{Nicholas Anstalionah.}
Mirabel went in depth on things I could not possibly know, and it became painfully clear how truly ignorant of magic I was.
[Ignorance is bliss.]
I sighed.
Magic can be said to be the gift to humanity in which God so graciously handed it.
Such as, magical spells which are grounded on the will, emotion, and power of a user can be vastly different.
A spell as simple as a ball of fire, it can be a raging inferno which consumes the wind and sea.
Or a calm spark which aims to evaporate the soul, the will behind the spell is important, so much as the emotion.
It can change how the spell accounts regarding souls, can change the spell's power as well, as if you give it an identity you give it power.
This is the act of naming spells, as she put it, such a thing was beyond my knowledge.
It is animae which gives things identity, as such the law of identity is another law which is made truly unbreakable.
Though I guess it can be said that the higher laws, the ones which those great wills lay out, cannot be broken.
Mirabel attempted to explain to me a wide range of concepts regarding magic laws and the world, none of it truly stuck.
However some of it did cling on hopelessly.
One could be that magic can alter laws, however the laws which transcend laws, as she put it, cannot be altered.
She failed to clarify as to what this truly meant, as it was only to highlight the world's inferiority to all other realms beyond Earth.
Still it would do me well to go research it, in the library, as I am sure Midir said something similar.
The will from those in Heaven are concepts which can thus create laws, which can thus be enforced and weakened by the other wills.
Creating reality as we know it, that was my current understanding, at the very least.
We stood in the vacant training grounds.
The facility was empty, everyone else had gone out to prepare, and night was slowly creeping across the sky.
She held up her dulled iron sword. In response, I mirrored her stance, gripping my own weapon tightly.
"Now, Nicholas," she said, her voice calm but edged with authority.
"This will lead us into the next lesson: Regalia. For now, try your best, and be sure to use a lot of magic."
I nodded and began forming runes all around me, letting them bloom across the ground like a constellation of intent.
Then I launched myself forward.
My blade came down in a haze, surrounded by the glow of runes.
At the moment I aimed to strike, gravity itself collapsed beneath her, a miniature black hole, with her standing at the singularity.
Yet she did not falter.
Her blade thrust forward, faster than my swing, and I was flung back, barely managing to land on my feet.
At the same time, three small orbs of light, eerily as powerful as stars, hurtled toward me.
I ducked, careful not to be obliterated by their mass, and flicked my wrist.
The gravity loosened, giving me a moment to breathe, though I had to pour more of my magicae into the motion to compensate.
She rose into the air, and I quickly formed runes around my blade, channeling a torrent of water.
This affinity, gifted to me by my mother, was then compressed by the gravity runes.
The resulting stream became a near infinitely dense point, capable of piercing anything. I fired it straight at her chest.
She took it without hesitation, falling gracefully before me.
Then, with a swirl of her hand, low red flames coalesced into a pillar, blasting me into the air.
I stepped onto the runes I had laid and drove downward, evading her descending kick.
As I landed, I pivoted my head, avoiding her thrust, and unleashed all remaining runes, forming a massive black hole behind her.
It pulled her in, and even though she held back, she struggled to break free.
I poured the last of my magicae into a final spell, a serpent of water, twisting toward her.
But before it could strike, it burst into a cloud of magical particles, clear and potent.
This was her ability, her Regalia, which she called Root.
The power to reduce all things: eternal, infinite, finite, or dead, back to their origin.
Even at less than full strength, its force was grave, undeniable.
I had no magic left without forming new runes, which would drain me mentally.
Still, I forced one last attempt.
I created a small bubble of gravity around my blade as she broke free from the black hole's pull and swung downward.
Gravity surged after the strike, splitting the clouds across the kingdom.
It was a power that cracked the sky, stretching to the stars themselves. And yet she caught it in her bare hands.
Blood spurted from my nose as she gently set me on the ground.
"I see now," she said, calm, analytical, yet kind.
"You don't have good control over your magicae, likely from that illness. I'll have a lot of work to do."
I looked up at her. She was beautiful, too much for words.
In that moment, I felt weak, humbled, and strangely exposed.
She was right. She had work to do, and so did I.
I straightened. It was easier with my sister's power to fight, that much was true, yet I could still remember that feeling clearly.
The feeling of strength surging through my body.
[Nicholas was near an awakening.]
I tried to link my current power to that lingering sensation, and as I did, my body began to tremble.
It twisted and contorted, the world itself seeming to reject the transformation, and Mirabel saw me but chose not to intervene.
I couldn't help but scream.
The sound ripped from my throat, only to be abruptly cut off by the echo of a chain snapping.
My magicae surged and rampaged through my body. The shackles of this world, so unbearably heavy, seemed to fade and peel away.
I coughed and dropped to my knees. "I've… reached another wall?"
[Nicholas was a lazy man. Such a thing made his wishes slightly easier, though he was also a lucky little bastard.]
I kept coughing for a while, trying to understand this strange tang in my chest. My growth had never been this fast before.
Am I secretly a genius?
[Nicholas was delusional.]
I frowned and looked up at Mirabel.
"Might we go again?"
She stared for a moment, confused, then smiled. "Yeah."
She helped me back into my stance, passing a stream of her magicae into me, allowing my body to mend and rebuild just enough for another round.
I braced myself and steadied my existence. It seemed as though something strange had just happened.
By trying to reclaim that earlier surge of power, my body had remembered, clearly, instinctively, what it felt like to break a shackle.
That memory alone drove it to gnaw at that boundary until it finally shattered.
Man must claw at God.
That is what is true, pitiful as it may be.
Yet it is also His grace that allows us to delude ourselves into thinking we can reach beyond what we are.
Mirabel lifted her sword as I raised mine, and her lips parted to declare the next lesson.
"This time, let's focus on using magicae to refine yourself. It seems learning to control that will be better first."
I nodded, watching as light cascaded from her body. Having celestial magic, she wielded the power of the stars.
Which included space and time, gravity, light, heat, and creation. This was the magic she had been gifted.
This was why she remained strong before most, and formidable before all.
And I was the one who saw the grand gap between us, for as she surged forward, all I saw rushing at me was a blazing red giant.