“So it was like you were sleeping???” Millie asked, peering over at Leo from atop Trenton’s shoulders. They’d been making their way through the mountains for the last hour or so, quickly leaving behind their impromptu hiding spot between the two cliffs. Luckily, it hadn’t taken long to catch Leo back up to speed about everything he’d missed in the month or so he’d been in stasis. Overall, he seemed fairly receptive to the news of constant tragedy and failures. It was pretty par for the course at this point.

When he was fully debriefed, Leo spent a while getting to know the newer members of their merry little band, Karfice, Evai, Wimbleton, Sodrue, as well as rekindling bonds with the older members, Kiva, Raligoth, and Millie, who practically exploded the moment she saw Leo alive and well, not a scar to boot. In fact, somewhere along the way in the healing process, he’d even become rid of all the scars that had slowly been accumulating, so he now looked even more pristine than before.

“Kind of. Time passes a little weird when you’re in a time prison, though. It's uh…not my first recommendation for sleeping issues,” Leo replied, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand.

Garrote snorted, spitting out a swig of water he’d just taken, “No kidding? And here I was, champing at the bit to get next.”

“Not a bad idea, keep you quiet for a little bit,” Kiva said.

“Oh come on, I’m not that bad,” Garrote shrugged.

Everyone turned on Garrote, silently raising their eyebrows and looking at him. Even the newer members jumped in on the bit, chastising Garrote for his audacity without saying a single word. The only one that didn’t was Karfice, who seemed lost in a daydream, ambling vaguely forward while gazing passively at the sky above.

“I like to think I make things interesting,” Garrote harrumphed, folding his arms together and stomping forward like a child.

“Yeah, something like that,” Wimbleton said from the head of their little pack. Garrote glared at him, scrunching his face together as would a toddler fresh out of things to put in its mouth. “Hey, if it makes you feel better, I didn’t have to fix your arms. I could’ve just left you a cripple.”

“Wow, such a way with words. How did you know that’s what I wanted to hear?” Garrote said, rolling both his arms about his shoulders and his eyes.

“Talent,” Wimbleton said.

True enough, Wimbleton had completely reattached and fixed both of Garrote’s arms sometime in the night. How he’d gotten ahold of the parts, which had been split across Trenton and Kiva’s personal storages, Trenton didn’t know, but neither did he want to think about it. So really, all was well.

Evai walked next to Trenton in silence, occasionally perking up at something one of them said, but for the most part she was silent. Her life had been flipped upside down in a matter of minutes. It was only reasonable that she grieved. Similarly, Sodrue didn’t say much. Something seemed to be occupying his mind at the moment, although it was impossible to tell exactly what beneath those charming features of his.

“But that’s besides the point,” Wimbleton said, flipping around to face them while continuing to walk backwards, much like he had in the mines. “You’re all weak. I can fix that. Walibeld was so generous as to tell me absolutely nothing about the training he’s given you all up to this point, but I surmise his thinking. I presume you’re all already proficient, enough, with swordplay and magic, but, knowing Walibeld, I imagine you have absolutely no idea what presence is.”

“I’ve got the gist,” Garrote remarked.

“And I’m so proud of you, but that’s not going to cut it.”

“Presence is a fundamental, lad. If you don’t train it then you might as well not be training at all,” Raligoth pitched in.

“Precisely right my…disembodied friend. Presence is the base of all combat. If you don’t train it, you die. Take me for example. No magic. No aspect. My whole fighting style is presence and swordplay, and I would like to think I’ve been fairly successful up to this point keeping myself alive. Now ideally, I would like to train your swordplay as well, but you’re a couple steps removed from that currently. And we haven't the time for limb training. So instead, we’ll focus on the basics. When someone's presence touches your own, you can glean information about them, if you know what to look for,” Wimbleton held up 3 fingers. “When presence collides, you should notice 3 specific properties: heat, pressure, transience. Heat correlates to the strength of the bearer, pressure correlates to the quantity of presence they hold, and transience, meaning how much their presence shifts at a standstill, tells of their mental state. Someone who's been agitated will have an unwieldy presence. There’s exceptions to these rules, but they’re few and far between, hardly of note.”

“What about a presence without definite shape?” Trenton asked, recalling the many peculiarities of his own presence.

“Like I said, exceptions. Now, I’d like all of you to try and feel my presence. Tell me what you can glean.”

Undeterred, albeit a little disappointed at having been so perfectly ignored, Trenton followed Wimbleton’s instruction, digging his presence through Wimbleton’s body like a tiger pouncing on prey. For a time, he could feel nothing, scraps of scraps of lingering presence so thin as to barely even register. But the moment he grazed the boy's core, he could feel it, like a half second’s plunge into the cold, dark ocean. All at once it felt as if his body was twisted and mangled into nothingness, burned to ashes, and swallowed within a vortex. Then, it was gone, an agony lasting but a moment. It was no greater than Walibelds, certainly, but in nearly every aspect it felt so much more…violent. Kiva and Garrote recoiled, Leo and Trenton managing to hold their ground.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Oh gods! It's like a hurricane!” Kiva shouted, whole body visibly shaking from the brief contact.

“Uh-huh, and what does that tell you?” Wimbleton asked.

“Strong, lots of presence, and uh…agitated,” Leo said, his skin slightly paler than before.

