– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 214, Season of the Setting Moon, Day 63 –

“Uhh…” Siling blinked with a blank face until she couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Excuse me, but what?!”

Terry cleared his throat and scratched the back of his head. “Uhm, I don’t think you’re very good at this.”

Tiana rolled her eyes and hissed through gritted teeth: “Do you have a better plan?”

“No,” replied Terry flatly. “I believe the plan is great.”

“Wait, what?” blurted Siling with incredulity. Her eyes narrowed and moved from side to side as if she was suspecting a prank. “You do? It is?”

“At least, I believe so.” Terry looked at Tiana with his forehead in wrinkles. “I can’t be certain, because you haven’t really explained it, though.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Tiana, now equally confused. “I have explained everything.”

Siling tilted her head, crossed her arms, and puckered her lips. “I don’t get it.”

“Ugh.” Tiana’s voice was drenched in annoyance. “What part don’t you understand?”

Terry felt a visceral reflex when hearing her tone. He had to remind himself of one of Bjorln’s adages to remain calm.

Don’t be the one to escalate a neutral response into a negative pattern.

He took a deep breath and reminded himself of his accepted father’s advice.

Everyone can have a bad day. One bad day is not an inexcusable pattern of behavior. Her annoyance does not necessarily reflect on me. It might not even have anything to do with our conversation. Maybe she has a headache. Maybe she has other things that occupy her mind. Maybe I am misinterpreting her tone.

He exhaled slowly.

Be charitable if possible. Otherwise, de-escalate or extract yourself from the situation. Othernotwise, everyone will go insane.

“Well, there was that bit at the beginning,” replied Siling with a deadpan expression. “And at the end.” She puffed her cheeks. “And more or less all the bits in between.”

Terry had to chuckle at Tiana’s scandalized expression. “You should come hunting with Ma Isille. She would chew your ear off about the difference between objectives and steps. Speaking from personal experience here.”

Tiana rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I don’t really feel an urge to meet your mo— Wait, did you say Ma Isille? Like Instructor Isille?”

Terry raised an eyebrow at his ma being recognized. “Yup.”

Tiana looked at him with bewilderment. “B-but…”

“I’m pretty tall for a dwarf?” Terry grinned. “I get that a lot.”

Siling laughed with a snort. “I’m sure Tiana, of all near-giants, can sympathize on that account.”

Tiana could not suppress a smile. Just like that, the tense moment had already passed.

“Actually, they accepted me into their family when I had nowhere else to go,” explained Terry.

Tiana looked him up and down. “Like the proper accepted family? Whaka?”

Terry nodded.

Tiana whistled. “That’s quite the responsibility. I, uhm, I wouldn’t mind going hunting with Instructor Isille.” Despite her impressive stature and battle attire, Tiana somehow gave off the impression of a shy child. Or maybe Terry only imagined that.

“Great, I will talk with her,” said Terry. “What about you, Siling? Ma Isille could also comment on our group coordination.”

“Ehh…” Siling turned her head to the side and averted her eyes.

“You actually have to think about it?” exclaimed Tiana in astonishment. “That’s like a free instruction class with one of the most renowned instructors among the Guardians’ reserve. Granted, she is a pure mana cultivator, and you don’t practice mana cultivation, but still.”

“Ehh…” Siling looked troubled. “The thing is, Terry has told me a bit of those hunts before and, well, they seem to include an awful lot of running around.”

“Ahh…” exclaimed Terry in understanding.

“‘Ahh’ what?” questioned Tiana with her forehead still in wrinkles.

“I don’t have my soul bear mount anymore,” whined Siling while still trying to avoid Tiana’s gaze with a nervous laugh.

“Seriously?” exclaimed Tiana in a flat tone.

“Maybe we can rent a horse or one of those dracolisks,” suggested Terry.

“Seriously?!” repeated Tiana with even more disbelief.

“Hehe.” Siling still tried her best to pretend that she could not hear Tiana.

“Or you could transform into luggage again,” suggested Terry teasingly.

“No.” Siling’s response was instantaneous. In contrast, Tiana found herself entirely lost at the remark again.

“Anyway, I think it would be nice if we could hunt with the whole group, but you don’t have to feel obligated to join us, Siling,” said Terry with a shrug.

