• “Can you teach me how to use magic…?”
• “Certainly... but...”

‘She seems hesitant… Something is wrong maybe...’

• “Is there a problem?”
• “Remember what I said about affinities?”
• “That spirits have affinities?”
• “Yes, and that is true for others as well. Unfortunately there are those born with only magical energy and without any affinity for an element. This doesn’t mean they will never be able to use magic. But their time spent in pursuit of magic… let’s just say it’s best spent elsewhere… What I mean to say is… well… it might not be in your best interest to learn to use magic…
  Of course if you insist, I won’t stop you…”

‘So in essence she means: I can use magic but I don’t have talent for it. That just sounds like I don’t have the skills for it… Right if it’s like that I maybe able to remedy it. Time to turn in these points… Before that I should get the hang of using magical energy or something first. I mean it’s probably mana, I’ll call it mana that’s shorter anyway.’

• “Unfortunately I must insist.”

The spirit was surprised for a moment before a gentle smile rested on her face.

• “Very well…
  As you are most likely unaware of your innate magical energy, first we have to make you able to discern it. The easiest way to do that is to stimulate it from the outside.”
• “And… how will we do that?”
• “Quite simple actually, I’ll have my magical energy course through you. Hold your hands out.”
• “Like this?”

Alicia presented her hands forward, because of their height difference - between a spirit in a human girl’s form at around 1.6m and half a human perched on top of a huge spider, together their height is that of 2.2m - she had to lean down a bit.

• “Yes, that’s enough...”

The spirit supported Alicia’s hands from below, her hands gently grasping her fingers.

• “This might feel uncomfortable, regardless of the impression it may give, memorise the sensation and try to feel the same all throughout your body. Are you ready?”

Nodding her head as an affirmation Alicia braced herself for what may come and closed her eyes to focus and not to miss anything. Shortly after the answer, a strange feeling of something flowing through her body. As the spirit had said, the feeling was uniform within her body except her hands. Streaming in from her left hand, flowing through her body and exiting by her right hand. The outlandish sensation could be more strongly felt through her hands.

‘It’s like feeling your own blood flow; you know it’s flowing, you can sometimes feel it as your heart beats faster after an exercise. At the beginning it felt as if I got shocked, but gradually it changed, now it’s like a cool stream of water gently flowing, how relaxing... Ah I can’t fall asleep here, I have to remember the feeling before it goes away…’

As their hands separated after what felt like a half an hour, just like the lingering warmth on her hands, the feeling quickly threatened to fade away. But as Alicia calmly tried to relive the impression, it returned to her swiftly; through it she could feel where the magical energy was in her body and they were everywhere within her. She could feel it’s movement, to describe it: It was as if someone could feel their own blood coursing through their body, from largest of arteries to the smallest of veins. Each uniquely different from the last. Not too dissimilar to the circulation of blood, it flowed into her lower half, the spider’s abdomen and back to her human torso. The head, chest, stomach, everywhere. Then down into her abdomen, back and forths again, again and again.

‘Well that wasn’t too bad, just the start was weird. After a while I think I got used to it. The feeling was fine, pleasant even.’ Firmly committing the experience to her memories she opened her eyes. What her eyes saw first was the spirit looking down fidgeting ever so slightly every now and then.

• “Hey! Are you okay?”

Perhaps due to being called out suddenly she yelped out with an “Eek!”

• “What?! Yes of course. How was it? Did you learn how to perceive it?”

Now looking up to her, her face was beet red, seemingly feverish. ‘Are you really though with that face?’ Alicia thought but decided to leave it alone as she seemed like she wouldn’t tell her anyway even if she pushed the matter further.

• “I think so… what next?”
• “For now try to learn how to move it around your body, after that you can try outward emission. I need to take a little break, I'll be nearby.”

After excusing herself the spirit disappeared into the depths of the lake. ‘You’re definitely not okay. I hope I’m not troubling her too much… Hey won’t your dress get wet like that? Shouldn’t you at least take it off first? Well it’s hers anyway, I doubt she cares if it’s wet or not.’

‘Now that I can feel my mana, I should be able to use it for something. Let’s start with something small. I want to see what I can do with rank 2 fire aspect. Since it’s tied to principle magic I need to uprank that to it’s second grade first...’

Expecting a new sensation she was somewhat thrilled. Contrary to her expectation the feeling was much more subtle and gradual, it was akin to warming up.

‘Doesn’t feel much different, how anticlimactic. That’s life I guess… Now can I make fire like a zippo lighter?’ Pooling her magical energy to her fingertips of her thumb, middle and index fingers Alicia imagined flames clinging to her fingers and burning like lighter and executed it with a fingersnap. Nothing… Just because she could didn’t mean she was going to be successful on the first try. 

