The final step was missing. Aurelius tried to follow through, but it was just out of his reach. He couldn't complete the motionless magic. Well, at least he now had Balgair's mini-supply technique down. The guy was a surprisingly good teacher and had left instructions for Aurelius in his notebook before they separated.

He stood up and looked down from the cliff he had sat on. He took his bag off the ground and dug out his notebook. He opened it and took hold of the pen that was attached to it. Then he crossed another number out of the chart he had made. 42. It was the 42nd day that he was in the Thropes. It had been about 2 months since he learned about motionless magic and materialization from Cade. Practicing wasn't going so well.

He did still have 138 days left in the Thropes. During that time, he needed to learn how to use motionless magic with reinforcement and maybe with muscular enhancement as well. In addition, he wanted to be able to make a stable blade and platform with materialization before he left. Those two were necessary for him to learn, and they were supposed to be fairly simple. He just hadn't had much time to practice them yet.

He scrolled through the notebook thoughtlessly. Something caught his eye. Instinct. The word instinct. A quote from Gabriel again. There was probably more Gabriel than Aurelius in the notebook. Well, it was given to him by Gabriel, so it made some sense. Aurelius didn't have much on his mind and decided to just read the text.

'You have good instincts like your father. You know, he trained all of us in the Elite Troop. He also had a hand in the selection process for the Elite Troop. I once heard someone ask him a question about how he managed to pick out such talented individuals. He answered that it was through instinct. Apparently, he just looked at us with those surgeon's eyes and saw straightaway the potential we had, or, in other words, the danger we posed. No matter the strength, there are secrets in the mind that decide our battles. People fall into two categories. Hunters and prey. You might think that all soldiers are hunters, but that's not necessarily true. Some soldiers should be civilians, and some civilians should be hunters. There are strong prey as well as weak hunters.'

Aurelius rubbed his eyes and skipped over some text.

'...so be aware of the instincts you have and control them instead of letting them control you. Instincts can help to defend against a surprise attack, but they can also lead to accidentally hurting someone.'

Aurelius exhaled, closed the notebook and put it back into his bag. Then he walked closer to the cliff. It was a fine place to practice.

There was a straight-down drop off the cliff that stretched tens of meters. Aurelius raised his gaze. Ahead, there was nothing but forest. It went as far as the eye could see, all the way to the tiny spot on the horizon where the sun was rising.

It would be a beautiful day.

Aurelius smiled, stood up straight, and took one more step to the pointy edge of the cliff. Then the rock beneath his feet broke loose. It slid down diagonally, so quickly that Aurelius couldn't catch himself and was just bumped by the cliff, falling backward onto the ground.

Aurelius grasped at air with his mouth open in a silent scream before he realized he'd have to brace for the fall. He maneuvered his body in the air to face the ground, which was closer than he had expected. In a panic, he brought his arms forth, but before he could interlock his hands, the reinforcement was already complete.

Aurelius tumbled through leaves and branches before he made it to the ground. It was an uncomfortable experience. He was more worried about his clothes, but they were the ones he had bought with Balgair, and Balgair really seemed to know quality clothes. Perhaps he helped Aurelius only to waste Cade's money, but that was beside the point.

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When he came to the ground and dusted off his clothes, he processed what he had just experienced. He wasn't sure if it had just happened or not. Did he complete the reinforcement motionlessly or not? His hands had been interlocked, but did it happen before that, or did he just imagine it?

Then he relaxed, closed his eyes, and tried again. He imagined performing the setup, and fooled his senses enough to get the essence flowing, but he couldn't quite get the essence to realize what it was supposed to do. If speaking in terms of giving orders, Aurelius stumbled over his words enough so that the essence didn't know what he was trying to say.

Aurelius then began to walk toward the cliff. When he was right under the place he had fallen from, he enhanced his whole body briefly. He jumped and grabbed onto cavities in the cliff and proceeded to repeat the process until he made it to the top.

He then situated his bag a bit farther from the edge. His body could take the fall, but he wasn't sure if the same applied to his belongings.

After putting his bag down, he went to sit at the edge of the cliff again.

That was when a screeching sound resounded in his ears. His body shook, and a memory emerged.

The cursed beast rammed into him before he could interlock his fingers, but it was already done. His reinforcement had already kicked in.

Aurelius' eyes went wide as a large bird flew overhead. 'It was the same then. What I did just now. I did it out of instinct back then. That word. Instinct. It really was powerful. It had made something otherwise impossible for him at that time into something he could grasp in the heat of the moment without fundamental understanding. He had to learn how to control it, like Gabriel said. Then he could go above and beyond his imagination.'

Aurelius looked at his arms and quickly neared them, intending to interlock them, but stopping before they could touch. He closed his eyes and carried the setup further in his mind. He imagined the sensation of his hands touching, interlocking, and squeezing. Then his muscles suddenly burst with energy and hugged his bones, which felt like diamonds inserted into his body.

He opened his eyes with possibly the widest smile he'd ever had. 'It's half-motionless magic! That shouldn't be possible, should it? It mixed all the fundamentals up. The beginning movement of the setup that the body recognizes spurs the essence flow, giving the necessary boost for the rest to be carried out in the mind.'

Aurelius laughed like a maniac. He truly was only one step from the real thing. It wouldn't be long before he would grasp true motionlessness. And when the half-year was up, he would be able to utilize it in battle.

***

On the dawn of the 44th day, in a large town dedicated to the poor but not so poor as well as the rich but not so rich, Balgair sat on the top of a gray apartment building made out of uneven bricks. He hung his feet off the ledge as he ashed his cigarette onto the streets below, where people were starting to go to work.

The town was called Wescaster. There was really nothing special about it, really. Except for the fact that there was no Numen branch there or even close to there. And Numen branches were all over. They were everywhere. Everybody and their grandpa probably walked by a Numen member on a daily basis.

Now there were only about ten branches of Numen that had real power. The kind you could contend against an army or destroy a city with. However, small branches with fifteen or so members were in every single place where crime happened. Which means absolutely every place that more than one human resides in. All places except this. This little shit called Wescaster. The place where Balgair spent his early teenage years, and the home to the single gang of criminals that had gone against Numen and survived. Now, they would be destroyed eventually in the future, but Balgair was just going to move that eventuality up on the timeline.

Balgair smiled as he swung his feet. 'I wonder, Laen. Do you believe in fate? I'm starting to.' Balgair took his cigarette and shoved it head first into the pile that lay next to him that contained somewhere between five and ten cigarettes. Who kept count?

He looked up, his smile growing as the sun illuminated all below it. 'You really should've killed me. No, no, no. You knew. You knew I would come back. You wished I would. Well, I'm here now. And you will regret.'