Chapter Two

I spent the entire night reading, analyzing and trying to understand every concept in that fifty paged book, mom didn't really 'borrow' that book from Windsor manor she bought it, which was expensive for her but for the past two years she was saving up for this book and today was the day that she finally had more than enough. She said that Lisa, a cook in Windsor manor, introduced her to a merchant friend she knew, she saw that my mom would always take books from the library and returned them so she assumed that mom loved reading.

As the sun was starting to rise I realized that I didn't sleep a wink last night, mom was still fast asleep so I tiptoed out of bed to a small box that was in the corner of our house and took out a notebook. The notebook was about a thousand paged, it was an A4 in size and the cover was made of hard cardboard, otherwise known as rich people books. This is the one book that mom didn't return she said that the Windsor wouldn't notice if this particular book went missing. I've had this book for two years and it was filled with my note, summary and hypothesis that I've had about mana.

The book that my mother bought was third-rate at best, the theory they had about mana was so basic, the technique for absorption of mana had a few flaws, I wrote them down in the notebook and wrote three ways that was going to correct them. Since I was already awake I decided to make breakfast, I went outside of the house took the wood I had chopped yesterday, dropped them in the cooking fireplace inside our house, smacked two stones together till sparks flew and a fire started and started cooking. It wasn't much I was just making an omelette and coffee which we were going to eat with some bread mom brought with her yesterday.

"hmm cooking dinner and breakfast someone is being an angel, what do you want?" mom asked well her tone was happy when she called me an angel then it changed to suspicion.

"really can't I do something out of the goodness of my heart," I said well I understand her suspicion the last time I cooked without being asked to I had accidentally burnt one of her dress but it wasn't my fault I was trying to see if I could control use mana to create fire, it worked but unfortunately one of the dress that was drying on the clothesline caught fire. I never really told her what happened because if she knew that I was able to conjure fire then she would have made a big deal of it, that and I've never managed to conjure it ever again.

After breakfast mom went and took a bath, like most commoners our bathrooms were outside of our houses an indoor bathroom was a luxury of the rich. Mom ordered me out of the house so she could change, I don't know why she feels the need to order me out I'd gladly leave because no one wants to see that. When mom was done she called me back, gave me the list of chores and left me to take care of the house before she left for work. I did what any twelve year old would do, I locked the the door as soon as she was out of sight.

"now time to see if the upgrades I've made will help me in making an efficient mana core," I said as I gazed at the two books in my hand. I went in the direction of the woods which was at the eastside of my house the reason I picked the woods was because forests have large amounts of mana in the atmosphere also its secluded so no one would have broken my concentration. It was a forty minute walk inside the forest, the deeper I went the richer the mana. After a while I reached a really big oak tree, the tree had vines of white flowers hanging around it, also because of the flowers there was a rich sweet smell that made me choose this spot.

I sat down and crossed my legs together, I placed my palms together as if I was praying and positioned my hands in front of my sternum as I parted them a little leaving a small gap in my palms but my fingers were still touching sort of like a pyramid. I closed my eyes and begun to clear my mind, the first step in forming a mana core was to be able to see and feel mana, so at first nothing but I kept meditating until I saw a small white pebble floating behind my head, I quickly opened my eyes and turned around only to see the stem of the oak tree.

"idiot," I said to myself as I smacked myself in the head, I fixed my posture and started meditating again but unlike before it only took half a minute for me to see the white pebble, this time it was on my left side, I continued to focus then another white light like pebble appeared in front of me then to my right then to the back of my head till finally the entire area around me was filled with countless white pebbles it was almost resembling the night sky, I someone managed to submerge themselves in the night sky I assume this is how he would see things. I hesitantly opened my eyes like before the white pebbles disappeared but unlike before I could see some roughly twelves pebbles.

I threw my hands up in the air in a celebratory way, "I did it, I really did it, I obtained mana sight," I shouted. An echo came back and to be honest I didn't like the way my voice sounded like geez my voice needs to deepen. The reason why I was excited over this was that mana sight was a unique phenomenon, unique not rare but unique, most people were just able to just feel mana while some were able to see it, the fact that I was now among them was a great achievement in itself. Now on to the main reason I was here forming my mana core. The reason I said that the book was flawed was in the title itself, in a book I read about the theories of mana cores by Vladimir Flasinksi states that every living thing has a mana core the problem is that the mana core is filled with a vast amount of impurities which make it seem that the mana core isn't there.

So if there's any truth to what he said then the only thing am supposed to do is absorb mana and simultaneously expel that mana in order for the expelled mana to exit my body with the impurities. I shut my eyes because even though I had mana sight feeling mana was more effective but I'll continue to train it later. The moment I shut my eyes, instantly almost a thousand pebbles surrounded me, I did as the book instructed the book suggested in order to absorb mana one had to open up their entire body, it described it as relaxing everything all at once, thank god I already used the bathroom, as I relaxed my entire body mana rushed to me it was like a snowfall but with mana. As soon as the mana was close to me I closed every point of my body except my sternum where my mana core was.

Almost all the mana rushed into my sternum a few dissipated but it didn't matter, as mana kept rushing into my core a heavy feeling started setting in, it was getting hard to breath but I didn't stop and as the last of the mana surrounding my sternum finally squeezed through, one of my nostrils was bleeding and I could taste the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. Now for the second part which if my theory is correct will hurt like hell, I started forcing the mana I had collected to run through my body and clean out the impurities, The mana felt like fire was running through my body I wanted to stop but if I did I would ruin my mana path. After what felt like hours I could feel something drip out of my body like sweat, I opened my eyes only to see black ooze and pus coming out of my skin, the stuff that was coming out of my body had a disgusting stench.

The smell was like a mix of rotten egg and throw up, with half of the a quarter of the impurities gone, I knew I had to repeat the process three more times maybe even less so I took off my shirt tied it into one big knot and placed it in my mouth to bite through the pain. It took eight more time that was five more times I hadn't accounted for this was because after each turn I needed to take in more mana but as the saying goes no pain no gain. With my new impurity free body, I felt as light as a feather and my mana channels was like a river with no obstacles, I tried to absorb mana but I could only fill my core halfway well due to my mental exhaustion. Perhaps it was the excitement fading away but I realized something that made my heart sink close to my butt.

"how the hell did it get this dark!" I yelled with both my hands on my head, "mom's gonna kill me when she gets home." how was I going to get home anyway it's an hour away from home. Wait Sam, Sam used to increase his speed by holding mana in his legs am not sure how long I can do it but worth a shot. I willed mana to reach my legs and as soon as mana reached my legs I felt every fiber of my muscles clench and I could feel power spread through my legs. It felt like thirty cups of coffee and as hard as it is to believe it took me thirty minutes to get home almost makes me wonder how Sam never caught up to me.

Although I had formed my mana channels, passing mana through them was difficult but I knew someone who was going to help me fix that.