"Pffft! Hahaha!"
The hitherto unwavering poker face of the icy beauty shattered, substituted by a raucous laugh.
Ikaris frowned, stifling his annoyance with great difficulty.
"I said something funny?"
The young woman continued to laugh compulsively, so bent over with laughter that she was periodically seized with convulsions, close to rolling on the ground. She laughed so hard that the Swedish student sleeping next to them began to stir. Sadly, she wasn't the only one who was disturbed.
" Would you shut the fuck up?! What on earth did he say to make you laugh like that, Malia?!" A toothless, raspy voice whined from the other side of the curtain.
"Oh no..." Ikaris facepalmed, fearing the worst.
Alas, the scenario he dreaded did take place. The curtain was pulled aside again, revealing once more the ancient shaman's exotic physique. The boy immediately stared at his own feet so as not to further traumatize his scarred mind.
Thud, thud.
'Oh dear, she's coming our way.'
All of a sudden, someone patted his shoulder.
"You can raise your eyes kid, I'm not going to eat you ghegheghe!" The old woman began to cackle like a crazy woman.
"I don't think he's gotten over your nudist style, granny." Malia giggled with no attempt to help him out.
"Hmmm... What an innocent child. Bring me my tunic if you will. The linen one, you know."
"Right away ~"
Ikaris heard the faint footsteps of the young woman walking away and then coming back, followed by the sound of a sheet or cloth brushing against skin.
"You can stare at me without fear, kid." The old shaman eventually declared. "I went through puberty too so I know how hard it can be to control yourself."
'Ugh, what?! What is the old bat talking about? Has she gone senile from old age? No one in their right mind wants to look at you...' The teenager cursed inwardly, but his face showed nothing but embarrassment and bashfulness.
His blush from his recent efforts worked in his favor here, allowing the old lady to misunderstand his true thoughts. He looked up cautiously and thank God, this time the old hag had finally put something on.
It was a linen tunic so worn and stained, that Ikaris would have believed it 100% if someone had told him it was actually a duster. The quality was inferior to the rags worn by some tramps, but at least she was fully covered from her collarbones to her ankles. He could finally breathe.
"So Malia, what was that laughing fit?" The old woman asked impatiently as she sat cross-legged next to them.
"He asked me how to do magic." Malia answered honestly, the corner of her lips curling upward as she struggled not to erupt in laughter again.
"Pffft!"
The old shaman bent over laughing exactly as Malia had a moment earlier, but her mirth was prematurely cut short by a coughing fit.
"Cough, cough! COUGH!"
A gob of blood splattered all over her hand, which she shamelessly wiped on her linen tunic. A glimmer of panic flashed across the young woman's face, and she hurried to support her as she fetched her a glass of water and something to wipe herself clean, which happened to be a tree leaf.
"Thank you Malia." The old woman sighed after the coughing fit had passed. No longer in the mood to joke, exhaustion getting the better of her, she turned to the boy and asked,
"So you want to learn magic, is that it?"
"That's right." Ikaris calmly confirmed, his eyes resolutely solemn.
"Very well. So first, let me tell you why your request is stupid." The shaman declared in a husky voice. "There are people with poor talent and there are those with true gift, but all of them know instinctively how to use magic. For us, it's as simple as breathing. If you weren't one of those Otherworlders drawn to the Elsisn stele, I'd think you were messing with me. You're lucky you're not the first person in recent months to ask me such a question."
"I... don't understand." The boy said warily. "Is Magic supposed to be easy? If so, why would some be considered talented and others not?"
"Oh no! I said intuitive, not easy. Is it easy for a baby to breathe the first time? Is it easy to eat solid food when you have no teeth? To walk when you only know how to crawl on all fours? What these three examples have in common is that any baby in the Forsaken Lands will eventually make it, even if he or she is a little slower than the others. Because you need Magic as much as you need to drink or breathe. Since you've been here, haven't you noticed some tiny light calling to you?"
Seeing, the change in the teen's expression, she smirked and said,
"That speck of light that you keep seeing and can't help but admire but can't touch, it's called the Divine Spark. Every living thing has one, humans, animals, monsters and plants and it is the source of all our powers. It will be with you until your last breath and, if you are blessed to live long enough, it will be the cause of your death."
"The cause of my death?"
"Sigh... Look at me, boy." She sighed bitterly. "How old do you think I am?"
Ikaris began to sweat profusely as he received the question.
'Is this some kind of trick question? Will she kill me if I don't answer correctly?'
"Relax, I know what I look like. A corpse dug up from its grave, right?" She chortled as she fiddled with one of her long white curls, before stoically revealing, "I'm only 46."
