Fear Not The Elf Who Knows 10,000 Spells - Chapter 5

"What do you know of magic?" Schroff asked once we made camp and settled down for the night. A small fire was made between our sleeping bags. I had one bought with allowance I saved up from a long while.

I asked why not make a tent, he said just using the sleeping bags was faster for picking up, when we wake up and get moving.

Seems legit.

Although circulating mana around my body to push away bugs and the like, while sleeping is something I've done before, I never had to do it for multiple days. This should be good exercise.

"Other than sensing mana, and moving it around a bit? Practically nothing. I know you need mana to make a spell, and that's magic." I answered honestly.

"And what constitutes as a spell?" Schroff continued.

"Causing some kind of effect in the world that uses up mana?" I shrugged. "I'm not sure."

"Hmm," he grunted, and went quiet for a moment. "Is that all you can think of?" Schroff asked curiously.

Is there anything else? Hmm, what else? What else?

Oh!

"You need good imagination to be a good mage." I said with some excitement as I remembered the most essential thing about the Frieren magic system.

Unlike what I expected, Schroff scowled, then sighed.

...Is this like the Old Master trope where everything that I know is wrong, but later turns out to be right, but I didn't have the mindset for it?

"You need a strong imagination to be a great mage," Schroff replied, yet from his tone, it sounded like he was reciting a quote. "It is not what you need as an aspiring mage. You need something else to learn to be a mage."

Huh, I was right.

"And what's that?" I asked, really engaged with the the lesson. I found myself smiling as I was finally learning about magic, rather than stumbling in the dark.

"Certainty." Schroff said, and the first time in my mind was how, you could be certain with imagination.

A clear image in one's head can make them certain about how something could be.

I held back the enthusiasm a bit, and so I can listen to Old Schroff's words, and not force my assumptions on what he said. Learn then assume as the saying goes. Probably.

"Could you elaborate, Mr. Schroff?" I asked, my smile nearly splitting my face. I swear I was so excited, my eyes probably are doing that pupil star shining thing.

Schroff snorted at my reaction.

"What happened to 'old man'?" He scoffed with a chuckle.

"I'm sorry for not being more polite earlier, teacher!"

He snorted and chuckled some more despite his want to appear stoic.

"'Schroff' is fine. You sound weird when you're trying to be a goodie-two-shoe." He said, waving me off.

"I can act like a good kid." I scoffed this time, playfully offended.  

"Not saying you're not." Schroff shook his head. "Bah, never mind." He said, as his tone returned to being lecture-y. "Back to the point, 'you need certainty first to cast a spell, then you need an imagination to cast it well'." He said in a rhythm-y way.

"Is that a quote from somewhere?" I asked.

"A rhyme we used to get told as kids." Schroff said. "I don't know about fancy magic schools or academies but here's how I learned it." The old man had a small nostalgic smile the more he spoke. I don't think he realized he was doing that. So I didn't mention it. "Magic, as my grandmother used to tell me, is a conversation with the world, and spells are the agreement both parties come to." He said. "It's fine if you don't get everything I say. Stop me and ask questions, if you're lost somewhere."

Yet my thoughts were elsewhere.

'Magic is a conversation'?

A conversation needs two parties minimum. How would the World talk?

Wind? Air?

No. Obviously mana.

The world has mana!

Goddess's Magic is a three party conversation, that's why it's stronger than normal magic. Wait, is it stronger than normal magic—? The thought immediately came to mind, and I pushed it aside for later.

"The world has its own mana!" I cried out, trying to hold back a laugh.

"..." Schroff's eyes widened, as he blinked at me in muted shock for a while.

"So Spells are a combination of our mana, or internal mana, and World Mana which is external mana?" I asked as connections came to mind from anime, manga and other fantasy stories, with even bits of sci-fi.

"Who told... Huh, I guess that's what they call a genius?" Schroff muttered to himself.

"Huh?" I blinked at that. 'Genius'? That seem like just normal logic. I don't think I could stand with any of the real geniuses out there.

"Nothing," he waved me off, before a wistful look came to his face. "You really should be learning in one of those fancy magic schools." He muttered, and I pretended I didn't hear him. Before ignoring politeness and addressed him anyways.

"Well, you're here and I wanna learn from you anyways." I said almost petulantly.

Schroff snorted, which turned into a laugh.

"Right, right, of course." The old man said with his gravelly voice.

