First Kill

Since Blush was born and taken in by Dr Gero, she had lots of time to herself and even with the miasma within her body, she was able to find ways to improve upon her magic control and experimentation.

With her improved mental capabilities, she was able to figure out how to most efficiently use her magic power or what could also be called mana, she had even tried out several tricks that she had seen in movies like drawing talismans or meditation but she found that only meditation helped in some way as it helped her with her mana control and calm her mind but it had also some effect on helping restore her energy and gain better control of the surrounding energy that has spread out from her body.

While she was not a master that could rival strong mages and fighters, she did have a keener sense than others that let her use the given opportunity to turn the tables on her enemy.

She analysed the opponents attracting force that was targeting her mana and then she created her own version that repelled the miasma from her body towards that attracting force.

When her body was forced to take in the miasma and had rejected it leading to her death and rebirth, she was able to find a way to suppress and remove it after a couple of attempts since the miasma was not bound to her body or mana.

The old lady was very different as she had directly absorbed it into her mana pool or magical energy and caused the two to mixed as they were not supposed to which had resulted in her being put in a difficult situation where she would die or would have to destroy the mana within her body to survive but even that may not work completely.

She was stuck between choosing death or a life without her magic, as an ambitious mage that craved more power and was willing to go to such lengths to harm a child to gain power, she naturally was unwilling as she grit her teeth and struggled.

Unknown to her, the mana within the body of Blush had no longer been restricted by the miasma that was in her body and her red eyes glowed within the darkness of the room as she lay there tied up.

She spread out her magic and it went under her pillow as it connected to something that looked like a carving knife. 'This should be my first.. do not hesitate.. do not boast over the victory and give an opening for her to exploit.'

The old woman was trying to find a way around her problem when suddenly her eyes lit up. 'She must still have mana within her body.. if I can exchange mine for her own then it should..'

Before she could finish her thoughts, the knife entered her throat and she soon fell to the ground as she clutched at her throat with a look of disbelief on her face.

The cloth that had been tied around her legs and arms had slowly loosened and Blush stepped down from the bed as she faced the dead body with cold glowing red eyes.

The knife exited the wound and with a wave of Blush's hand, it created another stab wound on the neck of the old woman. "Just to be safe since I do not want to be scared by a corpse jumping up.. This should be my first kill in both lives but I did not expect it to happen so soon. Lets just say that I am releasing all of my resentment that I had for Dr Gero onto her since she had so kindly volunteered."

She tilted her head a little as she pushed her green hair to the side and pushed one side behind her ear to look similar to Android 18's style of having her hair which had caused her eyes to be better seen. "Now.. how should I deal with the body? What should I do from now on?"

As the magic in her body had no longer been used, the glow in her red eyes had gone and the room had returned to complete darkness.

She was still a young child that had an unhealthy body so even after losing the miasma, she would still remain the same as before so there was no way that she could possibly deal with it in an ordinary way. "Cannot move it and cannot possibly sleep here with the smell of blood so I have to move to another room for tonight. The problem is that I am far too awake now. Time to explore!"

She carefully avoided the dead body and wiped the blood from the carving knife and placed it back into its protective sheath before leaving the room.

Blush started to wander around the home of the old witch and started to look over the tools which mainly looked like typical alchemy tools used by witches and she then moved towards the place that kept the books, scrolls and notes where she had found a couple of them that were related to magic in general and especially mana. "No wonder she had that mana drain spell, it seems that her knowledge of it is very high to be able to use such a non demon magic spell and use it offensively or in a way that seems more like a demonic technique. However for a foundational source of knowledge, this is already good enough even if I do not plan on going around draining people and planets."

Moro was an example of people that had attainments in one area of magic so high that he could use life magic offensively but also use it in a way to drain a person or planet of their life energy which seemed very similar to a demons magic that syphons the life or magic essences and negative energy from their victims so that they could recover their energy or increase their power.

She found a book which was about the very basics of magic and mana along with two other books on the alchemy and shapeshifting which were the basics for a witch so she took it and read the basics of magic while in the other bed once she had found the other empty bed room.

She lit the candle in the room and started to read. "Magic and mana can be described in many ways depending on who has their own thoughts on it and each person may develop completely different abilities upon developing their magic. The mana or magical power is just the ingredient and the better the quality and quantity of it, the better the result will become as a spell is released. The users knowledge base, control of the mana and imagination play a key role in forming and directing the spell. Everyone has their own perception of the world around them and different experiences so they will not always arrive at ten same path as others. For example, if a group of people each held a raw egg and were told that was their food then they each would make it differently based on their own experiences, likes and follow their own way of adding additional spices, the timing of the cooking or way to use the heat to cook it. Even if they all used the exact same kind of egg and tools they would each have a different end result and that is the same with mana or magic power. Some magic spells require a larger amount of mana or a medium so they need an object to be tied to in order to create the result of the spell while others will manipulate something in the surroundings, others will be used for healing and others to create or summon."

Blush closed the book and sighed. "It is just about what I had expected. The problem is that my current knowledge base is mostly related to my previous life's experiments so right now I could only possibly learn alchemy or something related to genetics, body evolution, pharmaceuticals and try to apply it to my magic. There is also my strong mental power which could also help build a path towards mental type spells."

The books that she had read were essentially telling her to read more books or to learn knowledge related to different areas or pursue one direction in particular so that she could become a sagely mage that could materialise her magic to create spells and find her own methods of using them.

The possibilities for magic depended on the person or people that used them and even another universe had a type that uses the power of the emotion called love as a source of power which can make a single or a couple of people very powerful but it did have its disadvantages as such magic can easily be weakened by making everyone or many of those that loved that person think differently.

For example, exposing their darkest secrets, manipulating the media or simply being forgotten would weaken the power they would be able to use.

Not every power could be explained with knowledge from books and they have their own weird ways of working or have their own rules as they work from other factors like emotions and the imagination.

She then picked up the shapeshifting book and skimmed through it before moving to the basic alchemy book.

As the light had gone out after she had finished, she rolled over and fell asleep but was woken up early in the morning by the strong smell that had spread within the home.