"SEAL!"
With a single strike of Theo's palm, the storm of Tia's mana came to a rapid end, as if someone literally plugged its source.
Which is exactly what Theo did.
The winds died down. Various articles they carried up and thrown all over the rented room have now fallen to the ground in a loud, near-instantaneous staccato.
What Theo did, however, had nothing to do with the manifestation itself. Instead, he used his own mana to forcefully seal Tia's unleashing mana, simultaneously using the intrusion of his energy to drag the girl's mind out of the gutter of her inner world.
"AH!"
With a loud, in-breathing moan, Tia jolted up on her knees, her chest pulling up as if someone tugged on a string attached to her solar plexus.
For a moment, Tia remained like that, semi-suspended on her knees with slight winds forming all around her due to the rapid bubbling of her energy, only to then collapse right back down, her backside crashing down on her heels.
Silence.
Knowing just how precious this moment would be to the girl, Theo remained perfectly motionless, his hand long gone from the girl's back.
In the moment, Tia appeared to forget all about her surroundings, where she was, what she was doing or even who she was herself.
None of that mattered as she raised her hand and then twisted it at her wrist, staring at it as if she couldn't recognize her own flesh.
"That's…" A soft whisper escaped from her mouth, one filled with as much awe as it was full of wonder.
"What you feel is your aura," Theo spoke out in a gentle voice while raising up on his knees, pushing his chest close to the young woman's bare back, while actively stopping himself from fully crossing the distance. "That's how your spiritual energy feels, now that it has a way to manifest. And for that way to appear for you…"
Biting down on his lip, Theo snuck his left hand between his chest and the girl's back only to then gently place it right against the middle of the diagram on her back. Then, he pushed his body forth through the last half-inch of space, essentially hugging the girl from behind while reaching with his right hand down Tia's arm, all the way to where he took a hold of her wrist before pulling her entire arm out.
"Allow me," he whispered, a surge of his own mana flowing into the girl, causing the rebound of Tia's own spiritual energy.
Given the difference in cultivation between the two, even someone as experienced with magic as Theo would face a considerable backlash if the girl ended up putting her guard up against him.
But the entire experience thus far has properly conditioned her to just follow through with his instructions, pushing her to expose herself to him in the innermost sense, allowing Theo's mana to strike her own in a way a thrown stone would strike the surface of a lake.
The two energies collided, Theo's much more concentrated while Tia's incomprehensibly vaster. And from the crash of the two, Tia's mana gave in under the foreign influence, only to then bounce back, sending a surge of energy right back into Theo's hand.
A surge of energy that struck the grand sigil on Tia's back before pushing out into Theo's palm. From there on, he offered no resistance, guiding the energy across his chest and then to his extended right arm only to then inject it right back into Tia's own hand.
Originally a part of her own spirituality, the surge of mana didn't clash with her own cultivation but merely rejoined it, although with the qualities it gained while passing through the girl's sigil.
"Now…" pressing his chest against the girl's back to lock his left hand in place, Theo whispered, "see it."
Just like before, Theo's instruction was as short and ambiguous as one could get.
Tia, however, didn't question it, even though she could no longer enjoy the inhibition-free mindset of her inner world.
Her head shifted towards her right hand.
Pressed against her, Theo could feel her entire body tensing up at first, only to then relax as the very mana he helped her guide finally took a semi-corporeal form of a see-through orb floating half an inch above the girl's palm.
It looked like a bluish, semi-transparent projection consisting of seven orbs stacked upon each other, all sharing the same center and all revolving freely, independently of each other.
"That is your grand sigil," Theo spoke out, no longer in a whisper yet still in a gentle, soothing voice.
In this formative moment of getting the taste of her own spiritual power for the very first time, it was as important for Tia to remain calm and collected as it was for her to remain focused during the earlier part of the process.
"Now, try to feel each of its layers."
At this point, there wasn't much Theo could do.
This precious feeling wouldn't last forever. And never again would Tia be able to sense it as clearly as she was sensing it right now. In this crucial moment, it was imperative for her to experience this feeling as much as she could, for it to later become a seed of her control over her grand sigil.
"Like… that?"
So immersed in the taste of her magic that she failed to take note of how close the two of them were, Tia raised her hand a bit while sending the outermost orb of her sigil into a spin. Then, the second layer started to spin in a different direction and at a different speed.
And before long, Tia seemingly got the hang of it, pushing each of her orbs to spin on their own, free from any sort of influence of the other orbs within the sigil.
'Now, for the hardest part…' Theo pushed his right hand even further down Tia's wrist, to the point where he shadowed the position of Tia's hand before gently guiding it around the orb. And finally…
"Now, feel each of the sigils," he continued with the lesson, pushing down with his fingers to bring Tia's own appendages to brush against the semi-corporeal projection of her grand sigil orb.
Once again, her body tensed up as the unfamiliar sensation coursed through her veins, only to then relax to the point where she rested her weight back on Theo's chest, too immersed in the moment to even notice it.
"Woah…" Tia softly whispered in awe, her fingers soon independently dancing over the orb. At first, she would only brush against the sigils imprinted on the surface of the outermost orb. Yet, before long, her fingers would bravely press through the outer layers to touch upon the inner ones, all the way to the tiny orb at the bottom.
"And now…" as eager as he was to just get this over with and continue with his own schedule, Theo couldn't help but smile as he sympathized with the awe that permeated through Tia's every motion, "align it."
Once again, an instruction that hardly made sense without any further explanation to unravel its mystery. And yet, high on the moment, Tia did just that.
Her orbs spun at an impossibly fast rate, only to then stop with complete disregard for inertia and conservation of momentum, lining up a single sigil from each of the orbs into a simple, straight path.
Theo opened up his mouth, ready to utter the last of his instructions, only for Tia to follow through her feelings, pushing a bit of her mana through the created path.
Whoosh!
"AaaH!"
Tia's mana manifested into a small gust of air right as a melodic moan of release lingered on her lips. Her shoulders pressed to the back while her spine arched, making her moan even more intimate than it should be, as a verbal expression of properly releasing her energy for the very first time in her life.
The wind itself, contrasting with the ephemeral feeling Tia was experiencing right now, was real. And as it rushed all around, it knocked up the makeshift cloth covering Tia's chest, removing this last bit of visual protection that stopped Theo's eyes from feasting upon quite the shapely feast.
'And now, for the rude awakening,' smiling to himself, Theo gently let go of Tia's right arm, opening up his palm…
Only to bring it right down upon Tia's bare stomach with a resounding, fiery slap!