Grayson arrived at the temple of Oris ten minutes before his magic lesson was due to start. One of the Crusaders at the doors directed him to the same training yard that he had learned to control magic in. There, Herefor waited for him, sitting on a plain wooden chair off the sand of the field and reading a small book. There was a large box beside the chair. He stood up, closing the book and placing it on the box before walking to stand in the middle of the training field. Grayson hesitated a moment before going to the man.

  As Grayson walked, he reflected about how Herefor intimidated him. He was probably at least four times older than Herefor, had seen the highs and lows of humanity, had seen the most horrifying dictators and most humble doctors. But there was a presence about the man that made Grayson feel like a Dickensian schoolboy. He felt like the man would slap his wrists with a ruler if he spoke out of line.

  "You're on time, boy. Good. Now, we will begin with simple instruction. Do you know the eight types of mana?" Herefor said in his rapid, staccato speech.

  "Yes, Sir. Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light, Dark, Magic, and Anti-Magic, sir." Grayson replied meekly. He almost wanted to hunch his shoulders, but resisted the urge. Instead he kept his back straight and looked into his teacher's eyes.

  "Good. No doubt, you have seen some of the practical uses of these mana types. The most common applications are through their stones. Which types of mana have you seen in practical usage by a person. Do not include examples of stone use." Herefor instructed.

  "Sir. Blades of wind, balls of fire, bolts of lightning, converting metal dust into steel blades, sir." Grayson said.

  "And what types of mana were used for each of these? Two are obvious. The others, less so."

  "Sir, the blades of wind were certainly air mana. The balls of fire were certainly fire mana. Lightning, I believe to be fire mana. I think the metal dust into steel blades was a usage of earth mana." Grayson guessed at the last two.

  "It's possible that the steel blades were earth mana. It is more likely that the steel blades were a rare application of anti-magic mana. Lightning is likely to be fire, but could also have been a lesser used application of earth mana. Guess at the nature of the rare applications." Herefor said.

  "Sir, anti-magic mana negates and releases energy when interacting with magic mana. For the steel blades to be an application of anti-magic mana, there would have to be a magic mana effect on the steel powder that reverses in such a way as to recreate steel blades." he paused for a moment, thinking. "Or to return shrunken blades to their original size."

  "Excellent, boy. And the lightning?" asked Herefor.

  "Sir, lightning is naturally produced from particles in the atmosphere impacting each other. The lightning could be formed by using earth mana to cause sand grains to rub together, like lightning in a sandstorm." said Grayson with more confidence. Herefor nodded.

  "Your knowledge of science is commendable, and you have a decent grasp of logic. Good. Consider, boy. Mana is a tool that follows the function of our will. You will the mana to act and so it does. How does knowledge of the function of the world aid this?" Herefor asked. Grayson thought for a moment.

  "Sir, by willing mana to act directly, we only get effects that the mana is directly able to cause, like fire mana producing fire. However, by understanding how the world functions, we can will the mana to act and create effects caused by the effect of the mana's usage. Using earth mana to create lightning would be an example of this principle." Grayson said firmly.

  "A novel way to put it. Well done. Now, retrieve the box and bring it here." Herefor instructed. Grayson jogged over to the large box by Herefor's chair. He put the book on the chair before carrying the box back over to the priest of Oris. Herefor opened the box, revealing padded cloth that held eight different mana infused stones firmly separated. There was also a pair of tongs.

  Herefor reached in to the box and pulled out the tongs, then used the tongs to pick up the fire mana stone.

  "Observe the mana. See how it flows. Your mana still has no attribute. What I want you to do is to link your mana with the stone and return a little of that mana yourself. Try to do it by instinct first. If you need assistance, I will provide you with a new construct."

  "Yes, sir." Grayson nodded, then turned his mind to the task of connecting to the fire stone. He had managed to perform an attack at distance, and formed a dome around himself a couple of days before, but both times, Herefor had guided him through the steps to shape a mental object. This time he was being trusted to attempt it himself. There were multiple tests being made here and it was clear that Herefor didn't expect him to pass them all on his first attempt.

  However Grayson had an advantage. His mental model of himself was far more fluid than any of the people here. In the world he'd come from, people had been able to be whatever they wanted, be whatever shape they wanted. Need some extra arms? Easy. Want to become a centaur? Why not? Well, it was a bit weird to be a centaur and people would be frustrated with you if you were travelling by ship as one, but it was still easy enough to control a quadrupedal body while still having your arms. Going to the bathroom six feet behind where your butt normally is was hard to get used to though.

  Grayson extended an arm from his shoulder. Not in any physical way, he didn't grow an extra arm. Instead he made the mental intent to reach with an extra arm, which then shaped his mental construct of himself to give it the new arm that then extended towards the stone and took hold of it. Flowing fire mana that wanted to pull towards the sky poured down the arm into his body. He quickly let go of the stone, cutting off the flow of mana.

  Herefor's eyes were glowing bright blue as he stared at Grayson, watching his construct intently. Grayson shrunk the extra arm back into himself. He could feel the fire mana flowing through his body, reaching every point in his construct. It diffused through him, leaving him feeling faintly warm.

  "That's certainly new." came the twinned voices of Oris and Herefor. Herefor's eyes continued to glow, but only his voice came out. "Concentrate the fire mana into your left hand."

