Swiss Arms

Swiss Arms

Chapter 151

-VB-

Hans von Fluelaberg

I stood waiting for her response.

It's been months for me since I first got my true magic skull, and had been dying to share it. It's why I have been tossing probing questions her way regarding everything from pragmatic decisions to theological stances.

After months of probing, I determined that she wouldn't report me to the church as long as I was able to carefully explain the truth about the magic I wielded.

Why did Christians see magic was bad? Because it was believed that magic did not come from God or even humans. That magic had a supernatural source that was neither God nor man. That it came from others like demons and spirits. To accept magic from such beings into my body was to desecrate the temple of God because I would be accepting spirits and demons into my body.

… That was a summarized gist of the situation, and that in and of itself posed a problem. The idea of magic coming from a person was alien to Christians of this era. Hell, it would be outright rejected as well in the 21st century by most Christians who weren't fundamentalists. And knew what they were actually believing, not the regular people who barely kept up their Sunday attendance. This also meant that utilizing my self-generated magic to perform divination, curses, necromancy, and the like would invalidate any and all arguments I made for magic, because those types of magic were violations of God's domain: future, free will, and death.

And considering that God killed the witch who used necromancy who had summoned Samuel's spirit on behalf of King Saul?

I wasn't going to risk it.

But most importantly, I was "recording" higher and higher concentrations of magic, especially in areas where I frequented.

How did I know this?

Apparently, raw mana had a "feel" to it that didn't just affect the body but also touched the soul.

My initial measuring stick was none other than my son, Louise. In areas where I frequented and stuck around since I acquired mana soul, he didn't squirm or struggle. Suddenly transferring him to somewhere that didn't have as much of my ambient mana, even while sleeping despite all other factors remaining the same, made him very upset.

My second method actually came through as a skill.

"So?" Isabella asked as she waited for me to complete my review.

[Mana Sight]. It was an off-shoot of [Observe]. It showed me mana not as words or numbers but with visual indicators. Like auras, colors, reflections, refractions, and vibrations.

Refraction was very important.

Because that happened right before something absorbed too much mana and exploded.

Rock 1 ~ 9 will be honored for their sacrifice.

And third was obviously Observe, which was not a skill but a mechanic of the System. I was always able to see another person's stats without ever needing to use a skill, and part of a person's stats included mana.

And Isabella…

[Character Status]

Name: Isabella von Fluelaberg nee Gorizia

Age: 20

Title: Countess

LvL: 11

HP: 490

MP: 20

ST: 10

STR: 9

END: 12

AGI: 11

DEX: 10

INT: 14

CHA: 14

She had mana now. Just 20. It was thirty-five times smaller than my mana pool, but it was also enough mana that if she wanted to fire off a weak spell, then she could.

And it was better for her to learn how to feel and use mana rather than to ignore it and deal with an accident further down the line.

Because as far as I have been recording, her mana pool had been growing for the past few months.

"You have just enough mana to use one or two spells," I replied. "So I'm going to teach you the first mana-related skill I discovered."

We sat across from each other on the floor of my underground gym. Louise was back up on the surface and in the care of my father, who'd come to visit again (and probably get some more supplies and money from me for free).

I raised my hands up, fingertips pointing up and palms facing myself.

Then I called upon the first ever skill I made.

[Mana Shell].

A bluish tinged aura flared up, and Isabella stiffened at the sight of what may have looked like blue fire. But instead of flickering and roaring, it was a silent and slow (because that's how I intended it to happen) cover that started at my fingertips and moved down to cover the rest of my hand and wrist in a translucent, skintight shell.

When I used mana, I felt its presence but my body didn't quite react as if it was a physical object. The skin on my hands was able to breathe through it.

"... What does that do?" she asked hesitantly.

"This is Mana Shell, and all it does is extend mana out of your body and into the world. It is still part of you, so depending on how much mana you use and how dense you make it, you can use it to …"

She leaned in.

"... grab things that are just outside of your reach."

She looked at me.

Really looked.

And then leaned back with a groan. "I thought you were going to say something truly out there! Like 'set things on fire,' not 'grab something that should've been out of your…'" Her mini-rant came to a slow end as I extended my Mana Shell on my left hand and reached over towards the racks holding my iron weights.

I grabbed the thick iron bar of one of the fifty pound dumbbells I used to train my fingers and pulled it toward me.

Without moving from where I sat.

She stared at the dumbbell slowly coming to me and then saw me set it down in front of her.

I gestured for her to try to pick it up.

She tried.

And failed to move it. She budged it, yes, but actually lifted it? No.

She stared at the dumbbell in awe and then at me.

"You don't even need to gesture with your hand if you don't want to," I added before crossing my arms in front of my chest and the now extended mana shell lifted the dumbbell up.

"Oohh," she ooh'ed as she clapped her hands.

"And it doesn't have to be blue," I said as the now noodly blue mana shell became invisible. Mana was actually invisible. What I had done was used my knowledge of how light works on our eyes to make it appear like mana was blue by making my mana vibrate at a specific frequency.

Did I know what that frequency was? No.

I just experimented until I got a "feel" for how mana needed to be vibrated (or tilted?) for each of the colors.

Then I dismissed the first mana shell and made another one (blue again) and put my hands out for her to feel them, my palms facing up.

"Here, feel for my mana. You should be able to."

Isabella hesitated before she put her hands out, slowly, and placed them on top of mine.

Then her eyes widened not with awe… but with familiarity.

"This…" she muttered as she looked down at my hands and then looked up. "You weren't jesting about your mana leaking, were you?"

"Nope," I replied with a smile. "You feel it everywhere I stay for a long time, don't you?"

"... I feel it most in our bed."

That made sense. Even if I didn't need to sleep, I still slept with Isabella for a good six to eight hours everyday.

"We do spend a lot of time in bed, you know," I said with waggling eyebrows.

She blushed even as she groaned. "Don't be crass, honey," she said, even as a small smile stretched her lips. "We were just trying for our second child!"

"A second child doesn't need us to break our bed every other month."

She slapped my hands with a light glare.

I chuckled. "But you know the feeling?"

"... Yes," she responded after a while. "And how do I bring my 'mana' out of myself?"

"First, you have to find it," I instructed as I poked at her chest with a finger infused with a heavy dose of mana but kept intentionally fluffy and not dense at all. I dragged it up and around her arm. "And once you do, you have to pull it out and that is all you. No invocation. No spirits. No demons. Just you and your will."

She looked like she was having fun learning something new.

And as secretive as we were being with a taboo subject, this was a quality time spent together.