"It usually takes a while for kids learning magic a while to realize that. You're only realized as a true mage when you can sense the mana of the world." He explained.

"So you need to first sense the mana of the environment around you in order cast spells?"

"No," Schroff shook his head. "If you know the structure and rules of a spell, you can cast it, even if you don't know everything about it, or about magic." He said. "Casting a spell is like trying to look through a fog to see a picture. The more concise and focused a spell is, the easier it is to cast. Both in terms in mana cost and spell structure holding up."

"Concise and focused how?"

"Hmm," Schroff grunted in thought, before a small amused smile came to him. "Did you know there are twelve spells for making tea?"

"Excuse me?" What the fuck? I like tea as much as the next guy, but it's not that complicated to make! Why would you need to know that many spells for making frickin' tea!?

"Well, that's what I heard. Although I do know two of them." Schroff said with a chuckle. "The first the spell that brews hot tea, Teekessel. However that one requires all the tea's ingredients in place first. So you have to put tea leaves, and sugar or whatever if you want, along with water, then the spell will boil it to a perfect temperature. The other is Heißtee, a spell that makes hot tea by transforming water into hot tea." Schroff said, and I was trying not to let my amusement show up too much, as how silly that was. "I knew someone that could summon tea directly from their wand, just straight up mana to tea. But I didn't bother to learn that one."

I laughed. I really should take this seriously, but it was just too silly.

"Sorry, sorry!" I didn't want to seem like I didn't care for the lesson.

Schroff grunted, yet I could see the smile hidden behind his white and silvery mustache and bread.

"Back to the point." He said once I finally calmed down. "The reason why you have many spells for the same thing, is because different people have different ways to solve a need that magic provides. Such as getting tea." I snorted, but was now calm enough so I could listen. "That's why the more a spell is specific, the easier it is to learn, and the less magic you use."

"So something generic like a fire spell would be like looking through a dense fog for that picture, because not only is the spell too generic, I'd need to learn a lot about fire, how it works, etc. and all that raises the mana cost of the spell?" I asked.

"Hmm," Schroff smiled and nodded. I think I heard him mutter 'quick' under his breath.

"So, how do you cast a spell? Do you shape your mana in a specific way? Do you just combine your mana with the world's mana while focusing on your intention? How does it happen?" I asked.

Schroff seemed tired all of a sudden as he sighed and looked away. He looked down at the fire in thought, before turning to me.

"You can detect mana, correct?" He asked and I nodded. "Learn to detect mana of the environment around you, then you'll be ready to learn spells. The better you are at the basics, the better you'll be later on." Schroff then got up, got some of the game meat from our supplies, deer meat, and a small cup of nuts. "I'm gonna make dinner, you work on that, and keep working on it throughout our trip till we reach the mountains."

With that Schroff just got to cooking on the open fire.

I sat back in a meditative pose, and closed my eyes.

Mana detection was second hand to me now. Yet there was still stuff I can learn, like how to pin point things too small, like dust mites. Ants are still a struggle, as I can't focus on them if I'm moving. Even while sitting down, I can only feel them by focusing on a location. Feeling all insects in my range is out of my league for now.

Also, my range, that's something I need to improve. But more than that, Löwenjunges proved that mana detection could be spoofed by someone pretending to have mana levels lower than that of a human, making others mistake them as an animal. I need to be able to get a visual feed of someone when I use mana detection.

Not just feel their presence, but feel what they look like through their mana.

But even with how skill I got so far, how can I detect the World's mana when I never even got a hint of it before?

I can feel other living beings just fine, but why not anything else? How did this escape my notice?

I stopped focusing on the living beings around me, and tried to focus on the 'empty space' space in my radius. The parts that aren't the animals, insects or plants. The air, ground, rocks or dirt.

I feel... well, I feel the air around me, but not much else.

I kept going for a while. There is the heat and of the campfire and crackling of the firewood. The smell of the venison Schroff is roasting on a stick is starting to get distracting.

But again, why can't I sense this external mana, if it should be so abundant? It mana of the World, right? It should be everywhere. It should be easy to figure out.

Fern learned it as a nine year old or something. That's why when she finally learned how to correctly use Zoltraak she was considered a mage, since she likely figured out this first part, and what was left was just casting a spell correctly, with good mana control and mental image.

So why can't I sense it if it's already all around me?

