(EVE)

“I’m surprised you’re still awake.” I heard Io say from the corner of the room, pulling me from my meditation.

“I just wake up earlier than most.” I replied without turning to face him, going right back into my meditation.

“You can try to lie all you want, but in this cave, nothing escapes my sight. I do understand why you’re pushing yourself like this, but not sleeping will hinder your progress more than benefit you.” He shot back rather sternly before shuffling quickly out of the chamber.

It had been a week since I had exited that wind filled ravine, and taken the ancient artifact. Ever since that day, I had joined Amelia in a strict training regimen Io had created.

We were to immediately begin meditating in the mana dense areas when we woke up, usually the main chamber where we had originally met.

After this we would usually gather to all have breakfast together, before beginning the first stage of our mana efficiency training. Io had been quick to notice how, as he had put it, "pathetically we utilized mana within our bodies" and wanted us to start from the ground up and learn to use it properly.

With the problem being a matter of habit, I had honestly expected to improve myself faster than Amelia, just because of the difference in time we had been using it. I was sure I’d finally surpass her in at least one thing, but I quickly realized how naive that was.

While it was certainly true she had been reinforcing her inefficient usage for a far longer period of time, I hadn't taken into account, or perhaps I hadn't truly realized just how much of a genius she was.

So sadly, I found myself falling behind her once again. It’s not like I’m not happy for her, but I wanted to stand beside her as an equal, to not always be someone she feels the need to protect.

The issues we were working on were how we had trained our mana to act without needing us to manually control it, where it traveled and the amount we used for each thing. I didn't understand what he meant at first, but after actually relearning it, it was a very obvious issue. The easiest place to see the difference is in full body augmentation. We used to flood our bodies with mana to achieve the effect, while Io had us learn to augment only what was necessary.

It took several days of very minimal mana usage to learn the path of our bones and muscles throughout our bodies. By sending mana only into those along with our skin for protection, we could achieve the same level of strength and speed, if not more, than flooding our systems. The best part was that it took a fraction of the mana to accomplish. Io had been right.

The next stage will be to adjust and maintain different mana levels in each part of our bodies to react to attacks and defense during combat, but I wasn't there yet. I was still struggling to run without accidentally using too much mana in one leg and being sent flying.

‘It’s whatever, I can think about that when the time comes to practice again.’ Shaking my head clear.

After the mana efficiency training it’ll be time for our specialized training.

Io had found two large caverns for us to practice in, first he would use his illusion magic to put us in different simulations, usually ones with different benefits for our specialties we needed to discover.

Amelia’s training was always something to enhance her domain over ice, while mine had to do with my new wind sense ability.

I had discovered quickly that while my ability was amazing, I still had a lot of refining I needed to do for it before it could be fully viable in real situations.

While testing it, I had found many flaws in it, and in myself. Firstly was that I could only hold the ability for so long, the mana cost wasn't an issue, it was how mentally taxing it was to process all the information I was being fed by my new senses, and if anything disrupted my concentration I would immediately lose control over the ability.

Secondly was that the further away from me that I expanded my "sight", the less clearly I’d be able to detect things. Then thirdly was that the wind itself carried my mana signatures so if I didn’t hide it properly or if someone stronger than me was around then my position would be easily revealed.

But I knew that one day, this ability would become priceless for me, I might even be able to use it so efficiently that I could find someone on the opposite side of a massive city like the capital. However, that was for another day.

After our speciality training was done for the day, we would gather once again for lunch.

After lunch we would once again meditate in the mana dense area, before the last major part of our day began.

The limitation spars, it was an idea Io had come up with to really test us, and allow us to evolve in every way possible, not just our mana.

He would start us out with our full equipment and have us run through many one hit stop spars. During the spars Io would announce restrictions for us that changed every few minutes. Swap the hands we used our weapons in, only augment our upper bodies, no mana in one of our limbs, close our eyes, and so on.

We hadn’t been doing it long, but I could tell my efficiency in mana and my reaction time to unexpected scenarios had been improving greatly, my mana reserves had drastically improved, and my abilities to fight with and without my bow had gone up a lot as well.

Then after our limited spars were over, we would eat dinner together before finishing the day with another meditation session.

