***POV Jordan***

At this moment I was starting to doubt my decision to help Twilight prepare for her entry exam.

We are about one hour after breakfast and both Night Light and Shining Armor have left for their job or school.

Twilight Velvet was going to cleaning the house today. She probably already started on the windows downstairs.

Meanwhile me and Twilight were studying. I was studying the basics of magic while Twilight was trying to perform an acceleration spell. An acceleration spell speeds up a certain process for a certain time. For example: when you put a piece of clay out to dry, you can use the spell to let it happen in an hour or so, instead of a few days (depends on the size of the clay).

For me it was going quite good. The basic were quite easy to grasp. Together with the things I already knew, I was able to get a decent idea of what magic actually was. The reason why I was studying magic was simple. I just really wanted to. Just the thought of studying something that might get my attention just like electricity did back when I was in Belgium, just made me feel like a child again.

Magic in and of itself was a kind of energy that is accessible for these ponies nearly everywhere. It helped the normal or earth ponies with their normal lives, like make them more durable and give them more strength. But it also gave them a more natural feeling with the land around them. It’s probably why the majority of earth ponies are in manual labor. Or that’s what I found out from the books Twilight gave me.

Second were the pegasi, which I still can’t believe exist. It’s like this world is nearly made up from Greek mythology. Anyway the pegasi use the magic energy that they can acces for flying because otherwise their wings couldn’t hold them airborne. It also gave them the ability to stand on clouds which probably have magic in them as well, and let them manipulate clouds to affect the weather.

That was an interesting thing to know. These ponies can literally create the weather they want. Must be handy for agriculture and all that.

And last but not least, the unicorns were able to directly manipulate the energy to perform spells and stuff. Or they can command the energy to perform certain acts like levitation of objects. The way they do this was interesting. Over time they store this dormant energy in their own body’s that the can then command to perform these spells. They use their horns as some sort of focus point. I think the structure of the horn allows that. If they are overtaxed than they have to wait a while to regain the they lost energy. They do need some energy for survival.

The ponies probably drew the energy directly from the surrounding molecules and atoms. Otherwise I can’t think of a way that they can acquire that energy. But I quickly dismissed that thought because I don’t know the required quantum mechanics to know what I was talking about.

And that was literally like 20 books I went trough. Damn, this is going good. I quickly wrote everything down on a small notebook that I got from Twilight and then continued on the books of beginner spells.

I heard a loud groan. It appears Twilight her spell was not going so well as my studies. It appears that she just couldn’t get the way to cast the spell right. And she was frustrated about that, that much was clear.

“What am I doing wrong?” She nearly shouted.

“Twilight, I’m going through these books as fast as I can so that I can try to help you. Just hang on for a moment,” I tried to comfort her.

“I know. But it’s just so frustrating to know that there is something wrong but not knowing what,” She responded with a pout.

“Trust me Twilight, I know how that feels,” I said while thinking back on my programming classes from back when I was still in school.

With a heavy sigh she started to try the spell again without much success. And I continued to study the books that Twilight gave me.

The books I studied now were those that covered spellcasting. It seemed that there wasn’t that much necessary to cast a spell. Primarily will power and enough stored energy. I have also read that adult ponies even most of their children can at least cast one intermediate spell without any problem at all.

That is strange because twilight is struggling to cast an adept spell. It also seemed that it was only those two factors that determine if a pony could cast a spell or not.

Maybe I was overlooking something. Or was Twilight really lacking in magic potential?

“Hey Twilight. Is there a way to measure how much potential magic that you can store? Or have you tested that already?” I asked.

“I got a test from my doctor once. In that test he concluded that I was able to store an abnormal amount of energy. Why?”

“I was just trying to limit my options for a possible solution to your problem,” I replied.

“It’s because I have so much magical energy that I have bad control over it. Sometimes it becomes a bit too much to handle for me. So having not enough energy is not really a problem for me. It’s having too much,” She clarified.

So that was not the problem. Can having too much energy cause a problem? The books I had here suggested not. Maybe I was really missing something else. Let’s see.

To cast a spell, You needed will power. Will power, intense focus on a particular object or process and willing a change on it. I think I got the root of the problem.

“Twilight? What are you exactly thinking when you are casting the spell that you are trying now?” I asked

“What? Why do you need to know?”

“Just answer the question,” I said a bit more forceful now.

“I’m just thinking that I want to accelerate the process,” She answered.

“What process?” I pressed.

“The process of the clay becoming solid.” And there we have it.

If you wanted a spell to work as it was supposed to, you needed to know what you wanted to change and how it worked in the first place. Maybe some thinking outside the box could help.

“Okay thanks. I think I know what your problem is Twilight” I said with excitement.

“Oh, you do? What is it?” She asked genuinely confused.

“It is the way you are thinking about the spell and the process,” I answered.

“I don’t think I can follow what you are trying to say.”

“You want to let the clay harden faster into a solid hard piece, right?” I said, “But the clay is already a solid piece, so you can’t accelerate the process of it becoming solid.” I paused a bit.

“Right now, you want the clay to become a hardened piece. Well, how does clay become that way?” I asked.

It took her a minute to actually put the pieces together. You could literally see the gears turning in her head.

