Chương 35: Chapter 34: The Imperial Bloodline (10)

Edras paused.

"I keep assuming you know more of the basics than you actually do. You truly had no instruction in magic before coming to Karthane?"

"No, I told you I knew nothing about magic until a few days ago." Edras nodded slowly.

"Then we should clear this up first. You don't actually have two different kinds of mana. As far as we academics understand it, the mana within all living beings is fundamentally the same. What differs is what a mage can do with it." Teren frowned.

"Then how can mine turn purple?"

"Training, natural affinity, race, and in some cases bloodline can all affect how mana is shaped." Edras gestured toward the bowl of water on the table.

"A mage trained in earth magic might use his mana to raise a wall of stone. Another might shape the same mana into fire or move water. Mages capable of using more than one branch learn to consciously choose what they are trying to produce."

"I think I get it now. My bloodline basically gives me another choice."

"That is what I believe." Edras nodded.

"The Corvadryn bloodline appears to give you a way of shaping mana that no ordinary mage possesses. When you want ordinary fire, you should be able to shape your mana into ordinary fire. When you want the purple flame... you will have to consciously reach for whatever your bloodline does differently." Teren looked at the mage.

"You don't seem sure about it."

"I had never even seen Corvadryn fire before you produced it," Edras reminded him.

"There are limits to what I can tell you with certainty. But based on everything we know about other forms of magic, that is the most likely explanation." Teren looked at the crystal again. At least that meant he did not have to search inside himself for two completely different things.

"All right. What do I do?"

"Nothing yet. Just hold the crystal and pay attention." For a while, Teren felt only its cool surface against his palm. Then the familiar pressure stirred beneath Teren's skin. It was not exactly in his palm. The sensation seemed deeper, somewhere through his forearm and chest, and the more he tried to locate it precisely, the harder it became to hold on to. A faint yellow glow appeared inside the crystal. Teren's fingers tightened around it.

Almost immediately, his body reacted the way it had before, trying to force the strange pressure back down. The glow weakened.

"Stop," Edras said. Teren looked up.

"Why are you suppressing your mana?"

"I'm not trying to." Teren glanced at the crystal.

"It just happens." Edras watched him for a moment.

"Try again." Teren loosened his grip and focused on the sensation. The pressure returned, followed by the faint glow inside the crystal. Again, the moment he felt his mana beginning to move, something in him wanted to clamp down on it. Edras noticed the change immediately.

"There. You did it again." Teren let out a slow breath.

"I don't know... My body just feels like if I let my mana out, someone is going to hurt me. Or kill me." That was not merely a feeling. It had happened. More than once. But he couldn't explain that to Edras. The mage's expression became thoughtful.

"Learning to suppress your mana is useful and I understand why you are wary of letting it move. There are plenty of situations where a mage may want to hide what he can do, and in your case that skill may be especially important." Teren slowly loosened the tension in his arm.

"And after what we found beneath my research hall, I can hardly tell you that fear is unreasonable," Edras continued.

"But while you're here with me, you don't need to worry about someone attacking you for using your mana. There is no one else in this room to see what you do, and if your bloodline causes some unexpected magical reaction, I am here to contain it." Teren looked down at the crystal. Edras stepped closer.

"But you need to learn how to feel your mana moving before you can deliberately suppress, release, or shape it. Right now, you are shutting it down before you can properly feel the movement." Teren looked at the crystal again. The mage's words made sense, even if convincing his body of it might be harder. Edras sighed.

"You are not going to learn anything if you fight your own mana every time you feel it. Do it again." Teren adjusted the crystal in his palm and tried to move his mana once more. The pressure began to return. Edras had him repeat the exercise dozens of times. After the first few attempts, Teren stopped gripping the crystal hard enough to hurt his hand. It took longer before he could let his mana move toward it without immediately forcing it back down.

Each time he managed it, a pale yellow glow appeared inside the crystal. By the time he could make the light appear and disappear deliberately, sweat had gathered across his forehead despite the cool room. Teren looked at the crystal.

"Why is it yellow?"

"That is the normal response," Edras said.

"Right now, you are allowing your mana to flow without trying to shape it into anything else. The crystal is showing ordinary mana."

"So this is what I would use for normal magic." This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

"Yes." Edras held out a hand.

"Now suppress it completely." Teren frowned.

"You just spent all that time getting me to stop doing that."

"Because you were doing it without choosing to. There is a difference." Edras nodded toward the crystal.

"This time, feel the mana begin to move, then deliberately stop it before it reaches the crystal." That proved harder than Teren expected. When he tried to hold everything back from the beginning, Edras stopped him and made him start over. Teren had to let himself feel the pressure first, recognize that it was beginning to move, and only then close it off. On the fifth attempt, the yellow light only flickered for a moment and disappeared.

"Nearly there," Edras said.

"Again." Teren repeated it until he could feel his mana move without letting the crystal glow even once. He looked up after the latest successful attempt.

"This means I can hide my mana?"

"With some more practice, yes. Someone skilled enough may still notice other signs, but this is the beginning of it." Teren looked down at the crystal again. Considering how often showing the wrong kind of magic had gotten him killed, that was a skill he wanted to learn properly. Edras began, "Now we'll try the other direction. Let your mana move to the crystal as before, but this time think about the purple flame. Don't try to create the flame itself.

