The current situation seems pretty bizarre to me. I’m in a fantasy-like golden room with an old wooden man in front of me, but why does this scene look so familiar. I am sitting down on a desk with Tigurka in front of me pointing at two statues. It was a very similar feeling to my everyday classes.

One of the statues was a human while the other was a four-armed giant. It’s at least five meters tall with muscles making up 80% of its body. The four eyes on it looked lifeless but it looked very much real. The upper canines and lower canines jutted out like it was prepared to tear someone in half. For it to have so many details, this must have been a real creature during Tigurka’s time.

“Alright, let’s start from the very beginning. Do you know where in the body the mana pool is stored?”

“Yes, it should be in the head, right?”

Considering the little amount of information Fifi has taught me, I was doubting whether this was correct or not.

“Correct, I don’t know what I would have done if you got this question wrong.”

Tigurka points his wooden finger at the top of the wooden human’s head.

“For humans and most creatures out there, the mana pool is within the head. If this spot is destroyed then it’s almost guaranteed that you will die. You must always be careful when using magic because if you overuse your mana then it will slowly deteriorate your brain. The best-case scenario is that your body immediately shuts down so you can recover, the middle-case scenario is your mana pool is severely weakened, and the worst-case scenario is death. From the way you’ve been using magic, I can tell that you’ve been carelessly using all your mana, haven’t you?”

“I…”

I can’t say anything back to Tigurka. If passing out is a by-product of overusing mana then I’ve already experienced four times. Wait, three times since the first time was from the bus accident. I guess I’ve really been reckless.

“Haah, it’s fine because you have hero blood but a regular person would eventually cripple their mana pool at your pace.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, just be more careful in the future. Using mana to the point of exhaustion isn’t healthy nor is it situationally fine. What if you’re in the middle of a battle and you use all of your mana to defeat a single enemy even though there are more? What if you just become a burden to your allies because you pass out in the middle of a fight? You have to think about these various situations before using all your mana. Only exert yourself when you can guarantee you and your ally's safety.”

Tigurka’s correct. If the prison monster wasn’t being held back by Tod then it could have given chase and I wouldn’t have been able to protect Mako and Fifi because I depleted my mana. Even just a few days ago when I escaped from the green goo zombie, I could have gotten Lisa and myself killed. If I passed out mid-flight and didn’t make it into the library’s basement both of us would have died. I really do have to be more careful in the future.

“Since the mana pool is within the head, it is natural to think that if you attack this place then it is a sure victory but that is wrong. Some beings out there don’t have their mana pools stored within their heads.”

He moves on over to the four-armed giant and points at its neck.

“This four-armed Taja has its mana pool stored within its neck. Similarly, I have heard stories of mana pools being within the chest, arms, legs, and even the stomach. So when you are fighting never assume that your enemies’ mana pool will be stored within the head. Besides that, there is another rare case of a person having multiple mana pools. If you ever come across them then I suggest that you run away immediately. Don’t even try to fight them. No matter if its endurance or strength, you will most likely lose. I still clearly remember the time when a traveler with two mana pools came to visit me because he was looking for something. I thought he was trying to invade my village so I engaged him in battle but I quickly lost the fight. This was back in my prime when I had control over this entire region so you can assume how strong this person was.”

Someone even stronger than Tigurka!? I can’t imagine what sort of strength that person must have to be that strong to defeat a 10,000 year old being. I guess I have to be careful of those with multiple mana pools.

“Good, it seems you understand the importance of your mana pool now. Now let me ask you another question. How do you increase your mana pool?”

This should be a simple answer, right? Don’t you increase your mana pool the more you use it?

“You can increase your mana pool by constantly using magic. The more you use your mana, the more it will grow to accommodate your usage of it.”

“Yes, that’s the orthodox way of increasing your mana pool. It’s also the most acceptable way of increasing your mana pool but there are also other ways. The second way is to find rare plants, fruits, or treasures that can increase your mana pool. This way is harder because finding these items are rare. The third way is to consume the mana pools of others but this way is frowned upon by those all around the world.”

“Consume other’s mana pool?”

“Yes, it will definitely increase your mana pool but along the way, you will lose yourself. Consuming others means that your mana pool will become contaminated by the hate and desires of those you have killed. In the end, you’ll likely become a crazed man seeking to consume mana pools just to consume it. No matter your goals or ideals, you’ll lose sight of all of it. This is why you should only practice the first two ways of increasing your mana.”

