Chapter 10 - Mana

HUGE INFO DUMP FOR NEXT FEW CHAPTERS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

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The morning sun's ray illuminated a room inside the house of the Fauxe Village's chief. A young teenage boy got up from the bed inside the room and started stretching.

This boy was Cecil.

Beside the boy was a wolf that had also just woken up from its slumber. This was none other than Silver, who was transported to this world alongside Cecil.

The two had already been staying in this village for a little over a month.

During the past few weeks, they hadn't been lazing around.

In the morning, Cecil and Silver had their usual training routine at the backyard of the chief's house. The chief of the village was named Zaki. He was a muscular golden haired and golden eyed kitsune.

The people of this village were beast-kin that were known as Kitsune or Foxmen.

The daughter of Zaki, the person who had brought Cecil to this village was called Lucia. She was also Cecil's first friend from this world.

During his stay, Cecil had gained substantial knowledge of the world he was in, the most notable thing was that Cecil had finally learned the language of this world through his studies with Lucia.

He was now able to hold a normal conversation with other people and it was to the point where it came out fluently just like with him using Earth's language.

Of course he still did have trouble reading, but it seemed he would be able to be fluent after another month or two.

After getting to the back of the house, he started his training routine with Silver. By the side was a young female kitsune who was out drying clothes.

This was Anna, the village chief Zaki's wife and Lucia's mother. When she saw the two going about with their normal routine she smiled and called out to them.

"Good morning, Cecil. And you too Silver."

"Good morning, Mrs. Anna."

"Raah!"

After greeting her, Silver and Cecil continue with their training. After an hour into the training, when the sun was rising even further into the air, a young kitsune girl walked out of the house.

When she saw Cecil and Silver training, she ran towards them intending to join them on their routine. This was Lucia, after she had witnessed Cecil and Silver's bizarre training method for about a week, she had also decided to wake up early and join them, not wanting to be left out.

Of course, she couldn't wake up as early as Cecil and Silver, but she still joined them even if she was an hour late.

Seeing Lucia joining them, Cecil started to help her with the training and exercise. The training was still one that they normally did back then on earth.

In the eyes of Lucia and her family, although it was a strange way of training and exercising, there were some similar training methods even in this world, so it wasn't all that surprising.

After they had trained for another hour, they made their way into the house all sweaty and tired.

The 3 quickly went to the bath room to bathe. Of course, Cecil had to wait until Lucia was finished, but Silver went in with Lucia.

This was a normal occurrence. Lucia was the main person in these past few days that gave Silver a bath. So they went in together to save time.

After the two finished, it was Cecil's turn to bathe. After the 3 finished bathing, they went to the kitchen and had breakfast along with Lucia's parents.

Ever since he came to the village, this was the daily morning routine for Cecil and Silver now.

After breakfast they would normally go out with Lucia and hunt and scavenge in the surrounding forest for animals, herbs, fruits and such.

The only thing that changed from the first week was that from the second week until now, they started adventuring deeper into the forest to look for monsters to fight.

Cecil had wanted to keep fighting them in order to hone his fighting skills. Lucia was against this at first, but whatever she said didn't seem to move Cecil at all. So in the end, she was forced to tag along since she was already with them.

After doing this for over a week, she had already integrated this with her normal routine. They came back to the village at around an hour or so past noon.

They had lunch back at Lucia's house and continued with Lucia giving Cecil lessons about the language and various other topics of this world. The lessons lasted for 1-2 hours.

After the lessons, Cecil had the idea of helping out with requests and work around the village. Cecil, Silver, and even Lucia started taking the requests of the villagers and completing them.

Some of them were to help villagers with farming, foraging, herding and other miscellaneous tasks.

Cecil thought this would be a good idea to do, since he didn't want to be seen as a burden and a freeloader to the rest of the villagers. He wanted to pull his own weight and the village chief Zaki, respected that and gave him permission to do exactly that.

While he was here, he had met up with other young kitsune boys and girls. Most of them were curious about who the person Lucia brought home with her the other day.

It was a relief for Cecil that he hadn't been bullied or anything, but that might be because of the presence of Silver that had kept following him around everywhere.

Because the activities that Cecil and Lucia were doing around the village during the afternoon, it had turned into a kind of trend for the other children and teenagers of the village.

The past few days, the work around the village had grown fewer for the party of three to do precisely because the other kids had started following their example.

This had earned Cecil and Lucia the praises of all the other a.d.u.l.ts in the villages. Not only did it lighten the work the a.d.u.l.ts had to do, it also gave them more time to invest in other activities.

Activities like hunting for animal meat in the forest or trading with the town located in the direction north of Faux village.

From the main path Cecil and Lucia had first taken in order to get to the village, they had to turn the other way around and continue walking towards that direction for around half a day before getting to the town called Forest Hill Town.

As the name suggests, it was a town that was built on and around a hill that was surrounded by a dense forest.

After doing their work around the village, Cecil and Lucia always came back to the house before evening to have dinner. After having their dinner, they would take a bath and Lucia would continue teaching Cecil about the world's language and letters.

