Jake’s POV
I slowly reappeared back in the room, thankfully without seeing that flaming figure again.
“I told them you went to the bathroom.” My mum’s voice announced from behind me. It startled me, and I spun around.
“Oh… uh, thank you.”
“You passed out, Jake.” Mum said flatly. She was sitting in one of the chairs by the window that the nurses rolled in.
“…I know.” I said unsure of why she was reminding me.
“Do you? Because you don’t act like it. Why would Suma summon you, knowing what happened?” She asked annoyed.
“She didn’t know actually. I just told her, and got some time off from all the physical training, but they still want me to come in for the nonphysical stuff.” I explained.
“Did you tell them you passed out?”
“Yeah, but they still want me to come for their classes because it won’t be dangerous.” Mum looked ever more annoyed with each explanation.
“Jake, Suma is a doctor, right?”
“Uh, sort of.” I said as I sat down on the bed.
Mum stood up angrily, “Why can’t she just cast one of her spells and fix you then?”
“Well, she actually did try, but she doesn’t understand our biology enough to fix this. A broken bone or something, sure, but passing out… she can’t help with that.” I said trying to defend Suma and calm her down.
Mum sighed, “Jake, you need to take better care of yourself. You spend so much time in that world, it’s taking a toll on you. You almost let slip about Suma when you woke up, and now the doctors think you’re hallucinating.” My eyes probably went wide for a second, I considered lying, but I knew I shouldn’t, not this time.
“Actually, that wasn’t a lie; I was hallucinating.”
“What?!” Mum yelled. “Wait, so is there really is a man made of flames?”
I flinched, “Oh, yeah… I forgot they told you about that.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to worry.” I said.
“Jake, you joined a foreign military, organized and run by bird wizards, to fight a magical war in another world… I’m always worried.” Her voice sounded disappointed, scared, and a few other things that made me feel like crap.
“I’m…” I sighed. “I’m sorry. Alright, no more secrets.”
“Thank you. Now, what happened? Why are you hallucinating?” She asked and sat back in the chair.
“There was this creature, I don’t know its name, so I always just called it The Figure of Flame. I first saw it about a year ago, just after I met Suma the second time. It didn’t do anything then, except force Suma to give me a special familiar’s name that she uses when she summons me.”
“A familiar’s name?” Mum asked.
“Uh, that will take a while to explain. Long story short, names are rare on her world, so naming something is like honoring it in a way.”
“Why are names rare?” She asked.
“Because naming something makes its magic stronger, so it needs… ugh, its hard for them to do. I’ll explain more later. Anyway, the figure demanded she give me one, then he vanished. I didn’t see him again for a while. Suma was summoning me to start training that day.”
“You two train a lot.” Mum said shaking her head.
“Yeah, you’re telling me. If it weren’t for her healing magic, I’d have walked my feet off. Anyway, Suma summoned me, and I saw him again then. It was like I was in space or something, like a void, and then I saw him. Once we actually started talking, I realized he was kinda crazy.”
“How?” She wondered.
“It’s like he has split personality or something. He switched randomly between angry, and calm, and when he does, his looks change. When he is calm, he looks more like a humanish shape, and when he is mad, he looks more reptilian.”
“Is he some kind of dragon then?”
“I don’t think so. Suma says all the dragons of her world went extinct a long time ago, or they left or something.”
“What is he then?”
“I don’t know, and neither does Suma. The first time I saw him, was the first time she saw him too.”
“Is that all the times you’ve seen him then?” Mum asked.
“No, I saw him a few more times. The last time I saw him, he did something; went into my mind.”
“Why does everyone from that world try to mind control people?!” Mum asked upset.
“No, he didn’t. It felt more like he was trying to show me something. I think it was memories.” I explained.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Why do you think it was memories?”
“Because that’s what those hallucinations felt like. It was like I relived something. Well sort of. Really it was more like I was interacting with the memory itself.”
“What was it about?” She asked.
“It was of a Neame. In the memories, he felt familiar.”
“He was a familiar like you?” Mum asked confused.
“No, I mean, it just felt like I knew him.”
“Oh, of course.” She shook her head.
“After I was shaken out of the memory by a store employee, I passed out.”
“Did it hurt?” Mum asked worried.
“No, actually it was kinda nice. Like I said, it felt like I knew him, so it was kinda relaxing. The passing out part hurt a bit though, mostly from hitting my head.”
Mum leaned forward and put her hand on mine, “Jake, I’m so scared for you.”
“I’m fine now, Mum.” I said.
“No, you’re not, and that’s what worries me. You’re young, you think you’re invincible, and you’re going off to war. I’m so scared you won’t come back. That you will be killed, and I’ll never know.” Mum was crying as she spoke. I didn’t know what to say, there probably wasn’t anything to say. I did my best to reassure her that I would do my best to be careful, and hugged her.
It took a while for the doctor to come back, which Mum appreciated because it gave her enough time to dry her tears and fix her makeup. She took me to get an MRI, and a few other scans with lots of jumbled letters in their names. I was told that it might be several hours before all the scans came back, so we spent the night in the hospital. It was about three in the morning before a new doctor, this time a man, came in and explained the scans. He said they were abnormal, and that my brainwaves were unusual. They said they were going to order more tests, and that I might be here for a few days.
