Morning comes again, Alice wakes up to the sounds of birds chirping and the light coming in from the window, she sits up with a long yaaaawn. Surprisingly she feels great, looking out through the window she can see the morning frost on the grass but she never felt like she needed a blanket, man this aura stuff is intense. She opens the door and steps out, Isaac seems to be up already, on top of a small hill lounging in his... magic chair thing, and of course reading a book, the cloud serpent is nowhere to be seen. An evil grin spreads on Alice's face as she leans down reeeal quiet and picks up a small stone, with a well practiced motion she winds up and pitches it right towards his book. Alice looks on holding her breath and waiting for an impact, *Tink!* a nice metallic sound rings out as... holy shit he caught it without even looking at it, he didn't even put his book down. This gets Isaac to get up from his chair which vanishes immediately, he puts his book away and walks down the hill towards Alice.
Isaac: "Nice try kid, but you're quite a few years from being able to hit me, so I take it you rested well then?"
Alice seems to grumble a bit, what a cocky bastard, she huffs as she speaks out "Yeah yeah I'm doing fine, slept pretty well actually, so what's on the agenda for today?"
Isaac: "Well we have to get you better control so that means doing the parts you skipped in the manual you had"
Alice: "Skipped or the fact that the stuff inside was damaged and impossible to read?"
Isaac pulls the magic tome out and holds it up "Skipped, it's the very beginning part of the book kid you can't fool me"
Alice: "Wait..... wait wait no you don't mean I'm actually going to have to..."
Isaac: "That's right kid, you're going to be doing what every high energy stubborn sorcerer absolutely hates to do, the absolute unthinkable"
Alice: "Wait no c'mon, just give me more wolves to kill-or or just blast me with magic or something, anything except that!"
Isaac: "By the gods kid it's just meditation, can't you stop for five minutes it's not that hard"
Alice: "But I already tried! I spent days just sitting on my ass, nothing happened so I skipped it, i awakened my magic so I did something right... right?"
Isaac: "You got the right answer by making two mistakes that cancelled each other out, it's probably the reason why it's so difficult to control your output, now stop your whining, we're doing this.
Isaac heads off to the cart and Alice follows reluctantly, he starts setting up a proper place to meditate, pulling things out of his bottomless bag one by one. Firstly a massively large black blanket set up like a tent to block out the sun as well as one for the ground. Whatever this blanket was made of it blocked the light out completely, the inside was completely pitch black, it was actually a bit unsettling.
Isaac: "Alright kid, I'll give you some advice this time, you're going to feel the magic running through you like a current, follow that, picture it in your head got it?"
Alice looks back as she's walking into the tent "And what are you going to do while I'm in here?"
Isaac chuckles a bit "Enjoying what little quiet time I'm about to get kid, now get in there"
Alice rolls her eyes and walks in, as the tent flap closes she's completely blind, she feels around on the ground as she crawls to the middle. She sits down in the middle and closes her eyes, "why am i closing my eyes it's already dar-" no, no focus, okay don't get distracted. Alice sits there for what seems like forever, "Okay... picture it in your head..." Alice takes a deep breath, she focuses hard on the idea of a current, like a river flowing down the stream. She remembered the time Lucius Isabelle and Rose took her camping by the river, they skipped rocks and sang songs a- "No no stop don't get distracted!" She caught herself humming the song and tapping her foot. She tries again this time laying down but unfortunately her mind drifts again as she remembers her own bed back at home, over and over she turns and tries different positions but she just can't seem to focus. After what felt like forever she lets out a bit of a sad sigh as she gets up and walks out of the tent, she shields her eyes as they re-adjust to the light, Isaac is laying on his chair behind the cart, he looks up at her.
Isaac: "Yeah there's no way you're done kid get back in there"
Alice: "C'mon Isaac I've been there forever can't I at least take a break or something?"
Isaac: "Kid you haven't even been there for ten minutes is your attention span that small?"
Alice looks away from him, she feels a bit too embarrassed to tell him what's on her mind "Well I just... I just can't sit still for very long okay?"
Isaac sighs as he gets up, he heads to the cart and looks through the various bags and boxes muttering and grumbling as he does, Alice looks over his shoulder inquisitively
Alice: "What uhh... what're you doing back there?"