Only this time, she would focus on giving Cecil actual practice by letting him read simple books that were found in the library of the house and hold a conversation with her.

This was Cecil's daily routine after coming to this world.

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After finishing his breakfast, Cecil was now sitting on the couch in the living room, thinking about what he was going to do for the rest of the day.

"Hmmm…"

"Cel? What're you thinking about?"

Lucia plopped down next to him and asked Cecil what he was pondering about.

"Let's not go into the forest today, Lulu."

"Hmm~ Why~?"

"Let's just study magic and geography for today, there's a lot I want to know."

"Okay, Cel!"

Lucia replied happily.

It seems she was happy that they wouldn't need to go deeper into the forest today.

Of course, it wasn't that she was scared or anything. By no means was this kitsune girl weak. Lucia was pretty agile and she even knew magic. That's right, magic. This world which was called Alterna had magic.

In the air besides the elements I know of, there was an additional particle called 'mana'. This 'mana' was something that the people in this world could use to conjure magic.

There were many different types of magic. Elemental, shadow, light, darkness, void, nature, summoning, space, etc.

There were even race specific magic, the pale blue fox fire and illusion magic that Lucia uses was an inherent magic that was the characteristic of the fox-type beast-kins.

The 'mana' that was omnipresent was accessible to all forms of life, even sentient plants could use it.

Cecil was all hyped up when he found out that magic was accessible to everyone in this world, which included Cecil himself, an otherworlder.

Cecil only found out about this a week prior. It was when he first saw Lucia use magic.

It happened when they were exploring deep into the woods and a treant, a sentient plant-race in the shape of a tree, suddenly attacked Cecil.

It was the first time Cecil had ever saw one so of course he was caught off guard.

'I mean seriously, who the heck would be wary of a friggin' tree? Right?'

So the person who came to Cecil's rescue was Lucia. She used the fox fire magic and repelled the treant. It seemed that the treant was wary of fire so it had backed off and turned away.

Cecil was thoroughly surprised since Lucia didn't continue with the fight. It was only until after the treant went away that she explained to him that plant-race life forms were especially hard to kill, sometimes to the point of them being undying.

This was because as long as their roots or any part of their bodies that was able to suck in nutrients and mana, weren't destroyed, they'd be able to live even if they were slashed in half. They'd only regenerate quickly after receiving any type of wound, so it was best to avoid a fight with them.

Repel them, but never pick a fight with them.

They were mostly docile anyway, the only reason the treant attacked Cecil was because he tried to cut off a branch from it to turn into firewood.

This was a lesson to him so next time, he'd better start talking to the trees before chopping anything off. Better yet, it would be much safer if he just picked up the branches or twigs from the ground than piss off a plant-race creature.

After coming back to the house, Lucia started to explain to Cecil about magic and the different races of this world. It was truly an eye-opener for me.

The different races and life forms of this world were abundant. Lucia even told me that sometimes earth and rocks could gain sentience and become earth elemental life forms, stone giants, and even earth titans.

The same goes for the air and water, though it'd be harder for them to actually come into being, compared to rocks and earth. Even places that had an abundance of fire could produce fire elementals, but they were confined in places with fires and a lot of heat such as volcanoes, underground areas with lava, etc.

As for magic, since Cecil couldn't use the fox-type magic he couldn't practice it. But Lucia did give him the basic know-how of how to build up mana inside his body.

It was just a breathing and meditating technique that had him focus his mind on the surrounding mana in the air and guiding it into his body while storing it inside his abdominal area, otherwise known as 'mana point' in this world.

It sounded like a Chinese cultivation thing Cecil had read in the novels back on Earth.

If he was able to store mana inside his body, he would be able to start using magic!

Although, he could still use magic by manipulating the mana in the air, probably because he wasn't from this world he couldn't understand what or sense the mana at all. After all, Earth was a mana-void planet.

After attracting and settling mana into one's mana point, the state of mana in one's body could also reach a peak and transform from a particle gas to a liquid then from liquid to solid.

This world would classify this into the initial, intermediate, advance, master, and perfect stage.

Initial Stage means that the person could only use the mana in the surrounding air to conjure magic, this type of usage was the weakest and most people, even in this mana abundant world, would stay at this stage.

The Intermediate Stage is when a person was able to guide mana and store it into their bodies entering what was called the mana vapor stage. Magic used in this stage is visibly stronger than when used in the Initial Stage.

Advance Stage is when a person is able to gather enough mana inside his/her body and condense it into a liquid state. This stage was called the mana sea stage.

Master Stage is when the mana sea inside the body is abundant in volume to the point the mana was able to gather together and compress into a solid state, this stage was known as the mana core stage.

Finally, the Perfect Stage is when the mana core inside the body could manipulate the mana in the surrounding air naturally, as if by instinct. The feeling was somewhat like having the surrounding mana become a new organ or limb for the person. This way the person is able to form a cycle with the mana in the air, practically giving him/her free better control and usage of mana.