“Gah…” Siling grabbed her head in frustration. “Now, I feel guilty. Curse your kind consideration tactics!” She smacked her lips. “Okay, fine, but can you at least try to haggle the running down to a minimum?”

Terry agreed with a chortle.

“So what was this about objectives?” inquired Tiana and cleared her throat.

Terry rubbed his forehead. “I will probably butcher the explanation, so I would appreciate it if you don’t quote me in front of Ma Isille. What I took it to mean is that the most important part of a plan is the why and not the how. One must clearly communicate the intermediate objectives, what you want to achieve, and why. The specific steps to achieve an objective may be important, but not as much as the objective itself.

“Ma says that sooner or later, there are always hiccups – a specific step doesn’t work out or there is a change of circumstances. When that happens, you want every individual member to be aware of what they are supposed to achieve and why. That way, they can try to identify an alternative step to achieve the same objective, even when you don’t have a chance to regroup and discuss again.”

***

“Sure, we can go on a hunting trip together,” agreed Isille. “Is this because of your new companion? I am not the only instructor with a control impairment, but I can certainly give a few pointers on how to cope.”

“Uh…” Terry blinked silently while he replayed the words in his head. “You have a control impairment?!”

“Heh, so that wasn’t it?” Isille blew some air through closed lips. “Yes, I do. Runs in the family, actually. Or at least on my side of the family, particularly among the women. Internal mana control is fine, but as soon as the mana leaves my body, it feels foreign. My pa had the same problem. That is why our family places such a heavy emphasis on mana-crafted items.”

Isille rubbed the bridge of her nose. “After the chipmunks had taken their first examination, I cried tears of relief. Jorg seems to be somewhat affected, but even he can pick up spellwork, albeit at a slower pace. And Lori…” Pride and happiness entered her eyes. “Lori has the best potential for mana control I can remember in our family line, and she also has the brains to make use of it.”

The look in Isille’s eyes changed again. “Truth be told, I felt very guilty about having a daughter and… passing on my— I still remember the stories of my sister and what it was like for myself. Sigille eventually overcame it somewhat, but only after painstaking efforts over decades and even then…”

Isille shook her head. “Even my determined monomaniac of an elder sister only mastered a few basic spells as well as disruption discharges. Forming a mana refractor for an aspected discharge still remains outside her reach.” She smiled and admiration flashed across her face. “I’ve heard that Sigille gained some new insights from her practice. Last I heard, she was attempting to form an internal mana refractor in order to achieve an aspected burst.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Aspected burst?” Terry’s inner Academy student awoke with curiosity. “What good is that?”

“In theory, the same as any other burst with aspected mana, which is to say it depends on the aspect,” explained Isille. “Use a life aspect to further increase health and stamina regeneration. That sort of thing. For you, we don’t know. There are no records of bursting with oscillating mana. We had Whaka Samuel observe when you attempted bursting for the first time in order to detect any potential negative effects. However, none of us detected any particular effect – negative or otherwise. It appears to act just like unaspected mana when it comes to bursting.”

Isille took a deep breath. “Anyway, if control impairment wasn’t the reason, then what?”

“Communication problems,” replied Terry. “Tiana seems brilliant, but her explanations are a bit—”

“Got it,” interrupted Isille with a knowing look. “That’s not uncommon, actually. The most brilliant ones often have the most trouble communicating their ideas. The curse of knowledge. The Guardians offer a few team leader courses, but normally those would be suggested later. If she seems like a good fit, I can recommend her.”

“Thanks, Ma!”

***

Tiana used the leaf-shaped gladius in her right hand to deflect Terry’s first spear. She tucked her shield arm close to her body, moved her right leg further back while keeping it straight, and bent the left knee in anticipation of Terry’s second spear. Everything was one fluid motion.

In contrast to their encounters in previous sparring sessions, however, Tiana added a step. Immediately after absorbing the initial impact of the second spear with her core weight and outstretched leg, she burst mana and used all her power to straighten her left leg abruptly. Her shield – supported by her body – managed to imbalance Terry.

With Terry out of balance, Tiana rapidly followed up with another step while feinting to parry his other spear. Instead of actually using her gladius to parry, she turned her body to dodge and simultaneously used the practice blade to aim a blow at the inside of Terry’s knee. He had put his weight on this leg during his last spear thrust. Consequently, he completely lost his balance and landed on the ground.

Terry tried to get up again, but Tiana had already replaced her gladius with a long spear and thrust it forward to pin him on the ground.

