The next morning, Van headed straight to Lorenzo’s study. Entering the room, he found Lyn already zipping around in a small dress. Upon seeing him, the little fairy flew to give him another hug tackle to the face. Much to Van’s amusement.

“Nice to see you too.” Van chuckled. “How was your stay over?”

The little fairy tried to pantomime her experience but only ended up looking silly. Despite that she seemed proud of her acting at the end of it, puffing out her chest.

“Wow, impressive!” Van said, playing along though not understanding a word of what she was trying to say.

Lyn seemed happy at the praise and gave him another hug and then a kiss on the cheek before flying off to get Lorenzo. Van didn’t have to wait long for a tired-looking lore to walk up to him.

“Good to see you really didn’t take another potion. But did you actually sleep?” Van asked.

“Not as much as I was hoping…” Lorenzo said tiredly. “But at least I was able to put her through the tests. By the way, she passed all of them with fly colors. She is a very healthy fairy, though a little different than normal fairies, she is just as, if not more, powerful than the norm. And I couldn’t find any serious magical or even mundane faults with her.” Lorenzo gave a tired smile. “I have to say, again, congratulations.

Van turned to Lyn with a smile. “I knew she could do it.” which made the fairy swell so much with pride, that he was afraid she would pop.

“But now that that's taken care of. And now that you're here, let's use this opportunity to start why you came here originally.” Lorenzo said, perking himself up slightly. “Why don’t we start going over mana cultivation.”

Van nodded. He wanted to show off Lyn to everyone, but he decided it could wait for later. Not to mention, he was also very excited to finally learn how to cultivate.“Sure, go ahead.”

Lorenzo then pointed at a chair. “Please take a seat. We have a lot to go over.” Van did so and waited for Lorenzo to begin.

“Let's begin first.” Lorenzo began. “With what mana is and how it came to be… to start with. All energies, when broken down to their purest, become what we call, essence. There are even more purer forms than that. But for now, just know you can only access this degree of purity. Essence is the fundamental building blocks of all existence.”

Lorenzo paused sleepily “thought if we are going to talk about that, I suppose we would never get anywhere. Sorry… It seems I’m already getting sidetracked. Let me start again.

Lorenzo cleared his throat. “ mana is a special energy source that is the fuel and catalyst for many a magical phenomenon and used by mages as a source of power. Mana can be found in our environment, alongside ki, and many other major and minor energies.”

“How did so many energies come to be in our environment? Van asked.

Lorenzo nodded, expecting such a question. “There is one energy that is more abundant than any other kind of energy that you would find. That is Aether. It flows through everything and can be converted to other energy sources. It is also by far the weakest energy, but it is also the closest to pure essence, as contradictory as that sounds. Aether can be converted into mana, ki, and many other energies.”

“A long time ago. So far that no one knows when it actually began. Mages figured out how to turn Aether into mana. And because as mages are want to do, they fought each other in wars and battles that changed the landscape. Or created magical items and plants. When a mage changed a plant for it to bear more fruits, or an animal to be a beast of burden or mount, or just changed the landscape in general. They saturated the environment with mana.” Lorenzo began creating illusionary images for Van’s benefit about what happened.

“The plants and animals then began to feed off of the mana, changing, mutating, and soon becoming dependent on the new energy source. After a while some plants and animals started producing mana in their environment, spreading the energy until it infected almost everything.” The images changed to a normal-looking plant that slowly turned blue as it sucked in the mana energy and after fast-forwarding, the plant then started to expel an excess amount of mana that spread to other nearby plants.

“And that is how we have mana today. Fun fact. In the east, the most prevalent energy source is not mana, but Ki. If we have an abundance of mana on our side of the continent, then in the east they have an abundance of Ki. And for the exact same reason, the only difference being that they decided to practice Ki, which spread out into the plants and animals like mana did over here. Who knows what other energy types are out there and how they are used by different civilizations. What new and strange technologies!” Lorenzo seemed to salivate at the idea before realizing what expression he must be making and reigning himself in.

“Anyway… the way we cultivate is by being careful and making sure we don’t accidentally absorb any other energy type except mana and Aether. As a mage, mana is what is used to fuel spells and do many other things. Aether can be converted into mana, so it's okay to absorb that too. But be careful absorbing other energy types, you can damage your cultivation by introducing energies that conflict with one another. Not that it's impossible to do dual cultivation. Practicing both Ki and mana or even other energy types. It's just that if you're not careful and do not separate them properly, you can stunt yourself or worse.”

“So you can have more than one cultivation?” Van asked, curious.

