30 - Tribal Origins
With the newly discovered chest batteries I noticed something important, I have absolutely no knowledge of Efalem's anatomy. I'm not sure when this information will be available to me, but I'm freaking curious.
During the several days Mila taught us nothing besides Mathematics, which included Logical Thinking. Not a single information about anatomy. No explanation about how their bodies were changing at such a fast pace. And not one of them was curious enough to ask.
Since birth their bodies are rapidly changing and adapting, I guess they see it as a natural occurrence. Even when they just morphed from overgrown children into a beautiful woman in just a few weeks.
"Today is the last class, marking the end of your basic training. This week is your last on the Nest and you will no longer be considered newborns once you leave."
They really were no longer newborns. They were indistinguishable from any adult woman.
…
Not really, no. The boo… Twin-cores were still half the size of an average grown Efalem. It was still possible to tell they were young. Aside from the chest volume, the only other thing differentiating their status as children were the clothes.
And that statement is very easy. Adults were wearing clothes. Alluring, small and most of the time transparent clothes, but they still were something. But that's not going to be a problem for much longer.
"For your last week you will learn how to materialize simple vestments. They are not actually necessary for anything useful… almost. In general it is pretty useless, it's just a display of your minimum abilities, but you should always wear them..."
Clothes served for basically nothing, not even to adjust temperature, the Efalem had no problem with cold, their bodies could handle it by themselves, the internal mana took care of it. If it was too cold outside the mana could be used to warm them up, and the opposite as well.
The usual vestments did not even cover much. It's widespread usage among Efalem were mostly explained by 'tradition'. Mila briefly explained about the tradition, but did not enter in too much detail, she said we would have history class later on.
The first bit of information is extremely important for me, explains nothing, just raises more questions, but is the piece of information I'm most interested in: some several centuries ago our Mother came and created the Efalem from an inferior race called Elf.
This small phrase contains so much information and so little at the same time. Efalem are an artificial species. Elfs existed, or still do. Mother was not always here. I WANT TO KNOW MORE!
"The Elfs could only use the mana element they were born with affinity to, which gave them far harder time than you would believe." And now we have mana types? No one ever said anything about this before!
"It took them several years of intense practice to use mana at a far inferior level than you are capable of today. The true Masters of that time showed their status by materializing mana and using it at all times as their vestments, or part of it. And the materialized mana always took the color associated with their affinity element."
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So… Elfs are inferior to Efalem in terms of mana usage. And that's probably because of Mother's bio engineering. Mana has elements or affinity but that limitation does not apply to us. So. Much. I. Do. Not. Know!
"Anyways, that's not really important" IT IS IMPORTANT! Tell me more about it! Daaaaaammn it Mila! Pleaaaase!
"What really matters is that clothes are actually pretty useless nowadays, you can choose to create them or not, but even if you choose not to, you will need to know how" Yea, sure… that's so much more important than knowing your own history.
"I have yet to teach you how to actually project mana externally, that's because you did not have any use for it before and it is such a simple matter, you should be able to grasp it by the end of today." Oh, wow. I can almost see ancient Mater Elfs rolling in their graves listening to her talk about their ultimate technique like this.
*
Mila was right. It is just a shitty technique for Efalem. All three of them were able to manifest mana without difficulty in just 10 minutes. And under 3 hours they already had enough practice to form and maintain an entire vestiment. Sorry ancient Master Elfs.
Either Mother's bio engineering is too amazing or in the centuries that passed the mana understanding involved a lot. Maybe a combination of both. The fact remains, mana vestments are just a beginners technique.
The girls now were wearing simple dresses, similar to the one Mila was wearing right now.
"The color reflects your natural affinity, I think most leave it like that, but you can change it with just a bit more practice if you don't like it" Mila choose today to give a world of incomplete information about the Efalem. It would appear that we have inherited this from the Elfs, but it is so minor that can be ignored.
"What is purple affiliated with?" Einer asked, her dress shining in deep purple.
"Uhmm, I don't remember. "
Everyone turned in surprise to her. Of course they would. I don't remember a single instance that Mila was unable to answer a question.
"Look, this is an outdated system, makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to know this or to care about the color each affinity has. There are dozens of affinities and they can even combine between them. It is hard to remember, complicated to understand and useless. I have better things to do with my time than to study this thing"
"Oh….. ok, can you teach me how to change colors? I don't like this one"
"Yes, of course!"
While this was an impossible feat for the Elfls, Einer changed the colors of her manifested mana with just a single hour of training. Both Vier and Zwei took a bit more to succeed, and by the time they had, Einer was already playing with a mixture of colors.
Mila let them play around with the clothes for the rest of the day, only interrupting for the night Dedication. She taught them several daily useful tricks using mana for the next few days. I'm most impressed with the clock feature. It synchronizes with the sun and transforms the data in readable information, hence, a clock. Useful.
"Spatial storage is a bit more complex, it will be taught after you leave the nest. For now you will need to keep using the belts." Thats a shame. The belts are cute but nothing beats spatial magic.
The day for the 'graduation' arrived quickly. It was right after the morning Dedication, on our last day here on the Nest, that Mila guided us to the path leading to the rest of the city.
The roots that were usually there, separating and protecting us, had vanished. A clear straight path to the outside now existed in its place. Several hundred women standing in line for something.
I could recognize some of them. Now beautiful young women, those are the children, born just a year ago. The only reason that I can actually recognize them is because Zwei kept in contact with her friends along the last few months, I could witness their bodies maturing. Had we not seen them almost daily, personally testimony to their rapid growth, it would be impossible to recognize a single one of them.
"Well, we are a bit late, let's get to the end of the line…. We will be waiting here for long hours…"
"Mila, What's the line for?"
"To leave the Nest, and to receive your real name"