Felix and the warrior Kiria had recently gobbled up a dinner at the lobby in their reserved apartment. The menu was not a modest choosing for the late evening. But it was rather rich, benevolence of a master.
It included warm soup with dough and late summer vegetables as ingredients, and masterfully prepared fried meat with soft cooked dough, which could melt in a hungry mouth instantly. It was the most nutritious meal on the table. For the last course, a delicacy of a food cooked with the inn’s special symbol, steamed sea turtles.
The warrior woman must be feeling very generous at hosting her disciple for their first serious conversation they were about to have.
Having eaten the most of the meals, Felix was rather satisfied from the hospitality. Sleep was slowly starting to take over as he drank the fragrant tea, which was included in the food service.
“Good job back then when you defended the traders from the… bandits. I felt proud in you for becoming my disciple,” Kiria finally said, pulling Felix’s attention. “Then I recalled I hadn’t told you anything about responsibilities of being a disciple, or about myself.”
Felix cleared his mind to erase the mild sleepiness, directing his focus on the person sitting in front of him.
“I mainly work for a duke of the empire as a mercenary. I indirectly execute his orders; they include various tasks, mostly guarding or escorting missions, sometimes delivering of precious and valuable items. Sometimes even assassinations. I originally intended for you to become one of his subordinates. Considering your talent, you would end up in a high power’s hands eventually.” She added.
It meant that supposing Felix stayed to become her disciple, he would have to accomplish the same tasks sooner or later, and become one of the employees of that duke she mentioned. It was not actually a surprise, considering her profession.
“I can’t give you details of the last mission, but your help in ruining Tsilonee’s plot was a deciding factor in disrupting a certain other duke’s scheme. Though, unfortunately, I couldn’t fully find out the intentions behind all of that.”
“What about Seron, he won’t talk?” Felix interrupted. For the first time in almost a month, he was about to learn of Tsilonee’s lover’s fate. He had been hoping to hear the news he preferred very much.
Kiria narrowed her eyes as if confused, making Felix’s heartbeat quicken in anticipation. “He was killed when he resisted the Kartan Town soldiers,” she said. “Disobeying the Town Lord, also killing his subjects was a heavy crime, deserved to an execution on the spot.”
Felix visibly took a huge sigh of relief. Maybe the nightmares that had been occasionally searching him would ease up their pursuit now; the mental pressure of the expectation of eventually being hunted down was the worst kind.
“The bad dreams you have were for this reason?” Kiria asked, making Felix look up with a startle. “You wake up suddenly at nights, and talk in your sleeps.” She shrugged indifferently.
Well, Felix had hoped he wasn’t causing any inconvenience to the warrior or making clear his issues. Usually, he would go through any mental problems he came across all by himself. But this one was proving to be a sticky one. All the time since that incident, Felix had been doing his best to convince his mind that he was not the culprit for the death of the prostitute.
She did it to herself. He just defended. In this world, the strong would survive. And protecting oneself by killing another was a simple rule. Therefore, he was on the right.
Most probably…
“… She had rescued me from hunters,” Felix eventually decided to spill what was inside. “I don’t know if they were going to hand me over to the town’s lord, or sell me away… she, Tsilonee, had saved me from them and taught things. I was indebted to her. But I responded by killing her.” He looked up, to see the opinion on the warrior’s expression.
“She knew I wanted to be free. She tried to poison me and wanted me to be her… slave. Then she tried to torture me for doing things against her. I didn’t have a choice but defend myself. I did, then ended up killing her.”
He had to admit, even this short summary made him feel considerably lighter. It was like letting out an excessive burden from his mind.
“She tried to enslave you and you did what you could to be free,” Kiria commented, her tone still casual. She didn’t sound to be trying to sympathize with her disciple.
Felix nodded his head. “I thought Seron would want revenge.”
If he was alive, Seron definitely would. Now Felix confirmed the personal guard was dead, a huge issue in his life in this new world was lifted up by its own. He had practically nothing to fear. Only getting accustomed to the society was the only remaining issue.
The warrior didn’t say anything for a good wile, perhaps contemplating her disciple’s exposed feeling.
“Anyway, I’m going to teach you the customs of this country. You may offend some noble or a military officer if you aren’t at least aware of common mannerism.” She abruptly changed the subject.
Yup, warriors like this are always best at punching things through. But when it comes to psychology…
Felix hadn’t expected any sympathetic little lecture, though some plain words of consolation would be perfect. It would mean this woman was a rational human being like any other person on Earth.
Still, the shapeshifter pulled himself together and sat up straightly. His drowsiness also had faded away after the little emotional break.