Tigurka was staring at me with all seriousness. He was even emitting some of his pressure on me. Was he worried that I’ll start consuming others? I won’t, I can’t protect Fifi, Lisa, and Mako if I lose myself. I’ll never let that happen to me.

“I won’t.”

“Good, if you do then I’ll come back as a ghost and haunt you. I’m sure you wouldn’t want a 10,000 year old man pestering you every single day. I’ll even follow you to the bathroom until you stop consuming mana pools.”

“Haha, I promise I won’t. I don’t want you following me around.”

Tigurka was trying to ease up the mood. Even though I know he said that he was once revered as a deity, I can’t imagine it. He seems more like a friendly old man on the block than a magnificent deity.

“Alright, let me get back on topic. These are the three ways you can increase your mana but do you know why your mana increases? What causes your mana to increase after using magic constantly?”

“It should be because of experience.”

“Yes, looks like your fairy taught you what experience is. Now explain to me what you know about experience.”

“If I’m remembering it correctly, experience is the result of a person doing a task or an action. Whether it be repeating an action over and over again or by trying out new things, the person will gain experience. A person can gain it from practicing magic or even by training a dog. Any sort of activities done throughout a person’s life will gain them experience. As a person gains more experience then they become stronger.”

“A decent explanation but not quite there. Experience can be separated into two categories: Passive Experience and Active Experience. When you were talking about using magic to increase your mana, that is an example of Passive Experience. Even if you just mindlessly use magic your mana pool will automatically increase. The same could be said about training your body. You can lift logs for your whole life and your body will become stronger because of the experience your body naturally gains from repeating this physical task. Active Experience is the complete opposite of Passive Experience. If you just use magic to increase your mana pool then your magic will never become stronger even though your mana pool increases. This is where you need to enact Active Experience. You must observe and analyze what makes your magic stronger or weaker. What can you take out or add to increase the strength of your magic? You must constantly ask yourself these questions to improve your magic. Once you’re able to solve these problems then that is you gaining and using Active Experience. Once you’ve learned how to use Active Experience to solve a problem, it will help you in the future for similar problems.”

“Is this why you stopped me earlier.”

“Yes, you were not gaining any Active Experience. All you did was cast magic at that boulder and you weren’t thinking of what different ways you could use magic to attack it. Even when you changed your magic up a little, at its base form it was still the same. Let’s take your Big Fast Hammer and Spear of the Shattering Boulder for example. The shape and name may be different but all you were doing was throwing the earth element while it's propelled by the wind element. You recklessly used all your mana into that single attack without considering what you could change to make it better. There were hundreds of ways you could have made your magic more powerful while using less mana.”

“But that’s all I could think of when I was using wind and earth magic.”

“This is where understanding the intricacies of Magic will come in handy. If that’s the only thing you can think of then you have to sit down and use your imagination. The core of magic comes down to having a good imagination. That is why it’s said that the strongest mages out there are mostly scholars. Scholars have taken the time to read theories, stories, legends, and even there everyday lives as inspiration for their magic.”

“I understand but I don’t have many life experiences to derive my magic from. Since I was young I didn’t go out and interact with others that much. Even reading books wasn’t a thing that I did.”

“This is where you have to incorporate Active Experience and imagination together. Think of anything in your everyday life and you can derive magic from it. Maybe your daily life consists of chopping trees, then create magic about chopping trees. What if you write a lot? Then create magic centered around your pen. What about your hand? You use that every day so create magic based on your hand. Even the tiniest things can be made into magic, you just have to use your imagination. You can’t say that you can’t think of anything to create your magic from because that would just be you making excuses. You must sit down and think then you’ll be gaining Active Experience.”

“I-I’ve never thought of it like that.”

I’m learning so much from Tigurka right now. I guess I wasn’t really thinking about how to improve my magic earlier. I thought that if I wanted to make strong magic then I should make it resemble a weapon but it doesn’t have to be one. I’ve never even used those weapons before so my imagination of them was vague. I have to think of something that relates to me more if I want to destroy that boulder.

“Well, I can’t really be blaming your confusion at this point. You’ve been working with Self-Made Magic even though you’re still a beginner.”

“What’s Self-Made Magic?”

Tigurka was looking at me in shock. I guess Fifi had failed to explain something important to me again. I’m starting to wonder whether I should trust Fifi when it comes to teaching. I’ll always trust her on most things but I’m really doubting her teaching abilities.

