Introduction to Mana

"Student Jordan I'm glad to see you eager to learn, however I do insist that you do not break into the classroom."

"yes, miss!"

"Okay, students get to your seat, lessons are about to start."

With a few sullen faces the other students all began finding their own seats. they all chose seats far away from each other except from a pair of Leon twins who sat next to each other.

The professor, noticing how far away all the students sat from one another could not help but sigh.

there are 8 students in her class: A Spíritãz, a Treant and a Lion-kin. 2 female Orcs; one from a wealthy mercenary family and the other from an orphanage, 2 twin Leons; one male the other female, who always stick to gather, and a single male Human.

"I am professor Pollina and I will be your main magic teacher throughout your 4 years of study at the academy. I was born in the Human kingdom of Perth and moved to Chaos city 15 years ago, where I carried on my career as a professor. I am a 5th circle Light mage who specialises in healing magic, but I have the basic spells of all 12 elements.

Now that introductions are out of the way, I'll begin explaining the stages of a mage. A magic user officially becomes a mage when they form their first ring around their core, before that you are just people who can use magic. The core is a heart or stone that one forms to connect ones soul to the body allowing the processing of magical energy or mana, one usually forms a core at the age of 12 before that it is near to impossible to cast any spells for most races.

Each group of rings is divided into 4 categories based on the difficulty of breaking through, generally people form their 1st ring around the age of 13, but for you geniuses I expect them to be formed before that. when you form your first ring you will break through to the magic apprentice realm.

At the 4th ring you will break through to the Mage realm and the 7th ring will break you through to the Archmage realm. Each ring you add will significantly increase the difficulty of forming the next ring and at the end of each realm, the difficulty will increase even more.

Now that we have the rings out of the way I will give a brief explanation of all 12 elements.

Each element is measured by the 5 abilities that they can increase, these are offence, defence, support, agility and auxiliary.

Offence looks at how destructive an element is, while defence looks at how protective the element is. Support looks at how the element controls the battlefield either by giving advantages to allies, disadvantages to enemies or both. Agility is how the element increases ones movement speed and reactions, and finally auxiliary is how the element helps in everyday life.

The water element is known for being a temperate element. Water can change its form, smoothly going from an attack to a defence without the opponents noticing. Water can also use the surroundings to help control the environment of a battle field, as well as changing speeds through the changing of the current. Water can also be used in treatment and one of the favourite elements in alchemy.

Fire is synonymous with destruction, spreading like a plague that will destroy everything around it, fire is destruction. However, although fire is destructive, it is a popular element among blacksmiths as destruction can lead to creation.

Earth is known for its tough strength and ability to control the environment. An earth archmage is likely to have tough skin as earth itself is known for being the ultimate defence, however they tend to lack in offence and agility, in favour of being living fortresses.

Air is a bipolar element often jumping from calm and refreshing to wild and aggressive in a single moment despite this it lacks defence and strong attacks in favour for long lasting battles of tiring out the enemy and dealing small amounts of damage over a long period of time. Fast moving air mages are known to be jumping all over the place and almost always in a hurry.

Metal is often viewed as a rarer earth but that is not the case. Earth favours defence while metal favours auxiliary being used by almost all blacksmiths metal is the symbol of creation itself. Although it's undeniable that metal is also just as much defensive as its gleaming swords.

Lightning Is loud and destructive you can always tell where lightning is going to strike as it knows you will most likely be unable to dodge. An element that pushes the boundary of offence and agility by completely giving up on defence, because to it offence is its greatest defence.

Light is the element of hope to many as its the element that almost entirely favours healing, despite this it is still one of the fastest elements almost catching up to lightning.

Darkness is a sinister element that prefers pain to hope with the ability to torture any thing that is infected with it. Despite all this its not the element that is bad, but the magician.

Space is a strange element with little to know offensive of defensive abilities in favour for controlling the area around it. One of the fastest elements but with little stamina space is one of the hardest elements to train.

'Time is speed' is a common phrase across Mira when speaking about the time element. Similar to water, time flows like a river that is speeding up and slowing down the world around it, blockages can temporarily freeze time around a small portion of the river preventing all movements. Time is favoured across all walks of life as everyone wants to have more time.

Order is the most mysterious element with little to no people able to decipher its mysteries all that is believed about order is that order is control.

Chaos is theorised to be Orders opposite like light and darkness. Chaos is the uncontrollable feelings that must be released, the impossible wants and the painful hatred. but chaos is not evil but certainly not good its just a messy that brings disorder to everything around it."

Pollina looks at her students half of them have no expressions and the other half are beyond confused.

"Look I know it's hard to explain, but I can't just say water is the liquid you drink. Elements are rules and the understanding of the feelings of these elements, is how one can manipulate these rules."

The students still looked at her with a blank expression.

Sigh.

"We will cover this in later lessons, for now I'll teach you how to gather mana and store it in your core. The main way magic users do this is through breathing methods; there are multiple breathing methods with some favouring certain elements, but I'll teach you the academies standard method.

First take a deep breath filling up the top half of your lungs, then release it slowly. If you can try replacing your normal breathing with this method until you fill full of mana. Remember to pull the mana in your body, towards your core."

With that the class followed her instructions, eager to start using magic themselves, Jordan was no exception. Spíritãz do not need to breathe to live, however Jordan has trained himself already to go through the actions of breathing as he finds it comforting.

Changing his way of breathing was very simple and soon he could sense a region of mana inside hi body, it felt strange like a small spot that is numb to him. Using his body, he created small tentacles that pierces the bubble and absorbs the mana into his body. A warm feeling spreads throughout his body and heads towards his core.

The core of a Spíritãz is very special and unique to it as it is the most physical part of their body, however it can still pass through objects. The uniqueness is that the core is formed with a membrane of mana protecting the body from being damaged by the raging mana inside the core. This is unique to the Spíritãz race as no other race has this protective membrane. When others experience a backlash the mana escapes the core and damages the body, however the membrane protects the Spíritãz from the mana only leading to pain in the core.

But this isn't perfect as if the core is damaged instead of crippling the Spíritãz, they would directly be killed by the escaping mana. With each ring that is formed the membrane becomes stronger, making it more difficult to harm the Spíritãz. A mana membrane also forms around the body making the Spíritãz seem more holy, while protecting the body from weak magic attacks.

Magic isn't the only method of protecting a Spíritãz, but many refuse to learn magic due to the danger it imposes.