“Lios, I feel it is time to discuss improving your mana pathways. You are already quite adept at manipulating mana, and the next step is improving your throughput of mana. In both absorbing and expending the energy, you need to increase the total capacity of your pathways.” Liana started to explain one night as we sat around a freshly started fire, a large boar like creature with six eyes and bones jutting from its spine roasting over it. It had already been skinned and prepared and was smelling absolutely divine. It was called a ‘Spinetusk Boar’ and were native to the plains along with a number of other creatures.
“Your mana, overall, is much more potent through your practice in compressing it. Each drop is that much more powerful than when you started using [Syncopate].” She continued carefully. “Your particular compression skill is different than mine and most others, in that it changes the flow and rhythm your mana seems to rest at and changes how it reacts to certain stimuli. I think this is due to your classes understanding of mana and the constant references to dancing with it and speaking with it. Yours is a skill more in line with musicians than with mages, though both have the capacity of spellcraft and wizardry. Now, we need to use this skill to explore each of your pathways and slowly stretch them to accommodate not only more mana, but more powerful mana as well. At times, from what I’ve felt, your mana ebbs in strength based on your whim.”
I nodded along as I sat in lotus position, though she had called it something else in elvish. I knew a small amount of elvish, enough to greet dignitaries as that was what my mother had absorbed prior to eloping with my father. The same could be said of dwarvish and gnomish, and a bit more with a few other human languages.
I concurred with her, I could feel the growing strength of my mana which continuously flowed with a specific rhythm, dancing within my core. The elemental mana that stubbornly refused to combine with the rest of my core had grown more powerful as well, despite resisting my skills influence. My intuition told me that despite my being unable to command it or have it form with the core, it drew from my core to generate it’s own strength. With [Syncopate], as Liana stated, I was able to control how much power my mana output by diluting it while drawing on it to better fit the rhythm of my dances and spells. Some of my first rune circles were unable to handle my denser mana so I’d have to control it that much more or risk the circles breaking before the spells were activated.
“So, first I will direct my mana through your pathways and you will follow along with your own mana. Once we have mapped out your pathways I will show you how to strengthen, stretch, and even contract them in order to further develop your magecraft.” With that Liana, moved to sit behind me and placed her hand on the center of my back.
Immediately I felt the cool and soft pressure of her mana enter my body, slowly worming around the area of my heart. There was no separate organ that allowed mana to flow in ones body, it was simply a part of their essence. But the pathways, as Liana began to describe, came from an origin point near the heart that was more metaphysical than placed in reality. The core being a part of ones soul space did not mean it was unable to be damaged by external forces, but did make it harder to do so than an organ within a humans body.
Her mana felt oddly comforting despite the coolness of it. It felt like being within the trees and forest. Of bathing near a small trickling waterfall, with birds and squirrels chattering all around. The whisper of the trees and wind as they conversed. It was a comfort that reminded me of my own soul space, of things that I valued. Feeling her mana gave me a much stronger impression of her, and I understood then why she would be so infatuated with the idea of other peoples soul spaces. It was extremely intimate, yes, but also gave me such an incredible point of context regarding Liana. It was like I could feel the basis for all of her actions, her ideals. It wasn’t to the point of reading her mind or thoughts but rather, it felt like I had gained an understanding of her that traveling together for several months couldn’t bring out.
I felt as her cool, nature affinity mana spread through my body, wending windy paths from my chest, to my fingertips, to my toes, to my head even. A pathway made its way to my eyes and nose and mouth and ears, to my feet and hands, all throughout my body I felt her mana spread and show me the way. My mana, much less calm, trailed after her. Tumult rose in my pathways as the mana from my core was far too dense for this controlled movement, too chaotic. I lessened the stream, allowed it to ebb as it spread itself out and explored the pathways I had only ever felt intuitively.
“Good, good I can feel your mana mapping out your pathways. Be careful not to send too much through.” Liana affirmed as the mana followed her own, tracing the metaphysical veins. “Perfeeecct. Wow amazing. You're definitely quicker at this than some of my prior students.”
Before I could respond Sky yipped at Liana and Luke plodded forward to place his chin on her lap, we were sitting cross legged on the ground. Sky sent a pulse of intent to me and I couldn’t help but smile. “They are requesting that you teach them also.”