Isaac: "Getting some help because clearly you nee- ah, here it is" Isaac pulls out a small pouch that could easily fit in your hand, he reaches inside and pulls out a small dried mushroom, the cap shifts with various colors of the rainbow in a strange manner. "This will help you get into the meditation mindset, this stuff is used in the arid tier one zones in the south, just eat it quickly since it doesn't taste very good"
Alice squints as she looks at it closely "Used for... focusing your magic or..."
Isaac: "Recreationally... and for meditation"
Alice: "That kind of sounds lik-"
Isaac: "Don't tell your uncle"
Alice: "..."
Isaac: "..."
They both say nothing, he drops a small piece of the mushroom into Alice's hand, they nod to each other and off she goes back into the tent. She sits down again holding the small piece in her fingers, she hesitates for a bit but with a shrug she tosses it in her mouth an-holy fuck it's bitter, with a grimace she manages to choke it down after a while but the aftertaste is still there. She tries to ignore the terrible taste in her mouth as she tries to clear her mind again but over and over she keeps getting distracted. Alice lays there on the ground feeling defeated, "I'm never going to get this, and this stuff didn't help either". She lays there, deciding to give up she lets her mind wander for a bit, she remembers diving into that cold river that one time, she pictures it in her head, but as she leaps off the bank she feels her body lurch forward as if she was actually moving. Her mind panics as she suddenly finds herself floating in darkness, or is she floating? she can still feel the ground against her back, the texture of the sheets on her fingers, but she's moving too. Drifting she can't tell what direction she's moving in or if she's turning, she takes a few breaths and tries her best to calm down, "stop, focus, ground yourself, what do you feel?" she thinks to herself. Alice starts making a checklist in her mind, she can move her fingers, she can feel her eyelids flutter, she can feel her heart beating, but as she notices the tingling of her aura on her skin there's something else. This feeling goes deeper, the tingling form threads that travel down her arm like veins, she follows them to her chest where they seem to spiral inwards in a never ending gateway, seems like these threads from the rest of her body all connect here too. Curious she dives in, the threads spiral around her forming a tunnel that keeps going and going for a long distance away, she spots something bright at the end of the tunnel and charges forward towards it. As she clears the tunnel it opens up into an impossibly large room, the glowing threads form the walls which seem to be miles apart from each other, but there in the center the light, she approaches it and watches it come into view. A large orb like a pearl floats there on a pedestal of bundles threads that cover it's surface like the roots of a tree, as she's looking it over she sees the source of the bright light, a crack on the surface of the pearl that gushes out blue flames that look just like her aura, this seems like the right place, but what now? Going with a gut feeling she flies in towards the cracked part, picturing her arms and hands they seem to form as she grips the insides of the shell and tries to pry it apart. She grunts and groans as she feels herself straining against the glassy shell, but they don't budge "Alright that's definitely not going to work... but what about aura?" she floats back a bit and tries to feel the flow in her arms, she imagines them increasing slowly as the tingling gets stronger, though as she does the jet of flame on the orb gets stronger as the pressure in it seems to build, "Now that gives me an idea...". She lets the flow of aura rush down her arms and build in her fists using what little control she has to slowly increase it to the point where it just barely starts to sting and burn, the jet on the orb is insanely strong now, but it's still intact. She flies towards the orb with her arm cocked back, her aura clad fist collides with the smooth surface as a large spiderweb like crack forms, *cr...cr-CR-CRACK* the fault lines spread over the orb, little chips fall off as more and more jets of flame shoot out from it, "uh oh". She quickly dashes backwards just in case, as the cracks finally meet the shell falls apart, larger and larger chunks fall off and disappear into sparks of light until it's all finally gone, what's left is now an equally massive ball of flame which is now much more calm, small flares jump out only to curve back into the mass again, the undulating surface burns like a small sun. "It's beautiful..." she stares at it for a while, she sees the threads get brighter as the light spreads from the pedestal to the entire room, she would stay to appreciate it more but with a strong jerk she feels her body shake violently. Alice seems confused but it happens again, there's nothing around her in this place, she's just floating here... where even was here? Her head feels fuzzy, it was hard to recall anything, she feels herself get pulled back away from the core and back into the tunnels, the spiraling threads of the tunnels disorient her as they seem to spin around her, the colors all seeming to blur together. Yanked out of the tunnels she leaves her own body which jerks forward at the same time, she can feel her panicked breathing, the sweat on her clothes and... something else... stars? A familiar voice sounds out, it takes her a while for her to understand the words being said, but as they finally sink in she realizes she's back again in the real world.
Isaac: "Geez kid, you got me worried, what the hell did you do in there?"