his by a landslide.

"It's fun." he replied while the euphoric sensation that had been welling up within him started to abb away. at this point Damian realized he had unconsciously held his breath out of excitement.

Furthermore, his body felt sluggish and out of energy. before he had the chance to let himself fall INT grabbed his shoulder and propped him up.

"Now hold on a second. I know that you are completely out of mana and your muscles are probably aching, but I forbid you from just giving in. it's possible to overcome this exhaustion but it takes some effort. we are going to run into some serious problems down the line if we can't get this under control right now. I am going to let go off you and we are walking back step by step."

Despite the fact that INT was being unreasonable, Damian sucked it up and after being let go he started walking.

It took a while but with a boatload of effort he managed to do it. the moment he stepped over the house's threshold his legs gave out and INT preventing him from just falling face first on the floor.

Again.

"Nice work for the first day." while carrying him up to his bed he used the physical contact to give him a thorough checkup. besides the completely depleted, deep red mana-core that was the size of a pinhole his muscles were overworked thanks to the energy that had flown through them.

'Casting is similar to exercising for the mind and leading the mana flow is exercising for the muscles. A weak body can't support the massive amounts of mana needed to cast high tier spells.

'His body is, for the lack of a better term, that of a big toddler. The muscles are underdeveloped, and the mana-core is as weak as can be. if casting a single elementary spell messed him up this badly, I'm not really confident that I can proceed as planned without seriously injuring him.

'But why should I keep scratching my head out of indecisiveness instead of just asking an expert.' after placing Damien in his bed and making sure that he was fast asleep INT took out his communication amulet. He pressed one of the rune on its surface. he had to wait a bit before the other party picked up the call.

"Oh dear, how are you. I haven't heard from you in quite a while. how are you holding up? I heard that rude man just up and vanished for good and left you behind. I swear he is getting more crazy with every century. not that I'm one to talk but still."

"Thank you for the consideration but I'm doing fine. I could use some help with something the sage entrusted me with, though." a slight smile formed on INT's face when he heard the voice of an old woman coming over the amulet.

"This man is unbearable. not only does he leave his own child alone in this world he also has the audacity to give you chores. if I ever get the hang of dimension hopping, I swear I'm going to hunt him down and give him the longest earful of his life."