Chapter 54 The Target Practice
Meira used a gust of wind to blow her smug kitten toward the targets before giving her instructions. “Left to right, hit every target. Every other target hit with a targeted force blast instead of a blade.”
Evernya flicked her tail at Meira before getting to work, eliminating her foes. At first, her accuracy was iffy, barely hitting the outer ring, but her aim improved steadily as she sighted in. Unfortunately, each time she hit a target, a loud bang assaulted her sensitive ears, causing Evernya to wince. She flattened her ears with her hands on top, but the pain continued to torment her brain. After she hit all ten targets, she focused mana on her abused ears for some relief.
Despite her annoyance at losing their argument, Meira showed sympathy toward her kitten’s plight. “Sorry, I should have warned you. I forgot how loud these targets could be. Luckily I don’t have neighbors for kilometers, though the shifter living ten kilometers down the road may have heard it.” Meira remarked, massaging her ringing ears.
Evernya stared at her Elven keeper with big pleading kitten eyes. “Can you make it quieter? Forget the shifter kilometers away. What about the tortured shifter standing right here?”
Meira had an abrupt change of heart. A sadistic smile formed as she shrugged off her kitten’s pleading eyes. “Yes, there is a silenced setting, but you have to get used to loud noises. If you can hit all ten targets in the inner ring, I’ll think about activating the silencing setting.”
Evernya returned her attention to the fading red marks, half being on the outer ring. With her ear’s health on the line, she attacked her foes. The first three targets she hit a bullseye, but soon her ringing and throbbing ears got to her. Her aim worsened until, on the eighth target, she missed the inner circle by a sliver. In anger, she nailed a bullseye simultaneously on the last two targets.
She turned her head to Meira with pleading eyes, only to receive a negative shake of the head. With tearful but determined eyes, she refocused on the targets. To speed her torture session up, she nailed two at a time, moving through the targets in under ten seconds. This time she hit all targets within the inner circle, half being bullseye. With her mission accomplished, she flooded her abused ears with mana. As her ears healed, she glared at her elf, daring her to back down on their deal.
The broadly smiling elf disregarded her glare as she proclaimed, “Good job! As promised, I activated the sound dampening, but I would get used to loud noises. What if an explosion happened out in the wilds? One way I’ve heard shifters deal with loud noises is pumping mana into their ears while picturing the desire to protect them. Doing this won’t save you from the loud noise, but it will mitigate the damage.”
Meira shuffled the targets with air magic before returning her attention to her kitten. “Now I want you to go right to the left. This time hit every target twice, once with a blade, then blast.” Meira instructed, returning her attention to her tablet.
Evernya protected her ears with mana before getting to work on her targets. To her relief, each impact’s volume dropped to half. Still uncomfortable for the poor girl, but bearable. As if she sighted herself in, she nailed each target in the bullseye with every attack. In quick succession, she worked her way through all ten targets.
Meira watched slack-jawed as her kitten eliminated every target with robotic precision. “Wow, you are perfect 20 for 20. Even the force of impact is identical at 5.67. I think you outgrew this exercise, so let’s move on.”
“As much as I would love to take brag about this, I can’t. Five meters and under isn’t very long, especially when I shot archery in my last life from over four times that.” Evernya commented with a frustrated expression.
“So what if it's too easy? With your range limitation, you need to be perfect within it to compensate.” Admonished Meira.
Meira materialized ten numbered disk targets, floating them in the air in front of her kitten. She set them in a random pattern of movement, leaving Evernya in awe at the casual application of magic.
“Please hit the disks one through ten with either a blast or blade,” Meira Instructed, returning her attention to her tablet.
Evernya shook herself out of her awe and got to work. She nailed target one, being only two meters away, gliding in a straight line. Target two was just as easy as it followed the same pattern a meter back. Three through six gave her some trouble as they zigzagged through the stationary targets. She missed a few times on each before zeroing in, nailing them in the center with a force blade. Target seven appeared to be easy, like the first two, but as soon as her blade neared the target, it abruptly changed direction. She launched several more blades and blasts, all missing at the last second.
“Did you think your prey wouldn’t react to your attacks? Sure your attacks are invisible, but that doesn’t mean they are impossible to sense.” Meira commented, unimpressed.
With a growl, Evernya launched several force blades at once, finally grazing the target. Evernya glared at the falling target with frustration, but moved on. She handled targets eight and nine the same way, with four to five blades bombarding it from all directions.
She got to target ten, which was suspiciously floating still near her range limit. She sent a test shot, watching the target shift out of the path of her attack. Next, she bombarded it only for it to dodge every blade and blast. Evernya turned to the elf controller for any hints, only to receive a bored, disappointed look.
