A few weeks have passed since I met the Sun and Moon Squad. My life following the bandit attack consisted of a complete focus on training, and spending time with my parents and the Sun and Moon Squad. I decided to hold off on interacting with the abyssal power due to Eveline’s request when I told her about it as she was scanning my body for issues. She was worried that provoking the power might create a disaster, and pleaded that I wait until Selene returned at the minimum to start the process, and I could only agree as a small part of paying back her kindness.
The squad was focused on the investigation of the bandits, and I could tell it was causing issues for Eveline as the capital only cared about the results. She has managed to track down and destroy a few “real” bandit camps, which is already more progress than prior to the Sun and Moon Squad’s arrival. Mission information was set aside when off duty, as a rule of the squad to maintain proper relaxation and morale levels.
The Squad seemed to get enjoyment out of teaching me and watching my progression. Owen was a mage who used magic with instinct, while Alex was of the logical type, and studied any magical texts he could acquire. Eveline was a true master of magic however, and was able to modify her understanding in multiple ways if necessary to make sense for me. It is a great honor of mine to be training with them.
Speaking of which, it was time for training to begin. Owen had a habit of running a few minutes late, which was ironic considering he was the fastest Wind user in the Squad, ever faster than Eveline with her Tier 6 Wind Magic.
“Alright Lucian, let’s get this thing started!” Owen, almost right on cue, walked into the training facility, a surprisingly large room made of durable magic resistant materials. Owen’s current project for me was to turn my use of wind magic into a reflex to dodge attacks just on sensing them. He would do this by having me wear a solid blindfold, and infuse his Wind mana into these thin but blunt edged metal discs and throw them at me using his Wind magic to move them at different angles.
The goal was to focus on sensing the mana without the use of my eyes, and dodge with or without Wind magic, depending on the speed of the disc incoming. The discs were blunt on the edge, but that did not mean they did not hurt if they struck you, especially the fast ones!
“I don’t suppose you would tell me the trick to this, would you, Teacher?” I asked him, using his love for being called “Teacher” against him. Owen smiled wide and said, “Sure, my favorite student! You just listen to your body and when you feel the disc coming, decide whether to use Wind magic to dodge! It feels like a floosh, and you dodge with a flooosh” Owen imitated different acrobatic movements. He was very flexible and a natural Wind user, making him difficult to catch if he did not let you.
I could only sigh at Owen’s lack of productive explanations outside of his instinctual understanding. I put the blindfold over my eyes, and got into position and nodded to him. “Alright, focus hard because they are coming at you soon!” Owen excitedly yelled.
The world before me was black. It felt like I had gone blind, as not even the smallest bit of light leaks through this cloth over my eyes. I take a deep breath, and focus on the ambient mana around me to detect any changes to indicate the disc’s path.
One minute passes. Everything feels normal so far.. Is Owen delaying to throw me off?
Another minute passes, and I’m starting to wonder if Owen is playing a prank.
I feel the ambient get excited to the left, and focus on the change and feel the circular shape covered in the Wind element heading towards my left shoulder. Remembering the movements Owen has taught me, I fluidly maneuver my torso so that the disc just barely flies above my body without touching me. The purpose of this was to train my body to dodge with as minimal room for error as possible, as this would help conserve energy in a long drawn out encounter.
After dodging the first disc, I feel another disturbance heading towards my head and ankles. I channel Wind magic into my body to lighten the feeling of it, and jump and spin sideways, rotating a couple of times as the discs fly past where my head and ankles flew with me in between them mid-spin, landing and finishing a rotation on my heel as I landed on the ground.
“Very good, Lucian! You have made a lot of progress in this. So now, what if I take off the handicap and don’t infuse it with detectable Wind mana?” Owen said, and I could feel this was going to end badly.
Another round of silence, with no disc appearing that I could notice.
I felt the change in the ambient too late, and before I could pivot away from it, two discs slammed into my chest and knocked the wind out of me. Dropping to the floor, wheezing as I try to regain my lost breath, Owen runs over and takes my blindfold off and says, “Lucian, are you okay? I wasn’t trying to hurt you, I was just too excited by your progress and failed to think it was too soon for that level of mana detection, I’m sorry!”. I considered letting him think he hurt me, but I knew it would bother him for a long time so I just nodded at him.
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“No, the training is good. We should continue with that since I have gotten good with the first level. It was surprising when I could easily detect the disc before, and now it only appeared when it was about to hit me. My mana detection still needs further training” I tell Owen, and he laughs as he says, “I think you have the potential to get it down, Lucian! Even Tier 3 Mages can struggle with training like this, which is why I was worried when the Captain wanted to train you like we do”.
We talked for a little while and then got back to training for another hour. Alex arrives to swap in with Owen after a 30 minute rest period for me to recover. Alex’s training was typically a lecture on fundamentals of magic, and then a practical study of Fire magic. His magic knowledge was very advanced, and he wanted to teach me chant-less magic originally, until he discovered I had figured it out on my own.
