Chapter 10: You're a wizard, Nicole! (She isn't)

Magic! Magic! This gurl is finally learning herself some good old fashioned magic! I've waited half a year, doing all of the stupid training that my parents told me, biding my time until I can bury myself in my interests. Oh my gosh, I'm so excited I'm skipping! Or, well, can you call this skipping? I'm on four legs, so perhaps I can't actually skip at all. ANYWAYS, I need to focus on this. Magic!

Mum and Dad are waiting for my siblings and I to come in from eating lunch, but I was a bit excited and got here way too early. When I walk into the room I'm humming, chipper as can be. My parents, seeing the way I'm acting seem a bit disappointed, but really what are they expecting? I've made it clear that magic is pretty much the only thing I'm interested in.

The part of the cave we're in right now is new to me, we've never entered this room before. It's made of stone just like the rest of our house, but there are what seems like little gems ledged in it. They all glow with different colours, even though there's no lights for them to be reflecting to shine like that. They look very mystical, and the extra added fantasy bonus is making me even more excited. By far the most interesting part of the room, however, is the huge chunk of crystal? in the centre. It's transparent, but seems to have the texture of metal, and I can feel some sort of energy buzzing around it. How amazing!

"I see you've already noticed the mana steel, Nicole. You must be really compatible with mana." Mum seems exasperated saying this, and dad by her side seems to be sharing the feeling. "What's the buzzing thing mum? It feels nice." Curiosity may have killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. And I am one curious kitty. "you never fail to surprise us Nicole. You can feel it?" I nodded. Was I not supposed to? "You're so talented I'm almost jealous. That buzz is concentrated mana. It's gathered there because of how high the mana conductivity of this ore is. You'll find out it's use when your siblings come."

I lay down on the floor, resting my head on the floor, my wings slumping in dejection and tail swinging. In the past 6 months since my birth I've changed quite a bit, appearance wise. My little horn nubs had started growing out, but the way they grew confused not only me but also my parents. I guess they can't grow normally with a pair of tiger ears in the way. Instead of growing backwards and curling up like you'd think, they instead grew around, hugging my ears, before heading down and sharpening into blade-like points. Kind of like goat or ram horns, but slightly different and way sharper. They were coloured black like my wings, but have grooves in the beautiful midnight blue of my eyes. At first I thought they were ugly, but they've grown on me, and I now find them lovely. (Check paragraph comments for a rough sketch of how her horns look.)

My body has also grown quite a lot, though not as much as my siblings. I'm around a meter long, and my wingspan is probably around 3 meters when fully spread. Luckily they can tuck in, if they couldn't I'd be in trouble. My wings, now that I can fly, have amazing streamlined muscles, and I adore them. The feeling of soaring through the sky is like no other. But enough of admiring myself, those slowpokes are finally here! They walk into the room looking pretty nonchalant, but soon those kids are staring at the pretty glowing rocks on the wall just as I did. Mum has to clear her throat to get their attention.

"Alright. Now that you're all here, it's time to play with some magic." Mum grins, and dad has moved himself over to the humming ore. "We'll start off with the basics of the basics. Sensing the mana around you. This is usually done through person to person contact in humanoid societies, but that method is risky and imperfect, so instead we are using our own safer more efficient method. This ore has a huge amount of mana running through it, and by touching it, that mana flows through your veins. Once your body gets a feel for the mana, you'll be able to sense it in the normal world. That's our aim today. We'll go in order of age. Xenia!" For once dad looks serious, and I can understand why he has that teaching skill. He's absolutely thriving right now.

Xenia is, as always, unbothered when she walks up to the ore. "What do I touch it with?" She's staring pretty intensely, but is rather confused overall as she isn't sure what to put on the rock. "Your forehead is fine Darling." Dad's serious look is broken by the gentle smile he shows at his darling daughters cute little blunder, but it doesn't last long as Xenia's head touches the ore. A wave of thick energy is pushing into her body, and dad's brow is furrowed as he holds it back to a safe amount for our still relatively small bodies to handle. There's a tense silence for around two minutes until Xenia gasps, and dad pushes her away from the rock.

The pressure that was laid thick around the room lifts, and Xenia walks back to us, dazed and looking around the room like it's the first time she's seen it. Getting back to us, she plops down, muttering under her breath. Julian goes up next, doing the same as Xenia. He takes quite a bit longer, around four minutes maybe. When he's finished, he's got the same expression as Xenia. The other two went as well, with Rowan being the fastest. He clocked in at a minute and a half, while Azazel was around the same time as Xenia.

Finally, It's my turn. Walking up to the ore, I'm buzzing with anticipation. I sit down in front of the ore, and lean my forehead onto it's cold metallic surface. Mum called it mana steel, right? It certainly feels like steel, I wonder if people use it to make weapo-

My thoughts are abruptly cut off by a whoosh, and my body is filled with a feeling of ecstasy. There's something pouring through my veins, and it's euphoric. I shudder from the feeling, and suddenly, the stuff in my veins concentrates near where I'd assume is my heart, and my reality slightly shifts. Like someone suddenly paused reality and changed the quality from 720 to 1080. I gasp and open my eyes, and see everything. There are rivers in the air, flames burning, and wind rustling the leaves of trees that don't exist. Is this mana? it's everywhere, it's everything. The walls have mana, the air has mana, and we have so much mana. I stumble back to my siblings, now understanding why they look the way they did. I look the same right now. Holy cow, we were missing all of this? What a waste!

"That is the most basic step in becoming a mage. Mana sensing. Everyone is capable of it, even if they take different amounts of time to learn how. The second step is what separates those who can be mages from those who can't. However, all of you can become mages, so you don't need to worry that much." We're all confused by mums explanation. Why is she so certain?

"Why are you so sure all of us can become mages?" Xenia says out loud what all of us are thinking, and mum responds with a confident smirk. "Because all of you have been manipulating mana since your birth." That didn't help.

"then aren't we already mages? If we've been using magic our whole lives." This time it was Julian who spoke. "Nope, manipulating mana isn't magic. Magic requires a purpose, and a form to carry that purpose out. What you guys did was simply moving mana around through instinct, trying to make sure you were okay. Completely uncontrolled and unrefined." It made sense, but the more I here, the less I understand about magic. Isn't it just memorizing a spell and casting it? This seems a bit more complicated than what I signed up for. Wait, no, you can't falter here Nicole! Mum is trying to explain what the second step is, but none of us can understand what she's saying and dad can tell. He very tenderly pulls mum to the side and in euphemistic terms tell her to shut up and let him do the talking. She went and sulked in the corner, but we'll deal with that later.

"The second step is to bring mana inside your body to increase your mana density, mana purity and the natural amount of it stored in your body. You do this by manipulating the mana around you to join the stream in your veins. Don't pull in too much, only bring in enough to make you feel full. Overeating makes children sick after all. After it's inside you, you need to pull it to your heart. Once it's there, you need to try and squeeze it, until it's super small and compressed. Then, it will join the rest of it in your heart. Okay? I'll repeat it slowly as we go through it."

This, doesn't it sound like those Chinese cultivation techniques from Wuxia novels?? Well, let's try it. "Get into a comfy position and close your eyes. Try focus on the mana in the world around you. And then try asking it to come to you." Yeah, this totally sounds like some cultivation BS. I shouldn't complain though, those characters become super OP and live forever. Maybe if I'm lucky, I could too! My motivation is at an all time max, let's fucking go baby! I'm gonna be a wizard!!