Hours before Grey woke up.
"Brrr...!" Titiana got goosebumps on her back as she stood on the empty field she was brought to in order to train.
"You're dressed in warm clothes from head to toe, and you still are freezing?" Manjaro asked. In contrast with the Vogel girl, he was dressed more casually.
"It was significantly colder than I expected!" She scoffed, steaming air coming out of her mouth with every word.
"Here you have some targets to practice with, and a bow and arrow." He pointed at a pile of bags laid on the ground with little care. "As for the magic teacher, I managed to ask for a favor and get someone. But they'll arrive late."
With both brows raised in surprise, Titiana whistled. "I didn't expect you to be this resourceful"
"You have very little faith in me, my saviour" He awkwardly commented.
"You don't look like the most trustworthy individual, you know?"
After an awkward laugh, Manjaro left the field for Titiana to be alone.
In this time, the Vogel girl set up a single target at ten meters away to test her aim. The bow was rather light, which Titiana thought wouldn't change the results of her training too much. After all, she is only using this as practice for her precision and to get used to shooting at targets for when she makes the change to guns.
She already had better than average eyesight thanks to her hereditary traits of being born a Vogel, which made her training easier.
In no time, Titiana was already managing to shoot a bullseye in eight out of ten shots at ten meters. She then periodically stepped away little by little, once she got used to that distance.
Then, shooting objects in motion. Throwing apples and other fruits Manjaro left with all the training equipment. At first, she struggled, not landing a single arrow on any apple.
"Pah!" Titiana fell to the ground, feeling a stinging sensation all over her back muscles. "Maybe I'll ask Grey to teach me some of those Body Strengthening techniques"
"I was skeptical to teach someone magic, but now it just so happens that they're also savages that prefer to fight-punch their way out of a situation!" The hateful and slow comment alerted the Vogel girl.
"!!" Titiana stood up and quickly drew her bow, pointing it in the direction of the voice.
"Such a neanderthal, I swear every single one of you is the same" The man rested his hand on his forehead while slowly shaking his head from side to side.
"You're the magic teacher Manjaro sent?" She asked, still keeping her bow drawn and ready to shoot.
"Let's start by being civilized people first." He commented while raising one hand in front of him, pointing at the Vogel girl, and, in a second, a bluish circle manifested itself at the palm of his hand.
The circle was small enough to fit in his own palm. Erratic and dispersed symbols came out from the bounds of the circle, with direction to the center point of it. Then, sparks of electricity jolted out of the magic circle, while the man became enveloped in a bluish aura, with blue particles separating from the aura and dispersing into the air.
Titiana failed to react, she could've attacked the man at any point while he was casting the spell, yet her body was frozen in place.
"!!!"
A lightning bolt came out of the palm-sized circle in one second, connected with the wood of Titiana's bow, shattering it into pieces and damaging her by proxy. On the next second, the lightning bolt disappeared as if it never existed.
It was unreactable once the spell was out. Not even Grey, the one Titiana thought to be faster and stronger than most, would be able to dodge an attack of this speed.
"Agh!" She fell to the ground, clutching her numb hands while writhing on the ground.
"Let's begin with presentations." The man who cast the spell commented while walking next to the girl on the ground. "My name is not worthy of being uttered by someone like you, so you may only address me as Teacher, got it?"
Although Titiana heard what he said, her mind could only focus on the pain she was feeling. It felt as if her hands had been set on fire, and all mobility and dexterity had been stripped out of her fingers.
"These people!" He complained, aiming his hand low at the girl on the ground. "This isn't how you should be treating the one who'll teach you"
He took a second to cast another magic circle, yet the symbols inside the circle, although still erratic, had a different pattern that took a second longer to manifest itself.
"Aaaaaah!" Titiana yelled in pain as the spell manifested itself out of the magic circle. An electrical current that constantly shocked her whole body, making her spasm and foam at the mouth.
"I take time out of my day to accept a request from a dear friend of mine to train someone on the basics of magic, and this is what I'm greeted with?" The man commented while still attacking the Vogel girl with electrical currents. "A beast he doesn't even know if she has potential to learn magic?"
That torture went for fifteen seconds straight. And once it ended, Titiana was left lying on the ground, her vision blurry and her body moving involuntarily.
"For the sake of my friend, I'm willing to look past your offense to me. Once again. I should be addressed as Teacher by your filthy mouth. Now, present yourself" He commented while preparing another circle in his hand.
Despite the intense pain she felt all over her body, and the sudden fear that her body wasn't responding to what she wanted it to do, Titiana managed to slightly nod her head. "I-I'm Titiana... Teacher..." She whispered out weakly.
