Level 2

"I do look good..." Luke stared at his reflection, "This blonde hair, this chiseled face, and even my blue eyes if nothing goes wrong, I could be a total lady killer with this look."

"But to think no one will get to experience this face of mine," Luke said to himself disheartened.

After learning the truth last night from his brothers, he couldn't help but be extremely disappointed with his future prospects.

From what Jacob and Ethan described, he wasn't going to attend any school let alone be around the surrounding vicinity of it. He wasn't a special case, his brothers went through the very same thing after all. All they had to learn was going be taught by the old man himself and anything else was not even considered.

Sure, looking at it one way there was nothing the schools could teach that he wouldn't be able to learn with the help of his father and brothers, every equipment alongside any magic or subject matter would be taught regardless of whether he wanted to learn those things or not.

On the other hand, he would be missing out on much of the wizarding world in totality, as he would only be able to leave home after he learns the basics of magic, and even then he would only be allowed on jobs and assignments his fathers assigns which would boil down to nothing but monster hunting and the occasional demon slaying.

"Missing out is an understatement, how am I supposed to remove this curse or even study it properly, confined to this space where no one would even answer any of my questions." Luke shook his head, "Not even that, with less exposure to the outside world, how will I ever earn enough money to invest in all the list of things I've thought of, to live as a rich business wizard."

"Hey! Drama queen!" Jacob knocked on his door, "Get up! It's time for training!"

"I'll be out in a sec!" Luke yelled back, sighing to himself one more time, "This won't do... I need to make sure I'll be able to get out of this house. The only problem is I don't know how..."

Leaving with Jacob who was yawning all the way, he reached the training ground outside of his house, where Michael was already waiting for them.

"Now that you're here! Let's start!" Michael nodded, "Yesterday's test allowed me to see into what you've accomplished so far, and what you need to do to improve."

"Since Jacob needs to polish on his basics and Luke needs to learn it all from the beginning we will both start with that." Michael continued, "Is there any problem with that?"

"Well then, Jacob you start running laps around the house!" With both of them not saying anything, Michael continued, as Jacob began running immediately like the good soldier he was.

"Luke, you asked me in our last meeting what magic is. Is there a way to measure it? Or even ways to grow one potential?"

Luke nodded, looking at Michael's current temperament he seemed to have a completely different approach towards teaching compared to his regular arrogant and grumpy side.

"Magic could be a lot of things, from spells, and runes to even potions. Everything falls under magic. So to describe magic would be to describe all branches of it."

"So magic would be a subject or principle, but not what is within us." Luke crossed his arms, nodding along, with his curiosity finally being answered he couldn't help but cross out his complaints for the time being and focus on learning.

"Correct! The word you're looking for is Mana." Michael continued, "The raw magic, as you mentioned last time, that's mana. Mana is what allows us to do magic in the first place. Mana is the energy that's within us, which could be converted to spells depending on its incantation and the will of the user, the power that could be transcribed onto ruins and potions, and so on. Mana is the essence of all magic."

"As for how and where it's stored, I can't say for certain." Michael said, "I have cut down several foes, wizards and no-majs alike, but never have I seen an extra pair of organs or even a slight difference between the two that would indicate a place where mana could be stored in."

"There has been some research done in the past, mostly from pure blood extremists to differentiate themselves as a superior being from no-majs to even half-bloods, despite their cruel methods none of them have ever found evidence suggesting a difference although some would argue otherwise." 

"So currently there are two active beliefs in magic, the first one, which a lot of famous wizards used to believe is that mana comes from our soul, the other one, a modern approach to it, is that mana comes from the very fabric of our being, our DNA."

"Now, unless you find a definite approach to it, I'll suggest you stick to a belief among the two and not waste time on researching it further."

'There he is! That's the man I know!' Luke couldn't help but let out a smile as he asked, "So how is mana created in the first place?"

"Mana is everywhere, it's in all living beings, from a blade of grass to even the air we breathe. As for how it came about, that's a mystery on its own. Some believe that it came from an ancient creature, a god who taught humanity how to use the preexisting mana and turn it into what we know today as magic, like how Prometheus stole fire from Olympus and gave it to us. Again, this is just to satisfy your curiosity, and research on it wouldn't align with the needs of our family, so don't waste your time on it."

"I see..." Luke felt conflicted as he had more questions but seeing his father's attitude he didn't dare to raise any.

"Similarly, I am sure of the fact that we absorb mana from our surroundings but the question of how is something I have no interest in knowing." Michael continued, "Now getting onto the core subject matter..."

"And this aligns with your previous questions so listen carefully. The question of, how mana is measured. There have been several inventions in the last centuries but none of them are accurate enough to measure one's mana reserve. But we don't need to focus on them as we have our very own invention."

"The family book, that I gave you." Michael continued, "It's not accurate for sure but it can give you a baseline of where your magic is. The magic used in the book itself is a lost one, so there's no way to replicate it, but the basis of the magic itself is something we know. Each chapter of the book opens when a certain criteria is fulfilled. That criteria being your mana reserve, the more you grow the more chapters you can open. This should also answer your question on whether we can grow our mana reserve or not!"

'Hmm... so that's why I couldn't open the pages any further.' Luke thought to himself, 'So if I was to view each chapter as a level then I can at least accurately measure my growth. So by that definition, I should be level 2 on my magic.'