The next day I am quickly met by a perplexed Hannah.

"How is your vessel already full?" She says while holding my shoulders with her arms and staring right into my eyes.

"Eh, it is? Weren't you the one who said it will take 3 to 5 days?" I quickly think of the likely culprit though, "Maybe, my gift is responsible?"

"That would be ridiculous. I have heard from Jorgen that it is quite the powerful healing effect. If it also recovered mana, that would be... unfair!"

Unfair? That's a weird way to put it.

"What do you mean?"

"Gifts are supposed to be balanced! Greater effects with greater drawbacks and narrower conditions! It is normal for self-healing to be subtle, but affect both your stamina, mana and wounds. Then it will be more powerful if it doesn't include all three, and strongest if it has only one. And the ones with the power to regrow limbs, they usually only work under certain circumstances, like eating way more than usual, or only when sleeping or restrictions like that."

"And all gifts work this way?" I ask

"Well, it's really only a guess, but one that has proven remarkably accurate over time. But if it really is your gift, then I can't help but think it has been completely proven wrong."

It is eventually laid to rest, as I can't hope to explain the details of my power, I am just as clueless as her, but it is great if I can get in 3 to 5 times the practice people would normally get.

Time goes on with me training and I eventually refine my rope to a string, thus making me able to use it for much longer and two months or so later, I am able to use the three basic magics I was introduced to.

Then one day, the subject of my magic lessons is changed.

"Magic consists of 3 types", Hannah starts, "We categorize them into emission, bestowal and creation magic. What you have learned so far is the easiest of the three, emission types. These are characterized by their effect working as the pattern is produced, generating a current of effect as long as it is produced. Bestowal, on the other hand, requires forming a loop with the correct pattern, and cycling it over an object. Depending on the pattern, one can imbue various attributes to that object. The most used versions of this magic are enhancing the strength of your limbs, the hardness of your skin or the sharpness of your weapon."

Hannah pauses and waits to see if I got it. I simply nod and she continues.

"The tricky thing here is to not only move your string outside your body, but also mainting it. Both the pattern and structure of the string can be easily comprimised. If you simply push or pull the string with where it exits your body, the pattern will be distorted, and if you don't supply an appropriate amount of mana to your string, it will either shrivel or expand as it takes effect, quickly rendering it inert once again."

Sounds difficult. The "simple" emission magic already has me concentrating substantially. I can't really imagine myself using it on the fly.

"Last is creation magic. Where bestowal magic requires control outside your body, this requires control inside of it. You have to build a three-dimensional object, using your magic, and doing that while the mana is dispersing to the surroundings in nigh impossible. So you must learn to create an almost complete object within yourself, ejecting it while it is still in an incomplete form, then finish it off outside your body. It is both the hardest magic to learn and the least useful, so we will only practice it if manage to learn all the other useful magic I know. It really only comes in handy if you find yourself without a weapon and can create one quickly, or if you need a bestowal magic to function for something, you are not in contact with, since the mana of the object can feed it instead of yourself."

I try to imagine creating the object and quickly become overwhelmed by all the things I have to remember when doing so. The thickness of the string, the size of the object, I would have to not only wrap it losely around an object, but create it from the bottom up, covering everything the object will be, but again, I can't push or pull the string in order to not distort it. I wonder if I will ever learn it.

But I do. Over the course of the next few years I become more and more intimate with the constructing of the magic patterns, and a few I learn so intimately, that I can use them at a moment's notice.

I have mostly been back to dungeon crawling nowadays, training to use the magic in actual situations. The spars with Jorgen have slowly begun to turn in my favor, though I suspect it has as much to do with him getting weaker with me getting stronger. One day, while swinging weighted training sword, as Jorgen starts speaking to me.

"Well, it's about time to go back."

"Back, why now?" I ask. I have been itching to, since I miss my little sister and mother dearly, though not as much as before Hannah arrived.

"Well, son, can't really miss you becoming an adult now, can we?"