Black Magus

The next few days were far more exciting than anything I’d experienced in my lives thus far.

Evidently, my position was formally recognized by the citizenry after my fifth birthday, allowing me much more leeway than I ever had before. Instead of being under the constant supervision of my parents, I was shadowed by my caretaker, Jonet. Much to my joy, however, she mostly trailed far behind me wherever I went without so much as a hint of emotion. Be it in the indoor courtyard to train or while aimlessly wandering the estate. Everywhere I went, she followed. Save for my ventures through the Shadowfell. At which times she’d wander about the estate at a brisk pace, searching for wherever I was most likely to appear.

As much as my privileges grew, however, I was still locked out of a third of the house until Telin knew when. Still, through my ventures around my still-small world, I managed to learn that the estate was primarily a linear structure of wood and stone that stretched north to south along the edge of a cliff. Aesthetically, the buildings appeared like ancient Asian castles constructed atop stone foundations. The interior, on the other hand, was fashioned in the same baroque aesthetic as my nursery. Polished stone floors and walls adorned with paintings and tapestries and busts made from presumably the finest hands in these lands.

On the far northern end was a hub or wing that I wasn’t allowed entry to. A formal hub, in the words of Jonet. A place intended for nobles, guests, or people coming to pay their tributes to my father.

After learning such things, I expressed a significant lack of desire in exploring that part of the estate and turned the rest of my attention toward exploring my growing world and discovering the inner workings of magic.

Separating the formal hub from the rest of the estate was a vast and elaborate outdoor courtyard that contained everything from Japanese gardens encased in snow to greenhouses to statues to stone mazes.

On the eastern end of the estate was the nursery in which I was born and, up until that point, raised. The service wing was nearly twice the length of my nursery. Containing the living quarters for all the tenders as well as the pantry, laundry facilities, and other dedicated rooms needed to keep such a large household running. Perpendicular to my nursery and half of the service wing was a private courtyard that mostly contained a large lake that poured underneath the eastern end of the estate and over the edge of a sheer cliff. On its shore was a modest cabin that had once been the residence of my mother and father. Though with me being here, it’s been largely abandoned. Leaving the vacant structure to be slowly reclaimed by nature.

The final wing of the estate that I had access to was what I assumed to be a training hall of sorts. A vast indoor courtyard that’d been landscaped and gardened to the point that it was indistinguishable from the boreal lands outside. It had to be well over a hundred meters to each side, making it by far the largest portion of the estate. Expanding my petri dish by a relatively large margin. It was hot and humid inside like a summer day and a harsh yellow light splayed from all sides like the sun had multiplied and scattered across the walls. Vibrantly accentuating the vibrant green of the abundant flora around me.

It contained everything from grassy fields to forest meadows. Lakes and rivers and what looked like the face of a cliff on the entire right wall. And at its center was the same platform of volcanic rock that my grandfather took me for my first magical lessons.

The place where the majority of my time was spent.

In those days, my routine consisted of finishing my nightly meditation; or waking up in some cases, just before dusk to freshen up and get dressed. Unsettlingly, Jonet was always present at my door when I left the nursery for the service wing for breakfast and conversation with Gerolt. Through our talks, I learned that he’s not only a chef and a hunter but a fisherman as well. And that he had a lot to say about the surrounding areas and their local fauna.

What one would expect from a boreal forest. Moose, deer, and elk. Lynxes, wolves, wolverines, bears, and even a few tigers. And hares, owls, and beavers.

What was more interesting was the fact that I was able to gain some much-wanted information regarding the local topography. Specifically, in that the Cole Estate was located on the western end crescent-shaped island that housed all the royalty of the Deapou Empire, Deap Ridge. The Emperor and his family lived on the eastern end of the island, while at the center was the Iron Mountain. A neutral zone of sorts that was both a port city and the political capital of our dual empire.

According to Gerolt’s map, the mainland sat just across the sea to the north. Deapou Island was a mass of land shaped much like a speech bubble on the map. Complete with jagged coasts sprawling the entirety of the outline that indicated hundreds of inlets, coves, and bays. And on its southeastern end, a tapered peninsula extended out into the sea. Pointing towards the next closest continent, Epeth. The largest landmass in our world of Maru.

Our rivals, evidently.

After my breakfast and evening chat with Gerolt, I would meet Grandpa Lich in the indoor courtyard for his lessons on mana and elemental manipulation, which was essentially just him repeating the same things over and over again for a few minutes before leaving me to work in silence.

Following that, the majority of the evening and night would pass without issue. I’d practice mana manipulation. Then elemental manipulation. Succeed at one. Fail at the other. Take a break and form theories, then repeat the process all over again.

Despite my failure to meet my grandfather's standards, I had yet to grow frustrated. Perhaps it was my sorcery that kept me coldly rational. Or perhaps it was due to the understanding that Grandpa Lich wasn’t as separated in age from me as he thought.

