Setting my mind to task, instead of struggling futilely, I decided to start off small. Focusing on the individual fingers of my right hand, I believe that I was able to move those with small jerky movements. It was admittedly very difficult to see my progress as my neck muscles were still feeling numb and not wanting to work and thus making me limited to my stationary view.
This needed to change. Trying out my voice a few times, I felt like it was clear enough to make a request. Calling out to Monroe or Victoria, whoever could help me, I asked. “Could I get a towel or something to prop up my neck better?”
A glance passed between my two teachers, yet before either one could make a move, the butler seemed to appear from nowhere with a towel in hand. Gently placing it under my neck and head, granting me a much better view of my supine body, I thanked him and got to work.
Working my way across my extremities, I got my fingers, toes, then wrists and ankles to work relatively well. Moving up to my arms and legs proved quite a bit more difficult. I had to try flexing several different muscles, of which I began to become acutely aware of. Only after I had managed to bend my elbows, raise my arms, and bend my knees multiple times with minimal jerks, did I begin trying to sit up.
My abdominal muscles felt particularly limiting as I struggled with my body weight. Certainly not having a recollection of what being a newborn was like, I wondered if what I was experiencing now might be the closest thing to it. Maybe this was what it might be like for a coma patient waking up? Tensing the abdominal muscles that did react, I began working up to doing regular and then side crunches with varying levels of incremental success. After being able to regain relatively full abdominal mobility, I twisted my body to roll onto my stomach.
“Ugh.” I simply lay there as I tried to force myself into a kneeling position by pushing my upper body higher and sliding my knees beneath me. In my attempt to get to a kneeling upright position, I fell over multiple times before I got myself stabilized.
This pattern repeated multiple times as I worked with seemingly alien and underworked parts of my body.
Finally! I succeeded in regaining my feet. And then I fell. My arms jerked about as I struggled to keep myself from faceplanting into the ground. After several more attempts resulting in falling, I was able to get to my feet tottering about dangerously until I stumbled over to the nearest wall. Slumping against it in relief, I felt my muscles spasming as if wanting and trying to work, yet unable to give their best due to the paralyzing agent.
Both of my teachers had long since become invested in sparring again. Each held a wooden sword dancing about in graceful yet powerful form. Were I not so involved in my struggles to remain standing, I would have enjoyed simply watching as they exchanged blows.
Victoria was graceful like an ice skater or light weight dancer while Monroe appeared to be a bastion of finesse and masculine pose. Nothing appeared to get past his guard no matter what Victoria did.
As I continued to lean against the wall, I did pause long enough in my efforts to watch how after a particularly tense clash of blades, Victoria performed a daring pirouette only to reengage with Monroe in earnest. Seemingly able to recognize that she would be unable to win this way, Victoria began summoning and sending out spheres of ice targeting Monroe in various ways.
Monroe’s eyes lit up in excited fervor at this new challenge.
Dashing back away from her to give himself space, he struggled to block each of the balls of ice with his sword. From the multiple impacts it resisted, I watched as ice formed along the wooden blade and began bunching over his sword wielding hand. With a single clench of his hand, the ice forming around it shattered.
In that brief moment of distraction, Victoria did not allow him to dodge far as she followed closely after him seeking to capitalize on his retreat.
Enthralled with the violent dance of magic and swords they were engaging in, I decided that I could afford to take a longer breather from my attempts to move from my precarious spot.
Victoria appeared to be holding back as I had seen her wield floating ice daggers and whips of frozen energy as she had toyed with the Tom cat weeks ago. However, the times I had seen Monroe take on his butler in various demonstrations, I knew that he too was holding back.
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Seeing as they each refused to go all out, I returned to my personal efforts of regaining control over my movements. Taking small unsteady steps from one wall to the other, I fell multiple times as I struggled to retain my footing. Only after making it across back and forth five times, did Monroe call a stop to his sparring with Victoria and come over to aid me in the next step.
Having me face the mirror he stood beside me and bade that I follow his slow movements. Together, we performed Tai Chi type moves with slow intentional effort. Monroe started off with broad movements with just the arms and hands, then as I proved stable enough with that, he began introducing leg movements and increasingly difficult balance poses.
This went on for quite some time as I slowly regained sensation and strength in my limbs and overall body. As that happened, instead of struggling to meet his standard of stillness from weakness, I began struggling to retain the precise movements as my body sought to over compensate. Seemingly prepared for and expecting such, Monroe would go over his movements multiple times until I was able to adjust to the newest recovery in strength.
Together we went through several katas or Tai Chi routines across the extent of his sparring room. As we progressed, I was feeling more confident in my movements, even as the strength returned to a level greater than prior to my mage stone assimilations.
