Even though Orlan and his knights had taken care of the ant princess and most of the monsters from that rift, a good number still escaped. Though scattered and weakened form the weak aether of this side they were still quite dangerous to normal people. With only two sky cutters Orlan chose to send one with the third ‘training lance’ to hunt down as many ant creatures as they could find.
Three knights in training, followed by an older instructor, swept into a ruined house deep in the forests. At only third sphere they weren’t able to cut down the ant monsters with the same ease as the main knights, being forced to leverage both their innate abilities and magical powers to bring down each beast they encountered. The instructor stayed back, simply watching as the others fought, she wasn’t there to protect them but to protect any civilians who might be present.
It had been several days since the ant rift in North Carolina had been closed so the training knights were surprised when the instructor dashed forward to stop one of the ants from crashing into a shed. She caught it with one hand before casually throwing it back to the trainees. Both monster and knights paused to see if she followed up, but she merely stood next to small building and watched. Clearly deciding it had a better chance fighting the trainee knights, the ant monster threw itself back into the fray.
Tired from fighting for close to an hour it managed to score several wounds on the young knights, but out numbered and out tiered it stood no real chance. Several minutes later, with the monster defeated, they approached the instructor as she tore the thick wooden door from the shed with her bare hands.
“Is there a survivor in there, Lady White?” one of the trainee’s asked.
Rather than respond the older knight crouched down, looking into the darkness of the shed, as if waiting for something. After a few moments a figure slowly emerged, it was hard to tell from the darkness of the shed and several layers of caked on grime but a young woman crawled out from beneath several shelves that had fallen over.
“The monsters are dead young lady,” the Instructor White said in a friendly tone, “are you injured?”
“No,” the girl responded, slowly crawling to her feet to see the knights around her, “did… did you kill them?”
“We did,” White replied with a smile, “we can escort you back to your home if you want, I’m sure your parents are missing you.”
“Pa’s dead, him and Simon grabbed the rifles when the monsters came,” she explained softly, “heard some gunshots, saw one of the monsters go down but the rest…”
“And your mother?”
“Died years ago.”
The trainee knights exchanged complicated looks between them, as White held out her hand for the girl.
“How about a neighbor? Family friend? Somewhere you can stay for the moment?”
“Did you really kill those monsters?” the girl asked in response, the knights nodding, “can… can you teach me to kill them?”
“Possibly,” White said slowly, her smile fading, “it’s not easy, and you’d have to fight monsters like that often.”
“I don’t care,” the girl replied after a moment, looking up to meet White’s eyes, “I don’t want to live in fear of the monsters… I want to be able to fight back.”
“How old are you?” White asked.
“Twenty-three,” she replied instantly, only for the older knight to give her a light glare, at which point she corrected sheepishly, “nineteen.”
White nodded, holding out a hand, a spell circle appearing in her palm for a moment as a floating point of light appeared above it. Once the tiny ball of light was fully formed the spell circle vanished and White held it out to the young woman.
“I don’t know how much you’ve been paying attention to the news, but a good portion of people on this side are, for lack of a better term, allergic to magic. This is a small bit of mana, if you swallow it, and show no reaction by the time the sun rises, then you’ll be able to learn magic,” White explained, pulling the small floating ball of light away as the girl reached for it, “this much mana shouldn’t kill you, but it might. So be certain you want to take the risk before eating it.”
The girl nodded, looking at the ball of light as White held it out once more for a long moment before steeling herself, grabbing the ball and shoving it in her mouth. To her surprise it didn’t taste like anything, simply exploding as soon as it was inside her, its power rushing through her body.
“What’s your name?” White asked.
“Amy.”
“Alright Amy, lets get you back to the cutter,” the instructor said, turning and gesturing for the trainee knights to lead the way. Amy watched as they dashed ahead, never straying too far, weapons out.
“Most of us started like you,” White explained, “orphans of a beast rift or war. So don’t be afraid to ask us anything.”
“You all work for…. Orn?” She asked slowly.
“Lord Orlan is our leader, yes.”
“Will I have to… sleep with him?”
“Ha! No,” White chuckled, giving Amy a friendly smile, “the bonding process is quite intimate, but you have to be at least third or fourth sphere before you’ll be allowed to form a bond with him. And you won’t be forced to, but if you want to join his knights proper you should. Even if you do form a bond he’ll just be your leader, nothing like that.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
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“So you are surrounded by beautiful women and you don’t sleep with them?” the podcaster, a man named Bob, asked, seemingly in disbelief. They sat in a series of leather couches and armchairs in a small room, filled with sound equipment and a couple cameras. Bob held a cigar in one hand while his cohost Robert managed the sound equipment while occasionally chipping in. Other than Orlan only Lailra was present as the podcaster had said that only one other person could join them, wanting to keep the number of people talking low to make any conversation easier to follow, or something.
“Technically, on the other side we are considered his wives,” Lailra said unhelpfully.
“That’s just a legal technicality,” Orlan said with a roll of his eyes, “the magical bond we form is quite intimate, but its nothing sexual.”
“Then why are all the women so… hot?” Bob asked.
“Magic improves your body in all respects,” Orlan answered, “more than simply become stronger and faster it extends your lifespan and even improves your appearance.”
“Though how much it improves any given aspect depends on a large number of things,” Lailra added, “such as what kind of mana you have, how you build the spheres in your soul, your inherent abilities and so on. I’m currently sixth sphere, while Orlan is only fifth due to having to sacrifice some of his power to bring his island over to this side, yet Orlan is likely physically stronger than I am.”
“Magic can make you better looking and longer lived?” Bob asked, taking a pull on his cigar, “how do I start?”
“It’s not easy,” Orlan replied, “and it only gets harder the further you go.”
