After while, we heard Miss Iralalith coming up the stairs. We jumped to our feet as she entered the room after a short knock. She was carrying a small ornate wooden chest.

“Good Morning, girls.” She set the chest on the table.

“Good Morning, Miss Iralalith!”

She sat down on one of the armchairs.

“Sit down.”

“Magic. I’ll skip most of the theory for now since most of it will be much easier to understand when you’re actually have experience using your mana. Humans do it that way, but we think it’s just getting in the way in the beginning.”

She folded her hands and put them in her lap.

“You all feel your mana right now? Normally it’s associated with warmth in the beginning.”

“Yes, Miss Iraralith.”

“Later you will perceive it as a kind of malleable substance glowing in the color your your mana has.”

“First you have to learn to visualize your mana to the point where you’re able to perceive its color and be able to direct it somewhere.”

“The next step, which takes quite a bit time in the beginning, is to find a way to form a spell from your mana. This process has to be memorized in a way which is different for each spell caster.”

“It may be a short poem, a melody, a picture or just about anything else which you can memorize clearly.”

“Teachers can impose a certain way to learn a spell, which will speed up the learning time but leads to a less efficient and aesthetic way to form a spell.”

“Questions?”

We shook our heads.

Miss Iralalith opened the chest and put about a dozen weirdly shaped wooden sculptures on the table.

“These are approximations of how a selection of spells should look like. As soon as you’re able to use the sense magic spell, you may try to learn a spell you observe being cast in a way where you have time to examine the result close enough.”

“Now I want you to just focus on that new feeling you have and get a clear image of it when you focus. Later you can try to move it around your body.”

“When you feel comfortable moving the mana, start to find a way to create one of the forms I brought you.”

“I’m on my way now to take care of my duties for a while and come to check on you once in a while. After lunch you’re going to have regular duties assigned.”

“Questions?” She got up.

We shook our heads.

Miss Iralalith left the room and went upstairs.

“Now where do we start?” Milly looked at the wooden sculptures.

“Focusing on the warmth.” Tilly closed her eyes.

“Use the force, Milly!” I giggled.

“Geek!” Milly frowned.

“Let’s try to do what she said. It’s the only thing we have.” I looked at Milly.

She nodded and closed her eyes as well.

I started to focus on the warm feeling inside. It felt warmer than I remembered. Since the warmth was everything I was feeling now I went on to explore that feeling more.

The intensity varied depending on which part of my body I focused. Most of the warmth was in my torso, but there were wisps of it all over my body. The more distance from the center the weaker it was. Even in the fingertips was a faint amount.

I opened my eyes. Milly and Tilly were still sitting there with closed eyes. Looking outside the suns had risen considerably in the sky. It was still a few hours till noon. Spending time at the lodge I had gotten a grip on telling the time from the position of the sun. The length of the days didn’t vary with the seasons, which made time estimations far easier. It implied that this world wasn’t a planet as back there. The only place where a day’s length doesn’t change over the year was near the Equator, but the seasons here were like in Europe mostly. I shelved the track of thought for later and focused on my warmth again.

After examining the faint warmth in my toes and fingers I decided to focus on my torso again.

The warmth was not that evenly distributed as I thought in the first place. There was a noticeable gradient towards the area where my heart was, which also seemed to be the area with the most intense warmth.

As I focused a bit more on that point I noticed a faint red glow. Looking closer it was somehow connected with my magic sense, only that it was focused inward. Normally I couldn’t look through matter with that sense. How about pushing some warmth into..

“Aaahh!!” A bright red liquid appeared in front of my inner eye, dazzling me for a few moments.

“Lilly! Everthing okay?” I disturbed Tilly and Milly

“Y-Yes. I was just surprised.”

I focused on the red liquid in front of me. It had a similar distribution in my body as the warmth had, which wasn’t surprising as they are supposed to be the same. There were subtle differences in brightness as well, especially in my torso.

