Ch 26
In the end, I decided to go with practicality towards my present condition and so I asked Grelf to teach me how to magickally enhance my body’s natural healing abilities. He looked at me curiously for a moment as if this was not the option, he thought that I would select and then he began the instruction.
“First you must learn how to feel the natural flow of energy within your body. Normally one would take several months on just this step, but you have the advantage of a first-rate trainer who can sense your energy pathways and coach you on where you are going wrong.” After saying this he had me sit cross-legged on the floor and focus on my breathing with my eyes closed. A few moments passed and I wasn’t able to feel much of anything except feeling a bit foolish but then all of a sudden, I felt Grelf’s hands grip the sides of my head. “Hey! What are you-” I never finished my sentence because all of a sudden I understood what he was doing. The energy flowing out of his hands and into my head and then further into their body was warm and strange and I felt that it was something that was both very powerful and very elusive at the same time.
As the energy passed through my body I continued breathing in the focused and measured way that Grelf had taught me and I noticed that the energy was moving through my body in specific patterns and focusing on certain points in my body where energy seemed to pool up and gather before flowing out again into other sections of my body. I focused and paid close attention to what was going on in my body until Grelf suddenly pulled his hands away and the feeling all but faded, with just the last vestiges remaining within me. “From here you should be able to figure out how to enact the spell on your own. What is left for you is practicing gathering energy and practicing control and keeping that energy in the patterns required for the spell. Do you understand?” I opened my eyes and Grelf was standing over me giving me a stern look that made me think that I had most definitely better have understood him. “I think so.” I replied, not even sounding too sure to myself. “Good then.” Said Grelf, not seeming to care whether I truly understood or not, “Then sit there and practice it until those wounds you have been carrying over from your fight are healed.” After which he sat back down at his desk and pulled open a large tome once more and began to study.
I sat where he had left me and focused now on the feeling of the energy that he had sent into my body. Not the patterns and flows that had created the spell but the energy itself. After a few minutes I was able to keep the last trickle of it from slipping away by focusing on it with all of my will and trying to keep it within me. After a while I let my concentration slip and it too was gone. Well shit! What now? I thought to myself while pondering an answer. If showing me how to do the spell was enough then that must mean that there is some way for me to get more of that energy in order to make it power the spell. With this in mind I once again started breathing rhythmic, measured breaths while focusing on the air that moved in and out of my lungs. Again, and again the air flowed into me. Again, and again it flowed out once more.
There! Just for a second. Yes! It was there again, a tiny trickle of the energy that would be able to form spells coming from my lungs where they were pulling the oxygen into my body. Could it be that this world had this arcane energy in the air as well as oxygen molecules? As fascinating as this line of thought was as to the nature and function of the arcane energy and magick, I did not have the luxury of studying as a wizard nor of having proper lessons as to how and why it works. With nothing else to go on however I was going to pursue the course that I was being shown. This must be, after all, the reason why he had begun by showing me this breathing exercise.
I began focusing on the air that was entering my lungs and trying to sense energy in it as I had sensed energy in my body when Grelf had poured it into me. It took a bit but finally I was able to feel a sense of warmth and comfort coming from the air. Next I began trying to grasp that energy by focusing my will on it and drawing it into my body. At first, I struggled to hold the energy or grasp it at all, but then when I instead pictured drawing the energy into my body without trying to first grasp it but instead just gently nudging it in the direction I wanted to go. Brute force hadn’t worked so I might as well try finesse.
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Immediately I felt a rapid increase in the rate at which the energy was flowing into my body. It was still just a trickle compared to how fast it had surged in when Grelf had done it for me, but this was still much faster than the amount of energy I gained by breathing alone. With only breathing to gather energy it would likely have taken me a full day to gather enough to craft the spell once for a few moments. Now energy was flowing it at just barely enough to be able to maintain a bare shadow of the framework for the spell at a constant rate. Delighted at this I settled in, eager to increase how much of this energy I could gather at one time as well as to increase how fast I could gather it. It was also proving difficult to focus on both gathering energy and operating the spell at the same time, so it was slow going. Most people would probably just gather a lot of energy and then cast the spell strongly enough to last for a while, but I wanted to see if it was possible to operate it constantly as a sort of constant healing boost.
A couple of hours passed and then all of the trainers got up and left, leaving me sitting there on the floor. A few minutes later I heard someone come in and extinguish the torches, leaving me sitting in darkness. Still I practiced gathering arcane energy while simultaneously maintaining the spell structure until I finally fell asleep there on the floor from sheer exhaustion.
*****
When I woke up in the morning it was to the sound of the door being opened and people talking and laughing as they walked in. I looked around blearily and saw the trainers from before walking into the room. They gave a start when they saw me sitting there on the floor and realized that I had quite obviously been there all night. Grelf took on a stern look and turned to leave so quickly that his robes caught air for a moment as he turned. It seemed that he had no intention of teaching me anything today. Bastard. It was his fault I was still sitting here on the floor after all, he was the one who told me not to get up until my wounds were healed. Maybe those with strong magickal talent might have been able to make this simple spell heal deep wounds like a dagger thrust and the claw strikes of a cat-person, but for me it was still difficult to gather enough energy for the spell, it still felt as if I was only able to get the bare framework running compared to the artwork that the spell was when crafted by Grelf.
Oh, well. Nothing else for it but to keep working at it. My stomach growled a bit as I had not eaten since last night but there was nothing for it. I needed to practice. After a couple of hours had passed into the morning I heard the door open and opened my eyes briefly to see Grelf coming back in. I immediately closed my eyes again and went back to practicing. I had checked my wounds a little while ago and while they were still nowhere near healed they now looked a week old instead of only three days old. I grinned to myself as my stomach growled again. It was slow but I was making progress.
“Heh-Hem” The sound of someone loudly clearing their throat came from right in front of me. I opened my eyes unsure of what to expect and saw Grelf in front of me again. He looked a bit abashed and murmured that he didn’t think I’d really stay there all night before handing me a jug of water with some bread and cheese. It was just the same fare that I had been eating since coming to the arena but as hungry as I was it was a feast and so I tore into it with gusto. Afterwards I noticed Grelf’s eyes upon me once more. When he saw me returning his gaze he said “You have to eat to heal. Even if your body’s natural healing is enhanced you need food to rebuild tissue.”
The matter of fact way in which he said this made it clear that it was something that he had knowledge of but before I could ask any more questions he went back to his desk and the tome that he was still studying. I needed to get back to my own practice as well for that matter. Today was already the third day since my fight and I didn’t know how many more days would pass before my master appeared.