"See? I just did it with the mana in my hand, you can see its effect right?"
Piere's eyes were now big and round like a child's as he nearly flew toward the rock to examine it, Hawkwood was no better, running to the rock trying to see the damage the spell had caused. Even Little snow who was surprised by the sound earlier was trying her hardest to see the damaged area up close, standing on her rear legs.
He was jumping up to see the aftereffect of the spell but he was too short and couldn't see it properly. Seeing this made Hawkwood's lips curl upward, He never made fun of Piere's height, how could a human even think that the higher races' appearances were funny but seeing him try to see or grab things out of reach always made him smile. He put his hands on Piere's sides and lifted him up so he could see the crack.
"Ah thank you dear" said Piere while tapping on Hawkwood's hand.
He began studying the crack and then muttered "Fascinating, seeing how you're fine and not tired means you used a small amount of mana and your mana is of tier 1 so the spells you cast shouldn't be this destructive especially with something like pure magic that has no destructive attribute… that we know of. "
After he was done talking he motioned Hawkwood to put him down. He turned toward Ango and asked
"How did you manage to do it? what was the method?"
Ango thought for a bit and said "I'm not quite sure professor, but I think the key is visualization. I tried to visualize the mana leaving the vein- no the nerve? No let's just call them mana veins, it's easier this way. I visualized the mana leaving the mana veins and gathering in my hand, taking the shape of a lightning spear bit by bit and it happened after the image in my head was … clearer?"
"Hm.. visualization? Interesting, one might think Willing and visualizing are the same but here is the difference. And did you say lightning spear? So you failed to do that but your mana took the shape of a spear anyway hm…" Piere began to silently ponder, sometimes walking, sometimes grabbing his bear or scratching his cheek. After a full five minute he opened his mouth to speak
"I think there are two requirements for you to cast other forms of magic, this is just a hypothesis and we should change or add things according to what we'll understand in the future so don't think of it as absolute and one more thing, what you did in the cave is probably due to the influence of the dream so I based what I'm about to say on it, a part of it at least. The first requirement should be Mana Manipulation, just like what you did now. You visualized the mana leaving your body and taking shape bit by bit; since you couldn't do it any other way I guess this one is a quite solid assumption"
Ango listened and found what Piere had said logical so he nodded for him to continue.
"The second, I assume, should be Essence Transformation. I knew from what Atherius had told us that every other form of magic is pure magic that has adapted itself to its environment, and you also said you felt the mana transform into lightning during your dream, by the way, I should mention that more than dreams, what you're seeing seems like memories or maybe visions; whatever they are, I don't think they are simply dreams"
'Yeah that's what I thought. Fuck my dick, so either I have memories of someone else inside me which is creepy and might mean many other things that I rather not think about, or I'm getting some sort of vision'
'And what's with him mentioning the gnomes' god so much lately? Hm.. maybe because the basics were taught to them by him?'
"Ah professor, I think they should be memories even though I'd if they were not. I see what they see, I hear what they hear and I feel what they feel. It seems very different from the sort of thing that I heard Solom saw" he raised his hand to smack a mosquito away
"From what I heard, it sounded more like Solomon saw the vision from a bystander's point of view not as someone involved in them"
Piere thought about what Ango said and after a brief pause said "Hm… you might be right lad but it's not important now" to which Ango nodded with a heavy heart.
'Not important my ass, I could have another person living inside me' he was kicking Piere inside his mind
"Anyway, where was I?"
"Essence Transformation Piere" Hawkwood interjected
"Ah right, there is probably another step required for you to be able to cast spells of different elements, I don't think it's as simple as wanting it to happen, otherwise you would have done that instead the pure magic version"
He started stroking his beard again and continued "So what we need to focus on is understanding the underlying principle of essence transformation. It's better to start with lightning, since me and Hawkwood both use it and you have also cast it in that dream, so it should be comparatively easier"
"So let's start now, cast that-"
"Piere" Hawkwood called out to him and said "It's night, let the boy sleep, tomorrow won't run away"
"But he might f-"
Hawkwood stepped closer to the gnome, lowered his head and whispered in his ear, so soft that Ango might have missed it if he was not standing so close
"We can continue where we left off" he bit Piere's earlobe softly after that.