I had to admit, at first I thought this regimen sounded quite tedious. But I couldn’t deny Io knew what he was doing and I couldn’t help but wonder how much I could progress with this training. Where would I be in three months, or six, or even a year from now.

I guess only time will tell, but it’ll certainly be farther than I would have gotten in the capital or on my own.

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“Good morning.” Ryla’s voice sounded through the cave shaking me from my thoughts.

“Good morning, will you be joining us today as well?” Quickly standing up to give her a hug.

“I will be.” She answered after returning the hug.

When the training had first started, Ryla had decided not to join in with us. But something must have changed her mind over the past couple days, but I certainly wasn’t complaining.

It felt nice for the three of us to train together, it almost felt like old times again. When we all had soft beds to sleep on, warm rooms, warm food, and when Kalan was still here.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” Thinking of Kalan, reminded me of something I had been meaning to ask, but never found the time to.

“What is it?”

“Wh….why did Kalan save me?” I managed to choke the words out, only to be met with a somber expression from Ryla.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t ha…”

“It’s fine, you deserve to know.” Interrupting me, as she wiped the somber expression from her face. “Long ago, before Kalan had even made the position of first Paladin, he had a family. A beautiful wife and daughter to be exact. I’m not sure exactly how they met, but from the stories I heard it was clear how much they loved each other, and how much Kalan loved his daughter. Kalan was a different man back then, he was much more caring, more loving, truly a family man through and through, but he didn’t neglect his duties to the church either. Constantly working to become as strong as he could for them. But one day it was all ripped away from him. A Satanists spy had been sent to his home dressed as a member of the church, telling him they needed him at the outpost, but when Kalan arrived every member of the church had been slaughtered. Kalan managed to kill the Satanists, but by the time he had gotten home. The damage was already done. As he entered his bedroom, he saw his wife dead, and his daughter was in the hands of her murder….” She finished before tears enveloped her eyes as she paused.

“Who was the murderer?” Although I had a feeling I already knew.

“It was Shezmu, he had taken everything from him on that day, and if it weren’t for him getting saved he would have also died that day.” Suddenly she turned to me, as tears pooled in her eyes. “That’s why he saved you, Eve. To him you were like his second chance at having a daughter, and this time he didn’t want it to be ripped away from him again, he didn’t want to be so weak he couldn’t protect his family again.”

‘That’s why he did it? I swear if I ever see him again. There’s no way I can let Shezmu live.’ Feeling my blood boil, before Ryla grabbed my shoulder.

“Thank you for telling me. I know it wasn’t easy for you.” Grabbing her cold hand, as I calmed down.

“Of course, like I said, you deserve to know. Now let's wake up Amelia, it’s almost time for breakfast.” Already standing up.

“Yes ma’am.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was finally time for the second stage of mana efficiency training. Usually did this one after lunch, but since I did the first stage before the others woke up I decided to skip ahead a little. While the first part focused on where mana went, this part was all about how the mana got there. Mana travels through the body using mana veins that form over time. The way the veins form, basically digging through your tissue, leads to a lot of inconsistencies in their sizes, imperfections in the veins themselves, and blockages in the body that force the veins through different paths that are less efficient.

These imperfections and blockages would naturally improve over years or decades of use. It was considered impossible to force through it manually, it takes an enormous amount of mana in the atmosphere to even attempt Io's method, luckily we had just that in this cave.

I wasn't sure at this point if Io or this mana rich location was more impressive. Even Amelia's family, who are apparently one of the most powerful and wealthy noble families, would betray the church to get their hands on a resource like this.

Taking my seat on the cold rocky ground, I drew in the ambient mana pressing down on me. More and more siphoned through my body as I forcefully compressed it into my mana heart until the ache from the stretched organ was almost too much to bear. Then, very slowly, I released a large clump of mana into one of the mana veins in my upper arm.

Like hand drilling through stone, I spun the large clump of mana and pushed. As it traveled, it forcefully widened the vein, caught impurities along the walls and, very painfully, broke through blockages. When the clump of mana was several centimeters down my arm, I released the next clump, and so on until twenty five had passed.