Kiria patiently began explaining the customs the citizens of this country complied; how to greet elders, what to do in the presence of nobility, or even loyalty. And how to treat elders of a specific area you were currently in.
The behavior between servants and subordinates were rather distinguishable. Their show of respect and obedience differed as well; instructions of elders were to obliged dutifully, carrying out orders of the nobility was an honor to the most, and the words of the royalty were absolute
The greetings and salutes had different meanings. If one joined hands in the front of midsection to bow to the one in authority, it meant the person bowing would be a servant, not fully worthy of further attention or to be remembered, in most cases. Subordinates were to keep arms on the sides of their bodies when they showed respect. Joining one’s fist with palm on the jaw level was for the military or for any kind of people who practiced martial arts. Quite the same as it was in Felix’s home world.
“Tomorrow, we’ll make a trip to the outskirts of the city,” Kiria announced after concluding the small lecture related to manners. “It’s good you have followed my instruction of not asking any questions about your training. I'll explain everything for you there is to know.”
Kiria stood up from the table after she finished speaking. It meant it was the end of the supposed serious talk. Well, truthfully, Felix had expected more revelations, along with some questions in the mix. His origin was supposed to be a secret to the warrior. The prostitute couldn’t have sold out this information. Right?
Felix’s stopped having excessive thoughts at once and focused on the important matter. The intentions the magic warrior was keeping to herself would be evident sooner or later. She didn’t seem evil minded, after all.
The drowsiness once more retreated after realizing of the statement about the trip. He had been itching to dig deeper into his ability and learn the usage of inner magic. Remembering his master’s fight against five opponents on an almost equal footing was a fascinating scene to watch.
He would have watched if it wasn’t for his predatory instincts forcing him to act. After giving Kiria a little hand, of course.
The shapeshifter went to bed after the discussion was clearly over, not fearing from any night horrors at this time. Though he didn’t take a risk to change into his original appearance to sleep in his actual body.
The young woman’s form was becoming more and more natural by now. Still, he missed the dangling of a certain part of his male body. He didn’t risk changing into his actual appearance even while he was taking the bath this day.
The female form was not too inconvenient. During the bath, the time that was spent to wash his long hair was not any less than washing his entire body. How would women manage to keep taking care of such a beauty asset with great patience? Besides, it was irritating to clip a loose lock behind the ears every time it got between the eyesight.
As for the two mounds on the chest area, they didn’t cause that much inconvenience. If they were bound enough tightly, their presence would be negligible.
Keeping his mind with trivial matters, Felix fell asleep without the worry of the usual nightmares.
The morning declared its arrival when the room Felix spent a night in got brighter. It had been a rather relaxing night. This was the first time he woke up feeling safe since he was mysteriously dumped into this world. It didn’t feel as if in his own home, but safe.
The sun had just got up over the horizon when Felix opened the window of his apartment. He had already washed up and was in a cheerful mood. The cold weather and the heavily clouded sky couldn’t dampen his high spirit now.
“You are up,” Kiria’s voice sounded across the room. She was standing by the threshold.
“Good morning, master,” Felix greeted with a beaming smile, performing a disciple’s salute.
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Kiria returned the gesture. “I’ve ordered a breakfast. Quickly eat up. We’ll leave soon.”
How nice! A room service again.
The two had the morning meal, which was consisted of only a soup slightly different from the one they had a night before, and some sweets with aromatic tea to wash along.
After the breakfast, they set off to their short trip toward the suburban area. On the way, not long after they exited the inn, Kiria insisted on heading to a tailor’s store that she claimed to know well. When they visited the workshop, Felix was gifted a pair of training uniforms, bought and paid by his master. Kiria said it was a custom for masters to present their first apprentice martial art attire.
Kiria told him to wear one of the martial outfits under his winter robe. This instruction made him hope in vain for the thing in his mind not to happen.
There appeared a possibility of a training time on today’s schedule.
Without wasting any more time, they headed to the city gates. At daytime, Atten reminded the old London on Earth Felix had seen only from pictures, even before the city went through the inferno days. Maybe the city’s size was not as wide, and the design of buildings were not western, though the pavement and the sad weather, along with not overly high noise of the citizens definitely brought some memories.
The duo was let out of the city without long delay at the gates. They headed to the edge of the mountain range, the opposite side of the land mass, where the ridge couldn’t shelter them from winter’s stray winds. Felix found out the mountain range was named The Crescent Ridge, quite fitting to its shape. Some people called the city of Atten by this name as well.
The outskirts beyond the territory of the city, where the dwellings of low class citizens ended, was currently almost devoid of any human activity. Only occasional woodcutters were wandering through these areas.
“What would you like to know?” Kiria asked, stopping when it was apparent no one was around.
