What am I? An immortal is an accurate way of describing me, although the word Divine provides a more useful description. As to our question about the origin of this mana, the barrier is mine. The mana seeping out, while it has passed through the barrier and as such has the same 'scent' as my mana, did not originate from me. It seems as if it is because I am making sure it does not get out of control and rip both our bodies apart.

As he finished speaking he stepped closer to Narissa, and apparently just in time. Narissa was now in the 'eye' created around him, and suddenly the mana swirled around at a rapid rate. Even the ground was starting to be torn away by the mana storm.

You said you do not know anything more than mana sight? Perhaps this unfortunate state of affairs could be turned to your advantage. Mana is always easiest to manipulate when you have an over supply of it, so would you be interested in learning how to control mana, how to influence its flow and pattern?

Narissa could feel herself beginning to pant as her chest rose and fell more and more quickly the closer he got to her, maybe even, a small burning. And not just there either. All around her flesh, ecspecially where the tear of her blouse was on her side, she could feel the energy pratically swirling around her with every inch he drew closer to her, making her feel exhausted and exhilerated and excited all in the same moment. How awakening it was!

"A . . . Divinity?" she whispered to him, her voice struggling to get the words out. 'It's like the air is heavy or something.' she could still breath, but something about the concentration of this mana was . . . something she needed to get used to. Supporting herself on the wall of the barrier and resting her other hand above her chest, she willed herself to stop breathing so hard. How could she let herself get so physically bothered?

Again he reminded her of what he was capable of with the another step as she saw chunks of the ground cut by what could only be the mana storm's current as she found herself less labored, breathing in what appeared to be the eye of the storm. A touch of fear stunned her as she saw that destroyed piece of earth. Could that have been her?

With his words, Narissa made sure to pay apt attention to Seraph, someone, to her, was not seeming to want to harm her, but was quiet capable of doing more than just that . . . Something she wouldn't soon forget.

"You mean . . . to teach me?" It was almost too good to be true, but . . ."I don't know the first thing of handling or channelling mana. I have a teacher, but . . " 'She kinda isn't around at the moment and hasn't taught me more yet on othe things aside from mana sight,' she thought dejectedly.

When dealing with something as dangerous as magic, both to the target and the caster, one must either take things very slowly, or have someone capable of protecting them from what happens if a spell goes rampant. As if to illustrate his point the storm outside them seemed to be gaining strength and deep furrows of earth were being ripped apart.

Unless your teacher has reached a Mastery of magic it is wise for her to proceed as slowly as possible. The mana raging around us is just mana in a highly concentrated state. It has no purpose, no aim. The mana of a rampant spell however does, and often lashes out at its caster. Unless certain wards are in place, unless someone has enough power to shield a soul from magical feedback, you teach magic as slowly as possible.

The hood covering Seraph's face allowed her to see his mouth, and he smiled briefly at her. I can cast such wards, and as such can teach at a far faster pace and with far more safety than simple trial and error. If you are willing to accept my offer than simply tell me this, how come the storm blows to either side of me?

The answer was simple enough, Seraph was not using any spell or barrier to protect them. Instead he was simply creating a thin line between him and the storm that 'repelled' mana. Unless focused mana would flow around it, creating a bubble behind it that was mostly empty of mana, at least compared to the storm around them. Of course seeing the line itself would prove difficult due to the sheer amount of mana around, any attempt to use mana sight would struggle to see anything at all against the glare of the mana. But once she worked out how to filter that glare out, the line itself should be clearly obvious.

Such lines were the focus of mana manipulation, and the first step would be teaching her to perceive them, to be able to predict mana flows. Once one could predict mana, one could influence it. Once you could influence it, you could use it.

With the proposition given to her, Narissa became less apprehensive about Seraph. He had seemed genuinley concerned about her being there . . . But generous enough to help her out. . . Why would she pass that up? His description of it matched near to what Kanoe had given her but . . . The way Kanoe had described it to her had been in a way of both fear and respect for the mana . . . But she couldn't help but hear that tone of both respect and . . . How could she put it? Conficdence? Yes . . . He held no fear over the destructive currents that swirled around them so in their hectic spinning, the smile that adorned his lips not being missed for a second.


"So . . . Why do they maintain their distance from you?" Blinking, Narissa looked between the male and the small distance that the mana swirled . . . She couldn't answer his question at first. A 'Hmm' of contemplation left her as she rubbed her right ear lobe, thinking hard for the answer.

