I Ask You, What Is Magic?

The tip of my finger turned translucent, but not quite. It was as if only the skin was affected, allowing me to see the insides, so much so that I was able to see past the blood vessels and the bone, able to look directly through my finger and at the nail on the other side.

But instead of basking in the novelty of this discovery, I heeded Codex's panic filled shout and immediately commanded all the nanites near my finger to stop all operations and disperse.

What happened after was horrifying.

The translucent portion of my skin turned gray and disintegrated into dust, flowing away into the wind, causing blood to trickle out from all directions, dripping down my finger and my hand, down my wrist.

Then came the pain, the panic and the horrifying realization.

"Argh!" I screamed as loudly as I could.

Melted! My finger just melted!

Just as I was screaming, tightly holding the base of my index finger with my other hand, nanites started moving from all over my body and gathering near the wound. Within seconds, they had formed a tight cap around it in such a way that it didn't hurt as much anymore, and rather felt like the tight grip of a cast.

The finger cap barely covered a third of my finger, just enough to cover the wounded portion, and was much more sophisticated than the one I had managed to form on my own after focusing for a dozen minutes.

Feeling myself dizzy from the blood loss, I watched in amazement as a small amount of nanites seeped out of my elbow and snaked around my arm all the way up to the finger cap and absorbed all the blood, seeping back inside.

'Is that even safe?' Was my first thought.

'Shit, did mom hear me scream?' Was my second.

'Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Codex, do something about the cast!' I screamed in my head as I looked around me for a solution and soon heard hurried footsteps and the click of a door.

[I can't. They acted independently, they are out of my control. Besides, I think removing them right now would result in a bigger mess, think of something to deal with it.] Codex answered my panicked outburst in a collected manner.

"Raiyu!"

Finding a lone red ant foraging near my foot, I yanked it off the ground and pushed it into my left hand, holding my right hand's index finger away, just in case.

The struggling ant latched onto my skin almost in an instant and I sucked in a shard breath but suppressed any more screams before they came out.

In the next seconds, I was picked off the ground by mom who started inspecting every small nook and cranny of me.

"Where are you hurt, my baby?" She asked in a tender voice.

I hadn't realized but the earlier pain had triggered my tear glands, so my cheeks were already wet, and it wasn't hard to fake a hurtful expression when I had a creature cutting through my skin right bloody now.

"It hurts..." I mumbled with quivering lips, barely controlling myself from squashing the culprit in my fist.

Before she found out the nanite cap on my index finger, I thrust my left palm in her direction, showing her the small, red ant biting into it.

In an instant, she yanked the ant off to the side and rushed me over to the corner of the yard near the mini farm.

She blew on the bitten area that had started to turn red and swollen, as she plucked a decently sized greenish-purple leaf from a small herb and crushed it with one hand while she held me in her other arm.

As soon as the leaf turned moist due to the pressure, she rubbed it on my palm and closed my tiny fist around it.

"It would stop to hurt if you keep it like this for a while." She said gently as she let go of my fist.

I nodded, "Thank you," Keeping both of my fists shut tightly.

Mom smiled at me and playfully booped my nose, making me giggle.

Instead of leaving me be here in the yard, she carried me back to the front, into the eatery.

There were a few customers around.

One was a moderately healthy woman standing near the counter wearing a straw hat and a scarf around her neck, wearing gloves stained with some flour and having some dried dirt near the hem of her loose sweat shirt, and the other was the usual brown haired, elegantly dressed woman sat with crossed legs, sipping tea with some biscuits while her two children ate pastries.

"Is he fine?" The woman near the counter asked mom in a worried tone, leaning closer, while the woman on the table near the window just smiled in our direction and continued sipping her tea.

"He's fine, an ant bit him while he was playing back in the yard." Mom placated her.

Offloading me near the woman, mom went to fetch the breads sitting at the other end of the counter.

"So, how's your day going, little gentleman?" The woman smiled down at me.

It was only obvious that I would ignore her, do not talk to strangers, yeah?

Like the well behaved and obedient child I was, I silently stared at the auntie while I waited for mom to come back.

And she soon did, holding five loaves of big bread and a jar of pickle in both of her hands. The scarfed woman moved toward mom and unfurled a cloth bag, having her drop the items in it.

"I dropped the flour in the kitchen like last time, that fine?" She asked rhetorically as she pointed towards the kitchen.

"That's fine." Mom waved her off.

By the looks of it, the woman was some kind of farmer, trading flour for bread.

As the farmer lady left, mom asked the lady on the table, "Need refills?"

"Sure, why not?" She smiled, raising her cup high.

Mom picked me and the kettle up from the counter, refilled the lady's cup and placed the kettle on the table as she sat down on one of the chairs with me in her lap.

Mom and the lady started gossiping that I mostly ignored, and hounded Codex for answers immediately.

'What was that all about?' I hissed in my mind as I shifted my finger in my fist, feeling the cold, hard metal rub against my palm.

[I'm not sure. But I believe it has something to do with your part Spirit nature. I think the mana triggered some sort of transformation that caused your flesh to deteriorate. Further tests will need to be conducted before concrete analysis can be made.]

'Alright,' I huffed, 'What's the report?'

[Nova is at 96% power, the mana expulsion you caused was able to deplete 3% of the total mana storage, the other 1% was used up during normal execution, and it seems the separated parts need to touch to transfer mana between themselves, as the portion you expelled mana from rushed back to the core compound to be refilled. Furthermore, it seems like there is no change in the rate of recharging whether you are under direct sunlight or not, another change to be noted.]

'I see, makes sense. If mana is everywhere, it shouldn't matter which type of it I'm in direct contact with for it to recharge. But why did it suddenly cover my finger in a cast? Didn't you say all the original modules are gone?' 

[I don't know. I still can't access any modules. It seems to be some sort of emergency response.]

"We're back, mom!"

Triss shouted from the front door of the eatery as he strode inside and crashed into me and mom, followed by Ollie who greeted mom and ran into the kitchen to find something to eat.