章節 14: Cave
By definition, magic is the process of a mage conjuring an elemental orb, then channel their internal energies into that orb to refine the raw mana into elemental energy, which can be released at will. These elemental orbs are made of pure energy, they are connected to and contain the will of their creator. This allows magi to freely move them however they see fit. There is no limitation to the amount of orbs conjured, only one's strength of mind. Even more so, as the throughput of one orb is limited, thus it is required of a strong mage to summon more at once of the same element, to compensate this limitation and boost the magic they perform. This means the quality of a mage is observable trough their performance in the following attributes: their internal mana capacity, maximum number of elemental orbs they can conjure, the diversity of these orbs (summoning different kinds of orbs are harder!), the amount of energy they can convert from raw to elemental in a given time frame.
- First paragraph of the 'Basics of elemental magic' book -
---
Zora was quite busy for a 6 year old. He was able to heal, so sometimes villagers asked him for help. He had enough mana to take care of 4 adult's work at once with spells. He also regularly roamed the wilderness for anything valuable he could find.
At one of his hunting sessions he found something rather interesting. He was walking on a new, unexplored section of the forest. He usually tries to move his body, considering he had all the food he needed, so he was free to work on his fitness as much as he wanted. Or as much as his feeble sickness-stricken body allowed.
When he tires himself out and doesn't want to walk anymore, he can always resort to flying.
Well, flying is a strong word, its more like floating with considerable horizontal momentum. He uses pure mana to keep himself in the air and propel himself forward.
To do this he has to tame the normally hard to control and thin streames of natural mana, gather them together and gently guide them under and around his body, while making sure to do this stably and evenly, so he doesn't stumble or fall over.
It took him many months of practice at home to do this trick, and it was still impossible to go even relatively fast with it. But it was easy for him to keep up this kind of movement resource-wise. He already had a good amount of mana in his core and was able to control natural mana very well.
Back to what he found.
As he was slowly flying around, looking for bigger game to hunt, maybe a deer or a boar, he happened upon a small cave, which had an entrance only slightly bigger than him, so an adult with an average build would have had a hard time getting in.
This isn't the first time he found a cave, and it almost always is a good opportunity to find animals. He used a few strings of mana to scout the place, and he was surprised to find the cave extending far into the side of the mountain, which the cave was located near to.
This smelled like adventure to him, something he didn't have in a while. Hunting was too easy for him with magic and the same applied to anything else. It made life so much easier, both for him and his family.
Thus he started crawling into the small space without a second thought. He only had to move on his fours for a few minutes, he knew the cave will open up, as he properly scouted ahead. There also were no animals in there, which was surprising for sure, a bit annoying, but Zora wanted to see whats inside anyway.
Soon he was able to stand up and properly walk the rest of the way. It was very dark, as it is expected of an unilluminated tunnel, so he summoned a small orb of fire in front of him, about a metre away at the height of his knees. The preferable location for the light source would've been above his head, but he barely had the space to stand upright himself. In that height the orb would've just obscured his vision.
As he kept moving forward the orb matched his pace and kept the original distance, keeping the way ahead illuminated.
The cave turned out to be surprisingly deep, as Zora was unable to find its end even after 10 minutes of walking. But he didn't want to stop, he was already committed to the quest of finding whatever the cave holds.
After another 10 minutes of walking he was just starting to get tired, when he noticed something very odd.
The tunnel seemingly ended, but the wall there was vertically very smooth and flat, as if it was carved out by someone. This theory was further confirmed by a single door standing in the middle of the wall.
Seeing this a shiver ran trough Zora's body, he had no idea what this is, or what could it mean. For a minute he just stood there second-guessing himself. Next he started thinking. But that got him nowhere, as he practically had zero information of the whole situation.
Many questions were mixing in his head, such as: What is this cave? What's up with that wall? Why is there a door here? What if that door is a trap? Or what if its supposed to contain something?
He had no way to answer any of those questions, but one. Will he leave or push on?
His life this time was quite precious for him, that is something which deterred him from moving on greatly. But also he was no coward. Even if he cherished the life he had, that doesn't mean he won't do anything dangerous for the rest of his short life. He had to try and explore even more so, because he had a very pressing problem to solve, so he had to grab any opportunity he came across. Thus the decision was made.
Zora shook himself completely awake, then moved closer to the door, his hand reaching for the door handle.
-- 收到的禮物 
-- 推薦票
榜單 
-- 推薦票