Elevation of Mana Chapter 184 Getting the Basics Down

Chien

It took us a few weeks to get deep into the subject of magic, but it was fun. I got to teach little Adia not only what I knew about her powers, but what I knew about the wilds. Perhaps I was no master woodsman, but over the years I'd at least learned a good bit about how to live out here, what plants were edible, where to find them.

“I can't believe you didn't know any of this, even I knew some of this at your age,” I said as I shook my head one day.

“Daddy doesn't let me into the woods often,” she replied with a pout.

“Suppose he doesn't does he, well no time like now to learn.”

“Did you spend much time in the woods when you were my age Uncle Chien?” she asked.

“No, mostly in the city, but I did have to come out every now and then for things, so I learned a little bit.”

“Were you a farmer?”

“Haha, no, farming wasn't really much back then either. People would go out in groups to get food, some still do, but a lot of people have realized that getting the plants to grow where you want them is easier. Things were... very different then.”

I thought back on the slaves that we'd had, well still had. There weren't as many now, as with the advent of scaled farming one magic user could do much more than hundreds of gatherers could in a day, but some people still had them for helping on the farms. At least it was safer, as you could manage the land a lot more carefully than someone going out to new places every day. More people in the same place, more power to bring down on any monster or beast that attacked.

“You must be old huh?”

“Pfft, not that old. Things have changed a lot, really a lot in the last little bit. Justin brought so many changes.”

“Do you like them?”

“Sometimes, sometimes not, but I think that's the way of things.”

“You know mommy says you're a mess, but you seem pretty smart Uncle Chien.”

“Ha! Well, sometimes I am, but I have a way I do things. I think that's important.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I do get into troublesome situations sometimes, but I still do things the way I think is right. Your mother doesn't like all the girls I bring around, but I don't lie to them, I don't do anything they're not fine with, and I don't promise anything I won't deliver. Try to do the same in business too, maybe I'm not nice to people, but I'm honest to them. Things work out better that way.”

“Honesty is good, you shouldn't lie to people.”

“No indeed not, but you also have to keep a code for yourself, and hold yourself to it. Decide the way you want to act, and then act that way. Maybe it'll change a bit over time, but it shouldn't be a problem. We learn as we grow after all, so changes are fine, but it's important to have rules for yourself that you follow, not because you have to, but because you want to.”

That put her into deep thought, not a bad thing at all, and gave me a few moments to myself.

If I were being honest with myself I knew I was a bit of a lecher, but what I'd told her was true. I didn't make promises to women I wouldn't keep, never led them on, though some did still think I did. Nor did I ever try to hurt them. It was just, I liked girls, but they were just fun, not someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life around. I just couldn't really bond to them like Justin did with Isha. Maybe one day it would change, maybe not, but it was the way it was. To me they were all just fun, that was all I wanted, and all I wanted them to know they'd get from me.

“That was a smart thing to say Uncle Chien,” Adia said after a long while, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Why thank you,” I joked.

“I think I need to think about it a lot.”

“Take your time kiddo. Sometimes we need to plan before we do, and now is a great time for that.”

I gave her hours to work on it, mumbling to herself and writing a few things in the dirt. It was odd how she'd taken to that little thing, loving making notes in the dirt or on bits of bark for herself even here. Not something I really got, but not like it hurt anything.

Over our time here we'd covered most of the basics. She worked mostly on plants at first, but in time I'd had to catch a few animals, giving them minor injuries for her to fix. It had also been a good time for her to practice knocking them out, something she was now very capable of.

Of course attack magic was something she needed too, but not a subject in which my student excelled. For me it had been easy, fire, or water, or like Justin often preferred pure force, all of those and many others worked. However healers were different, and they had very different options.

Knocking out animals that weren't at all magical was one thing, but against an actual attacker it wouldn't do. Adia wasn't powerful enough to effect anything with even a bit of an aura without real effort and in combat failing to achieve anything could be deadly. So I had to instruct her on how to harm with her powers.

She'd only ever used that spell against plants, never animals, but it was a nasty thing. I'd seen them before of course, magics that rotted flesh, and it was a monster of something to hit someone with. However that didn't change the fact that she needed to be able to defend herself, no arguments, and so we'd have to consider her lack of experience.

That wouldn't do, no not at all. It wasn't nice, but she needed to see what her magic could do, needed to know it on a visceral level. We'd have to hunt something, together, so that she knew it would be alright. Once that was done, once I was sure she could defend herself and not go wild when she did we'd be done here. With a satisfied smile I laid back a bit, readying for that final test.