Spirit's contract

Celine and Leander were sitting in the middle of the garden eating sandwiches, since the morning she had been organizing things in the house, it looked like their mother didn't stay for too much time there to actually organize everything, Leander thought that it was probably a house she used for vacations, after all, it should be common for someone like Elentiya to have multiple houses.

"Where is mom?".

"Well...mom's job is really complicated so she is busy all the time, Don't worry, she'll arrive to see us whenever she can" Celine's voice didn't sound confident at all.

Elentiya left the house before dawn, Leander was awake at the time and saw her leaving through a portal located in the middle of the backyard garden, she seemed to be in a hurry making him wonder if something happened in that mysterious job of hers

The portal she passed through seemed to activate only with a certain sequence of runes and was practically hidden in the middle of the garden.

"I'm going to keep organizing things, you can eat my part, Ferran"

'Hmm... she has become more mature huh?' Leander thought seeing her acting like this.

As Their lives had a sudden shifty Celine changed as well, she acted a bit more mature now. Lydia's Betray and death seemed to have impacted her deeply; The only thing that kept her smiling was that now she no longer had to lie to her little brother

Celine ruffled his hair and headed towards the house, It was late and there were still a few hours before nightfall, Leander decided to explore the place, he had no idea where this house was and was eager to test the things he had found out about magic.

He walked to the backward garden to see the portal one more time.

People who were distracted might have overlooked the arch-shaped gate made from rocks, which was partially hidden by plants. Leander had seen how that worked, but seeing and doing were two very different things.

Elentiya had drawn golden runes in the air making part of the runes engraved on the portal light up with similar color, after this the other part of the runes lighted up with a silver color, opening the portal. When she left, the portal went out, and the rune set on the rocks changed.

It was a loss of time trying to understand the rules without something to guide, his book didn't have anything about runes, but in this world, they seemed to be very important, especially to spatial magic.

As he jumped over the small garden wall Leander felt the same sensation as when he entered the forest and the mana seemed to be back into the atmosphere.

Elentiya's house was near the top of a small hill, so Leandemr didn't have to walk much to get to the top.

After passing through the giant trees he could finally see what was on the other side of the hill, it was a small village, so small that it would be impossible to see it if it were not for the small lights coming from the houses.

His training to control his mana system had a rough and slow start, his book explained that mages must learn to feel their own mana system, Leander failed because he tried to make a spell first instead of controlling his mana system first.

The book had small instructions on how to control the mana vessels, it was also said that children would instinctively understand how to control their own mana system, but for him the situation was different, he had no instincts, he was reincarnated from another world his instincts were different from the humans of Raghon

It was one of the cases that being a reincarnate was a disadvantage, everything that beings natural from that world would learn easily by instinct he would have to learn by constantly training, at least he could really on his knowledge of the other world magic that he already had.

He tried to feel the mana circulating inside of him but it was akin to using a new limb; sometimes he would lose part of his focus and expel mana instead of channeling it inside his body; when he lost complete control, the mana would go wild inside his mana system, making him feel pain.

Apparently losing control of a spell was something much more dangerous in this world, mana was a force of nature and when that same force got wild it could hurt not only the target but its own caster.

A few hours later, he still couldn't properly control his mana system, but he felt he was slowly progressing.

To see his own progress he tried a simple spell of making a bubble of water, it took him some seconds but he finally made a stable water bubble.

That little progress was enough for him, at least now he was certain none of his spells would explode and harm him instead of his opponent.

"You have a good mana control human".

Suddenly he heard a voice that seemed to come from different sides of the forest, Leander was startled and looked around searching for the voice.

"You are looking too high".

A black cat emerged from the nearby bushes; her onyx-colored fur seemed to blend into the shadows making her yellow eyes stand out, It was clearly not a normal cat it had two tails each with a distinct rune on its tip.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Nohrie, I'm a spirit" The voice sounded feminine making Leander assume it was a female.

He remembered the first time he encountered a spirit in the forest and didn't expect this one to be different, mana started to slowly move to his right hand preparing a ice spell.

"Don't worry I will not attack you kid" Nohrie said trying her best to not scare him, she calmly looked at him waving her tail side to side, in her mind saying something like that was exactly what someone suspicious would say, making her wish that she had more time to think of how to approach the kid, but she was running out of time really fast.

"And why should I trust you?".

The cat rolled her eyes before answering.

"Look kid I can't harm you even if I wanted to"

"What do you mean?"

"Pet me and you will see" she tilted her head in leanders direction.

He didn't feel any hostile intent coming from her so he just did it, when his hand reached the spirit head he could feel its mana, her mana was so low that he could barely feel it.

"See my mana paths are damaged I can barely wave a spell right now" By the way she had spoken it seemed that for spirits having a damaged mana system was a much more serious case than for a human.

