The others, especially their Tamed companions, had turned to watch what Titus was going to do with the trussed up glitterhive guardian
Pax’s first inclination was to delay any Taming until after they found and claimed the altar. The urgency to find the valuable location for the upcoming negotiations pushed at him. But a temporary delay shouldn’t hurt anything, especially if it got his brother the companion he wanted.
It wasn’t as if there was much risk of other rebels bypassing the warnings below and making their way through all the beast bodies and destroyed comb soon. If anything, someone might discover and report the evidence of battle. But that should still give them plenty of time to continue up to the next floor before those in charge could muster a reasonable response.
Besides, Pax had a chance to give his brother his own companion, his own version of Talpa and Whisk. The idea made a smile spread across his face, and he nodded. “Of course. Let’s both sit and Meditate for a couple of minutes to prepare.”
Titus’ response more than made up for the delay. His expression filled with the eager excitement of a kid opening an unexpected gift as he looked between Pax and the trussed-up guardian. “Really? You can turn this gal into something like what all of you have?” He glanced toward where Horrid and Scorch sat sprawled next to Neptid.
“No—” Pax shook his head, adopting a sad expression and unable to resist needling his brother.
Titus’ expression sagged.
“You and I will turn her into something unique to the two of you.” Pax grinned. “She’ll be your companion, but with her own personality and abilities. No two Tamings are the same.”
“Not funny.” Titus looked like he would have smacked Pax if his hands weren’t busy. Then his excitement was back. “But if you can help me turn her into a new friend, I’ll forgive you.”
Pax smiled, feeling his own excitement as he looked around for a good place to sit. A six-foot wide circle of stone pushed up a few inches under their feet, jolting Pax’s balance but giving the two of them a clear space about two yards across to sit on. He gave Dahni a grateful glance before lowering himself and crossing his legs into a comfortable sitting position on the impromptu platform.
Across from him, Titus followed his example. The guardian’s struggles in his arms renewed at the change in position. Tyrodon was already moving toward them, unwinding a length of air-impregnated cord and attaching them to two Taming sticks.
Pax gave his friend a grateful smile and closed his eyes to focus on calming his mana after the battle. Control of his mana was more important than the amount he had right now. He’d been Taming for long enough, plus he’d recently evolved to a second-level Mana Projection skill, so he didn’t anticipate any troubles.
“Wait.” He opened an eye to look at Titus. “Please tell me you have some kind of mana manipulation skill.”
“Why would I need one of those?” Titus asked, giving him a confused look.
Pax groaned and tipped his head back. It was no wonder the empire’s magic techniques were stagnating if no one bothered to spend any time and effort learning about the mana that powered everything.
“That’s the same question I asked Crissim when he insisted I unlock Mana Sight a couple of years ago.” Titus grinned. “He said something about it being good for me.”
“Idiot.” Now Pax was the one wanting to backhand his brother. But the squirming guardian blocked any suitable targets. “Pay attention, then. Focus on your mana skill while we Meditate for a couple of minutes. Use it to ensure you’re bringing up the smallest thread of your mana as possible. The hardest part for warriors is to push the pure mana out of their hands without using an ability to do it. I’ll help you with it. Just make sure when you feel my mana, that you let me in.”
Titus nodded, paying careful instruction to each instruction.
“Here you go.” Tyrodon pressed a Taming stick into one of Titus’ hands before he carefully attached the other under a few ropes where it would stay secure against the side of the guardian.
“Thanks.” Titus was all business now, focused on the task at hand. “Give me a minute to get ready, and then we’ll do this.”
When he closed his eyes, the Taming stick held firmly in one hand, Pax reached out to place his hand next to his brother’s and focused on his own Mana Sight. He drew up some air mana to get ready.
He was excited to do this for his brother, the first real interaction where Pax could use his special abilities to work directly with Titus. It added some interest to a procedure that had become rather routine for him lately, despite the challenge of wrangling the increased power of the adult beasts.
The people he’d worked with lately were also at higher levels than the students he was used to back in the capital. So, more power all around had some challenges, but not enough to affect a successful outcome.
At least for him.