An ice spike came flying at Tiana, but was harmlessly blocked with her shield.

Terry tried to roll to the side in order to increase the distance, but Tiana stayed in close pursuit.

Roots grew from the ground and entangled Tiana’s feet. Without so much as a moment’s pause, she exchanged her shield for a single-edged longsword and cut the roots apart by pushing the blade with her shin. Tiana did not even take her eyes away from Terry for that.

After another burst, their sparring round was over. Tiana’s win. Again.

“Our loss,” said Terry. “Good spar.”

Tiana gave him a hand to get up while Siling approached from where she had kept her distance.

“You know, Tiana, we have you outnumbered. You could at least pretend that we pose a threat,” complained Siling. “I feel like we lasted a few more seconds before. Is that you getting better or us getting worse?”

“Tiana is getting better,” replied Terry contemplatively. “The change feels familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“Hmm.” Tiana smirked. “Well, I did get some valuable pointers from Instructor Isille.”

Terry’s eyes opened wide. “Hey!” No wonder it felt familiar.

“Instructor Isille was right,” said Tiana with a shrug. “You do have a habit of putting more force and focus into one of your spears. You may switch sides occasionally, but you fail to fight completely ambidextrously. During a combination, you almost never switch it up. The predictability makes it much easier to break your flow and destroy your balance.”

Siling gasped exaggeratedly. “Spies and treachery! Enemy informants among the family!”

Tiana rolled her eyes. “Instructor Isille told me to see if I can get you to drop the bad habits. Apparently, you have grown somewhat accustomed to her beatings.”

“News to me,” grumbled Terry, and he let himself fall to the ground again. “I don’t feel very accustomed. Might as well make myself comfortable here.”

“Oh?” taunted Tiana. “Instructor Isille assured me that you would have more fight in you.”

“Yeah yeah.” Terry waved her off. “Just taking a moment to mentally prepare myself to kiss the ground twice as often from now on.”

Tiana snorted and laughed. Next to her, Siling guffawed, which eventually transformed into a giggle.

Terry raised his head from the ground to look at the giggling Siling with a raised eyebrow. Then he turned to Tiana. “Unless you decide to go after the healer for a bit. You know, from a tactics point of view, that would make perfect sense.”

Tiana caught on and nodded. “Right, it would.”

“H-hey now, w-wait a second.” Siling looked frantically from one to the other. “I don’t like where this is going…”

***

“Greetings, Terry.” Brynn walked into the room. “Just you again today?”

“Yeah, Lori is out with her group.” Terry shrugged.

Brynn frowned. “I take it she still has it in her head that we somehow set her up for failure?”

“Uhm…”

“That’s a yes then.” Brynn sighed.

“She really is out with her group, though,” muttered Terry.

“I know,” grumbled Brynn. “However, I also understand that such a sudden change in mission schedule flexibility is hardly a coincidence.” She exhaled sharply. “Oh well, nothing to do about it. Students that don’t want to learn are no fun to teach either.”

Terry felt at a loss for words. His Aunt Brynn sounded hurt, but he was not sure which words would make her feel better. He also thought that Lori was acting unreasonable, but he did not want to speak ill of his sister, either. The whole situation was frustrating.

In the past few cycles, Terry had picked up the habit of replaying the words he heard in his mind whenever he did not know what to say. Sometimes it helped. Even if it did not make his own words come out better, it at least helped him remember conversations.

Recalling Brynn’s last sentence caused him to cringe. Terry cleared his throat. “I guess I need to apologize to you and Instructor Samuel for my first season at the Academy.” He lowered his head. “Nama. Teaching me back then couldn’t have been fun for either of you.”

That comment took Brynn by surprise. “Well, look at you acting all grown up all of a sudden.” She smiled, which made Terry feel a wave of relief. “No worries, though. Believe me, at your age, I was a much bigger pain for my supposed teachers.”

“‘Supposed’?” Terry wrinkled his forehead.

Brynn sighed. “Even a mage proper sometimes doesn’t have full liberty to choose their spell path. It matters little if you have the ability when there is no one permitted to teach you. In that respect, the results of my first examination spelled certain doom for my own ambitions.”

