Translucent purple crystalline material covers many of the trees in the treeline. A few sheets also block the roof, the house, and the garden from issues arising from the upcoming training session, especially since Cole never comes around to reset damage dealt. Krystal, with her purple flame aura surrounding her, is hard at work protecting everything so that errant forest fires or electrical damage cannot damage their house and immediate area. That said, the crystalline barriers set up cast a rather beautiful glow on the front, washing much of the yard in a soft purple light combined with the sun at its peak beginning to set. After finishing her task, Krystal lays down on the ground breathing and sweating profusely. She grumbles, "Gods damn it Cole, why did we pick such a massive front yard??"
Luna sits up with her eyes returned to blue and sweat all gone, "So, ready to experience what having magic is like?" Hinata followed behind and is sitting on the steps.
Viper nods as she smiles at Luna "I'm ready, with you two by my side this should be real easy"
"You've literally never done this before, so don't get too complacent," Luna warns though with her usual soft smile. "First off, you should probably pull out your dagger. This will be your conduit for Magic."
Viper reaches behind her and grabs the knife out of a conceled holster, "I always keep it on me, it's my good luck charm." She smiles at her. When Viper pulls out the dagger, she notices that it's a lot longer than what she was given originally. In fact, it's less a dagger and more of a full on longsword in that same pomegranate and black as before. On each side of the hilt, one side has the moon and the other the sun. Luna just smiles brightly at her surprise. It's kind of like one of those light up lightsaber toys, you know the kind
Viper blinks at the size change of the dagger as she seems surpised "Huh...it's a lot longer than I remember."
Luna explains, "It's designed to let you choose your combat mode. Do you want a knife or a sword in this fight? It's up to you, just press the little moon or the sun to swap between lengths. Cool ain't it?"
"As for the magic part, all you have to do is think about which element you want to use and you'll see a change on the blade itself. Try thinking about fire magic. Imagine the heat coming off of the blade and the air sizzling around it." Hinata looks over and smiles.
Viper nods as she mutters, "Really fucking cool...." she takes a deep breath as she tries her best to imagine heat coming off the blade and the air sizzling around it, just like Hinata said. She notices a red aura and a bit of tangible, though not painful, heat coming off of the blade. It seems Magic may have some ties to belief. Do you believe your blade is hot? Well guess what? It's hot now.
"Nice, now try casting a spell with it. Speak the spell into existence and wave your blade! Belief is half the game! If you believe it, you'll see it!" Hinata suggests.
Luna is standing about 50 feet away from Viper with a crystalline shield on her arm.
Viper huffs as she smiles as she waves the sword and speaks, "Wind blast?" She doesn't sound confident
[Nothing happens. It seems while in FIRE mode, it can only cast FIRE magicks.]
"Viper, two things. 1. What element is on your sword right now? Your sword is a little limited in that you have to swap elements to use different magic types. And 2. You gotta have some confidence girlie! Imagine if we were getting attacked right now, what would you do to the enemy?"
Luna smiles while continuing to defend herself, "You can't hurt me in a way that matters Viper. Hit me with what you got!"
Viper looks over at Hinata and nods as she looks back over at Luna and waves the sword with confidence as she speaks "Fire bolt!"
[From the tip of her sword, a quick bolt of fire erupts heading directly to Luna's shield. It seems she wasn't really expecting her spell to be as fast as it was, but she was able to defend against it well enough.]
Luna cheers from behind her shield, "That's it Viper! How does it feel to cast magic?"
Viper takes a moment as she smiles, "Awesome?? That was so fucking cool." She looks extremely excited.
"Do it again! Hinata, Rhythm Rampage!"
Hinata nods and music begins to play piped in within the crystal cage, though it actually comes from the stereo boombox Hinata brought outside with her. As she begins to dance, Viper feels something new. This fire aura and heat begins to intensify. It seems Viper might be able to cast bigger spells temporarily. Luna looks like she's bracing for impact, even her own body is in its own aura, glowing a deep blue, almost like a Super Saiyan form minus the hair changing to gold.
