Controlling Mana

Lucas flopped down onto the huge bed in the temporary room given to him exhausted by today's events and also having some anxiety about what tomorrow would bring as he looked at the fancy robes brought to him earlier in the day. The robes were extremely bright white with gold fabric trimming along the edges.

They were enchanted with a clean and anti-wrinkle spell that would make him look extremely graceful as he walked no matter what he did. Lucas's initial intention would have been to keep his head down as to not draw any unwanted attention that may possibly lead to questions about his origins.

I seemed this was no longer possible though and he had to prepare to lie about his entire life up until this point. Luckily his father had already given him a story to tell in the case of the need arising. Now all he needed to do was making sure the story sounded convincing when he told it. He was told to make up the smaller details as he went along using half-truths as it would make the lie more believable and help him remember it.

Lucas recited the story many times in his head that night in anxiety thinking of every little question someone may ask and coming up with possible answers he could give. He did this until he eventually fell asleep passing the night by peacefully.

--Barthiz POV--

Barthiz lay awake coming up with plans for the next day. Since she was not an apprentice she did not have access to all the places Lucas did and could not accompany him where he went. Such being the case she decided she would familiarize herself with the city before making connections to any people of influence.

'This may be a holy city but there are always unsatisfied people who always want more. As such there will always be a criminal underground to start making acquaintances in. I must establish a proper foothold there in the case of anything going wrong.' Barthiz thought to herself as she drifted asleep.

--Lucas POV--

Lucas was woken up to a light knocking on his door and the sound of a lady saying that breakfast was ready. "Ok!" Lucas yelled as he prepared to get up and put his clothes on. Just as he had gotten out of bed and was stretching the door opened as a young lady brought in a tray of various foods before freezing when she saw Lucas's body.

Bother of them stood frozen staring at each other before the young lady finally broke the silence and spoke in an extremely quiet and shy voice, "Here is your food my lord." as she brought the tray to a small desk near the bed before quickly leaving.

Lucas continued standing there long after the door had closed unable to react for some time to what just happened. 'Why did she bring the food in her?! Wasn't I shown a mess hall yesterday for eating? If I had known something like this was going to happen I wouldn't have just said "Ok" so carelessly.' Lucas thought to himself as he facepalmed from his mistake.

Lucas quickly put on his new flashy robes before sitting down to eat breakfast, although the food was quite good it was spoiled by the fact that he kept thinking people might call him a pervert for his mistake. He finished dinner quickly before heading out to the area one would meet with their masters.

Lucas could feel many gazes on him as he walked through the temple wearing the robes delivered to him the night before. He could see many older men furrowing their brows as they looked at him from the corner of his eyes. After reaching the meeting area he stood there for quite some time as the area gradually became emptier and emptier.

After a while, an old man walked over to him discontentedly before speaking, "What are you standing around for boy is this how an apprentice of the Grand Council spends his time? You bring great shame to their name!". Lucas stood there and stared at the old man not knowing how he should respond.

Seeing this the old man's became unsightly, "Don't tell me you don't even know where you're supposed to be?! How idiotic with such poor common sense you don't have the right to be a janitor let alone an apprentice of the Grand Council!". Initially, Lucas had just felt embarrassed over his situation but now this old man actually called him an idiot?

Lucas felt extremely wronged as yesterday he was just given a basic tour by Azavius and came to the place that he had said masters meet with their apprentices. According to this logic Lucas was being extremely sensible it was not his fault Azavius had not properly told him that their meeting area would be in a different location.

Just as Lucas was about to speak up he heard a familiar voice from behind, "There you are I've spent all morning looking for you. I even began to think you had decided not to be an apprentice and left!". Lucas bowed slightly as Azavius walked towards him, "Apologies I did not recall being told about any other meeting place besides this one.".

Azavius slightly nodded with a slightly embarrassed look, "Don't worry about it mistakes happen, just listen carefully our meeting place is on the third floor reserved for the Grand Council. Usually, no one besides us would be given access but your robe has an enchantment that will let you through."

Lucas nodded as he pretended not to hear the part about him listening carefully "this time" and followed Azavius to the third floor. Lucas gasped when he saw a formidable looking barrier that seemed as if it would bring immediate death to anyone who tried to enter without permission.