A smile graced the womans face behind me, and her mana halted for a moment. “I would be glad to young pups, though it will likely take much longer than with Lios as I’m less familiar with your pathways.”
The foxes yipped and I focused again on directing my mana throughout my body. Shortly after that Liana taught me a breathing exercise as well as some techniques to allow greater throughput of mana, both on the intake and the expulsion of it. It was a touch painful but nothing I couldn’t handle, especially after the conflict with the wyrm weeks prior. Within days I was practicing using increased mana in my spells. I was even able to remove the two runes dedicated to gathering mana in order to further strengthen my five rune circles. Those would still be wanted in higher powered spells, but the expense of mana was negligible and adding two more runes dedicated to damage output or speed could be infinitely more valuable than saving a few points of mana.
My pact skill even leveled up as I resumed training with Luka and Sky, we even shared a couple of dreams as Sky had taught Luka how to do so. Liana’s training with them definitely took much longer than with me. Several nights, in fact. But soon they learned to better manipulate their mana and could even control their individual elements better than me. Despite my feet being sore, my armor being broken, and the heat bearing down on us as we trekked across the arid plains, life was good. Great even.
Liana was even still helping me with developing a number of spells. I told her some of my ideas, which were unfortunately improbable at my current level, but we worked on a few new five rune circles and twenty five rune spells as well. Through all of the towns we stopped in, only one had a single quest for me - killing giant rats in a barn or two. It was easy and didn’t really count as practice for either magic or swordsmanship. Thankfully, we encountered a few beasts and monsters that either came from the plains or the Wastes that I could fight to raise my level a bit.
During our stops at each town I made a point to spend at least a few hours a day crafting, making a few swords that I resold immediately. Even without etching the weapons with runes, [Maelstrom Modification] passively provided at least one enchantment. I was attempting to control the enchantments it gave out but was unable to. Even with crafting so many weapons, and being in the early levels, I only went up to level 21 in my second class. [Ephemeral Forge], thankfully, stayed in line with the class level, allowing me to store fifty pounds of materials or tools within. That allowed me to keep my tools as well as the wyrm scales inside at all times, with a few pounds to spare.
I still couldn’t even begin to work the scales, but all things in time. For now, I was enjoying traveling without wearing my sweltering armor.
“Raise your blade Lios, in combat you have no time to be tired.” The torturer stated confidently as his own blade then lashed out at me, forcing me to raise my own to block. A loud clang of steel on steel (or my strange alloy, but no matter) rang out in the grove.
Sweat dripped down my torso and forehead, getting soaked up by the little bit of leftover cloth I used as a headband while training. I grunted out my reply to my tormentor, the reviled man gave me no quarter as he lashed out once more. I was on the backfoot, forced to block and parry each of his strikes. Like a snake coiling to attack, the man stepped back before lunging in my direction, forcing a sidestep.
Finally, however, despite my exhaustion I stepped in closer to him and countered, the tip of my blade rushing his unprotected side. He twisted but he was too late, the runes beneath my feet activated and I felt a sudden burst of energy flow through my legs and upwards to my arms and my blade accelerated catching the horrible man off guard. He grunted in surprise and attempted to parry in the split second he noticed the change but instead my sword stopped the moment it touched his flesh, a trick of blood dripping from the pinprick I left.
I sighed heavily and stepped back. “Five minutes?” I asked Adrien, who was helping me with two of my shortcomings. The first being my ability to control my flow of mana now that I expanded my pathways, the second being my swordplay. The evil trainer tortured me both in the morning and the evening. We sparred relentlessly as he continuously pushed me to improve, and especially to train with my newer spells.
The one I had just used was called “Energy Burst” by both Liana and I and was only a five rune spell that lasted five seconds. It allowed my body to move significantly faster for the active time, and was short enough that I didn’t risk overexerting my muscles. Unlike my “Flashstep Lightning Bolt” as Liana and I called it.
“Five minutes are up, come at me again!” Adrien called out to me. In the mornings, while we sparred, he would give me tips and guidance and I wouldn’t use any magic. At night, however, he wanted me to go all out. The main reason was in case we ran into something during the day that needed me to have mana to fight. Even at night we rarely went past the fifty percent mark of my mana.
