> Quote:If you're interested in people speed running good old games for charity then tune in tomorrow (26.7)

> on https://gamesdonequick.com/.

> Highly recommended by yours truly as its quite entertaining to watch and its for a good cause as well.

> Quote:More on topic note. If you find mistakes in the writing don't be afraid to point them out. It helps me

> improve.

Aleyn and Nancy having had their lunch break continued her exercises. This time Nancy had a new addition to it, she brought a scarf from one of the shelves. At first Aleyn thought it had a more fancy magical meaning  behind it but Nancys next words shook that idea away.

"This time I want you to do it blind folded."

"What's that gonna do?" Aleyn asked.

"Training in different ways is good. Out of all senses I would say sight and hearing are the most useless when sensing magic."

Without any other objections Aleyn put on the scarf and sat on the floor then started concentrating as the silence fell in the room again. Nancy let her get in the proper groove first and as she saw the tattoos form she said in a quiet manner.

"Try and follow."

She conjured another ball of her own energy and let it float in front of her. She gradually let its presence slip while waiting for a reaction from her. It took around the same time as before for her to notice the energy. At that point she concealed the power and moved it further in to the room and repeated. They went through this exercise for a while and then Nancy changed it up.

"Concentrate on the outside of the building. How many people can you sense in the vicinity except us in this room. Only people you can distinguish."

Aleyn went in to deep thought as she concentrated.

"Eleven."

Nancy thought for a moment as she tried to feel how far she could sense.

"You can feel the merchant selling vegetables yes? Does he have a habit which shows occasionally?"

Concentrating on the merchant Aleyn tried to figure out what Nancy meant. She took a few minutes to figure out what sort of a habit he had.

"When ever he advertises he stomps his foot on the ground a few times."

"Correct, which foot and how many times." Nancy asked.

That was a lot harder to answer Aleyn thought, but she tried to see. With all the sounds and vibrations mixing together it was hard to read, but she figured out how many times he stomped consecutively.

"Five."

"And which foot?"

As hard as she tried she couldn't tell, it was as though the merchant only had one leg and they were hopping on the spot.

"Does he have two legs?" Aleyn tried to confirm.

"Yes." Nancy confirmed

"Then I can not tell."

"Shame, but you're advancing at a decent pace. Now concentrate on your surroundings again try to sense as far as you can." Nancy ordered.

She gave Aleyn a few minutes as she did what she was told.

Aleyn had a small area which she could sense quite reliably but after that it felt as though everything was a mass of scattered vibrations and noise. She stretched her senses as far as she could, but even then it only improved her area by just a few steps.

Suddenly she felt something behind her, something familiar. She knew exactly what it was so she asked.

"Why behind? It's hard to face there you know."

"Good. Keep at it."

Nancy's ball of energy scattered like the wind.

"Slow improvement but there's still quite a way to go." Nancy thought to herself.

They kept repeating the two exercises, sensing magic and extending her reach. At the end of the day she had improved considerably.

"That's enough for today, this old girl needs some sleep." Nancy claimed as she pulled a sheet over herself.

Aleyn removed her blindfold.

"And my bed?" Aleyn asked.

"Gilly should have set you up a room up here, her room is near the stairs so you can ignore that one. When you get to bed try and keep training your reach until you fall asleep. Good night."

"Night." Aleyn said as she took off.

She found her room without much trouble. The room was quite small and there were some bookcases and chests but other than that it looked fine for sleeping. She dove under the sheets and tried to get some sleep while trying to  sense what was going on around the house.

She didn't usually have problems getting sleep, but trying to train her senses made her fall asleep faster than usual.

The next day they took a step to make the exercise harder.

"I want you to keep your eyes open and try to do the same things as yesterday. I'll give you something to look at since staring at the floor isn't that pleasant. However you can not concentrate on it. First, try and sense what is going outside of the building. How many people can you sense."

Nancy conjured a flame in front of Aleyn, it flickered and moved in unpredictable ways but it didn't radiate any heat while doing so as shown by the floor which didn't have any scorch marks.

