While Lord Losler reminisced about his youth spent with his now deceased wife Jien and mark continued to work diligently on a simple thrust with his rapier, correcting his posture as needed with each attempt. "The reason to be in this posture facing the side is to allow for as little surface area at your front for the opponent to attack. This goes hand in hand with parrying attacks, forcing them out of the way as you attack" Mark explained as they continued. "The rapier is traditionally meant to be a dueling weapon used in unarmored combat, though, as I had mentioned before, it can be used appropriately in armored combat as well by aiming for openings in the opponents armor." Mark stopped for a moment and looked over Jien's posture one more time before nodding in satisfaction at his latest attempt. "The use of the arcane arts can allow the rapier to be even more effective in almost all kinds of close combat, perhaps even more than so than the use of standard martial mana manipulation."
"That's enough practice for now. I think it is about time that we broach the topic you are so interested in." He took a seat on the ground, laying his own practice rapier across his lap. It had been a few hours just practicing the simple trusting motion along with simple movement while keeping in line with the most appropriate forms. By this time Jien was drenched in sweat, his linen shirt clinging to his slender figure and damp hair clinging to his face. He almost collapsed on the ground in from of Mark, breathing rather roughly. Though he had kept up with Mark's pace in practicing, he was forcing himself to ensure that he would not fall behind. The longer he had to spend practicing the martial aspects the longer it would be before they would get to the topic he was most interested in.
After Jien settled on the ground and drank heartily from the bottle of water that he had Mark looked him over with a critical eye as if trying to discern something important. After a few long, silent moments he sighed. "From what I can see, you have yet to move your mana from your core." He put his hand on his chest just slightly below his heart as if trying to show where the soul core was in the body. "The use and gathering of mana is both simple and complex at the same time. When we go through the unsealing rite we ingest a purified form of a mana crystal. In doing so after entering the body the crystal disperses into a mist that ends up in the lungs along with the air being breathed in at the time." Mark paused here to ensure that Jien was following what he was saying. Seeing the boy staring at him intently as if he was trying to ingrain his very existence into his mind Mark almost wanted to laugh. To be so serious about an introduction that you were treating it like life and death was hilarious in a way. However, he remained calm and continued.
"Once the aerated crystal reaches the lungs the soul core creates a natural attraction, it acts as a void that wants to be filled, and thus forces the mana crystal to forge its way through the flesh of the lungs, creating a new type of blood vessel of sorts. It then helps extend these new vessels until they attach and fuse with the core. Once these new vessels are fully formed, the remainder of the energy from the mana crystal that wasn't expended becomes the spark that attracts mana going forward. This will always happen regardless of the size of the crystal used. The only difference is the number of vessels formed. The larger the crystal, often means more mana which leads to more vessels and an easier time accumulating mana in the future."
"Now, after these vessels are formed and rite is complete the body will naturally accumulate mana. This mana is created through a distillation of the neutral energy of the world, Aether. Each person only has a certain capacity for man and the speed of the distillation of Aether is proportional to the amount of Aether Vessels that are formed leading to the soul core." He took a moment to think over where to bring the discussion from there, but Jien interrupted his thoughts with a question.
"Is there a way to speed up the gathering of mana?" Jien asked to which Mark responded with a bit of a solemn look. "Unfortunately, no there isn't. The only way to gather mana is to breathe in Aether and allow the body to distill it. There have been those that attempted to create techniques to improve this process such as creating certain breathing rhythms, but they have all lead to inconclusive results or plain failure. The body has a natural threshold of Aether it can distill at any given time and the soul core has a limit to how much mana it can hold. This is why the focus of all arcane arts is mana efficiency."
"There are two broad categories for the use of mana, one is known as mana manipulation. Put simply this is moving pure mana from your core throughout your body. Often this method is used by those using the martial path to give short boosts to certain muscle groups, though it is also the beginning method for the physical method of the second category, the arcane arts." He looked at Jien before pointing in front of him with his pointer finger and then slowly moved his finger downward, leaving a transparent blue line in its wake. He didn't make any other movements so the solidified mana in the air dispersed a moment later.
"There are several ways to use the arcane arts. Most use the vocal method, using certain phrases or sounds and infusing them with mana. This tends to be the easiest as you only need to know the correct words and then release mana from your body and vocal cords. After speaking the appropriate word, the mana in the vocal cords and that in the air will react to one another." Mark once again lifted his finger, but this time pointed it towards the sky. After a moment he spoke "solas", after which a small dot of bright blue light formed on the tip of his finger before fading away not more than a few moments later. "The language can be different and yet have the same general affect, it is more about understanding the true meaning of the word and then understanding exactly how you want the mana to act. Without proper intention the mana won't act even with the proper phrasing.
"The last ways to use the arcane arts are considered the most difficult to use by far." he stated calmly. "Unfortunately showing you an example wouldn't make a difference because you wouldn't see how it is actually done." Mark paused there to think of how best to describe the last two methods appropriately. "The first of the two is difficult but still manageable with a lot of practice. That is to take strands of mana and route them through your body in certain specific patterns. If done right, you would then release the mana from your body, and it would already be imbued with a purpose it would enact once it leaves your body. This method is difficult because routing your mana through the body in the appropriate route takes a lot of concentration and if done poorly can tear your body apart from the inside out. That being said it is also one of the most powerful ways to cast, especially for those that focus on the martial path. It allows for you to use both hands and if you train your mind and body enough you can make spell casting into a sort of muscle memory which can help in tight spots."
"The last is the hardest and is not often seen, and that is to cast based on pure feeling. The best example I can give is if you understand the feeling behind a spell down to its smallest nuance you can imbue that feeling into your mana and cast your spell directly. It is similar to body casting but without the tedious exercise of moving mana through your body in a certain pattern." It was after this explanation that a light of pure understanding filled his eyes. He had read about all the other types of casting but no book he had read so far had explained this type of casting. He finally understood why he was struggling so hard to understand the spell the lich archon had provided him. It was provided as a collection of feelings, and that bundle of feelings wasn't meant to be translated in runes, words or bodily patterns, he was supposed to cast it based on those feelings alone. He finally understood.