He was trying to further refine my ability to do so however, and taught me how to encode the instructions for my mana, and did not need to rely on creating the symbol with the ambient mana. Instead, he was teaching me how to skip the symbol creation as well. This was a theoretical side of magic currently, and was very rare to see, as apparently only 7 people have accomplished it of the humans thus far. Not even Eveline, as a Tier 6 Mage has managed to do it so far. She was capable of chantless magic, as joining the Sun and Moon Squad required it, and only used chants in public settings to not alarm civilians.
Similar to Owen’s mana detection training, Alex was trying to set me up for future success, and even included a hands-on guided training to casting and controlling the destructive power of Fire magic. Alex’s speciality was being able to charge up a spell to increase its power, similar to how I store an abundance of mana to overcharge a spell. Both of our methods are not quite the same, as Alex’s has a more refined version of it, and mine is similar to brute forcing the power increase instead.
“The crucial key of the notes left behind by the fully chantless casters is the ability to understand why the ambient interacts with our mana. It is described as our mana with our instructions is a key to “unlock” the abilities of the ambient mana with our mana as the fuel source. Being able to do this without drawing upon the chants or symbology of spells requires a deep understanding of the essence of the magic”. Alex instructed me, always going as in depth as I needed.
“What Tier are the mages that have accomplished this so far?”. Alex looked uncomfortable for a second and quietly responded, “... Tier 8”, and before I could act confused to why he was teaching this now he continued, “The mages feel that if they had the proper understanding earlier on, it would be something a lower Tier mage could perform as well. My theory is that you, as a user of all four elements, will one day gain the understanding of the elements, and become a true powerhouse of humanity!”
It was truly a privilege to study under these kind people, who have asked for nothing in return for their tutelage. One day, I need to find a way to repay their help.
Eveline was currently out on patrol, trying to discover the traitors supplying the bandits with the information allowing them to escape capture for so long. The twins were to remain here to defend the base while she was away.
Alex handed me a water canteen and I took a drink of it, not realizing that I was still parched from training with Owen and thanked him. He has opened up a little more to me as we spent time together, and was not quite as silent anymore.
“Alex, can I ask about where Owen and you came from, or how you joined the Sun and Moon Squad?” I had been wanting to ask this, but was worried it was a bad question to ask. The sad smile on his face when I asked confirmed it was not a happy story. “Sure, I will tell you Lucian. I only ask that you don’t bring it up to Owen, as it's something that he is still working through”. I nodded and he smiled at the child before him.
“Owen and I come from a small town called Rootcreek, which was on the border between our country of Solaris, and the Elven Kingdom Sylvaris. It was a small place, and was destroyed along with our family in a Mana Beast Tide when Owen and I were a bit older than you are, Lucian”. This was the first time I’ve heard of the damage caused by a Mana Beast Tide besides a story to scare kids into behaving.
“The former Captain Magnus found us in the destruction, and brought us to the capital, Solara. Once Owen and I were found to have high affinity for our elements, he recruited and trained us as Sun and Moon Squad members. He was like a grandfather to us before..”. He stopped speaking, and I could tell it was not something he wanted to talk about further, and I said, “You don’t need to continue, thank you for telling me about your town. I am sorry to hear about what happened to it and your family”.
Alex smiled at me once again, and said “You are mature for your age, Lucian. It’s sad to see it, because it feels like you are skipping your childhood and not living it as you should, similar to Owen an-” Owen flew into the room using his Wind magic and yelled, “Something bad is happening in the bar above us, we need to check it out!” Alex nodded and told me to stay put, and Owen wrapped them both in Wind magic and they took off at lightning speed to check on the situation.
Nobody returned for around 10 minutes.
I could not detect the mana upstairs with my limited range, but I could hear the noises of the battle. It lasted for a while, and then the noise stopped. There may be cleanup needed that I could help the Squad out with for once, and I headed up the stairs to the bar backroom. I stepped on something sticky and looked down at what it was. A thick red liquid was under my foot, and was flowing in from the main room of the bar into this backroom where the entrance was.
This is blood. A LOT of blood. Who did this?
I tried to detect the mana in the other room and avoided making more noise, and I could not feel Owen’s or Alex’s mana at all.
No, they were Tier 4 Mages, even if the bandits attacked how could they lose?
I quietly moved to the corner of the backroom entrance, and took advantage of my small size to peek into the main room.
I saw Owen and Alex next to each other looking at me, with a weird look in their eyes. Was this some kind of test or prank on me? Why were they looking at me like that?
Wait.. NO!
They weren’t looking at me. It was just their.. Heads stacked next to each other looking at me, eyes frozen with fear. Then I heard the crack of bones and a gross sounding slurping noise. I looked to the source of the noise, and found an extremely tall and muscular.. Man? A man with the head of a wolf and fur all over his body. He was feasting on one of the regulars of the bar. A rowdy man, but never rude or hurtful to anyone. The.. Wolfman was tearing off the heads of his victims and stacking them on the table as some kind of trophy?
I tried to back up into the secret entrance, as I knew there was no way I could beat someone who killed two Tier 4 Mages. As I tried to be quiet, I failed to be aware of my surroundings and stepped in a deeper puddle of the thick blood with a squelch sound, and the Man heard it and looked towards me, blood all over his mouth and smiled with his sharp wolf teeth.
“Hello, little pup”.