Project Pegasus

V1.1 Chapter 2: What Makes a Genius, Genius?

"If others can do it, then you can do it too." A quote I usually hear from my elders. But, is it really true? People have different sets of talents, resources and even personalities. What a person can do depends on these three. But if all of us are different then can we really say that we can do what others can do? No, that is wrong. Some people are blessed with good things while others only have a few. Sometimes, hard work is not enough to get what you really want. There's always someone better out there, someone who can do magnificent things with minimal effort. Someone... who's called a genius.

***

Morning came. After breakfast, I immediately asked Emily to teach me magic.

"H-Hiiro? Why do you want to learn magic?" she inquired with a puzzled look.

"It's just that... When I saw you use magic before, I thought you looked cool."

"C-cool? I'm not really..." she murmured while averting her gaze by looking down.

"And I thought that if I learn magic... I can fight beside you and protect you."

She stared at me as if verifying the gravity in my words. "Hiiro..." she smiled. "Alright, I'll teach you magic."

I'm sorry for lying to you, Emily, but I need to do this.

***

Under the dying tree, we've decided to take the lessons near the house. Attentively, I listened to her while she discussed the basics of magic.

Life energy determines when a living being would die. Having a little of it means it would die early, and vice versa.

However, when a living being dies before all of its life energy is depleted, the remaining life energy will then fuse with the surrounding energy, creating mana.

This mana is what mages use to create certain phenomenon like shooting fireballs, controlling animals and other things. This event is called magic.

"Then... How can I use magic?"

"Y-you just need to learn how to control mana. There are two ways to do this," she replied while holding her scepter with both of her hands. "You can either write a rune or use a magic tool. The first one is much harder since you need to write the runes manually. The second one requires writing lesser symbols, some don't even need one since it's already programmed inside the magic tool. For low to mid-tier spells, if you practice enough you'll eventually learn to cast it without an incantation. However, for using high-tier spells, without a good magic tool, you will need an incantation."

"Hmm. I see. I see. That kind of makes sense to me now." I murmured, remembering how she did all those things in the forest. "Then, how do I write a rune?"

"I'm sorry," she apologized, with a low-pitched voice while gazing to me with a concerned look. "I can't teach you how to write a rune today."

"Hmm? Then what am I going to do today?"

"I'm sorry, but you first need to meditate," she answered, softly.

Based on what she said, in order to control mana, one needs a huge amount of concentration. Since I don't need to eat nor drink, I meditated for three days straight. Emily continued to watch me even at night. She also seemed to be stitching something during my meditation.

***

Suddenly, I found myself at the rooftop of a building, looking at a girl standing at the side ready to jump.

"Stop!!!" I shouted. "Haruka, Stop!!!"

"I'm sorry," the girl replied, jumping backwards.

Soon, a bunch of words echoed all over the place.