Viper nods as she waves her sword with confidence as she speaks aloud, "Fire blast."
Luna smiles brightly and two hands her shield to intercept the Fire Blast.
[The fire blast, a massive ball of red flames, heads directly towards Luna though much slower than normal. She snarls while trying to absorb it. It seem to work well enough though, as it causes her aura to strengthen instead of deal damage. The issue with Fire in an enclosed cage is the parts that aren't crystal still get affected, however. With some quick thinking, Luna quickly switches to her ice magic and puts out the fire. Fire melts ice and makes water. The grass beneath Luna is now black and smoke rises from it.]
"Shit! Gods-- ugh, maybe we shouldn't be playing with fire out here..." Luna sighs as she catches her breath.
"Are you okay Lu?" The dancing and music stops to make sure her love is safe.
Luna nods and gives a thumbs up. "Yeah, I'm okay. Close call though. That was... amazing though!"
Viper bites her lip as she lowers her sword, "My bad...I did not think that was gonna be that powerful" She's still EXTREMELY excited.
"The Rhythm Rampage boost is what Hinata wanted to add to your blade. We had to do a whole extra ritual for that, but I think it was worth it. Just note that if you use a Boosted spell, you can't use another one for 15 minutes. It's one of the big limitations of the Shard since it costs so much extra mana to cast that. There's a different kind of boost that I can give you, but it's really rare and only at night." Luna explains after taking a sip of water from her canteen.
Hinata next suggests, "Now if you wanted to change the element on your blade, all you have to do is think about what effects it could have and the color of the aura. For example, you tried using Wind Blast earlier? Imagine a green aura with the feeling of wind coming off of your blade. Similarly, you can do ice, lightning, and water in that same way too. It all comes down to belief. Our Shards' mana will do the rest of the work. Try it!"
Viper nods as she takes a breath as she raises her sword and stares at it as she imagines it having a green aura with the feeling of wind coming off of her blade, "This seems slightly easier than I imagined....other than I have no idea what the spell names are, excluding DnD spells.”
[Viper’s Longsword of the Avatars is now in WIND mode.]
Luna shrugs and gets back up on two feet, "Honestly neither do we. We just make up names for attacks and our mana does the rest. Belief, creativity, imagination. The core tenets of being Magical. If there are actual names for spells, then I'm unaware."
Hinata adds on, "The only specific names we ever use are for our Ability types. Mine are Rhythm Rampage, Lightena, Darkena, and Hydro. Past that, since we have to actually speak our spells out loud, we usually just make shit up to confuse our enemies, otherwise they're super telegraphed and that sucks."
Viper nods as she huffs as she slowly smirks as an idea forms in her head, a dangerous one at that as she points the sword at her feet then looks over at the two to see if they're picking up what she's putting down
Luna's eyes widen, "uuuh Viper, just don't go too far up." Hinata gulps.
Viper snickers as she waves her sword and speaks "Wind blast" with confidence, confidence that she should not have considering what happened with fire blast.
[The wind blast does nothing. It seems 'Blasts' are in that special category of Boosted spells.]
Luna then looks up and forgot she put in a ceiling. "Oh thank fuck it didn't work. Look up Viper." There is a bit of crystal ceiling about 20 feet above Viper.
Viper looks up and heavily sighs in relief, "Thank fuck, I kinda forgot that we're in a cage for a moment." She then aims at the wall behind her with a smirk as she speaks "Wind bolt."
[The wind she casted only hits the wall. It doesn't have enough force to pick her up.]
"I'm over here Viper." Luna grins.
Viper looks over with a playful eyeroll, "I wanted to see if I could fly, but it doesn't seem to work." She then points her sword at Luna and casts another Wind Bolt.
Luna quickly rolls out of the way of the wind bolt aimed at her then casts "Snow Burst" at her sword hand.
