CHAPTER 7
THE SEVENTH ENTRY IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MASON COURBIS
"Serin's Private Cram School for Fresh Heroes"
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It isn't going to be easy.
This is what I kept telling myself, at any rate. I didn't want to get my hopes too high. On the first night of my new life, Serin and I spent a good few hours past sunset putting together our new plan. Many of the things she had prepared were still relevant, if not absolutely necessary. It wasn't until a servant approached in the dead of night and brought our attention to just how fatigued we were that we finally agreed to part for the time being and resume at a later date. As I approached the door to my chamber, I wondered how well I would sleep in this foreign land, not to mention in this foreign body. As soon as my back hit the sheets, however, it became very clear that I would be sleeping more soundly than any self-respecting rock.
The first item on our comprehensive list of necessary preparations was literacy. It was absolutely imperative that I understood the common written and verbal language of this country. Most people spend years becoming fluent in a foreign language; I spent approximately a single month's time.
"Theoretically, it should be much easier for you to learn Oselli than most other people. Your soul is housed within the body of Kinn, which still carries within it certain memories. These memories come in various forms, some of which would be language-based. All we would need to do is help you, essentially, re-learn Oselli. In time I believe it will begin to come back to you." Serin smiled as she finished placing various language-based books upon a desk before me. They seemed to range from elementary-level literature to what appeared to be collegic textbooks.
"And you said that Oselli is the most commonly spoken language here on Hsura..." I hummed softly as I observed the books and moved to sit down at the desk. "Did one country have more of an impact here than others?"
"Yes and no," replied Serin. "It is more apt to say that one certain culture, historically, had more of an impact globally than many others, which resulted in the widespread use of Oselli throughout many different countries and cultures. It originated in the country of Osellochs, which lies in the South-Western hemisphere, and currently dominates a majority of the continent of Khalikhan."
I nodded once at this and offered an insightful hum. "... Should I be studying world-history, then? A creation myth, or several even?"
"Perhaps," said Serin as her expression turned somewhat pensive. "... However, I am not certain that such things will directly aid you in our mission. That aside, I believe it is imperative that you become fluent in Oselli before pursuing other avenues of learning. Would you not agree?"
This prompted an exhausted groan from me, but I nodded in agreement. "Right. I suppose we should start with the alphabet then, and work our way up."
Oselli itself is an incredibly ancient language that is said to have been one of the first tongues man chose to speak in. It originated in a culture dominated by strength and honor, and as such began as a simple language which incorporated many strong sounds into its letters and words. As society progressed, however, Oselli progressed as well; it began to transform into something much more tactical. The war-like nation of Osellochs did not simply survive through sheer brute force, but rather chose to thrive through strategy, tactics, and coordination. As such, they required a language that was equally versatile. Oselli became a language in which accuracy and attention to detail were incredibly important; there were many words and symbols to describe different situations, conditions, or appearances of things. Through the added complexity, however, Oselli also became a language that allowed one to easily twist their words around, causing others to lose the true meaning of a message. The military used this to their advantage, and often brought rather ardent wordsmiths into their employ as encryptionists and de-coders.
Osellochs's influence continued to expand globally through imperialism and colonialism, which brought Oselli into a variety of other countries and cultures, whether they liked it or not. Osellochs maintained its control over a good portion of the known world for a great deal of time before sects began to secede and rebel against the mainland. Or, at least before a majority of groups succeeded in seceding. It was a long enough period of time, however, that a vast majority of these annexed territories had been speaking Oselli for generations.
After the age of rebellion came to an end, Oselli began to receive something of a renaissance as the previously oppressed cultures began to truly embrace the language. Whereas it had previously been a tactical language meant to describe scenarios in clinical detail, Oselli was gradually modified into a more romantic language. It now allowed for a wide range of emotional expression, and was capable of capturing even the most obscure feelings. This complexity allowed for a predictable ease in which words could be molded into a great wealth of language-specific humor, poetry, and lyricism. Despite my best efforts, I have found it nearly impossible to translate a depressingly large majority of this work into English in a way that is meaningful.
Serin stressed to me many times, however, that Kinn did not hold an overwhelmingly diverse understanding of Oselli. She also continued to explain that, over time, the sheer weight of the language became too much for many to bear, and that a great deal of the language was either abandoned or lost, perhaps akin to the way one might trim an overgrown bush. In its most modern form, Oselli has become a moderately simplified version of its extremely grandiose former self. Some archaic texts and scripts survived over the ages, however, which has allowed for certain archives to devise comprehensive lists of dead words, symbols, and sentence structures. This would theoretically enable the use and re-incorporation of such things into one's speech or writing, however such knowledge is obviously not common. It has also been noted that certain parts of the language survived regionally, while others simply died out.