'Wut?" Ikaris' brain bugged upon hearing the statement. Even when she spoke the same words a second time he still found it hard to believe.
'Is she suffering from a degenerative disease like Progeria?'
Deep down, he knew it was highly unlikely. Oxygen was also killing people slowly. It was responsible for oxidative stress and was therefore one of the key elements involved in the aging process. If magic was so essential to them, then perhaps there was a similar downside when used excessively.
"Don't worry too much though, if you have no talents you should be able to live 50 or 60 years like the other villagers. If your talent is high like Malia, you might even live for several centuries."
"You... You consider 50-60 years a long life?" He gaped.
The two women exchanged a look, then Malia clarified,
" In fact, Granny Grallu gave an optimistic figure. Usually, most of them die of disease or other causes long before that. In our tribe, Grallu is the oldest person in the village. The second oldest person is only 34 years old.
Ikaris' face turned ugly as he learned this harsh truth. Some of the barbarians who had captured him yesterday were as wrinkled as 60- or 65-year-old men. Several villagers in the crowd during the ritual looked visually close to 80.
"All because of that Divine Spark?"
"Yes, but mostly because of their lack of talent. That said, too much talent can also be your undoing. I'll come back to that later." Grallu insisted wearily, "That Divine Spark shining within you is like the sun. You need it to live, but too much exposure and you get sunburned, then you burn."
'... And eventually, you get skin cancer.' Ikaris completed the sentence in his head.
Alright, he got the idea. This Divine Spark was like a magical sun that couldn't be turned off and obviously the body didn't have the ability to adapt to it through tanning. However, he still had no intention of giving up.
The two times he had subconsciously used magic, the Spark had granted his wishes at the cost of tremendous physical and mental fatigue. In that case, couldn't he just wish he could resist his own Divine Spark better?
If Ikaris could think of that after less than a day in this world, how could the old shaman not have thought of it. He came to understand why it wasn't that simple as he listened to the rest of her introductory lesson in magic,
"To use Magic, you must simply connect your mind with your Divine Spark." She recited in a sullen voice. "This is where most fail, for ordinary people have a Spark so tiny that they can barely feel its presence while sleeping or in deep meditation. Conversely, those born more talented have a much larger Divine Spark, easier to perceive and tap into, but that also means their lifespan is by default shorter, as their light shines brighter. Neia is fair."
"Neia?"
"The Source of power that causes our Divine Sparks to grow every time we use magic. Imagine an invisible umbilical cord that would connect all the Sparks to a huge Star capable of consuming the cosmos. This is what we call Neia. It is also the name of the world we live in."
"How do I know if my Spark is tiny or not?" Ikaris questioned again. "What if it seems extremely far away, but I can still easily feel its presence?
"... That's why I mentioned talents. The Spark alone is not enough to cast a spell, there are two other essential keys: The Body and the Spirit. They are also called the Life and Soul Sparks. The Body provides the energy, the Spirit creates the intention and establishes the link with the Spark, which then grants our will. If your body is strong and trained, you will never lack energy. If your Spirit is strong, your awareness is sharp, and you clearly visualize your intention and the price you are willing to pay, then your connection with your Spark will be profound and your magic will be enhanced. If your Spark feels closer or brighter, then your magic will also be more powerful.
"Give a strong Body a weak Spirit and a weak Spark, and its magic will fail or the result will be shallow. If the spell succeeds, being drained of all strength and ending up in a coma after lighting a candle is the least to expect and by far the most auspicious. If the wish is too ambitious and expressed in the wrong way, your body will lose all its vitality and die of cardiac arrest before it achieves its goal.
"An individual with a weak body and a strong mind will not fare much better. Reaching out to one's Spark, even if it is tiny, will be easier. A better ability to visualize, a heightened emotional state, etc. will greatly amplify the power of your spells, allowing you to perhaps light a small fire instead of the candle in the previous example, but your body will also be exhausted and the recovery period will be much longer.
"This brings me to my last point. The Spark grows each time it is used. It will then feel closer to you and sensing it and attuning to it will become easier. But to expand even a little bit, a human with ordinary physical and mental abilities would have to deplete himself of all his stamina dozens, even hundreds of times to feel any difference.
" Alas, the larger the Spark, the brighter it glows. The corrosion it inflicts on your body and soul will only become greater.
"Even if you devote every spell you cast to extending your lifespan or better resisting the corrosion wrought by your Spark, without outstanding talent you'll end up wrinkled like me at 46, looking like a 500 year old mummy.
After this long litany, the old shaman paused, then returned to him his original question but this time in a tone devoid of sarcasm,
"So... do you still want to learn magic?"