Chapter 5 Mana Flow

Today I am very excited. I am currently outside, and after three long years of waiting, I am now five years old and am able to finally begin magic training. Surprisingly during these past three years and my strong dedication to studying and working out to grow stronger, my stats have raised exceptionally.

[Name]: Faith Cyrilia

[Age] 5

[Level] 1

[Race] Dragonkin

[HP] 100/100

[MP] ∞

[Status Points] 0

[Strength] 7

[Vitality] 10

[Intelligence] 8

[Mind] ∞

[Agility] 6

I am not sure if it’s because I have been working out and running around a lot the past few years, but along with my strength and agility stats, my vitality skyrocketed as well. To be honest, I do not think I would even care so much about how strong or fast I was if not for the fact that I have a system that showed me my progress. That and my brother seems to have become my trainer. During the past three years, there were a few more times when the kids from the village would show up to take a ‘look’ at me. And as always…. Kids are mean. But it was always the same, calling me a monster or some kind of demon.

I mean, they even called me ugly! Me! They called me ugly when I am, and I do not mean to sound conceited, but I am beautiful! My mother and father are also beautiful looking so I can only thank them for that. I guess worrying about not getting their looks was unneeded. Anyway, because of this, my brother worried for my safety for when I was finally old enough to roam around on my own. So he began helping me with training. This also included sword training. Yes, me, the bookworm, is suddenly becoming a swordmaster…. Well, I know how to swing a sword, at least.

Speaking frankly, using a sword is not all that bad. Kinda makes me feel like a hero from the novels I read. Anyway, my past few years have been fruitful if you ignore the idiots. And more importantly, I am about to be baptized in using mana. I will finally be able to cast my first spell, or at least I hope. I have memorized every single spell in the magic books our family owns. Surprisingly we own a lot. I am not sure how it is for other families, but we have an entire bookshelf of nothing but magic books, like ten in total. And some are even on advanced magic.

Sadly though, the only thing I haven’t been able to figure out is how to achieve my goal of not needing to always use the runic equation to activate a spell. I wouldn’t mind being able to instacast some summon magic. I mean, how cool would it be to suddenly summon a weapon like gungnir? Or maybe even excalibur? Unfortunately, I have no idea if there is such a thing as summon magic in this world. I couldn’t find any information on it and when I asked my mother she did not seem to know either.

“Faith, are you paying attention?” My mother’s dutiful teacher’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. She was going over the basics once more, and well, I have them all memorized, so it does get boring after a while. Of course, I would never say this out loud because I did not want to anger my mother. She is the last person in this world I would want to anger. I would rather get in a fistfight with my father than anger my mother.

I quickly straightened my back and looked at my mother while nodding my head: “Yes!”

“Good.” Ah, she gave me that knowing look. But she also knows I have memorized everything. So it seems she will let this slide. “You may begin. Just do it like I taught you.”

Finally! I got the okay. To start off, before I can actually cast any spells, I have to first circulate my mana in my body. I felt a shiver of excitement as I tried to concentrate. After so many years, I could finally begin the process of using magic.

“Faith, listen carefully. When you are trying to use mana for the first time, it is best to allow the mana in your body to flow around naturally to allow you to get the feel of how the mana flows around your body. Now close your eyes and find the mana hidden in your body. It is normally around the top of your stomach. Sometimes it can be found in the chest area as well.” My mother was very right about the positioning of the mana in my body. I would never tell her that I have already discovered where my mana was.

My mana could be found near the center of my chest, closer to my heart. I am not sure if this was because I was a dragonkin or not, but my mana source seemed quite large. I closed my eyes and concentrated on my source of mana. I could feel a slight warmness in my chest as I stirred the mana within my mana source. I did my best to start with a small flow of mana, just a small hair sized strand of it, so I could not overwhelm my body.

The strand of mana flowed naturally around my body. I could feel it slowly getting smaller as it made its way through. It seemed parts of my body were soaking in the extra mana. After it disappeared, I pulled another strand out this time, it was twice as big. I did this a few times before deciding to allow my mana to flow out naturally. But as I did, I heard my mother yell out to me: “Faith!”

I opened my eyes to find my hair fluttering about, and in front of me, dust and rocks were swirling around, while the grass bent sideways from the wind. I suddenly felt worried that something was wrong and looked up at my mother, who had a hand over her mouth staring at me in shock. After a moment of disbelief, she came to her senses and yelled: “Faith, slow your mana and restrict as much as you can.”

I slowly nodded. I had no idea what was going on, but from my mother’s words it seems my mana was causing this unusual phenomenon. I kinda felt like one of those super guys from that anime show bear balls z, at least I think that was the name of it…. I did not close my eyes this time as I wanted to focus on my surroundings as I slowly tightened the knob on my mana flow. As I did, the reaction to the world around me slowly subsided until the dust and rocks settled on the ground. The grass that was bent over from the strong gusts of wind I was generating slowly stood back up as well. I never thought I would make such a scene on my first time, allowing mana to flow around my body.

“Faith, do you feel okay?” My mother asked. I could tell she was very worried about me. I can guess why I mean, after all, I just turned into an action hero. But to be honest, even when my mana was flowing out of me, I did not feel any discomfort. I felt perfectly normal. I actually felt very comfortable. Right now, my mana is only flowing slowly out in a trickle compared to the floodgates I opened earlier.

“I’m fine. I do not feel weird.” I replied. I even made a show of it by jumping around and running in place. Only when my mother saw I was still very spunky did she finally let out a sigh of relief.

“That’s good… I was afraid you used every drop of your mana. But now I know you must have a very large mana source. Can you feel how much mana you have left?” Now this question here was a bit tricky….

I have both mana and health bars. I know my health does drop because I fell once two years ago and lost a single point of health. I really scuffed up my knee and elbow pretty badly. But for my mana, I had no chance to actually find out if my mana would be reduced if I used it at all… I mean, I have an infinity sign for my mana amount. And well… Looking at my bar now, I think I could have released even more mana from my body indefinitely. Of course, I can not tell my mother that, so I am forced to lie. “I have like a little less than half left.”

“Oh my! To think my baby has so much mana. You really are a genius!” My mother seemed to be very excited. I hated lying to her, but I had no choice. It was not like I could say I have a system and seem to have infinite mana in a world where no such thing exists, or at least as far as I know. From everything I have read, every being has a limit on their mana source, and if it runs out, it will cause the person to faint, and in worse case scenarios, they might even die from mana deficiency. I have read about such things in books. This was also why I said just under half because if I said it was too low, my kind and caring mother would definitely become scared. and begin to freak out. I did not want to see that.

But now, she was hugging me and praising me for being some kind of sublime being. Well, as long as she is happy. I really owed my parents a lot for taking care of me and defending me from those who scorn me because of my looks, which I think they are just jealous of. I mean, who wouldn’t find me cute? I have cute red horns on my head. A set of red bat-like wings on my back, and my red-scaled tail is very pretty, like a red emerald. My long white hair with my orange eyes fits me perfectly. Yes, I sound like a narcissist, but the truth is the truth. But the more I think about it…. I might look like a demon to those around me. Aw well… It is not like I am here to impress them, nor do I care what they think about me. Only those who treat me kindly will get the same treatment in return. As for those boys who always say mean things about me. Well… Hehe…. Just wait a few days when I finally get freed from the confines of the stone walls of my yard. I will teach them a thing or two…