A Blueprint for Your Will

The sun began another of its pointless cycles. For some, it was a new beginning. For me, it was merely the continuation of an existence, another shift in variables. Apprentice. The word was a new label, another set of motions to perform on a path leading nowhere. The quiet of the cabin was a temporary reprieve, a sterile bubble before the inevitable return to a world of noise and conflict.

Asverta was already awake, her movements economical and silent. The warm, earthy scent of herbal tea soon filled the small space. She emerged from the main area, a steaming mug held in one hand. "Good morning, Mori," she greeted, her white eyes as unreadable as ever. "I made tea. It helps with mana circulation."

I took the mug she offered. The warmth was a simple, physical sensation. "It's bitter," I observed after a sip.

A faint smile touched her lips. "An acquired taste. Mu is already outside. He's eager to start." She gestured to the door with her chin. "Today, your formal education begins. Not with grand spells, but with the fundamentals. Mana."

Outside, the air was cool and sharp, thick with the scent of damp earth and ancient trees. Mu was sitting cross-legged a few paces away, his small body perfectly still, his back straight. A thin, shimmering aura of mana, like heat haze on a summer road, already enveloped him. The way he handled it felt natural, an extension of his own breathing. For him, it was effortless. For me, it was always a conscious, deliberate act of translation. He felt; I calculated. A fundamental, and perhaps insurmountable, difference.

Subject: Mu. Mana signature: stable, potent for his age, Einar’s voice noted, a cold, precise whisper in my mind. Anomaly: visual mana perception. A valuable data source.

Look at the little prodigy, V sneered back. Perfect. Another tool to be used or broken. ‘Senior’? Don’t make me laugh.

He looks so focused… so alone, Nora’s thought was a fragile ache. Is he trapped here too?

I pushed the internal noise aside. Asverta stood before me, a figure of serene authority against the wild forest. "Mana," she began, her voice a low hum that seemed to vibrate with the air itself, "is the breath of the world. It's in the air you breathe, the ground you stand on, the blood in your veins. To use it, you must first feel its rhythm. Don't think about it. Don't analyze it. Just feel it."

Her words sounded like poetry, a language I didn't naturally speak. But I could translate. 'Don't analyze it' was the key instruction. It meant overriding Einar's immediate impulse to quantify everything. I closed my eyes and focused on the constant, subtle hum I’d sensed since arriving in this world. It was a low-frequency vibration, a pressure against the skin that wasn't quite touch.

"That's it," Asverta's voice was a soft murmur. "Now, don't just observe it. Invite it in."

I tried to let go of my internal filters, to simply allow the sensation to exist without labeling it. The mana responded to the lack of resistance, flowing into my body like a cool, clean stream, a faint sensation that was both alien and strangely familiar. I spent the morning in this state of quiet meditation, a strange exercise in perceiving without immediate analysis. I could feel the deep, slow pulse of the ancient trees, the faint, skittish sparks of small animals in the undergrowth, the steady, warm glow emanating from Mu. This was not a pointless task. This was information. And information was a form of control.

"Alright, Mu," Asverta's voice cut through the quiet. "Show Mori your moves. Just the basics."

Mu stood up in a single, fluid motion. His small body was suddenly enveloped in a nearly invisible sheath of mana. He darted left, then right, his movements so light and fast it was as if his feet weren't touching the ground. He was a blur of white robes against the green of the forest.

"He uses mana to enhance his physical abilities," Asverta explained, her eyes on me, gauging my reaction. "A direct conversion of ambient energy into kinetic force. A basic application, but effective."

My own attempts had been crude, inefficient bursts of power. This boy, so much younger, seemed to know mana instinctively. An oddity. An anomaly that required further study.

"I could replicate the effect," I stated flatly. "But it would be inefficient. My control is not yet refined."

"An honest assessment," Asverta noted, a hint of approval in her voice. "Now, Mu, a shield."

Mu stopped, bringing his hands together in front of his chest. A shimmering, transparent dome of energy appeared around him. It looked thin and fragile, like a soap bubble, but it pulsed with a quiet, resilient strength.

"A basic mana shield," Asverta said. "Simple, but vital. Try to break it."

I held out my hand, focusing my will, trying to recall the concept of 'combustion'. A small, unstable flame, the size of my thumb, flickered to life in my palm. I pushed it towards Mu's shield. The flame simply vanished the moment it made contact, leaving only a faint hissing sound. Ineffective.

"It's not a wall of stone, Mori," Asverta chided gently. "You can't break it with brute force. It's a shield of will. You have to overwhelm his focus, not his power."

Mu's usually calm face showed a hint of expression—not smugness, but a quiet, neutral understanding. He knew I was weak. He was reacting to the flow of mana, not my physical movements. He then turned his head slightly and whispered something to Asverta.