She was thankful her mana sight wasn't putting a strain on her eyes. She had used it much longer on one go than what she normally had been the entire week, but even with that, she felt herself growing adjusted to the circular streams of the mana. They drew only so close before curving around them, never any closer than a certain--

"What . . .what's that there?" Pointing a thin finger just passed his elbows, to the mana closest, the line that had set itself apart from the bright coloring. While the bright coloring and constant motions would have made any lesser person nauseas or even motion sick, Narissa was able to study it well until she noticed almost. . .a Film? of still and motionless mana, near the same as any, but unlike itself, the rest of the mana withint the dome was always constantly moving. But not itself.

And here she was about to just give an riddle like answer and say 'Becuase it's your own mana and it would be silly to hit yourself with it.' A small smile adorned her full lips as she grinned, glad she held out from answering that way.

"Does it have something to do with tha

As Narissa answered his question Seraph could finally see her soul, or at least the outline of it. Pride is such a useful emotion.

Reaching up he pulled his hood back to show his face, and he nodded at her. Correct. That is what is known as a polarity, it can be used to either attract or repel raw mana. Polarities have no effect on directed mana, such as a focused spell, but they are useful in getting mana to do what you want with it. Storing mana is an excellent example, and most barrier and magic defence spells use a polarity as a base. However for the moment all you need to do is tell me which side a particular color of mana will travel to the polarity.

Seraph pointed at a string of mana that was on the other side of the 'eye' and a portion of that strand turned a unique gold.

All you have to do is say if that strand of mana will pass on your left or right side before it becomes visible again. Try as many times as you like, and when you can correctly determine which side it will pass on by stating that side out load before it is visible we can continue.

The exercise was fairly simple, and shouldn't take her any more than 8 cycles or so before she would start to see just how that particular Polarity affected mana. Once she had that he would start varying the strength of the Polarity. Of course all this was designed to do was distract her long enough for the mana in the air to turn her into some new entertainment for Seraph.

Taking in a surprised breath, Narissa barely caught herself staring into the golen eyes of Seraph, is hood removed as he explained the process to her. For a moment she foudn herself simply . . . astounded. His height to her alone once she stood up was almost intimidating, only brushed off from his seemingly kind nature.

Narissa nodded to him, at first not at all understanding what he meant, but could only hope she would get the hang of it as she looked out of the polarity line and to the string.

"Al . ..alright, I'll give it a shot."

Focusing without allowing any distraction to get to her, she attempted to concentrate on the situation, not allowing the winds of the storm to bother her where her blouse tore and tickled her side.

Wouldn't it be just logical for the string to continue with the current?

"To the left?" She asked, more than answer. It took no genious to know that she wasn't completely sure of her answer.

Seraph watched in silence as the marked 'string' of mana did indeed flow around the left, but the uncertainty in her voice told him that she wasn't sure. Her next three guesses were wrong, but suddenly Seraph started to hear a change in her voice. She sounded more certain of herself, and the answers she was giving.

"Right ... Right .. Left .. Right . Left" The time between the string passing them and her giving an answer, that Seraph was quite pleased to hear was correct, dropped until the last answer came just after the thread passed them.

"Very good. The next exercise is the same, but this time I will be changing how strong the polarity is. This will change how it affects the mana around it, so now focus on the polarity and work out how much stronger or weaker it is, than apply that to which side the thread passed us on.

Narissa nodded, thankful that she was getting the hang with it the more she attempted to spot the mana. At first, she didn't expect her mana sight to hold on for so long, but she found herself not being strained with her vision as she breathed more calmly. Keeping her hand on the inside of the barrier, she kept herself supported as she heard the rest of what Seraph spoke.

So this time she was to be focusing on the strengths? Narissa found herself hard pressed from hiding a frown. Sure with currents, directions was a more visual thing . . . But how was she going to guage strength on mana sight alone? But she kept her mouth shut, hoping she would be able to understand and nodding to Seraph, ready or not.

When Narissa said she was ready Seraph sent the polarities strength into fluctuation. To someone with mana sight they would see it as getting darker as it went further into negative mana, repel, and lighter as it went further towards positive mana, attract. Seraph was careful to ensure that it never got positive enough so that the Mana storm would fully consume either of them, but he did cause it to fluctuate weak enough so that once every cycle the storm's mana lightly brushed against Narissa's side, sending surges of mana into her and subtly causing her body to react.

Hopefully she would be so engrossed with the exercise that she would not notice her bodies growing arousal, or be to embarrassed to mention it. Through a combination of Pride and Arousal Seraph was starting to see her soul more clearly, and he was liking what he was seeing. She would undoubtedly prove very entertaining, but only if he was patient.

The changes began almost instantly after she acknowledged her next thing. Paying attention to the hectic and hurricane like mana around her, Narissa was beginning to feel he the currents whipping closer to her, and even more closer--

'No! I have to try try and focus.' This was far more a shot and practice than she had been able to accomplish on her own the whole week . . . To let this go to waste . . . seemed a sin.

