Chapter IV: The Power Of Mental Magic

Mental Magic was unique from other types of Magic, in the sense that it did not have to adhere to one of the three factors stated when casting magic. 

If one still remembers, the three factors were: 

1. How the spell would affect the world. 

2. How the person it was cast on would feel its effects.

3. How it would be perceived when it was cast.

Mental Magic broke the rules when it came to Magic, as it did not follow the first factor. Mental Magic was designed to target the minds and bodies of one's enemies. Therefore, there was no such spell of the Mental type that affected the world. 

If Fire Magic was able to burn the environment, Mental Magic was unable to do the same. Its sole purpose was getting in the mind of your enemies and breaking them down from the inside.

Kenneth, as someone who had barely cast magic in his life, let alone interacted with mana, failed to calculate his Enrage spell. He mistakenly made it lean to the second factor more than he had hoped to. 

After Lena had calmed down, she took one look at her now soiled clothes and laughed loudly. 

"Haha! That was great! I could barely control myself!" Somehow, Lena had teleported from her place to in front of Kenneth in the blink of an eye. 

"You're not… mad?" Kenneth asked, scared that he had accidentally ruined his sister's clothes. He was prepared to get a scolding, but he didn't think this would happen. "Moreover, what was that spell you just used?" 

"Oh, this?" Lena questioned. 

While asking if she was mad Kenneth turned his head away, bracing for a hit or two. 

"What, you thought I was going to hit you? Why would I do that?" From what Kenneth heard, Lena's voice was now coming from a different direction. Turning his head back to face her again, he was surprised to find her now beside the pool. 

"This spell is Blink. I never really bothered to remember about how I created this spell. It just somehow popped up in my head." Lena replied, recounting the events that had happened when she had first learned the spell. 

"You see, when I first thought of Light Magic, I assumed I'd be able to travel at the speed of light," Lena continued. "That was probably when it started. One thing led to another, and soon enough I got this spell." The blonde girl was delighted to explain how she had gotten the spell. 

"Though I haven't quite reached that level yet… hehe." 

"I see. I wonder how that works for my Mental Magic." Kenneth pondered for a bit, his hand on his chin. He ignored the last sentence she spoke and began to think about his innate Magic.

Both him and Lena had struck a thinking pose, brainstorming ideas on how to help the boy. 

"What comes to your mind when you think of Mental Magic?" Lena spoke up. 

"Uh, mostly things like controlling my foes using my magic, stuff like that. Does it have any other use?" Kenneth kept on thinking. As he wasn't experienced in these types of things, he didn't have the slightest clue about the true potential of Mental Magic. 

"Let's start from that then. We'll try to put some of your knowledge into work. You say you've been reading anatomy books lately, right? What emotion are most people subject to the most?" 

"You know, I think this is more of a Psychology question rather than one of Anatomy. But I'll humor you and say Fear." After a short pause, Kenneth responded with a surprising answer. It was like he had been thinking about it for quite a while, too. 

"Why Fear? Don't people experience Joy and Sadness more often?" Lena was interested in what led Kenneth to choose this emotion in question. 

"Well, not everyone experiences Joy to the same degree as other people do. It's the same for sadness as well. Both vary to a large degree from different people. But one common thing that almost everyone faces is fear." Kenneth explained. 

"Some try to challenge this and claim that they don't feel fear, but I think so otherwise. It's not that they can't feel fear, it's just that they haven't. I feel like tampering with this will allow people to submit to me much more easily." Kenneth concluded his explanation, making sure to add a few more sentences to help convince his sister. 

"I won't argue with you, since it seems like you've already thought of it to a good length. In that case, let's proceed to the next stage. Now that we've got Fear, the emotion we want to tamper with, we'll need to figure out how you want to do so." 

Now that they were done with the first stage, next they had to answer the "how" they were supposed to do it. 

"I've thought about that one, too. Since Fear is evident in everybody, even if they haven't felt it yet, I'll have to use this to my advantage in order to make them submit. I think making a person with hydrophobia see an illusion of them in a raging ocean could be one." Kenneth seemed like he was prepared for this question. 

"That… seems very extreme. Playing with people's fears is a cruel thing to do, little brother." Even Lena herself was surprised with the amount of thought Kenneth had put into this. 

"Well, I don't have much else to go off now, do I? I'm almost completely immobilized in my legs, and I can barely walk without tripping. Putting me in close range combat is like asking me to die."

"I guess you'll have to make do with your amount of ammunition. In that case, let's test out this spell of yours. You already know the three factors or rules that came into play when casting a spell, right?" Surely Kenneth already knew it. He'd been reading up on various magic-related books that it'd be a surprise if he didn't.

"I do. Though since I'm a Mental Magic user, I don't have to worry about the first factor. I'm sorry to ask this of you, Lena, but could you be my practice dummy, just this once?" Kenneth brought his hand to his head and did a gesture of pleading. 

