-3 months later-
Here is what I have learned from practicing magic for the past 3 months:
1. Magic makes no sense.
2. Magic Makes No Sense.
3. MAGIC MAKES NO SENSE.
and finally,
4. I have too much mana.
Let me explain from the bottom first. The reason I say I have too much mana is the fact, that I have yet to run out of mana. Every day I cast healing and body-strengthening magic, yet I don't run out of mana.
Even with the hour of casting magic constantly I do, my mana pool barely takes a dip. The highest level magic I have, (Lightning Strike T. 2), would only take 50,000 mana to execute. What was that compared to 5 million? I had yet to run out of mana, and my mana pool would only continue to grow with my advancement.
As for why I say magic makes no sense, it is because it makes no sense. Let's start with an example, (Water Ball). How does mana turn into magic that creates a water ball? Does it draw in water vapor from the air? Does it just create matter? Does it transmute the elements in the air into water?
There are many different ways mana could do a spell, but I have no way of knowing. Not to mention the fact that mana breaks the laws of physics. How would I, a normal college student, be able to figure out something that broke the laws of the world?
Having long since accepted the absurdity of magic, I have decided to go with the most probable conclusion of magic. The main theory of magic back on Earth was that it would be a medium through which one would influence the world.
That is the conclusion I have decided to stick with for now. Until I had better equipment and knowledge to study magic more, it seemed to be for the best. Why fix something that's not broken?
Over the past three months that is the theory I have been working with to practice magic, but a different problem arose from that theory. How do magic circles work then? When looking at a magic circle, it is just a series of runes and images that work as an equation for magic.
How does that make magic work? Doing magic by manipulating mana itself, just required you to infuse your will into the mana, but magic circles don't have will, do they? They are just an equation so what makes mana flow through them and produce magic?
One possible theory I thought of was that magic circles had mana circuits. That would answer the question of how the circles changed mana into what they wanted, however, that theory was disproved quickly.
Upon closer inspection of mana moving through the magic circle, you would see mana spreading and enclosing the magic circle, not mana being directed in specific ways like it was in the body.
After testing that hypothesis, I tested out other theories I came up with, which were quickly disproved as well. I continued studying and experimenting for a few weeks before I concluded a final theory.
The influence of a third factor, Spirit. Spirit: the immaterial part of a person containing emotions, will, and character; an aspect of the soul. This would answer all the problems. The soul was something I knew existed thanks to the system.
Spirit is an aspect of the soul, basically the soul's will. My theory on magic was that you willed a change in the world by using mana as an intermediary. Spirit fits that theory perfectly. Spirit is your will, so you use spirit to impose a change on the world.
Spirit also answered the magic circle problem. When you made the magic circle, your spirit would also go into it, and direct the magic. The runes and images on the circle were just to guide yourself and your spirit so it knew what to do.
Manipulating mana requires immense concentration because you etched your spirit manually. With circles, however, they needed less concentration because the equation and what you want are already there, waiting just for the injection of mana.
That was also why you could do multiple magic circles at once. Chanting also did the same thing. Both infused your spirit into the technique so it was both easier and quicker to cast. The reason for this was due to the fact, that our souls have intrinsically been linked with language and imagery.
We think in language and most of our perception of the world is through our eyes, so those are the things that would hold the most spirit naturally. That is also the reason why some magics are race-specific. Different races have different ways of perception, so they have different ways of thought, and will.
This was the theory of magic I had been developing and testing ever since I learned to use mana. I might be an average college student, but I wasn't accepted into the best public school in the U.S. without reason.
I finished this theory only last week after getting some inspiration from one of the novels I read. I have also been going out and practicing my magic for longer and now I can go out for 2 hours without people getting worried.
Every time I am asked where I went, I either avoid the question or say I was playing outside. There have been attempts to track me down by the maids and my parent, but I just outrun them and run around the house until an opportunity arises to escape to the forest.
The idea of me having a special constitution has also become a good excuse for why I can evade their detection. It is no small feat to escape a (Lime) realm person, but I manage to do it because they never think to use their full power against a little toddler who is barely a year and a half old.
My body has also advanced to that of almost 3 years old. In a couple of months, I should be on par with the average 3-year-old body. Not to mention the exercise I have been doing every day. My stats have all been raised to at least 1.5.
In other news, my mother has entered her second trimester and is doing considerably better no she is no longer sick so much. Her belly is also much more noticeable now. Another thing to have happened to her is that her mana has been sealed off. This happens in all mage mothers as the children can't handle mana yet.
Otherwise, things around the house have been peaceful. My grandmother also seems to be happier at the thought of the baby. Although she didn't show it, she had been down ever since losing Noah.
I think a part of it was blaming herself for not being strong enough to take down the beast horde. Both John and Mary have been training much harder so as not to fail again if another beast horde were to appear. The mage sent by the beastmen had also long since disappeared back to his country.
The household had fully settled into a routine now, but the downside of that was I had to further and further into the mountains and woods to escape prying eyes. From what I had seen, (Lime) cores could sense at least a mile out with their mana.
There was one time that a magic beast had gotten too close to the manor, and what I mean by too close was that my grandmother and father sensed it a mile out. That was how I knew the rough range of their perception.
I could also use sense for some distance around me with my magic, but it was only around 100 meters in length. Mana had vibrations that could be felt by a mage. Usually, a mage would only sense the vibrations within their immediate vicinity, but by using mana, you could expand your range by a huge amount. It also didn't cost any mana to do as you were only spreading your mana around, not using it.
I didn't do the technique however as it could be felt by another mage of a higher core level that was in your range. My whole life right now revolved around hiding my magic from anyone around me.
It would be a huge hassle if they knew I was so powerful, and that couldn't be chalked up to my constitution like everything else. Hopefully all the attention would be shifted off me when my sister was born, but until then, I had my game of hide and seek to play.