'Please let me be able to do this,' she hoped to any that would hear as she began seeing the changing colors of the storm around her. At first it looked as if someone from above had added a vat of darker ink as all fo the colors and pigments began darkening again, like a spinning canvas and she was in the center. But then it would start getting lighter again, almost making her dizzy with teh shifting colors.

'Is . . . the color changes signfying the strengths?' A few time she had lost depth perception with how almost optical illusion it was, her sight getting used to regualr seeing as it was mana, and from that a few glides of mana touched her. Almost a silken feel.

'Ah! Please don't get distracted," she told her self as she tried to focus on the mana around her again, only taken a few steps closer to Seraph, the eye of the storm, as she watched the dimming and darkening color changes.

Sub-consiously, she could feel her school skirt rising just the hint from the currents, the hemm occaisonally pressing against her thigh and outlining its physque once the winds changed and blowing behind her, or sometimes it would come from the front and sneak pass that inconvenient tear, sometimes filling up her shirt with air until it escaped again. But she did her best not to let it hassel her, only sparing her blouse a swat at the front and pressing down her skirt from rising. Her eyes never left the storm.

But it was with these simple touches on herself that she realized that her breathing with becoming more labor everytime she did, her heart picking up in pace. Was it part of this mana and being in such high density? Was it really putting so much onto her? Little by little she found herself more flushed despite her self as she continued watching the storm.

"Is . . . is it normal for it to keep getting dark like that," she whispered, hopfully loud enough over the currents.

"The darker a Polarity the more negative its charge, the lighter the more positive. A negative charge repels mana, a positive charge attracts it. What you have to do is learn how to place a value to a charge, either positive or negative. Once you learn that I can teach you how to make a polarity of your own. Once you can cast them gathering enough mana for spells becomes much easier." Seraph had heard her question, however he seemed to be focusing on the storm around them rather than on Narissa.

That changed as he looked at her and seemed startled. "Are you OK? You look like something is wrong." Narissa's soul was 'dark' enough now that Seraph could see her body clearly, and he felt his own body respond. Of course his response was hidden by the robe he wore, while her bodies response to the mana that kept brushing against her was easily visible to him. He let the Polarity that was diverting the storm around them remain at a very negative charge for a couple of seconds, and saw Narissa's body respond to the surge of energy that flowed into her.

"I . . .I feel," Narissa said, taking a few pants as she tried to relay how she was being affected . . . But that was just it, she didn't know what or HOW and it was beginning to make her worried.

"It feels like I'm both tired and high all at the same time. Like I took a extended release high vitamin pill or something." She had the experience to compare it, too. Once she had taken her first extended release where the vitamin was releasing energy to her all day . . . She was perptually anxious and couldn't calm her body down for the first half of the day until it finall wore off. She never wanted to repeat that again.

But even now she felt that and she couldn't pin it, as she began holding her arms to herself while momentarilly looking away from the fluctuating storm, her legs rubbing together to quell a bothersome itch within her, she could even feel herself feeling heady and . . .Was she becoming aroused? 'Over what?!'

Is whatever is happening to your body going to get in the way of this lesson? Seraph's face was an expression of slight annoyance, Is there anything that could be done to alleviate what is happening to your body?

Seraph could see the arousal spreading through Narissa's body, no doubt sating it would come to mind at his suggestion, but he doubted she would admit it out loud, at least yet. Seraph could be patient if doing so promised him greater entertainment later.

Narissa could see his face frown just the slightest, a common look of dissapointment as he asked her if she could continued. Even now the feeling seemed to be humming in her more as she began rubbing her arms up and down. BUt even that wasn't alleviating as her blousecrinkling and smoothen again near her chest, the fabric easily rubbing against her breast. 'What's going on with me?'

"No . . no it won't interfere," she tried to say. The last thing she wanted to do was be a dissapointment to herself and another person. Not that there was much she could think to alleviate it as she was beginning to feel her core ache. Pressing her thighs together was the best she could do to calm it down. Was she that sensitive to mana around her? Or was the mana around her just that strong?

"I . . . I don't want to fail."

Than whenever you feel ready continue with the exercise. Focus on the polarity, feel how strong it is and remember how strong it was. Predict where that gold stream of mana will flow. Seraph looked at her once more before returning his attention back to the mana. His voice was still kind and considerate, as if she had all the time in the world.

In reality she didn't, as her body was bombarded by more and more mana its arousal would continue to increase as time went on. If she hadn't learnt how to create a polarity by that point, they would have to have another session.

With a glance in his mind at what she looked like Seraph wanted her to not work it out in time. He wanted her to bind herself to him, to his knowledge. After all, the willing were far more entertaining than the forced.