The First War Mage: City in the Sky

The next day Helina had decided to wake me up earlier in the morning. Bringing me out into the forest before the sun had even risen, she had left a note on the inside of Tulip's door explaining where we had went. After that had been done Helina gave me two 'extensions' that attached to the outer lip of my ear, they gave the impression that I had the elongated ears of an elf. While a close inspection clearly made them out as fake, they barely matched my skin tone, they were close enough that a glance from a distance would suffice with it.

Leaving Helina's home I was able to see the outskirts of the Elven city, Nime. The city was built into the incredibly dense network of trees with hanging rope bridges connecting thousands of different disc shaped platforms on all of the trees. Each platform seemed to be built with about three stories worth of space between them if I had to guess, everything about the city truly seemed in line with nature. At least from the distance.

Yet on the ground I could also see paved roads and a bustling network of shops carved into the base of the trees. Paved roads leading to multiple floors built near the ground to allow multiple buildings to be stacked upon each other in close proximity. Glancing back to the building we had just left, Helina's home was one of, if not the only true building in the city. It was built a small ways outside of it, maybe about four hundred feet from the nearest road. Made out of mud bricks and with folded, living plants covering sections that bricks had begun to decay over time from. Roots spread out from its exterior giving it a solid base to spread out its weight with.

Though my gaze was quickly torn away from the city as we walked away rapidly. Using the somewhat dark early morning light to take us away, though once we were about a dozen feet away Helina paused and quickly moved back to her house. Leaving a sign out that stated she was in the forest gathering herbs.

"What was that for?" I asked as Helina returned back to where she left me standing and continued walking, turning off of the well used dirt path and into the wood line once we were outside of the cities view.

"In case someone comes to see me, so that they don't enter and find Tulip. Everyone in the city knows when I leave that sign out that I won't be home until the evening, and to come back then. Because of our location near the very heart of the jungles, it's very rare for anyone to need healing magic. And when someone does, it is usually the guards who keep potions and salves on hand for just that reason." Helina spoke calmly, her tone was still friendly, and her eyes shined with a youth that her face didn't reflect.

"The entire city relies on you that much?" I asked rather slowly as I was forced to watch where I stepped moving through the dense shrubbery. Compared to Helina's vastly greater height, and her own skill at traversing the woods, it felt like every step I was capable of taking Helina would take five.

"Healing magic is quite rare, to such an extent that most of us live in Ellitor, as members of the Royal Guardsmen. However I chose long ago that I didn't wish to be one of them, I was never good with a bow, or with a blade, so instead I found a place to take me in here in Nime." Helina continued, her gaze shifted back towards me. She quickly noticed my struggle to move through the woods and as such she slowed greatly so that I could walk beside her through the woodline.

"I know Tulip said that my Electric magic was rare... But I still don't really understand all of the intricacies of magic." I sighed out, trying to think how electric magic and healing magic were both rare.

"Well, simply put. Healing magic is a rare subset of the 'Support' type. And while yes Electric magic can be considered rare, it is only among humans it is rare. Largely because it is simply a more 'complex' element, oftentimes it can be found among Ogres, and Elves quite easily." Helina answered with a smile forming on her face.

"Oh! So it's just rare among humans for Electric magic? I guess that makes more sense. Pretty much everyone I've seen ever use magic has used Fire, Earth, or Water." I chose to not say anything about Tulip's magic, I wasn't sure how much she had told Helina, if anything. So I kept it to myself. "What even is 'Support' magic? Since that's a really broad term compared to the other four."

"Yes, it's just rare among humans. And Support magic is as it sounds, a broad class of magic. I can't truly describe the intricacies of it as I have a very tiny subset of it available to me. But Support magic defines every meaning of the word, it can support anyone, anything, anywhere. It is incredibly versatile, but incredibly challenging to learn. As such most just focus on learning a few pieces of it." Helina answered calmly once more.

"Huh... So if one person learns support magic they can learn anything inside of it? That's interesting." I thought on that for a few moments, it really did just seem like it was by far the most versatile type of magic. While Buff and Debuff both seemed useful on their own, and Offense and Defense seemed just natural, Support basically just did it all.

