Aias was expecting to start training to guide energy through his purity formation, trying to master it. He was pretty confident in his ability after four months of constantly trying to set up the barrier. However O’jghar had other plans for him.

Now Aias was to learn of how to change a technique from its base to a new form. Namely he was going to learn the spell purify. “A base formation is called so because it can be added onto. When adding onto it you will take the base formation and use it together with another formation. You will need to create this formation!” Was what O’jghar had explained.

Aias began working on the formation, this formation was fairly small and simple so it only took about a day to finish. Aias was getting good at setting up formations, of course he already had the complete ‘blueprints’ of how they were supposed to be structured, meaning he just had to follow them and a formation would be built. His teacher had explained to him that most of the time people would only be able to buy incomplete formation layouts and take time to finish the last parts themselves, which could either take a long time or a lot of money!

“Using purify isn’t all that hard, you just have to make your energy first go through your new formation and then out through the first one. Remember how I said a few months back that ‘this will be the hardest part’, well I should have said it now. When the energy is outside your consciousness you will now be able to guide it yourself. Guiding energy outside your consciousness is very difficult, so much so that most create formations to guide the energy for them”

“The problem with using a formation for the control of energy outside your consciousness is that you don’t actually have any control of it anymore. It instead becomes an automated system dictated by the formation!”

“There are however some techniques which require this approach, lord Meleth’s fire tornadoes and other large techniques would be insane to try and control without a formation to move it on its own, however he is at the same time able to make the decision on who is burned by it. No one knows how he’s able to do it. The same with Laue Sheveu, he has incredible powers but no one knows how he’s able to control them so they don’t harm his allies” O’jghar explained while pondering over it himself.

Aias hadn’t heard much about uncle Laue’s strength other than that he was the second strongest in the institute. He also thought of another person, “What about the headmaster? How does she control her techniques?” Aias asked.

“Oh, her techniques are very simple restriction spells and strengthening techniques, she has no need for special control formations” O’jghar answered, with a somewhat proud tone.

“How do restriction spells work? Shouldn’t they need some form of control?” Aias could guess by the name of the technique what it did but also wanted to know their quirks and uses.

“There are many different types of restriction spells, some restrict people's bodies while others restrict certain or all energies. It is true that some could use a control formation to make them usable faster, however most of the time they are used with touch making a control formation pointless! Other times they are like a net thrown out on the opponent, or a needle to pierce energy into them” O’jghar finished his explanation and also the conversation, now Aias was to begin practicing.

………

It took Aias a few hours just to make his energy successfully go through the two formations, and once it was out it just dissipated through his body as if it was a normal purity spell.

Aias continued to over and over again try and get control of it but even after a month had he not gotten a grasp of it for even a moment. O’jghar had been trying to advice Aias on how he was to get a hold of his energy while it was outside but it didn’t make it any easier.

After another 3 months of constant trying and failing had both teacher and student gotten quite annoyed at how the energy continued to dissipate, they needed some way for Aias to feel how energy felt while being controlled outside the consciousness.

The two had sat down for a discussion on what to do, but neither was sure. O’jghar thought having Aias try to grasp the energy in an heavenly earth crystal could do it. But because Aias body was still heavily damaged, could he not feel with his body. He could feel energy from the crystal, but he couldn’t feel how the energy entered him. If he felt how the energy moved in him with his body then he may be able to grasp it, but his nerv system wasn’t of any use.

They had sat for several hours discussing methods that seemed possible but fell apart because of his body. Then suddenly a knock on the door and with it the voice of Rainar, “Aias, O’jghar, I come with news!”

Rainar had often come to visit and see how Aias was doing, Aias had most of the time not noticed him come as he was usually deep in meditation, but was able to notice and appreciate his company every now and then.

O’jghar invited him in and so he also joined the debate. “How about you first use a control formation for a place to gather the energy, then when you grasp that energy you can guide it from there!” Rainar came with a method the two hadn’t thought of and it seemed far more sensible than their ideas.

The two hadn’t thought of using control formations at all, they had both wanted to not have to resort to using them, but Rainar’s method wouldn’t hinder Aias from being the one controlling the energy. And even if it didn’t work it wouldn’t be a problem as it didn’t use any resources, something most their plans did.

