“Any more questions my Apprentice?"

“Not for the moment, Mistress."

“Ok then, time to go."

Magnus spent the morning walking behind his Mistress, opening doors for her, carrying things for her and waiting outside when she visited some places in town. It was relatively uneventful. He did get annoyed a couple of times when some rude men threw a few lewd comments at his

Mistress. He was going to teach them some manners each time, but a look from his Mistress stopped him, and he obeyed. He said he would obey her, so he was going to honor his word, no matter how much he wanted to teach them how you are supposed to talk to a Lady. And his Mistress sure was a Lady. Not only in the sense of beauty and rich clothes. No, she was obviously a sophisticated person in every way. Magnus still couldn't grasp why she accepted him as her Apprentice. He felt like a clumsy oaf in comparison.

That afternoon, Fiona announced it was time for his first Lesson.

"You are not going to learn any magic today Magnus, for many days actually, but you will learn about magic. To do magic, you need to understand it first."

“That makes sense, Mistress. I have no idea how it works, even in theory"

"Yes, it is not common knowledge. So let's begin. What is magic? Why can some people use it, and some can't? How does it work? Is it the same for every magic user? Do we all have the same abilities? What is the Limit of magical power? These are all the questions we will touch today. It is important you get some understanding, although true comprehension of magic will only come with time and practice.”

Magnus nodded with enthusiasm. He was about to get his first lesson in magic!

“What we call magic is basically the ability to control the energies that are all around us. There is energy in sun rays, in a fire, in the elements that are in the ground, and every living entity emanates energies around them. There is so much energy around us. Magical ability makes one capable of directing, controlling, transforming these energies into concrete spells. The power of a spell can't come from nowhere. You can't just create energy from nothing, it has to come from somewhere. So the power of a spell comes from energies around us, or in some cases from within us."

“Umm, can emotions fuel a spell?" Magnus asked, pensive.

“Good question my Apprentice." Fiona said with approval.

“Yes, our emotions contain energy, therefore they can be used to feed energy into a spell. It is actually easier to energize a spell using our own energy, than taking it from outside. That is most likely what happened to you those two times you produced an uncontrolled spell. You must have had some strong... emotions at the time" Fiona said with a smirk.

“Eh, yes... most likely" Magnus said, blushing.

“But even if it's easier to fuel the spell with energy coming from within us, it is something that even experienced mages almost never do.

Why? Because it is dangerous. You could take too much of your own Life energy, you could kill yourself. Since the energies coming from within are fueled by emotions, it means that you rarely have complete control when you use them to power a spell. So my first advice, no, my first order to you is never to use your emotions to fuel a spell. Do you understand Apprentice?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"Good. So now, I have explained that magic works by manipulating energies around us. So why some people can do it, and some can't?"

“Eh, I have no idea, Mistress"