"In theory, yes, but as I said, it is incredibly hard to do so. And about here should be fine." Helina stopped us as we found a clearing, it was a large circular clearing not unlike the one where I fought the crawler days prior.

"Alright... How exactly are you going to teach me magic if you don't know much outside of healing?" I asked the difficult question before walking into the clearing a small ways. Sighing with relief to not be fighting plants and roots, it had probably already been about half an hour or more since we left the city judging by how bright it was now.

"I cannot teach you anything specialized, but the three most basic parts of magic can be easily taught by anyone." Helina smiled at me, gesturing for me to sit. "Now, I would assume you already know how to look inwards to bring your mana out by the fact you were able to use a 'burst' to slay the crawler. But there are three other major capabilities near any mage can perform."

I listened to Helina's gesture, sitting down slowly, and nodding along with her words so that she knew I was properly listening.

"There are four basic abilities with raw mana, Burst, Shield, Flight, and Sense." Helina continued, my eyes widened for a moment when she mentioned flight but I held my tongue to impatiently wait an explanation. "Mana Burst as you know is the technique involving charging raw mana, usually into a limb, and making a controlled burst at a target. It can be performed in many ways, though anything more than a precision burst like what you have already performed would be suicidal without greater control."

"Mana Shield, is the single most valuable thing to a mage's life in combat. It is the use of mana is a destructive bubble, most high level mages keep a weak shield capable of blocking blades and other basic attacks up constantly. This will be one of the three we focus on the most to keep you alive. Though be weary of crossbows, and guns especially. As it is standard issue for them to be loaded with Magesteel, or Blacksteel, both of which will punch straight through any shield." Helina paused for a moment to take a breath before continuing again.

"Mana Sense allows you to push your mana outside of your body, as a sort of sixth sense. At lower levels it will give you an extremely vague feeling of everything around you, assuming it has mana. Which in this case, is all living creatures. Flight, allows you to cover your body in mana and control it finely to allow effortless flight. Though I myself cannot perform this feat, so I cannot teach it to you." Helina did give a pitied smile at my lowered expression when she mentioned her incapability to teach me flight.

"Alright... I guess we're starting with the shield then?" I asked after a moment, forcing the annoyance at an easy way back to Berinia being taken away in a heartbeat.

"Indeed we are. A shield is rather simple in theory, but to practice and master is extremely difficult." Helina spoke calmly, she walked over so that she stood only a few feet in front of me before continuing. "Start by trying to bring your mana to the surface level of your skin, in an extremely low amount at first. Try to cover every portion of your body in it, but don't let too much out otherwise you may accidentally turn it into a burst."

"Alright..." I nodded softly before closing my eyes to focus on the task at hand. My mind focused inwards, towards my mana network as I tried to look through each and every spot, to try and perform what I needed to. It was an extremely slow process as I brought mana to the surface of my skin one small segment at a time. The process was painfully slow, even as I began to get more comfortable with it. And it only grew slower as more area was covered because of my focus being split between maintaining a constant cycle to the area that was covered, and trying to focus on expanding the cycle at the same time.

After several minutes of trial and error I let out a heavy breath, trying to regain some stamina as my breathing quickened and I could feel sweat covering my forehead and limbs. My eyes opened, looking to Helina, but she had her eyes closed, in the time I spent focused utterly upon my own mana network she had found a spot to sit and seemed to be meditating. I was about to open my mouth to ask how I was supposed to do this, but before I could even make a noise Helina cut me off.

"Keep trying dear. No one can hand hold someone through learning magic, as it is unique to every individual. For most of us, it is as simple as searching for a feeling. And extending that feeling as a will." She never opened her eyes as she spoke, yet her words were perfectly aimed towards me. Which just left me to fall back into silence, with a steadying breath I closed my eyes once more to look inwards.