I only want you to reach for whatever feels different when you use your bloodline." Teren concentrated. The familiar pressure returned. Pale yellow light spread through the crystal. He thought of the tiny purple flame above his finger. The purple assay crystal. The crest that had appeared in the basement. Nothing changed.

"Don't force it," Edras said.

"You already know your bloodline can answer you. Give it a direction and let it respond." Teren cut off his mana and tried again. Yellow light filled the crystal, weakened, then returned. For an instant, a faint purple tint appeared near its center before vanishing. Teren stared at it.

"Was that—""Yes." Edras was watching the crystal closely.

"Do it again." It took four more attempts before the purple returned. This time it spread through most of the crystal, faint but unmistakable. Teren grinned.

"So I really can choose!"

"It appears so." Edras held up a finger before Teren could try again.

"Do not mistake doing it twice for having control. You have just learned what the difference feels like." Teren lowered the crystal slightly. His arm already felt heavier than when they had started.

"I thought using magic would feel... more powerful."

"You haven't cast anything yet," Edras said.

"So far, you have only learned to sense your mana, let it move, stop it, and begin changing how you shape it. That is enough for now." He took the crystal from Teren and placed it back on the table.

"Next, we see whether you can turn any of that into an actual flame." Edras lifted one of the unlit candles and set it on the stone block.

"We'll start with ordinary fire."

"Why fire?" Teren asked.

"Wouldn't it make more sense to find out what kind of magic I'm actually good at first?"

"That is what we would normally do with a beginner." Edras looked at him.

"But the Corvadryn bloodline was associated with fire magic strongly enough that I would be very surprised if you did not have a natural affinity for fire magic. Your purple flame may be unique to the bloodline, but ordinary fire should be the closest thing to it among the common branches."

"So fire magic will be easier for me?"

"Almost certainly. The surviving imperial records describe many Corvadryn mages learning multiple branches of magic, so fire need not be the only one you eventually use. But I expect it will always remain one of your strongest affinities." Teren looked at the candle again.

"All right. I'm ready." Edras demonstrated first. He raised one hand, and a small orange flame appeared above his fingertip, no larger than the flame of an oil lamp. It remained perfectly steady as he lowered it to the wick. Once the candle caught, he closed his hand, and the flame above his finger vanished.

"That was ordinary fire shaped through a simple first-circle technique," Edras said.

"Almost every academy student with a fire affinity learns something similar during the first year." First circle was supposed to be the beginning of real magic, yet Edras had made even that tiny flame look effortless.

"How do I do it?"

"Start with what you just learned." Edras pointed toward Teren's hand.

"Remember how it felt when you let your mana move into the crystal and it glowed yellow. Find that same feeling. Don't reach for your bloodline this time. Let ordinary mana move toward your hand, then try to shape it into heat. Once you can feel the heat, push it a little further toward making a flame." Teren raised his hand toward the candle. For a few seconds, nothing happened. He found the pressure inside himself and tried to reproduce the feeling from the crystal.

Mana began moving down his arm, but too quickly. Heat prickled across his palm before disappearing again.

"Slowly," Edras said.

"You're trying to reach the end before you have control of what comes before it. Again." Teren tried. This time he caught the sensation before it vanished. The pressure moved toward his fingers. He concentrated on heat, then on the little orange flame Edras had produced. A spark flashed above his fingertip, but it disappeared almost immediately, reaching nowhere near the candlewick. Teren stared at his hand. I just created fire from nothing...

It had lasted less than a second, but he had actually made it himself, without needing any fuel or a lighter. Magic is awesome! He tried again before Edras could comment on the delay. Mana rushed toward his fingertip. A sharp burst of heat followed, then pain snapped through the skin beside his nail.

"Fuck!" Teren jerked his hand back. A small patch of skin near the tip of his finger had reddened. Edras caught his wrist and examined it.

"You pushed too much mana into the attempt without shaping it properly. This is exactly why I told you not to practice alone."

"But I made the spark."

"You did. And then you burned yourself because you became impatient." Teren looked at the small red mark. Compared to being stabbed, crushed, burned alive, or torn apart by monsters, it was almost insulting that something so small hurt this much. Edras released his wrist and picked up a small vial of green liquid from the table.

"Pour one drop on the burn." Teren accepted it but paused before opening the stopper.

"What is this?"

"This is a healing potion made specifically for external injuries. The more common kind is meant to be ingested—dungeon delvers usually carry those because wounds from monsters can be deep or internal, or they may have injuries they cannot easily reach themselves." Edras tapped the vial with one finger.

"This kind is more concentrated and applied directly to smaller injuries. One drop is enough for yours." Teren carefully tipped a single drop onto the reddened skin. The sting began fading almost immediately. He watched as the redness receded, and within a few seconds the burn had disappeared completely. Teren rubbed his thumb across the spot. Even the tenderness was gone. He was still not used to things like this. Then again, this was not Earth.

He had already seen magical crystals powering lights, barriers surrounding an entire city, monsters coming out of a dungeon, and mages doing things that should have been impossible. A potion that could heal a tiny burn in seconds probably should not have surprised him as much as it did. It felt wonderful to him anyway. Edras returned the vial to the table.

"For what it is worth, you are progressing far faster than an ordinary beginner. It can take weeks, sometimes months, between someone clearly sensing their mana and producing their first spark of fire or drop of water." Teren looked at him. Edras smiled.

"But you are a Corvadryn. I don't think using ordinary expectations for your training will be particularly useful. I think we'll be able to cover far more ground today than I initially thought." Teren grinned, and they continued.