---Years ago, in Abyss---
First thing in the evening, I climbed up on my mom while she was trying to get out of her bed and I shouted excitedly, “Mom, I’m cold, so show me the fire again like last night!”
“Making fire isn’t just your mom using her mommy powers. You can learn to do it too, Ali.”
“What! Really? I wanna do that! Show me how,” I begged my mom to teach me. I could do something she could do too! After that maybe I could be cool and strong like her too.
“Alright alright” she said, “just settle down and sit with your mom okay?”
“Okay!” I was excited to start, so I stopped squirming around.
“This is magic,” she showed me the flame in her hand again, “it uses a fuel called mana.”
“Where do I get mana then? I want to do magic with mom.”
She hums and glances up for a minute with her eyebrows furrowed, she says something to herself that I can’t understand, before looking at me again and continuing, “learning magic takes a long time, my little mosquito.”
“Hey I’m not a bug, gross!” I hissed through my fangs and pretended to hit her.
“I know. You’re my lovely little girl, and you’ve become so fierce! I know you’ll be the most beautiful and strong when you grow up. But you are going to be so thirsty to try to learn magic now... It takes a long time to learn, but I can teach the first step before I get ready to go, okay?”
She pulled me up to sit in her lap, facing away from her.
“I’m going to show you how to use mana. Just let me lead you. This is called mana gathering. Now be a good girl and close your eyes.”
I did what she told me to do, and soon felt a gentle wave coming from my mom. She told me that she was giving me mana, and she showed me how to make it rotate around inside me. I noticed it started to follow certain paths while I did this, and she urged me to continue and let it do so. Under her direction, I continued to clarify these pathways and the mana circulated easier.
“Those paths are meridians, sweetie.”
“Marry ans?” This word was hard to say. I was glad to share this feeling with mom though.
“Yes. Meridians are very special. Do you know why?”
“Why?”
“Meridians are a part of your soul. Only you have meridians that feel just like yours. No demons have the same meridians as each other.”
“Okay… I really really like them! They make me feel warm.”
“Yeah they do! That feeling won’t last forever though.”
She explained that doing stuff with mana would make it go away, but I can get more mana. She told me about things I could eat, or places I could sleep, to gather the mana, as long as I would circulate it like she showed me, so my meridians would store the mana.
“Also, you can use mana to do things other than magic! You already did this by making yourself warm.”
“I did?”
“Yes! I’m so proud of you,” my mom praised me, before explaining that mana can also strengthen our bodies, change how we see the world, and basically anything else someone could imagine.
“Mana,” she finished, “is in the world around us, and changes the world in many ways, but our souls can also use mana through our meridians.”
I did not really understand, but I resolved to practice whenever I could.
“Now, give your mom a kiss and run along, I have to get ready and go out.”
“Okay mom!” I said leaning up to her cheek.
“Alright, now go on! And you better be asleep when I come back!”
“Yes ma’am!” I shouted.
I really like how you use a flashback chapter for exposition. Thank you for the story. Also we know our MC's name Ali.
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