Felix halted as well, and put his frail arms over each other, pressing to his body to shield himself against the cold. He spent a brief time to ponder over his first question.
“Honestly, everything,” He replied, deciding to take a small gamble. He was like an alien to this world, and this warrior woman must realize this fact before all. “The difference between inner and outer mana users, how to strengthen my body properly. And the… the pillars they were called? I would like to know everything that every citizen knows in the empire.”
Kiria fell quiet in contemplation. He must have sounded weird to ask such simple questions, of course, but he had no choice.
After a few seconds of silence, his master slowly started to nod her head.
“You are probably aware that outer mana users affect the nature beyond their physical being, while the inner mana users control the power inside their bodies.”
“We magic warriors have three stages of mana control to master,” Kiria resumed. She sounded somewhat adamant on explaining magical rules to her disciple. “On the first stage, magic warriors are able to use very short amount of mana to enhance their physical prowess. They have to gather mana in their limbs to become strong before engaging into a fight. It takes time.”
“Some people train and adjust their mana channels to the way they could use mana instantly. They concentrate on specific parts of their bodies. Though it lasts for a very short time.”
Kiria began stepping away from Felix, to an area where there was some space for a solo practice in fighting.
“You must remember those thugs attacked you in the Bening town. One of them used the exact same technique once. He moved forward abruptly with exceedingly high speed.” She demonstrated a pose, which was the exact same as the mercenary with the Meri boy performed. She then leaped forward with a speed that an ordinary human would find impossible to block without breaking some bones.
Felix remembered it perfectly well.
“It demands a delicate control of mana and a strong awareness of one’s body,” his master explained. “If done wrongly, one could end up with broken limbs, or even get crippled for life. It then would only be treated by powerful healer magicians.”
Good thing he always enhanced his body’s physical capabilities in full, only concentrating a little more on the needed part. It was not easy to strengthen his single limb, anyway.
“The whole body strengthening technique on the first stage is not that powerful, and requires longer time to utilize, so most people use brief strengthening mostly. It is equally destructive and has very short time to activate.”
“When a warrior learns how to withdraw power continuously from their mana core mid-fight, and expands the size of their mana pool to a certain degree, they are considered second stage magic warriors, in early mastery. We have to expand the mana pool and improve the mana extraction to a level that could balance with our stamina,” she said.
“And there is cycling,” She briefly paused before continuing, and started walking to a random direction, probably seeing Felix didn’t like staying still in the freezing weather condition. Felix followed.
“If mana is constantly pulled out from the mana core, it drains down rather fast. By cycling, it could be conserved. Most importantly, mastering the cycling to a perfect level is the only way to the final third stage. That’s why it’s also called the state of perfect control.” She glanced at Felix as if announcing the hardest challenge in becoming a warrior.
“A warrior who reached the perfect control can be in body strengthened state for an entire day; day and night, even while asleep”.
Felix didn’t say anything after hearing her last statement. Because he couldn’t take the last piece of information for granted just like that. How could someone extract mana even while sleeping? Wouldn’t they run out of mana? Besides, the brain should be in a passive state when it was asleep.
“How difficult is the cycling?” he asked.
Kiria seemed a bit hesitant. She shook her head before answering. “It’s not possible for shapeshifters to cycle.”
Felix stared with blank expression for a couple of seconds, then looked at his master with disbelief as if she was punishing him with such a mocking revelation.
Did she deliberately rise up his hope to crush it into thousands of pieces like this? Or was it mental toughness training, or a test?
“How… Why is it not possible for me to cycle?” he exclaimed.
“You have an enormous pool of mana, isn’t it already a gift enough?” she said with a light laugh.
This didn’t make Felix any more irritated, but surprisingly a little calmer. Not because of the fact she just mentioned. Her broad smile he was seeing for the first time reminded Felix that Kiria was a woman too. Not the prettiest, but beautiful nonetheless, in a way.
“The reason your kind can’t circulate mana is because the difference in mana channels,” the warrior resumed her explanation. “It is said that warriors have connected mana channels, perfect structure for cycling. Magicians’ are different. Their mana channels are oriented to outside their bodies. They don’t have any channel joints, so they are able to control or create objects outside of their physical being.” The last sentence was said as if the warrior had hidden resentment or envy towards the outer mana users.
She must have dreamed of being a grand wizard when she was a kid, Felix mused with a little delight and satisfaction that he was not the only one distressed.
“Shapeshifters are in-between mana users,” Kiria continued the supposedly mental toughness training.
Of course, it is an in-between thing, Felix wanted bump his head onto a tree nearby, or punch it repeatedly. But the thought of the unique opportunities came with shapeshifting restrained him.