Evernya stared at the unmoving target, feeling as if it was taunting her. Out of frustration, she sent a dozen force blades cutting off all escape. However, to her astonishment, she watched the target stay still, allowing the attacks to shoot past.
“What am I missing? Isn’t this supposed to be training? Why use a target I can’t hit!?” Questioned Evernya, eyes flashing with poorly concealed anger.
“You can hit it. I would even say it's as easy to hit as the first target.” Replied Meira with a cryptic smile.
Evernya scrutinized the target while occasionally shooting a lone attack to gauge its reaction. Every time the target moved out of the path of the attack at the last moment. Evernya’s eyes widened in realization. She shot a single force blade at the target while watching the target closely for movement. Just as the target shifted to the right, she curved her blade back on target, nailing it in the center. She facepalmed herself, feeling like an idiot. Despite finishing the exercise, Evernya turned to Meira, tail, and ears drooped.
“Took you long enough,” remarked Meira.
“No need to rub it in, I already feel like an idiot.” The frustrated girl shot back.
Meira moved on to an exercise her kitten should enjoy. She materialized a human-shaped doll of the same material as the targets and stuck it into the ground. “I want you to constrict this doll’s body as hard as you can.”
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“How do I do that? I did it once on the slaving asshole, but it was on instinct.” Inquired Evernya, her mood darkening as the events of her temporary enslavement flashed through her mind.
Meira quickly explained, noticing her kitten’s simmering anger. “Focus on the target and picture crushing it.”
A smile snuck onto Evernya’s face as she pictured the slaving bastard as the doll. She pictured crushing the doll, causing her mana to spring to action. The doll deformed as the invisible magic constricted it from all sides. Instead of satisfaction, a nagging feeling bothered her, as if she was doing some wrong. She rewound her memories of the last time she used constriction.
Meira watched in confusion as her kitten stilled, staring off into space as her magic continued to crush the doll. After several minutes, she finally found the answer she was seeking.
She turned to her elf, bewildered. “Didn’t you say all magic requires a mental picture?” Evernya questioned.
“Yes, no matter how complex, all magic requires a picture for their mana to function,” Meira replied with certainty.
This answer only confused Evernya more. “I don’t understand. I pictured nothing when I crushed the slaving bastard. In my rage-filled mind, I manually controlled by mana, knowing what to do on instinct.” Evernya explained.
Meira’s eyes widened in realization. “When you tweak your magic, do you create another picture overriding the previous commands?” inquired Meira, intensely staring into her kitten’s eyes.
Uncomfortable under Meira’s stare, Evernya replied. “Why would I create another picture? It’s easier to tweak my magic on my own.”
“Oh my, no wonder you didn’t cause an accidental backlash. I thought you could override pictures with another, not this.” Meira rambled in shock.
“Did I do something wrong?” asked Evernya, tail low, with a worried expression.
Ignoring her kitten’s question, Meira fervently scanned through all of Evernya’s magical readings on her tablet. “Shoot a force blade without picturing the magic,” commanded Meira, without looking up at her confused kitten.
Curious, Evernya complied. Instead of picturing a force blade and allowing her mana to do the rest, she manually formed a thin edge of force, launching it at a random target. Interesting manual casting feels natural. Picture casting feels clunky in comparison. I think manual casting is even faster, but I can’t say for sure. She tried again, this time much faster as her mana instantly responded to her will.
“Marvelous! To think you stumbled upon what the nobles have been trying to accomplish for centuries.” Meira exclaimed, bouncing with excitement.
“What’s so hard about controlling magic manually?” Evernya asked.
“Mana doesn’t respond well to manual control. Allowing your mana to take the reins by picturing what it needs to do is the only option.” Meira explained.
“I don’t understand. My mana seems to work more fluidly if I manually control it,” Evernya stated.
“I agree your casting time halved when you manually cast your magic,” Meira reported.
Evernya prompted Meira to get to the point. “Okay, so how does this discovery affect me?”
“Mythic era documents stated manual casting cuts down on casting time and boosts flexibility but requires more practice and knowledge to perfect. Auto casting or picture casting takes advantage of the person’s mana to fill in the blanks, as I explained before, but this slows down casting time and flexibility. Overall manual casting has a much higher ceiling, but auto casting is best for young mages. I say this, but manual casting is supposedly impossible today. Countless mages have pursued manual casting over the centuries, including me, but no one has succeeded until you.” Meira explained, fighting between jealousy and pride of her kitten.
“Okay, cool. I guess I will stick with manual casting. It feels smoother and more natural to me.” Evernya decided with a moment of thought, unaffected by the significance of her achievement.