“The common saying on the other side is that only one in ten people will ever manage to awaken,” Lailra added, “many people say that simply awakening is the hardest step.”
“During your last congressional hearing you said you wanted to raise hundreds, or even thousands of mages, is that right?” asked Robert.
“Ya, can you share the method with us?” Bob added, “we’ve a hundred thousand or so people listening right now, if you want spread the knowledge now is likely the best time.”
“Bit of a disclaimer first,” Orlan said, taking a breath, “magic is dangerous at the best of times, but on this side there’s an added danger, specifically that of mana allergy. From what we’ve seen about one in six people are allergic to mana, violently so. So while I doubt anyone will manage awakening without assistance on this side, if you attempt to do so be aware there’s a one in six chance doing so could kill you.”
“Okay, but how do you awaken?” pressed Bob.
“There’s two steps, the first is to become aware of the mana within your body, feel its movements,” explained Orlan, “this can be done on your own, but typically an older mage will inject a bit of mana into a pupil, stirring up their own mana so they can feel it. Some people need this done a few times before they can sense their mana even without having another mage stir it up, many can’t even manage that.”
“It’s like learning to feel an arm you didn’t know you had and can’t see,” Lailra added, “but even that isn’t the hard part.”
“Really?” Bob said with a raised eyebrow.
“No, the hard part is next, categorizing your mana,” Orlan continued, “all mana has a color or flavor, a series of associations or feelings attributed to it. It’s… hard to explain.”
“I use nature mana,” Lailra stepped in, “to me nature is gentle and beautiful until roused, at which point it becomes extremely dangerous. When I first felt my mana it was like that, gentle and kind with an undercurrent of danger, it took me nearly two months to associate it with nature when it all clicked.”
“Everyone’s mana is unique to them, even among people with the same element they could feel very different things about it, one fire mage might see fire as hungry, all consuming, while another might see it as beautiful,” said Orlan, “that’s why this part is so hard, you need to feel your mana and link it to what element or aspect of the world that feels the same. Once you have that it’s easy to consolidate it into your core, officially awakening and becoming a tier one being.”
“I bet we’ll be seeing lots of people sitting in parks meditating in the next few weeks,” Robert joked.
“Is it possible there are already mages on this side?” Bob asked, “while rare it still seems like someone might accomplish it by accident.”
“It’s possible, but unlikely,” Orlan admitted, “with how weak the aether on this side is there isn’t really enough mana for anyone to feel their mana.”
“What is this aether anyways?”
“Right, the way it was described to me is, the aether is the air, and mana is the wind,” Orlan said, “mana is just spiritual energy, it’s not really a physical thing, and the aether carries it typically.”
“And our aether on this side is too thin?”
“Something like that,” Orlan nodded, “it’s not a one-to-one analogy, you’d have to speak with the grandmaster of the mage’s spire if you want a proper explanation.”
“I see,” Bob nodded, taking a pull from his cigar.
“Ah, super chat from one… Berriton fourteen,” Robert spoke up, “thanks for the hundred dollars, it says… ‘Thanks to Orlan for standing up to those idiots in congress.’”
“Uh, what?” Orlan asked.
“Right, you’ve been in another world for decades,” Bob chuckled, “people can donate to send us messages.”
“A hundred dollars though?”
“Not worth as much as it was when you left,” Robert snorted, “maybe we should spend an hour just getting you caught up to the modern world.”
“Ya, have you heard of Game of Thrones?” Bob asked.
“It’s… a book series right?” Orlan said slowly, “I heard of it but never read it.”
“They made it into a TV series,” Bob explained, “was a real big thing for a while.”
“Until that last season,” Robert added sadly.
“We need to get you to watch it.”
Orlan smiled at their antics, enjoying this style of interview far more than either the journalist or congress.
“I doubt your castle has a TV,” Bob said, turning to Orlan, “no idea how we’d get power hooked up on a flying island.”
“We can probably manage something,” Orlan shrugged, “despite appearances the other side isn’t as technologically backwards as you might think. There’s indoor plumbing, flintlock rifles and the like.”
“Electricity?”
“Not as such, a few cities have some basic electric lighting but it’s rare. I tried to make computers work but didn’t know enough about them to recreate the technology over there. But we’ve managed to recharge the cellphone we got using magic without much difficulty.”
“You can turn mana into electricity?” Bob asked surprised, “could you manage a full generator? Power a city?”
“Unlikely, the exchange rate is pretty bad. We might be able to improve it with time but I doubt it will ever be viable,” Orlan said with a wince, “it takes the full output of a fifth sphere mage to recharge the phone. Not something that can be done passively.”
“Shame, I’d drive a magic car.”
“Magic cars are actually quite tough,” Orlan replied, “strangely it’s easier to-.”
He cut off with a scowl, holding a hand to his ear as if on the phone.
“What is it?” Bob asked after a moment.
“He’s getting a message,” Lailra answered, “I should take the chance to explain Orlan’s mana, for anyone who thinks it’s a good idea to mess with us. He is unique in being the first known person to have rift mana. Rifts, to him, are powerful forces, warping the world to their whim, but unless tightly controlled will tear apart everything.”
“What are you saying?” Robert asked.
“I’m saying that, if Orlan gets angry enough to lose control… well, let’s just say there’s a crater the size of a small city in the other world that is still burning with his magic.”
“Why mention it now?”
“Because the message is about one of our knights in training going missing,” Lailra replied, “if there is an easy way to make him angry, its to hurt his knights.”
“Is he going to destroy a city?” Bob asked in alarm as Orlan’s expression grew darker.
“Oh no,” Lailra assured with a smile, “he’s gotten far stronger since he made that crater.”