With the help of Ziracity's memories, I found my dorm room. Room that should be called an apartment instead. What greeted me when I opened the door was a stylish minimalist typed living room.
The "room" was black and gold themed with fancy furnitures well organized around the space. The windows permitted more natural lights coming in and saved up lots of light stones.
Light stones are basically the lightbulbs of this world, they get activated when mana gets absorbed. That's why you can place these stones anywhere without worrying about setting up a whole system to make it work.
I sapped out the mana out of the lights to dim them down. Using magic feels funny. It felt like cool energy got vacuumed in my mana pool, where it originally belonged.
I guessed that since I was taking back the mana, using it for spells will feel like the contrary. Fortunately most of the things here reassembled our world, probably because the author wrote it to be so.
I finished my night routine and went to sleep on the large, comfortable bed. I sleepily rejoiced that Zira, let's call her that, wasn't the masochistic type that liked to get used to pain and torture.
After that impertinent thought, I succumbed inside the blankets of dreamland.
I was woken up the next morning by the knocks of someone at the door. Confused by sleep I grumbled without moving a finger. The person was insistent and started knocking again.
I signed, resolved to open the door, when it opened by itself before I had the time to get off the bed. I panicked for a second and remembered who was the one standing in my room.
Tikoria, Ziracity's closest right handed man. Her long Grey hair with pink highlights at the tips swayed behind her straight back as she walked toward the bed.
"Miss, looks like you finally came to your senses." She says with her impassive gaze, though I could smell relief mixed with it.
"Tikoria"I looked at her seriously, "let's train."
She smirks lightly. "Yes miss."
We went to the training room at dawn.
Magic is truly something difficult to master if you don't decide to have your own comprehension of it. Being powerful is not about mana quantity, called mana pool, or necessary about your amount of control.
But something way simpler yet more complex at the same time. You need to understand how your body and soul interprets magic. Sure, having a big mana pool or an incredible control helps, but your potential is limited.
Why limit yourself and force yourself down the hierarchy?
We didn't decide to fight right away. I needed to get used to my powers first. I sat down, crossed legged and peered into my mana pool.
As I've mentioned. Your magic comes from your soul. Even though I was in Ziracity's body, the powers inside were all mine, and surely different from hers.
To make yourself one with your mana, you need to condense it to its smallest form. The more condensed your mana is, the purer it is. When I talk about "mana" it's different from "mana pool". Mana pool is the number of times you can use a spell before you can't anymore.
Mana is the energy your spell shows itself as. It's his form, it's state. It's represented as a colored ball in your mana pool. It's like chlorine, it purifies your mana pool and is spread everywhere inside.
For example, if one's "mana ball" is as small as a basketball and the color red without impurities, we can see that he's a fairly powerful being with fire-typed energy. "His mana pool" is also wide and deep, the same color as his "mana ball".
Then he will be able to cast a lot of fire based spells that do more damage than your average yoga ball sized "mana ball" before he empties his pool.
On the contrary, if someone has a mana pool the size of a pond, like the original Vanessia, and a pale mana ball bigger than a door and filled with impurities, they'd be but a weakling.
A grand part of your mana pool is by talent. But by training and using it frequently you can stretch it bigger. There are also rare plants or legendary artifacts that improve it by leaps and bounds.
Condensing your mana ball though is mostly with hard work, training and efforts. You could have the largest mana pool in history but can be easily beaten if you don't bother with your mana ball since the "damage" or "effect" of your spells will be greatly reduced
As I watched inside me I wondered how I'd ever go to the original's strength. I see a purple ocean spread in front of me, reminding me of a certain person's eyes. I shaked my head, concentrating again.
The mana pool is huge, really huge, as I expected of me. But my mana ball couldn't have disappointed me worse than this. I raised my head to look at its full height, groaning in annoyance. Maybe it's because I've never been in touch with magic, my mana ball is extremely big.
To shrink it, I needed to understand what magic was for me. It was simple for me because the fact that I wasn't accustomed to it was a blessing in disguise. I had this 3rd point view on it.
It is a source of energy. Just like solar energy, hydro-electricity, geothermal energy, etc. It passes through our body, we "catch" it, purify it and put it inside our reserve to make it ours. Then we release the energy to make a reaction. Magic is just science that doesn't make sense.
As I perfectly believed in my knowledge I closed my eyes and started meditation. I imagined a cycle, mana enters, gets transformed, gets released and enters again.
My mana ball, without me knowing, started turning, slowly picking up speed as I repeated the mantra in my head. It becomes smaller and noticeable by the naked eye.
When I got used to passing the cycle on loop without thinking too hard, I moved my attention to the color of the pool and the ball. A deep lilac color.
I thought about what the color signifies in mana.
Red = Lava
orange = fire
Blue = Water
cyan = ice
Green = Wind
dark green = nature
Black = Darkness
White = Light
Between these colors are multiple combinations that are normally somewhat similar. For example a brown mana ball with a golden shimmer is metal. The brown symbolizes the "earth" part of nature. The gold is from fire.
With the incalculable amount of colors in the magic scale, it's impossible to have two people having the exact same power.
The vivid purple that is this ball of mine is probably a mix of lava and ice. Even while knowing what elements are contained in my magic, I can't be sure how my powers will show themselves.
With my meditation completely broken by my curiosity, I opened my eyes to the real world after making sure my ball went to the size of a closet.
Tikoria was seated in front of me, entirely in her mind, probably doing the same things as I was doing. I silently stood up and distanced myself from her so I could not bother her.
When I was far enough, I focused on my breath and reminded myself how Ziracity used to conjure her magic. She made her magic twirl like a mini spiral from inside so it gets out of her hand faster.
I lifted up my hand and tried twisting my magic like a tornado. It shot out of me with the speed of a bullet, I lost control of my power and it crashed into the wall. The wall, protected by a magical barrier, mimics what the terrain would look like outside.
Though the magic dose was small the purple light "burnt" a hole on the wall while frostbite ended at around 4 meters radius of the hole.
I blinked and glanced at Tikoria, finding out that she was already looking at me. I was scared that she'd realized Ziracity's soul was switched with mine with the different…colored…mana?
But Ziracity's mana was exactly this purple! How can two people have the same color?
My right hand (wo)man just smiled in satisfaction.
"I was scared your level would never come back, miss. Even though you're still far far away from where you were."
I didn't react and just hummed lightly, looking at the "broken" wall.
"Are you ready for a friendly spar?"
I almost snorted. Despite her indifferent face, Tikoria is a battle freak. She normally goes easy on people because they can't normally compare, but the scariest sentence she's ever said was "you're amusing, let me match your humor."
What was chilling wasn't her tone, or even the phrase, but what she did after. The girl that got her feeling so angry is still not able to come back to school.
It's been 2 years.
Honestly, the only person able to control this weapon of mass destruction was the Ice Queen herself. Right, if she was called Ice Queen, then Tikoria was called Mad Dog.
As loyal as one and as mad as one with rabies.
"I'll try to get used to my offense first", the gleam in her eyes dim ever so slightly as I sighed in relief.
By the end of our "PE" session, I was drenched from head to toe with sweat and awestriken by the sheer amount of mana she has. Her technique was flawless, either from offense, to defense and even support.
She deserved the statue of "Trump card" in Ziracity's mind.
As we discussed walking towards the showers I came across the last person I'd want to see there.
Vanessia.
No.
Arvada.