Chapter 35: Chapter 35

Heidi 

Alea’s cabin, Black Forest, Germany 

Heidi watched Leo close his eyes and start the simple breathing patterns described in the recording crystals. In a few minutes, she noticed that Leo’s attention seemingly vanished from around him and his breath became automatic, mechanical even. A never-ending rhythm that did not change. 

Feeling around her, she felt a sort of light breeze of mana settle around Leo. Not enough to compare to how mages cast spells, but soft enough for her to notice. From what she understood, he was drawing in the mana from around him and doing whatever visualization exercise he came up with from the little explanations in the crystal. 

Bored, she got up and returned to the cabin, understanding that this forest did not hold any dangerous wildlife that would actively hunt for a human sitting inside a tree trunk. Weirdly enough, the spot seemed to be made just for a human shape to fit in. As if the tree had grown this way, which Heidi found impossible. 

Sitting in the cozy chair next to the fireplace, Heidi contemplated what she had seen and heard this morning. Which was a lot by her count. Sure, Leo spent two hours looking at the crystal recordings and getting ready for whatever he was doing now, but it felt a lot longer for her.

She chose not to share her concerns with Leo besides the mortality rate, which he did not take too well. So she kept silent about the other aspects she found shocking and unexpected from the recording. 

First of all, the woman - Alea. She could tell from the recording that the woman explained magic as you would to a child. Leaving out many important details and aspects that her teachers had ingrained in her since she was little. Simply put, her education was much more nuanced and detailed than she saw from the crystal.

Heidi had to recognize that the explanations were concise and to the point, while her teachers chose to speak with her when she was just five years old, like old Chinese mentors teaching ancient secrets. Even then, she did not understand why they could not speak plainly. 

Next, the visualizations were performed by the woman on the crystal. Everyone knew that to even record a crystal, the mage had the impeccable concentration to funnel mana in the thing while speaking. Not many could manage this for a long time, especially when trying to convey a message.

This woman not only managed to do that but also cast the most advanced mix of magic spells Heidi had seen. Looking at it from the sidelines, a simple, small thing for the muds. However, she knew that not many mages could perform such a spell today. Not without pre-preparation and arrays. 

That led her to understand how different they were. Free mages of old and the mages today. Not only today they had to work together under the thumb of the Church to progress their magic, but they also spent hours learning coded mana manipulation to cast the simplest of spells. 

Hearing what the woman said, Heidi understood why the free mages stopped existing and were wiped out. They had too much freedom to do whatever they wanted with the mana. Limited only by their imagination. And dedication.

Instead of feeling inspired, Heidi felt down. She had seen another way. A way out of the pit she had been stuck in since her eighteen birthday when she had advanced her mana core for the last time. Since then, she had learned only a few spells, bringing the total count to around fifteen, hitting the limit she was capable of. 

Her musings were cut short as she heard the signature whine of the engine belt get closer to the cabin through the forest. Seb and Evan were back from their errands in the city. Heidi waited for a minute and got up to meet them at the door for them to walk in simultaneously as Evan opened the door.

“Hey there,” he greeted her with large plastic bags in both hands and walked past her, keeping any snarky remarks to himself. Heidi noted that Seb most likely had a heart-to-heart with Evan, getting him up to speed on what he needed to know about their situation. His demeanor was not what she expected. It was calm and collected, like a professor who had found some new problem to work out. 

He was immediately followed by Seb, carrying a pair of boxes, saying, “Hold the door, niece, will you?” 

Seeing the number of items they bought, she asked, “That is all of it? What did the people say at the shop? Did not accuse you of trying to starve them?”

“No, because we went to a lot of different shops,” Seb answered her and got the stuff he had bought out on the table. “Took us the better part of the day. Where is the boy mage?”

“He is out in the garden, meditating,” Heidi answered and took stock of the items they had bought. Various prepared meals covered part of the table, with even more jars and cans of food items that would last a long while. 

“Meditating?” Evan asked. “Is he trying to become a monk?”

“No, he is doing something called a mana core formation,” Heidi answered. “I have no idea how that will work out for him, though he seemed like he figured it out before I left him outside.”

“Outside? Where?” Seb asked, going to the window and looking outside at the garden, noticing that Leo was sitting inside a crevice in the tree. “What the hell? He will catch a cold. It is ten degrees outside now in the evening.” 

“That is what I thought as well,” Heidi began, “though I think he will be fine.”

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“Shouldn’t we check on him?” Evan asked, worried. 

“No,” Heidi answered. “The recordings explained that he is not to be disturbed. Otherwise, the process might cripple him.”

“And the mana gathering array?” Seb asked. 

“We should not have used it on him,” Heidi explained. “They said that it makes the process worse for him.”

“What did the recording say? How did he get to work so quickly?” Seb asked, curious.

“I have no idea how,” Heidi answered honestly. “I was surprised as well. By the looks of it, they contain recorded messages by Alea Monti. She explained the fundamentals of magic. Like you would do to a child. Though the basics differ a lot from what we learned as children.”

“How so?” Evan asked, curious while sitting in the same cozy chair Heidi had vacated. 

“Simply put, the way free mages use magic is different. They still have a mana core and mana channels, but how they gather the mana from around them and are supposedly able to condense it in their core - is the key difference. We cannot do that on our own. We have to follow a complex and expensive ritual.”

“Dear me,” Seb said, sitting down. “Then the legends are true. The mages of old could harness the mana from around them freely and progress?”

“Yes,” Heidi answered, sitting down to join them. “And that is what he is trying to do now. To form a core from the mana inside him.”

“And the color?” Seb asked.

“Green,” Heidi answered. “The recordings mentioned that should he discover that after the formation stage, it is red, then that would already be a heavenly talent. A green one? You can imagine.” Seb nodded at her. 

“What does it mean?” Evan asked, not following them.

“Leo had managed to half-form a green core just before we came here. To do that, mages of our age take more than fifty years and a heap of treasure. That makes him a child with a grenade in his hand,” Seb explained. “I was a freshly advanced blue before I left the clan. I am eighty years old.”

“You do not look over forty!” Evan exclaimed.

 “Mages are long-lived, boy,” Seb answered him. “But that is not the point. Our fellow here is operating on a level that should not be possible for a simple mage of today. And by all accounts, not even by a free mage of old.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Evan said, evaluating both of them.

“Because it is,” Heidi confirmed. “From the mana and core alone, he will have more power than what he knows to do with. That is dangerous and would make the Church hunt him even more if they managed to learn the truth.”

“Means that we have to go full incognito,” Evan stated just as the light from outside the garden started to brighten the room. In a second, it grew to be white, and all three of them had to cover their eyes. The blinding light lasted five seconds before it receded, and the room went dark again, illuminated only by the candles.

“There goes our secrecy,” Seb stated. “What the hell was that?”

“I would bet that was Leo finishing the formation stages,” Heidi answered. “Do you think the townsfolk saw that?”

“I would be damned if they did not,” Seb said and got up from his chair. “What the hell are you sitting down for? We need to check if the runt is still alive.” 

Evan leaped out of his chair and was through the door in seconds.

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