I came to a clearing and saw Mother, who spotted me approaching. She smiled. "Well, look, Astraya, your brother is back."
I waved, and Astraya waved back, a wide grin on her face. It was clear she was already making progress with her mana channeling.
"Mother, I'm here," I said, breathing heavily with my hands on my thighs.
"Why did you run, Astraga? Take it easy," she replied. "As promised, I'll start all over again, okay?"
My eyes lit up with joy. This was it. Astraya was about to show me everything I was missing.
Mother clapped her hands together, a signal to Astraya that she would start from the beginning. This would also help her assess what Astraya had learned so far. "Unlike your father, Astraga, I prefer a more visual teaching style. I don't give long, detailed instructions or guides, so pay attention, okay? Using mana can be dangerous, and for you, with a quad-core, I'm sure you've read all about the problems around it."
Now listen up and watch "Now, listen up and watch your sister carefully." Mother folded her arms, her soft tone replaced by the strictness of a teacher.
Astraya's face was etched with anticipation as she waited for the instruction. "Alright, Astraya, begin."
Astraya raised her hand, palms open. A soft ripple of white light shimmered in her eyes and around her hands as concentrated air gathered, forming a rotating sphere on her palm. It looked like a small, white wind ball, about the size of a tennis ball. It occasionally lost its shape, but it was clear she was shaping it into a ball.
"Very good, Astraya, but you were supposed to start with the verbal spell way of casting mana. This will do, however," Mother said, turning her attention to me. She explained that there were two main ways of casting mana: verbal and non-verbal.
"Words are very powerful tools for casting mana," she said. "So are thoughts. What your sister just did was a combination of voiceless casting and intent casting."
"Astraga, I'm sure you noticed the ball loses its shape for a while. She's using her thoughts to imagine the sphere." I had noticed that as Father, who had just arrived, kissed Mother and headed inside to rest.
Turning my attention back to her, I asked, "Mother, is it because she isn't using enough white mana to make the ball a sphere?"
Mother carefully demonstrated trying to answer my question. Her eyes glowed white as she cast a spell.
"Ventus Orbis: Parvus, Magnus, Maximus"
White mana gathered, forming three spheres of concentrated air. One was the size of a tennis ball, another the size of a basketball, and the last was double the size of a basketball. They all held their shape perfectly as she turned to face us.
"As you can see, there are now three different spheres in front of me, Astraya," Mother said. "What did I tell you spells are most useful for?"
Astraya, no longer casting her own sphere, replied, "Spells help make the casting process more efficient and consistent, Mother."
"Correct!" Mother clapped and, with a flick of her fingers, sent the balls into orbit around each other, the smallest orbiting the largest. "Using your thoughts is a faster way to cast magic as it gives you a lot of flexibility. It's quicker and more fluid."
She then explained that using thoughts or intent was difficult when it came to consistency and energy control. Spells, on the other hand, were like commands passed down from generations of powerful mages who understood that thought is raw power.
"Who can tell me one of the major drawbacks of using spells?" Mother asked.
Astraya, ever energetic, blurted out, "It's slower, Mother. Imagine you're in a battle and the other person is using intent casting?"
"Good," Mother said. "That's a key issue, as some spells are long and need time to work."
I couldn't help but interject. "Mother, I've noticed that spells also need to be heard by people before they're cast, right?"
Mother gave me a surprised look, but I continued before she could speak. "And the fact that the person might already know what spell you're casting gives away your next move."
"Well, Astraga, that is very observant of you," she said. "I'm sure this must have been one of your conclusions after going on patrol with your father."
Mother let the three spheres hover for a moment longer before letting them fade into motes of light. Her voice softened but carried a new weight. "Now, Astraga, remember this: A spell is never just a word. It is a word bound to history. When you speak it, you are not alone; you are calling upon every mage who has ever spoken that word before you. That is Ancestral Authority."
PART 2
"Ancestral Authority?" I asked, intrigued. This might explain why the seals worked in the first place.
She explained that language is the oldest agreement humanity has made. "This sound means this thing." Because words have a shared meaning, they hold what she called a universal resonance in the human mind and spirit. Speaking a spell aligns thought, intent, and vibration into a single channel.
She then backed it up by saying, "Each time a spell was spoken by a mage in the past, it left a trace of power behind. Over centuries, those traces layered into a reservoir of authority the 'ancestral weight' that empowers modern spellcasters. Thus, chanting a spell is like borrowing strength from a thousand voices before you."
"The more you commit to the words a longer chant, a clearer vow, a stricter form the deeper your connection to that ancestral reservoir. Hence, long spells or openly declared spells become stronger because the caster is willingly binding themselves to tradition."
Astraya and I looked at each other. Mother was incredibly knowledgeable in this field. Why didn't she also write a book? "Mother, you would also make a great author, you know," I said, and she blushed.
She frantically rejected the idea, saying she didn't like those ways. She was more of a visual and practical "But all this meant that spells had to have originated from somewhere," I said. "So who was the person or what was the event that created the first foundation of 'universal resonance'?"
Mother chuckled. "I hated reading history books, Astraga, so I skipped a lot of them," she said, whispering to Astraya. Yep, Mother was clearly not a bookworm.
She then tried to recollect her childhood memories. "I do remember the story of the Rainbow Sun that my mother always told me before I went to sleep." She then looked at us and said, without a hint of doubt, "You aren't aware of this, but only humans mostly have the ability to cast spells. Other races and even elves can't dream of controlling mana like we humans do. Elves, in particular, use tools to control it, as they were not given the authority to have such abilities. But don't underestimate the elves, as during the Age of Elven Dominion..."
The elves' dominance over the world wasn't pretty. Most races didn't stand a chance against their elite sword style. It was said that the elves were the first to master Dragonhood. They had mastered the sword to a point that not even kings and warriors could stand a chance against them, she said, adding that even when humans discovered mana and the power of words, it still wasn't enough.
She continued her story as we all sat on the green grass, the afternoon transitioning into evening. "But one king had enough of the elves' ruthless rule. Broken and seeking revenge for the death of his wife, he wanted nothing but a fighting chance against the elves' unmatched power. He had heard there existed a place no empire dared to reach, not even the elves: the Malayian Waterfall."
"Why wasn't it of interest to the elves?" I asked.
Mother stated that she wasn't sure, but it was likely because the region was an extremely harsh environment. The elves, in particular, were unable to inhabit those regions, as it had illnesses and sicknesses they couldn't treat, and the weather made it clear that the land didn't want any civilization to form there.
"Back to the story," she said. "The cries of a rainbow sun were said to be louder there. His journey took him three years across wastelands and storms, until at last, he stood before the endless falls. And there, he heard it cries so deep the soul shook, cries that filled the air with mana. It was here he met the rainbow looking ball of light, the Rainbow Sun, the one the world called the heart of spells, the source of mana. And from the sun's cries, he learned the secret of words. For the sun spoke not with a tongue, and the king listened as no man had listened before.
"Returning home, he carried no sword but a mind and mouth that held authority over mana. He taught this to his people, and the first mages were born. For the rainbow sun had shown that the world could be moved not only by steel but by authority in words. And so humans rose again, leading to the Second Elven Dominion."