Chapter 15: Chapter 15 – Lia’s Problem

It was early Monday morning. Aurora was doing her laps around the dormitory, being one of the earliest birds amongst the 1st-year students. Yet even she was surprised, seeing Lia, in her uniform, heading towards the cafeteria, holding a thick book, reading it while walking. As the morning classes on Monday belonged to Lia's element, Aurora silently commanded her enthusiasm, not bothering her, just continuing her morning jog. 

Ren was unaware of her sister's thoughts, walking forward, mumbling, trying to translate phrases from the old book into the modern language. She was stuck in the middle of the fire-half of it. The theories described there contained many unknown words and examples from a time that preceded the Dark Ages and the bloody war against the Undead. Those examples were especially hard to translate as names had changed, beings and places were gone from the world without traces, erased from history when the Undead consumed most of Meriath. 

"Uuuuu…. Not gooooood…" She moaned, closing the book with a frustrated look, rubbing her loose hair. "I'll need to visit Cici and check if she has some other books from the same period for reference! I'm totally stuck!" She mumbled under her breath, arriving at the empty cafeteria, walking straight towards the vending machines, and buying coffee and a sandwich, which quickly became her favorite thing to do first in the morning.

"Huh… being new, students still like to be early and fired up!" Joked a voice beside her, and looking up, she saw Sion standing next to her, also buying a can of coffee.

"I want to learn new things! I'm not a lazy girl!" Lia answered proudly, "How's the business?" She asked back after picking out her coffee from the machine.

"That is why I came here after catching a glimpse of you." Sion smiled, nodding with his head, and led her out to the garden, sitting down on a bench, enjoying the sunrise. "It goes on sale today. In an hour." He explained, "Our initial estimation after determining a good price is that the income will be somewhere between 6000-7000 CP. The 15% of that will be somewhere between 900 and 1050."

"Ooooo!" Lia exclaimed, her eyes twinkling already, "That is a good week!" She chuckled, happily sipping her coffee. 

"No, that was a daily figure. The weekly should be higher. Much higher." Sion answered. "Anyway, your portion should be transferred to you at the end of every day."

"Pffft?!" She spurted coffee from her nose, watching Sion as if he had said something rude. "Liar?" She asked, but he just laughed, taking out a handkerchief and wiping Lia's nose.

"Nope. I'm not lying." 

"AWESOME!" She screamed, jumping at him, hugging him close, "You are the best!" She laughed and rubbed her face against his, surprising Sion, who was caught completely off-guard. 

"Hm?" He flinched suddenly, feeling a pair of eyes watching him, and turning towards the source, he saw two violet irises watching him from afar, belonging to Aurora. He wanted to say by reflex that he didn't do anything as looking into her eyes, he quickly realized that they were eyes that saw actual bloodshed. "You are way too easily excitable!" He said in the end, prying Lia off from him, who just giggled, unable to wipe down her grin. 

"I can buy a lot of things with that! If it really sells that well, I can buy a holding bag that has a massive space in it!"

"Don't be too excited! After the initial buzz dies down, the revenue is always at least halved. But spending it wisely is good! That is a smart choice! If you want, I can take you to an artificer who has some really good stuff. He is an old man, working here for the past 300 years! His stuff is premium quality!"

"Sure! Tomorrow is good?" Lia asked excitedly, writing a mental list of what she should buy when the money arrived.

"Why not in the afternoon? I'll lend you money. The old man is cranky, so he is not always open." Sion explained.

"No good! In the afternoon, there are lessons about water magic!" Lia replied, shaking her twintails around.

"Water?" Sion raised an eyebrow, leaning forward, watching her chest. Once again, his simple action drew an uncomfortable feeling onto his back as Aurora watched him like a hawk from hundreds of meters away. At least he could ignore it this time. "You are a fire mage, no?"

"Yes!" Lia answered as if he had asked something stupid.

"Then…"

"I'm studying ice magic! Duh! Are you really a 3rd-year student?" She looked at Sion weirdly. 

"Hah… spicy tongue you got in there! Maybe we won't sell the potions…." He provoked her but received a smug smile from her instead of panic.

"That would be a breach of contract!" She answered, not easily scared.

"Ahahaha! I like you!" Sion laughed after hearing her response while standing up, throwing away his empty can, and letting it land loudly in a nearby trashcan. 

"Teehee!" Lia looked up at him, showing a V-sign with her fingers.

"Okay! I'll book an appointment for tomorrow morning, at nine! I'll come and get you. Is that good?"

"Perfect!" Lia clapped, standing up, ready to go, and read her book until class started.