Meira held back her strong desire to knock her kitten over the head in favor of testing this new discovery. “This next exercise will highlight just how significant the ability to manual cast is.”
The targets floated into the air, joined by ten more identical targets. Meira stabbed the targets into the ground at varying distances in a circular formation capping at ten-meter diameter before configuring the targets to display numbers one to twenty. Still annoyed by her kitten’s disregard for achieving manual casting, Meira sent her flying into the center of the circle with a powerful gust of wind.
Evernya landed gracefully on her feet, immediately spinning to glare at her launcher. “What the hell was that for!”
Meira ignored her kitten’s screeching as she explained the exercise. “As I call them out, I want you to attack each target with the specified attack form. The three forms of attack I want you to use are blade, spear, blast. I’m sure you can figure out the spear form easily enough with manual casting.”
Evernya swallowed her anger as she rotated in place, committing the target locations to memory. After one revolution, Meira started the exercise. “Three, blast,” Meira commanded.
Evernya spun thirty degrees while simultaneously creating and launching a targeted blast at target three, hitting the target within the inner ring.
A moment later, Meira commanded, “eight, spear.”
She spun another twenty degrees, forming a spear of force with her mind. Unlike her near-instantaneous blast attack, the force spear took a second to develop, delayed by inexperience. The invisible spear flew true, nailing the center of the target with a bulls-eye.
“Seventeen, blade,” ordered Meira a second later.
Evernya rotated one hundred eighty degrees, nailing target seventeen dead center.
“One, spear,” Meira ordered without delay.
She shifted twenty-five degrees before firing a force spear at target one, hitting just outside the bullseye.
This exercise lasted for another twenty minutes, finally stopping when Evernya’s accuracy faltered from exhaustion.
“Good job! Overall, besides the last two targets where you hit the middle ring, you hit all targets within the inner ring.” Reported Meira, tossing a two-liter purple smoothie to her exhausted kitten.
Evernya plopped onto her ass, red-faced and panting with a pounding headache while chugging the smoothie.
“Now, do you understand the advantage of manual casting?” Meira commented to her sprawled-out kitten.
Evernya laid with her eyes closed, panting for several minutes before responding. “Faster casting and smoother transitions, but I think it would be harder to multi-cast without a lot of practice.”
“Once mastered, efficiency is another advantage, since your mana doesn’t need to fill in the blanks. Now imagine what an experienced mage could do when they can cast much faster and fire off their magic in quick succession.” Added Meira before leaving her kitten to recover as she gathered the targets into her storage ring.
Ten minutes later, Meira prodded her napping kitten with her foot. “I know you’re tired, but we still have one more exercise to go.”
Evernya cracked her eyes open, renewing her headache from the setting sun shining in her eyes. She rolled on her stomach to avoid the sun while circulating mana to her brain. A few minutes later, she climbed to her feet, aggravating her headache more. While swaying on her feet with her eyes closed, she pumped as much mana as she could into her brain while watching the relaxing flow of her mana system. Finally, after five minutes, her headache died down to a mild throb, allowing her to function once more.
“Ready?” asked Meira, standing six meters in front of her kitten.
After a second delay, Evernya responded, “I think so, as long as it’s nothing too strenuous.”
“Just a blocking drill,” Meira replied with a smile, causing Evernya’s tail to puff.
“What kind of blocking drill?” Questioned Evernya, staring at Meira suspiciously as she smoothed out her tail.
Her response was a widening smile from the elf before alarms went off in her head, prompting her to raise her force cocoon instinctively. An air blade impacted her cocoon out of nowhere, causing her to stumble several steps backward. She drew on her mana to retaliate, only to find Meira was conveniently outside of her range.
“Wasteful. I know you can sense my mana. Create a shield to block my attack. There is no need to protect your entire body unless it’s an area of effect attack.” Instructed Meira before twitching her finger to launch another air blade.
Her now pounding headache slowed her reaction time as the air blade impacted her cocoon, knocking her back another step. Before she could recover, Meira followed up with another air blade. This time Evernya glimpsed the mana, but was too slow to react.
“Faster!” ordered Meira, launching another air blade.
Evernya continued to hide within her cocoon, afraid to block an attack she could barely track. However, holding her cocoon against Meira’s attacks took its toll, as Meira warned. Evernya felt like a herd of elephants stampeded on her brain, and it was only getting worse with each subsequent air blade.
By the twentieth air blade, her concentration lapsed, causing her cocoon to drop just as an air blade shot toward her chest. Her senses kicked in overdrive, finally tracking their blade just enough to deploy a small shield of force to protect herself. A split second later, an invisible one-meter diameter shield sprang to life, deflecting the air blade, but not without cost.