Chapter 18: The Unknown Universal Foundation
Early Evening - Mid Spring : Year 10 : Above The Nest | Home
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"Let's do something more fun and learn about mana."
The wag in the tip of my tail returned like it never left in that instant.
But little did I know, the lesson had already begun.
"You remember when I was cleaning your cuts and I tapped your side with my spur?" She gently wiggled her wing with a smile. "That sensation you felt was your mana."
With a stutter in my tail, my eyes widened.
"Think of mana like the air the world breathes. Within every tiny crevice, not just like between your scales, but in the little cells that compose them, mana ebbs and flows with Delphi's breath."
Lifting and pointing her claw at me, another set of ripples moved through my body like a fan blowing some ethereal wind was suddenly aimed at me—passing straight through my scales and hide.
"It's an energy that gives beings like us the ability to manipulate and change the world around us. From merely moving and changing something's shape, to totally changing its state." Pointing her claw at the ground, my eyes followed to watch the ground, without her touching it, shatter and begin glowing molten. *Wowowoooom*
-Woah…- It was both breathtaking.. and scientifically suffocating. -H..How..?-
No amount of scientific knowledge could reason it.
Though, that wasn't because my understanding of physics or chemistry was lacking.
Rather.. the rock was simply responding to a medium as foundational as science itself…
A medium that humanity simply never discovered before my death—if it was discoverable at all…
-So that's.. mana…-
"Nearly all beings are innately able to control it to some extent. It's woven into everything so deeply that even basic life instinctively uses it somehow, but to make it able to do what you just saw, you require one of two things."
My attention rose back to her in an instant—my unblinking eyes snapping around like a machine.
"A rune, or an attribute node." Seeing me so attentive, she smiled proudly. "Normal mana, called unattributed mana, is useful, yes, but an 'attribute' is required to do stuff that's more fun—for example," *Crackle-Fwoosh*
Watching a tiny ball of fire ignite in the air—looking like a tiny flame compressed into a churning and burning star—my mind ran wild.
"If I tried to create this candle light with unattributed mana, nothing would happen. However, using wind attribute mana, I gathered the flammable parts of the air, and then with fire attribute mana, directly ignited it."
With my mind running a million miles an hour, my eyes kept darting between her, the molten puddle, and the fire—completely mesmerized. -So.. each mana attribute has a sort of specialty..? Then…- "What is the difference between attribute nodes and runes?"
"They both allow you to assign an attribute to your mana—think of them like little structures that reshape the mana you push into them." Waiting for me to show some sort of understanding, she paused, "However, attribute nodes are mana-made organs not so different from your lungs or heart, and runes are the artificial, human-made substitute. Though, it's worth noting, runes aren't limited to just changing the mana's attribute."
Trying to digest everything, I truly felt like my head was spinning, "S..so.. attribute nodes are better somehow?"
Promptly nodding, her posture straightened again. "It all comes down to volume and efficiency. Runes are artificial circuits that squeeze, expand, and split the mana pushed into it to manually change or filter its attribute. Think if I were to take a piece of rock, and melt the metal and ore out of it, for example."
Lifting the molten pool she created a moment ago, a piece dripped off before suddenly cooling with a loud sizzle to reveal a piece of raw iron.
"Nodes, on the other hand, physically change the mana you put into it. It allows for an immensely larger volume both in and out, and is almost perfectly efficient. It's why the handful of humans lucky enough to be born with, or grow one through extreme circumstances become incredibly powerful mages. When it comes to actually casting a spell, a node makes half the process mindless and comparably instantaneous."
"T..Then, for us…"
Her chest rose with pride. "As dragons, we are born with some, and can, in some rare cases, develop more during later dragon sleeps! Though, attribute nodes are far less optional for us because of the comparably immense volume of our 'reserves', and the scale of our spells. It's why learning what attribute nodes you have is so critical before actually learning magic!"
Feeling my thoughts suddenly tie themselves into a knot, my expression humbled. -She's gotta slow down…- But thankfully, she noticed, and gave me a moment to ask, "Reserve?" Sounding like she used the word as a term rather than a descriptor, I tried to slow her lesson down.
"Ah!" Thankfully, she seemed to recognize she was losing me though. "Think of your 'reserve' as a mana-made organ like your attribute nodes, but instead of doing anything fancy, is simply a container for all of your normal mana. It's your mana core!"
-Oh…- It was the very thing I had eaten out of a number of bison over the years—a small, almost glass-like, blue-ish green-ish orb that tasted like a sour, sweet, or spicy candy. "So those cores I ate were those bison's reserves?"
She nodded proudly.
-Interesting…- "So even unintelligent life can form a reserve." Seeing her nod, I continued, "Then I assume attribute nodes as well?"
