Raising a Hero

Chapter 9

Oh. Right. Magic. This world had magic.

Since I already looked like a complete noob socially, I took time to read the pretty book brother Nehcor had given me during my breaks. You think I could before bed, but damn if I wasn't tired as the dead every single night. A day of hard work can do that to you, even if it was a good kind of a tired.

It did attract a good deal of curiosity to whoever saw it. It was a rather pretty book, and it was the only thing in my possession aside from the clothes on my back. But once I made up a story about it being a family heirloom that I was able to smuggle out from the grubby hands of my ex-husband, that seemed to explain it well enough.

Gus took a bit more interest in it than Hal and Milly, though. Possibly because his weak body couldn't keep him invested in work as them.

"What's it about?" he asked.

"Well, part of it is about language, and the other part is about magic," I ended that sentence with a bite of apple. They were especially flavorful in this world, probably due to the lack of mass production.

"What about magic?"

And since it wasn't very often that he'd give me the wide kiddy eyes, even if it was just because he was too interested to know what his face was doing, I more than happily explained to him what I had read so far.

There were two types of magic, elemental and divine. Elemental magic had to do with the manipulation of the world outside of the body. Though, when I went into detail on how it was actually the ability to influence the flow of energy through matter by using one's own energy, Gus's face had screwed up in confusion.

"Shit, you really are one of them learned ones."

"Watch your mouth," I said, as I had decided to be more active in my raising role. "Didn't I already tell you it makes you sound stupid and uneducated?"

He snorted. "But I am stupid and uneducated."

I glared. "You're as stupid as you make yourself, and I'm raising you to be a fine gentleman."

"Pfft, raising me? You ain't my mom."

"I don't need to be to want you to be happy, and to be happy you need to become someone capable."
"And a gentleman is 'capable' because...?"

"A gentleman is just a word for someone who is socially capable, meaning you can make and maintain healthy and productive relationships. Stop giving me that look like I'm talking too smart for you, and don't say you don't need relationships. What do you think is between you and me? Or us and Hal and Milly? Or families? Or between employees and boss?"

"Alright alright, calm your knickers, I get it. Just get back to telling me about your book already."

And so I did, coming back to the second type of magic: divine magic.

It was called 'divine' because the human body, which was made in the image of God, was considered to be sacred, and, since this book was written by God himself, I figured it really was sacred. Rather than influencing the world outside, in influenced the body and mind, and in that line of thought, divine magic was only split into two, unlike the dozens of branches of elemental magic: healing and mind magic. Healing, which was what I did, was the ability to manipulate the flow of energy and motion in the body to promote repair and other such realignments. Mind magic, on the other hand, was the ability to influence the mind, which was a very energy complex place and needed a trillion times more finesse than healing magic, since every minute string of energy made up connections between nerve cells.

His nose wrinkled again. "Nerve cells?"

"They're these microscopic, um, crap, you guys don't have electricity either...they're tiny things in your head that by, making connections, makes it so your entire body can function, learn things, and express who you are. Like memories and such. It's...crap, you guys don't have computers either."