After they separated and Sion walked away, he was passing by Aurora.

"Relax," He said to her, "I'm not after your family name nor after Lia. I just find the pipsqueak interesting."

"She is above your league anyway." Aurora wrote to him, but Sion just flashed a slight grin.

"You are more my type if I want to be honest…." Sion retorted, flashing his finger with a soft light that was met with Aurora's finger, covered in a blackish, ink-like substance. Their quick and brief clash left small, continuous pops in the air, like miniature fireworks. "My feeling was right… you already killed people." Sion murmured, watching his bleeding finger with multiple cuts on it.

"You too." Aurora wrote, her words tinged with her blood in the air as her finger was injured similarly. It looked like they were equals which truly surprised her.

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"I won't deny it." Sion nodded, taking out a tissue and wrapping it around his index finger. "Let's spar sometime later, hm?" He nodded, licking his lips, before disappearing, turning into a light streak in the sky. Aurora looked after him before taking her injured finger, putting it between her lips, and slowly licking at it with a newly ignited fire in her eyes.

…

….

…..

Because it was a smaller group of people, numbering in the 30s, who would attend a class about the element of fire, the 1st-year students' classroom was at a different part of the Academy's building. Luckily, the bracelet showed the way for Lia, and she wasn't lost finding her way there. The spacious room had 50 marked spots where one could sit. There were no tables or chairs but only red magic circles on the hard floor at equal spaces between them. Being early, Lia could walk around, curiously check them out, quickly realizing they were identical. 

"Basic meditation circles…." She murmured to herself, "Tuned to the element of fire…." It was not her first time seeing something like this. Back home, they had multiple meditation rooms with much more complex and robust circles in which she spent her fair share of time. They were essential in today's world, helping mages quicken their advancements.

Their bodies automatically replenished any mana spent, just like breathing. It was a subconscious thing for everyone. What they could manipulate by meditation was two things; A mage's mana pool could only be reinforced and deepened when they meditated and focused on expanding it. It required not just complete focus but also understanding yourself and the world. The other thing a mage could do by meditating is to manipulate the quality and properties of their mana. Reinforcing and refining it was how to make someone's spell stronger, more potent, or even hasten the speed they replenished the mana they spent. Casting spells was only one aspect of being a mage. They also had to be in control of Nature's elements. For them, raising their powers and transforming their mana into an element or even into different elements could only be done by meditation. 

The many levels of a mage represented specific points in the state of their mana. Every distinct level had a defined value related to the strength of their spells and the state of their mana flow. What made it into an ironclad system was that Nature itself recognized it, providing tribulations to the mages that they had to overcome in order to advance. In Lia's case, her mana pool was at the state that would qualify her as a Magi. In the outside world, she could easily pass on as one. But someone who was a true magician could see through her if they would clash as her mana quality was lacking. Having more mana did not mean that her spells would be more powerful. Even if she could fire ten fireballs at once, an opponent who was indeed at the Magi level could deal with them with five fireballs of his own. Simply because of the difference in their mana's strength.

"Haaahhh…" Lia sighed, stopping at one of the circles, deciding to sit on it, crossing her legs, and placing the book into her lap. She slowly closed her eyes, focusing on meditating.

In the wide world, many different techniques related to meditation were passed down between mages. There were mantras, special breathing techniques, unique methods using artifacts, and anything else in between that helped someone open up their inner eye and observe their body. Lia's technique came from Erias himself, passed down in an unmodified state since he penned it to paper 4000 years ago. It was the basis of everyone who ever wore the name of Amarin. 

It took her only a minute to fall into a meditative trance, and a different world opened up before her eyes. She was floating in an endless cosmos, surrounded by red and violet nebulas wherever she looked. Her body was nowhere to be seen. Instead, it was her ethereal figure sitting there, cross-legged, and she was looking at it from afar. Her inner self was huge, naked, and transparent. She could see her nine points of mana, hidden in every mage's body, represented by slowly rotating, dim stars, yet to grow strong and bright. One was in her head, one in her neck, one on each side of her chest, one in each of her elbows, one in her abdomen, and one in each of her knees.

She learned about them long ago, not from Erias's books but from her mother. They were what made someone into a mage. Every living being had them in the Realm of Meriath, but only a mage could access them both subconsciously and willingly. They could strengthen them by meditation and use them to draw the mana from the air, circulating it through their bodies. They were the things that made casting spells from a thought into a reality. When Lia started to meditate, the clouds of nebulas around her humongous, ethereal body started to churn and flow into her through those nine energy points. They followed a course, connecting them into a closed system. After a few revolutions, the absorbed energy settled down in her energy point, located in her abdomen. Every mage had one point in their body that they used to store their mana and everyone had an instinctive choice from the nine points, one that was the most natural for them. 