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Suma’s POV
I sent him back, and as soon as he was gone, the Lieutenant let out another deep sigh. “Now, Suma, do you have any other familiars to use during the exercises?” The Lieutenant asked.
"No ma’am, only Jake.” I said.
“Fine then, while the others start training with their familiars, you will begin doing mana control exercises. Have you ever done anything like that before?”
“Yes ma’am, but it was a very long time ago. Back when I was still attending the academy.”
“Do you remember the Chatto variation?” She asked.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good, begin doing that, and once everyone has finished their training, you will join us for our next session.” After giving me my orders, the Lieutenant, and the rest of our squad, flew down into the pit and began doing battle drills. I found a quiet corner by myself and began my own exercises.
Mana control exercises are exactly what they sound like, they are specific techniques meant to improve the upper limit and precision of one’s mana control. There are seven basic variations, the one I was doing focused primarily on precision rather than amount. You start by forming mana into a tangible state, then shape it. I always started with a sphere when I did them in the academy, then moved on to more complex shapes like pyramids and squares.
It was easy enough to get started, and before long I was shaping my mana into increasingly complex structures. Just as I was about to finish a dodecahedron, I lost focus and the shape erupted. There is no danger when it fails, but it does release with some force, so the feathers of my outstretched wings were ruffled slightly. I relaxed for a moment, pulling my wings back to my sides to release some of the tension before starting again. I took a deep breath and began. This time, rather than starting from the first shape, I started from just slightly before I lost control. I was able to make it a bit further this time, almost beating my own personal record from my academy days, but just as I was about to, someone shouted, “SUMA, DODGE!” I looked behind me, then fell to the ground just in time to witness a fire spell zip over my head.
“Are you okay?” Lieutenant Datahu asked, not sounding overly concerned that I was nearly hit by a stray spell.
“Yes…” I said hesitantly.
“Sorry!” The voice yelled out. I was too preoccupied looking myself over to check, but it sounded like Nine.
“Watch your aim,” she chastised, “now do the drill again, everyone.” After that, I decided to relocate myself out of their lines of fire. I started again behind a large rock wall several seconds away from the pit.
Now that I was safely behind cover, I started the exercises again. I would like to say that I beat my own best, but I never did. I was too distracted thinking about my dream last night. Something about it was not perched right with me. I could not recall the entire thing, but I did remember having a conversation. I tried to picture it again in my mind, but the harder I thought, the further it slipped, and the more distorted it became. My eyes were closed as I tried to picture the dream, but I felt the mana exercise fail again, and started anew without bothering to open my eyes. I tried picturing that person’s face again, the one who I was talking to in the dream. Whomever it was, he looked a bit like Jake. Except this man was shorter, and wore strange garments, a bit like Jake’s “armor”, but it showed less skin than Jake’s. I gave up after a while, and opened my eyes to see a face staring back at me. It was made of pure mana, and it was that mystery man from my dream. It startled me, and I lost concentration, which shattered the image and the exercise. All that was left of the face was the force from the mana dispersing that quickly radiated out and away.
“How…?” I looked around, nobody was watching, so I could not ask if anyone recognized the man. I doubted they would anyway, if I did not, then they likely would not either.
“Suma,” the Lieutenant said landing beside me. “We are starting the team training. Let’s go.” I followed her to the pit, and landed beside the others. The Lieutenant perched in front of us, and explained what we would be doing. “For the next hour, we will be doing live fire magic drills. You will not be allowed to use your primary affinity, only your secondary.”
“Ma’am, may I ask why?” Rou asked.
“If you only train in a single affinity, then situations in which that affinity is useless will cripple you. If you only learn Water type magics, then a desert will be your undoing. Alternatively, if all you can do is fight, then you will be useless at all other times. Diversify your skills, it will save your life, and your squad’s as well.” After explaining, she created several targets by molding the ground at the other end of the pit. With a second spell, she turned the dirt targets into metal!
“Was that a transmutation spell?” Odens asked as shocked as the rest of us.
“Incredible, I thought only Royal and Court Mages could use such advanced levels of magic.” I said.
“You are correct. I learned the technique during my tenure as a Court Mage.” Lieutenant Datahu explained. We were all impressed, but no one had time to ask any more questions because she immediately ordered us to begin.
One hour may not sound like a long time, but when you are casting one spell after another, it feels like a whole day. By the end, my mana was drained and I was laying on the ground, Nine had vomited and collapsed from over-exertion, and Odens and Rou were desperately trying to use what little mana they had left to continue training. I would have been impressed with them if I did not know the reason; they were competing to see which one would last longer before passing out. Odens was victorious in the end, but only by a few seconds. You might be wondering why we pushed ourselves to such extremes, why we didn’t simply rest? We tried… once. Nine rested for a moment, but soon after his target started moving towards him and attacking by shooting chunks of metal from itself.
“The longer you rest, the harder the training becomes.” The Lieutenant proclaimed. Nine began casting his spells again, and the target returned to normal. When he finally collapsed, I was sure he was going to be attacked again, but the target did not move.
“At least they know the difference between resting and dying.” Odens had proclaimed when he noticed it too.