"Gladly. Let's start. Hit me with your best shot, little brother." Lena struck a defensive post, and looked like she was ready to take the spell.

"Here goes nothing… Fright." Gathering mana to his fingertips, Kenneth opened his palm as he pointed it towards Lena, releasing his accumulated mana. 

The invisible particles traveled through the air at an astonishing speed. They only had one goal, and it was to reach their opponent. In the blink of an eye the distance between Kenneth and Lena was covered by the particles. 

At first, they were spread out like the gases in the air, but they eventually began to close in together as they proceeded to gather. They all simultaneously floated to the one region Kenneth had designated, which was Lena's brain.

From whatever orifice they could find that was connected to the rest of the body, the particles went in through and began to join the other blood cells as they flowed through the bloodstream towards her brain. 

This explained the momentary pause from earlier when Kenneth had attempted to cast the Enrage spell. The particles were taking their time to move through every part of her body, and slowly binding it to Kenneth's will. 

Unfortunately for Kenneth, he didn't have very fine control over his magic, thus the particles somehow "splitting", with most of them being redirected to Lena's right arm. This also explained her "disobeying" limb that she struggled to keep under control. 

Luckily for Kenneth, since his magic only adhered to two of the factors, he was able to focus more on minute control on each of them, thus allowing his Frighten spell to be more refined than the first one he cast. 

After a brief stillness in which Lena was standing still in her defensive pose, she had to blink. As like any other human did, she had to blink. 

It was only one blink, but once she had opened her eyes again, she was horrified by the sight in front of her. So much that she instantly lost her balance and fell to the ground.

The cheery expression on her face was suddenly replaced with a spooked expression. She was struggling to stand up, for every move she made, those "things" seemed to grow closer. 

With her will, she used all the remaining strength in her body and crawled towards Kenneth, who was standing there with a deadpan look on his face.

"Hey, little brother…" Lena was struggling to get the words out of mouth. She was completely terror-stricken. "This is-isn't funny! Stop this!" Lena shook the apathetic doll of Kenneth in front of her, but no response came. 

"Yo-you're joking… right? Get me out of here!" Lena kept on shaking the unresponsive body of Kenneth, tears flowing out of her eyes. 

Unable to handle the pressure, Lena's eyes went up to her head and she passed out. 

Unbeknownst to the two of them, in the real world, only two seconds had passed! 

Kenneth didn't know, but all that was happening was only happening inside Lena's mind. He underestimated his abilities too much and caused his sister to experience something no one should've seen.

"Hmm… Lena? Lena?!" Kenneth, who had taken his sight of off his sister for only a few seconds, soon was shocked to find out that his sister was unconscious on the ground beside him. 

Seeing how urgent it was, Kenneth stopped the spell immediately. 

From what Kenneth remembered, he was sure that he did everything the correct way. He had earnestly followed the rules of casting magic and adjusted his spell in order to fit that. 

How the person it was cast on would feel its effects.

Kenneth was sure that he had only modeled the spell to produce barely frightening images he had remembered seeing on the internet.

How the spell was to be perceived. 

Sure enough, the spell could be perceived pretty easily. First of all, the person it was cast on would be able to feel the tingly feeling that would inhabit their body as the result of the particles forcing their way in. 

The second would be the same tingly feeling, slightly larger in magnitude as a result of the particles officially entering the bloodstream, but that was about it. 

Kenneth was sure he had done everything correctly. 

So what went wrong?

 

After a bit of waiting Lena finally woke up. Kenneth didn't call for his family, since he was afraid that they would overreact. Kenneth had inspected Lena's body and found out that other than her sweating, possibly from the bad dreams, she was in good condition. 

Kenneth judged that there was no need to get his parents and Lucas involved in the matter, and instead waited for Lena to wake up by herself. 

His sister would occasionally twist and turn, a sign that the bad dreams were a bit more intense than he had hoped. Fortunately she calmed down after a few pats. 

"How long was I asleep…'' Lena interrupted Kenneth's deep thinking as the voice of his sister snapped him back to reality. 

"Lena! I'm so sorry!" Kenneth immediately got down on his knees, which was oddly difficult since he couldn't move them very well, but he did so. The toddler apologized profusely for his mistake in handling the spell. "I hope you can forgive me for this." 

"It's okay… I was surprised too. I didn't know you were this strong. Don't worry about me, the bad dreams should go away soon." Lena didn't seem like she was okay, so in order to help calm her down, Kenneth got up from his position and took up his walking stick. 

Kenneth then went over to Lena, where he positioned himself behind his older sister.

Then, almost as if he was welcoming back an old friend, Kenneth wrapped his arms around his sister's slender body, and muttered a few words to her ear. 

"I'm sorry."