“Very good! Full marks. I’d give you a gold star if I had one, but instead I’ll just explain a little bit about my presence and then how training works, keep things rolling here. See, my presence, the one you just felt, is unique in a couple ways. Since I’m so young, I actually don’t have much presence compared to an adult with equivalent capabilities. The same goes for all of you. This means that you’re somewhat limited in how much presence you can get, and in general presence quantity isn’t something you should focus on unless waging your skills against another. What’s more important is how you use your presence. Up until now, you’ve left your presence as a stationary mass spread evenly throughout your body, reinforcing everything at once. It’s a solid strategy, leave no weaknesses to be exploited. However, it has one major flaw,” Wimbleton raised his right arm up into the air, moving it gently up and down. “Consider this motion. How does the presence sitting idle in my legs, head, waist, contribute?”

“It doesn’t,” Trenton said.

“Exactly. Presence is a limited resource. And since you all are so young, it's even more imperative that you’re using it wisely, very wisely. Instead of simply leaving your presence to sit, you should be constantly moving it around your body, enhancing only the areas in use. Think of it like a pool of water, spreading and shifting as needed. It leaves you more exposed, but you’ll also increase your strength many fold if you do it properly. Oh and before you try it, I would recommend leaving yourself a buffer, both for the sake of not ripping your body apart accidentally, and leaving yourself some room for error in case the unexpected happens. Each person finds their own comfortable range, but it generally tends to be about 10% of your presence spread across your body as well as an extra couple inches around the muscles you’re using, just to be safe.”

“That’s a lot to keep track of while fighting. Aren’t you supposed to think less, not more?” Kiva asked.

“Correct, and well put. Once you’ve enough experience, it should become something like second nature. So how’re you going to do that? Well, there’s a few methods, but given our current circumstance, I think this one will be the most effective. We’re going to be walking for quite some time. When you walk, you use most of the muscles in your body. Put two and two together, and you get the common folk strategy. From now until you die, whenever you make any sort of movement during everyday tasks, you will focus your presence into only the muscles that are in use. I’ll be giving tips as we walk, and you’re free to look at me or Sodrue as examples. I won’t coalesce all my presence in my body this time, so it won’t hurt as much, I promise. Oh, and if I catch any of you not practising, I’ll cut off your arms for a day. Don’t test me.”

“Is he…” Leo asked, leaning towards Trenton with a worried look in his eyes.

“Yeah, think so,” Trenton whispered.

“I felt that,” Wimbleton said, eyes locking onto Trenton like a hound dog suddenly picking up the scent of blood.

“You’ve said that a couple times–feel. What does that mean, exactly?” Karfice asked, refocusing for the first time in a while.

“Did I not…no I guess I didn’t. My presence, among others, is very unique. I can feel anything that my presence does as if I were touching it directly,” Wimbleton said, holding up his hand and wiggling his fingers. “It was something I was born with, so not something you need to worry about. Just know that I’m very perceptive.”

“And what about healing Garrote’s arms? That’s certainly no magic I’m aware of,” Karfice added.

“That’s because it’s not magic. Absolute presence control is what it's called. It's an ability that anyone can use, technically, but I’m the only one in the world with fine enough presence control to actually do it. Put simply, by infusing my presence into something, I can rearrange its atomic structure. Nature magic isn’t fine enough to heal most injuries, but I can forcefully piece things back together as if they were never damaged in the first place. And you,” Wimbleton pointed at Garrote, “should thank every single god that I chose to fix your arms while you were sleeping. You do not know pain until you’ve had your atoms forcefully restructured.”

Even Walibeld couldn’t fix Leo, but this kid, somehow this kid, had an ability unique entirely to him that could transcend healing magic. It was hard to believe, farfetched, but looking at Garrote and Leo, both back to full health, it was hard to argue with the results.

For the next 3 weeks, they traveled in relative peace, waking early in the morning, practising their presence control as they moved, and making camp just as the sun left them for the night. The threat of losing their arms for a day worked wonders to keep everyone on track, so even though it was a remarkable mental strain to focus constantly on their presence, no one complained, and no one dared take an ungiven break. Everynow and then, Wimbleton would make small suggestions, tips to help avoid ripping muscles, move presence faster, etc. But for the most part, they were on their own to figure things out, slow, but consistent work.

In time, they left the mountains behind, snowy stone crags fading to rolling waves of hills which stretched on forever. This was the very edge of the Watcher’s kingdom. For the first time, Trenton had actually left the Conqueror’s domain, a kingdom which spanned much, but not all, of the world. It was both a frightening and invigorating concept. They now traversed through foreign terrain, true enough, but also were making actual progress, something Trenton had taken for granted for quite some time. The academy was close, almost within reach, now. But first, they had business to tend to.

They spent the last handful of their time traveling climbing the great cliff upon which Korak, sat. It was grueling work, worsened by Wimbleton’s insistence on how wonderful of a training opportunity it was, not letting them use Garrote’s graviturgy to ease their climb. Not to mention Evai and Millie, dead weights that Trenton had to carry. But this obstacle, too, was bested before long.

After 7 straight hours of vigorous climbing, they crested the peak of the cliff, collapsing onto a flat field of soft grass which stretched on for many, many miles. And beyond those many, many miles, colossal stone wall barely peeking over the horizons clutches, was Korak,. It had taken some time, months since they’d talked to Wizard in Wyrm’s Perch, but they’d finally made it. Time to uphold their end of the bargain.