I was starting to get worried about these people. Magic here was TOO easy, yet the population obviously struggled with it. I was missing a lot about how this world operated. Everything around me felt - delicate. Especially Liam's body. Even worse was Liam's ASTRAL body - it was faint and seemed hard-welded to his physical body. These people certainly didn't use astral travel.
In my time haunting Earth, there was constant traffic in astral travelers. The difficulty had been in bringing any memories of it back to the physical. The energy wall people on Earth needed to bring things from the astral to the physical was huge. Here, it was trivial, but they simply didn't HAVE much energy. Their astral forms were pathetic - small globs of energy with the vague shape of their bodies. All the energy they DID gather was immediately gobbled up by the physical.
So they just didn't use their astral forms as vehicles at all, just as energy sponges. By their standards, I was a nuclear bomb, because I still retained full awareness on the astral AND maintained the higher energy creation tools from my meditation experience back on Earth - tools that could never develop here without a risk of frying brains at every step (bursting, they called it).
What made this all possible was our soul connection - for all intents and purposed, Liam was ME. His reactions were exactly what I would have done in his situation and with his knowledge. His soul was another branching of my own "oversoul". Due to this, I could "hide" within him very easily. In fact, if I fully relaxed, I "became" him, as a passenger with full awareness of exactly what he was thinking and feeling each moment, with my Earth identity inactive.
I did this when Liam got up to see his parents.
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Liam:
Mom! Dad! I'm awake!
Mom: So glad you're up so soon! We're here in the kitchen. (as Liam arrived in the kitchen) I'm so sorry your summoning didn't work out - but at least you'll have SOME magic. You won't be a cripple.
What do you mean? I feel fine. I feel a spirit within me with incredible power.
Dad: Sorry son, but you need to stay away from that "power" you feel - it's your bursting potential. You had a burster breakthrough instead of getting a spirit. Fortunately, you survived it well, but you'd be risking your life each time you try to expand on it.
Mom: Tomorrow, you're scheduled for a special course for coping with burster abilities, and then you'll be going through a full evaluation to see what abilities you've opened up and how you can safely use them.
Dad: From what your monitors told us, you're safe playing with any energy that naturally comes through to you, but don't call on it or try to draw in more - you're sitting on a floodgate that could destroy you.
Mom: You're doing way better than they guessed, though. The monitors expected you to be out for several more hours, and to be in severe pain for a day or two. I bet you opened a healing channel! That would be wonderful - even at level 1, a healer can always support themselves. Everyone likes having them around.
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Level 1? But that's NOTHING, Mom! By the time I'm 18, I'll be right back in the same situation, left behind by all my friends and classmates.
Dad: You might make level 2 if the academy believes they can guide you through a safe bursting. Your odds went up a lot from this quick recovery. You'd still be risking burnup, though, so take it slow and be VERY sure of your odds before you try it. Remember, a third of people never get beyond level 2, so you'll be perfectly normal if you can get there.
Mom: And think of it this way - you don't have to worry about the whims of a spirit! YOU have full control. I was horribly worried about having to deal with a new spirit persona in the house, so it's a relief in some ways.
Dad: Now eat, and later I'll take you to the novice Wild Spar event this evening.
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That last bit woke me from my immersion in Liam. The rush of thought Liam had at the mention of a Wild Spar opened up part of this whole new world for me. It was an event for level 1 and 2 proto-magi to face off against magic-endowed small animals in combat, and they would have their puny (my impression) astral forms then absorb the remaining energy from the hapless dead creature.
It explained how they got energy when they weren't able to draw much in directly from spirit - they captured another being's energy before it could escape. At least it gave their pathetic astral forms a path to develop.
The cover story was working well. Any extra power they detected from Liam would be blamed on his lack of control, and he would just be warned to calm down and not trigger a "burst". He would also not be expected to fight, as any life-or-death situation would almost certainly force him to try to draw more power and trigger that deadly burst. This was great, as I had never been in combat my entire long Earth-life, and ME going bonkers in a serious fight would be pretty deadly for any of these people who were near.
The other triggered revelation was minor, but when healing was mentioned, Liam's memories came to the surface and I knew that healing talents were over 90% the province of females, so it was quite a blow to his "masculine image" that his main talents might lie in that direction.
Further memory triggers came from the meal itself. It was from the garden district, which surrounded the city and formed a buffer between the people and the potentially dangerous animal habitat beyond. The food animals for the city were a constant temptation for predators, and even herbivores could often sense and be drawn to the outer gardens. Keeping watch at the outer wall of the gardens was a normal training activity for teens, and it was also there that the Wild Spars were held.
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Caswar didn't like this new burster report. There was no damage - other than the student going unconscious. There should have been SOME manifestation of destruction, especially if it reached level 3. Not that 3 was all that high, but it was insane for it to be channeled through a level 0 without obvious damage. But the record crystal showed no incompatibility, no soul adjustment, so a burst was the only viable explanation. Any spirit, especially one with such power and control, would have triggered the containment wards, only the boy's own soul could have passed through unseen.
Of course a "clear burst" was possible in theory, but none had ever been recorded. In such a case, the energy would have been so in tune with the boy that it could control itself, willingly locking away the extra energy harmlessly. But that (according to the theory) would require an astral form with a full set of chakra points - which should be impossible in a level zero with NO active bodily chakra points. Imagine anyone crazy enough to build a full astral power structure while the physical body was still a cripple! And with what as a power source??
Silly mystic fantasies - he really shouldn't read that theoretical garbage. He'd attend the evaluation tomorrow, just to satisfy his curiosity. Bursters did help push forward the bounds of knowledge, after all, even if most ended up dying horribly.