"Okay, then let's start as soon as possible," Eve offered, "I want my food soon, of course."
"Alright then, where should I start?" Alphonse asked excitedly, "There's a couple of things I want to try!"
"You start by developing your mana core, of course!" Eve responded matter of factly, "You won't be able to cast any spells if you haven't even developed a mana core yet."
"Oh right, the Headmaster did mention that earlier. Say, could you explain how a mana core is used to cast spells?"
"Well, for you humans, you gather mana in the surrounding and compress it into a ball. You then use that to write a magic spell through an incantation or a magic circle."
"For us humans… Does that mean that it's different for succubi?"
"That's right. Humanity is the only race that needs to develop a mana core in order to cast magic. Elves, demons, dragons, and even dwarves can all draw mana from our surroundings and use it in a spell immediately. Our bodies and minds are much tougher than humans, so we're able to use our bodies as a center for gathering mana, and use our minds as a catalyst for creating spells."
From the way that Eve said that, it was quite obvious that she was quite proud to be a demon.
"So, what's the first step to creating a mana core?"
"Well, since you could already feel mana and move mana since earlier, all you'll need to do is gather up some mana, and compress it, I guess?" Eve seemed unsure.
"Compress it? You mean like push it together?"
"I'm not too sure okay!" Eve pouted, "I'm not even a human! These are just things I've heard here and there!"
"I see, welp, I guess I'll give it a try…"
Alphonse sat down and drew mana to both his hands.
His mana seeped out of his hands and formed a ball the size of an egg.
*gulp* Eve couldn't help but swallow as she saw a meal right in front of her.
"Hey… at least wait until I develop the core…"
"I know, I know, okay!"
"Welp. Here goes nothing."
Alphonse smashed his hands together, trying to force the balls to combine.
But instead of compressing, the two balls simply combined.
"I don't think that's the right way to do it…" Eve stared at the result.
"Yeah, I can tell," Alphonse responded curtly, "Any other ideas?"
"I think... it has something to do with your mental image," Eve said after thinking for a while, "Normally, us succubi aren't able to affect the mages with a more developed mana core since they have enough mental strength to resist the initial seduction."
"Mental image? I'll give that a shot I guess?"
This time, instead of trying to combine two balls of mana, Alphonse sat with the single large ball of mana from his earlier trial. He held the ball in both of his hands and closed his eyes.
'Compression… I guess that means that it would need to get smaller? But that means that there has to be a filler material inside of mana,' Alphonse remembered the simple science experiment that he was shown when he was younger.
'It's easy to compress a gaseous substance, but when we tried to compress water inside a syringe, it was impossible. There was also that research paper done regarding compressing light between to other substances, so I guess mana could also be an energy form?'
'For now, I'll just focus on making the mana fold in on itself.'
…
…
…
"Wow, I think you got it?" Eve remarked, her voice full of surprise.
Alphonse opened his eyes to a flattened half-moon shape of mana. It was as if he had simply flattened it into a circle, then folded it over on itself. In a way, it reminded him of his first time kneading dough in home-ec class.
However, the one remarkable difference was that the mana was definitely denser, as it shone brighter compared to the simple ball from earlier.
"Let me keep trying."
This time, instead of simply folding it in half, he flattened the mana 'dough' and turned it into a rectangle shape. Then, he folded the two sides in on the center, the same way one would when making croissants or any other bread dough, and rotated it 90 degrees.
Then again.
And again.
And again.
'So the original mana-dough that I made was just two-layered since I just folded it in half. So since I did this four times, that makes it… 162 layers?'
When he opened his eyes this time, however, what he saw was a rectangular prism of extremely dense mana.
"Huh… Is this it?"
"Yeah… I think it is..? I've never seen such pure mana before…" Eve stared wide-eyed at the mana prism, "I guess all those other mages that could resist us would have mana at least this pure…"
"Pure? You mean that mana has impurities?" Alphonse was surprised at her remark.
