"HIHIHIHIHIHIHIHI! Oh wow, that's the funniest thing I've seen a human do in a while!"
Arata awakes to a sickening laugh followed by a loud crunching sound… it was obvious who it was. He looks upwards as now the once-empty theater has a disturbing scene playing on the stage, a hologram of Arata, who was fighting the bugs when he set himself on fire. Arata felt like vomiting watching the pain on his face in a gruesome final moment. Ravenna was loudly chewing popcorn while she watched the sadistic show.
On the floor, the dead Arata was reduced to charcoal courtesy of the mannequin's wooden body.
"You really suck at living, that's the one thing you humans are supposed to do." Ravenna is acting as if Arata's painful death is the funniest thing imaginable.
"Fuck you," he would be angrier if he wasn't mentally exhausted, trying to collect himself so he could throw out a better insult.
Ravenna stops wheezing to comment, "It's not the fact you died, it's how you died… You managed to kill yourself with you brand new power. You converted the mana in the air into heat on your body. I had no idea what you were doing until I realized you didn't either."
Arata let himself lie down on the floor, staring off into the distance at the technical equipment on the ceiling of the theater. Very useful… that would've been suuuuper nice to tell me earlier! When you told me about my powers! She's probably not on my side here, omitting vital information and mocking my death. Is she even human?
Ravenna creeps up closer
"Angels are beings of empathy… I can feel your uuuuuuh… something, I suppose it was a little misleading… how about I teach you all about magic and your abilities as an apology."
She pleads hesitantly as if she were just trying to be a little silly for getting him killed and laughing at it. Arata wondered what the purpose of angels being empaths when they were so indifferent to human suffering.
Ravenna rushes behind the stage as the curtains. Suddenly, the stage is dressed with school props, including a wideboard, Ravenna dons a white buttoned-up shirt, pencil skirt, glasses and a pointer. On the whiteboard reads "Ravenna's perfect magic class".
"Well, let me explain, magic is the physical manifestation of the mana which resides within the soul. The ability of magic can be utilized thanks to a gene mutation of chromosome 4 present in only 10% of the human population, allowing someone to create a passage in and out of their soul. More specifically, beings NATIVE to this universe, in other words, not you. Good news then, you don't have to learn magic because it's hard as shit to get right."
Arata stares at Ravenna, slightly insulted, before stating, "Ok? That's an interesting lesson and all, but if I can't use magic, how do I avoid getting beaten up by people who don't adhere to the laws of physics?"
Ravenna coughs slightly, interrupting him, "Um actually, it does adhere to the laws of physics, the ones of this world, just not your own Arata. Besides, it's not like you don't have your own advantages."
Arata raises an eyebrow at the implication of the magic's limits and he isn't going to let it go. Ravenna had already cost him his life once, since she had a habit of never fully explaining things. He looks irritated, "Tell me more."
Ravenna glares at his rude commands, "Do you really-"
"More!" Arata groans out.
"Fine then! Since you take mana from your soul, it's a limited resource and when you try to cast without it, you die. Opponents are careful about using magic; it's far more limited than probably what you were imagining. There's a predefined path the ability follows, a shape is set by the soul which is then expressed as magic, converted into energy which will cause the desired effect. Magic is unable to follow this path in reverse. Partially, why magic is so hard to use is because of how limited mana is. It's only a problem if someone wants to kill you." Ravenna reassures Arata in the worst way possible.
That's the only situation I'm worried about! She thinks this is a game. Are you kidding me? It's already stressful enough coming from a modern society into this hellhole. I wanna eat Ren's mapo tofu, sleep in and procrastinate on school assignments-
Ravenna realizes how she came off, "Sorry, for real though, you do have an advantage, you can still harness the power of mana, just the mana outside your soul. You never need to worry about running out of mana and there is no predefined shape. Though most importantly, it dissuades opponents from using mana against you."
Ravenna writes up on the whiteboard, "Baby's first power, Demiurge Foundry!"
Arata's eyebrow twitches, "why am I a baby? Also, is that what the ability is called?"
Ravenna shakes her head, "abilities don't usually come with names so I'm taking it upon myself to name all of yours."
