Ethan's pov
The three books Havi dropped on me weren't exactly light reading. They hit my arms like a stack of bricks, smelling like a mix of old basement and burnt copper. I spent the first week just staring at the pages, realizing that magic in this world wasn't about waving a wand and making a wish like in those harry potter movies . It was more like trying to rewire a house while the power was still on.
The book on "Barrier Magic", or what Havi called "Bounded Fields", was the worst. It wasn't just about making a wall. It was about creating a space where the rules of the world changed. To do it, I had to "map" my internal nodes . If I pushed the energy through the wrong "wire" in my soul, it wouldn't just fail; it felt like someone was shoving a hot needle into my brain.
"You're overthinking it," Havi would grumble from the porch, not even looking up from whatever he was doing. I'd be sitting in the dirt, sweat dripping off my chin, trying to make a tiny patch of air feel "solid," and he'd just sit there like a grumpy gargoyle.
By the second week, I tried to move on to "Telekinesis". I figured, I can lift a boulder with my bare hands using reinforcement, how hard can it be to move a pebble?
Turns out, it was incredibly annoying.
The book explained that Telekinesis wasn't "pushing" an object. If you just shoved magic at a rock, the energy would hit the surface and scatter like water hitting a wall. To actually move it, you had to "Envelope" it. You had to extend your own sense of touch outward, wrapping your magic around the object until it felt like it was part of your own body.
"It's not a muscle, Ethan!" Elara shouted from across the yard. She was hanging laundry, but she was watching me fail with a grin on her face. I was glaring at a small rock, trying to "shove" it with my mind.
"I'm trying!" I snapped back, my face turning red.
She walked over, flicked her finger, and the pebble hopped into the air, spinning like a coin. "You're treating it like a physical thing. Stop trying to shove it. You have to 'connect' to it. Imagine the air between you and the rock is actually a limb. If you yank it, the limb breaks. You have to gently 'cradle' the weight before you lift it."
I tried again, closing my eyes. I reached out with that buzzing feeling under my skin, letting it drift toward the rock like a thin mist. I didn't try to push. Instead, I tried to feel the texture of the stone through the magic. I felt the rough edges and the cool surface. The second I felt that connection, I gave it a tiny nudge. The pebble didn't just move; it floated up an inch, trembling in the air before I lost my focus and it dropped.
"There," Elara laughed, ruffling my hair. "You stopped fighting the rock and started wearing it. You'll get it, little man."
The third week was when things got weird. I started on "Illusions"
The book said illusions were about "Atmospheric Refraction" and "Mental Interference." Basically, you had to use your mana to change the way light bounced off the air around you. It was like creating a 3D hologram by vibrating the molecules of the atmosphere. If you did it right, you could make a person see a wall where there was a door, or make yourself look like a shadow.
I spent hours in front of a cracked mirror in the dorms, trying to do something simple: change my forest-green eyes to a boring brown. Every time I tried, my face just went blurry, like I was looking through a rainy window.
But then, that wired instinct, the weird gut feeling that usually helped me with the sword, kicked in.
I stared into the mirror, and suddenly, I didn't just see my reflection. It was like I could see the "glitch" in the light. I could see the actual waves of color hitting the air. My mind started calculating exactly how much magic I needed to "tilt" those waves to change the color. It felt like a cheat code.
With a tiny shiver of magic, my eyes turned brown. Then, with another thought, I turned my black hair a bright, snowy white.
"Wait... what?"
I looked up. Elara was standing in the doorway, her laundry basket nearly slipping out of her hands. She stared at me, her jaw dropping. "Ethan? How did you do that? Havi told me it takes years to learn how to manipulate the light that cleanly!"
I let the magic go, and my hair turned black again. "I don't know. I just... I saw where the light was supposed to go. I could feel the vibrations of the colors. It just felt like common sense."
Elara walked in, looking at me with a mix of pride and something that looked a bit like fascination . "You're a freak, Ethan. A talented freak, but still."
Despite the "cheating" with illusions, the Bounded Field was still my biggest wall. I just couldn't make the shield "set" in the air. It required a level of willpower I hadn't tapped into yet.
A few days later, I was out in the woods with Elara, helping her find herbs for Havi. She was teasing me about the "pebble incident" when a sudden, loud CRACK echoed above us.
I looked up. A massive, dead branch, thick as my torso, was falling straight for Elara's head. She was looking at a patch of mushrooms, totally oblivious to the danger.
My mind went blank. I didn't think about "circuits" or "refraction." I didn't think about the books. I just felt this explosive, desperate "NO" in my gut. I poured every bit of my mana into the air above her, screaming at the atoms to stay still.
PROTECT!
A shimmering, translucent barrier snapped into the air right over her.
he branch slammed into the shield. The wood shattered into splinters, and the barrier rang out with a loud, metallic "GONG" before vanishing. Elara jumped, spinning around to see the debris on the ground. I was standing there, shaking, with blood dripping from my nose from the sudden strain.
"Ethan!" she gasped, running over. "You did it! That was a perfect Bounded Field! You anchored the space!"
I wiped the blood from my lip, my head spinning. The magic headache was back, but I didn't care. I'd actually done it. I'd rewritten a tiny piece of reality to keep her safe.
"but damn that was most basic of barrier , and it took every thing out of me "
That night, Havi called me to the porch. He didn't say "good job." He didn't even mention the branch.
"You've touched all three paths now," he said, his single blue eye staring at the stars. "The illusions are easy for you because you're already looking for the lies in the world. But the barrier... that takes a solid heart. You finally found yours today."
"It's way harder than the sword," I said, sitting on the steps, my body still feeling heavy.
"The sword is just physical training something you can train with enough hard work ," Havi replied. "Magic is telling rules to shut up and operate on metaphysical and conceptual realm . You've got a knack for the tricks, Ethan, but don't get cocky. A weak man relies on the lie. My student relies on the truth."
Havi reached into his robe and pulled out a silver coin. He didn't touch it, but it started to float, spinning fast between us.
"From tomorrow, Elara will be your senior for Illusions. She'll teach you how to hide your magic so people don't realize you're using it," Havi said. "And I'll handle the barrier training. If you thought a branch was heavy, wait until you see what I'm going to throw at you."
I looked at the spinning coin, then at Elara, who was smiling at me from the doorway. For the first time since I'd died in that convenience store, I didn't feel like a dropout. I felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be.
"I'm ready," I said
"Good," Havi grunted. "Because the world isn't going to wait for you to finish your homework."