"What am I doing wrong?" I thought to myself, it was a simple question. And yet the answer entirely eluded me, so I returned to what I had been doing before. Bringing my mana up and starting to cycle it around in a continuous circle, I watched my mana move in these fluid motions entirely unopposed. Despite the fact that I knew my mana was supposedly a physical thing inside of my body, I was able to move it through flesh and bone without fail.

It moved like a heavy liquid, not unlike mud, or honey. Like it didn't want to obey my commands to move it around, or was resisting my will over it. And the more I spread the cycling motion the worse that it got, by the time my arms were covered from my fingers to my elbows, and my legs from my toes to my knees it felt almost impossible to move. So I knew I was doing something wrong but I couldn't imagine what. It left me entirely stumped, I hadn't the smallest of ideas for how I could fix it.

But I refused to let myself give up, I kept getting used to moving my mana around, to such a point that it was almost relaxing. I was slowly getting used to the feeling of almost stretching my mana. Instead of physically moving it, I was just decompressing it almost. Making the cycles around my limbs easier to maintain from needing substantially less of them. It also let me push more mana through, which only seemed to help it move easier.

But even with this breakthrough trying to bring my mana to a physical surface level across my entire body. It was such a struggle that I found it easier to push the mana off of my body. Without any other ideas, and fully accepting that I would likely be working on this for hours, if not days more, I just tried making the shield outside of my body in a radius around myself.

It was, shaky at first. The bubble I was trying to make around myself proved to be rather unstable, fluctuating and barely keeping its shape. Though the strangest part about it was that I had to leave tiny holes in the shield, otherwise it was blocking even the air itself from getting to me. Something I only noticed after it began growing harder to breath, and the heat inside of the shield was raising at an alarming rate.

But as I sunk more and more time into the structure of the shield, finding that the pattern in which I cycled my mana around drastically affected the structural durability of the shield. Once I was somewhat confident in my focus not being torn away from it by just opening my eyes, which was after what felt like hours, I did finally open my eyes. Looking around I couldn't see the shield at all, in fact it was only about a quarter of a foot off of my body. But as I moved my limbs around it stretched seamlessly with them to keep every part of me covered.

I looked to the ground, curious of how it would react when something tried to enter it, and I found that the structure simple sank into the ground effortlessly, but I could still feel it underneath the soil. And judging by the leaves blowing around slowly, entering and leaving the tiny radius, I assumed that I would have to do something to make it actually block anything.

"I, think I did it?" I finally spoke with my eyes returning to Helina. When she opened hers they widened rapidly, seeming astonished.

"Oh my." Helina spoke, her voice reflecting some level of surprise. "That is rather unexpected. Most Apprentice level mages cannot push their mana outside of their body in that volume, or with that level of control to make a full shield." Helina's eyes traveled along the border of the shield, as if she could see it fully. Which was something I found somewhat odd given I couldn't even see it despite it originating from me.

"I tried making it on my skin but it just, didn't work out. I couldn't focus enough to make it one solid piece... So I figured, making it outside of my skin, and into a solid piece, would work better." I explained my thought process as my eyes met Helina's, her face contorted slowly in thought as she brought a hand up to her chin.

"Intriguing, I suppose Tulip did mention she thought you had a large amount of mana. Which, I believe this entirely proves it. But this also reflects an exceptional level of skill in basic forms of altering mana, despite you only knowing of its existence in your body for a short period of time. However it is also intriguing the structure that you ended up designing for it. The way your mana is flowing around constantly makes it rather durable, but allows it to stretch with your limbs, allowing it to remain tighter to your body." Helina spoke with further intrigue as she stood up.

"Stand still and focus on your shield for a moment dear, I wish to see its reaction when mana enters its radius. As such I'll be firing a precise burst at the very edge of your protected radius." She continued, leaving me to just gulp my concerns down as I watched.

Helina took a few steps away before raising her hand, pointing a single finger out towards me. Mana began to congeal as an orb on the edge of her finger before blasting forwards in a precise beam, I couldn't help but flinch as the light blinded me for a moment. A wave of heat washed over me as an astoundingly beautiful sound like that of a thousand rhythmic bells echoing at once chimed. When my eyes opened again I saw the edges of my shield become visible to the naked eye, there was absolutely no sign of damage, and it felt like it barely did anything to my shield at all.

