First lesson

Cliff Brown

"Are you sure you can learn everything in a week sire?" Akumu asked me in a curious tone, "it took me more than a month to assimilate these basics anyway."

"I think I'll get there, I'm more sensitive to mana than average, maybe it's one of the abilities of the slimes I absorbed" I replied, my voice full of uncertainty.

We were sitting in my "temporary" room, in the middle of the magic circle that was drawn for "I don't know what". There were three of us; me, Akumu and Cain he supervised my training.

"How does the mana feel?" I asked, feeling oddly excited.

Akumu and Cain seemed to be thinking, they lingered for a moment and Akumu answered first;

"Uhm, how can I put it, I feel mana as a sort of activity of nature, I can feel it against my skin, but in its raw form I can't absorb it by myself, our body has a mechanism that purifies atmospheric mana, but in small quantities."

"Many have tried to control their metabolism, unless they are able to absorb unpurified mana."

"But it turned out to be very difficult, but not impossible because there are high-level creatures capable of doing it." Cain added calmly.

"Ah well, thanks to my "drain" skill I can absorb almost everything, so I can absorb raw mana, but it is a bit lethal for my body if I had not managed to awaken my "purify" skill then I could have left the skin there." I said remembering that cruel day.

"It was really reckless of you, but I can't blame you, we elves also sacrificed our bodies for magical research, to know the advantages and disadvantages and also we want to know the limits of our bodies"

Cain responded, a little playfully, the discussion seemed interested.

– there's no harm in being curious –

"Magic interests me a lot, I remember a month ago, when I entered the Orleth clan for the first time I saw the barrier that you had installed, I thought it was a another dimension that I entered, the world seemed to be cracking and yet it was a simple illusion, I was amazed!" I commented.

"It is a form of spell that wind spirit contractors can harness, disrupting atmospheric mana, forming it, then distorting it, resulting in a reaction in the process, after its invention we had it printed in rune form in magic circles," he explained.

"as you might have believed, it is not the illusion that repels the creatures, but rather the Mana Disruption" Akumu had commented in turn "they are very sensitive to mana, this disturbance can even drive them crazy"

"Ah yes! I felt it, I felt like I was lost, I couldn't even distinguish my right from my left anymore." I exclaimed with excitement.

"Mana is a fluid and versatile energy, it can only be influenced by will, perhaps there are creatures with higher sensitivity that can use it instinctively, for example slime, they live by absorbing mana continuously and uses it to secrete acid even though they don't even have a brain."

"My "drain" skill also allows me to monopolize the faculties of creatures whose essences I have absorbed, so I can only transform my saliva into acid, since I don't really have much knowledge of using mana I don't don't know how to influence it directly."

"So far I only use mana to boost the strength in my muscles" I explained a little embarrassed.

Akumu lingered for a moment, looking thoughtful.

"Hmm so what you want us to teach you is how to use it correctly? I just thought of a quicker method to teach you it."

"As I told you, I'm more sensitive to mana than average and I have a little confidence in myself so..." I reassured him.

After boasting about being able to do it, Akumu just sighed and handed me a dagger.

I took it, and I analyzed this mini knife, it looked old and dull, I turned it in my hand looking for what to do with it…

"What the hell are you supposed to do with that?"

"This dagger is forged with a piece of mana stone in molten metal, even if all the mana had evaporated, it still remains very conductive of mana, tries to infuse your mana while giving it a form. " He explained.

I held the dagger tightly in my right hand, closing my eyes, trying to get a mental picture of the trajectory of the mana.

Quickly, the mana made its way from my heart to my rights, I felt the energy slip over the blade, it rushed to its tip.

The mana on the dagger was fluid and formless, no matter how hard I tried to regain control, I couldn't, once the mana was released it dispersed into the atmosphere.

"Shit" I cursed, feeling like I was losing control of my energy.

"You can't do it sir?" Cain asked with a frown, the emerald eyed elf had moved closer, inspecting more closely what I was doing.

His expression left me perplexed, as if he was saying that everything was wrong.

"uh…what's wrong?"

"Everything, sire!"

"Um…what do you mean everything?" I asked, I raised an eyebrow, growing more and more curious.

"Everything…my lord, everything is not well, you are doing this very wrong."