Groaning I wordlessly stood, raising my longsword, and settled into a stance. I ignored the aching in my shoulders and back and legs. The burning in most of my muscles, swordplay was a full body workout and I truly felt it. I swung my sword at the tattooed man, setting aside any thoughts of a break and simply focusing on my assault. My blade and his clashed together, if not for the enchantments that both weapons bore they would have shattered long ago.
I pushed mana through the pathways in my feet and even my hands, the mana from my hand I manipulated to wrap around the blade of my sword as a pseudo sword aura. A weapon aura was a common skill among higher level warriors, and I initially emulated it with my first few spells by forming a blade of a specified mana that I could launch from my blade. Liana had helped me realize that if I already had some mana there, the spell was even easier to control, and with my higher energy output I could quickly adapt when the spell activated.
From my feet I built a circle of runes, a spell designed to create a blade of lightning that I could launch once again. The only difference between this one and the first iteration was that the two runes meant to gather mana had been replaced with runes to increase the sharpness of the lightning manifestation, effectively strengthening the spell by forty percent.
My blade clashed with Adrien’s once, twice, four times. Ten. By the fifteenth clash lightning mana coated my blade and he backed up. Despite him having a higher level, much higher, he still could be injured by my spells. He often complained about being injured by someone less than half his level, even though he never went all out and the injuries were only ever surface level.
The past few days he seemed to have been taking some frustrations out on me, and today was no different. His blade, wrapped in a protective layer of mana, thwacked against my leg and side, showing where I overextended in a thrust. I grunted, and after falling, rose to my feet. Why was Adrien so frustrated, you may ask? Good question. Totally had nothing to do with Liana and I crafting a stupid five rune spell that acted as a stinkbomb a few days ago and using it when Sky blasted a gust of wind at me with Adrien and Elric behind us. We had the forethought to warn Amelia as vampires had a much stronger sense of smell but even still, the spell was rancid. That definitely was not the reason Adrien was pissed at me. Nor the fact that the smell still subtly lingered on his clothes.
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We sparred for a while longer. He allowed a few of my strikes to hit as he had lowered his own power to that of someone just stronger than me. This meant I only had to compete with superior technique, rather than stats and skill. He, of course, could move fast enough to parry and utterly dominate me in the melee but had some sense of honor, refusing to bully the weak as he stated.
Despite the increasingly difficult training, I debated creating another prank spell because the reaction was well worth the following abuse. Plus I was learning a lot as we fought, especially as he had begun also trying to disrupt my footwork or force me out of the range of my spells and I was getting much better at maintaining them despite opposition.
“I think you should focus on only a few of your elements. You are aware of how affinities work, yes?” Liana walked beside me as we traveled down the road.
It had been a few months since the sand wyrm ambushed us. We had spent the evening after simply relaxing and eating wyrm meat, which was surprisingly delicious. It was a bit earthy like mushrooms, but had a strangely pungent umami flavor that elevated it above the elk or other meats we typically found. Luka and Sky were obsessed with it after it was all gone, determined to get strong enough to take one down by themselves. The mana dense food seemed to reinvigorate us but we still chose to rest rather than continue, we expended a fair amount of energy in fighting it. Especially Adrien and Elric. I had stripped the remaining metal from my armor and now had it in my pack, none the worse for wear despite also the addition of the wyrms scales and some bones that I had gone back for. Thankfully, by now the scales were in my [Ethereal Forge] and did not weigh me down during our travels.
Now, as we walked, Liana was taking the time to teach me more about magic as, rather than run ahead and train, I decided to stay with the group. They were still training me by throwing things at me unexpectedly, the purpose either to dodge or block the items. Basically, building my reaction speed.
“Not really, Liana. I read about them a while ago when I first started with magic but didn’t pay much attention.”
“Ah, the ineptitude of youth to forgo studies on the important things!” She lamented teasingly. “Well, there are ten basic affinities that an individual may be born with. Typically a person will have one, maybe two affinities in their earlier levels. After level two hundred or so, it can change but a core typically grows unstable if too many elements attempt to find their home there. This is where you are an outlier, because of the the Seed of Pandemonium your core currently houses five elements, from what I could see. The standard affinities are as follows: wind, fire, earth, water. Next are entropy and order, dark and light, and finally holy and cursed.