Only after the entirety of the numbness had faded, did Monroe stop our exercises. I honestly felt very Zen at that moment as the energy within me flowed in a satisfying balance. The effort to suppress myself settled into a form of disciplined yet comfortable self-restraint.
“For now, you will need to take things slow as you relearn your tolerance levels, but as time goes by, you will better be able to gauge how much strength to put into things. This initial step was to correct and clarify the amount of effort needed to accomplish certain movements. You will likely still make many mistakes, but as you take things at an initially gradual pace, you will regain better control of your body.
Turning to Victoria, he asked. “He hasn’t assimilated a lightning stone yet, has he?” She shook her head in response.
“Hmm,” Monroe tapped his chin in thought before continuing. “If he is able to, I would advise that he be given that one next as it will increase his sensitivity to touch and pressure feedback.”
Victoria nodded her head in agreement. “I too had thought as such.” She grimaced for a moment as if in recollection. “Were it not for the severity of his other assimilations, I would have allowed for it to have been done yesterday.”
Monroe appeared to have already been informed of what happened the other day as he simply nodded in understanding.
My eyes narrowed in thought as I made several connections between Victoria’s behavior, what she said regarding my affinity test results, and about Monroe’s unique understanding of what I was going through. I had to ask, hoping I wasn’t treading on a taboo topic. “Monroe, did you experience a similar event with your assimilation?”
He paused for a moment as if in ponderance before speaking. “Mine was similar in a way. I was trying to replicate the way of body cultivation done overseas. Their way of cultivation focuses on retaining and magnifying the assimilation within the body, and not allowing it to press beyond the skin.”
Closing his eyes in remembrance he explained. “It was a hybrid cultivation method of utilizing the primary elements of lightning, water, fire, earth, and air in order to replicate the formation of energy stones in their lands.” *Hah!* He laughed to himself before adding. “It was more than difficult getting my hands on the cultivation guide. I could only imagine how much harder it would have been to get energy stones that could remain stable while traveling across the depths of the ocean.”
“It was my hubris that made me take this daring venture to break my bloodline curse. This curse which my ancestors counted as a costly but worthwhile blessing was not something I desired to follow in the footsteps of.” Looking towards Victoria he finished with. “Were it not for the nearby presence of your master, I would have likely perished the day I risked this new method of cultivation.”
“How was I to know that the simultaneous consumption of the five primary elements would result in a cumulative reinforcement and strengthening of the trial? My body was torn apart from the inside, ravaged by the violent energies of the basic elemental stones. Each building upon and feeding on the others as they raised havoc within me. It was all I could do to contain the energies within the confines of my body.” Looking down at his hands in remembered wonder he added. “I had successfully broken the curse, but at what cost?”
Casting his appreciative gaze to my apothecary teacher he said. “Victoria who happened to be dealing with something else at the war front, was able to see me and treat my grave internal injuries in a timely manner. It was thanks to her that I survived the incident. Following that, I felt as if the energies within me were bursting at the seams as if ready to tear out of me. It actually took a long time for my body to regain a semblance of normalcy after that incident. From that experience, my body underwent an explosive growth. Once I had been able to consolidate the rampant energies within and train myself to the extreme, I’d say I reached equal to what someone focused on body forging at the peak of the tertiary stone assimilation had achieved in those five elements. This was the result of what I had achieved with my fool hardy and desperate experiment.”
He paused again as if in contemplation and inner struggle. Finally with a sigh, he added. “Several years after that, I attempted once again to replicate that trial, but with inferior tier stones of the primary elements.” His eyes glazed over as he droned on. “I had thought that I had adequately prepared this time, having experienced what it was like before,” *Sigh* “but I was terribly mistaken. Thankfully I was at my home this time and my butler was able to secure Victoria’s aid in the assimilation. Still, it was a miserable experience, but I made it through it.”
Looking around conspiratorially he spoke in a hushed tone. “The council and most others never discovered that I succeeded in any subsequent assimilations past the first, and I want to keep it that way for as long as I can.”
Victoria was off to the side smiling with gratification at being considered so instrumental in Monroe’s endeavors to become stronger. Maybe that is what drew her to him. His ability to persevere despite the odds and intensity of the assimilation. They had shared secrets that they had allowed me to peek into.
The knowledge that Monroe had also experienced a severe reaction to his initial and subsequent assimilations left me with a strong sense of worry and yet also excitement. If this poised elf with tightly hidden strength was someone who I could emulate in the future, then I’d be thrilled. To be honest, I really wondered if it was the same thing. Although not much time had passed since I first assimilated the earthen stone, I had been unable to externalize anything beyond sensory skills. That had been proven at the falls. As for if it affected the other elemental sensitivities similarly across the spectrum, I had yet to discover such.