"You know if it didn't work, we can try again when we stop to rest."
I glanced over at Elisa. "well I managed to look through the mind of a mouse, so I guess it worked."
She gave me a questioning look. "What do you mean?"
I smirked. Now I knew what I was looking for I could do it a lot quicker, I also noticed that it was harder to do it with my eyes open, but I managed to find her with my consciousness. It was much, much harder to break through her mental barrier. But at last I entered her mind.
("I don't know how. I just managed to do it.")
Since I want looking through her eyes it was a lot easier to keep my focus.
Her face went pale. "did… did you say something just now?"
("Well not really. But at the same time, yes I did say something.")
I tilted my head awaiting her reaction.
She stumbled up and baked away. "How? How are you doing this?"
Seeing and feeling how it frightened her I left her mind.
"I, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."
I looked down and wrapped my tail around me.
("If she is too scared or angry because of me she won't be teaching me that illusion magic. And it will all be my fault.")
She slowly sat back down again but kept more distance.
("How foolish. Does she really think that a little distance could stop me if I really wanted to attack her mind? Wait, what? Why did I even think about that?")
She remained silent for a few moments.
"Well, let's continue the lesson for now. It won't take long before we will leave again, so it will help if you can make illusions before we encounter anyone else."
"Really? Thank you so much!"
I wanted to smile, but then I realised that she would probably not feel comfortable with my sharp teeth, especially after what just happened.
"Okay since you were able to do that just now, I assume that you now know how to spread your consciousness. This is essential to use magic."
She nervously repositioned herself. Her face was still pale, and her heartbeat was really high. So even without infiltrating her mind I knew that all she wanted at this point was to go back to the others. However, she basically forced herself to continue teaching me.
"To use magic, you have to focus your consciousness as if wanting to find something with your mind. Only this time you do it with a meaning behind it."
She stopped to clear her thoughts and wipe a lock of chestnut brown hair away from her forest green eyes. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves, and then continued.
"most people use chants because they are safer than to only use it with the meaning, however it isn't necessary. Well, it's worth nothing that if you do it with only meaning it's easier to get distracted and that could be fatal. Another thing what you should watch out for is not to drain your mana. If that happens you could potentially die."
I nodded. I wanted to try it out immediately, so I focused my consciousness on my left hand. My goal was to make my hand look like that of a human again.
The air around my hand started to shiver like it did above a really hot fire. Slowly I could see a human hand overlapping my own fiendish claws. The image of the hand became clearer and clearer as time progressed, until all that was visible was a human hand.
However, I couldn't hold my concentration for that long and the image broke and faded away. Also, it took a heavy toll on my energy, much like I had seen happening with Elisa.
Nevertheless, I was really happy with my progress, but too tired to express my excitement.
Elisa still seemed to notice it tough, since she gave me a warm calming smile.
"I'm glad you managed to do it so soon. Don't worry once you get better at it you can hold the image longer"
"Thanks for your help. And still I'm really sorry for scaring you."
"No, no it's okay. Please don't be bothered by it."
I tilted my head. I could hear that others were ready to leave and were basically waiting for us. Even the nun had woken up and was talking to Alex.
Apparently, her name was Gwen. She had been living in the monastery for her whole life along with fifteen other nuns. She went on talking about them with no end.
Only on our way back to the camp I had long since lost interest in her endless rambling about the other nuns.
When we entered the camp Alex nearly jumped in the air.
"Hey Elisa, Gustave you're back! Did you know that her name is Gwen? And that she used to live with fifteen other nuns?"
Allenya also noticed us re-entering the camp. "O hey you're back. Did you learn something new?"
Before I could even open my mouth to answer her question a shrill scream filled the air.