As Lucas followed Azavius through the barrier he was immediately stopped and dumbstruck by what he saw. Even though this place was very much supposed to be indoors there was a vibrant green grass field that spanned as far as the eyes could see. As if that wasn't enough there was a slight breeze that brought with it the smell of nature along with a clear blue sky and a bright sun shining down on the entire area.

Seeing Lucas's reaction Azavius chuckled before explaining, "Due to the fact that we are always studying magic we rarely go outside so we constructed this place here to at least simulate the environment. The longer your here the more you'll notice the small flaws but it does its job well even occasionally bringing us enlightenment."

After explaining Azavius kept walking forward opening a door seemingly from nowhere as he waved for Lucas to come along. The next room was almost as grandiose as the church he saw from the top of the temple yesterday. A large golden chandelier hung from the ceiling lit not by fire but by a new type of technology, fueled off electricity that the mages would provide via magic.

Lucas was awed at the sight, wondering how such a magnificent invention could exist. A lot of times fire would flicker and die out with the wind causing the lighting in a room to be uneven and chaotic at all times. With this invention though, the light was stable and light every part of the room equally.

"I'll have you know I came up with this one myself.", Azavius said with a prideful smile in response to Lucas's expression when he looked at the new type of light. Azavius continued explaining, "I was trying to make a breakthrough in a certain subject when I noticed the light flickering and after I noticed it I couldn't ignore it. Although fire magic takes significantly longer to go out it does not keep it from flickering and I was maddened to no end until I finally came up with this. I call it, the light bulb. Anyway enough about this, the training area is just ahead to the right."

Azavius led the way until they came to a large room with different materials and practice dummies. Lucas also felt incredibly light and warm when he entered the room as if he belonged here. "Anything related to a mage can be learned about and practiced in here, the bench to the right is where we craft things such as wands and even the robes your wearing.", Azavius explained.

"I won't go into much detail on things such as this today though as although you can feel and have mana attracted to you, training is still required for you to be able to sufficiently pull on it without any problems." Azavius led Lucas into the center to the room before turning to Lucas and telling him to close his eyes and feel the mana.

Lucas nodded and closed his eyes and tried to find something to focus on as he did before. The more he focused the more he could feel the humidity in the room thus leading to Lucas deciding to focus on mana that would be in the water this time. He imagined water and then imagined an intangible force that controlled it.

Lucas became extremely focused and oblivious to the surroundings as he tried to concentrate on the intangible force. Azavius stood awed at what he was seeing, although the water in the air did not congeal into actual water from the outside it looked as if Lucas was in a huge rotating ball of water as he focused.

After a few moments passed the remaining Grand Council magicians that had been busy and were planning to properly greet Lucas later entered the room to view the phenomena. Although they had felt the same force from such a distance before it was different from actually looking upon it for one's self.

Each of the magicians besides Azavius closed their eyes feeling the mana in the room all shocked by what they felt. They were going to try to understand why the mana was attracted to Lucas in such a way but the first thing that greeted them was the mana being sucked into a "black hole".

Each of the magicians looked at each other with shock in their eyes before closing them again and trying to understand what exactly was happening. Meanwhile, Azavius was speaking directly into Lucas's mind trying to guide him into controlling the mana.

"Good, now that you feel the mana you must give it a form in your mind to make it easier to access in the future. For example, you could think of it as a string that connects everything to each other whatever you feel most comfortable with is important as it will allow you to feel and pull on it faster in the future."

Lucas thought for a moment before imagining mana as a river that contained the essence of everything within. He imagined himself digging a small path on the side of the river that led the mana out and into his body for him to use. After imagining this Lucas immediately felt something was wrong as if it was being blocked from entering his body.

Lucas quickly realized the problem was he had already committed to using demonic energy for his body as such he could not guide it in using regular means instead he had to be more specific with where exactly it was to be guided. His father had told him such and said that his control over external factors should be concentrated in his head.

As such Lucas imagined again but this time he imagined the path coming off the river and going directly into his head. As he did this he suddenly felt light and more clear-headed then he had ever been before. He felt he could react and think fast and that the world was going in extremely slow motion Lucas was in awe of the current feeling and looked forward to being able to experience this all the time.