8 The Present: Refinement 3

Teo was still shocked by his discovery earlier today. Owing to repeated experiments, he could now enter the unique state of mind where he could 'see' the surrounding Mana (he was still working on a better name for it) smoothly within a few seconds of closing his eyes.

It was a fantastic experience, every single time, and Teo ran excitedly around Ritark, randomly 'observing' all the little things he could find with great interest.

He discovered that Mana was always present in the form of fragile lines, reminding him of the threads his mother used for sewing. The amount, 'density', and the traveling speed of the Mana Threads also would change depending on the area he went to and seemed to be influenced by the surrounding objects as well.

Especially living things, like animals and plants, seemed to strongly attract the threads, weirdly enough, increasing the Mana Density in their surroundings even though he could watch them passively weaken and consume them.

Teo noticed that the effect seemed to be dependent on size too, as big trees or humans attracted more attention from the strings than bugs or blades of grass. He did not find anything (or anyone) that seemed to interact with them as much as he did though.

Also, his theory seemed to be flawed somehow, as even dead things like rocks, wooden planks, the earth itself, yes, even his shoes slowly absorbed the surrounding Mana, if only in negligible quantities.

Overall, Teo was delighted with his newly gained ability, even if he still had no particular idea what it could be used for. He reckoned it would be quite helpful when he had to handle his 'business' in the middle of the night, but apart from that...?

Being able to see a few meters ahead in absolute darkness was a rather lovely gimmick, but there had to be something more to it, he guessed.

Resuming his experimentation session in a quiet area, he decided to try something else: to move the threads, or at least otherwise influence them if the first option did not work out.

The idea behind it was quite straightforward actually: Mana was raw Magic. And Magicians could use Magic. Leading to the conclusion:

A Magician could use the natural Mana for his own purpose! And HE had the potential to become one (probably)!

That sounded like a very reasonable theory. Thus Teo got straight to work and tried to do it himself.

He sat down, concentrated, entered the Mana-Detection-state (name still in revision), and focused. He reached out with his hand, trying to grab one of the golden strands closest to him.

Well, Teo had not expected his first try to succeed, but no effect at all was still disheartening. His hand seemed to pass right through most threads, while others straight out dodged him with a small, barely noticeable twist. He tried a few more times, striking very embarrassing poses even and dancing like a cockroach on a hot stove, but without any success whatsoever.

'It seems I am still too dependent on common sense to get the hang of this,' he thought and let a soft sigh escape from his lungs.

Just like the first step, where he had to stop seeing, to actually see and stop feeling, to properly feel, there had to be a trick to achieve this new goal of his as well; he was sure of it.

Mana was nothing like the everyday objects lying around him, not even of the same category... he would have to stop treating them in the same way!Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click www.webnovel.com for visiting.

He thought back on the words of his teacher (it still felt wrong to call him that) to try and see if there were some hidden tips he could utilize somewhere. And actually, there were.

Mr. Atkins did babble a lot about really complex Magical Theories, but one straightforward concept had helped Teo directly without even questioning it.

'Move your thoughts and the Mana will follow' it was something like that, he remembered. Back then, he had to imagine the energy flowing around his body, through his palm, and into the small Artifact, resulting in it measuring his Elemental Affinity...

Could that have been Mana, flowing from his body into the crystal ball? Wasn't that the manipulation of Mana he was bitterly failing at right now? Had he already accomplished it without even noticing?

Excited by his own genius, he hurriedly sat down again and tried to concentrate. First, he would try what he had already done once:

Expelling Mana from his hands!

He imagined it to be quite something, lightning-blue balls of pure, condensed energy rapidly discharging from his palms, disintegrating whatever stood in his way! So he was very eager to try it out and finally do some real magic himself.

He extended his right hand, with his palm facing straight away from him, targeting a mid-sized rock lying a few meters away.

Teo began furiously concentrating on his energy flow and tried to control the strings that made up his body, moving them according to his will. Using Mana-Detection-Sight simultaneously, he could already see some loops in his arms beginning to stir.

Slowly part of the Mana in his body began flowing towards his right hand like thick goo, significantly increasing the Mana Density there. It was tough to move the threads as he could feel them working against him; it was like sucking honey through a straw!

Using his full concentration for another ten minutes, he managed to pack a decent bundle of tightly bound mana into his hand, ready to burst forth. He corrected his aim on the rock once again, took a deep breath, and then willed the flood to break loose.

"Fire!" he yelled out in his excited state, not caring if anybody could hear him, willing the Mana in his hand to shoot out and pulverize the poor rock in front of him.

A loose bundle of golden threads was squeezed out of his pores and sailed through the air like a slop of spaghetti, not even making it towards the relieved stone and dissolving in the wind after barely one and a half meters.

Teo simply stood there, unable to close his gaping mouth at the unbelievable scene in front of him, his face quickly changing to a bright crimson color.

He had never been so embarrassed in his whole life! If there had been a hole close by, he would have loved to dive straight in and hide from the rest of the world forever. His only consolation was that no one had seen his remarkable performance, probably...

But what did he do wrong?

He did manage to control the Mana flowing inside him, a partial success, but why was it so slow and sloppy, instantly dissolving barely a second after it managed to leave his body?

He would have to take it as food for future thought, as he was too embarrassed to continue what he was doing now. He would instead try point two on his agenda, drawing Mana from the air into his body! Surely it must also be able to go the other way when it already worked in one direction, right?

He tried not to think much about his past failures and focused on the task ahead. He was getting back into his optimal mental state.

With his eyes closed, he could see the Mana around him. He felt it float along beside him, prickling on his skin. He just had to reach out with his mind and grab ahold of one of these juicy threads.

Having decided on a rather small specimen drifting close by, Teo willed it to come closer to him. He could not describe how, but he did feel some connection to it. He could tell it was struggling to escape his control.

Extending his hand again, bringing it close to the thread, he imagined a strong pull, sucking the thread into the center of his palm like a black hole. And it seemed to work.

The floating string was getting closer and closer to his hand, slowly forming an arc in the middle where he concentrated the pull on. Without much resistance, it was slowly being pulled into his body, dangling inside his palm like a loose rope.

He kept pulling for a few minutes, but there was no end in sight. Both ends of the hair-thin string seemed to stretch into infinity.

Elated by this easily accomplished success, Teo wanted to finish this up and call it a day as waves of fatigue washed over him. But as soon as he stopped exerting the pull, the thread began to stream out of his body once more. He had to concentrate on pulling it taut to make it stop, which he could not afford to do the whole day.

It seemed, like this string of Mana was a literal 'loose thread', coming undone as soon as one did not pay attention to it. Teo felt disheartened again as he could do nothing but watch all his work coming undone and drifting away with the clouds. He could slow it down, yes, even reel it back in, but he could not stop it entirely, making the whole process little more than pointless.

Well, he still had some successes to celebrate today. He would have to visit his teacher to report about it and try again tomorrow.

Tired, mentally exhausted, and slightly frustrated, Teo weakly tottered towards the secluded House of Horror's, the Magician's Office.

Surprisingly the door was already open as if waiting for him and as he got close, a domineering voice reverberated around him,