‘I felt the mana emission and I think I saw a little bit of sparks… Hm… The phenomenon and cost are disproportionate. Maybe I'm not doing it right… What caused the sparks and how do I make more of it…’ She made another attempt to cause fire. Again the same results. This time paying attention to her magical energy Alicia learned something. ‘My mana cohesion is wrong… The mana that burns is low compared to my innate mana… Then can I just turn my innate mana to the combustible one…?’

After some trial and error she found that her magical energy that flows between her spider abdomen and the human torso can change their properties during the process. And she could consciously have her magical energy change forms. In just a single cycle almost all of her innate magical energy changed to that of the more flammable mana.

Using her new fuel she tried again. ‘Third time’s the charm, here we go…’ With a satisfying crackle a fire had started. An orange flame similar to that of lighter’s danced atop her index finger, swaying periodically to the wind. Even though her fingers were very much so on fire they weren’t burnt at all, in fact she felt a comfortable warmth, not a scorching flame.

Encouraged by her results she created another fire, fire often seen in video games and other entertainment media. A spherical ball of fire, it’s diameter a ¼ of a meter shot out to the sky. After flying upwards for a long while it disintegrated to nothing.

‘Now we’re cooking with fire, literally. How far can I take this? What other fires do I know? Hm… that could work but… Actually…  I wonder… It’s worth a shot…’

Another new pool of magical energy found home inside her unlike anything she felt before; it was like a fluffy cloud and slow breeze was within her. Imagining a type of fuel she once again made another fireball this time it being as large as she could manage it. It’s immense size was around at least a meter. The golden flames that spout forth from the fireball had sooty black smoke coming off it. After confirming the flames were born from what she had created using air aspect. She increased her production of the fuel. The flames now roaring with intensity and the flames started to feather, losing some of their black smoke, burnt with bright yellow color.

Though she was unfazed by it, the nearby foliage even if the fireball’s heat wasn’t focused on them, was withering from the intense radiating heat it produced. But she wasn’t done with her experiment. ‘And now the oxygen…’ As she introduced a new gas…

‘I expected that much… Now to test another theory…’

‘Time for an encore.’

Once more she created the fireball… this time she slowly introduced a certain type of liquid. Flames changed color, from golden yellow to bright white and then finally settling on piercing blue.

• “What are you doing?!”
• “Ah!” startled by the sudden interjection Alicia shot the fireball into the sky.
  The sphere of flames quickly ascended, incinerating everything that was caught in it to ashes with mere touch, carbonizing even those that weren’t in its direct path. It rose to skies high before combusting in a grand explosion. Even if it was daytime the firework display was all too visible and just as audible.
• “You scared me, don’t sneak up on me like that!”
• “Forgive me but, what was that?”
• “Uh, you told me to try to use my mana in outward emissions”
• “Ma- a what? Nevermind that why’re you using fire magic in a forest? What if you start a fire that you can’t control?”

‘Fair point… I didn’t think about that, but I did get the water aspect… I got too excited with magic, I mean it’s magic! Something every kid dreams of using it.
Whatever do you mean by I’m already 27? I died and got reincarnated. I’m legally and quite literally below the age of 1. So technically I am a kid…

This train of thought just got weird, I'll just forget about it and apologize.’

‘When did these guys show up… Pyroblast huh, and it even knows what fuel I was using… This thing’s pretty convenient.’

• “Yeah… you’re right, I’m sorry. I’ll be careful.”

‘So earth connection is severed or something like that… probably because I didn’t get the skill that supports it…’

⟨ Presence Detection ⟩ ⟨ Pallesthesia ⟩

‘…That’s… quick steps… light… fast… running… stopped… slowed down… heavier steps… crouching…? They’re coming here, but also keeping their distance… Not visible yet I should be able to see them soon…’

• “No more fire today, we’ll carry on with water instead.”
• “There’s someone coming here, are you expecting someone?”
• “What? I don’t have visitors… wait it’s them… You should hide somewhere, I’ll drive them away.”
• “Okay sure.” ‘Who’s them? Whatever, if it’s hiding that’s something I do the best.’

‘Any time now…’ Alicia was on tree tops trying to get an angle to see what was coming.

• “Show yourself. I know you’re there. If you don’t answer, I’ll see if you’re amphibious or not.”

‘That’s just drowning with extra steps… I didn’t think she was this… brutal…’

Responding to her declaration they slowly came forth, from behind the cover of leaves and branches. What came out was…