The Fearless War

Mana Awakening

I tried to squeeze my palm so that I could make out the figure inside it. My doubts were cleared the moment I managed to feel the tip of the fang, I could not understand what had happened. I had assumed that the dreams I was having were nothing more than my body responding when I fainted. But the last one could not have been a dream.

The pain that managed to throw off my consciousness could not have been from a dream, considering that the pain and discomfort continued when I woke up, it must have been something else. I could not think clearly.

At that moment, the fang vibrated and when I felt it again, it seemed that it had begun to dissolve, as if it was part of my body, and no matter how hard I tried to squeeze my wrist, the fang dissolved completely. I felt how the liquid foreign to my body was dispersing, it was as if it was covering my whole body. My head was shaking as well as my eyesight, and in a last effort I managed to lie down again.

Being the first time when closing, my eyes while passed out without appearing in the tower. I tried to look around and saw that my body was transparent, but not completely. It seemed more translucent than something inside me, it was a structure like the roots of a tree. It was starting from my wrist where the fang was previously buried, and I was mesmerized by how it was running all the way down.

From my hand, up to my shoulder it extended generating a grayish and black color, like stalagmites in a cave, every time it extended it generated aggressive peaks and turns without any pattern. When the structure reached my chest, it formed in a more concentrated way next to my heart, enveloping it and when it came out extending to the other side, it carried with it another appearance next to the initial one.

But the color and movement that traced this new line was warm, it turned and moved without staying still, and a crimson color vibrated between lighter and darker, with some parts even being a shade close to a deep blue. Both structures went from my chest to the rest of my body, separating by hemispheres. On the left side the color was stony and abrupt, and on the right side, and covering half of the heart, the color was the changing crimson, moving without rest.

When I tried to take a closer look at my body, the pain I had recently felt in the tower surfaced again. The structure or 'roots' inside my body seemed to react to the pain, and contracted and then expanded to cover my vision. This caused me to wake up suddenly.

My body felt better, a little weird because I could feel the roots inside, but rather than a feeling of discomfort, it had literally become part of me. I tried to feel the roots with more concentration, but I could only feel the ones in my hands. For some reason I was not able to feel beyond my hands, even knowing where the others were.

While trying to feel the deepest roots. I could hear someone approaching the door of the workshop. What was stranger to me was that my senses did not explode the moment I heard out of my range, even though I was more stable than before. Without being able to analyze my situation any further, the door burst open, and I saw it was Uncle Miles with a giant sack.

"Are you awake yet oz? I thought it would take you until tomorrow to recover, I already sent Charles home."

"Well, I'm awake, Uncle Miles and I have two questions..."

"Uncle Miles?! If you say my name like that it must be serious, ask Oz." Changing his attitude to a serious one, he dropped the sack he was carrying which as it fell let a pool of liquids among them blood drip out.

"I'll ask why you have a sack of blood later, the important thing, is that if ever my grandfather or you know anything about a dream but that can affect the body?"

"You hit your head Oz? No dream can harm or affect your body."

I could tell he wasn't trying to avoid the question but more than anything he didn't know the answer to my inquiry. But from one moment to the next, his face became tense, and his black iris changed to white.

"What the f**k?! Uncle Miles?! Your eye is white!"

At that moment I couldn't think anymore from shock, and without answering me, Uncle Miles grabbed my shoulders and held out my arms, it was as if he could see what was under my skin. His blue eye closed and he tensed his forehead while the white eye seemed to pop out of its socket as he scanned my arms toward my chest.

After a few moments in silence, Uncle Miles sighed heavily and closed both eyes, let go of my arms and proceeded to remove the thread from my shoulder that was still attached to the fang wound. He sat down across from me and opened his eyes, looking directly at me.

"Oz, be honest with me, at some point did any blood from the blood bears get into your wounds?"

"I would say yes, when the mutant stabbed me, his entire fang was already covered in blood. What's going on with me man?" Without him answering I knew he was analyzing my situation and I could see the frustration and sadness on his face.

"You know how people use magic right?"

"The basics, mom uses it when cooking and treating furs, I just understand that she absorbs mana into her body and draws it out in an elemental form."

"Yeah, essentially someone with the ability to move mana within themselves can do magic and the more of it they can handle, the more powerful one will be. This is all based on something known as the spiritual veins."

"Spiritual? As in something outside of the body?"

"Partly yes but not all of it, it is like something that is inside one, but it is intangible because one's spirit contours it.”

While he was explaining, Uncle Miles had started to draw a person, and on another sheet of paper over it, something that looked like what I had seen in my last 'dream'. He was drawing the roots, just as I had seen them.

"The more often one practices magic, the bigger the veins will become, so there are methods to speed up the process. But oz, your veins are tangled and as open as possible. But what worries me is the direct appearance of yours, they seem to be directly connected to an element."

"Let me guess, earth and fire?" I had already begun to suspect from the moment I got to feel them inside my arms, there were differences but without knowing they were elements I couldn't tell how they were different.

