Free Mage Catalyst by Christopher George Page A

your body into a mana thread. It is a difficult challenge and one that usually takes several weeks of practice. It is difficult at first to maintain the thread as it will often attempt to dissipate once outside the confines of your flesh.
    Apparently Renee was right, I had done something unusual. I had learned the basic control within an afternoon. To be fair it wasn’t complete control, but I certainly hadn’t had any great issue with the mana thread dissipating. It wasn’t until I got to the following paragraph that an important truth dawned upon me.
    …It is important to understand the relationship between mana and mind. Mages attempting to protect themselves from a fire could do so in several ways. First, one could suck all the air away from the fire, thereby suffocating the flame. One could employ a hydrant to the fire thereby dousing it. One could cause the flame to increase in intensity thereby burning itself out before reaching its intended target. It is important to realise that this is not a conscious decision on behalf of the mage – the mage merely wishes the fire out.
    It is the unconscious mind that determines the result of the endeavour. Only in understanding the way in which we interact with the world around us can we become more precise and less wasteful of effort. This in turn makes the mage more powerful: knowledge is the key - power itself is irrelevant.
    I re-read that paragraph three times before I finally understood what I was being told. This explained why I couldn’t lift up an object with any precision. I was trying to do what Renee had done!
I had seen Renee use this technique as a weapon to knock someone down in an attack. An attack can’t be used to lift or move things! There was no subtlety in Renee’s attack thus there could be no subtlety in my use of the technique either. I sat back from my chair in a daze, my mind trying to assimilate what I’d learned. I could feel the excitement building within me. It was not my lack of control that was leading me to failure, it was my unconscious intent.
I was sure that I could do it now – but I needed to practice and I obviously couldn’t do that here. The library was far too open and I had run out of time. I had about five minutes before my first class.
I packed up my stuff and ejected the disk from the computer. If I had been thinking more clearly I would have copied the files from the disk so I could look at them later, but it didn’t occur to me until after I had already left the library.
Tony and Garry were waiting for me at a long string of benches where we usually hung out. It was our unofficial meeting place as we usually gathered there before going to class or walking home.
“Morning,” Tony greeted as he saw me approach. “Forget our homework, did we?” He seemed friendlier than last time, but there was still something off.
“Yeah,” I mumbled back sheepishly.
    “Yeah, well, if you get detention again, don’t count on me to help you out this time.”
“Help me out! How did you help me out?” I said in mock outrage.
“Hey, I kept you company!”
“Kept me company? As I recall we just sat there silent for the whole hour!”
“Yeah, well… I didn’t have anything to say.”
“That explains why I was so quiet then – I was stunned into silence at the thought of you running out of anything to say.”
Tony laughed then looked at me seriously. “So, what’s going on, mate? Did you see her again?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to pursue this line of conversation at the moment, but Tony wasn’t to be put off.
“What’s this? You met up with a girl?” said Garry. “Get anywhere?” he smirked lewdly.
“No, well she wanted to…” I grinned, playing along, “…but I had a headache and had to wash my hair.”
“You do have such lovely hair,” Sarah interjected from behind me – I hadn’t even heard her approach.
“Wash, rinse, repeat,” I said, quoting an annoying shampoo commercial.
“What