Chapter 9 -- Balls

After dinner Zane excused himself with the excuse that he was tired. He found his way to his room and and went under his blankets and closed his eyes.

Two minutes later, Olivia peeked into Zane's room to check whether he had fallen asleep before closing the door and walking away. Zane then waited two more minutes and then opened his eyes, he knew that his mother would check on him and he didn't want her to see what he was about to try.

Zane sat up in his bed and closed his eyes, even though it was useless as he saw the same thing whether his eyes where open or closed. He liked to close them in order to concentrate better.

'William said the mana core is somewhere near my intestines' he thought as he concentrated on that area. However he couldn't feel anything at all. Apparently this mana core was supposed to be easily felt.

Zane was not one to give up and continued to focus. All his senses shut down as he fell into a meditative like state. After an hour Zane noticed something.

However what he noticed was not what William described to be the mana core and it wasn't in his abdomen. Instead it was all over his body. Zane felt tiny particles of energy all over him. His surprise didn't distract him and he willed all the energy in his right arm to move towards his palm.

It was a hard process as sweat started to appear on his forehead. However since he didn't feel any pain he pushed through until after an hour, all the energy in his hand had moved to his palm.

'The next step is to imagine what i want the spell to look like' Zane thought as he imagined a ball forming atop his palm when suddenly.....

< (-3 mana) >

Zane saw a completely new notification from his system, breaking him out of his concentrated state. The surprise caused him to open his eyes just in time to see the same white light he usually sees disappearing from his hand. He only saw it for a split second but Zane was sure he saw his mana !.

The system only served to reinforce his conjecture that he did release a small amount of mana from his hand

'I had 50 points in mana, then i got a - 3 mana message. Now i have 47 points. Its obvious that i used my mana somehow.' he thought

'That energy I can feel in my body must be mana but I don't have an element yet so it must be pure mana' Zane narrowed his eyes

'William said pure mana is dangerous, but i don't feel any danger from mine. It's actually quite soothing to move it around. Then again William has no need to lie to me, which can only mean this is Aurora's doing.' Zane guessed.

'Let's try this again' Zane got into the meditative state again and this time it was easier than the first, he didn't even need to shut off all his senses as he left his ears still listening just in case someone entered his room.

Zane noticed that the arm he had deprived of it's mana had filled up again, however he saw that the total amount in his body had been reduced.

'The mana must have moved from other parts of the body to fill up the arm as well. The mana must always be distributed equally in the body' he concluded.

This time instead of taking the mana from his arm he decided to go big or go home. Zane wanted to take all the mana from his body to his right palm but then thought it might be a bad idea.

So instead of siphoning all of it to his hand he left a bit of ot behind. It took a little longer this time to move all that mana but it was easier than the first time. When all the mana had moved to his hand he took a deep breath and slowly opened his eyes.

What he saw surprised him but also further proved that he was right. Zane could fully see his hand !. However it seemed that he could only see concentrated mana or elemental mana outside the body. The mana had distributed itself in his hand and tried to move up his arm but Zane stopped it at the wrist.

The mana was causing Zane's hand to softly glow white. Zane was mesmerized as he watched his own hand.

Zane noticed that even though he had concentrated his mana to his hand, his mana count was not dropping. 'Maybe it's because the mana is still inside my body' he thought before deciding to try and push the mana outside his body and forming a ball.

Sure enough a ball started to form about 10 centimeters from his palm. It grew until it stopped at around the size of a tennis ball. Zane noticed that he couldn't see his hand anymore as all the mana had left it.

He also felt the remaining mana inside his body slowly distributing itself until it filled his body again, however he could feel that it's density was very low.

'Only 5 points left huh' Zane thought before looking at the still floating ball of pure mana on his hand. Zane experimented with it as he moved around his hand and willed the mana to follow his hand, which it did.

Zane then took his other hand and stuck his finger inside the ball, however he couldn't even feel anything. If he couldn't see it with his own blind eyes Zane wouldn't believe it was even there.

Zane then tried to suck it back into his body but was unsuccessful. For some reason he brought it up to his mouth and tried licking it but obviously he couldn't taste anything. Zane chuckled at his own stupidity.

He then did a scooping motion with his hand and surprisingly the mana ball was divided into two. Now he had one smaller ball in each hand. He then thought of something as he imitated the motion of throwing a ball into the air.

The mana in his right hand was flung into the air.... and disappeared from existence. Zane was disappointed to see his mana ball disappear because had grown attached to it for reasons unknown.

He then looked at his left hand to the other mana ball. He was getting tired of holding his hand up and decided to put the ball down for a little bit to stretch. However as soon as he put it down, the connection was cut and the ball disappeared.

Now Zane was in the dark once more. He had lost both his balls. He was officially, ball-less.

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