"So what do you want?" Leander was sure that a spirit wouldn't show weakness without a motive.

"Why don't you make a contract with me, doesn't that sound good?" she said with an excited voice.

"Huh, what would I gain with this?"

Nohrie looked at him with a puzzled look.

"Kid, do you even know what a spirit is?"

"Yes"

"Then Why aren't you impressed by me?" She shouted in anger.

"Just because you talk?" Leander didn't believe that cat could possess such a big ego.

"*sigh* Tell me what you know about spirit magic" she spoke in a depressed tone.

"Spirit magic is the imprint of a will on mana" He repeated the words in the book, that was the only thing he knew about this type of magic.

"As I thought you just know the basic definition" Nohrie shook her head negatively while her ears drooped with dismay, now made sense to her why Since the start Leander didn't seem even a little bit amazed by her.

"What do you mean?" He knew that spirit magic was more than the simple concept in a book, he had already seen a spirit before, but decided to feign ignorance and let Nohrie talk about it, it was better to learn spirit magic from a spirit itself.

"Kid is true that spirit magic is the imprint of a will on mana but this is only a definition that fails to express what spirit magic really is".

"Explain more". Leaner was excited to finally know more about that type of magic.

"Hmmm have you seen another spirit other than me?" she asked swinging her tail from side to side.

Leander remembered the spirit that attacked him in the forest, A beast that looked somewhat like a Bird with gray feathers that Lydia called a Merijiya.

"Yes, it was called a Merijiya"

"Oh, that's a good example, listen, to wave spells, you need more than mana; you need also the will of mind to wave a spell; if want to throw a fireball you have to gather part of the mana in your mana system and combine it with the will in your mind to form it.".

He already knew about this, it was the basic one needed to know about magic in the other old and this one as well, but he held his question until she finished.

"But what do you think happens if someone imbued all the mana in his body with his will?" She asked looking into his eyes.

He tried to come up with an answer, but he had no clue what would happen. The will of the mind to make spells was something complicated; waving a spell took a specific amount of mental effort depending on its complexity; if imbuing a particular amount of mana was difficult, he couldn't imagine how much harder it was to do with all the mana in the body.

Seeing that he couldn't find an answer, Nohrie continued her explanation.

"Everything on this world has mana including beasts, a Merijiya is nothing but a spirit formed from the fighting will of a beast that died".

'So ghosts really exist in this word' he thought.

"When a beast is about to be killed their fight will get stronger in order to survive, if their will is great enough after their death, the mana in their body becomes one with the will creating a spirit that we call merijiya

Most spirits just contain a primitive will and don't have consciousness, only rare spirits such as me are intelligent".

"I see..."

"So aren't having a deal with me an awesome deal?" She said proudly.

"You still haven't answered what I gain having a deal with you".

"*Tsk* I can teach you about spirit magic and spirit manipulation I also have much more unique abilities that even other intelligent spirits don't have, in return you just have to feed me with mana".

"Hmm show me your abilities first" One of the things he had learned being a reincarnate was to always pay attention when making a deal with entities.

"~ah okay you are lucky that the people in that village below suck at magic, By the way, kid what is your name?".

"Leander"

"Hmm interesting name, ok, Leander this is one of my special abilities".

She looked at him and the runes on her two tails started to shine.

"As you already know I am a rare intelligent spirit but my case is even more special".

From Nohrie's shadows, a book arose.

"What is this?"

It was a thick book with a brown cover covered with runes, it looked old, even older than the one he had found in Elentiya's office, Leander's eyes winded in surprise when the runes on the book melted into a liquid that looked like black ink, the liquid ran down the cape forming new rune patterns this time flashing with weak silvery light.

"It is a grimoire, a book full of spells and things about magic".

His eye's shined with interest, a book about magic was everything he needed right now, but one question came into his mind.

"How do you have this?"

"Spirit manipulation is a branch of spirit magic, mages are capable of controlling spirits and using them to different purposes, my master made mine guard this grimoire".

"Wait what happened to your master them?" Leander was surprised that Nohrie had a master already.

"Dunno she is probably dead tho" She replied bluntly.

"And what if she isn't dead?" He started to get concerned about Nohrie's apathy for the death of his former master death.

"My connection with her was cut a long time ago with means she is dead, also she was the one who abandoned me she, broke our contract, and tied me to this grimoire, and now because of my damaged mana paths I'm slowly fading so I need to form a new contract"

After thinking for a moment Leander decided that was a good deal.

"So we have a deal or not kid?" she extended her paw as if she was a businessman.

"Deal"

He shook her paw and could few their mana signatures connecting and becoming closer to each other.

"It's been a while since I had enough mana," She said, her voice full of relief.

"--Oh since we are partners now there is something you need to know about me" Since they had a deal now Leander decide to tell his history to Nohrie.