Taking a deep breath, I sucked in more mana and repeated the process on the next vein. Then the next, and the next. Internally cursing whomever decided we needed this many veins.

~~~~~~~~~

The progress on my mana veins today was still slow, but I could tell I was getting the hang of it. It was taking me half the time to cleanse all my veins and I knew I couldn't complain about the results even before finishing them completely. Each day yielded tangible improvements. I couldn't imagine how I'd compare to my old self when I was completely finished.

The end of mana efficiency training always led me to the favorite part of my day. The speciality mana training.

And as soon as I entered the illusion Io had set up for me today, I could tell it would continue to be my favorite.

The illusion room was a large forest, with beautiful flowers, large trees, and an abundance of wildlife in every direction.

I had somehow gotten used to how elaborate and convincing Io's illusions were. Instinctively I knew I was in a small cutout in the cave yet all my senses told me I really was in this forest.

Sitting down on the soft grass, I closed my eyes and quickly got to work.

So far my limit for maintaining the wind sense had been five minutes, but it was a lot better than when I had started where I could only hold it for half a minute at most.

My tactic for improving my wind sense had been to slowly let it expand outward from my body, processing the sensory information it fed me until my head started to hurt and everything became fuzzy around the edges. I forced my senses to stay at that distance for as long as I could handle and then slowly brought it back then rested for several minutes. Luckily, the headache disappeared as soon as I brought it back, so I didn't have to rest quite as long. I had made the mistake of thinking that I could try again as soon as the headache faded but found out the hard way just how bad a headache could become. I had passed out for an entire day.

I wasn’t sure exactly how far out my wind sense could reach currently but I could estimate it was probably between ten to fifteen meters.

I couldn't help but fantasize about me being as strong as Kalan was, watching over an entire city from dozens of miles away with my wind vision. Wind sight? Ugh I hate naming things…

~~~~~~~~~~

The time I spent in the illusion area always seemed to go by faster than the rest, but now after eating lunch and doing some meditating it was time for the limited spars.

I hated to admit that I wasn’t close to Amelia’s level but this training allowed me to see the gaps between us, and helped me to stay focused on improving.

Today's limitation spar was a little different Io started us out with restrictions. I was not allowed to use my bow at all, and Amelia was only allowed to augment herself with mana, no spells.

It was clear Amelia surpassed me in just about every aspect, but the one place I did have the advantage was in range fighting with weapons. No, I didn't feel a shred of guilt about playing on that advantage whatsoever. Especially with these starting restrictions where there would be no way she'll close the distance fast enough.

But my fighting with mana and straight hand to hand combat were severely lacking in where they needed to be, especially if I’m going to fight him one day.

“Are you ready?” Amelia asked while stretching.

“I’m ready whenever you are, are you going to join us?” Turning to ask Ryla as she entered the room.

“Unfortunately I won’t be.” Shaking her head.. “Actually I need to talk with you, alone.” She said as she turned to Io.

“I see, so it’s that time. Then let’s go, you two continue without me, you know what to do.” Pointing at the two of us before they both disappeared.

“What do you think that was about?” I asked.

“I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough, but until then let’s do as Io said.” Amelia responded with a shrug, before getting down into her stance.

“Alright, let’s do this.” Charging forward we began our spar.

~~~~~~~~~~~

(Ryla)

“And you’re sure this is what you want to do?” The peach haired boy asked.

The boy's presence still stumped me. I knew I was looking right at him, yet it felt like he wasn't really standing there. I had asked him about it a couple times and he swore he wasn't using any illusions. Maybe it has something to do with his rank? I have never met someone this powerful before after all.

Io's half expectant half worried expression reminded me that I hadn't answered him.

“I have a promise to keep. After I complete this, I will be able to stay with them without any regrets..”

I watched as Io got up and looked off in the direction the girls were sparring before speaking. “Do you think those two will understand? This decision affects more than just you.”

“I know that, but I’ve already explained to you my reasoning. I’m sure they won’t be happy about it at first, but they’ll understand it one day.”

“If this is what you wish to do, then I can’t stop you. But I’ll say this now, you must be extra cautious. None of us know the situation out there, and if what you said is true… Well, the last thing I want is for those girls to have lost someone else close to them.”

I felt a dagger strike my heart as he said those words, but I couldn’t back out now. No, I was sure this is what I needed to do. The girls were safer here with Io than they ever could have been with me. This is the best time. “I’ll be careful, and I promise I’ll come back.”

“I hope so.” Io said sadly.