Water. Ocean.

My mind went to thinking about fish swimming in water, and some old philosophical or scientific quote came to mind.

A fish doesn't know it is swimming in water.

With my eyes still closed I raised a hand and slowly tried to wave it, like waving water in a swimming pool.

If I'm already in the water, I should be able to feel the effect of ripples I'm making.

I tried to feel if something was rubbing against my mana. Something that should have always been there.

Isn't my mana pushing against something as I'm moving? Or is it too big to be felt?

How does a fish know it's swimming in water? 

It needs to swim.

I raised a hand up, gathering my mana into hand, doing nothing but focusing on mana detection.

I focused my mana... then shot it upward.

It was nothing. There was no spell after all.

Just a pure stream of mana flying upward. It wasn't Zoltraak of course or anything like that, there was no intent in my mana. Just a desire to be.

Just a rod or a sonar shooting out, while I focused on detecting what my mana interacts with.

Nothing. No, something... maybe?

Am I imaging things, or trying to see something that isn't there, but I expect to be there.

I frowned, but didn't stop my mana detection. I ignored all living beings again.

I brought my hands down, gathered mana between them and let it ripple and expand like a bubble.

Again!

There's... something at the edge of my awareness. Like a picture, colors bleeding in.

I kept focusing on the negative space in my mana detection, spending waves of mana like a soap bubble expanding outwards. Not trying to do anything, just feel.

I felt as my mana hit the air. As it moved over and under the ground.

Okay, maybe focus on something smaller?

I made my mana coat my hands and tried to move them as if I was grasping air.

It was like a bad attempt at clapping. Yet the more I did so, the more it felt like I was grasping 'something' between my hands. Like a pressure between my palms. As if I a ball of air that's trying to resist and push back.

I grinned and focused on that feeling. Doing it again and again, focusing on the separation. On what's not "me".

Feeling it by feeling what it is not.

Until finally...!

The World opened to me.

I've discovered the water.

It was like finally seeing, when at first I only had a blackened world with points of light.

I could feel everything in my range. The totality of the world that I could sense in my mana detection range. I instinctively held back from fully sensing it. Like, only having an awareness of it, but not fully taking in everything, lest I be overwhelmed.

I felt energy. My mana in me, but also how the World's mana was... you know how energy and matter are the same thing?

Of course it's difficult to sense the World's mana, when solid matter, ground, dirt, or air, oxygen, nitrogen and other gases are just energy in different states, different vibrations.

It's all so basic in their presence that you couldn't distingish them. Like hearing the sound of your own heartbeat, or seeing the edge of your nose.

It too active focus to realize them.

I opened my eyes, staring at the flames of the campfire, ignoring Schroff's frozen posture and stare towards me.

I only looked at the fire.

Fire is combustion. Despite how it looks, it's a chemical reaction even without the connotation of 'chemical' being liquids. It's a rapid oxidation that releases energy in the form of heat and light.

I moved my mana over to the fire, as the external mana moved around it. I swirled my mana around the fire, the World's mana moving where my mana wasn't.

I intention swept through my mana. The World's mana and my own dissolved into each other, as an 'effect' was centered on the campfire.

I waved my hand, wanting the chemical reaction of the fire to halt, to pause. For no more heat and light to be released for now. For the energy to stay in the wood.

The fire went out.

Then I thought about reigniting the flames. Nothing fancy, just bring them back just as they were.

Of letting the gases in the wood escape once more, or letting it heat up and mix with the oxygen once more. For light and heat to escape and be freed as they once were.

The fire returned with a bit of a spur before settling down as I let go, let my mana let go of it. The World mana disconnecting as I let things be.

I released a breath. Took one in and let out a laughed.

"Holy shit." I said laughing. "I did it."

"Holy shit," Schroff said. "You did it."

His tone, much more stunted and quietly shocked, threw me out of my celebration as I turned to my mentor.

"That's good, right?" I said, struggling to quiet down the excitement running through me, but easily letting the energy settle down, as I smiled and relaxed my shoulder. "That's the first thing magic students are suppose to learn and all."

"...It's suppose to take you years to sense the World's mana." Schroff said, making nervousness and amusement take hold of me. "I know because I've seen others train, and I distinctively remember it took me six years to learn how to do that."

"Oh..." Uuuh, what do I say now? "Cool." I nodded.

Nailed it.