I started to try to move it somehow, but soon the bright red glow dimmed down, but the area glowing red had increase to more than I had seen before I boosted my magic sight.

I opened my eyes. Milly and Tilly still sat there looking at each other.

“It’s magic!” I got up to stretch a bit.

“Of course it’s magic.” Milly rolled her eyes.

“Oh.” Tilly started to focus inward and soon a bright smile spread out on her face.

“Did I miss something?” Milly frowned at me.

“You did. How far did you come?” I sat down again.

“Well, there is some reddish glow inside me. But I can’t see much detail.” Milly propped her head on her arm.

“This glow is magical.” I tried to drop a hint without saying too much.

“Then I could ...” Milly closed her eyes again, and soon a smile played around her lips.

I focused back on my mana. I could feel that a part of it was gone somehow, but as I hadn’t seen it before I used the mana to enhance my mana sense I could see a difference.

After a while I could actually see a red liquid running through my body. My attempts to interact with it failed, but I improved my awareness of the mana till lunch.

“Lunchtime!” Miss Iralalith stood in the door.

“Yes. Miss Iralalith” We all jumped to our feet and went over to the door.

“Any progress?” she asked while we approached her.

“I can see the mana I think,” Milly smiled.

“Very good.”

“I can see it as well.” I shrugged.

“Well.” She seemed impressed.

“I can nudge it. But it’s stubborn.” Tilly grinned.

Miss Iralalith didn’t say anything for a few moments.

“This is getting interesting. It’s a shame you only have red mana.” She gave us a pitying glance.

We had lunch and did normal chores in the afternoon. After dinner we went up to our room again. Caroline came with us for an hour where we chatted about the usual stuff, but a bit of our magic as well.

“I envy you. Even if it’s weak magic” Caroline eyes were hanging on our lips.

After an hour she got up.

“G’night.” she waved and left for her room.

“G’night, Caroline.”

We looked at each other.

“I think we should use all mana we have, since I seems to recover over night.” I looked at the box with the sculptures. They looked like abstract art.

“Seems to be a good idea, as long as we are in a safe place.” Milly got up and sat down on my lap.

“It’s the best we could do as long as it extends the mana pool.” Tilly got up as well, squeezing herself beside me.

I could push a hand between us, but only with an effort. Milly laid her legs on Tilly’s lap, slinging her arms around my neck. I put an arm around her waist to support her back and the other on Tilly’s shoulder. She put one arm on my shoulder and captured Milly’s legs then.

“All this magic is exciting!” Tilly laid her head on my shoulder.

“It’s definitely fascinationg. The things we could do with the mana seem to be interesting as well.” I patted Tilly’s head.

“We will have to see if all the work we put in it is worth it.” Milly gave me a peck on the cheek.

“As long as we have the time it’s okay I think. Even if the effects are minor, it may make a difference once in a while.” I looked at Milly’s face.

There was something wrong. I started to check her closer. The scar in her cheek was gone!

“Milly. You should definitely look at your face in the mirror tonight.” I petted the cheek where the scar used to be.

“What’s wrong?” Milly jumped to her feet and went over to the mirror.

She stood there for a while mesmerized.

Tilly got up after few moments to have a look as well.

“That’s marvelous!” Milly had a wide smile plastered all over her face.

I fled from the armchair and smiled back.

“That’s where all the mana went in the last days I suppose.” I undressed to get ready for the night.

As I had my nightgown in my hands, I didn’t put it on and went over to the mirror. I had collected a few scars as well over the time, and they were all gone!

“It’s the same for me.” I put on the nightgown.

Milly and Tilly checked their body as well and then we were ready for the night. As we were not tired we sat down on the comfortable armchairs.

“You should try the nails.” looked a Milly and Tilly.

They experimented with the claws for a while. Using the scales seemed not to have an additional effect after multiple uses. I didn’t want to hurt myself just to check how hard they were. Using it in a future fight would be fine. As it seemed to get easier to activate them after some tries I’m going to activate the claws and the scales. At least as long as there was some progress and there was nothing else I wanted to do with the mana.

