To Teach a Lesson

"You want me to teach you how I cast magic?"

Ritz violently shook her head yes in the most unladylike display I've seen from her so far.

"Yes! More than anything! I'll even arrange for payment. Anything at all to learn magic!" 

She was practically frothing at the mouth to get her hands on magic. Admittedly I was curious to know what would happen to a human that practiced magic our way. There was something she could offer me as well to make it worth my while.

"Alright Ritz I'll teach you, but you owe me in the future."

"Deal!" 

That was easy. "A few things first. I don't know that this will definitely work just because of the differences in our race. This could be even more dangerous than what you were describing before for you so if something happens to you I just want you to know that I will be taking no responsibility for whatever happens."

"Ok ok. I get it let's get on with the magic Amaris."

Wow. She is insatiable for magic. I suppose I'm sort of the same about knowledge. Maybe I'd be even more like her if I were human. Strange.

"Alright first thing. Sit down and face away from me."

Ritz complied quickly despite the ground not being the cleanest thing for a lady to sit on. 

"Now what?"

"Now I'm going to need you to calm down and trust me for a second."

"Of course I tru- WAH what are you doing!?"

This reaction was of course caused because my tail wrapped around her midsection and pulled her closer into my lap.

"It's going to be easier and safer to determine your affinities this way. Now feel where I put out my hand." 

I placed my hand on her back where her heart would be straight ahead. I could feel her heartbeat through her back, it slightly elevated likely from her excitement.

"Now, Ritz, you can feel where my hand is right?" I waited for her to nod, "Good. Usually your mana rests behind your heart where my hand is close to. You just need to focus on the area between my hand and your heart to find your mana. Once you do you can try to move it a little, but don't move it through yourself yet. If it feels like you're losing control of it push it into my hand. I promise I'll be ok."

Ritz nodded once again and closed her eyes. For a few minutes we sat in silence as I heard her deep breaths and felt her heartbeat start to calm down, but only a little.

Ritz's voice was barely a whisper "I- I think I can feel it. What do I do?"

"Gently pull at it and see how it responds. It's 'attitude' can also help determine your affinities, but we'll get to those later."

After a moment I felt a small amount of mana under my hand. It's like knowing something is there without being able to see or touch it, but when mana flows it feels like a comforting autumn breeze, or at least for me it did.

"You're doing great Ritz. It seems like your mana is excited to be used too since it responded so quickly. If you're ready to move to the next step tell me."

Ritz focused on tugging at the edges of her mana pool for another 10 minutes before she seemed comfortable with moving on. 

"Okay Amaris, what's next?"

"Alrighty. Well this is the dangerous part potentially. Keep both your hands out in front of you pointed outwards. Then try to guide your mana out of its little pool and into your heart. So long as you don't push it all in at once it should start pumping through your body. This strengthens you and grants you more control of your body without training, of course training makes it even easier, but it will also allow you to bond with your mana to cast spells."

This part could definitely kill her if she fed too much mana into her heart at once, but freaking her out would almost certainly damage the control she had on her mana. I was also now allowing a small amount of my mana to leak into her body so I could see into her 'mana realm', an area that had small island looking structures that are shaped by the affinities they house. My own looked like a small forest with humanoid bushes in various poses for my nature element. Another was just an empty space where leaves would perpetually blow in a circle for my wind element. The last I had at this time was a bleak blue platform that snowflakes lazily drifted down into, my ice element. I can't really do anything with them now since I'm too low level, but eventually I should be able to deepen my connection to them and possibly even gain more.

Beneath my hand I could feel Ritz's mana pool stirring, not moving just yet. I could 'see' with my mana that a pathway was slowly being extended to her pool from her heart, but she would have to control the mana output in order to get through this.

"Ritz just be gentle and slow when you start moving your mana out of the pool. It might want to explore really quickly, but you need to keep control over it. Make sure that it doesn't rush your heart all at once. 

I could see sweat on the sides of her face and on her outstretched hands, but what I couldn't see from here was her face twisted in concentration. She nodded once, very slowly, signaling that she understood what I saying and was taking it seriously.

Slowly I felt her mana start to direct its stirring towards the bridge being extended to it once it got closer. It started creeping across the bridge as if to test it getting closer to her heart. Even conducting her mana like this could kill her. I don't know if a difference between our species could prove fatal to her. I shook the thought out of my head and focused back on the task of observing in front of me. As her mana pathed across her bridge and touched her heart my hand was filled with stillness. I heard no breaths and felt no beating.

One... Two... Three...