One of their many methods was to imbed energy crystals into Aias body to force the energy to move to them, like conductors. That would have been a waste of money, and it would most likely be a similar effect to just always using formations.

O’jghar was about to start teaching Aias again when suddenly, Rainar who had just left through the door then suddenly jumped back in flustered and annoyed, “Damnit, I was supposed to come here and give you this!” Rainar handed over an overly lavished scroll with a large sigil on the front.

When Aias saw the sigil his eyes popped and his heart jumped, that was the Antrim royal families crest! Why would the royal family send a message to O’jghar, what could they need?

“I see thank you” O’jghar said as Rainar left again. O’jghar went to his own room and left Aias alone to train. Aias didn’t have a clue as to what he was supposed to do while waiting, he had no knowledge on control formations so he just started channeling energy through his other two formations while waiting.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

………..

Several hours later. O’jghar came out of his room to realised he had left Aias sitting in a chair . Because Aias was crippled from the neck down he couldn’t control how his body would sink together over time. Now he was laying on the floor with only his neck left on the chair he was previously on. Luckily he couldn’t feel any pain as O’jghar had put a restriction for pain on his nerv system.

O’jghar apologised over and over to Aias as he helped him back into his bed. Aias hadn’t really cared how his body had fallen, he had constantly been using purify to relieve the little pain  that made it through the restriction making him barely even notice.

As Aias was now lying in his bed, O’jghar began to explain what the scroll detailed. “I have been summoned to be a part of a defense counsel for the possible case of something happening to the divine beast that is in our region. Me and several other beastmasters in the kingdom are going to be attending to help them organise a countermeasure for if either the divine beast attacks or if it fights something else” O’jghar finished his explanation and sat there looking at Aias for his response.

“And?” Aias was confused, so what did that mean, what was going to happen, where was he going, was he coming with him?

O’jghar realised he hadn’t been very descriptive and continued his explanation, “Next month we will be leaving for the royal capital to be a part of the council they are setting up. While we are there I won’t have much time to teach you but before then you should have the control formation set up. Then you can just work on trying to get control over it while it’s outside.

“Can I bring Varja?” If Aias was to be in the capital, alone, constantly doing repetitive training, then he could at least do it in the company of his lovely snake. He felt so bad for Varja, he couldn’t play with the big snake as his body was, and even just spending time with him got hard as he needed to concentrate on getting done with energy manipulation.

“Certainly, Varja could help with protecting the carriage during the trip. That way I don’t have to pull one of my beast of duty, although you will have to first get him branded at a guild otherwise he won’t be let into a city”

Aias had some questions. “I haven’t ever seen any of teacher’s beasts, what duty do they have?”

“Just like how you don’t have to constantly control Varja with orders, I to don’t need to give any of my beasts orders for them to behave. That’s why I can let them be on their own and still know that they will do what they have been ordered to” O’jghar exclaimed proudly with a shine in his eyes.

“I have given them the job of hunting down any beasts that try to leave any of the wildernesses around this region of Goijbi. They are there to make sure villages don’t suddenly get attacked by beasts” there was still that pride in his eyes for the work his beasts were doing.

“I see, so how does branding work?” Aias asked next.

“Branding of personal beasts is both to see who they belong to and also how well trained they are, the grading goes from F to A”

“If they are deemed F grade then they won’t be allowed in a city at all.

E grade are allowed in a city however must be placed under custody of a guild during their stay.

D grade are also allowed in a city however must be in a cage or captive environment, the owner is however allowed to keep it with them.

C grades are allowed to move around the city if they are under the guidance of their owner at all times.

B grades are allowed to move within a city as long as they have some type of guardian along side them.

A grades are fully free to move within a city and are treated as people by guards.”

“Most of my beast’s are B grade and i’m expecting Varja to be placed the same, you don’t have to worry, it’s just a few tests, we can do it while traveling to the capital” O’jghar explained reassuringly.

“And which guild is taking care of this?” Aias asked as he had heard there were a few different ones.