Lorenzo smiled. “You can have as many as you want. Dozens in fact. Because there are dozens of different ways to cultivate mana. Van’s eyes widened. “It’s just that, that means there's more for you to cultivate. And if your splitting your mana to two different cultivation techniques, that means you grow slower as well. So most people go for one or two cultivations at most and a rare few go for three. Also, as one cultivates, your affinity for mana and your mana pool also increases. Though you can’t use your cultivation mana pool to cultivate further. Also, while not a lot, increasing your cultivation rank in some mana cultivations, can also increase your lifespan a little.

“Wait, what do you mean? Are you saying you gain a new mana pool?” Van asked, referring to what Lorenzo said about cultivation mana pool.

Lorenzo nodded. “You can do simple magic right? That’s because of the natural mana pool you have. When you cultivate, you gain a second one, or even more, depending on how many cultivations you're doing. Though they start off very small and practically useless at first. Not to mention it takes a lot to rise through the ranks, you can be assured that you will need to put more mana into your cultivation than what you will get out of it. So don’t think having a dozen small mana pools will give you more than someone who rose through a few ranks higher than you in one.”

“What are these cultivation techniques?” Van asked, leaning forward and a little excited.

“The different types are… Mana body, Mana core, Familiar, and Mana space. Or at least these are the best-known ones. There are more, but for the large part, these four, or should I say the first three. Are the ones most used in the world. Mana core is the most used, mana body the second, familiar the third, and mana space the last. I for one, have a mana core.” Lorenzo said, before changing the images once more.

“To begin with. Mana body. Is mostly for mages who are more physically oriented than mental. They tend to be the magic swordsmen and other more melee-type magical fighters. They slowly accrue magical energy throughout their body and overtime their body goes through controlled changes, usually following a formula set by previous mana body cultivators. Mana body cultivators become stronger, faster, tougher, and can use mana to increase their overall power. They have the drawback of not having as much magical power to use as other mages, as well as being unable to use too many long-range magical attacks since most of their mana is contained in their body and it can become more difficult for them to extend it outside their body unless they also train in mana core or other mana type cultivations. Taking this cultivation means that if you want to say… practice Ki body cultivation, you can’t as the two energies would conflict with one another.”

“Mana core is the most used type. There are three types of mana core users. One who has their mana core in their body, one who has it in their soul realm, and finally, one who has it outside. When having the mana core inside their body, they have only a small amount of room, so as to grow it, they have to constantly refine it in order to shrink it again. As it's in the body, they have the best of both worlds between having cores inside the soul realm and outside the body.”

“Having a core outside the body can give you far more control over the mana you use, you can also change the environment easier and many other things. Some of these types try to… what was it called? Be dungeon masters? To little effect. Mostly because it’s believed such people are crazy. But don’t understatement them. They can use mana to an extremely precise degree and shape their surroundings with ease. The downside is, if stolen, or interfered with, they can lose all that and become extremely weak. Also the bigger the core, the harder it is to move around with it, also forcing them to refine it so as to easily move it around.”

“Mana core inside the soul realm. Is the most common one. The downside is, that if you have an already small soul realm, it could take up some space, another one is that it can take some time to bring the mana from within your soul realm outside for you to use. The benefits though are, if you have the space for it, you can indefinitely grow your core to absurd proportions and therefore have a very large mana pool. It is also protected from someone trying to damage it through a fight or steal it like the first two. It is also said that it's possible to switch your soul realm core to an outside one and back again, though I have never seen anyone do such a thing so I don’t know if it's true or not. Finally, the more you grow a core, the bigger the mana pool. The more you refine a core the faster the mana regenerates and the smaller it can become without losing in mana pool size. Though you can also refine it without it losing its large size if you want. As trying to shrink it also takes a lot of time and energy, so some mages with it inside their soul realm refine it, but don’t shrink it.”

“Then there is familiar cultivation. Mostly for those who are lucky or have money. Having a familiar can give you access to not only their mana pool but their affinity for whatever magic they have. For example, you, through using Lyn as a conduit, can use lightning magic easier than you probably could have before. Because of this, there are many mages out there that want decent familiars. And some who would even go so far as bonding a cat and trying to have that cat cultivate mana by feeding it mana cores, in the hopes the cat becomes stronger and more powerful, thereby allowing the image to become more powerful. This is mostly used by those who are desperate to become mages but do not have the mana for it.”

“then we have mana space. Sometimes also known as mana void. This is an extremely difficult technique that is very slow to grow. But has infinite growth. The mage tries to create a tear into another space, the infinite void, and through this tear, they create a small bubble connected to their soul realm, almost like a demiplane or separate space. And through the feeding of the bubble, they grow it. The bigger the bubble, the more mana they can store in the bubble. The drawbacks are, it takes a lot to grow the bubble, and since it just stores mana, you will not regenerate mana using this method, outside your own natural mana regeneration or any other method.”