“Ok, I guess I should have expected your fairy to forget to explain the details. To put it into basic terms, magic is made up of two categories: Inherited Magic and Self-Made Magic. Inherited Magic is magic that is passed on through word from a master or writing from books and tomes. Self-Made Magic as its name implies is magic that is created by yourself.”

“So I’ve been learning Self-Made Magic. Are there any differences between the two of them? Is one better than the other?”

“Both of them have their positives and negatives. Inherited Magic is easier to learn because the chants and the strengths of the magic are already created. All you have to do is learn the chant and see whether the magic suits you or not. This kind of magic is what’s usually used to teach beginners because it is easy to learn. The only problem with Inherited Magic is that you aren’t able to use the magic’s strength at 100%. Over time you would expect the magic to become stronger because the previous users might improve it but that isn’t the case. Self-Made magic is something that is entirely special to the person who created it. No matter who else learns it afterward, they’ll never be able to use 100% of that magic because they are not the original creator. Every single person is different so there are some who will be able to use that Inherited magic to a higher degree than others but never the same as the original creator.”

If Inherited Magic is used for beginners then why didn’t Fifi start me off with this? There must be a reason why she didn’t want me to learn it.

“Self-Made Magic, on the other hand, is something that you will be able to use at 100% power. The only problem is that creating your own magic isn’t simple at all. You have to think about what elements you want to use and how they would interact with each other. You have to use your imagination to create what you want your magic to do and even think up a chant that will utilize all of its strengths. None of these steps are easy and it may take hundreds or thousands of errors before you create a magic that is satisfactory. But this doesn’t mean that Self-Made Magic will be better than Inherited Magic. There are some Inherited Magic out there that were made by mages tens of thousands of years in the past who use forgotten techniques that will be stronger than anything we will ever create.”

I’ve been using Self-Made Magic so I don’t really understand the difficulties Tigurka has explained but that’s probably because I’m still weak. Fire Blast is just my imagination of a fire that explodes in strength when you add gasoline. Even my chant is relatively simple in its name. I guess when I want to create stronger magic then I’ll face these difficulties.

Is this why Fifi didn’t want to teach me Inherited Magic? She wants me to struggle and learn from Self-Made Magic instead of depending on Inherited Magic.

“Tigurka, I have a question. Everything you’ve explained to me has really opened up my eyes to the complexity of magic but can you explain to me about chants. Every magic I use has a relatively short chant in comparison to Fifi’s chants. Does it make a difference whether it’s long or short?”

“Hmm, even I can’t really explain the concept of chants to you. Your fairy is correct that stronger magic usually needs longer chants but that isn’t always the case. Which one do you think sounds stronger: “Holy World Tree, transfer your immense strength and allow me to bind my enemy. Hold them in place and constrict there every movement with your all-powerful roots. Wood Binding” or “Using the earth under my feet, bind my enemies. Earth Bind.”

“I guess the chant with the Holy World Tree.”

“Most people would think that but that isn’t necessarily the case. Once again, the strength of chants come from a person’s imagination. The first chant with the holy World Tree would be immensely powerful if I used it because I’m part of the tree race. Specifically, I’m a Drtyee and we worship the World Tree as our god. I know how strong the World Tree is and can put the image of its strength into binding my enemies, but what if someone of the dwarf race was to use the exact same words of my chant. They don’t worship any tree gods so they can’t imagine its strength so their magic would be terribly weak. The other chant would be more suited for them since they are earth dwellers. It’s short and simple but they can imagine the strength of the earth beneath them because of their connection with it.”

From Tigurka’s explanation, I can tell that chants are a difficult subject to grasp. The chants have to be meaningful to you or it won’t be able to display its strength. In my case, Fire Blast is my strongest magic because I can clearly imagine a fire exploding in strength. On the other hand, Spear of the Shattering Boulder is weak because I’ve never used a spear or seen a spear shatter a boulder before. Then doesn’t this mean my wind and earth magic will always be weak then? I can’t imagine anything strong that uses earth or wind magic.

“I see that you’re contemplating things so I’ll give you the time to digest everything I just explained. Sit and think as long as you like.”

Tigurka walks back towards his chair and begins sipping his tea. I’ve just been taught a massive amount of information about magic and I need time to digest it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to grasp the intricacies of magic and destroy this boulder. I don’t know how much time has passed but I need to figure if Fifi, Lisa, and Mako are safe.