Jake's Condition

Reaching his house after walking Cat to her house, Jake opened the door and saw Andrea in the living room.

"How'd it go?" Andrea asked.

"How'd what go?" Jake asked back.

"Getting your magic." Andrea answered.

"How'd you know we were getting our magic today?"

"Do you really think a school would take close to a hundred students somewhere and not take permission from their parents?"

"That makes sense."

"So what kind of magic did you get?" Andrea asked.

"I have a feeling you already know that." Jake said.

"Magic mimicry, that's some powerful magic."

"So everyone keeps telling me. Let me guess, the school called told you about my magic?"

"The school makes sure to know the magic of each student and tells it to their parents. You can call it a, precautionary measure."

"Okay, so for someone with my type of magic, what precautionary measure do you think can hold me back?"

"You just got your magic, you can't do anything." Andrea said. "And I don't need any precautionary measure for you, I trust you and your brother. Plus, keeping you in check will be a piece of cake for me."

"Really?" Jake asked smiling.

"Don't worry son. One day you'll see your old man in action. There's some food in the refrigerator if you're hungry."

"I think I'll eat before I have a bath. And it'll give me time to wait for Sky to come home."

Some minutes after Jake started eating, Sky came in. "What's up bro." he said to Jake and joined him on the dining table. "Hey dad." he said to Andrea when he saw him in the living room.

"How was your first day as a second year student?" Andrea asked Sky.

"It was hectic dad. We were being taken to our respective homeroom classes and the teachers were making things more stressful for us."

"Stop being a big baby Sky." Jake said.

"I'm not being a baby about anything. Dad asked me how my first day was and I'm telling him how it was. And where were..." Sky was about to ask Jake a question when he noticed it had happened again. Jake's facial features had gotten better again and he now looked more muscular than before.

"Where were what?" Jake asked when he saw Sky staring at him. "Is something wrong?"

"What? No, nothing's wrong." Sky said. "Where were you guys throughout today?"

"What do you mean?" Jake asked as he glanced towards Andrea. When he glanced towards Andrea, he saw Andrea nod his head in approval.

"I mean you weren't in school so where did you guys go?"

"We went to a facility to get something." Jake replied.

"Get what?" Sky asked.

"Dad are you sure I can tell him?" Jake asked looking at Andrea again. "The previous third year students wouldn't even talk about what they learnt as third years."

"Jake it's okay, you can tell him." Andrea said. "The previous third year students were not allowed to speak about any of it because discussing and showing off their magic could have drawn unwanted attention from the Werts to them. But now that the Werts are coming anyway, magic can be discussed and practiced anytime a person feels like, because we're going to need to keep practicing to be able to fight the Werts."

"Okay. We went to get our magic." Jake answered Sky.

"Cool. What magic did you get?" Sky asked.

"Magic mimicry."

"You can mimic other people's magic?" That's awesome. Have you used it yet?"

"Yes but I don't know how I used it." Jake answered. "I mimicked Smith's magic, healing magic, but I don't know how and I don't know how to use the healing magic."

"To use magic like magic mimicry, a certain condition must be met." Andrea said from the living room. "You probably met the condition without knowing, that's how you mimicked the healing magic."

Jake felt like going to bed right now but he couldn't let the opportunity to learn how to use his magic go to waste.

"Can you help me figure out the condition?" Jake asked.

"Of course, but are you sure you want to try learning it now?" Andrea asked. "Aren't you tired?"

"I am but learning about my magic is more important to me. So what's the first lesson?"

"First," Andrea said, "how did you know you had mimicked a person's magic?"

Remembering he had felt something changing in his body when he saw the system messages and when he touched Smith, Jake told Andrea. "I felt like something was changing in my body, like, my body was adapting to the magic I had mimicked."

"When you mimicked the person's magic, Smith's magic, what were you doing with him?" Andrea asked.

"I was touching him. But it's not as simple as it sounds." Jake said after seeing Andrea was about to conclude that he had found the condition.

"What do you mean?" Andrea asked.

"After I got my magic, I touched Smith, Kevin, I even touched Cat. But..."

"But what?"

Jake was thinking of what was different from when he touched Smith, Kevin and Cat. 'Now that I think about it, I think I touched Smith the most. Could the condition be repetitive touch?'

"I think I touched Smith the most out of all of them." Jake said answering Andrea's question.