Aleyn kept her eyes on the flame but she wasn't really looking at it, her senses were outside of the building. She couldn't see as far as she could before when her eyes were shut or blocked by the scarf, but she tried her best. Eventually she had a good grasp of how far her senses could grasp at the moment.

"Five."

Nancy took a moment to figure out what she probably could see.

"You can't feel the merchant this time, correct?"

"Correct." Aleyn answered.

"But you can sense a smaller person a few steps from their location?"

Aleyn took a moment to figure out what she meant. With a little bit of trying she noticed  there was a smaller being close to where the merchant supposedly was, it was moving slowly across the path in front of the house.

"I can."

"What are they doing?" Nancy asked.

At that moment Aleyns eyes had dried and she blinked her eyes a few times which broke her concentration. Nancy noticed this and waited for her.

"Try again and see."

Aleyn kept staring at the flame and as she did she could sense the surroundings again. She tried to find the spot she spot again , but they were gone. She took a moment to look and found a slow moving presence a few steps from the location she lost them at. She concentrated on what they were doing, they were moving slowly and rhythmically she could also feel something dragging on the floor tiles.

"They're brushing the tiles?" She was slightly unsure but it was the best conclusion she thought.

"That is true. Now tell me how tall is that person?"

Having not lost the track of that presence she tried to figure it out. They were taking small steps which would suggest they were smaller than a normal humans height. The brush strokes were quite small as well which reinforced  the idea. While she was thinking of the possibilities she felt it again a small sense of something peculiar to her left side.

She dropped what she was doing and looked at the ball of energy floating in her blind corner and then looked at Nancy.

"So how tall are they?" Nancy asked without saying anything else.

"Slightly taller than me is my best guess."

"Very good. This time you felt the energy quite early as well." Nancy gave a small clap.

"Now, try to expand your reach for a good few minutes while I think about things."

They both went quiet and Aleyn worked hard to try and sense further. Nancy occasionally took a look at her, but mostly kept her eyes closed as she was thinking on something.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Meanwhile Aleyn had been hard at work trying to sense further in to the city and she advanced a few steps again. She kept at it for a few hours until Nancy interrupted her.

"Concentrate on the room were in. I'm going to steal your hearing for a few moments."

Nancy snapped her fingers which echoed in the room for who knows how long. She was suppose to steal her hearing but she could still hear the snap echo through her head loudly, or could she? Aleyn realized she was only imagining an echo of the snapping fingers and once that faded so did the rest of the sounds. After calming down she concentrated on the room which was devoid of sound and movement.

In a few moments the familiar feeling of magic came from behind her again and she said it out loud. While doing so she couldn't hear her own voice which startled her concentration slightly as she blinked and took a look at Nancy.

"Good good."

Nancys voice echoed loudly which restored the sound around Aleyn.

"That's pretty scary." She thought.

Nancy could manipulate her to sleep without her being able to do much about it and she could steal the sound around her with little effort. She was obviously capable as a magic user.

"Now then. This time close your eyes and try to sense how far you can go."

Closing her eyes she tried to force her senses a bit further, but to her surprise it was easier than she originally had thought. She could now feel at least half as far as she could at the start. Nancy saw her expression change and commented.

"Surprising isn't it?"

They took a small pause to gauge how much she had improved after which Nancy prompted her for more training.

"Come on then, lets continue."

They spent most of the day repeating the same exercises while raising the bar, but later in the evening Aleyn wanted to have a talk with Nancy.

"Could you tell me more about magic?"

"Oh? Gotten curious?" Nancy raised an eyebrow.

"Hard not to don't you think?"

"True true... Well lets see then. Magic.."

She thought for a moment then lifted herself up a bit to fix her posture.

"There are many ways to utilize magic. It can strengthen you, it can make you faster and that's just simply using your own power while enhancing yourself. No outside assistance."