"Hmph!" He scoffed and demanifested the circle in his hand.
He turned around and took a few steps away from the Vogel girl. "I've been told that you don't want to focus on straight magic, but rather on gun usage, am I right?"
Titiana nodded.
At that, Teacher made a gun with his fingers, pointing at Titiana. A small circle, small enough to be equally as big as the nail of the finger pointing at her. The design could be barely made out from Titiana's blurry view.
"Agh!" Titiana yelled in pain while rolling over her side.
The Teacher had actually struck her with a small, disciplining lightning bolt.
"I heard no answer from you"
"Yes! I want to learn magic so I can use guns!" Titiana yelled out in a burst of adrenaline.
"Since you have no magical abilities right now, I'm only here to awaken that potential in you—if you even have one to begin with. After that, since I am an elemental mage rather than a gun user, you'll have to either do trial and error until you figure out a way to shoot a gun, or you'll have to learn from someone experienced in guns."
"..." Teacher gave Titiana a couple of seconds to answer, but upon hearing her silence, he got ready to zap her as punishment.
"T-thank you for teaching me the basics!" Titiana yelled out, prompting Teacher to lower his hands and not cast the spell.
Titiana knew this wasn't ideal. She knew she should just leave this place while cursing the man and breaking off the deal with Manjaro. But her mind went to Grey, and how she didn't want to be a liability in this journey of theirs. So she decided to lower her head for the time being and learn as much as she could.
After a minute of rest for Titiana to recover from the multiple shocks, she was finally ready to start learning the basics of magic.
And with her vision clearing up, she finally saw how Teacher properly looked like. A man in his late forties, with gray hair that was slicked back, and two goat horns that spiraled up from the sides of his head. He wore fancy and stylish clothes with designs fit for the conductor of an orchestra.
And so, the first step in Titiana's magical learning started with a lesson on magic.
Mana is a resource that works like air—invisible and imperceptible to most humans, though some more magically inclined races can indeed feel mana—it's everywhere and in everyone.
The threshold of those who can and cannot use magic lies in the Green Veins inside of humans.
"Green Veins!?" Titiana asked, surprised, looking at her arm and seeing if she could spot one of these special veins.
Green Veins is a mutation carried over after the fall of the Central continent. A specific race of humans with these special veins that allowed for control of mana escaped to different parts of the world, mingling with other races and creating the Green Veins mutation in humans. This mutation is extremely rare, and it is known to skip generations inside a family—meaning that a great-great-grandfather could've had this mutation, and only the great-great-grandchild inherited it after the other generations lacked it.
There's a saying that, if one family member has the ability to use magic, then other members of the family could also have an affinity for magic. While that is, in fact, true, the chances of being able to use magic are still rare, as the Green Veins mutation might not have developed in the other siblings.
Then, the question now becomes. How to detect the Green Veins?
The answer to that question is rather complicated, since these sets of veins are imperceptible and practically invisible. No other mages can see them, no machine is advanced enough to see them, and, when researchers opened up bodies in older times to study, these veins were never present.
But, how is their existence known if there has never been physical evidence of them existing?
Because these veins can only be seen by the mage themselves once they enter a trance-like state. Most mages call this trance-like state where time seems to stop and one can look inside his own soul to see the flow of mana inside of them: The Inner Realm.
This Inner Realm is the only way to awaken magic.
Then, how does one enter this Inner Realm?
Mana overstimulation.
The regular human body can only withstand a certain amount of mana flowing through their Green Veins. The overstimulation of these veins will cause them to expand in size, allowing for even more mana to flow. This extra amount of mana flowing through one's body is what causes the ability to cast spells.
The importance of the Inner Realm is learning to manage, redirect, and transform mana into magic.
Mana overstimulation is caused by several factors, but the most commonly used method to cause an overstimulation to enter the Inner Realm is to pour pure mana into the body with the help of crystals.
These specific crystals are pierced, stabbed into the body of the person willing to awaken their Green Veins. To someone with no Green Veins, they'll only feel the pain of being stabbed, their bodies unable to absorb mana into their bodies in this way. To those with Green Veins, their insides will feel like they're melting, most describing it as molten lava being poured straight into their veins, a horrible sensation that can, and has, traumatized lots of people before.
"So, Titiana, knowing the risks of being introduced into the world of magic. Are you still sure you want to try and activate those veins? If you even have them, of course"
Titiana stayed in silence. She thought of the risks, of what she'd have to go through in order to awaken to this power. But the thought of not being able to use magic at all, to lack these special veins, to be a nuisance to Grey, terrified her more than that.
"I will try, teacher!" Titiana finally spoke after a long minute of silence, her fists trembling.