Secondly, changing mana’s shape is difficult.
I made my mana into shapes that roughly resembled triangles, squares, and pentagons, but anything more than that just resulted in a circle. It was difficult to produce anything detailed. Perhaps it was a matter of practice, but that was the gist of the matter.
Was it possible to make more complicated, finely-tuned shapes, like a spider web? TLDR: yes, it is possible. I found it really difficult to do, though, especially getting the mana to manifest the way you envisioned.
It required a great deal more sensitivity than the usual commands of ejecting the mana or shooting it straight ahead. You needed to visualize a clear image in your head. This was tricky, since human thoughts are sticky business and things are constantly mixed up together. Even when you think you have an image in your head, any idle thought could interfere. No matter how calm and serene your mind is, it would take a considerable amount of experience and training to produce mana exactly according to your mind’s eye.
I would need to train a lot to be able to do this. I had no current need for mana in particular shapes, so there wasn’t a rush. Even so, it would certainly be worthwhile to train and learn how to produce finely shaped mana.
Thirdly, it is possible to change mana’s shape while it is in the process of ejecting from my body.
When I activated Mana Eject, I gathered mana in the palm of my hand. So, for example, if I decided to make mana in the shape of a long, thin column, the mana extended in that shape out of my palm. Then I could change the shape to something else while it’s shooting out of my hand. It’s basically like Sun Wukong’s magic staff from Journey to the West.
Any mana shape of up to about three feet in size will appear instantaneously, but anything longer than that takes some time. The more that you stretch out the Mana Eject—in other words, the less mana you use in a single Mana Eject—the more mana remains in the body. On principle, obviously, I needed to command the mana to both appear and shoot forward, so that the fire and electricity wouldn’t conduct straight through my body.
That is everything I had learned thus far, and everything I knew when I stood in front of the thundercite that morning. I activated Mana Eject. The mana flowed out of my hand in the shape of a staff. It separated from my hand and collided with the thundercite, catching an electric current that ran through it.
The current ran through the mana and outside of the stone. The air right in front of my eyes flashed red as the electricity crackled a fearsome spark. Its bright red light illuminated the entire garden and then vanished.
Instinctively, I had pulled my hand away, but my heart still pounded. I wasn’t shocked because the mana had fully left my hand when it touched the thundercite.
“Shion, are you okay?” Marie asked.
“Did you get hurt just now?” Rose followed up.
They rushed over to me. I was fine, if a bit frightened. This result was unexpected, but it did make sense once I thought it over.
“I’m okay. It didn’t hurt at all.”
“Oh, it didn’t? That’s good. But what just happened?” Marie inquired.
“The electricity shot toward you, didn’t it?” Rose said. “I thought it would go the other way.”
“This goes for Flare too, but when mana gets consumed, magic appears,” I explained. “Since I am the user with mana flowing through me, it makes sense why the electricity jolts this way once the mana touches the thundercite.”
Marie hung her head, confused. Rose’s strained expression indicated some degree of understanding, but not a full one. It was hard to explain, especially because the concept of electricity didn’t exist here. I supposed I could try to explain using lightning.
For now, I needed to verify the previous experiment. So far, everything made sense. I had produced staff-shaped mana and touched the thundercite with it, letting go just before they made contact. As a result, the electric current ran up the staff toward me. It was the result I expected. Just the experience had been scarier than I expected.
Unlike Flare, channeling electricity in the desired direction proved challenging. To have any effect, the front and back end of the staff had to touch the desired target. In other words, I would need the thundercite to be directly between me and my target, and then to have the mana staff extend all the way through the stone to the target.
The approach seemed both inefficient and complicated, especially given the amount of mana it would expend. I would have to activate Mana Eject, extend the mana out, fix the shape, then make the staff’s center move into the thundercite as well as the desired target. That was a heck of a lot of commands to will into being.
Ideally, I could extend the mana but not have it conduct electricity until the desired moment. That was impossible, since thundercite constantly produced electricity that would always shock me. Of course, I could block the charge with mica—or should I say peralite—but I was trying to make magic here. I couldn’t just constantly expect to always have peralite on hand. At this rate, lightning magic was becoming as impractical as Flare.
I calmed the two worried girls down, particularly Marie. Then, I returned to the experiment. This time, I stretched out my mana fairly thin and let it touch the thundercite. As previously described, a ten-foot sphere lit up briefly and conducted a small amount of electricity. When making that, I hung on to the mana until the last minute, produced the full shape, and then touched it to the thundercite.
Lightning magic sure was finnicky—it was far more problematic than fire magic. I was at a loss. While mana undoubtedly acted as a crazy electrical conductor, it didn’t last long. Unlike fire, lightning burned through its mana all at once and disappeared, greatly limiting its uses. Still, I sensed there were potential uses.
By the time I had finished my experiments and analyzed the results, the sun started to set. Marie and Rose had done their best to help out, but in the end, the day ended before we made much progress. I was starting to think I had hit a wall again.
At present, lightning magic was useless. It was dead in the water because something was missing. My mind couldn’t find any solution.