Viper doesn't expect it and jolts as she feels the sudden cold air and snow touch her hand as she reflexively pulls her hands and the sword closer to her body as she narrows her eyes at Luna, "That....that was fucking weird...I wanna try that" she stares at her sword as she imagines the aura to be blue and feeling the cold air come off of the blade.
[The sword is now in ICE mode.]
Luna smiles, "Hell yeah! Bring it Viper!"
[The ICE Aura becomes stronger. Boosted Spells can now be used.]
Viper points the sword and waves it around at Luna's chest as she speaks, "Snow Ball" with a sharp grin
From her sword, a massive snow ball is created and it gains speed threatening to crash into the opposite wall much like a bowling ball vs pins. With her sword out, Luna summons fire to her own blade, and attempts to cut it in two. It fails, however, and Luna is knocked back, *hard*, against the crystal structure. She is completely covered in snow.
Viper looks mortified at the size of the snow ball as she drops her sword and rushes over and starts digging through the snow to get to Luna, "Fuck, fuck fuck!” Concern is plastered on her face.
Luna, when dug out under the small snow pile, grins happily. "That. Was. AMAZING! Holy shit!" She's perfectly fine otherwise.
Hinata sighs after seeing her love safe, "Oh thank fuck that wasn't ICE BALL. That would've actually done damage."
Viper sighs in relief as she sees that Luna's safe then looks over at Hinata, "Yeah...I thought it was gonna be like a normal sized snow ball, not a giant ball of snow that'll knock someone over like a bowling pin." She offers a hand to Luna to help her stand up.
Luna gets up and wipes the snow from her clothes, "Normally, snow ball would just be a normal snow ball. But that was Boosted Snow Ball, big difference."
Viper nods as she shakes his head, "This is honestly starting to turn out to be a little more complicated" she thinks for a moment then asks "So if boosted spells are more powerful, why wouldn't they have someone constantly boosting their magic?"
Luna shakes her head, "No. Simply put, we'd get burnt out quick. Even Hinata, Elara, and I have our limits. Mental focus only goes so far. For everyone else without Regeneration, you'd basically be cutting off more time from your life."
Hinata then adds on, "Similarly, with your blade, you can only Boost every so often and only if we’re able to activate it. It's not something you can keep doing otherwise you will run out of mana."
Viper nods as she responds, "Understandable...I wish that sword had some kind of like mana gauge on it." she pauses then asks. "is there anything that I should know about? Anything super important?"
Luna takes a moment to think something over, then responds, "Actually... you should be able to see the mana gauge. Every Shard has two main features: Detection and Arcanity. Maybe I messed up the design? Could you check?"
Viper nods as she walks over to the sword and picks it up, "Sure, cutie" she checks for any kind of gauge or display on it
[No physical display, but oddly, she sees something in midair above the knife. It's a percentage gauge that says "Mana Percentage - 25%."]
While looking at it, she also notices similar percentages above Luna and Hinata. Both are at around 90% each]
"Did you see anything Viper? I swear I added a gauge somewhere." Luna mutters
Viper's eyes fill with awe as she stares at the percentage gauge above the knife then looks over at Luna and Hinata with the same expression only getting heightened as she nods several times "It's like i'm playing a video game, this is the coolest day of my life"
Hinata smiles and explains, "Okay, so your Shard has Mana Detection. It's a useful ability to see how much your opponents have left, especially those with Regeneration. Just hold down the Sun icon and you'll be able to see em..I think I'm done for the day though. Luna, mind if we remove the barriers?"
Luna nods and snaps her fingers. All of the crystal barriers disappear instantly. Part of the yard is still singed, but that's not something the pair can reverse unfortunately
Viper smiles, "It's down to 25 percent so it's probably a good idea to stop anyways" she looks over at the two of them "This was really fun, thank you for teaching me, I look forward to learning more with the both of you."
Luna smiles warmly, "We're just glad to be able to share our world with you Viper. We'll do this again soon. Practice is important."
Despite Luna and Hinata being at 90%, they both sound incredibly tired, especially considering how Mana is tied to their mental focus. Weird. The pair returns inside ahead of Viper.