I couldn’t say for sure.

I could say for sure that, half-drow or not, I’d have moved to a more nocturnal schedule shortly after being born. Even in my past life, there was always a peaceful stillness to the night that I thoroughly enjoyed. The temperatures were cooler, most animals were sleeping. As was the constantly bustling society that the humans of earth created. And most of all, be it out of fear or them simply minding their own business; people left me alone at night.

In many ways, nothing changed in this life. Many nights in the past were spent researching, studying, practicing, training, tinkering, or gaming until the sun came up. The only difference now was that I lived under a new sun. That, and I had a new field to study to my heart's content. Magic.

Like anything else, manipulating and sensing mana became easier over time. Not only could I see it if I focused, but I also began to passively feel the energy around me after following my mothers' advice by taking a few hours outside my somnolent needs to meditate.

Through my will and concentration alone, I could freely move raw mana around me after just a week. I learned that the manipulation of the energy became finer with the aid of hand movements, greatly increasing what I’d already learned in manipulating the dynamic energy. Yet I still saw little to no progress in manipulating the elements.

Much like Grandpa Lich said, interacting with mana was a matter of reaching out with the mind. To form a connection with the ambient energy and merge it with an imagined result- a palm-sized vortex, in this case. Still, after all this time, I could only manage a slightly stronger breeze to blow over my hand.

Not much of a difference from my first attempt.

“Ugh.” Grandpa groaned. “Are you even listening to me? It’s been nearly a month and you still haven’t grasped it!”

'Yeah, I am listening.' I mentally rolled my eyes at him storming off. 'Maybe that’s the problem.

'Wait.'

'No. That is the problem.' I was listening to the ramblings of an old geezer when I should’ve been listening to the literal god of this world.

According to Telin’s words coming forth from my Eternal Eye, an individual’s capacity for magic was dependent on the user's imagination coupled with their understanding of the affinity in question. In the context of elemental manipulation, mana couldn’t be transmuted into air, fire, or water. It was simply an engine- a tool that allowed a human to probe air, fire, or water into behaving how it would naturally behave under given conditions.

It was using mana to create a fuel source and friction for combustion. It was condensing the air to form bubbles of water. It was squeezing the ground to force out a boulder or pillar of stone. It was guiding the flow of air using pressure differentials.

All of this meant that instead of using mana to drive the air into my hand, I needed to use mana to make the conditions right for air to move into it on my own. With that in mind, I held out my palm before me, ready to test my hypothesis with newfound vigor.

I visualized what I wanted to happen before attempting to take hold of the mana around my hand. Like I grabbed hold of it with my mind; as strange as that sounded or felt to me. I imagined using the energy to create a region of low pressure just above my palm and in one smooth motion, I spread the blue smog of energy outward from my palm to force the air back. In turn, causing my hand to numb and tingle as if being probed by a thousand needles.

I released the mana in my hand before the swelling began, forcing a modest breeze past my face from the displaced air rushing to fill the pocket and implode above my hand. Echoing a balloon’s pop echoed throughout the otherwise quiet courtyard.

Grinning wide from the results of my experiment, I quickly refocused on the mana to again manipulate the air around me. Instead, this time, I focused on increasing or decreasing the air pressure in certain areas. A method that I found to be a far simpler endeavor than how my grandfather instructed me.

Regardless, he was correct in his assumption that air magic would be the easiest for me. By nearly sunrise, I was able to produce fairly strong gales of wind or up to three, palm-sized cyclones within a five-meter radius.

The glee and pride of my sudden success drove me to continue with the other elements and attempt to master them as well before returning before Grandpa Lich. Pushing me to spend my first all-day-er in this life.

With my Eternal Eye bringing my knowledge of fluid dynamics and the properties of water to the forefront of my mind, I moved to the lake near the indoor ‘cliff’ and focused on the large, literally golden fish swimming on the far side near the water's edge. From roughly ten meters away, I reached forth with mana to grip a sizable portion of the puddle from the surface and suspend it in the air.

‘As I thought.’ I grinned wide as I reached my arm forward before sweeping out. And with only a slight delay, a tendril emerged from the amorphous blob of water to mimic my motions.

Gently spreading and opening my hands, I smoothly pulled my arms up toward my shoulders over and over again. Amassing more and more water into a shaky blob suspended a meter above the water. In time, its surface rippled. Toiled at an ever-greater rate as it increased in mass and eventually came to strain my mind until I lost hold of the voluminous blob and crashed just as hard as the echoes of the splash.

By then the sun was cresting over the eastern walls of the house, casting yellow-orange lights through the ventilation windows near the ceiling. And almost immediately, my mood began to sour.

Throwing in the proverbial towel, I looked down at my shadow before hopping into it. Plunging me into the cold embrace of the shadow realm where I swam through the now dilapidated courtyard and past the ghostly visage of Jonet, nearly jogging back to the service wing.