…

Back on Earth:

A few days went by. The exams were over but students had little to no time to celebrate as normal classes had already started. Alex had taken Nina to meet Merissa, to teach her how to control her mana. After giving it enough thought and a few incidents of her freezing some things accidently at school, there wasn’t much of a choice.

Nina was surprised after seeing the hidden route to go out into the forest. Alex told her how he had found it and met Merissa for the first time.

Merissa welcomed them when they arrived at her secret hideout which was a little deep into the woods away from her shop. It was a decent one-story log cabin. She had provided Alex with a map beforehand. Before they began Merissa had brought a bag full of scrolls with her. She took one of them out activated it. The scroll released a zone spell. She then first started off with explaining about mana.

Alex decided to stay and watch. According to Merissa, mana was omnipresent everywhere on Emerald and even on earth for that matter. However, the density of mana differed greatly with Emerald having more dense mana than on earth. Every single person was born with mana on either of the planet. Though Alex was an exception. There used to be people without mana like him however after passing of many decades there aren’t anymore.

One can control the mana within themselves and bring it to life in physical form. However, there were differences. Most people are born with affinity to elements or develop them overtime. The natural elements of the world- fire, water, wind, lighting, earth and ice. People could control their mana and release them in the elemental form with which they are attuned to.

Every single person is capable of wielding only two elements at a time though there have been cases of individuals with more than two in the past.

Some people were born with the ability to use pure mana. It doesn’t mean mana in the purest form but instead an unrefined state of mana which could be brought to life without their change into an element. Like how Blake and Rose used their manas. But people born with this ability can usually tend to wield only a single other element.

Aside from this, there are people who like to focus on some specific types of magic and master it. The Chain Master Azmiel is very notorious for using spells concerning chains. All in all, there are different ways to develop your magic prowess, you just have to find the right one.

Next up was spells. Although mana can be used as it is, when used in battle they aren’t much strong. Spells are used to further increase their powers. The spells were divided into tiers, from Zero to six. As the tier increases so does the use and power of the spells. Many veteran mages are only capable of using spells up to tier 4. The numbers sharply dwindle on tier 5. Not to mention the number of people capable of casting tier 6 can be counted on one hand in the entire western continent of Emerald.

No one is known to be capable of using them due to their complex nature and the tremendous amount of mana required. Thus, that makes the tier 5 magic spells as the dominating spells and although not as scarce as the tier 6 ones their numbers are quite less. No public information is available about them. Only the bigshots of the Council and the Kingdom’s and a few major families have individuals capable of using them.

However, there are always spells which doesn’t really follow a single element and can be used with just mana. Like how Rose used the spell zone. It was a common place spell which anyone can do with a bit of practice. Of course, there were also high-level spells in this category.

Once her explanation was over, she began to teach Nina with the basics first. Since Nina’s primary element was ice, they were focusing on that.

Alex went along with her for 2 days after which she went regularly on her own. When the exams ended Alex always took out some time to go up to the third floor of the library and get some information about Emerald and Green Tales.

He hadn’t forgotten the last words of Xerxes. He hadn’t heard him clearly but it was clear that his life wasn’t fully out of danger. The gift that Xerxes gave him was a part of the soul stone. It was like a small finger shaped crystal. Alex wore it around his neck. He didn’t feel any different nor it acted like the before. He showed it to Augustus and Merissa but even they were clueless about it.

To them it was only a small crystal with no mana in it. Alex decided to leave it as it is, since he wasn’t finding any answers.

One evening Alex was out in the campus returning to his dorm with Nova. As they were chatting, Nova’s attention was caught by a few students dressed in their martial arts gi. This didn’t go unnoticed by Alex as he followed Nova’s gaze and found the students distributing flyers advertising about their martial arts club.

“Come on, Alex… let’s go…” Nova insisted, seemingly a bit nervous as he began to leave for the dorm.

*Swoosh*

“Ack! Ah- get this out of my face!” Nova almost screamed as a flyer came flying towards him and stuck on his face.

Alex quickly helped to remove it.

“Oh, thanks!” Nova said rubbing his face.

“The martial arts club huh? Nova didn’t you want to join this?” Alex asked.

“Huh? I never said that.” Nova denied.

“Yeah… but those old school karate books you read during free periods says it all you know.” Alex said rolling his eyes.

“Wha- but that- that’s nothing that’s—

“Relax, I am joking around. Tell you what, I am thinking of trying this trial classes for a month. I’d like you to join me.” Alex said as he put an arm around Nova’s shoulder.

“Uh… no thanks I don’t think I can do—

“Ah come to think of it… what’s that girl’s name Grey was saying you were interested in? Right! Betty, I heard she’s in that club too.” Alex said as if quickly recalling something important.

Nova’s ears perked, “Well if that’s the case… I won’t really mind trying the trial classes, hehe…”

Alex simply smiled. In truth, he just wanted to push Nova a bit for doing what he wanted. He could tell that the latter wanted to try it out but lacked a little courage. It was the same with him. A few days ago, after shortly returning from Emerald, Nova had convinced Alex to join the dramatics society at a manager post.

He wasn’t very keen on it but he couldn’t deny he was actually enjoying it after a while. Thus, he simply wanted to repay him.