“Your mana channels are disconnected, directed out of your body, but not to the fullest. Which means you can affect the nature inside your body, not outside,” his master said.
“How many stages do the magicians have?” Felix intended to change to subject. He would dig deeper about his own kind’s magic use later.
“They have three stages of mana mastery, as well. All first stage magicians cannot perform spells without chanting incantations,” Kiria pointed out. “On the second stage of mastery, they start developing their mana channels for silent casting. On reaching the peak mastery on the second stage, they already fully master all the simple spells there exist, and go on to enchanting greater destructive spells on the third stage without the use of enchanting. At this final stage, they can perform ordinary spells with a split thought,” She concluded.
Felix quietly processed what he had just been told. The last bit of information echoed in his mind the strongest.
“So… If we compare two equal stage mana users, I mean, a warrior and a magician, who would win?” This question had been bothering him since the day one he heard about the disparity of magic users.
Kiria smiled at him, as if she had expected him to eventually give this question.
“At the first stage, warriors who have seen some training have the advantage. Magicians take time to cast verbally. On the second though, we are almost equal, but some consider magicians are slightly more powerful than us on this mastery level. And on the final stage,” she paused a little with a sigh, shaking her shoulders as if to shave off the cold.
“A newly become third stage magician can fearlessly challenge a magic warrior who mastered perfect mana control halfway through. Some third stage middle mastery magicians think themselves as invincible. They can practically kill early inner seconds with a flick of their hand.” She glanced at her disciple. Her eyes were saying like ‘Can you understand our predicament now?’.
Obviously, there were disputes between the two types of people who were born with outer mana control and who weren’t. Such issues always existed in some way or another, regardless of what world it was.
Felix felt a little sympathy for her magical kind, just a little. Not being able to reach the top no matter how much one strived must be somewhat depressing. Well, he wasn’t aiming for the peak. He just wanted to utilize what he was given as fully as possible.
“You must, uh,… you must have some question for me too, right?” Felix started to change the topic again, a little hesitant.
He heard a plenty amount of information to busy his head for the rest of the day. Just to process these things and come up with a proper plan to form his future actions was a headache enough.
Besides, his master deserved some truths.
Kiria stared at her disciple’s face for a couple of seconds, as if examining his expression to choose how to answer. “No,” she answered causally.
“No?” He blinked. “How?”
It can’t be possible, especially after spending so many days together on the way. She must have some doubts of his origins, or at least an ounce of curiosity of his real appearance, right?
“Simple.” She shrugged. “I don’t need to know your past to be your master. I trust you are not hiding anything I should be afraid of. What I know about you is enough.”
“But you told me so much and… in return, I need to tell you what I… know. Won’t it be right?” That was confusing.
Kiria began laughing, although lightly, looking him in the eye. “You think too much,” she said. “What I told you was common knowledge. You don’t have to expose your whole past for returning the favor. Besides, you did well back then, intervening in the battle I was losing. I owe you for that.”
Felix wanted to say how silly her impression about him was. For him, it was plainly naïve to accept someone only based on a single comradeship they had shared.
It was true that he saved the traders, and came to Kiria’s rescue. He would be lying to himself if he said he hadn’t wanted to beat up all the threats from that attacking party and save the day with his magic. Behind the intention of preserving his own life, he had still desired attention to some degree when he acted in defense of the merchants.
But still…
“Stop thinking too much. I see you exaggerate things.” Kiria shook her head, unfastening the strap of two swords hanging over her shoulder, and gently throwing them to the side. “We haven’t come here just for talking,” she said.
Kiria held the flatly bound sash around her thick coat. It was the coat suited for movement convenience. She took the winter outfit off and hurled it to a tree branch.
Felix’s watched what she was doing, and wondered about her intentions. Finally realizing the situation he was going to end up soon, he tried to shake up his brain for a proper excuse to avoid what was coming. She must be in the mind of testing her disciple’s combat prowess.
“We won’t go back before making some sweat. I need to see what you are capable of. You don’t believe you will get lucky again when another thug tries to pick on you, right?”
It sounded like a taunt. But she was right. Felix had to stop the reluctance of initiating any movement rich activity if he wanted to keep his frail life to himself in this merciless reality.
Taking a short sigh, the shapeshifter began removing his warm garment as well. Kiria patiently watched him, standing still, arms behind her back. The pair of daggers she possessed was still attached on her hip. Though she didn’t look to be using it in the spar.
“No body strengthening techniques!” She proclaimed as Felix started preparing to withdraw mana in a motionless pose.
Felix looked at his master in disbelief, opening his mouth to protest, but not finding any reasonable excuse to reject the instruction.
This is going to be a tough experience.