She nodded in response, then looked at me. "Mu says your mana feels... 'spiky'. Unstable. Like a cornered animal."

Spiky. The word was imprecise, but the analogy felt uncomfortably accurate. The system inside me was always in conflict.

"Mu was born with a unique gift," Asverta continued, her voice softening as she looked at the boy. "He sees mana like others see light. He can perceive its colors, its currents, its textures." She paused, looking at Mu with a meaningful, almost pained expression. "But raw power without control is a curse, Mori. It will burn its vessel from the inside out." Her words were a lesson, but her tone held a deeper, almost fearful weight. For a moment, I saw something behind her carefully constructed mask.

She turned her attention back to me. "Now, forget crude applications. Let's talk about essence." Her voice lowered. "Fire is not just heat. It is expansion, a hunger for fuel, a destructive force that consumes and transforms. To command it, you must understand its greed."

She held up her own hand, and a flame, far larger and more stable than mine, danced in her palm. It leaned towards a nearby leaf as if trying to devour it. "That is its hunger."

"And water..." A sphere of perfect, clear water formed above her other palm. "It is pressure, flow, the ability to erode the hardest stone or to sustain the most fragile life. It is both gentle and relentless." She made a fist, and the sphere of water compressed into a tiny, dense bead that shot forward and drilled a clean hole through a thick tree root.

She was not teaching me spells; she was teaching me a new way to perceive the world. A language of concepts, of ideas given form. And for the first time since I woke up in this strange, absurd place, a spark of cold, sharp curiosity—a genuine desire to know—began to grow in my empty mind.

The lesson on essence settled in my mind, not as a poetic abstraction, but as a new set of rules for a game I was just beginning to understand. Hunger, pressure, flow—these were not emotions, but properties. Systems with their own internal logic.

"Good," Asverta said, sensing the shift in my understanding. "You grasp the theory. Now for the practice. You've felt the elements on their own. Now, try to combine them. Don't just smash them together, Mori. Coax them. Persuade them to dance."

I extended my hands, drawing mana. I focused on fire, then on wind. The two energies swirled within my grasp. It was a struggle, a push and pull within my own form. The nascent flame in my palm flickered, then elongated, a thin, whip-like stream of fire that darted forward with surprising speed. It wasn't a grand explosion, but it was faster, more precise than anything I'd managed before.

Hah! Now we're talking! More! Make it bigger! Burn it all! V's voice was a gleeful, venomous hiss in the back of my mind. The thrill he felt was a dangerous distraction. I suppressed it.

"Excellent," Asverta murmured, a rare note of genuine approval in her voice. "But it's wild. Uncontrolled. Magic, like any language, has a grammar. Rules that give it structure and stability."

She began to show me simple casting methods, a series of precise hand movements. "These gestures are not arbitrary," she explained. "They are a physical language, a silent command to the raw energy." Alongside the movements, she demonstrated vocalizations—specific words and tones that resonated with the mana, lending it focus.

Then, magic circles. She drew a small, intricate design on the forest floor with a stick. "These," she explained, "are focal points. They help to gather and direct mana, to give your spells more power, more stability. Think of them as a blueprint for your will."

I observed the circle. A visual representation of intent. A cage for untamed mana, I thought. It offers the illusion of command, yet only serves to highlight the inherent futility of all such striving. I found the idea of relying on external aids somewhat… inefficient. True mastery should come from within. But for now, I would follow the instructions.

We practiced. Hour after hour. With each repetition, my internal processes refined the data, adjusted the parameters. Slowly, the mana responded with more precision. The circles I drew began to hold their form, glowing with a soft, steady light. The gestures became fluid, second nature.

My movements became a cold, deliberate dance. No wasted effort, no flourish. A sudden shift, a blur of motion as mana subtly enhanced my steps, not with Mu's effortless grace, but with a chilling precision. My hand would extend, a flicker of fire, not a raging inferno, but a focused, searing spear meant to distract or disable with minimal mana.

As the afternoon sun began its slow descent, Asverta clapped her hands together. "That's enough for today," she announced. "You've both made good progress. Especially you, Mori. Your adaptability is... impressive." A faint, knowing smile touched her lips.

"Tomorrow, we’ll take a trip," she continued, her gaze sweeping between Mu and me. "We're going to the city. Not Raven, but a larger one, further east. We need supplies, and I have a few... errands to run." Her eyes twinkled with a hint of mischief. "It's time for a change of scenery, wouldn't you agree?"

A new city, Einar noted. Acquisition of resources and data is crucial.

More people to play with, V chuckled. More rules to break. Finally, some fun.

More noise, Nora whispered. More pain. I don't want to go.

I just nodded. The orchestra in my head was playing three different songs at once. And I, the conductor, could only try to keep the rhythm.