When she was 'full,' Lia started the portion she was genuinely struggling with. Refinement. Making her mana do continuous laps in her was required from any mage at this step. It did not matter if the mage was only a Discipli or Supri. She had to send her mana out, reaching all energy points, then draw them back, and send them out again, repeating it as many times as necessary. The difference was that while a Discipli's mana would only trickle forward like a creek, a Supri's mana flow would be like water breaking through a dam. A mage had to refine her energy points with her mana so it could flow faster and stronger. Watching hers doing their laps, she could see the mana travel around her body, glowing in a slight, reddish hue, signaling her element of fire. 

"Again… This is wrong…." Lia murmured, watching herself doing it. 

She was not saying it because she made a mistake or because her ancestor's technique was flawed. It was because her mana started to burn after reaching a certain speed. The reddish hue grew stronger until her mana was almost like flowing lava, drawing a grimace onto her face in the outside world too. She was stuck. Once again. She couldn't overstep the last threshold that would propel her into the true rank of Magi, and she was stopped from advancing for years by now the same way. Her mother even procured an ancient block of ice, formed from the magic of one of the legendary warlocks 4000 years ago, the Matriarch of the House of Berison herself, Kelmina Berison. She shaved off flakes of it daily, feeding it to her daughter, trying to come up with any solution that would help her break through. Yet it did not work.

"Nothing can help me from the outside…." Lia murmured as she watched it happen again, her thoughts echoing in the cosmic world inside her body. "I need to do it myself. I have to master ice and cool down this unruly mana of mine, or I'll be the first Amarin to fail to become a proper mage!" She sighed, a bit melancholic, a bit depressed, a side of her that she had never shown to anyone. Not even to her parents. Letting the revolutions of her mana stop, cooling it down, she slowly redrew her consciousness, returning to the real world.

Opening her eyelids slowly, she found something weird and surprising… a pair of worried, golden eyes looking at her. Their owner was almost panicking, kneeling before her, pressing a wet towel against Lia's forehead that was releasing small trails of steam as he did so. 

"..." Lia said nothing, just blinking her eyelids, taking note of the long, black hair and the floppy, black bunny ears with their pinkish insides. "Yo!" She smiled, grinning from ear to ear.

"Eh?!" the owner of the golden eyes jumped backward, fumbling and tumbling with the towel. "S-s-sorry! I was… I just… you looked to be in pain!" He said, his voice weak and flustered, not knowing what to say. 

"Ah…" Lia tilted her head, looking at her classmate better, realizing he was wearing a male uniform, yet she mistook her for a girl at first glance. Even when he spoke up. "You are a boy?"

"Y-yes?" He asked back, unsure why she asked; it should be clear by the uniform alone.

"Huh…" Lia shook her head, patting her cheeks, looking around, but only they were there. Her meditation only took a few minutes, even though she felt it was going on for at least an hour. Pressing her palm against her forehead, she felt it being still wet, making her eyes shine in a gentle light as she looked at the bunny-like boy.

"Are you okay?" He asked, recollecting himself, kneeling, watching Lia with a concerned gaze. "You looked like you were in pain, and you were so hot, it almost burnt my fingers! You shouldn't meditate if you don't know how to do it yet! It is dangerous!"

"Erm…" Lia flinched but was not angry, only giggling a little while shaking her head, "No, no! I'm fine! I am at a threshold! I must press extra hard to succeed, but I am still missing something! So don't worry, it is normal for me!"

"That should not be normal!" The boy protested, crawling a little bit closer, fishing in his pockets, taking out some leaves in a small bag, "Here! These are herbs from my village! Use them as tea leaves; they help calm down the mind and soul! I usually start the day with them or would be too nervous about coming to class!"

"Pfft!" Lia stifled a laugh, making the boy lower his head in shame, turning bright red. "You are funny!" She grabbed the leaves, pocketing them and pulling on his hands out of the blue.

"Eeek?!" He flinched, looking up, and meeting Lia's sparkling gaze.

"I'll be your friend! My name is Lia! Yours?"

"Keily!" He answered, frozen in place, feeling as if a dangerous predator just locked onto him, unable to fight back his animalistic instinct plaguing his species. 

"Great!" Lia laughed, letting him go, starting to rub his head, playing with his floppy ears, "Sit next to me from now on!"

"Eh…" Keily flinched, not even knowing how to say to her to not play with his ears that much… they were… really sensitive.

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