Chapter 49: So Tension
While I had agreed to let Raisa co along, there was still so ti before that would happen. I began to wonder what I could do in between to kill the ti, but Raisa suddenly spoke to .
"Are you casting a spell right now?"
I looked at her strangely.
"Huh? No?"
She looked back at sowhat bewildered.
"...Then why is the mana in your body moving so much?"
I scratched the side of my head.
"I'm ditating."
Raisa gawked at , like she saw a dinosaur in the zoo.
"What? How are you doing that?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"Honestly, I'm not all that sure. I just kinda did it because it sohow started working."
Raisa furrowed her brows.
"You... just skipped so many steps."
It was my turn to look at her with confusion.
"What are you talking about?"
Raisa took a deep breath, becoming far more serious than she had been.
"Ordinarily, it is incredibly difficult to manipulate the mana within our bodies while thinking of sothing else at the sa ti. We have to ditate so much that mana manipulation eventually becos second nature so that we can cast spells. The more second nature it is for us, the easier it is to cast spells that are more demanding on our mana manipulation."
She tilted her head to the side.
"Um, but if you can already manipulate it while doing whatever, then you've skipped all those steps. That ans you can basically just cast any spell you want. Usually, only so of the greatest mages are able to move their mana at the sa ti as doing ordinary tasks."
Raisa muttered the last part.
"It's difficult even to walk. In fact, most new mages hold their breath while casting."
Huh. The way she said it made sound extrely overpowered.
But she was definitely exaggerating it to quite an extent. It wasn't as simple as knowing how to manipulate mana perfectly just because I could do multiple things while holding mana.
Raisa helped realize that I did start with a huge advantage out of basically nowhere, or at least from a place I didn't know yet.
However, while I had an easier ti focusing on multiple things compared to other people, that didn't change the fact that I was still unfamiliar with my own mana.
"You are exaggerating it. I still had a decent amount of trouble casting the fireball. While I was faster, it wasn't by too much."
Raisa promptly shook her head.
"But this ans you'll be able to learn stronger magic at an exponentially faster rate than others! The difference is not much now, but it very quickly will stack up."
A bitter smile ford on my face.
"You seem to be forgetting that my magical talent is basically average in our school."
After hearing that, she froze in place, without anything more to say back to . She seed to finally rember, no matter how good you were at manipulating magic, everyone had a limit.
There were ways to increase those limits, but they were incredibly difficult and unreliable compared to most stories and gas. Under normal circumstances, there are bottlenecks that people overco.
But in this shitty ga, the only reliable way was elixirs that didn't really work, and the ways that actually worked generally involved extre risk, such as nearly disassembling yourself in whatever a mana volcano was supposed to be. Most of these permanent thods were not known to the grand majority of people simply because of how crazy they were.
They weren't too important for the main character since his limit was already fairly high. It wasn't that increasing his cap didn't make him substantially more powerful. In fact, it was a very big power-up.
However, there was quite a bit you could get away with just the base magical talent you were given.
Of course, that wasn't the sa for , but increasing my mana cap wasn't the highest of priorities right now.
"Well, at least it's good to know that I won't have to try too hard to manipulate large amounts of mana at once."
Raisa smiled sowhat sadly.
"...Haha, I guess that's the burden we have of being born as people with lower magical aptitude."
Hm. I guess we could be similar in that nature, huh? Never really thought about it like that though.
I focused on ditating a little bit more, and it was at this point I could vaguely sense the mana in Raisa's body.
I don't really rember people ever talking about stuff like this.
Exploring my sudden urge of curiosity, I tried to move the mana in Raisa's body. And to my surprise, I was just barely able to grasp it, like water running down my hand. As for Raisa, she let out an audible gasp and pulled away from , making that sensation disappear.
Raisa's eyes widened as she leaned over to whisper to .
"D-Did you just do that?"
I slowly nodded, wondering why she was being so silent about it. Raisa took a deep breath before once again whispering gently to .
"...Make sure you don't openly show that. It's not an application of mana I've ever heard about."
I narrowed my eyes slightly and followed her hushed tone.
"Is that a bad thing?"
Raisa sucked in a cold breath, whispering right next to my ear, yet was still just barely audible to .
"If the Magician Association finds out, they will take you. They may do it in a respectful way, but nothing will change that it is essentially a kidnapping."
I slowly nodded.
"I understand."
The Magician Association. Basically the pieces of shit among the mages. I probably should've seen this coming. If I were to describe them, they are basically just a bunch of stereotypical mad scientists but instead of science, it was magic.
I slowly leaned over to Raisa and whispered back to her.
"Do you mind if I practice this on you?"
She looked at for a few monts, hesitating slightly, but then gingerly nodded.
"Ok."
From there, I began trying to manipulate the mana in her body once more. However, I quickly found it incredibly difficult.
If I had to compare, the difference was like the difficulty of just breathing normally and using your hand to fan air into your mouth to forcefully simulate breathing. And manipulating my own mana was definitely not as easy as breathing, so you could imagine that I wasn't getting really far.