"Not impurities, per se. There are basically three different tiers of mana. It seems like what you did, you managed to separate the different mana and only keep the highest tier…"
"Alright, now how do I use this?"
"Use..? Oh, you mean for spells?" Eve tried her best to explain, "Well, for us demon-kind, we first have to think about what we want to create with the mana, then we gather the mana from our surroundings. Then, using our mental image of what we want to create, we call out the demonic god's name in demon-tongue to cast and form the spell."
"Could you show me an example?"
"Sure, I guess." Eve made a serious face.
She held out her hand and focused for a moment.
"** ***** ***, **** *** ***** ** *** *****, ********!!!"
At that moment, a huge ball of fire started to grow at her fingertips. As soon as it reached the size of a large watermelon, it flew off and exploded after hitting the ground.
"Woah… Is that a fireball spell?"
"Yeah, basically." Eve said dejectedly, "That's the only spell I know that a human could cast, sorry…"
"What incantation did you use?"
"Oh, it was demon-tongue!"
"I know that, but what did you say specifically?"
"Hmm… a rough translation would be 'Oh demon god, cast thy anger at the enemy, fireball!' or something…"
"Hmmm… so basically, you used your body to gather mana, then used your mind to form an image, then used the incantation to realize the image of what you want to create?"
"Yes, that's it!" Eve said excitedly, "When I was young, my mom would tell me that in order to cast the strongest spell, I would need to have a strong mental image and to keep my incantations in line with what I want to create."
"Well, since I don't know any human incantations, I guess I won't be able to do anything about that for now." Alphonse put that thought aside, "Now, how about magic circles?"
"Oh, those are much simpler!" Eve brightened up, "All the races use some form of a magic circle. Basically, you use mana to write your incantation within the circle. What's different for us is that demons and dragons can write magic circles on anything, even the air. But humans, elves, and dwarves would have to write it on something physical that has some mana in it."
"So basically, I can use this mana core that I just made as a pen of sorts to write on something else that already has mana in it to cast a spell?"
"Well, normally, human mages would write their magic circles in a grimoire, which is a book that contains a mana core. Wands and staffs are similar, but they exchange the ability to store multiple spells for the advantage of storing more dense mana and more mana in general. Then, they simply have to will for the magic circle to activate by forming the last thing necessary, which is the mental image"
"So at the end of the day, I need an incantation…"
"Oh right… Sorry…" Eve's expression was no longer joyous.
"Well, no point in being sad. I'll try a few things."
Alphonse summoned another mana ball, but this time, he used a lot more. He instead created a 729 layer mana core. This core was much denser than the previous one. Then, Alphonse imagined the mana core getting smaller and rolling up into a long cylinder, similar to a pen. When he opened his eyes again, he was holding an extremely shiny pen made of mana.
"Another mana core? Are you going to using this one to write on the earlier one?" Eve asked.
"Yep, that's right."
"But you don't know any incantations! What would you write in the first place?"
Alphonse didn't respond. He had a small hunch about how the incantations worked. From the previous spell that Eve had cast, he had figured a couple of things out.
First, she called upon a foreign power. For her, it was the Demon God.
Second, she talked about where the power would come from. In her case, the demon god's anger.
Third, she defined a target.
Finally, she named the entire sequence.
This reminded him of a certain sequence of events from his studies on earth.
He drew a circle on the rectangular mana core and started writing in the circle:
---
fireball.spell
import element-magic
manaSource = 10 mana from manaCore
def fireball():
shape = sphere
element = fire(fill)
size = mana
target = undefined
speed = 50 miles per hour;
---
Essentially, he created a couple of lines of code that would outline what rules the spell would follow. He had to guess at some of the variables, but he wrote it in a way that made sense to him.
"Ok, let's give this a try." Alphonse stopped writing and aimed the mana core at some space off in the distance.
He then shut his eyes and thought of the process of when Eve grew a fireball in her hands and launched it outwards. He pictured a large ball of fire spouting from the end of his mana core and flying far away.
He felt some warmth, then-
*BANG*