“It dries out?” she said quite shakily.

“Good, and how does it dry out?”

“Because the water inside evaporates,” She finished.

“Excellent, now try the spell again but focus on evaporating the water in the clay faster,” I instructed.

She started up her spell again. This time however you could see the clay hardening up into a hard piece. She did it. She looked at me with tears of joy in her eyes. I guess she was really frustrated with the spell.

“If you change the way you think about certain things to a very basic level, I think that you can perform any spell you want.” I encouraged her.

And with that she hugged me. “Let’s take a break for a while. After that you can try some new spells, just to exercise that way of thinking.”

She agreed. The first thing she did was tell her mother, while I cleaned up the books. Velvet was really happy for her. It turned out that little Twilight had been struggling with similar spells for quite some time.

When she came back I decided to confront her about what happened last night.

“Twilight? Do you know how we ended up like we did this morning?” I asked. I decided for a blunt frontal approach.

“That’s easy silly. I put you in my bed with me,” She giggled.

“But why?”

Now her mood darkened a bit. “I saw that you had cried again, probably about the home you lost. So I decided to comfort you a bit. Why do you ask? Did it not help?” She asked with a bit of concern.

“No, it really helped. In the first part of the night I was having a really bad nightmare. While in the second part I slept really well. Thank you for that,” I said. I was really grateful for her act of kindness.

“Anything for a friend. But would you mind telling me what the nightmare was about?” She asked.

I gave her a small summary of the dream.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” She said, “But if you really want somepony to talk to. Just know that I’m here to listen.”

“The same thing applies to you too, okay?” I replied.

I was just shocked with how friendly these ponies were. But at the same time, I’m really grateful that they were giving me this help.

And with that said, we continued our studying session.

With some spells, she could do it all by herself. With others I had to just push Twilight in the right direction of the solution. Probably because she hadn’t seen the physics behind certain things.

“Twilight? Do you have trouble with keeping your mind from wandering?” I asked after I completed a few other books.

“Sometimes yeah. Why?”

“It is stated here that is is one of the probable causes of magic instability. Also next to it they mentioned a magic surge. What is that exactly?

“It is basically magic’s equivalent to adrenaline. Put anyone in a certain situation and they will release all their held energy,” She explained.

“Wow. Hey. Maybe I can teach you how to meditate somewhere this week. That way your magic will be more stable and will get out of control less frequent.” I offered.

Next thing we know, Twilight Velvet came in to tell us lunch was ready. It was nice to have a home cooked meal once again. I can’t cook to even save my own life.

After dinner, little Twilight thought that she could practice more spells. I even had some questions about some things that weren’t clear to me yet. She happily explained those.

But after that I had other plans.

“So Twilight. Do you have anything for a presentation about something you would want to study further?”

“What?” She asked with a bit of panic.

“Well, you told me that there were two parts to the exam. One was the magic test, and the other was a presentation of something that you would want to study further. That’s at least what you said. Do you have anything in mind for that?” I asked.

“I haven’t really thought about it. There is just nothing that immediately gets my attention besides magic,” She explained.

“Can’t you do it about magic?”

“No, you have to have at least one side subject that you want to be studying. But I can’t think of anything that gets my attention.”

“I have an idea, but I don’t know if you are going to like it,” I said.

“What is it?” She asked with a bit of enthusiasm.

“You could give a presentation about electricity. That way I can teach you what I promised and help you with the presentation,” I suggested.

“It that the thing you kind of explained yesterday when we just met?” She inquired.

“Yes it is.”

“I might try it. But if I don’t like it, we might want to find something else,” She proposed.

“Seems fair. We would need some books that Equestria has on electricity.”

“We could ask mom to take us to the library tomorrow. If you need those books,” Twilight said.

“I mainly want to see what this place its advancements are in the field of electricity. I can already teach you what I know from home.”

“Sure go ahead, then we will already know if I like it or not,” She said with some excitement.

With that said, I grabbed an empty notebook. And started with the lessons I had in high school.

I started with the basics, Ohm’s law and such. She was pretty quick to grasp those idea’s. After each small chapter I gave, I made some exercises for her and let her solve those. If she had troubles, I was there to help.

The afternoon quickly went by. We went at it without any breaks. It turns out that Twilight enjoyed it quite a bit. The more difficult the chapters got, the more she liked it.

We didn’t stop until it was 8 PM when Twilight Velvet came in to tell us that it was dinner time. We didn’t even notice that Shining and Night Light came home.

I had given an absurd amount of notes, formulas and electrical diagrams. We probably went through 2 years of lessons in an afternoon.

But now we were both tired.

At the dinner table, Twilight was excited to tell of her progress in the spell department and how I helped her with it. Both guys looked at me with a smile. You could see the happiness and pride in their eyes when they saw how much little Twilight had progressed.

After dinner it was straight to bed. They didn’t need to tell me that twice.

As I prepared myself on the pillow, I got picked up by Twilight and placed in the same position like last night. Just as I was about to ask her she was already out like a light. Only a big smile on her face. Happy with all the knowledge and progress she gained. Just like me.

Author's Note

I hope you guys are enjoying this.
Again, if you have any suggestion or criticism, please let me know.

I hope you have a wonderful day.