Lorenzo paused in thought as another idea popped into his head. “Now that I think about it, you do also have another option. It's called mana realm cultivation, and only a few people can do it. Remember what I said before? That plants and animals produce mana? Well take that concept and create a garden in your soul realm, over time the plants will produce mana that you can absorb and use for cultivation of one of your other cultivation techniques or if desperate, since it's all in your soul realm, you can drain them dry to immediately use them for spells. The options and potential are limitless, depending on your soul realm size of course.”

“There are also cases where a wealthy individual with no talent for magic will just buy a bunch of mana orbs to use to fuel his spells. But that is ridiculously pricey, especially if you have no talent.”

“So what do you think? Do any of them catch your imagination?” Lorenzo said with a smile.

Van slowly nodded his head in amazement and wonder. So many options with benefits and drawbacks. He wanted to practice them all, well… all except mana body and just buying a bunch of mana orbs. The Idea of practicing all these cultivations and becoming all-powerful made his more childish side giddy with possibilities. But taking into account what Lorenzo said he probably should only stick to one or two, though that did beg a question. “Umm Lorenzo? How many cores can you have?”

Lorenzo nodded, expecting this answer. “You can have as many as you want. You can have one inside your body, outside, and inside your soul realm. In fact, there are cases where some mages focus purely on their soul realm cores but use an outside core on a rod that they connect to their soul realm core. The same can be done with a body core. This allows a mage to bypass the wait that they may have to take when bringing up their mana from inside their soul realms to the forefront. Unless they are extremely skilled already at bringing up their mana of course. But in battle, such a thing could be a matter of life and death.”

“Well, what I actually meant was if it was possible to have more than one core in general. Like if I can have ten cores inside my soul realm.” Van said but was still thankful for the extra information.

“Ah…” Lorenzo said and thought about it before nodding. “Yes, it is possible, though I highly do not recommend it. It would take you forever to create that many cores inside you, not to mention a ridiculous amount of time to cultivate that many cores.”

“I figured, just wanted to ask,” van said now thinking deeply as to what he wanted to do.

“Have you decided on which one you want to cultivate?” Lorenzo asked.

Slowly, Van nodded. “I think I want to create a core inside my soul realm and do familiar cultivation since I already have one in Lyn. Those two.”

Lorenzo smiled with approval. “Good choice. I also have a few ideas on how you can get another familiar. Now, do you want to practice how to cultivate your core today or tomorrow? Also, after you have your core we will go over the many different practices on how to use mana, and the many different types of mages there are.” Already he was starting to feel giddy at the prospect of teaching Van all about the different kinds of mages there are.

“Tomorrow, I want some time to go over everything I just learned. Not to mention… I want to show Lyn off to everyone.” he said with a smile and a lookup towards the small fairy sleeping on his head.

Lorenzo completely understood, choosing a cultivation was something one had to dedicate oneself to for the rest of their lives. Wanting to think about it before committing was understandable. “Go ahead. We can do the rest tomorrow. Let's go get us some lunch and show your new and improved familiar.” a smile formed on his face. “They will be in for quite the surprise.”

Van excitedly got up, waking Lyn up from her nap in surprise. The two then made their way to the door, followed by Lorenzo.

Lorenzo chuckled as he saw the back of his young pupil, quickly moving to show off his familiar before a shadow of a thought slowly snaked its way into his head filling it with worry. Slowly, Lorenzo began to become more and more concerned and fearful, even picking up the pace and calling out to Van. but Van was already too far to hear.

Once in the dining room, everyone was surprised by the small and cute fairy that was hovering nearby Van. Luna and Anna were the most surprised and happy about seeing a fairy. With Lillia and Alvaroz just looking on with mild interest before realizing what exactly they were seeing and turning their head towards Thea who had completely stopped looking longingly at her plate for lunch to begin and had instead froze completely at the sight of the fairy.

The kids seemed not to have noticed whatsoever as the little fairy played amongst them. Lillia though gently held Thea’s hand under the table and gave it a small squeeze. Just then Lorenzo entered, he gave a calculated eye over the scene before picking up on the ques that Alv and Lil were giving and pretending nothing was amiss.

The family had lunch like usual, the kids busy playing with Lyn as they ate. When they left, none of them noticed that Thea had barely touched her plate. Alv, Lil, and lore staying behind to spend some time with Thea and to tell her that everything will be alright. Thea took a deep breath and let it out, thanking them, but getting up and leaving, saying that she needed some time alone to think.

Thea didn’t hate the fairy, nor did she truly fear it. But the mere thought of a fairy hanging around her brought up memories of her very short and painful time in the hands of those elves. She knew she would get over it with time, but for now… she needed her space.

Varenes

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