The first lesson it turned out, was more meditation despite Saga's quip. However, it appeared to deviate from the ritual before. As they sat within the now glowing circle, Indrada handed them the same kind of runic stone that they had broken back in the forest. It was with some hesitation that Saga accepted the stone. It's dark, neatly cut surface was cold in the berserker's hands but as soon as indrada let it settle, it began to slowly glow. The energy circulates through the stone, lighting up each rune in turn before settling on the Death and Rebirth runes.

Like so many times before, Saga could feel the pull of the hollowed-out stone magical core. Designed to simply reflect your magic, it was not meant to hold much but Saga had nearly killed themselves with one. In an effort to keep this from happening they had learned to reel their magic in as to not drain themselves. Instead, Saga simply breathed in slowly and focused on the magic within them again. Drawing it back as soon as the runes lit up.

“Now. What you are about to try is an extension of the magical channeling exercises my son taught you..” Indrada was eyeing Saga's efforts with an intense, calculating gaze. She laned in a little bit closer, those eyes of hers never leaving the young warrior. Saga simply nodded, eyes locked with the elderly woman. Now that they were more aware of their own magic, they could feel the mana swirl and pulse within them. The potion they had taken earlier was still making part of their magic feel hypercharged.

“You will need to listen to my voice and do exactly what I say. Understood.”

“Understood,” Saga spoke, voice terse as they tried to calm the magic within them. They were not doing too hot and Saga wondered if there was some trick they had missed.

“Good. Then let us begin. Close your eyes and focus.”

Remembering their lessons within the forest, Saga closed their eyes as they held the stone in both hands. Breathing in slowly, they focused on the flow of their mana, letting it circulate throughout their system. Their mind was drawn back to that cold forest, of the stone cracking in their head.

But it felt different now as if two different streams of magic were diverging before wrapping around one another like a spiral. The magic flowed into the rock as they breathed slowly, letting the magic manifest within them. Making it glow more intensely as manga flowed into it.

“Good.” Came Indradas voice, calm and stoic. “Now focus on the weaker of the two and start siphoning back only the rebirth magic. It will fight you all the way, so grit your teeth.”

Saga did as instructed, their mind traveling deeper into that flow of magic, trying to feel which of the two felt the weakest. Within the whirls of magic within Saga, Death and Rebirth both began to manifest more clearly before their inner eye. They were like two glowing stars, each letting the magic fuel them. One was a bleak, black orb glowing with a grey and white luster. It seemed to almost be feeble next to the other star, which burned with a powerful green fire that seemed to devour the mana at a rapid pace.

“Your Reborn affinity is currently overcharged due to your potion. In time, it will wear off and the two affinities should eventually reach equilibrium again. But for now, focus on the weaker ones,” “Listen to my voice as you will more mana into it.” Indrada’s voice was so loud and clear that it felt as if it was being spoken directly into their very mind. With a deep breath, Saga continued to focus on the two glowing stars within their magic. They focused on the bleak, fading black orb and saw it pulse with that same washed-out light again and again.

Sweat began to run down sagas pale forehead and their eyebrows furrowed as they forced the mana to divert, splitting some of the excesses towards the weaker death affinity. The mana struggled, supercharged with Reborn essence as it was. But Saga gritted their teeth and stayed on course. More and more, the mana began to divert and the orb of death grew both in luster and size. By now, Saga was soaking in sweat and they could feel their concentration dissolve bit by bit as their very body began to cramp up with the effort.

“That is enough.” Indradas voice rang out just as Saga felt like they were about to explode. They groaned, clutching their head, everything in their vision strangely colorless and bleak. As if the world had been washed out in their absence.

“My head hurts, and everything looks all weird and grey.”

“Give it a moment. It's the death magic surging from your efforts. You did a passable job.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Passable is better than awful I guess.” Saga rubbed their knuckled against their temples, trying to dispel the awful heaviness “Fuck. My head hurts.”

“You diverted magic charged with Reborn essence to feed your death affinity. It takes a lot of willpower to achieve such a thing. I’ll be frank with you dearie, but even if you do possess a little bit of talent for this, your starting for a too late in life to wield magic on a more than rudimentary level.”

“I am more of a poke em with the sharp end kinda person, huh?”

Indrada gave a soft chuckle at that. “Something like that yes.” She gave Saga another, closer look before she smirked. “You are a bit on the dense side.” She said finally and Saga found themselves taken aback. They had accepted that they weren’t exactly mage material but that just felt hurtful. The redhead's blue eyes narrowed as they looked into the face of a very amused Indrada.

“That is a bit uncalled for.”

