Chapter 64: Magic

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In a room within Thor's palace on Asgard, Thor was munching on a stick of meat while Edward was deep in thoughts, his brows furrowed.

Seeing he wasn't eating, Thor asked, his mouth full, "What are you thinking about?"

Edward shook his head slightly and replied, "You must know about Chi? Or Lifeforce?"

Thor nodded, so Edward explained, "Every living being has meridians, within which Chi circulates. Now, I can't say for other races, but humans also have an additional pathway which is normally blocked by gates known as Chakras. For normal humans, those Chakras were put in place by the brain as limiters so one wouldn't hurt himself."

"How so?"

"Well for example, the first Chakra, the Root Chakra, the one I used. Opening it allowed me to gain access to my body's full power. For a normal person, they can only access a part of their strength as their muscles aren't strong enough to support their own full strength. Hence, a limiter, the chakra, was set in place."

Thor guessed, "So you are trying to open this second Chakra, and you don't know how to do so?"

Edward nodded, and Thor asked, "Why don't you use the same method as you did for the first one?"

Edward snorted, "I brushed with death to open the first Chakra, and besides the nature of the two limiters is different, so using the same method wouldn't help."

"What do you mean by different natures?"

"The Root Chakra is based at the base of my spine, and relates to my body's strength. The Sacral Chakra, the one I want to open… well, it's around my pelvis area, and relates to sexuality."

Thor laughed loudly, "Then it's simple, I'm sure many women here would feel happy to help you!"

Edward rolled his eyes, "Not an option, I have a girlfriend. And I'm faithful."

Thor scratched his head, and after a few seconds proposed, "We can go see my father or my mother. Mother is a magician of the highest standard, while my father has sacrificed his eye into Mimir's Well, so he is quite knowledgeable too."

"Can I really bring my personal problems to the King and Queen of Asgard though?"

"Father might be tough, he's always busy, but you can definitely try mother. She's been wanting to meet you anyway."

Edward shrugged and said, "Well, if that's the case then we should go."

Thor nodded and the two walked away. As they walked, he asked, "What's going on with Jane Foster?"

Thor froze for a moment, before smiling, "She's my girlfriend. I met her as Donald Blake, and we got together. She was quite shocked when she learned my identity, she made a funny face."

He turned to look at Edward, and asked, "I still haven't met your girlfriend, we should definitely do a double date sometime."

Edward's face turned a little sombre as he replied, "She told me you met, when she was younger. But she was forced to go back to her homeland by her people."

Thor raised an eyebrow and guessed, "I met her in the past? A Greek Half-Goddess whom I've met when she was younger and who comes from a shitty place… She's from Themyscira isn't she? What was her name… Dina? Donna? Dia… Diana! She's your girlfriend, right?"

Edward looked at Thor a little impressed, unaware his friend wasn't only brawl, and nodded, "She is. The day after we celebrated our first years anniversary, she was called back to Themyscira, and she didn't look happy."

Thor nodded, "She was a fun kid, I met her when I was travelling around Midgard with Hercules, and he did them wrong in the past so he went to apologize to them. She was a fierce little warrior, I remember her. The other Amazons were a bunch of bitches though. The Valkyries are much, much better."

The two arrived to a door, and as Thor opened it Edward saw a library, within which was the Queen, sitting there, reading a book.

She looked up from her book with some curiosity, and saw Thor and Edward. A smile appeared on her face as she closed the book and got up.

"Edward, we meet again."

Edward smiled and complimented, "More than a thousand years and you're beauty still remains, Queen Frigga."

He took her hand and kissed it with a short bow, making the nearby Thor speechless. Frigga badly hid her smile with her hand and laughed, "I would have never guessed you hid a silver tongue."

Thor snorted, "It's only because he has something to ask."

Edward ignored him and said, "While I did come here with a purpose, I also have manners."

Frigga teased, "But if I remember well, my husband and you made quite a mess back then because of those so called manners."

Edward froze for a moment, that happened 1400 years ago! How did she remember that so vividly?

Frigga shook her head slightly, still smiling, and asked, "So, what can I do for you?"

Edward then explained to her his situation, and after a listening to him, Frigga said, "I see… I would like to help you, if only for saving my son, twice," Thor cringed a little at that, and she continued, "Unfortunately, my knowledge of the human body isn't sufficient to give you a proper answer. If you have any question about magic don't hesitate though."

Edward was a little disappointed, but also a little excited as magic was also a strength of his. He had mastered quite a few spells to this day, one of the most recent ones was the Demons of Denak, the spell he used against the Kronan Leaders.

Right now, he was working on one of the most interesting branches of magic, at least in his opinion, elemental magic. As he asked for further explanation on this particular branch of magic, Frigga smiled as this was her domain of expertise.