A while later we had spent all our mana. We went to bed, cuddling until we fell asleep.

Draining the mana completely was bad. I could do things, but I got much slower and I had to put up an effort for everything I wanted to do. It would be best to keep at least a bit mana when expecting trouble. Fighting with drained mana would be bad. I had to try it some time, just to know what to expect.

The next morning my mana had recovered and I started to play around with it until breakfast which we had together with Caroline. After that we started to get more acquainted with our mana again.

I managed to visualize the mana better over the morning. Nudging it was futile as there was nearly no resistance. I could see that it started to swirl when I tried to do something, but the stubborn stuff kept flowing where it wanted. It was quite frustrating after a while, so I focused to enhance my awareness of the mana most of the time.

Miss Iralalith came checking on us once in a while. “I can’t do much at this point, you have to get a proper grip on your mana first. If you have questions do ask.” We left together for lunch a few minutes later.

The afternoon was normal duty, but I started practice my mana perception now and then at points where I didn’t need to focus on the things I had to do and staying aware. I hoped it would turn out like with the magic sight in a while which I needn’t focus upon anymore to notice something magical. Having a closer look was something different. There has to be a means of get more information out of the colors. So many things to improve.

We had dinner with Caroline and spent some time relaxing. After Caroline had left we dressed for the night and started spending our mana for the day.

It was easier this evening to gauge when I was at my last mana. The intensity of the light varied somehow with how full my mana pool was.

“Do you see the pool dimming when you use mana?” I had made myself comfortable onto the bed, looking at the ceiling.

“Yeah.” Tilly came over, sitting down beside me.

“Now that you say it, it’s obvious.” Milly came over as well, sitting down near my head.

We all had a faint rest of mana remaining.

“How about using this more secluded room for other explorations?” Milly gave me a devious smile.

I blushed.

“A little bit distraction after all the hard work should be fine.” Tilly gave me a wink, smiling.

“What are you up to?” I was sure Milly wanted me to go further that way again.

I wasn’t sure why I was hesitant, but there was still a lingering feeling of discomfort when thinking about sexual stuff. I wasn’t prude back there and had my fair share of it with my wive.

“As a teenager you should start to explore your body more than you do it.” Milly patted my head.

“We didn’t have much privacy most of the time, which makes it all a bit awkward.” Tilly petted my hip.

I was still blushing. Being close with Milly and Tilly was fine. I would actually miss it if they were gone. I hadn’t pushed further than that for a while. I liked to fool around with them and it was much fun.

Should I give in? I noticed them observing me closely while I laid on the bed.

In other situations I had had no problems to prod further into unknown territory.

Well, it wasn’t completely unknown, but I hadn’t had any personal experience beyond my experience back there.

Living in enclosed spaces for a while didn’t help as well. The rooms in the basement had thin walls after all, in addition to be cramped with four people into a small room.

I didn’t think the other would have minded, but I still didn’t feel comfortable trying anything with them around. Especially when it was not clear who may be able enter the room. At least Miss Tessa was able to barge in whenever she wanted.

Now here we were able to hear anyone on the stairs, long before they arrived at our door, thanks to our enhanced hearing. It was not easy to get used to it, as I had to filter more irrelevant stuff now. Human brains are really capable of filtering information.

I shelved the train of thought for later since Tilly and Milly were still waiting for my answer.

“Sorry, I got sidetracked.”

“Any progress in regard to our questions though?” Milly bit down on her lower lip as looked in my eyes, her eyes slightly widened.

“There is.” I looked back at her feeling tense.

“Do you mind to elaborate?” Milly and Tilly exchanged glances.

I didn’t know what to say. Letting my lingering fear controlling me?

No. It was time to face the fear keeping me back all the time and getting some first hand experience to decide how to proceed.

I pulled Milly in for a kiss.