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Ghost Mage
7 - Animal Lives

7 - Animal Lives

The astral scouting had been frustrating - these people's astral forms acted as if they were welded to their physical bodies. Even their silver cords were vestigial, meaning that they would be in danger of never waking up if they went on the kind of nightly journeys common to sleeping people on Earth. Limited dreaming meant limited imaginations, it seemed to me, so this entire society probably lacked the dynamic creativity needed to change and advance.

I wasn't going to let that happen to Liam. Once I built him a good foundation, I was going to pry him loose for real astral journeys. With the combination of my energy and his grounding to his physical body, we should be quite safe from whatever astral terrors those in this world feared so much. But without taking Liam along, my own anchor here was too fragile to risk it. I wasn't concerned with being damaged, but I COULD have my attachment here severed and be thrown back to simply being dead.

Liam's dreams, again, were working hard on acclimating him to my Earth perspective. Our soul bond was getting closer and deeper more quickly than I expected, and I could feel my "old geezer" self-image slowly fading away, and a new type of maturity growing within Liam. As one might expect, this led him quickly to more serious thoughts about his relationship with Salia.

I could see from his ponderings that Salia really cared for him, but had been letting the distance between them grow when his magic wouldn't awaken - she had ambitions for her life, after all, and needed a partner that could support her. Liam grinned inwardly as he thought of the impression he could make on her now. Liam was betting he could convince HER that he had gotten a spirit, and wasn't a doomed burster!

And then there had been the homework. Liam had been given the entire book on the legal and ethical restrictions of magic use. Half of these were normal course work for girls, most of whom could cope with Blood and Life Magic, both of which had extensive ethical restrictions. For most boys, it was simply "Don't damage stuff you didn't intend to damage" with their more blunt-force abilities. Liam's (and MY) ethical challenges were on a whole other level. We could damage someone's magic ability for life with a casual blast of one of the more exotic forms of magic - which they would have no defense against.

Fortunately, most adults were a couple levels or more above us in development, which gave them a large degree of automatic resistance - but other kids Liam's age were wide open.

I could feel what the books were talking about, now that I knew what to look for - these people couldn't shield themselves against anything outside of their aspect compatibilities. The overall system was much like the old "elemental" advantages and disadvantages in Earth stories - with Earth tending to provide the best defense and Fire the least, even though Fire was a very good offensive aspect. Water and Air were better at deflecting, and Cold did some of each.

But all the "odd" affinities had their own rules, compatibilities, and incompatibilities, and Liam was going to have to learn at least the basics of most of them, if he wanted to be effective when it came to crunch time. And if we even wanted to leave the city, we'd be exposed to a wide range of possible dangers. Humans here were only BARELY in charge of most of Atlan's surface, nature was constantly threatening.

Underground were nightmares - deep dark things of the distant past that the people tried not to think of for fear of summoning them. On rare occasions (every couple of centuries or so), a city would simply vanish - becoming some form of diseased wilderness. It was assumed (confirmed by divination, at times) that those places had attracted the attention of one of the old lurking nightmares. On a more "rational worry" front, Godzilla-type creatures tried to visit a city somewhere about every decade or so - but humans were able to fight off about 90% of those.

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Liam:

Strange dreams again - gotta be coming from my new spirit, I assume. What a strange world, all those people and no magic. So weak and yet free to roam their planet as they chose. Wildlife so fragile that much of it was in danger of going extinct!

And then there were their "machines" - like thousands of tiny enchantments working in synch with each other. And human nations able to actually going to war with one another, like rival guilds in the stories. Warriors hunting each other the way we would clear a trade route through the wilds, clearing the beasts that would oppose us.

We all know how corrupt some magi can get at higher levels - the power madness is something all officials over level 6 are required to have annual screening for to hold any public office. Seeing how the corrupt acted on Earth reminded me of what the evaluator had said - that I might become a target if my abilities became known.

Still, it's not like I would have a choice in the matter - my spirit would either do as they asked or not. It was obviously not going to simply take orders. In fact, I was going to assume here and now that any such evil humans were going to be in far more danger than myself, because nothing they could do or say to me was likely to stop HIM from doing whatever he chose to do.

After a quick breakfast of eggs and fried veggies, Dad led me off to the Spar arena.

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Caswar was up at dawn, and so was the initial response from the University - Primordial Magic, was his answer. He hadn't heard of that since his advanced History of Magic courses. Supposedly, all of Atlan had been infused with it before Life emerged. It was crude and powerful and easily shaped by intention into normal, aspected, magic of any kind. It could still be found in traces, scattered into ancient rock formations that had never been processed by anything living.

Usually, when anything alive drew in energy from Spirit, it was customized by their intent into aspects, since that was a far more efficient and stable form, and what all Atlan life instinctively created from the Spirit realm to create and maintain their life force. Liam, it seemed, was getting the raw stuff instead, and in large quantity to make up for the inefficiency. By this theory, Liam was casually using up maybe 10 times the actual mana needed to power his magic, but gained a huge degree of versatility in return.

As Liam came into the arena and put the usual basic protective gear over his vitals, he didn't seem at all nervous or worried, even though obviously unsure of himself. He took a small hooked hammer and a standard shortsword as weapons, and didn't bother with armor beyond the minimum.

Sending in the first animal, a standard quickmouse, it immediately came zooming in - and bounced away just a few inches from Liam's leg, laying stunned in the sand. Liam quickly cut it in half, and then tossed it aside - fully drained. Caswar had never seen someone his age process Life energy so quickly. also, it didn't seem to provide Liam and special effect. For most, it would trigger emotion, from things like greed or bloodlust to despair or sympathy, depending on how they took in the energy via their astral/emotional bodies.

From what he could see, Liam's astral didn't even waver.

Caswar was also unsure just what aspect had been used to stun the mouse in the first place, if any - could it really have simply been primordial? He hadn't seen any flashes, so it wasn't fire or electrical, but Liam had manifested so many forms yesterday that it wasn't worth trying to guess. So he just walked over and asked.

Liam: I think it was Force or Reflection - I was just trying to knock it away.

So the kid didn't even KNOW? He simply had an intent in mind and DID it? Incredible!

And so it went. Everything they had in stock (very little, the day after a Spar) just bounced off and was killed. At Caswar's request, Liam changed up what specific effect he used to stop them, but it became obvious anything within a foot of Liam was dead if he wanted it so. The few creatures with ranged attacks saw their attacks die out before making contact.

And Liam wasn't even winded or stressed at the end of it. And there was STILL no effect on him from taking in those 20-something lives.