  Grayson did as instructed, pulling the fire mana from all through his body and pressing it into his left hand. Herefor nodded, his voice becoming twinned once again.

  Stolen story; please report.

  "Good. Now focus on how the fire mana feels. Convert some of your untyped mana into fire mana. Only do so in your right hand."

  Grayson felt the fire mana in his left hand. It felt like fire, roiling and hot. It wasn't burning him, but he knew that he could use it to burn whatever he wanted. He kept his hands out from his sides as he focused on the feeling of the fire mana. Since it felt so much like fire, he willed the mana in his right hand to spin and roil similar to the fire mana, before adding ignition. The untyped mana in his right hand burst into fire mana, stopping just above his wrist where he had kept the untyped mana stable.

  Herefor's eyes were wide and his mouth open. Oris's voice, however was calm as he spoke through the man's mouth.

  "Well done, Grayson. Now, remove the attribute from the mana in your left hand. Do it by reversing the change you made in your right."

  Grayson silently nodded. He closed his eyes and willed the fire mana in his left hand to cease it's movement and to cool. It rapidly became as smooth and still as the mana in the rest of his body. The mana in his right hand was still roiling and hot.

  "Without using the mana in your right hand, blow a stream of fire from your left. Point it into the sky. Do not extend the range too far." Instructed Oris.

  Grayson tried to do as he was told. He began to convert the mana in his hand into fire mana to prepare it to fire. Oris snapped at him to stop and to convert the mana as he sent out the fire. Grayson tried pointing his hand up, swirling the mana in his hand and igniting it as it left his body. The result was a stream of fire that speared more than ten meters before dissipating. It continued to flow until Grayson cut it off, staring at his hand. He relaxed his control on the fire mana in his right hand, letting it spread through his body.

  "An excellent demonstration of the power of untyped mana. Untyped mana is more pure and concentrated than the typed mana. By only giving it an attribute as it leaves your body, you increase the power of your attacks without increasing your own effort," came the instruction of Oris. Herefor himself seemed quiet.

  With the direct instruction of Oris, Grayson spent the following four hours learning how to recognize, create, convert, and replace each of the mana attributes. Water was rushing and cold. Wind felt light and fluid. Earth was heavy and solid. Light was a darting thing that it took Grayson twenty minutes to isolate, but when it did, it felt like his hand was being prickled by needles of sunlight. Darkness felt like a pseudo nothingness that took him half an hour to recreate. Eventually he managed it by changing his conceptualization of darkness. Instead of the darkness of a dark room, it became the light in a room with black walls, absorbed wherever it went.

  Magic and anti-magic were the hardest of all. It took almost two hours to create magic mana. When it was time to create anti-magic mana, it went more easily, but there was still difficulty. At the start he kept making magic mana instead. It was only by visualizing himself making magic mana in a mirror that he managed to create anti-magic mana. They were almost identical, with a strange energetic feeling, like his hand was full of electric caffeine. But one was pushing and the other was pulling. He spent the last hour working on a mental model that would allow him to consistently make either kind of mana. Eventually he used a nova and a black hole. Creating a dense pulse of untyped mana, he could either ignite it into a nova of magic mana, or pinch it into a black hole of anti-magic mana.

  Oris said there was no way in hell that should have worked, but it did. Apparently nobody had manually created both types before. The weird part was the feeling when he converted the mana. Both seemed to burst and fill his hand, but one with a great pushing, almost trying to break out of his construct while the other tried to pull more mana in.

  After he converted untyped mana into each type of mana, Oris had Grayson fire some kind of beam of the mana type. For water, he sprayed water off to the side. Air blew some wind. Earth formed a jet of pocket sand. Light fired a bright laser. Darkness...

  Darkness was fucking weird. It looked like there was nothing where the beam was, but not the nothing of something clear. It was like a hole in reality. It gave Grayson the creeps. Oris had him fire it at the sand and the grains disappeared. Like they had never been there. Grayson had a funny feeling that light and dark were exactly the wrong names for those types of mana. They were more like presence and absence. Oris whispered into his mind that he was absolutely not allowed to say that out loud.

  Finally magic and anti-magic were almost exactly like using untyped mana. The beams were beams of things happening. Oris had Grayson will the sand grains hit by the beam to grow and so they did. Then the grains hit by the opposed beam were returned to normal. Firing the beams again in the opposite order, the same things happened. Both the magic and anti-magic beams could grow the sand grains to the size of a fist, and both could dispel the other beam's effects with a small flash.

  Oris swore Herefor to secrecy about everything he'd seen. These were Grayson's secrets, secrets that for the most part Oris had already known. But Oris was keeping them from his own followers. Grayson was assured of his own right to disseminate his secrets.

  When they finished, Grayson though to Oris.

  I have a connection to Perimis and Marrati. What oath would we hold to each other?

  You intend to do battle with magic. When you wield it in battle, I will be with you. You will gain my power to control. I will see how you use it.

  You only want to see how I use magic?

  Magic and mages are my concept, Grayson. The way each person uses magic is unique. You may wield magic incredibly without my aid. With my aid, even I don't know what you will do. That is more than valuable enough.

  Then for the power to wield magic in ways unimaginable, even to the Gods, I will wield that magic in ways unknown.

  A worthy promise. I trust you won't disappoint me.

  Grayson already had some ideas, even as a blue spark settled in his pupil.