“I was referring to your flow of magic, not your intellect.” She said with a chuckle. “Although I will have you work on that as well. You have more than enough brawn and your grace and spirit are both in a good place from what I understand.”

“Yeah. I am not sure how one goes about raising specific attributes though.”

“Ah, that brings us to something I prepared the night before.” She said as she reached into her robes and produced a rolled-up piece of parchment. Handing it to Saga she began to explain the next step of the lesson. When Saga took a look at what was written on it they saw it held the same rules as the ones inscribed on the floor in front of them.

“From today until the end of our lessons, you will memorize 3 major and at least twice as many minor runes between each lesson. We will start with the ones for Harmony, Neutrality, and Discord. The best way to push your intellect is by exercising your mind after all. Those runes are known as Jäm, Net and Bråk.”

”Homework?” Saga mumbled, looking none too pleased with the sudden turn of events. They had never been the kind of person who was any good at keeping enough self-discipline to dedicate time and effort to their studies. But they did not want to remain at their low Mind score as they were pretty sure it would hamper what little access to the magic they had currently.

"You can ask my sons for help, both are very talented at written languages, and Ordan is an excellent rune-mage. You might have to figure out which alehouse he is terrorizing and chase him down to get him to teach you now that he is making up for a lost time, however."

"Lost time? I did notice he was not too keen on the countryside."

"Both my boys are at their best among cramped streets and throngs of people."

"Ordans brother, Kazim was it? He seemed nice. A bit less brash than Ordan."

"Oh. That's because he knows how to be subtle. If he gets upset, he is plenty brash just like his brother I'm afraid." She sighed. "I raised two boys who grew up to become as sharp of wit and tongue as they are of blade and fire."

"My condolences?" Saga said as they imagined how difficult it must be to get a word in if the two brothers began arguing.

Indrada's face broke up into a large, genuine smile at that, looking as if she was about to burst out into laughter at Saga's dry quip. Saga for their part could not help making such quips when around people who enjoyed them. It came as easily as breathing.

"I love them with all my heart, and I truly would not be here today without either of them. But I have dragged both of them out of fires they started their volition." Her voice lifted and grew softer and more relaxed when discussing the Kazim and Ordan, making it clear that she thought the world of her sons. But before the mood could shift too far away from their current task, she snapped back into teacher mode.

"But enough of that. We have one more mana-flow exercise to go through. I mentioned your magic was very dense, did I not?"

"You did, yes."

"Well. To put it simply, you absorb ambient magic at an accelerated rate currently, mostly because you have gained several levels all at once in a short time. Coupled with the fact that you are entirely untrained and unaware of how this world work, you have just been soaking it up like a sponge. Your soul isn't used to such an abundance and is packing as much as it can into you."

"Wait. Are you telling me my soul essentially storing the magic equivalent of fat in case I end up somewhere without magic?"

"I... I would have phrased it differently. But in essence, yes."

"Is this a good or a bad thing?"

"It is neither good nor bad. Densely packed magic means you can hold a larger amount of mana than someone whose mana is more fluid and loose. But it also means you have to work a little harder on pulling your reserves."

"I think I get it. It's an either-or scenario. Depending on what I am going for, I might want to have one or the other?"

"Not so dense after all," Indrada said with a knowing smile and Saga felt a slight hint of pride at getting it right. "The exercise we are about to be all about shifting how fast we take magic inside us and how densely we pack it. Ready?"

"Ready." Saga closed their eyes yet again and centered themselves.

"Excellent. Now, listen closely to my voice."

***

The two of them spent the next two hours meditating together with Saga trying and mostly failing at unraveling their tightly packed mana reserves. The exercise was deeply tied to how they breathed and Saga always found it hard to keep focused on such things for too long. They were far too impatient a person. But they did their best, and by the end of those two hours, Indrada seemed rather pleased with their efforts.

"More than adequate for your first try."

"Oh, I'm adequate now? I am moving up in the world!" Saga exclaimed as the two made it back up out of the chamber. "Oh. Before I forget to ask. Why the glass chamber underneath the river. Is that some magical thing?"

"The runic chamber? Oh no. I am a fire-user, as are my children. Glass does not burn easily, and then sticking it in the river let my neighbors sleep more soundly at night while I was training them in their fire magic. Would you like some tea before you go?" The old pyromancer said with a soft laugh as she gave a saga a cup of something sweet and cool. Saga let out a soft grunt of appreciation before noticing that it was already dark out.

"Afraid I'll have to take a raincheck on the tea, I should probably go see what my girlfriend is doing. Sasha can get very intense when training with her axes. " With that, Saga slunk out into the cool late winter air, heading back towards Attrid's estate. As they did, they could hear Indrada singing to herself.