In the end, this overwhelming wealth of history surrounding Oselli has created, in my opinion, an inarguably more confusing, convoluted, and backwards clusterfuck of a language than what English has ever dreamt of becoming. I must concede, however, that it is much more fun to speak, and I personally find it significantly more pleasant to the ears than English.
I was surprised to find that attempting to learn the language actually started out well. The spell that allowed me to comprehend languages didn't particularly have any effect on individual letters, however certain symbols evoked particular feelings within me. The closest Earth-equivalent I could use to describe this sensation would be how, in written Japanese, there are certain characters which represent objects or things. Oselli uses a similar concept. I quickly learned what sounds the characters made as Serin taught them to me in the way one might attempt to teach a toddler. It might have simply been my imagination, but it seemed as if Serin enjoyed this portion of my learning a little too much. I wondered if she had any children of her own; I had not seen any since I had begun my stay in her home.
As the learning progressed, however, I very quickly hit a block. Reading and comprehending very simple words using the spell worked for some time, and I was even able to memorize a few of them. However, Serin and I eventually came to the conclusion that I would be unable to learn the language properly if I continued to rely on it. Without the ability to instantly comprehend the language, Serin was once again forced to communicate with me telepathically. It took many days for me to get used to the sensation. After about a week, something began returning to me, as if I had remembered it somewhere within a dream. Bits and pieces of the language began to reform themselves naturally in my brain, and I could tell that Serin's hypothesis had been correct. Over the course of three more weeks, I avidly worked to "regain" my fluency in Oselli, and somehow managed to even broaden the scope of Kinn's original understanding of the language. At least, according to Serin.
As much as I would have loved to solely focus upon academic learning, however, we simply didn't have that luxury. A great deal could happen in a month's time, and time was the one thing we couldn't afford to waste. As such, when I wasn't spending time learning the language, I was tasked with doing a variety of things.
The first and most important task was mana training. On Earth, I had lived with mana my whole life; I had simply been unable to utilize it for the most part due to Earth's natural lack of mana. As a result of my upbringing on Earth, however, I obviously had a decent understanding of scientific concepts that far outclassed the average person's knowledge in this world. I was also very familiar with many ways in which "magic" was described, explained, or depicted in various forms of popular media; this allowed me to visualize ways in which I could shape my own real magic.
"I would assume that it is a result of these numerous factors working in tandem within your mind that allows you to evoke magic without the need for chanting," said my new instructor.
Standing before me now was a short golden-skinned Fiend, whose name was Ixtus. He was dressed in a rather interesting outfit, to the extent that I couldn't tell if it was simply fashionable in this world, or eccentric. He wore something between a poncho, a bolero, cloak, and a gambeson. It reached down to his wrists, but didn't wrap around his arms like sleeves. It hugged his torso and abdomen well and was secured in the front with two sets of three buttons, which sat approximately three inches apart horizontally and reached from just below the collarbone to the navel. The thing's shoulders then extended downwards, like how a duster jacket's might, except they reached far enough to naturally cover down to one's wrists. Peeking out from behind this extended measure of fabric were buttoned pockets on each side of his abdomen. From the back it could be seen that the jacket, as I'm going to call it, also had a hood. The jacket itself was mostly dark grey with golden accents and trimming, and seemed to be made of a wool-like fabric. Underneath, he wore a white, collared, long-sleeved blouse-like shirt with ruffled cuffs; the shirt was buttoned up all the way to the top. Over his legs he wore a pair of what seemed to be black leather pants (which did frame his legs nicely), which extended down into calf-length cuffed black leather boots.
The only reason I describe his outfit in such great detail is because he wore it incessantly. Either he possessed multiple versions of the same clothing and nothing but, or he simply continued to clean the one set of clothing he had. It was unclear.
He looked over me with his red eyes for a moment before he reached up to try to fix his short, dark auburn hair. I could tell he was somewhat agitated with this situation he'd been presented with, though I couldn't exactly tell why. I just blinked at him and folded my arms over my chest. Eventually, I spoke up.
"... Yes. That makes sense-"
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"However," interjected Ixtus, "you lack any and all control over how you utilize your mana. You clearly expend much more energy than is necessary to perform even the simplest of tasks." I just squinted at him as he said this, which prompted him to huff at me before he continued. "It is as if you were hard of hearing, and thus you shout, loudly and wildly, where you would otherwise intend to speak at a normal volume. In the same way that you would needlessly be wasting oxygen in order to, essentially, speak at a volume which you would consider, 'normal,' you are needlessly expending your energy with great abandon in order to produce average to mediocre results."
I simply frowned at him for a total of three seconds before I decided to respond. "... And how exactly do we, metaphorically, improve my hearing?"