She raised her hand in front of her which started glowing. The rooms candlelight flickered and an ember floated towards her hand, the ember then burst in to a ball of flame and took orbit around her hand.

"Fire and other elements can be manipulated through magic. You can give it form."

The orb of fire started to sharpen in to a more pointy form and in the end it looked like a blade.

"You can let it engulf you for protection or to enhance yourself."

The blade wrapped around her hand and burned. You could clearly see it touching her but it left no burn marks or wounds. It was just a layer around her hand.

"Those are probably the most common applications of elements. Elements themselves are countless, some more clear than others."

The flaming hand extinguished itself but a single ember floated up and ignited in to a ball of fire again, but it wasn't the only thing that appeared.

A more transparent ball which was having a harder time trying to stay as a sphere appeared on the other side of her hand, the ball looked like it was made of ropes of air.

The mug of water which Nancy was drinking from shook slightly and an orb of water took place between the other spheres and while that was happening the small rocks that had gathered around the wooden floor started to roll towards Nancy as if they were being pulled towards her. They lifted off the floor and gathered in to a small ball which took place amongst the other three orbs.

"I would personally call, Earth,wind, fire and water as the main elements. How ever its not set in stone. Not at all."

She paused and took a moment to placed the orb of water back in to her mug as the orb of air and fire scattered. The gathered rocks she placed next to her chair.

"A magic user can spend most of their life trying to discover and unlock the ways of magic. I've yet to find a person who can say they've discovered it all or that they are the best. We try very hard though. The very same way a swordsman tries to perfect their art."

Aleyn having watched the orbs disappear to their respective places had another question.

"And how do you learn to do all that? Reading books?"

Nancy thought for a moment.

"Well.. In theory you could do that. Though as much as you can record these things in detail its very hard to learn magic just from books. Most ways are either taught by a mentor or learned through trial and error."

"So really those hundreds of books you have in this house are useless?"

"Not at all. Books have always been used to preserve knowledge. Books alone in most cases can not teach something, but they can make details more clearer."

Aleyn sighed.

"You wanted to hear that there's a book which teaches you all about magic right? There really isn't one and I can't recommend trying it either, having a teacher that knows what they're doing is the best way to learn." Nancy explained.

In the end Aleyn had no real way to learn magic without spending a lot of time on it which she didn't have right now, mostly due to already studying blacksmithing. Though once she graduated from Camedyr's workshop she would have plenty of time unless she thought of something else to do.

"Where does one find a teacher then? As much as you seem very qualified, you don't seem like the teaching kind."

Nancy giggled.

"Qualified she says.... Well it's true, I'm no teacher. I only bother with helping people release their power when Camedyr sends them my way. Though in your case I'm doing slightly more."

She thought for a brief moment.

"I haven't heard about my own teacher for a very very long time so I can't say much about them. However if you wanted to learn magic then you would need to find one for a specific need. Camedyr for one is an excellent person to learn enchanting from. However there is one place that definitely has teachers for magic of almost every aspect and that is Keittwell's Magic Academy."

"Magic Academy?" Aleyn questioned.

"That is exactly what it is. Keitwell's academy boasts the biggest ranks of capable magic users. Their ranks mostly consist of researchers but they do teach people with worthy attributes or enough money. Oh I know their ways very well, I have some acquaintances and friends in high places who occasionally asks me for insight."

Aleyn remembered Keitwell from watching Andre fight that bull man during the arena event. Andre won the Keitwell regions rankings so that would mean Keitwell's influence covered a very large area which in turn meant that it wasn't anywhere close to Dvalfgar as its influence already covered the mountains and a large area around them.

Nancy looked at Aleyn who was silent in thought.

"Anything else you want to know or shall we continue?" She said with a smile.

"Oh right, yes let's continue."

Aleyn spent a few days training her senses. From being blindfolded to being distracted by multiple sources of power, Nancy tried to keep the training interesting. After the few days had gone past Aleyn was finally ready enough to advance to the more important part of her problem.