"Really?" Sky said. He had been listening to the conversation between Jake and Andrea. "You touched Smith the most? Why would you touch a boy more than you touch a girl?" Sky asked looking at Jake with pretend suspicion.

"It's not whatever you're thinking." Jake said.

"I'm just thinking about how you, a guy with a girlfriend, will have touched another guy more than you touched your girlfriend. Can you explain how that happened please?"

"Yes I can. When we were going back to school after getting our magic, I sat with Smith and Kevin. I think that explains itself."

"Actually, not quite."

"So you want to tell me when you're talking with your friends you don't touch them." Jake said.

"I do. But not more than I touch girls." Sky said simperingly.

"Forget it Sky. Dad, any ideas what the condition might be?"

"I do know it has something to do with touch." Andrea said. "Maybe repetitively touching somebody or touching a person for a specific amount of time."

"What do you mean specific amount of time?" Jake asked.

"You touching a person for maybe ten seconds."

"But I didn't touch Smith for ten seconds."

"You didn't touch him for the full ten seconds at once, maybe as you touch him, the time is being added up together."

"I'm sorry but are you people hearing yourselves." Sky said. "You're saying 'touch him' repeatedly and it just sounds weird in my ear."

"That's your problem Sky. If you don't wanna hear it why don't you go to your room." Jake told him.

"Na. I'll bear it, this topic is too good to pass on."

"So dad, you're saying my condition might be to touch someone for a specific amount of time and I can touch the person at different times but it will still be counting the seconds I touch the person for?"

"I think so. But you're going to have to figure out exactly how much time you need to touch the person." Andrea said.

"I'll do that tomorrow, at least now I know what the condition is. Thanks Dad." Jake said getting up and going to the stairs. "I almost forgot," he said as he turned back, "I still have the healing magic. Any pointers on how to use it?"

"Because you just got your magic, it needs the right trigger for you to use it." Andrea said. "You will be able to control it effortlessly with enough practice, but for now, focus on finding out what your trigger is."

"What kind of trigger?" Jake asked.

"Emotions trigger magic. It could be anger, excitement, love, happiness or desperation but do not use anger as a trigger."

"Why not?"

"If you trigger your magic with anger, you won't be able to control it. I suggest you try using happy and joyful memories."

"That's gonna be hard to find." Jake muttered as he climbed the stairs.

Getting to his room, Jake took off his clothes and was about getting into the bathroom when he decided to try using Smith's healing magic. He made a long gash on his palm with a pen so it wouldn't heal quickly, he closed his eyes then tried channeling the magic and thought of a happy memory which is when his mother was still alive.

Thinking of when his mother was still alive, Jake couldn't focus on the happy memory. He was getting angry because someone who was never caught had killed his mom for reasons unknown to him, the person had taken his mom away from him and he would never see her again because she was dead.

Opening his eyes in anger, Jake could see a green light coming from his other hand which was over the gash on his palm. The light was shining brightly and it was healing the gash on his palm rapidly.

When his anger began to turn to excitement from seeing the healing magic work, the green light dimmed a little bit and the healing speed reduced but it was still healing Jake's palm.

"I guess Dad failed to mention using anger as a trigger also makes your magic stronger. But what if this wasn't healing magic? If this was something very offensive like fire magic, it would be very dangerous to use anger as a trigger. Let me check if I'll see the healing magic in the system."

Bringing up the system screen, Jake took a look at it and saw healing magic.

[Jake Cayden]

[Level: 4]

[Health:130/130]

[Species:Human*]

[Strength:23]

[Speed:16]

[Endurance:23]

[Mental Moxie:16]

[Mana:18/18]

[Magic:14]

[Element: None]

[Ability: Magic mimicry]

[Exp: 205/800]

'I'm not seeing the healing magic anywhere. Oh, there's another screen.' Jake thought after seeing a little arrow pointing in the direction for him to swipe. Swiping to the next screen, Jake saw his stat points and the healing magic.

[Stat points: 2]

[Mimicked magic: Healing magic]

'I think I'll keep these stat points for emergencies, who knows when I'll need a quick boost in power.'

After looking at his system screen Jake cleaned the blood that had dropped on the floor from his palm and went to take a bath.

***

"Ma'am, I just saw subject 1 use healing magic." Veer said to Kalvrie after watching Jake heal his palm.

"Okay ma'am, I'll let you know if anything happens."