He almost kicked himself, blaming the recent battle for his lapse. With Titus’ crew around to ensure their safety, he should enlist as much participation in this Taming as possible so they could improve their own skills. With most of his mage friends able to work with air, not to mention Titus’ mage, Crissim, this was the perfect opportunity.
“Keep meditating,” he whispered to Titus. “I’m grabbing a few helpers.”
Titus gave him an almost imperceptible nod without opening his eyes.
A few minutes later, Pax had rounded up every friend and companion who could work with Taming an air beast. He only had to exclude Dahni and Neptid. Crissim practically bounced with eagerness as he settled into the semicircle they formed in front of Titus and his beast.
It was crowded, but their companions were used to squeezing in with them. It didn’t take long before everyone had a hand or paw on one of the Taming sticks or the cording between them. Crissim was the only one this was new for, so Pax had him sit closest.
“Use the smallest bit of your Mana Sight to watch as best you can. Too much power or a loss of control can mess up the balance while the Taming is happening. Everyone here has already helped in multiple Tamings, though, so we should be able to get it back on track without too much trouble.”
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“So, you’re saying it’s about control, not power?” Crissim’s eyebrows shot up. “You don’t know how refreshing it is to hear someone else say that.”
“I understand exactly,” Pax said with a scoff. “Before we’re done, I’m going to prove exactly how much power we can all gain if we focus on understanding and controlling our mana better.”
Crissim looked delighted by the idea before quickly settling and emulating the others around him. They closed their eyes and calmed their breathing. Pax did the same.
He had another idea he wanted to try. There was no reason to fall into familiar patterns when he could attempt to improve his abilities.
Pax gently placed his hand next to Titus’ and wasted no time dipping into his mana senses into his brother. As expected, there was significant resistance because Titus had more than twice the levels Pax did.
Let me in. Remember? Pax sent the message to Titus over his Echo.
The resistance immediately lessened as Titus figured out how to control his instinctive blocking of Pax’s intrusion. It took another few moments of Pax keeping up a steady pressure, solid but unwavering, before with a sudden surge, he was in.
Pax immediately focused on spreading out his mana senses as quickly as possible. In the background, he monitored Titus’ efforts to manage the next steps of gathering his mana and pushing it through the hand wrapped around the Taming stick.
Thinking of the littles waiting to be Awakened, Pax had a brand-new mission while inside the inner workings of a powerful warrior. He needed to understand exactly what comprised the class of warrior.
Was there an innate quality, something he could detect, that determined someone’s class? Or, even more intriguing, was there a collection of experience, muscle memory or training that swayed the result one way or the other?
Pax’s excitement flared. If he could tease out the details of this mystery, maybe he could give his young friends whatever class they wanted. With that in mind, he dove into the mesh of swirling, colorless mana filling his brother’s body.
The first thing he noticed, now that he wasn’t focused on helping Titus move his mana for the Taming, was that the movement of his mana wasn’t random. Pax wasn’t looking for anything specific, so he let his Sight move around, following whatever attracted his interest.
The more he softened his focus and observed Titus’ efforts, the more of a pattern emerged. Like a network of streets and roads in a city, there were major thoroughfares where larger pulses of mana flowed. Offshoots spread out, easier to see and trace in the narrow confines of his limbs.
It reminded Pax of the work he did with the tree-like structures needed to unlock the various sections of his light manual. Maybe learning to manipulate them was teaching him more than just fine control of his mana.
Excited at his discoveries, Pax let his senses race along the various patterns, like a boat skipping along river rapids while taking time to check out the smaller offshoots from time to time.
It gave him ideas for working with the chaotic mess of energy he’d seen when working inside Kai, the street kid they’d brought with them from Salman. Perhaps the Awakening process was, at its heart, a brute force way to organize the innate mana into specific paths through the body.
Lists of things to test filled his mind. He’d need to compare the patterns he found in Titus to both of his warrior friends and then to those with other classes. If he could find distinct differences between the classes, maybe he could push a child toward a specific class.
Hopefully, the patterns weren’t unique to individuals. Contemplating everything he didn’t know, Pax despaired at how much more he needed to learn about mana, classes and Awakenings. He needed more time.