"Elemental Magic is very interesting. As a beginner Sorcerer, I guess the spells you are learning are… Flames of the Faltine, Winds of Watoomb, Icy Tendrils of Ikhalton and Bolts of Balthakk?"

Edward looked at her in surprise, unaware the All-Mother knew about the spells of Sorcerers. As a Goddess, she had her own energy source, meaning she was similar to a natural born magician and use spells by manipulating her own magic instead of some entity's.

Still, he nodded, and she continued, "For a beginner Sorcerer, those would be the right spells to master, they are rather powerful and their cost isn't too harsh. However, I don't think you should learn them."

Edward stayed quiet, she obviously had an explanation, which she gave quickly seeing he kept silent, "Again, another guess, but you are limiting yourself to low ranked spells not because of your inability to understand and master higher ranked spells, but because you only want to use spells which your life energy can nullify."

Edward gaped, "How-How did you know?" He was genuinely shocked, he couldn't understand how she could guess that. Was she a mind reader? But he hadn't felt anything scan his mind.

Thankfully, she was kind enough to explain, "First, you should know that your powerful mind does not make you immune to mind control, a skilful enough mind-reader would be able to read your mind without you realizing. But I did not do so, because it is a very rude thing to do."

He was receiving shocking revelations one after another, and she wasn't even done, "As for my guess, it's not really much of a thing. Yao is an old friend of mine, I taught him for a while, and after you saved my son more than a millennia ago I have been following your footsteps."

Edward felt a little relieved at that, and although a part of him wanted to ask why she didn't help him against the Kronans if she really was so grateful, but he didn't as he believed she had a good enough reason that she would have shared with him if she could. He liked to believe in people.

Frigga quickly diverted the conversation though, "Back to the matter at hand, while I believe you could become a great Sorcerer of Yao's calibre, if not even better with the years, I don't think it would be the most suitable path for you."

Edward scratched his neck and confessed, "But I don't really have much of a choice, to be honest I already tried to use my Chi to use magic, but it didn't work."

Of course he had tried, Chi was a form of energy after all so it wasn't that far of a stretch to use it to cast spells. Unfortunately, the results were less than satisfactory.

Hearing his explanation, Frigga shook her head and asked, "Do you even know how we natural magicians perform magic?"

Edward shook his head, he had made a lot of research on magic, but it was in the arts of Mysticism, he never really gave much attention to the books on natural magicians as he wasn't one himself, so he believed such knowledge would be useless to him.

Frigga explained, "Hecate, the Goddess of Magic from the Greek Pantheon, once described magic as manipulating fragments of creation, and I can't help but agree with this description. Something important to understand too is that no matter what, magic always has a cost.

"However, as you have realized yourself, there are ways to offset this cost. A natural magician would posses mana in their body, but they don't actually use said mana to perform magic, although many believe they do. Instead, they draw the force from the fragments of creation, and their mana counters the cost.

"As for mortal humans, although they don't have anything to counter the price of magic, you might wonder why they can't use magic at all. After all, although it would highly damage them, they should still be able to use spells.

"But mana's function isn't only to pay the cost for magic, it also puts a kind of mark on the fragments of reality around them, allowing magicians to feel them and manipulate them. Normal humans don't have this, and thus can't use magic.

"But humanity is an ingenuous race, and after many years of research they managed to circumvent that, by forming contracts with higher entities. In exchange of a certain price, the entity would lend their own magic to the Sorcerers. The magic would have the entity's mark, but thanks to the contract they will be able to use it as their own.

"Now, back to your case, Chi can substitute for magic, after all, you have already been doing so against the watered down spells of Sorcerers."

Edward fell deep in thought after hearing her explanation, and after some thinking asked, "So I should learn magic like any natural magician?"

Frigga shook her head, "No, your Chi is still different from mana. Mana permeates a magician and marks their surroundings, while your Chi only marks whatever comes in your body. You still wouldn't be able to use magic like magicians do. However, I can still see an interesting path for you. One unique to you.

"Sorcerers make contracts with higher beings not only for their mark on the fragments of creation, but more importantly for their ability to lower the strain of magic. However, they also possess forbidden arts. Are you familiar with them?"

Edward nodded and said, "Yes, they are spells of astounding power, but with an extremely heavy cost, more often than not causing the death or even annihilation of a Sorcerer after being used."

Frigga explained, "While some of those forbidden spells are simply more powerful spells from more powerful entities, for the majority of them, they aren't contracts with entities but one with the fragments of creation itself.

"This allows them to use the full power of the fragments they use, but the cost also comes in full, which is why the user often dies right after using it. Higher entities water down the cost of using magic by adding other terms in their contract, such as servitude for some, which is why I guess you also didn't learn many spells?"