Brynn rubbed her eyes and spoke distantly but wearily. “If I had simply been a mage proper, they might have allowed me a general education. However, since the examination revealed me to be gifted in the air aspect, they immediately wanted to press me into becoming a combat mage specializing in air, with healing as a secondary focus. ‘Mobile support for the Wasteguard is what the empire needs.’”

“Wasteguard?” The term was unfamiliar to Terry.

“The Guardians in the other empires are different in many aspects,” explained Brynn. “Different management. Different degrees of interference by the local governments.” She shrugged. “Honestly, the standardized membership card and the demarcation to the Guild might be the only commonalities. The Wasteguard is a specialized branch of the Guardians outside the barrier. It specializes further into the Deathguard, the Demonguard – you get the drift. The names are usually quite self-explanatory.”

Brynn took a deep breath. “I was born in the Tiv Empire, where my empire-assigned instructors had little fun trying to teach me air-aspected magic.” She snorted. “Only fair, because their attempts weren’t fun for me either.” She sighed. “At least the mana foundational training was somewhat useful for my own goals.”

Brynn clapped loudly to introduce a change of topics. “Anyway, it’s a pity that Lori isn’t here. Since you have both managed to imprint your first items, I brought you a celebratory gift. Here…” She handed Terry a necklace with a tear shaped pendant.

Terry could sense that the pendant was a mana-crafted item. When he sunk his consciousness into the pendant, he discovered it was another dimensional storage item, but of unimaginable scale. “This…”

“The other storage items of yours are primarily for mana cultivators or mages,” explained Brynn. “That is a proper mana crafter’s storage. Spacious, organized, maximum time-deceleration, and comes with a personalized mana lock. On the other hand, it takes a lot longer to summon items. Crafters rarely suffer the same time pressure as a cultivator in combat.”

Terry was stunned. “This is way too valu—”

“Stop right there, Whaka Terry,” interrupted Brynn. “I really don’t need you to worry about my finances.” She chortled. “In exchange, I expect you to take the craft seriously. If you want to refuse, then only because you cannot agree to this request of mine.”

“B-but I can only cast and imprint a single spell,” protested Terry.

“All the more time to focus on the foundations of mana crafting.” Brynn grinned challengingly. “You could spend several lifetimes without exhausting the limits of what can be done with a single type of imprint and good foundations. Take out the contents.”

Terry retrieved a wooden box with two handles.

“Open it,” instructed Brynn.

Terry pulled the handles to the side, and the box rearranged itself to a flat container displaying a variety of tools.

“These are the tools of the trade.” Brynn pointed. “Ignore the stuff in the right compartment. Those are for inscriptions and, frankly, those alone are insufficient for the task. Those in the left and middle compartment are the tools for carving mana lines.

“With Lori, the study of directional lines makes the most sense. With you, I am not entirely certain. Directional lines would also benefit your spell imprints. However, going by the close combat ideas that you and Bjorln mentioned last time, it may make more sense to focus on shielding first.

“Those tools take some time to master. Imagine a pen with which you have to write in three dimensions. Some of these are like pens. Others are like configurable stamps. If you ever reach the level of Archmage and beyond, your own mana shaping would reach the same level of mana intensity and precision without requiring the assistance of these tools. Anyway, for now I would suggest experimenting with them a bit to get the feel.

“Until then, I think I have a quick-fix for your shielding problems.” Brynn summoned a book from her storage bracelet. “This is a reference for mana-osmotic materials. You can think of them as naturally occurring mana shields. Mana is either completely blocked in certain directions or at least severely impaired.

“Mind you, for most purposes, these materials are merely supplementary. The most obvious drawback is that the physical properties of these materials may be at odds with the intended purpose. Furthermore, these materials cannot be adjusted to a personalized mana lock. The directional shielding applies to all mana, and that includes yours. Nevertheless, they have their uses and they may be sufficient for the ideas you have in mind.”

Brynn held out the book. When Terry attempted to grab it, she pulled it back. “You still intend to learn proper mana shielding, right?”

Terry hurriedly nodded.

“Good, because these materials have their limits. By contrast, the only limits in mana shielding are your own ability, creativity, and perseverance.” Brynn handed the book to Terry. “And keep me in the loop for the ideas you have in mind. If any of them catches my fancy, then we might find someone to assist you with adding a proper mana lock.” She winked before switching to a serious expression again.

“Alright, I’ll explain the theory when my second disciple is present as well. For now, let us focus on defuzzing your spell imprints.”

***