For some races, they already have a high affinity with mana so the last stage would automatically be applied to them when they enter the Master stage, only the size and density of the mana core being not as strong as a person who was properly in the Perfect stage through bitter cultivation and training.

After entering the Intermediate Stage or Mana Vapor Stage, a person would now have access to using spells.

This would mean that the person had an affinity with mana higher than the average person and he/she could become a Spellcaster.

Spells and magic in this world had a difference. Although they had similar meanings, but magic was used widely by everyone. For example a normal person, meaning someone who was only at the Initial Stage, could produce fire and water out of thin air. Summon a breeze or dig a small pit into the earth.

But only Spellcasters could create and develop spells.

Examples are like a spell that summons a fireball and shoot it with high velocity at an enemy, a spell that condenses an ice spike in the air and impale things with it, or even spells that manipulate the winds to be as sharp as a sword and cut at an enemy or harden the ground into a wall that could block arrows and blades.

Unlike the stories, Cecil has read back on Earth, the usage of different magic elements in this world wasn't limited, everyone could use all of the different elements of mana, but some tend to use the magic element they have the most affinity with.

Most people would be limited to having good affinity with just 1 or 2 elements, while some very talented people would have good affinity with all 4 basic elements.

The most frightening of talents had affinity with the basic elements and the extra elements. Extra elements are the type of magic element such as Space, Illusion, Demonic, Holy, etc.

There are many different types of spells in this world, some are inherent while others have already been perfected and systematized by previous generations of Spellcasters and researchers.

Of course, the systematic spells could be learned by all people who have entered the intermediate stage and enrolled in a magic academy.

The present knowledge of mana, magic and spells has been systematized to let later generations of Spellcasters learn.

Magic is seen as a talent, so many children, teenagers, and even a.d.u.l.ts go to an academy to learn the systematized knowledge of magic if they haven't already.

This exception was only for those who have inherent magic, because it seems that the basic knowledge of inherent magic would be understood by the time the person was able to use magic itself.

It was like an instinct for them and this could be considered a cheat, but this wouldn't mean they couldn't learn the knowledge of the present magic system.

Downsides to inherent Spell casters are that they have a hard time learning the modern magic system. Because they already have inherent knowledge of their magic, it was hard for them to adapt and learn the modern magic system's spells. It was also due to inherent spell casters body constitution that made their body's only strong affinity towards their inherent magical element.

Although hard, it wasn't impossible, all they had to do was put in more effort than normal spell casters did.

Of course they could just imitate the spells form, effect and usage with their own magic, but this is limited. For example, Lucia could use fox fire and illusion magic. So technically, Lucia could also use the fire spear spell with her fox fire, turning it into a fox flame fire spear.

Illusion magic was categorized as special magic, but the modern magic system could use water, fire, shadow, light, and even wind to imitate illusion magic. Technically, illusion magic was the pinnacle of illusions conjured from the modern magic system so it was useless for Lucia to learn them, but she could use their forms and usages as reference for when she uses her illusion magic.

But since she only has fox fire and illusion magic, she wouldn't be able to use the modern magic system's water, wind, and earth magic system or even imitate the effects of them, because of her limitation in element, unless of course she studied them extensively.

The upside to this is that because inherent magic users have an already basic all-encompassing understanding of their magic, they could easily develop and strengthen their inherent magic with practice.

This is hard for modern Spellcasters because they weren't the trailblazers of modern magic and their understanding of magic is only limited to the magic system of today.

It was hard for modern spell casters to develop new magic or strengthen their own, but it wasn't impossible.

Lucia had mentioned that there were very strong Spellcasters that were titled by the people as Sages, these Sages were able to use powerful original magic that they had developed, and most original magic are unique to individual Sages.

Of course, the study to strengthen and create original magic was something that every generation of Spellcasters strive for. There was never a stop to the research and experiments.

Because of that, over the years there were some new spells, although not powerful, were able to make the living conditions in this world more convenient. These spells were given out to the public for use.

A prime example would be the 'light stone'. This 'light stone' was an original magic that was created by a Spellcaster who accidentally created a spell that combined earth system with light system magic. It created a perpetually glowing rock, which was now used for illumination in the dark.

This magic replaced the need for torches and fire or fuel based lampposts. Even in dungeons, a light elemental would still be used, but the spell caster had to maintain the light elemental with their own mana.

This 'light stone' wouldn't need that. After creating one, the light stone would continue to shine for 12 hours before disappearing, unless the caster, someone or something dispels it. Sounds like a light bulb right?

But this is just but one example. There are plenty of others, but Lucia didn't list anymore.

Although there are examples of non-offensive, but useful magic, there were without a doubt some useless and failed products.

There are also taboo spells, but Lucia doesn't seem to know any of them. She only vaguely explained that there was a spell that permanently hexed people into other objects and evil spells like curses, necromancy, and etc.

In conclusion, there are plenty of magic spells out there, some powerful, others useless, but they were, nonetheless, awesome in Cecil's inexperienced opinion.

So after finalizing their plans for today, Cecil followed Lucia into the library to learn more about this world, and especially about magic.

'I really hope I could use it soon, that'd be way too awesome!'