"Are you sore?"

Gullveig watches me with some scrutiny, particularly when leaning back in my chair makes my bruises sting.

"No," I lie, just as childish as my body was. "I just... am tired from training."

The last few hours had been a lot tougher than the initial success I had at the start of the training session. Soini went relatively easy on me but from that point on I was constantly being met and unable to get any opening on him. Targeting spots on shields worked for controlling Gungnir, but my "ace in the hole" was still relatively new and lacked the polish to do anything meaningful in training. If it had been a real battle I may have been able to do something, though, which was the entire point of me going through that horrible brawling. I knew how Gungnir worked and in turn I could make the spear mine with more time and hours using it.

But now, within the Magician's study, I had to follow-up on the training I promised to do with her: my magic training. My twelfth birthday was coming up soon and my promise to Gullveig still held, but she wanted to start ahead of time after seeing just how dedicated I had been with Gungnir.

And, of course, it was a situation where she could feel advantageous over me after the last few surprises I dumped on her. Gullveig in the books wasn't very petty, but she certainly had pride that wouldn't have done well beneath all my recent line of surprises. More still the fact that as shocking as I am, I'm so ordinary when it comes to using a spear that I have to rely on an odd weapon just to be on parity with the skill level of my siblings.

"You would do wise to remember that you became my apprentice," she chimes, tilting her head toward the necklace she had made for me.

"I understand, Magician."

My reply is short just to avoid the drama, turning my attention to the scrolls in front of me. Learning real magic had to wait until I turned twelve, but she likely was going to carry out the first and most important part of her magic.

"Given your low level of mana, it is going to be pivotal for you to learn the basic forms of my magic... and learn them so well you can recite an entire minute of factual statements about it."

She waves her hand and the scroll nearest me unfurls, its language still hard to read even with my new body's adaptations. It looked like my old life's language but that was simply the world adapting for now to better adjust my transfer, more than likely.

"First: there are three forms to all magic. World, Godly, and Personal Magic all have their own unique strengths but they all have limits that are bound to what you're able to do. In your case, you bonded with the god Svalinn. This is the second... and in turn, you have inherited the Protector of the Stars' magic, the magic of Star Mages."

On the scroll is a family tree leading down to myself and my siblings, racing through centuries of generations before reaching a singular name.

"Your ancestry is what granted you this chance, but only you will be able to acquire this ability and make it your own. Much like Gungnir, you will need to figure out how it works and what the dangers are. Some documents exist for it but it is too dangerous to practice without my supervision. Instead, I will teach you a magic created by myself and my teacher's guidance."

She reaches over and sets another scroll down beside the opened one. A scroll bound with a strap of red and marked with her seal.

"You are not allowed to cast any spells until I tell you instruct you to. This scroll will outline the core understandings of my magic to grant you what I call the "initial circle" and reinforce your God's Vessel in the process."

At last, though, is a chance for me to ask her an important question.

"Master, what form did my God's Vessel take?"

She doesn't seem surprised that I have a question like this, probably due in part to the sheer line of surprises she had already undergone. To her credit, she answers me with little more than a moment to observe me.

"It took the form of a lung. Surely you knew that, yes?"

I had my hunches from the book, but it seems Heimdallr was always going to acquire a lung-type. God's Vessels could take many forms but their shape ultimately reflected the user's connection to gods. The weakest form was the lung, which signified a single god's approval. In my case I had thought I would acquire a brain or heart, but my new life's patron must not have wanted me to use magic. Brains were the second-most form and signified a minimum of two gods supporting you; this mind replaced your own, though, and may have simply not been allowed given my own soul merging with Heimdallr's already complicating things.

The most powerful, though, was the heart: Demon Kings had been the only being in the world guaranteed to have them, but some destined and fortunate to gods were able to acquire it too. Three gods or more came together and in turn required a third of the Gods created in Daesal to agree on someone's fate. It was this reason that Demon Kings always manifested them; they had to obtain the approval of the three Demonic Gods just to ascend their throne.

With a lung... my growth will be low when it comes to using magic, which is why she must want to reinforce my Vessel with her magic.

"So what does your magic do, Magician?"

"It can do whatever I want."

Her statement isn't wrong nor what I didn't expect, but actually hearing her say it without even a hint of doubt is something still unnerving. In my writing, her magic is simply conceptual at its core: how she feels and what she wants to do simply happen. It's a defiance of natural law... and as such, it required understanding natural law so you can openly break it.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

It's why I don't doubt I can use her magic with a little effort, but using it would make it blatant that I'm not Heimdallr. Exposing myself for the sake of showing off in this situation is something far too dangerous to even remotely risk.

I turn my attention to the scroll, opening it and looking over its contents: Newton's Laws. Basic education in my previous life taught me enough to grasp the dangers and abilities of Star Magic, but it also would serve to help me understand her form of magic. Combining the two types would inevitably make me extremely dangerous, too, and possibly even able to negate the effects of my Star Magic using her magic. Gullveig uses this method to save my mother in one of the flashbacks, particularly by removing the effect of heat and cold on her body for days to allow her to endure the drawbacks of a powerful spell.

"Then... if I learn all this, will I be able to do whatever I want?"

My question is intentional but she doesn't pick up on it or believes it genuine. It makes her smirk.

"Maybe. But I remind you that I do not want you attempting to use magic without my instruction. You must still wait for your birthday, after all; this is just early preparation so we may start off on a stronger foot. You cannot grow your God's Vessel so long as you are stuck here. You can, however, strengthen it by becoming confident in your magic. Even those with the shape of a lung have gone on to do great things once they steeled their conviction. Much like them, your confidence in my magic will bleed over. This method is common in dual-type mages... albeit it's normally not someone who inherited God and Personal magic types."