"Woah." I spoke out seeing the part of my shield fade away from view, which left me to look over to Helina expectantly.

"It appears you have made a true mana shield. In basic, this shield will protect you from any spell of equal or lesser power than the mana you are fueling the shield with. More advanced mages have specific patterns that allow for better, quicker reinforcement, however the pattern you have made seems astoundingly sturdy, at least in regards to pure mana strikes." Helina walked over as she spoke, smiling at me kindly. "However anything physical, that lacks mana, such as my hand, an arrow, or a bullet, will pass straight through it."

"So its only good against spells... Why do some people keep their shields up if it doesn't block anything but spells?" I asked after Helina finished, my eyes reflecting my curiosity.

"In most cases, the weapons used against powerful mages have mana, blades with crystals in them to allow heat from a fire mage to pierce even reinforced skin. Which is why Blacksteel and Magesteel, are the mages greatest threats." Helina answered.

I nodded after a few moments, taking it in and watching as my shield entirely faded. It wasn't even very hard to keep it going once I got it started, like it was just something passive almost like breathing.

"I guess that makes some more sense. Do we have enough time today to try and learn mana sense?" I asked, my eyes moving back up to Helina's, she just chuckled, nodding slowly.

"Well you learned that far faster than I expected. So yes, we can try mana sense. Though you do already have a basis of it by being able to see your own mana system." Helina took in a breath before she would begin to begin her description. "Mana sense, is an addition to being able to see your own mana network. By pushing that feeling outwards you can 'see', and 'sense' other mana, some such as myself are able to push mana to their eyes and allow the world of mana to become entirely visible constantly, without much of a feeling of incursion upon another persons mana network."

"Wait... I think I might know how to do that already, on accident..." My mind moved back to the trial, when I felt the overwhelming, crushing pressure of Levi, and the Royal Courts collective auras. When I tried to push back against it only to be blinded by an overwhelming heat, didn't he say something about me managing to use it on accident?

"Oh? Do tell." Helina asked, her curiosity peaked.

So I described much of the scene, albeit without the description of it being the Royal Court judging me for an execution. Leaving out that detail and simply saying a number of powerful mages examined me, and I accidentally pushed back, in the moment I thought I saw their auras. "And, that's as much as I remember. I know I got overwhelmed from pain... And anxiety... So I ended up pretty much passed out past that, the rest is a blur."

"Intriguing, that does sound very much like you used mana sense. Try and find that feeling again, push it outwards and see where it gets you." Helina smiled gently, stepping back a small ways to give me more space again.

It was surprisingly easy to find that state of mind again where I pushed my mana out physically. It wasn't exactly hard to remember how I felt during those moments, it took only a few minutes before my eyes widened in awe. Suddenly the world lit up in colors I couldn't even describe, iridescent and ever changing like a mirror refracting the edges of every hue at once. I could see the barrier of my shield, just barely, it was extremely transparent, something that could be easily looked over if one wasn't looking for it. Which answered my other question of how people hid their shields, there must have been a way to make it even less visible.

"This is incredible!" I couldn't help but laugh with some level of glee at the sight of the world I could have never otherwise known, but I also felt a pressure building inside my head, like something was trying to crush me from the outside. It forced me to draw that incredible sense inwards, until it extended maybe only three dozen feet away from me.

"Well, I can safely say, for the only student I have ever taught, you are incredibly gifted, Kirin." Helina spoke with genuine warmth in her voice. And some level of pride as well, it left me confused for a moment before she turned, gesturing for me to follow. "Let us head back. Tomorrow we can head into the city with Tulip and see the smith."

"Alright... Thank you, so much for this." Joy couldn't even begin to describe what I felt in this moment, I couldn't care less about the march through the jungle ahead of us. Because I knew for a fact it had all been worth it to come out here, and I was so, so incredibly thankful for Tulip's luck to have found this woman.