Chapter 5 - Mana

Olexia and Peach were on the journey to meet Jinny and Illy when Peach decided to talk about an important topic.

"Olexia are you familiar with the term 'mana'?"

Peach asked.

"Mana? That's that magic fuel that gets used in games right?" Olexia replied.

"Yes, in your world that's all that 'mana' is, but in this world mana actually exists in the form of life force. Every living organism has at least a bit of mana in them, hell even the air you're breathing right now has a bit of mana in it. The most common way of getting more mana and a larger capacity of it in this world is simply by killing, after a creature has been killed the mana it has gets split among other creatures closest to it." Peach explained.

"So what can mana in this world do?" Olexia asked.

"Mana can be used for so-called 'magic', but what this magic can do is completely different for every person aside from being able to enhance your physical abilities with mana. Right now your mana capacity is still extremely low so you wouldn't be able to even see what your magic trait is." Peach added.

"So then how do I get more mana? Am I supposed to just kill every living thing I see?"

"I said that that was the most common way of gaining mana, not that it was the only one. The other way that you can use to gain mana is to absorb it from things that aren't utilising it, like the air and plants around you." Peach gladly explained. "Although there aren't that many plants in this apocalyptic city..." He mumbled to himself.

And the other one is by simply finding and drinking potions that upgrade your mana capacity artificially." Peach added.

"Mana absorption huh? How would that work?" Olexia asked.

"Well this would be a lot easier if I could show you mana, so I'd be going in your mind for a bit." Peach said.

"Yeah, su-" Olexia was cut off by Peach immediately clashing into her and going inside her mind.

"Your mind is always very chaotic, sometimes that's good but I think you've got the bad kind of chaotic." Peach complained.

"How can chaos ever be good?" Olexia questioned.

"Let's stay on topic please." Peach said as Olexia's left eye turned red.

As a few seconds went by Olexia was able to see small colorful sparks in the air with her left eye.

"You see those sparks? That's mana, normally it's only possible to see it if it's in large quantities, but since I'm sharing my vision with you you can even see the smallest sparks of it. Now put your hand in front of you facing up." Peach requested

Olexia did as Peach requested.

"Good, now if you can even slightly feel mana try to push the mana out of hand, so it floats comfortably above it." Peach added.

Olexia tried her hardest to feel the mana and push some mana out but she couldn't feel it not one bit.

"This isn't working... Can't you help, you have plenty of mana right?" Olexia asked.

"I don't have mana Olexia, all my abilities are divine powers so they use a completely different system... Please try harder, I know it's hard to do something like this but I promise after you pass this first step it's gonna be much easier." Peach insisted on Olexia trying harder.

"Maybe try to imagine a small orb in your hand." Peach suggested.

"An orb... I'll try..." Olexia closed her right eye to only focus with the one which could see the mana sparks. She focused her mind and imagined a small white orb above her hand, the size of a ping pong ball.

And when that didn't work she imagined a spark coming out of her hand, she imagined sparks gathering around that one spark. 

And to her surprise, a few sparks left her hand forming a little cluster of sparks. And just like how planets and stars are created, the sparks in the air started to clump onto Olexia's small orb, getting bigger with each second.

This mana worked like gravity, as a larger quantity of mana was pulled in one direction smaller quantities would follow it and start to get sucked into it.

Olexia looked in awe as what she imagined to be a small orb the size of a ping pong ball had now become an orb of mana the size of a tennis ball.

`Peach I'm doing it!` Olexia thought in her mind as to not disturb the mana in any way.

She opened her right eye. From her left eye, she could only see a white sphere but with her right, she could sphere what could only be described as an 'amalgamation of mana'. It was a sphere of the whole colour spectrum stretching and pulling on itself. It continued to grow and become more unstable.

"Olexia you have to pull it in! It's getting too unstable for you to be able to control it!" Peach yelled out urgently in Olexia's mind.

`Pull it in?! How?? I'm not even sure how I made this 'thing'! What do I do?` Olexia yelled back in her mind.

"Fuck, I don't even have a clue of how mana is controlled either! I just know how it works! I have no sense of mana goddamn it! Just try to shoot it out or something! There's no way you could consume a mana quantity as large as this!" Peach yelled out nervously. 

The mana sphere was now twice the size of Olexia's head.

Olexia tried to imagine herself pushing the mana away from herself but it didn't work.

"Peach it's not working!" Olexia yelled out.

Peach in an instant exited Olexia's mind, transformed into an orange mace and clashed with the pure sphere of mana.

The sphere was pushed away and the sparks started to disperse.

"Whew, well that's dealt with, you okay?" Peach asked, turning back to his original form.

"Yeah, I'm fine... Are you? You kind of clashed 'body' first into that thing." Olexia asked, concerned for Peach.

"Mana has barely any effect on divine beings so I'm fine." Peach replied. "Ignoring that it seems your mana sparks are pretty large in terms of density. After just a few of them flew out, a whole sphere quickly formed." Peach explained.

"Oh I see, that's good right?" Olexia asked.

"Yeah, that's good if you actually learn to control it well. Until then we'll just focus on expanding your mana capacity." Peach added.

After all of this happened they reached the meeting spot Peach and Illy agreed on.

It was a half-ruined building with mostly open space.

After some waiting, metal clanking noises were heard outside the building. A knight, a woman in her twenties with long blond braids and blue eyes and also a classy mirror floating beside the woman entered the open room.

"What's with the fake knight?" Peach turned to the mirror and said in a sarcastic tone.

"It scares the monsters away, but how'd you know it was fake?" Illy asked.

"It has no chance of it hurting us. It's an illusion." Peach explained.

"You're right Devil, you've always had useful eyes." Illy noted. "Let's let our companions speak for a bit." Illy added.

"I go by Peach in this lifetime, but I agree. Besides I have some things I'd like to talk with you about as well." Peach explained.