Chapter 18: History and Magic
Late Afternoon - Mid Spring : Home
A wave of excitement filled my body upon hearing mothers words. -Its time!!-
"Let's go up to the top of the mountain for our lesson. Krystallo if you want to come up and tune in.. you can."
Krystallo shook her head and started walking towards the cave entrance. "Ill wait for father"
She seemed to want to bond more with father, but I was far more interested in magic.
It wasn't that I didn't want to bond with Father, but to me currently, learning magic felt more important.
I contemplated whether my lack of interest in bonding with Father made me a bad son, but I shook off the thought since it wouldn’t do me any good to dwell on it.
Mother nodded after hearing Krystallos response, and started to fly up the mountain. "Bring Ilios, he might pick up a trick or two."
Looking over at Ilios, I leaned down a bit and let him hop on my back before following Mother up the mountain.
Once on the peak, my eyes were filled with anticipation. -I cant wait!- I quickly moved over and sat down, ready for mothers lesson.
"You seem oddly interested in this, is it because you want me to take you hunting right after?"
"No.. well.. partially..." The main reason was because I had been cooped up in one mountain for the last 10 years, and I wanted to stretch my legs some.
I had started becoming increasingly bored as time passed and I needed to be able to move around a little more freely if I wanted to solve that boredom.
-Magic simply seems really fun and cool too.- Magic was a great method to solve my boredom.
"Huhu, well you seem to be looking forward to magic.” She paused for a moment and gave me a sly smile. “But first comes history!"
In that instant, my hopes got crushed like an ant. "Aweee, come on!" I was pretty disappointed even though I was still very interested in learning some of the history of this world.
"History is important, Vasilias. Just push through it."
"Okay.. Let's just start." I wanted to get to the new things as soon as possible.. I couldn't wait any longer.
-Interesting.. but it makes sense that their classification would change after never even seeing any for several millennia.- "So.. what about magic?" Although the history of this world was really cool, I was dying to learn about magic.
"Haah.. fine, we will continue history some other time. I need to explain about magic from the beginning though.."
I felt a sudden wave of excitement wrap around me hearing her words. -Finally.. I can learn magic!-
“Hooh..” Mother took a deep breath as she prepared for a long lecture. "Okay, are you ready?”
I gave a hasty nod that was full of excitement.
She smiled a bit more seeing my boundless excitement. “Haha, alright. The world is filled with a type of energy called mana, it gives beings the ability to manipulate and change the world around them in various ways. Nearly all beings are innately able to control mana to some extent, but to make it usable you need one of two things. You either need an attribute node, or a rune because unattributed mana is far less useful. For example instead of forming a ball of fire, it would create a ball of pure mana that would simply dissipate into the air." As mother explained this, she used magic to show what she meant.
I was so unbelievably focused on her lesson that I was unconsciously memorizing every detail. "So what are attribute nodes and runes?"
"Good question! Attribute nodes are nature’s runes. They allow you to give an attribute to mana by passing it through the node and are something creatures are born with or acquire later in life. Not all creatures have attribute nodes, for example, very few humans will ever grow even one attribute node. Those that do though, have high potential to become strong magicians since they don't need to use a rune to put an attribute on their mana. A rune is something humanoid species have developed that works the same as an attribute node, except it is far less mana efficient which causes their magic to be weaker. Luckily, we dragons are usually born with one or more nodes, all in various areas around the body." She said the last part while full of pride.
-Man dragons really are born with a gold spoon..-
"The closer the node is to your breath gland [2], the higher your affinity because it is easier to flow mana through it before moving it into the breath gland. For example, my best attribute node is water. For me, I pass mana through the node to give it the water attribute, then my natural affinity with the cold (ice) will freeze it in the gland. You could also mix a fire rune and water rune to create ice, but it is far more difficult and costly." [3]
Trying my best to absorb the huge mass of information from the lesson I was put into a trance.
After a moment had passed and I had finally digested most of the information, I raised my next question. "So how many possible attribute nodes are there?"
"There are only 6 possible nodes: Earth, Fire, Water, Wind, Lightning, and Light. There is also a 7th attribute, it can only be used with a rune. It is something that has been mostly lost to time known as the 'space' rune. We dragons are the only species with access to space runes, but we can only use them along with a specific artifact in a specific location. Dragons use them all the time because flying tens of thousands of kilometers is rather inconvenient.'' After she finished, she gave me a moment of silence to let me process the information. "So how many nodes do you have? You can check by controlling the mana in your body and moving it around. Think of it like a cloud you move through your body to look at it."
Following her instructions I used the smooth energy flowing through my body (mana). -Hey.. This is pretty easy..-
I quickly got control of a fairly sizable amount of mana and scanned myself from head to toe, simply looking for whatever might be a node.
-What am I supposed to look fo..- Before I could finish my thought, I found exactly what I was looking for, but something was odd about them.
They were all in a perfect formation around my breath gland. "I.. I have 7.. Nodes.."