“The last two are almost honorary inclusions as, while they don’t have any other affinities associated with them they are typically granted in the service of a greater being or set by heavy belief in something. You’ll notice that lightning, your most prominent affinity, is not on this list. Lightning is considered an evolved affinity and takes influence from both wind and fire. A wind or fire mage may be able to develop a lightning affinity even without the other element, but would find it much harder. What this means for you is that lightning, fire and wind are your strongest affinities, with water and earth being lower tiered for you.”
I thought for a few moments before nodding in agreement. “My only question, then, is why are my spells all relatively similar in power level?”
“Thats... Thats a good question. Well... Are you using the mana from your core or from your affinities when casting your spells?”
“What do you mean? I just expel mana, are you saying I should be able to isolate specific mana?” My mind started to whir as I considered the possibility. Mostly wondering if I had been losing out on quite a bit of added power.
Up until now I had just instinctively drawn on my mana. The books I read on spellcraft had not mentioned the use of specific mana types for different skills but it certainly made sense. I wanted to slap my forehead in exasperation but elected instead to try to learn to do it, even if it was manual for a while. I had been continually unimpressed by the power of my basic dances, as they were a relatively hefty mana sink and dealt understandably meager amounts of damage. At least from my perspective. I didn’t realize that I was still punching above my level in terms of how much damage I could deal, it simply felt weak to me.
“Well, yes, you should be able to. When you launched your water blades at the wyrm did you not use water mana to create and activate the runes?” The others had started to listen in on our lesson at the mention of the wyrm fight.
I had been shocked (Pun unintended) after it was over when Adrien didn’t scold me for getting involved, instead saying I did well and that they would have taken much longer without me stunning the beast and cracking some of its scales. That and preventing a more powerful ally from taking a serious injury by tackling Liana, despite the injuries it brought to me.
“No... I just use mana. I didn’t really know to use specific mana for anything.” I muttered, embarrassed.
“Oh my, tonight we shall practice then! After you delve and condense your core of course.” Liana clearly enjoyed having me as her personal magical apprentice. She had even been diving deep into rune studies with me in an effort to better her own understanding of magic, and to help make sure I didn’t destroy myself with some spell or another.
“So, to summarize, you think I should focus on my three primary affinities for the time being and become more of a specialist?” I asked as I felt a pulse along my connection with Luka. He had just succeeded in taking down a beast far larger than his typical bunny. After the wyrm fight he and Sky had returned to hunting with vigor, wishing to become strong enough to not be in the way just as much as I did. Yesterday, the two had taken down a boar and required me to come pick it up and haul it till we reached camp. I decided to ignore the call for now, he was a bit ahead of us so it would take a while to reach him anyway.
“Basically yes. It doesn’t mean that you cannot be versatile, but I feel if you put say, seventy percent of your focus on spells related to those affinities and thirty percent into others you’d be able to remain versatile while also accepting your strengths. Before we get there though, I feel you must learn to use elemental mana to activate your spells.”
I went silent for a while, acknowledging the idea and musing over it. When I reached the point where I could most easily reach Luka I did so, and returned to the group with an elk hoisted over my shoulders. It was heavy and I had had to gut and drain it prior to picking it up, but I took it as a chance to workout for the remainder of the walk. We weren’t close to any towns, as now that we were near the edge of the Wastes not many towns were present. Oftentimes, the ones that sprang up would quickly be overrun by monsters or even the scoundrels who lived in the wastes.
Later in the evening while I was nursing the bruises that came with dodging stones and sticks thrown with the might of a level hundred and eighty beast of a man, Liana came to me again. “I think we should try a spell and see if you can draw out only fire mana for it.”
“Okay. Let me try.” I stood up immediately, excited to test the theory. We separated from the area with tents and our gear, and found ourselves a fair bit away on the open plains. We didn’t fear any monsters coming to us as only a few types could sneak up on us.
“Okay, so as you are developing your rune circle I want you to also latch onto the fire mana in your core and draw it through your pathways.”