"Well," snapped Ixtus, who was clearly becoming somewhat judgemental at this juncture, "traditionally, mages utilize chants in order to cast spells, which are designed with such an issue in mind." I refrained from rolling my eyes, but only just barely. "Chants act as a focus through which mages can measure how much mana is necessary for a spell. Budding mages generally spend months learning to correlate their emission of mana to their emission of breath, and thus expend a reasonable amount of energy when utilizing magic." As he continued to explain the basics of magic in his own annoying way, a thought began to occur to me.
"... When using magic, is the process, essentially, using your own mana in order to affect the mana around you? You're trying to cause a reaction, right?"
"Yes, precisely, that is the most basic fundamental aspect of spellcasting that generally even peasants understand."
"So, then, if I'm expending 'too much' energy casting a spell, where does the rest of it go? Into the air? Wouldn't it cause a reaction somewhere else, then?"
"No. It all goes towards the position of your intent. What you are doing, essentially, is using almost solely your own mana reserves to create the desired effect, instead of willing it to happen. Were you to use chants, as is standard, you would already be weaving instructions into your expended mana, making the process almost infinitely easier." After he said this, I raised a hand to my chin and thought for a time.
"... To you, the use of magic is a process, right? It's done through formulas, and calculations. Like it's a science."
"It is a science. True magicians are scholars."
"... Right. But what if magic is more physical? Like exercising a muscle?"
"Of course there is a physical element to using magic. Exercising the limits of your pool of mana is an important and necessary process for a magician who wishes to be of any value."
"Right. But I'm just wondering if the formulas are necessary, or what can be accomplished just through training and willpower. When I used it before, it almost felt like a sixth sense, or an extra set of limbs. Wouldn't it only be natural?" Ixtus paused at that and blinked a few times. Then, slowly, a sickening smile crept over his face, and he furrowed his brows quite sharply at me.
"Ah. I see what has happened. Your natural talent has made you arrogant. You have been in this world not even a full week, and yet here you stand, postulating at the nature of a science you haven't even begun to comprehend. Do you claim to understand it better than a trained practitioner of the art?"
I had, at this point, reached up to hold the bridge of my nose between my forefinger and thumb. I wasn't sure about how much more of this I could take.
"... Right. So what spell allows me to conjure and hold a flame in my hand? Can you teach me that one?"
"Ah. Yes, an element-based spell. Certainly." Ixtus then cleared his throat, placed a hand upon his hip, and held out his other hand palm-up. He closed his eyes and then, loud and clear, began to chant. The exact words he spoke didn't translate well into english, as I can only surmise that they had been an ancient form of Oselli, or perhaps even some other language I wasn't aware of. I listened, however, and after he finished, he produced a small flame atop the palm of his hand. He then opened his eyes, and grinned at me as if what he had done was somehow impressive. "See if you can accomplish that."
"Don't I have to train for months in order to match how much mana I put out with how much breath I use to speak, or something?"
"You are a prodigy. Surely such a task is not beyond you." He smirked as he said this. I just sighed.
"Fine."
I held out my hand and looked down at it. I focused my intent there, but kept from trying to expend any energy. I took a few seconds to focus and feel the mana within my body. For a moment I tried flexing it, like one might flex their arms or abs. I didn't get a response immediately, but after several tries, I could feel something. It started deep within my core at first, but then pulsed outwards through my entire body. "Great," I thought as a grin spread across my face. I flexed once more, and directed it upwards into my throat. For a moment, it felt as if my esophagus expanded, and it began to burn slightly as if it were on fire, but only mildly. Then, I began to speak. It was slow and controlled, but beat for beat I matched the same chant as Ixtus, making sure only to allow just the slightest bit of mana out through my breath as I spoke.
It was, perhaps, a feeling akin to flexing one's embouchure when playing a brass wind instrument, and then proceeding to play an extremely high note while simultaneously attempting to, very discreetly, pass gas. One can imagine the difficulty required in moderating two sets of emissions from different parts of the body in a controlled manner. It is, however, entirely reasonable if one wishes to not do such a thing.
As my chant came to a close however, I saw a spark, and I could feel the fire taking form atop my palm as well. The flame I held was, somehow, even smaller than Ixtus's. This brought a wide smile to his face. I looked up to him at this, still maintaining the flame.
"I feel like I could keep this up for a while."
"Yes, yes, very good. How fortunate for you it is that Kinn had trained his pool of mana to such an extent for you. And, I suppose your control over your mana is commendable. It isn't out of control by any means, but perhaps... a bit too stifled. With time and practice, I am certain that you will learn to regulate your applications of mana."