“There are three guilds taking care of branding, the huntsman guild, and the adventurer guild, and the city guild. Depending on the city, the guild you chose may matter as they may have better more qualified personnel. If they don’t have the personnel qualified to judge a beast as B ranked you won't be able to get Varja that mark”

Aias understood and was hoping he could trust his teacher for choosing which guild to go to.

“Well we should sleep now, we will go over the control formation tomorrow” O’jghar yawned and headed back to his room. “Good night!”

………..

Morning came and with it another lecture by O’jghar. “First we should think over how you want the control formation to function. As Rainar explained it you should have the energy gather somewhere you know outside you. I would suggest placing it in the palm of your hand as there it will be most useful during combat” O’jghar explained then looked to Aias to see how he wanted it placed.

“I think the best place for now would be my forehead or jaw” Aias told his teacher. O’jghar looked back confused, like he wanted to ask why someone would want their energy gathered in a place not used for combat, with the exception of a rare headbutt.

Aias realised he would need to explain, “I can barely feel any part of my body with the exception of my head. So placing the energy there should make it easier for me to feel it” O’jghar realised he had been an idiot not to think of something so obvious and his head started to hang in shame.

“And it’s not like you will be doing any fighting with the way your body is now” O’jghar quietly muttered to himself, still somewhat disappointed in his own reasoning.

“Now then!” After shaking of the awkward mood he had created, O’jghar began to explain what a control formation was.

“The formation you have within you to remake purity into purify is somewhat like a control formation however also the opposite. A control formation will set up how a spell is carried out while the purify formation lets you carry it out exactly how you want it”

“The similarities with the two is mainly in how they are structured in the beginning, but the contents of a control formation will always vary depending on the energy you are using as well how you want it to act”

“For you the energy is heavenly energy and it should gather in your forehead. That won’t need a complex formation, let me look through some books and find a good formation” Aias was left to continue to train on his own, still just channeling energy through the two formations, slowly healing himself.

After roughly three hours O’jghar came back from his room with a few pieces of paper detailing a formation.

“Alright this should work!” O’jghar exclaimed as he sat down with Aias. The two began going through the structure of it and how Aias was to structure specific parts.

……..

There were still ten days left when Aias finished the new formation, during his time trying to structure the formation him and O’jghar had gone through teaching how to structure formations on your own. This was so Aias wouldn’t have to rely on others, or buy techniques, but instead create them on his own.

They came to the conclusion that he should learn it now and also train that while they were in the capital. This started because O’jghar’s first schematic for the control formation had been a failure.

It did gather energy, however it didn’t hold it like it should, instead it sent it in a straight line through Aias body, the gathering started at his left shoulder and went to around his left buttock.

O’jghar wasn’t actually a master at heavenly energy and what he had taught Aias so far was all found in books, complete, without need for change.

O’jghar had through the twenty days also been studying, he had been constantly trying to improve his understanding for control formations. He didn’t use them himself and had never had an interest in them. But knew Aias needed them so he should learn them first so he could teach them to Aias.

Control formations were an arduous learning experience as the slightest misjudgement could make the energy go in the entirely wrong way. If he wasn’t using heavenly energy, an energy meant for healing who knows what damage could be done. It could have sent a fireball hurling back at the caster, in lord Meleth’s case.

But now Aias had a fully functioning formation and he could feel the energy gathering somewhere behind his forehead. This felt completely different from trying to grasp the energy from purify alone.

That had come out of somewhere he wasn’t sure of, it was like trying to find a breach of water while underwater. And it wasn’t like the heavenly earth energy, that had also entered in a way he wasn’t sure of, and then traveled to somewhere he didn’t know of. Trying to grasp it was just confusing.

Grasping the gathered energy was hard but it didn’t take long for him to be able to move it around a little.

…….

After a few days of practising to move his energy while it was outside, he had become able to move it as he pleased around his head. Anything below his neck was uncontrollable, if he moved energy below there it would simply stop and start healing. This meant he would have to heal himself from top to bottom, or everything at once.

Aias had planned to begin by healing his joints so that he may be able to move earlier than expected but it seemed that wasn’t going to happen.