Knowing that Ango was there made blood rush to Piere's head and he uncharacteristically stuttered "Ohoom w- we can work on m- magic tomorrow" Hawkwood lifted Piere off the ground, with squinted eyes and a toothy smile on his face and princess carried him toward the wooden house; their hands and necks intertwining with each other as they were getting closer.
Ango watched this silently "He always gets so embarrassed when I'm around to see this stuff, It's not like it's the first time I've seen them do it; Don't they know what they make slaves do? what's there to be embarrassed about, he would have turned into a tomato if he lived in a human settlement, right girl?"
Little snow rubbed her head under her own leg and weakly said "Woof woof"
"Ah you're right, let's get back to sleep"
His life had made him able to sleep in impossible situations, being too excited could be considered a rare occurrence that his tired mind and body didn't give a fuck about.
….
….
*Huff huff huff huff huff
Ango was breathing heavily, his hands were on his knees, sweat was streaming down his topless upper body, making him glisten in the sunlight.
"Teacher … Huff .. I don't think that *huff* this weapon suits me, It's too heavy and uncomfortable, why don't you let me use the weapon I chose?" Said Ango, pointing at the large hammer by his side, with a large rock on top and a wooden handle.
"Yes you're right boy, it doesn't seem to suit you, neither did all the other weapons I made you but you have to get a feel for them anyway, at least until either you can find yourself a quality enchanted weapon of your choice or learn how to shape metal like the dwarves"
'He's right but this sucks anyway, I've been training with the different wooden weapons he made for a week now and I like none of them, I mean how the hell do people even fight with a hammer or a fucking chain'
"But this is the last one. I have fought with all the other weapons here and I prefer the straight sword but the swordspear seems to suit you best, It's like the one I know the least about. I'll try to teach you what I know about it after this, though you'll have to figure out most of it on your own and through experience since I can only teach you the basics"
Ango was not sure why but even though he had trained with the spear on his own for a while, when he grabbed the wooden sword spear, something about it's appearance, weight and how it felt when he attacked with it made him like the weapon more than the others.
…
A week had passed since Ango had destroyed the wall of the cave with a lightning attack and he had learned how to change his magic into lightning. He had learned about the principle of lightning at that time but was not able connect the dots, until Piere had explained to him that matters were made up of very small spheres and that those small spheres had small spheres inside them as well.
He then told him that lightning, or electricity which was the non-magical variant, was basically one type of those spheres which he called electron, pushing each other forward. He was adamant about the fact that those spheres didn't move forward inside the current, but that the initial energy would push the first one and each of them would push the one in front of them, carrying the energy or the charge forward.
Ango, who knew that the key to casting magic was visualization, had tried to do it, imagining small balls in front of himself, and his mana hitting them and traveling through them. It took him more than an hour to get a clear and correct image but when he did, a thin strand of red lightning was released from his hand, hitting the wooden wall and blackening a small part of it.
Piere was ecstatic and made Ango experiment with the lightning, increasing the mana, decreasing it, trying to shape the electricity and more; Those experiments led to two horrifying facts. Ango made a mistake once and a strand of lightning hit his hand which made his hand jump suddenly. Once Piere saw that, he was stupefied and exclaimed "How can your own spell hurt you? That should be impossible"
He went on to explain that their spells couldn't hurt them, and attacked his hand with a stream of green lightning to prove his point; The attack just passed through him as if he didn't exist.
"That's the case for energy-based magic at least, like lightning but earth. Metal, wood and the rest are different"
Ango's thought at that moment was "Fuck my dick, fuck my luck, on top of everything my own attacks hurt me? Wait, why am I even disappointed, It's not like I expected my attacks to not hurt me anyway"
And the other horrifying fact that they found out about was that Ango couldn't recover his mana.