I just nodded a couple times as he spoke, though I was no longer looking at him. I was focusing on the flame in my hand once more, trying to feel how I could modify it. "Just throw a little lighter fuel on there," I thought to myself. "Let the fire burn on its own, but help it along." I concentrated for a moment, and the flame began to burn brighter. It increased in size, slowly but surely, and became a decent-sized fireball in my hand. Ixtus immediately frowned.
"Right, yes, and there you go ruining a perfect training exercise. As I said before, you are expending too much mana, and forcing the effect instead of-"
"That's not it, actually," I said, cutting him off. "What you said helped. It's not a hundred percent, but I think I can measure what I'm using a little better now. If I used the same amount of mana I think it took me to do this the other day, it'd actually look like this."
I raised my hand into the air and dumped a significantly larger amount of fuel onto the flames. Almost immediately, the flame grew exponentially in size. I began to sweat as the heat became intense, but I couldn't stop a grin from forming on my face. Of course, I couldn't let the flame grow too large; we were still indoors, after all. I let it stay that way for a few seconds before I lowered my hand and allowed the flames to dissipate. I then cast my gaze over to Ixtus, though my vision had now gone a bit dark after staring directly into the fire. Even though I was impaired, I could tell that he was absolutely seething, and not simply because I'd almost just melted him.
"There," I said, somewhat proudly. "With practice, I think I can master it. But I really don't think chants are necessary, at least in the long run." As a show of proof, I raised my other hand and summoned a small flame into it as well. I began to play around with it, as if I were flipping a coin between my fingers.
I hadn't known him long, but I had never seen Ixtus so royally displeased.
"... I see. So your arrogance has transcended its traditional bounds, and can no longer be called something so mundane. What you have now is hubris." He reached up to wipe away the sweat from his brow as he bared his teeth at me. "If you truly believe my life's work to amount to nothing, let us see you perform a spell outside of the elemental and physical realms. Let us see you perform mental-based magic."
I blinked once as he said this, and furrowed my brow. "... What sort?"
"See if you can perform the spell that will allow you to comprehend our language. I will not assist you in this endeavor."
I frowned a bit and began to protest, when suddenly I felt that the effect of the language-comprehension spell had left me. For a moment I just stood there with a blank stare and a worried expression as mathematical formulas and diagrams began to swirl around my head. "How?" This question was all that came to me as the gears in my mind ground to a halt. I eventually let out a sigh and closed my eyes in frustration. Honestly speaking, I knew that such a thing was beyond me. I couldn't even begin to understand the complexities required in actively translating the intent of spoken word. "What do I look like," I thought, bitterly. "A psychic?"
"... What part of, 'In the long run,' did you not understand, you complete ass."
As I continued to speak, Ixtus's brows shot up and his eyes went wide. He leaned in and put a hand to his ear, as if I weren't speaking loud enough. He lifted his other hand, pointed to his opposite ear, then shrugged and shook his head as if indicating he couldn't understand me. I just lifted my hand up to cover my face with my palm. After a time, Ixtus began speaking once more, and I quickly looked to see what he was saying. He was chanting. After he finished, I could feel that something had taken effect upon him. I simply grimaced, and began to mimic him. As I got to the end of the chant, I could feel an energy enveloping me, and I knew the spell had taken effect once more. That being said, however, I didn't need magic to translate Ixtus's huge shit-eating grin.
"There. Now, as you can clearly see, there are some magicks beyond even you, Hero."
I raised up my right hand, and presented my middle finger to Ixtus.
He blinked and squinted at me.
"I- is that... some sort of gesture in your culture? What is it, a sign of appreciation?"
"Why don't you translate it."
"I- this spell only translates spoken and written word, it does not-"
"I believe it directly translates to, 'Go fuck yourself,' Ixtus," said another voice off to the side. I turned my gaze to my left in order to see Serin leaning against a nearby wall with her arms folded across her chest. A grin broke out across my face, and I stifled a chuckle. Ixtus turned to see Serin as well, and stammered for a moment as he looked between the two of us.
"But- how did you-"
"I just read his mind, Ixtus. I used telepathy." I immediately jabbed a thumb over towards Serin, indicating that she had arrived at the appropriate solution. Ixtus's gold skin slowly began turning red as he threatened to magically transform himself into some sort of rageful horned tomato.
"... Insolence."
"As amused as I am at your banter, however, I cannot stress enough how important this training is. Whether you like it or not, I need for you to get along with each other. And- please, Mason, do not burn down my home." She offered a knowing smile, and I looked away as I rubbed the back of my neck somewhat awkwardly.
"... I get it," I said as I attempted to swallow my pride. "I apologize. I'll... try to be less confrontational."
"Wonderful," blustered Ixtus. "Perhaps finally we can actually attempt to teach you something, then."
None of us attempted to correct Ixtus's behavior.