Jiovanni and the four young men, along with Pier who had decided to come along and join the revolution, were tasked with transporting Black Beard to Waterslide. Other than the attack of some unfortunate bandits, who were quickly obliterated, it was a quiet trip.
The atmosphere was still a little heavy between the four of them, but it was slowly getting better. Only Arthur was a bit too distant. Jiovanni too was more quiet than usual. Perhaps the heavy atmosphere got to him, or maybe he was still feeling bad about being left behind at Justice. He had been, after all, completely useless.
But still, after their talk at the pier, the four young men felt like they understood each other better now. As they say, it is only in trouble that a person's true colors show.
Nigel was emotional and kind. Arthur was simple-minded and stubborn, but he had his values straight. Milos was calm and composed, and perhaps a bit too wise for his age.
And Vreil was... well, an enigma.
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They were now resting for the night, stopped in a forest clearing by the side of the road. Vreil was woken up by Nigel.
He groaned. Has it been two hours already?
He reluctantly stood up and went to keep watch, while Nigel lay down and fell asleep almost immediately.
Vreil sat awkwardly on a tree stump and groaned again. His whole body was in pain. Riding a horse every day for over a week tends to have that effect on people.
His mouth became a thin line as he looked to the side, where Black Beard was sleeping soundly. His hatred for the man was still burning, but there was nothing he could do for now. He chuckled evilly as he considered that the pirate was having a much worse time than the others, having to stay bound for the entire trip and being force-fed a magic-nullifying pill every day. They were especially refined to seal wizards and users of body strengthening magic, as Vreil had come to know.
Putting such thoughts aside, Vreil closed his eyes and began to meditate, keeping a part of his attention spread outwards. He was keeping watch, after all.
The practice of meditation was one he had been recently taught by Jiovanni. Although the man himself could only do it on a basic level, he still had the theoretical knowledge to teach it to Vreil, at least until they reached Waterslide and he could find a proper magician, preferably Ashter, to teach him more. It was weird that Ashter hadn’t taught him this already, but he must have had his reasons. After all, Vreil wouldn’t have been able to do this a few months back.
The purpose of meditating, Jiovanni had told him, was to increase the amount of magic power he could keep in his stomach or "core", as he had called it. As Ashter had mentioned, all those months ago, it was impossible to increase the size of the storage you were born with. However, in the same way that a pressurized air tank can have more air than it would normally fit, it's possible to increase the amount of magic that fits in your core by increasing its concentration. Another upside is that as the concentrated magic power is used, it is more explosive and powerful than normal. Pressurized water can cut through iron, after all.
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The downside is that this practice applies pressure to your core, as it has to contain the concentrated magic power which pushes outwards. By forcibly inserting small bits of magic power in your already full core, you could very slowly train it to increase the resiliency of its walls, thus allowing you to concentrate it even more, although Vreil still didn't know whether this core had a physical substance in his stomach or whether it was a spiritual, magical thing.
Of course, the accumulation of magic in this way was an incredibly slow process. Even magicians who practiced this for decades could only increase the concentration of their magic power by 20-30%. The main avenue of practicing magic was to increase the control and understanding one had over magic powers, allowing for exponentially greater results using the same amount of power.
Taking Vreil's air magic, for example, there is a clear difference between pushing the block of air around an object in order to move it, and pushing only the air molecules directly touching the object. Using the same amount of magical power, one wizard can lightly push a stone while the other can explosively launch the same stone.
The reason Vreil was currently focusing on meditation was that he was stuck. He had reached a point in his air magic where he couldn't further refine the control of his power, and he couldn't understand more things by himself. He would have to ask a more experienced wizard for advice. As for sword-fighting... he had decided he should focus on magic for a while. After all, he was now a good enough swordsman and he had put off magic for long enough already.
He cleared his mind, though still keeping a hint of awareness, and focused inwards. Currently, his core was full, which meant that the magic power his blood naturally picked up in his lungs was not dropped off there. Instead, the blood continued to carry it around his body, slightly increasing his physical capabilities, until it naturally dissipated. Vreil didn't yet know why it dissipated, it was only something he had noticed through careful observation and basic deduction, but he would ask. He had also noticed that until it dissipated, no new magic power would enter his body.
Vreil concentrated and tried to feel the minuscule amount of magic power coursing through his bloodstream. To him, it felt like warm particles of dust, so faint that they were only a very fine line away from making him think they were only his imagination. At first, it was taking him tens of minutes of meditation to be able to detect them, but he was starting to get the hang of it. Two minutes in, Vreil felt the magic particles coursing all over his body.
He opened his eyes and used a very small part of his magic power to blow some air over a leaf, causing it to sway gently, before concentrating again. Now he could feel that in a specific place in his lower abdomen, all of the blood-carried particles of magic would slowly stop moving and merge with... something.
He tried to memorize the exact spot, as it didn't feel different than any other. Soon, the passing particles stopped merging there and instead continued on their way, with no hint of that particular spot being special.
Vreil tried to get the exact place right, and then willed the particles to stop and merge with him there. It was a peculiar feeling, simply willing something to happen like that, but magic as a whole only responded to a person’s will, so he was used to it.
As he continued doing that, he felt a small numbing pain there, which quickly evolved into a sharp, piercing one. As soon as he felt that, he stopped, and the extra particles began to emerge from wherever they were and flow back into his bloodstream. There were hundreds of them so Vreil couldn't be sure, but he thought one of them stayed inside.
That's something, I guess he thought tiredly and opened his eyes. He would have to wait a few minutes for the pain to abate completely before he continued.
Jiovanni had been very clear on how dangerous it was to push oneself while meditating like that. Thanks, Jiovanni, he murmured inwardly before going back to keeping watch. He still had more than an hour and a half before his shift was done, and many rounds of meditation to complete. His present weakness was still all too evident, and he would not let even one night go to waste.