Between using Gungnir and this, it's obvious just how much of an enigma I'm going to become to most of the hold. This is just the beginning of my journey, but the various paths I'm taking will inevitably stretch me thin. At this point, it's impossible to imagine where my growth will take me.

But with a teacher like her and my guards, I have no choice but to climb. Gef was going to be waiting on me.

I got ten years... but what will I be able to do with just a few?

----------------------------------------

It has been six years since I began my new life. Six... long... years.

My room is a mess of scrolls and clothes despite the efforts of the hold's servants to keep it clean. The only thing that seemed orderly was the form of Gungnir resting over my desk within its wraps. For the most part there aren't too many luxuries in here, but that's because I never needed much when I wrote so I feel no need for them. Though I will admit that my bathroom was... a bit better than the majority of those found within the castle.

I pull myself from my steel-constructed tub, the steam of the magic-heated water masking much of my body and the room in its haze. I approach the nearby mirror like I normally do when I decide to bathe, the amulet around my neck shining and my hand swiping through the air to disperse the obscuring fog.

Heimdallr — me — definitely grew up better than the books. I'm almost six feet tall compared to the original height Heimdallr had of five feet and ten inches at his prime, but I'm still growing into my strengths even now. My muscles aren't as clearly defined as the ones I imagined from the book, but in their place is their density; the combination of my training and God's Vessel made it so dense that it forced me to grow.

In short, I was as strong as Heimdallr was, but the intensity of my muscles was high enough that I could easily have been as strong as him as a true adult. I looked the part of an adult younger than most of the men would in Daesal and the few scars I obtained trading blows with Soini and Geir over the years made my chest, back, and arms stand out that much more. My face so far had no scars or markings and the tell-tale "baby" look I had is completely gone for the modest handsome factor Heimdallr took as a rather casual protagonist in my series. My hair was still short enough to be swept back but was reaching the edge of its limits; soon it would be long enough to pull into a short ponytail like Heimdallr wore near the start of the first book.

I was reaching the start of the book and completely out of the prequel stage. The first real arc of my work had been the Inheritance War but even in this life it was hard to tell just how vicious it would be. Most of my brothers are of age like me now and are all handling their own affairs. Elgr and my younger brother are the only ones still here with me, but the only reason for that is his wound acting up on his last assignment near the border of the hold. My younger brother's lack of talent in fighting had let him stay for more training, but the real key in all this is that I was still here.

Unlike all of my half-brothers, I hadn't been allowed to leave the Hold until Gullveig confirmed my training was finished.

Despite these years of training and my casual use of low-level magic to heat water or get rid of steam, the truth was that my affinity for Gullveig's spells was lower than I thought. The problem with using her magic is much like the stopgap I encountered when wielding Gungnir.

I lack passion.

Maybe it's how long I lived in my previous life, but mustering the emotion to harm someone or to inspire the true power Gullveig calls on when defying the natural laws is something I've never been particularly gifted at. The closest I've come is when I have my spats with my brothers, but even then I still see them as family and can't gather the will to go beyond my limits. Gungnir isn't a problem since I don't plan to kill until I have to... but the stopgap has kept me from learning more than the three basic spells Gullveig has to offer.

The first spell is Pulse: she used it to revive me and it's a simple attack spell within her magic. It pushes reality, pulsing it with one's magical power. I hardly use it outside of my spars to break the blocks of my opponent to save my attack with Gungnir.

My second and third spells are Disperse and Control, the latter of the two always in effect. Control is the spell Gullveig designed that resulted in her slowed aging and acts as a means to temper my God's Vessel. It costs almost no stamina as it's more of a state-of-the-mind, but I can exert greater force to stop things like bleeding or even the effects of poisons inside of my body. It was Control being used at a high level that also negated the abilities of my mother's magic in the flashbacks I wrote.

But Disperse is the spell I've been bottlenecked by. I use it to get rid of steam, fog, and occasionally dirt... but the true effect of Disperse is far greater: it should be a spell for attacking with the raw power of shattering weapons. The idea is that you disperse the atomic structure of elements, but the presence of life requires higher amounts of focus and rage. Gullveig could use Disperse on her opponents and make them literally rupture if they didn't have strong magic of their own, but the limits on mine at best let me crack wood. Gungnir is actually a more superior method to fight with in that case, but until I truly understood Disperse I couldn't begin learning the rest of her magic.

For example, Disperse was a component in the Magic Arrow. It was used to break down the space between the arrow and the target in a powerful instant. Teleporting, in that same vein, required understanding Disperse. It was Gullveig's trump card and would inevitably become mine once I could use it.

But after all these years, I was starting to wonder if it could actually happen. I turn eighteen today but I've had the least real world experience because of my bottleneck and her insistence. That all changes today, though.

Starting today, I am now old enough that I become the master of my own fate. So long as my father Dagr doesn't command me, I am allowed to do as I wish. I don't plan on insulting Gullveig... but my life in this world has been too sheltered. If I'm going to grow and become as capable as Heimdallr needs to be, I have to meet others. The only huskarl who is willing to serve me is Soini and he's the weakest of the entire group. I'll address her today and bring up my idea to hopefully not only solve my bottleneck but also satisfy my desires of adventure. But first, I need to get dressed.

It's going to be the longest day I've had in years.