I didn’t say anything as I focused on my mana and tugged on the wisp of fire mana that whirled around my core. Even still, I was unable to condense the elemental manas, they still refused me. As I tugged on it I felt a flicker of recognition followed by defiance, the mana refused to be drawn out of me. I closed my eyes as some sweat started forming on my forehead. I pulled on the mana and called out to it. Come on ya little bugger, dance with me! It felt cheesy but my class and multiple of my skills mentioned dancing with mana. Even still, the wisp disobeyed and screeched its defiance.
I stumbled as its screech blasted in my mind, a bit of blood trickling down my nose. Liana hurried over a concerned look on her face but I held up a hand and closed my eyes again. I gripped the wisp mentally and yanked harder than before, forcing it into the pathways that led to my feet. I, still within my mental world, began the five rune dance for a fire blade. I didn’t want to cast a wave spell for fear of igniting the grass and shrubs that surrounded us.
The wisp of mana raged within me, revolting against the tyranny of me forcing it to obey. It screeched within me, writhing and I felt it claw at my pathways looking for any purchase so as not to be dragged away. When it was nearly to the opening in my pathway, close to being used in my spell, it relented for a few moments. Long enough for me to write my runes with some difficulty. The mana seemed to finally coalesce, to finally obey but as I sent in the last little bit the spell circle exploded with me standing in the center.
Flames sprang up around me but rather than condense on my blade it assaulted me. It burst in my direction and I had to leap backwards, through some of the fire, as I used [Compendium Actualization] to cast “Water Wave”, another iteration of my cheap wave spells, and directed it to the flames. They were swiftly quenched with me taking no damage aside from a few surface level burns on my legs and arms. My silken clothes were already accepting my mana and repairing themselves.
“That... That did not go as expected...” Liana watched me with wide eyes. “Your elemental mana is defiant. Perhaps it is a lack of control but your ability to manipulate mana is rather high... We will have to practice over time, yes?”
I stared at the scorched grass where the circle had formed and shook my head. From what Liana said, mana of different affinities should be usable instinctively like my pure mana. “I guess we will. Lets wait until I can summon a circle again then try again.”
And so we did, I attempted to control the fire mana for the next couple of hours until the elk was properly roasted with an amount being dried for jerky. Despite making dozen or so attempts, the mana resisted each time. As frustrating as it was, I could feel my control over it gaining some traction. In between attempts we ensured the spell was correct and even worked on other ones, and near the end, for the first time in a long time, I checked my status sheet.
[Race]
Human
[Class]
[Bladedancer] lvl 57> 79
[Class Skills]
[Bladed Weapon Mastery] LVL:57>79
[Runedancing] LVL: 57>79
[Dodging] LVL:53>74
[Intuition] LVL:48>77
[Mana Sense] LVL:54>65
[Mana Manipulation] LVL:57>79
[Rune Compendium] LVL:51 >63
[He Who Wanders] LVL:3>4
[Runesight] LVL:39>49
[Compendium Actualization] LVL:6>16
[Secondary Class]
[Wayfaring Craftsman of the Tumultuous Maelstrom] LVL: 9>21
[Secondary Class Skills]
[Runesmithing] LVL:9>21
[Runeweaving] LVL:9>21
[Ephemeral Forge] LVL:9>21
[Runic Inscribing] LVL:9>21
[Maelstrom Modification] LVL:4>19
[Arcane Analysis] LVL:5>21
X4 Unavailable
[General Skills]
[Running] LVL:45>61
[Meditation] LVL:33>35
[Twin Pact] LVL:52>71
[Distant Recollections] LVL:25>31
[Cooking] LVL:22>24
[Pain Resistance] LVL:37>45
[Training] LVL:57>79
[Portent of the Thaumaturge] LVL:23>63
[Syncopate] LVL: 26>54
X1 Unavailable
Over the past several months I had experienced some significant growth. Some skills still didn’t see much increase due to not using them often, such as [Cooking], [Recollections], and [Meditation]. But others grew quite a bit, most notable being [Portent] which I was able to use nearly constantly now with only a few breaks. It was because my passive mana regeneration was only a bit below the cost of mana for [Portent]. So now I used it until I reached 75% of my maximum mana, ensuring I still had most of it in the event of another ambush.