Ravenna draws a crude illustration on the whiteboard of Arata fighting a wizard. The whiteboard is animated, the fireball flying forward towards Arata when Arata grabs the spell, spinning and throwing it right back. The magic user who just attacked Arata's face appears covered in ash, hair reduced to a messy afro as question marks bubble overhead. The figure doesn't understand how to fight Arata anymore.
"Hey, Ravenna, you can replay scenes of me in the dungeon. If I may see that recording? I still don't know why I caught fire. Where did the mana come from?" Arata explains to Ravenna as she scratches her head.
Ravenna exclaims, "Didn't I just explain, it's magic… what else could there-"
She is cut off when Arata explains, "Something doesn't add up, play it now." Ravenna walks over to the stage, using a spell. Mannequins wander onto the stage as their forms contort in various manners before magic paints over the scene. First, the human figure of Arata is filled out. Finally, the scenery as the wooden figures contort into the form of the large bugs, sporting new limbs.
The scene is played back as Arata watches himself, stumbling forward in panic with his foot caught under a rock. As he trips onto his side, Ravenna letting off a slight giggle. Everything played out nigh identical to how Arata remembers it.
The air condenses The handle of his sword erupts in flames. Those flames formed from the surrounding air sparking off of Arata's sword onto his wrist. The flames continue to dance his way up his body, following the trail of the gasoline before spreading off of it onto the rest of Arata's skin.
The mannequin began to burn as the animated wood smoked. By the end, the mannequin was reduced to ashes. Arata couldn't tell if it felt pain as it had no face nor a voice to express itself with once the overlay of Arata's form was peeled off by the flames.
Ravenna quickly explains, "mana isn't usually very present in the air but in an enclosed space infested by magic creatures I think it could happen."
"Ravenna, is there any way I could stay here for a bit? I need to do some testing." Arata questions her again with a reinvigorated look.
Ravenna lets out a purposefully obnoxious whine before turning to Arata. "Up until you close your eyes, sure, I won't force you to sleep either as long as you don't bother me, I guess."
After hours of practice, Arata got nowhere, despite it's supernatural nature, there was no magic in the theater. Until Ravenna, drowsily in her pajamas generated a bubble made from magic using one of the prop bugs.
"I need to head back. I need to confirm-" Arata has a surprisingly excited look when he suddenly is warped back, quickly dashing off through the prison. Calling attention to new details, the discolored stone, the corpse with the bottle as he ran back to smash the door open. He opened the bottle to smell it again.
Gasoline. The bugs fear fire. That's why the corpse wasn't eaten. They scream when attacked as well… and take advantage of their numbers. I was too fixated on their appearance. They operate nothing like Centipedes, almost more humanlike in a way. They feel not only fear but rage when one of their own dies.
Finding his way back into the dungeon, he decides to repeat the steps. Recreating each and every step, grabbing weapons, grabbing the gasoline bottle and spotting the group of bugs. The creatures are unsuspecting of the blazing sword about to impale them.
Even though Arata had no way to create a bigger flame, he has gasoline, pour it carefully and it does the same thing… right? Arata spots a bug before it spots him, swinging down with his sword, the bug is swiftly bisected.
The corpse begins to swell, bubbling with overheated orange fluid, the corpse turgid with the energy needed for an explosion. Shit- I need to run!
Arata's other world logbook entry #1: Magic
Magic in this world sucks, hard to learn, slowly kills you and my ability isn't much better. I'm basically a regular human unless I go up against someone who's mana I can use. I'm still kinda confused on how this all works though? If my ability doesn't take a predetermined shape, then how could I shape it. The best I can do right now is act as a shitty lighter.
Update: I asked Ravenna for more information and I'm pretty sure she called me an anti-human slur. Apparently, there are two types, manifestation in which someone's magic leaves their body, this one I can actually counter. There's another type, augmentation, of altering your own form with mana. The second type is mostly deemed as being better despite apparent limitations, since less mana has to disperse out of you to perform more spells of this variety. Since less mana is being dispersed, the less I can use. The applications can be a lot more underwhelming or take years of augmentation to truly do anything but still better since you get to use more of it long term.