After establishing a few rules and identity as a foreign student researching the culture of Chinese attires and crafts with her teacher, she finally went off to the market streets in her pink sweater and jeans. With only her sneakers, she carefully avoided the puddles of cold water left from the snow that ended the past couple of weeks.
Thankfully, she was taken in by the people in Sichuan or she'd be buried under the snow. The trip went without a hitch and she learned about more vegetables from the other housewives that came to purchase ingredients for their families' meals. Many of these people in the market were kind and humble people who interacted with her as it was rare to find someone who was born in America. Thus, her first trip had been a success.
Having returned from her trip, her teacher handed her an old English book with a worn black cover and filled with strange words one would only find in fairytales.
"Magic?" She raised a brow in bewilderment.
"Magic can be done by more than just the gods or goddess of the arts." The old man sighed, "This is the book I used when I was young and one that my son used as well. Under most circumstances, its use would not be traced back to the user so easily."
"That reminds me." Willow frowned in deep thought, "Do you think that the person those children used is related to magic to be able to detect the use of abilities?"
"I don't know. " The man responded with a sigh, "In this world, there were numerous celestials as there are humans and their numbers have begun to dwindle over the course of millions of years as humans remember and forget them. One could say that humans are what supported their existence, but it's also true that their powers are what caused humans to exist to this day."
"So, it's basically what came first? The chicken or the egg?" She simplified the mean of her teacher's words after understanding the contents, "However, I bet it still reigns true that celestials will still be more powerful than humans and only a few handful humans can become gods or goddesses since the beginning of the world. They will always be in a position only a handful of humans can reach."
"Thus, as many humans are there are, only a number of celestials' children are capable of tracing magic and abilities." The man responded with a sigh as he finally gave her the answer to her question, "Those demigods aren't rare, but they're clever. If they weren't born with great strength, they would use wits to outsmart their opponents."
Willow frowned, "With the chaos created by Hades' children, I'm not surprised that they would be sought after."
Though she said this, another thought came into mind. She opened the book as an image came to view. After skimming a bit of the content, she raised a brow and turned to her teacher, "Teacher Xia, how often are arrays and magic circles used by demigods? Is it rare?"
Surprised, the old man hummed as he touched the beard in contemplation, "I wouldn't say it's rare. However, these days, young ones would prefer using their abilities or offense magic instead of time-consuming magic like drawing arrays and magic circles."
She looked to him in confusion, "Teacher, for one who doesn't have many offensive abilities, does that mean they would turn to magic?"
Teacher Xia sighed and smacked her shin with his cane with great irritation, "By the heavens, Lass! So many questions! Things like this should be thought carefully and studied by yourself before you come to me!"
Grimacing from the pain on her shin, she grumbled in shame and embarrassment, "Yes, sir..."
She still had many questions, but, to be honest, she doesn't want to test the limits of her teacher's anger. So, she quickly excused herself and went to prepare lunch much to the elder man's complaints after he finished it all. When she was done, Willow thought for a bit before she continued reading the contents of the book.
The pages were tinged in yellow from the years and the pen marks didn't seem to fade. It was good, then. However, when she continued reading, she realized that magic was more than just chanting stuff out or using some sort of energy. It was too bad that there was a limit to fantasy and reality. However, it doesn't seem to be a big problem.
Apparently, offense magic, like calling out gusts of wind and such to actually hurt others, would require certain herbs and flowers or types of stones. For arrays, it was between a paper and a brush to marks on the ground followed by pebbles or sticks. They were certainly different from the unusual types of strange tasks that the Greeks or Romans once used years ago.
Still, it wasn't like she was taught these types of magic by her mythology professor back in college. She only took the class for fun too and the professor did inform them that the method of those times isn't really magic, but acts that they had little knowledge about and were mystified of. From cursing someone's grave to helping women become pregnant faster. In the end, they weren't really all too special in the eyes of the modern era.
However, the book in her hands was certainly unusual. With her family following the Buddhism religion from a young age, she was often surrounded by Chinese books but could never read them properly. As they were in America, her father was reluctant to teach her Chinese and wanted her to grow up as an intelligent American woman.
On the other hand, her mother was more open-minded and wanted her to have a bit of knowledge in many subjects. However, both parents lacked the time as they were both immigrants without the financial support of relatives. She was taught math since around the age of two counting numbers. Perhaps it was because those books were religious and she was young, her mother never used the books to teach her Chinese and, even if she did learn Chinese, she was aught with a small whiteboard and dry erase marker provided from one of her dad's college friend, who became a middle school math teacher.
Yet, due to work and financial problems, they couldn't spend as much time educating her as they did for her brothers who came into the family when they could finally afford to pay their own rent rather than share with roommates. However, no matter how much time had passed, she continues to be surrounded by those types of books simply because she soon became interested in the illustration and page designs. She couldn't read them, but it was through that that she took a fascination of Chinese mythology. Well, that was before she realized that the story of the Journey to the West wasn't really a complete myth, but a story. Certainly one of the embarrassing days in her previous lifetime since she had referred the characters as gods. She was five years old at the time, okay?!
When she started reading the book, however, she soon learned the contents held more than just magic circles, arrays, and spells. There were also divinations of the east and west cultures. Even better, there were notes jotted down by the previous owners to the side, probably indicating that they've tried it before. As for arrays, they were basically the eastern version of a magic circle only they don't always come as circles. other times it would go between a pentagon and a square. It was really unusual and often piqued her curiosity. That was before she got scolded for putting her head into the subject.
Delving into the subject again after so many years, the subject, once again, piqued her interest as she began to study the contents with great intensity. As she can't properly use her magic without her teacher's supervision, she can only turn her attention towards the contents of this book, which, to be honest, has become her greatest interest and reviving her long-lost curiosity.
That morning, everything had been quiet till a sudden loud clatter could be heard from the front yard. Teacher Xia, who had been sitting under the sun on his front porch, suddenly got up with the support of his cane and hurried back inside. With his pleasant rest shattered, he frowned as he tapped his cane with a shout, "Willow! What have you messed up this time?!"
Trying to rub away the pain on her arm, she got back up with a sigh and picked up the little black bird twice the size of a crow, "I'm sorry. A bird ran into the array I was activating and interrupted my test."
"A bird?" The teacher raised a brow.
Willow sighed, "It's most likely related to someone. After all, how else would a raven be in the civilized part of Hefei."
That's right. Though not hers, this black bird is a raven. She recalled how her maternal great uncle in law raised a raven when she was young. Each day she visited them, she'd always stare into her great uncle's room hoping to catch a glimpse of the bird as she is very fond of animals. However, due to the bad reputation of the creature, her grandmother often kept her away from his room and often closes the door whenever they came over hoping to keep misfortunes away from her.
After all, her maternal grandmother was a very superstitious woman that often worried about her family members and have said that she was once saved from near death by Buddha when she became seriously ill a few years ago. As Willow was and still isn't an expert in this field that she once thought was all superstitions, she didn't dare to say anything about it afraid that her thoughtless words could end up being taken for the wrong side.
Now, however, that event might have been true, after all, since she became the daughter of a phoenix. At least, she won't have to worry about there being more demigods. As far as she knows, monks don't have relationships that would have demigods. They were pretty devoted to their teachings and religion. Still...