"You always surprise me huh. But you're a little incorrect, your left side is more concentrated than earth as an element, it seems to be something like stone. Still, this is not the time to talk about it. What I want to tell you is that there are people who by absorbing some part of monsters or animals with concentrated mana inside them, the person acquires the suitable elements of the absorbed mana. But at the same time, they become unable to use normal magic."

"How? What do you mean, Uncle?"

"Just as I said, you won't be able to use normal magic, or even outside the elements you absorbed. And for some reason your process is more advanced, it must have been that you also absorbed from the mutant."

"So, what, I'll only be able to have the technique but not the magic power?"

"Can you let me finish what I want to say?"

"It's just that you're taking too long uncle..."

"Well, specifically your spirit veins are ready to use absorb and move mana to generate magic, but since it was from one hit, if you try to use them like that, you can damage your body. Now, to return to your question, my father told me this, but there are rare cases in which a person desires power with such vigor, that his spirit presents challenges to the person, until he achieves the desired power; something like a soldier who dreams of killing thousands of enemies and when he sleeps, his spirit body trains him insistently. But again, these cases are rare because the person in question should absorb wild mana."

What Uncle Miles had explained explained my situation to a certain degree, but it was not clear to me why I was having these visions or spiritual dreams even before I absorbed the blood of the bears. But so as not to worry him too much, I left that part out for the moment.

"In other words, I would only be able to use wild magic or whatever it's called?"

"It's not that easy, this kind of magic is forbidden for a few reasons, as I said it is dangerous because the person would have to take blood or a mana stone directly from monsters or mutants. and there is also the desire of the person that would shape his power, the spiritual body without having consciousness can fulfill the desire of the body and sometimes it can end badly."

"What if it's by accident that I absorbed those things?"

"Well, you'd have a case in your favor, but there won't be those who will accept you so easily, on the other hand this could be an advantage; if you train well, you can make the magic you employ appear to be normal but without chanting the spell."

"You mean make me pass myself off as an advanced magic user?"

Most magic wasn't just handling mana, in Grandfather's notebook was a story of, [The Sorceress of the Stars] Narrating a woman capable of incanting entire spells without speaking and only needing to chant advanced spells. As far as I could tell from just running my eyes once through the story, spells to attack or augment something required the person to rely on chanting to visualize the effects and handle mana correctly, something my mother omitted when using mana for minimal things.

"Well, what do you think, it's not a bad idea is it?"

"Just be thankful I don't have my dad's motivation to throw you out the window Uncle Miles."

"That's cold. Anyway, at this point it's your only option, but since your veins opened right away, you're going to suffer a lot trying to get used to moving mana for your purpose and we still don't know how the mana you absorbed will behave. At least the two elements inside you are stable with each other."

"Yeah, when I tried to feel them, they didn't seem so far apart from each other."

"Feel them?! Oz to be able to analyze the spiritual veins you would need at least a monocle or glasses with magic to see the spirit! How the heck did you feel them?"

"Two things, so your eye is a magical tool? and Secondly since I woke up with the veins developed, my senses became more amplified, I even heard when you were coming.

"Ok, my eye aside, didn't you find it strange to be able to feel your damn spirit body?"

"This whole situation has been so weird that I didn't stop to analyze that something I tried for the first time wasn't normal apparently."

"You're right about that, from why a mutant suddenly appeared to you having such an unconscious desire that allowed you to absorb blood bear mana. Nothing makes sense."

While Uncle Miles and I tried to analyze what else was weird. I heard drops of something falling, when I turned to look at the source of the sound, I saw that the sack that Uncle Miles had brought was now covered with blood, and it was still dripping more.

"Uncle, your sack is watering the floor."

"Yes! That's right, I almost forgot, your father has the money you earned from the hunt and a bonus for killing the mutant, likewise I brought the mutant's head to analyze it and use the body leather and its carcass for something."

Knowing his practices, I could only guess what Uncle Miles was going to do with a whole mutant body at his disposal.

"Then why did you bring only the head?"

"Charles wouldn't let me bring more because he told me I wouldn't take good care of you if I got distracted by the mutant."

And as usual my father had anticipated the irrational choices Uncle Miles would have made without someone to put a stop to it.

"Well, it's too late now Oz, you'd better get some rest, I'll go to the forge and work for a while."

"You don't mean you're going to go pass out after working for a few hours."

"Don't tempt the honor of a blacksmith Oz."

Standing up from the chair where he was, Uncle Miles took with him the sack with the mutant's head in it. I was able to confirm my heightened senses when I managed to listen effortlessly as he walked to the forge where he removed the head from the sack and began to work.

When I tried to lie down to rest for the night my senses became more heightened and it was like going back to the beginning, it was an overload for my mind, and I forced myself to control it. I thought I was unconsciously controlling my senses but when I relaxed, they went wild. So, by practicing less and less control I managed to fall asleep in a certain state of alertness.