This was probably substantially harder than dual-casting.
Whenever I did briefly grasp onto Raisa's mana, she seed to instinctively withdraw and also attempt to regain her hold on the mana. Naturally, her ability to manipulate it was stronger than mine, so I lost control imdiately whenever she did that.
It was definitely a little annoying, but it seed as though she couldn't really help doing it.
In fact, I could tell she was trying to repress that instinct, but it was definitely not working.
Eventually, the carriage stopped moving, and we ended up back at my place. Naturally, I got off and Raisa followed awkwardly. After a few awkward monts, we decided to spend the next mont just in my room, doing pretty much nothing.
The servants panicked when she walked in, but Raisa ignored them all, making them feel rather awkward.
Still, the chefs seed to be panicking sowhat.
One of them even ca up to and asked if I still had any of the special at, but I didn't. I would have to get so from Edward later. This stressed out the chefs, but I didn't really care too much about it.
Upon making it to my room, Raisa spoke to softly.
"I... I think I'm understanding things about my own mana when you try to take control of it."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Eh? Really? You're not just making it up so that I do this more, are you?"
She promptly shook her head quickly.
"No, it really isn't like that! Before, I had to try to move my mana by myself, but when you try to take it away, my body automatically moves it in a really proficient way. If I can get used to moving mana just like that, it should make it far easier for to move mana!"
My eyes widened ever so slightly as I nodded a few tis.
"Then could you also try doing it on ?"
Raisa flinched before smiling awkwardly.
"U-Um, I'll try my best."
She placed a hand on my shoulder, but even as a few minutes passed, unfortunately, nothing happened. Her eyes were closed tightly and her brows were intensely furrowed.
"I just can't sense it."
I let out a sigh.
"Well, I guess it can't be helped. I suppose it isn't necessary."
With that, I began trying my best to manipulate the mana in Raisa's fingers, which caused her to pull her hand away and wrestle back control over the mana. But soon after, she relaxed and placed her hand back on.
To be honest, from the outside perspective, it looked like I was willingly letting her touch so she could get over so sort of trauma over touching people. Which all things considered, was very ironic.
Regardless, I continued on.
The progress was very little. Honestly, that was the sa with just ditating normally, but at least after an hour, there was at least a feeling of progress, even if it wasn't really visible. And after a day or two, there would be a noticeable difference.
However, after an hour of silently doing this, I didn't feel myself getting any better at this.
I couldn't help but ponder if there was even a point to doing all of this. On the surface, this looked like it could be an incredibly deadly technique. If I could control my opponent's mana against their will, then not only would they be unable to cast spells on their behalf, but I could force them to cast spells that helped .
But that was simply far too unrealistic. The first reason being how hard it was to control other people's magic. Of course, it was a skill that could be improved, but I didn't have all the ti in the world.
I can't just invest all my ti into learning this type of manipulation.
On top of that, the body seed to instinctively fight against this manipulation. Even against a person that was absolutely terrible at using mana consciously, they would still be able to do it very practically subconsciously.
If it was a person very skillful, it would probably be even harder to take control of their mana.
Though doubts rose in my mind, I still continued to practice.
Other than Raisa occasionally letting out a sound of discomfort, and our shallow breathing, it was almost silent. My thoughts were few, naturally because it was hard to even think with most of my focus used up.
But my mind wandered randomly as occasionally thoughts popped up.
They were quite random honestly, like if there was a place to get a pet like a dog or cat. Not that I would ever get one, but I still wondered.
Say, I was getting quite thirsty but was also too lazy to pick myself up to get a drink.
What happened to the real Bryson? Did he realize that his own consciousness was getting stolen before I entered? Was it the sa thing that happened to Nathan?
Hm.
At so point, Raisa gently put a hand on my forehead.
"Um, maybe we should stop here."
I glanced at her.
"What's wrong?"
She smiled slightly.
"Your head feels really hot. It's like you have a fever."
As my focus returned, I could actually feel the heat being emitted from my head. She was probably right, a fatigue was setting in that I didn't realize before.
"Ah, fair enough."
The mont I got up and stepped out, a butler bowed to .
"The al is prepared for the Lord and your Highness."
From there, I scratched the side of my head awkwardly.
"Ah, I see."
Raisa clapped her hands together and looked at expectantly.
"Oh! Do you have that specially prepared at?"
I shook my head with an awkward smile.
"Uh, no. I have to get so later."
Raisa pouted for a mont, but nodded understandably.
"Ah, ok."
We went down to sit at the dining table. Soon after we showed up, Jess also ca. She gave Raisa a glance, remaining on her for a few monts before snapping to . While Jess had a neutral frown on her face the entire ti, it wasn't hard to tell she was definitely thinking of sothing.
I tried to just keep silent, but it didn't seem like things would go my way.
Raisa spoke up.
"Is my presence disturbing you?"
Reviews
All reviews (0)