21 - Mana Recollection!

“What’s up, Fokko?” I asked, pummeling the training dummy before me.

“Auu.”

The little white fox I saved not so long ago had already fully recovered, well enough to travel alone to come see me. Now that Kikko didn’t have to worry about Fokko’s health, she could devote her focus on defending the Tranquil Forest in Mister B’s place.

“You want me to come visit?”

Fokko nodded, sneezing little puffs of blue fire as she did.

“Woah, careful there Fokko! My friend here’s made of wood and he’s really dry,” I gave Dummy a good slap as it swiveled about like a daruma. “Let’s see… I was planning on visiting my mind pa- meditating today, but I can do that later.”

Living alone had its benefits, namely that I’ve got no obligations whatsoever. I can simply go wherever I want whenever I want.

And so it was decided; I packed up the usual travel supplies and headed for the Tranquil Forest together with Fokko and Woolie.

*

“… Why am I here again?!”

Kikko stood before me in a field of pure white snow. Having placed me under her hypnotic spell as soon as I arrived, I was completely unprepared to resist and fell for her trap.

But this time, I felt no animosity. Rather, it seemed Kikko put me here so that we may speak one-to-one.

“Not that we speak the same language… Alright, what is it, Kikko? Something you don’t want Fokko to hear about?”

Nothing so dire.

“Woah! Are you- huh? I can understand you! Not that I have any idea what you’re saying right now… but I feel like you’re telling me something…?”

A gift.

“You want to gift me a present or something? At least, I think-”

Before I could finish, the world spun around me in a spiral, the ground disappearing beneath my feet sending me into freefall. My body began to spin uncontrollably as I fell infinitely, dead trees blending into the white snow turning murky, a disgusting brown- blue of the sky, mixing-
Blending-
Like throwing fruit into a blender-
Power it on-
Colors swirling-
I’m being churned into a million pieces-
CoLoRs FaDiNgGggggG-

Infinity, the true height of mastery-
                                        It is inconceivable that anyone could ever had zero aptitude-

                  Flow, like the fish downstream, elegantly-

Mana is everflowing, all life depends on-                                     Simply focus, let it all in-
                                                          Just like the preconceived concepts of energy-

               Like white lightning, flash-
                                           Circulation, like the flow of one’s bloodstream, eternally-

Control it, feel it, go with the flow-
Grasp it, learn, understand the concepts-
Your body can go so much further-
It is only the beginning-
Potential yet untapped-
Now, be enlightened-
Understand, and learn-
Nay-

R  E  M  E  M  B  E  R

“UUUWWAAAAHHH!!” I awoke screaming, gasping for breath as rare droplets of sweat trickled down my forehead pooling on my eyelashes, dripping onto my nose, the salty liquid splashing onto my tongue.

“Huuggh…” I took several short breaths, my gaze locked onto Kikko in her glade, her expression unchanging and unreadable.

Woolie and Fokko stared at me in confusion, unaware of the bizarre world Kikko had thrown me into. To them I must have stood there blankly for a minute. To me, it felt as if I’d been falling for hours without pause, unable to make sense of anything my eyes managed to catch sight of.

It was all a blurred mess. Nothing Kikko showed me made sense; all I could make out were colors, flowing repeatedly in countless patterns, sometimes circular sometimes erratic, sometimes slow and rippling like the surface of a lake.

But somehow, I understood.

My hand. I could see a faint glow around my hand. Not just that, my entire body too. Kikko and Fokko, even Woolie. What had once been invisible, unfathomable to me, I could now see at will.

“Hah… hah… so this… this is mana…?”

Kikko nodded in satisfaction at my quick grasp of her lesson.

“Does this mean I can now shoot fireballs outta my hands?!”

…

The telepathic wave of emotion I felt from Kikko quickly became one of exasperation.

“W-what? Isn’t that the natural reaction for a kid like me?”

“Kuu!”

Facing the sky, Kikko spewed her signature stream of blue flames, controlled so perfectly the burning heat dissipated well before touching the ground.

“I… I can see it! I can see the flow of mana! Yes, if I just follow it to a tee, I’m sure I too can…”

I calmed myself, putting what I ‘learned’ into practice for the first time. Concentrate mana flowing inward, push it along, let it course through my body, gather it all on the palm of my hand…

“HYAH!!”

…

“… Muu?”

“Auu…”

Nothing happened.

I raised my arm in front of me.

“Fireball!”

Nothing happened.

“Uh… Thunde- Lightning? Lighting Bolt!”

Nothing happened.

“Fireball! Wind… Blade? Wind Cutter- MAGIC MISS-”

A sense of deja vu came over me as I fell on all fours, my fingers gripping the snow as my disappointment overwhelmed me.

A wave of emotion flowed into me, one of awkward apology and pity from Kikko.

Poor aptitude for wild elements.

“… SAY IT AIN’T SOOOOO!!”

*

I returned home dejected. Quite the turn of events, I’d say; my excitement at discovering mana was so overwhelming, my disappointment was immeasurable when I learned about my incompatibility with magic.

“What’s the point of being able to control mana then…?”

Something else was also bugging me. At the end of Kikko’s lesson, that one word seemed to be the trigger for my understanding of mana.

“Remember.”

Remember what? Was I already knowledgeable before? Not only my memories, did god also remove my understanding of something seemingly so basic?

I appeared to already have a confident grasp of the concept of mana, as if Kikko had simply unlocked something that’d been kept in a chest somewhere in my mind all this time.

“But what can I accomplish with this?”

If I can’t conjure up a flame for warmth or cook my meals, create water for sustenance, what’s the point of mana?

“… No, there has to be another way I can make use of it. I’ll just have to… meditate on it. I’ve been able to get by all this time without mana use, no sense getting riled up about being unable to throw fire from my hands.”

Still, it’d be nice to have some convenience after all this time.

“Like this here… it’s just too much of a bother to start a fire just for this,” I placed my hand on the lantern sitting on the kitchen table.

It glowed a little.

“…”

I focused mana to my fingertips, letting it feed into the handle I held, letting it flow through-

The candle flickered to life over the messy kitchen, casting shadows on the wall. It wasn’t a heat-radiating flame, but an illuminating light that got brighter the more mana I poured into it.

“OOOHH!!”

Flicker on, flicker off. Flicker on, flicker off-

“I did it! I used magic…!”

It wasn’t an understatement to say this trivial feat was the greatest accomplishment of my life.

“That’s right! Even if I can’t shoot fireballs or zap my enemies with lightning, I can still control my mana. I’ll just have to think out of the box, figure out how best I can use it within my limits…”

Flashy spells aren’t the important thing here. The important thing is learning more about how I might be able to use it to the best of my abilities. If I can’t use magic the conventional way, I should experiment with the limits of what I can do, and go from there…

“Well Hooty, looks like we’re gonna be seeing even more of each other.”

A brand new door to development had just opened up to me, allowing my thoughts to wander off imagining future feats of strength I might display.

“I’ll spend the rest of winter researching, and when the weather’s more appropriate I’ll see to putting it all- yawn- into practice…”

Flicker on, flicker off.

“… Let there be light.”

Flicker on.

“And there was light. Eheh… ehehehehehe…”

Yet another cold winter day had passed, and another day of discovery and learning awaits.