"Oh. I wouldn't like to hurt the wilderness. I suppose I'll have to fight them with magic instead. ...perhaps a gun for emergencies, like a bear attack. Forests have bears."

"Your enthusiasm is appreciated. But you, young man, will need to train before seeing one of the monsters face to face. Or face to faces in some cases."

"Also, try not to hurt the bears. Franklyn is friends with them and would be sad."

"Of course I will train! And I wouldn't hurt a bear unless it was going to eat me. I'm not mean."

"Okay, it's just this is serious business. It might sound like an adventure, but it is dangerous. You understand?"

"Adventure is often dangerous. That does not make it less important, or any less an adventure. I will train seriously."

"You and Aaron are going to get along too well." Hair ruffle. "I think we should get going, but we can still answer your questions about magic."

Tintin has many questions about magic! It may be easiest to offer him a working summary, rather than allowing him to pull on the loose threads that are visible to him.

Stephen is familiar with the situation of an-overly-eager-about-magic child. He explains sorcery, which relies on "lifeforce" as a fuel. Lifeforce in humans is divided into five aspects: breath, stamina, wakefulness, health and youth. People can manipulate their own lifeforce, which can they use to transfer to others or to grow a gift. Which is a power that is tied to an aspect. Tintin's strength is a breath gift. The other way to use sorcery is through rituals, which involve various actions like chanting, moving, writing symbols, etc. and may have a variety of customized effects. However, it's very important to use rituals carefully and follow them to the letter. They are going to give him a safety lecture on the topic and in more depth later, but it is very important to already let sink in. Rituals and sorcery in general uses your life as a fuel. One can obviously still use it casually, but it's only common sense to be careful about it.

"And so - if I were to develop a youth gift, I would be spending years of my life, instead of running out of breath?" Tintin shivers. "I would not like to do that."

"Exactly, despite the name it wouldn't even cause you to grow up, just grow older. Youth is used for long-lasting things, like magical objects, but always with moderation. It's the only aspect that doesn't regenerate, the only way to replace it is by getting from someone."

"You can get youth from other people, even purchase it, but at the cost of someone else lifespan. Ah, and exchanging lifeforce between species is dangerous as well. Like how putting animal blood in your veins would make you sick."

"I do not think people should be taking other people's youth. It sounds... ugly."

"It's never something that should be taken by force. But youth is useful, some things are downright impossible to do without it. As long the people involved understand and agree with the situation... it wouldn't be doing them a favor by removing the freedom of choice."

Tintin is thirteen years old and does not have access to cogent arguments against capitalism leeching ever-more-vital resources from the poor!

"It still seems ugly," he mutters. "But I am not sure. What kind of gifts can I develop? How are the powers of the vault different from normal gifts?"

"It's not pretty," Stephen reasons. "The vault's unique benefit is that we can swap our powers. Which isn't impossible to do without, but requires very complicated and complex rituals and a long time recovering, because for everyone else it's like transplanting an organ. The gifts there are not different from other gifts, but there is variety to choose from."

And regarding the first question, they can offer examples of what gifts and rituals can do: creating protections, moving objects, producing various kinds of energy, transforming matter, grant new senses, emotion control, dispelling magic, and so on. The different aspects have different strengths: breath is good at effects that don't require active attention; stamina does physical things, often with energy; wakefulness does mental things and senses; health is changing or manipulate the nature of things; youth is the most versatile and powerful, often including things like metamagic or permanent magical effects.

"Hmm. And can I choose what gift I develop, or does it simply happen, like my breath-gift?"

"It simply happens, but people usually find that they like their powers even if they could be better. Are you concerned about getting a power to change shapes?"

"Mm... I would like that power, but I don't know if there's another I would like more. There is a lot of magic, and I think I wouldn't shapeshift very often. I know what I would want to look like. Is there a shapeshifting ritual, that I could do instead? It would be a health ritual, no?"

"Rituals often use more than one aspect. But it would mostly use health, yes. We are looking into that kind of thing because of you. It's the kind of magic with red tape around it."

"That is very nice of you! Why is there red tape?"

"I try to take care of my kids, which you are one now. And the red tape is to stop people from using that sort of thing in bad ways. Pretending to be someone else to commit a crime."

"Ah. Of course. Because people are like that."

"It's not very common, but there is no reason to make it easier for bad people to abuse it."

"And we should figure out how to do it for your entirely legitimate purpose. And we will train you to use magic, the fact that you will already have a gift makes it easier to get more, but it still is a matter of months and years."