Elevation of Mana Chapter 183 Beginning Instruction

Chien

I looked at the child and her small satchel.

“So... you have everything you need?” I asked.

“Mommy helped me pack it, said not to bring much though,” she complained.

“We won't need much, mostly we're going to be doing magic.” There was no need to hide that from her.

“You're actually going to teach me? Mommy just told me to be careful and not do it right now.”

“Yes, and she was right to,” I leaned down to get on her level, remembering how I'd hated being talked down to when I was smaller. “Our powers are pretty dangerous if we're not careful, and she doesn't want you to hurt yourself, or anyone else.”

“I don't wanna hurt anyone uncle Chien.”

“I know kid, I know, but don't worry. We'll go out for a bit and once you've got some basics we'll come back, easy as that.”

“Will it really be that easy?” she asked.

“Well, it'll probably take a couple of weeks, and you probably won't like it all that much, but it'll be fine. Just remember why you're doing it. That's what I do when I have to do things I don't like.”

“You do things you don't like?” My she asked a lot of questions sometimes.

“All the time, everyone does. Sometimes I don't like the job I need to do, but I know what comes from it when I do it, so I do it anyway. This is like that.”

Her parents had already said their goodbyes and the two of us waited now to leave. Unlike normal we were going under cover of darkness. Justin suggested, and I wholeheartedly agreed, that it would be better the fewer people knew we were leaving and where we were going. He had enemies after all, and there was no reason to let them know his child would be away from his compound.

So the two of us waited for a bit while the darkness got deeper, the moon was new, and my oldest friend had arranged for someone to sing clouds and fog into the sky. Once things were in place I scooped little Adia up in my arms and we soared into the air.

Flying was at its absolute best a mana heavy, slightly uncomfortable way to move. There'd been a lot of kinks to this spell Justin and I had once tackled, but it still kind of sucked as a long distance method of travel. He'd shown me his first version some time ago, the one he used for scouting while we traveled the world, and that was a hundred times worse than what I had access now, but even this was subpar to just walking. After all, it was just a little slower to do and much easier overall. He seemed to think his flying platforms would be much better still though, so that might have potential.

We didn't go far though, just getting outside of the city and view from the walls before we landed.

“I don't like that,” Adia complained.

“Me neither, but it worked.”

“Boo.”

We spoke little on our way to out temporary home, an old, abandoned quarry surrounded by fruit trees. The quarry itself was ours, long used for getting the limestone for making cement, a popular product still. However getting the stone out here had gotten progressively harder over the years and so we'd eventually let it go downhill. Now there was little but a large water-filled hole surrounded by trees that had been some of our earlier attempts at farming. They'd been only a marginal success, but were still pretty.

I got Adia to wait on a pile of dirt while I began to build. My magic was strong, almost at the level of an Elder myself, and ripping a few large stones from the side and forming them into a small but livable house was the work of only a few minutes. With all the ingredients I needed here too I even formed a rudimentary cement, locking them all in place as they came one by one into shape. There were small bedrooms for Adia and myself, a central space for a little fire, and a sturdy roof.

By the time I turned back to her, she'd fallen asleep where she was. We were after all well past her normal bedtime, so that was understandable. Carefully picking her up I got her to her sleeping room and began to do a bit more setup. If I was going to be here for a few weeks, it could at least be decent.

“Ah, you're awake,” I said as she stumbled out of her room the next morning.

“You woke up before me,” she observed.

“Not quite, I slept before we left and will sleep again tonight, but don't worry about that. Are you ready to begin?” My question perked her right up.

“Yes! What are we doing? Healing things? Making another house?”

“Not quite, we're starting small.” I pointed to a small vine, a clipping I'd put in a little pot of dirt. “See if you can make that grow.”

“But...”

“One step at a time Adia. If you can make a plant grow a little we can move on to bigger and better things. First though we need to start with something that won't hurt anyone should it die.”

The plant died, poor thing never stood a chance. Adia had a little bit of power, about the right amount for her age, but she pushed it too hard.

“Grow the roots first, monitor its condition as you go. You should be able to feel how it is doing if you make a spell to do it, and for things like big injuries you'll need to,” I advised, knowing at least the basics of healing from my prep for this excursion.

Her going was slow, but that was okay, ideal even. Small wounds could be healed and repaired with no problem, but more major ones had to be done in phases, everyone knew that. If you tried to regrow a hand all in one go you were likely to make someone extremely sick, and a full limb could drain their body dry, potentially killing the patient. Slow was good, slow was safe, and I told her all this as she slowly worked on vine after vine. Luckily the things grew everywhere here, so there was no shortage of supply.

We took breaks for some fruit and dried meats for meals and by the end of the day she could coax a good bit of growth from them, and even shape them to an extent. That was when I assigned her her first actual job, growing us decent beds. I threw up a couple of frames from a mix of stone and wooden supports and led her through weaving vines into mattresses. By the end of it she fell into hers and was instantly asleep.

I went to mine shortly after, enjoying the soft bounce of the plants, which I'd surely not planned out, wanting to sleep well rather than spend a night on the hard dirt. With that thought in my head I chuckled, drifting off to dream.