In the end, understanding how to awaken the littles came first, before his understanding of classes. But still, before he attempted awakening the littles, he wanted to know as much as possible.
And then he smiled, suddenly seeing another benefit to his practice of encouraging all his friends to develop their mana skills. Not only would it help a ton with Taming, but maybe he could enlist them in helping him with his current investigation. If they all worked on this, branching out to examine various classes and unawakened children, they’d find answers much faster.
And they didn’t even need to stick to their friends, who were in on all their secrets. While Taming and helping other mages unlock their minor elements, they could take a few extra moments to examine mana patterns and report the details back to Pax.
His excitement grew as he imagined them gathering data from a myriad of rebels, mapping out all the detailed differences between individuals of differing classes and levels. Visions of awakening children to whatever class they desired made him drool. Being able to choose their direction in life would be so amazing.
Pax did his best to temper his expectations, knowing there had to be some kind of innate talent or training, along with Vitur’s will to influence what class a child could become. With that in mind, he sharpened his focus as he let his attention flow along the patterns of Titus’ mana flow. There had to be more details that were important.
An unknown amount of time later, Pax noticed a subtle bump that disrupted the movement of his Mana Sight by a negligible amount. If he hadn’t been paying close attention, he would have missed it.
He’d already left the spot behind, but forewarned now, he paid closer attention as he moved. As his Mana Sight flew through the main stream of mana moving into Titus’ left leg, Pax saw another subtle difference that caused his attention. There was a knot in the flow, a twisted collection where more mana had concentrated together and affected how the mana moved.
Pax immediately exited the flow of mana and moved to hover over the area so he could get a closer look. The knot was larger than he’d first thought, but not tangled like he’d first expected. The closer he got, the more he could see it was very structured and organized. It reminded him of a rune that might look complicated from a distance, but on closer examination had careful and regimented structure.
Instead of something like a boulder in a stream, disrupting the flow of mana as it rushed by, this anomaly seemed to suck in the mana around it and somehow organize it as it flowed through. Like the way the tips on one of Mistress Nymali’s frosting bags added specific shapes and forms to the frosting on its way out, these nodes shaped and organized the mana flowing through them.
The discovery only gave Pax even more questions. Was this something unique to warriors, or even just Titus? Did the other classes have similar nodes? And how would he ever be able to replicate something like it, if it turned out to be a necessity for a successful awakening or class assignment?
The overwhelming flood of new tasks suddenly added to his to-do list tempered his excitement some. Still, he might have just stumbled upon another mystery that could change the very nature of how their society functioned.
“Got it,” Titus said, with a note of victory in his tone.
Pax jerked his attention back to the task at hand, impressed when he saw how much control Titus had as he pushed his mana along the cord between the Taming sticks. The thread of mana he’d drawn up moved at an even pace, its edges smooth and organized as it maintained a steady pace through the Taming stick pressed up against the glitterhive guardian.
“With me, everyone,” Pax whispered as he shifted his light and air mana to help coordinate Titus’ mana with the guardian’s roiling air mana.
The next few moments passed with a lot of controlled effort. But as the saying went, many hands make light work. With his mage friends and their companions adding their experienced efforts, the Taming was never in question. Pax even felt Crissim’s mana keeping a tentative touch on the process to watch without interfering.
Pax wasn’t the only one smiling as he sat back and blinked his eyes open. This was his favorite part. He watched his brother’s eyes flutter open, all his focus on the guardian in his lap who had finally fallen still for the first time since her capture.
With controlled strength, Titus had her bonds removed in seconds.
“Here. Feed her this.” Rin pressed small chunks of air beast meat into his hand.
Not taking his eyes from the guardian, Titus accepted the treats and carefully fed her as fast as she could eat them. Her mandibles with their wicked-looking blades made quick work of the meal, making Pax worry a bit for Titus’s fingers.
A quiet settled over Pax and the other observers. He knew his friends were likely remembering their own Tamings while Crissim was probably running through possibilities for his own companion.
And then the moment they’d all been waiting for happened.
Titus looked up with eyes gleaming and pure happiness on his face. “Her name is Astra.”