The late morning breeze and the idle town noise from the horizon bestow a tranquil sensation underneath the shade of the large tree where the old master rests. Unfortunately, Adi’s dreadful snores ruined this serene moment atop the grassy hill.

“Master Adi, wake up!” I kicked his shin and he immediately woke up.

“Ow!” Adi sits on his grassy bed, “Why did you do that!”

“I already did five laps around the town,” Gasping for air, I wipe off my sweat, “Hiking up this hill is not easy, how exactly does this help build up my mana!?”

“I don’t know,” he yawns, “I was hoping a little bit of exercise could work, I guess not…”

I let out a loud groan, and some birds flew away, “Do you even know what we’re doing!?”

“Of course, I do!” Adi stretched out his arms, “It’s just… I can’t teach you any incantations if you don’t have any mana!”

“Can I just say say the words?”

Adi smacked the back of my head, “That’s not how magic works!”

“Ah!” My weak knees folded, and I fell face-first on the grass, “Well, how does magic work?!”

Adi clicks his tongue, “Look around you! That’s magic! Everything you see, even the rocks they are filled with that stuff! Think of it as air, it’s everywhere! Those farmers you see down there, they have mana. But you? You don’t!”

“What? So, I’m the problem?” I properly sit beside him, “Maybe you’re just too old to know I even have mana?”

Adi smacked my head again, “You fool! I am still young enough to throw you off this hill and carry you back!” his threat sounded silly, “I am never wrong when knowing one’s mana!”

“Well, how do you even know if someone has mana?” I massaged the back of my head, “I bet you’re just guessing!”

He scoffs, “Ha! I could read their auras, of course, you stupid kid, did no one teach you how this stuff works?”

I lowered my head, “No… Hearth only showed me some of her tricks but she never taught me…”

Adi took his time to respond, “Maybe because she also couldn’t see your aura,” he inspected his hand that he used to smack my head, “Look, kid, it’s normal to be normal. Some soldiers and guardsmen got mana but they chose to be normal sword-swinging bastards! Face it, you’re average!”

I let out a sigh, “I don’t want to be average, again. I want to have at least done something or learn a new thing!” I covered my sweaty face with my hands, “How about you help me do the sketches again?”

“Look, we already did that yesterday. According to you, none of my sketches of your mysterious man fits!” he removes some dirt from her fingernails, “How about you forget all about it and help with the preparation for the ceremony?”

I shake my head, “I’ll help on the last day, that way I’ll only do the easy remaining ones.” I remove my hands from my face, “How about you do the sketches better?”

“How about you say the description better?”

“I’m not going to find this person, am I?” I moan in despair.

“Yeah, yeah, so what, boo hoo.” he rests his face on his hand, “Why did you say ‘again’?”

“Say what?”

“Earlier, you said,” Adi looked at me seriously, “I don’t want to be average, again, wah, wah,” he imitated me exaggeratedly and added baby noises.

Alarmed, I sweat profusely, “No, I didn’t… Uh, you must’ve heard something else,”

“Kid, we are literally near each other, I heard you loud and clear,”

“Well, maybe I meant something else!”

Uncertainly indifferent, he rolled his eyes and stared back at the town, “Hmm, if you say so,”

“Yeah, yeah,” I chuckled nervously, “You won’t believe me anyway…”

“Try me.”

I gulped, almost choking, “Really? You won’t find me crazy, send me off somewhere, and shame my family?”

“Holy gods, just tell me.” Adi’s voice was loud.

I contemplated it. The reason why I don’t tell my family or anyone for that matter is because of my fear of being branded as a weirdo. Just like my father from the past life. But, I guess a weird old man is fine?

“I had a past life and I believe I was reincarnated here.”

Adi looks at me with a blank expression on his face, “Eh, boring,”

“Oh…” relieved by the in-character anticlimactic of it all.

Adi smirks, “You thought I’d be amazed? What reaction were you hoping for?” he stands up and points somewhere, “There’s a lot of reincarnation stories of some hero in our history, I bet everybody who wants to be somebody all had that dream!”

“Yeah… I read about it…” I recall my earliest effort to find my father.

“But I believe you,” he turns and points at me, “And I understand why you don’t want that secret revealed. Society is not ready for men like us!”

“Ah…” I chuckled awkwardly, “Maybe, so please, keep it a secret…”

“Your secret is safe with me, crazy kid,” he flexed his muscles, “Including Howie and Imelda’s secret fortune and their four adopted kids!”

“What!” I jumped, taken aback by his revelation. I rolled a few feet down the hill. I have avoided asking about it since I heard about it yesterday. I didn’t even want to discuss the topic!

“What, so you don’t know you’re adopted?”

“Of course, I kn– I, uh… I-” I stammered, sweating, and nervous.

“Gods, you’re the most sorry-looking kid I ever met. And I don’t even talk to lots of kids!” Adi rests his arms on his waist while shaking his head.

“H-How!?”

“How what?”

I stood up, my legs still shaking, “How did you figure it out!?”

He raised a brow, “What do you mean I figured it out?” he pointed at me, “I knew all along!”

My voice trembles and my words forget their way out of my mouth. My limbs shaking. So there’s someone outside my family who knew our secrets.

“I see, so you still don’t get it!?” Adi puts down his hand, “Everything about your family is full of abnormal mana disturbances and aura irregularities! You, Barth, Hearth, and Garth, don’t have the same connection, even if one or two of your siblings are stronger in wielding their mana, there must be some sort of semblance in your normal state!”

“I don’t understand, what do you mean?!”

Adi grins, “Mana and Aura, they are almost the same. When someone strong with magic reads your aura, they can estimate your mana! So, if I were to read a random twin’s aura and mana, they both should have the same reading!”

I slowly shake my head, “And?”

“And that also works for normal siblings, even if their mana output is different, their aura should have some sort of connection!”

“Wait! I realized you’re explaining complex weirdness about mana and auras, can you tell me what they even are?!” I stepped closer to him.

“Stupid, weren’t you listening?!” he said, “Mana is like… pee! You can only have some of it and you can only use them depending on how much pee you have!”

My eyes twitched, “And aura?”

Adi pouts his lips thinking of examples, “Auras are like hair! Patterns, strands, how many, what color, its thickness, and even the lice you may have. Imagine, when reading auras, there are invisible hairy auras around you, around me, and around everything and everyone you see! That is aura!”

“I think I get it now,” my brows contorted as the information sinks in.

“Of course, you get it, I’m a great teacher,” Adi pounds his chest, “Everything is made up of mana and releases some kind of auras. All of those people.” he points at the town again, he likes pointing, “Uses an amount of mana whether they fart, eat, carry boxes, shout at their husbands, and kiss their missus! Their manas make it all happen!”

I approached him closer, “It’s in everyone, everything, and everywhere?”

“Yes!” he shouted, “It’s in the air! It’s in the void! Mana helps you create anything from nowhere!”

“So that’s what mana and aura is?” I cleared my throat, “Energies we can’t see, energies that connect us all?”

“Now, you’re finally getting it!” Adi dances with delight while laughing, he celebrates my breakthrough, “But remember you have to be a trained mage to use your mana to cast a fire from nothing and you need to be a great one if you want to shoot a fireball!”

“Right,” I smiled, “So, even me?”

“Yes, of course!” Adi laughed, “Or maybe,” his laughter and dancing stopped, “I don’t want to let our hopes up,”

“Then let’s find out!” I nodded, but my spirit was determined, “I understand it all now. So, this is magic… Is this how you find out about our secret?”

‘No, Howie told me after he lost a drinking match back then,” he said.