Conjuring a building needed tier three magic whereas the kids could only use chore magic. Leria shook her head and followed Lith near the lake again.
"Today your training will be all about control. I want you to practice both air and water magic so that once we go back home, you can start helping your mothers with the house chores." His words made the children groan but Lith ignored them.
"No matter how boring a task seems, as long as you perform it with magic, it will give you precious experience. How can I trust you with spells that can part the sea if you can't even wash the floor properly?" Lith said while looking at Aran.
He made a few random gestures while counting from one to three in English and the waters of the lake opened forming a path a few meters long. A wave of his hand made the soil solid, allowing him to walk without sinking in the mud.
"Without control, the water would turn into a blade and cut all the poor fish or become unstable and drown us." The kids had followed him and were now below the ground level, surrounded by water walls from three sides.
They understood his words, yet they felt no fear as they trusted Lith too much and were engrossed by the sight of the underwater wildlife. As Lith moved forward, the water opened in front of him, offering the kids the next best thing to visiting an aquarium on Earth.
The phenomenon caused sparkles of light that lured the fish, allowing the kids to see them from up close. They all had plain and dull colors, but they moved with grace. The bravest and the dumbest among the fish even dared to jump past the gap to reach the other side.
"Can we really learn to do something like this just by washing floors?" Leria asked while putting her hand in the water wall and yet finding it dry once she took it out.
"Wax on, wax off, Daniel-san." Lith replied.
"What?" The kids said in unison.
"It means that you must have a solid grasp of the basics before being able to perform a complex craft." Lith sighed as he walked them back to the shore of the lake.
"Water and air both follow the same principle. They are only as hard as you make them. They can be soft." A wave of Lith's left hand generated a thin mist while that from the right conjured a gentle breeze that ruffled the hair of his apprentices.
"They can be balanced." The mist turned into a water whip that struck the ground, leaving a deep mark, while the breeze turned into a storm that made it hard for the kids to stands.
"And they can be hard." The whip broke out into several ice shards that pinned to the ground a different blade of grass each while the storm turned into an air blade that mowed down the vegetation near the camp.
"If you don't learn how to handle their hardness, you won't be able to use light and earth, while if you don't master their softness, you'll have no control over darkness and fire." Lith said.
"How long does it take to learn all of this stuff?" Leria suddenly felt dispirited. She had always believed that love for magic and good intentions would suffice whereas being a mage seemed to require a lot of hard work.
"It doesn't take long to learn it, but you need time and practice to master it." Lith replied, giving them the time to ponder his words.
"I don't plan on teaching you everything in one go." Leria and Aran sighed in relief. "I just want to give you the tools you need to practice on your own without harming yourselves or others.
"Leria, yesterday you worried so much about the fish, yet based on what Rena told me, you find it funny to make people slip on your ice and fall. What if they hit their head or break a bone? Are people less important than fish in your eyes?"
"I never thought about it, but we live nearby the healer. He can help them." Leria turned beet red in embarrassment.
"Aran, what about you cutting things to shreds with air magic inside our home?"
"I didn't mean to. I was just trying to help Mom dusting the floor quickly so that we could play together." Aran stared at his own feet in shame. Every time he tried to help Elina, he ended up giving her more work.
"What if you cut Mom in your rush? Or Onyx? Would you care for such excuses? The same stands for you, Leria. What if the next time you light the curtains of your room your whole house goes on fire?" Lith asked, stopping only when the kids started hiccupping.
"I want to think about my words the next time you decide to use magic 'just to have some fun.' Do you know who has fun watching others suffering and doesn't care for the consequences of their actions?" Lith hugged them and patted their backs.
"The bad guys." The kids said in unison.
"My point exactly. Magic isn't good or bad, it all comes down to how you use it. Now wash your faces, clean your noses, and get to work, or we'll never get back home." Lith ruffled their hair, glad to see they had learned their lesson.
A few minutes later, the kids proved to be able to conjure water and wind with ease. Yet while Leria had troubles cutting anything with air, Aran failed to make either mist or ice. He just conjured lots of water with every attempt he made.
"Leria what do you think is your problem?" He asked.
"I'm doing as you taught us yesterday. I'm focusing my mana in a short line to turn the air current into a blade, yet my spell lacks power. Brezza!" She waved her hand, making several tall plants bend without breaking them.
Lith could see from a distance the mark left by her spell as if she had struck them with a dull blade.
"You don't lack power. You just went from one extreme to another and now you're scared of what you can do. You don' need to be afraid, just to be smart about how you use your magic,like I do." Lith said.
Leria took a deep breath and cast the spell again, cutting only the nearest line of grass.
"Perfect. Now just train in sending your blade exactly as deep as you want it to go. What about you, Aran?"
"I don't get that soft and hard part you talked about, big bro. Air magic is easy. You just need to use a little of mana, a lot of mana, or a lot of compressed mana." Aran emitted a breeze, a gust of wind, and an air blade in quick succession.
The latter ripped more than cut the top part of the tall grass in the area Lith had assigned his little brother as his training spot.
"Water magic, instead makes no sense. I have one word and one hand sign. How am I supposed to obtain three different effects?" Aran asked.
06/20 Important Announcement: Read it in the Author's thoughts below. If you can't find them, you're reading from a pirate site.