She nodded again with a cheerful ripple in her tail. "They just may not be able to use it, and are so rare you likely haven't seen one."
-I see…- Taking a moment to simply digest it all, I asked a slough of questions over the course of a couple hours just to try and catch my mind up to the lesson.
Truthfully, it was hard to digest everything she was trying to teach.. feeling akin to being introduced to intermediate biology as a child, but… -I'm following… I think…-
Though, that acknowledgement mostly came to me just wanting to move on in hopes later lessons would help circle back.
And, I wasn't actually wrong. "Try not to overthink it yet, sweetie. Some dragons dedicate their whole lives to trying to understand mana, and even they have things they can't wrap their head around."
It sounded just like science.
"All I'm trying to do is give you an idea of it, so we can get you hands on with it."
My attention perked instantly.
"The sooner we can get you actually using it, the sooner you'll be able to find the answers to your questions on your own!" Trying to ease my tension, she used some kind of magic to move a cool ripple through me. "In the end, you will eventually need to be your own teacher."
But while she told me that to bring me some comfort, not realizing she was going to spend years teaching me about each of the little details she only briefly glossed over, it made me anxious.
"Anyway, lets move on." *Tap-Tap*
Using her tail to grab my attention, the ice locking me in my thoughts finally cracked.
"Circling back to attribute nodes, we dragons are born with some, and before getting hands on, we need to learn what attributes you have. As you asked before, not having an attribute node doesn't mean you can't use runes to still get the mana to use in spells, it just locks you out of the more powerful and mana hungry ones."
-R..Right…- I slowly nodded as my posture straightened, and wings attentively lifted just off my side.
"Now, to begin, in dragons, the closer a node is to your breath gland, the higher we consider its 'affinity'. This is mostly because your most powerful, mana-hungry spells will be cast within it."
Having asked about it in the past, it was an opening and compartment in the back of our throats devoid of any bacteria like saliva, and lined with thick hide akin to a scale-less version of our skin.
It was an organ of many purposes, but the main one was to give us 'cheap' control over larger, but more brutish spells. "Depending on what attributes you have with good affinity, the type of spell that will be your most powerful, or lucrative, will vary. Now,"
Moving on, she moved my attention back to the ground.
"There are 6 nodes: Earth, fire, water, wind, lightning, and light. You can have anywhere from one to usually five or even six of these scattered through your chest and neck, and depending on where each is, will help you define a suitable role for each. For example, I have a light node in my chest, and with it, I can cast light magic in its vicinity with extreme efficiency."
Pausing, she puffed up her chest before a small light appeared…
A small light that rapidly grew into a light far more blinding than the sun *FLASH* -WHAT THE?!-
It was a flashbang that shot straight into my brain, forcing me to cut off my tangling thoughts as I shook my head just to return to my senses with a series of discombobulated blinks.
And Mother made sure to continue before I could try to grasp at them again. "For attributes themselves, there is technically one more known as the 'space' attribute, but it was only made known thanks to Bahamut, and is only accessible through artifacts he made many millennia ago. Though, to be brief, they allow for essentially instantaneous, long distance travel."
-W..WHATTT?!- Already feeling like I was getting thrown around in the currents of a crashing wave, every sentence she spoke felt like a bombshell landing next to me.
I couldn't let her just gloss over it, but she did without a second breath. "Anyway, let's figure out what nodes you have, and their attributes."
Not that my head spinning like I was caught in a washing machine was going to steady on its own. -W..we CAN'T gloss past that! Instant travel as in teleportation?!-
But Mother didn't give me a choice.
Quickly stepping forward, ignoring my spaced out gaze darting around everywhere, she moved her spur up to my head before firmly tapping me. *Woooom*
It was the same rippling sensation, but… -Woah…- It silenced my thoughts like the resonant ring of a gong.
Then again. *Tap—Woooom* And again. *Tap—Woooom*
"Pay close attention to the ripples in your mana. Use how they move and morph to create an image in your head." *Tap—Wooom*
Almost immediately, an image started forming in my head.. one that ebbed and flowed even after the ripples had passed through…
"Now, you should see orbs, something around the size of a cliff fruit," a juicy fruit around the size of a melon we'd treat like grapes, "scattered about." *Tap-Wooom*
With every ripple, the image grew more clear.
"Not counting the larger one in your chest, your reserve, where the image is likely sharpest, how many do you see?"
Giving me a moment to breathe, my mind finally started slowing, focusing on just digesting the immense amount of information the 'image' in my head was feeding me about the structure of the inside of my body…
My skull and neck, my maw and my muscle structure.. it was all projected into my head like a hologram that only seemed to grow more detailed…
Until… "Seven." Finding small spots that appeared like voids in the projection, I counted… "I see seven."
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