Chapter 61: Helpful advice
Felix Sythias’ POV:
After we swam for another half hour, in which we wrestled some more and raced to see who swam the fastest—I won, a big shocker—we stumbled out of the water, exhausted but with big smiles on our faces. We both shook ourselves dry, and I dried us the rest of the way using some simple wind and water magic. We then plopped down at the table and brought out dinner.
The meal was simple, but delicious. And more importantly, Alex had made it almost completely by himself. He really didn’t give himself enough credit. The food tasted great. Sure, it could’ve been better in some areas, but so could my food. Just because you weren’t perfect didn’t mean you weren’t still decent at something. He understood that with his drawing—he’d talked about it—but not with cooking it seemed.
Well, if he didn’t understand on his own, I’d help him understand.
“This was great. Thanks Alex,” I said.
He scratched the scales behind his ear and looked away slightly. “Thanks,” he said.
After dinner, while I practiced my lightning magic, Alex practiced some more with his mana manipulation since his pool had filled up most of the way. My practice was going rather well—I was now consistently seeing the mana twist away from my pool before it entered the pool anyway as pure mana from somewhere I couldn’t see. I had no idea why it was doing that. The moment it twisted away, my mana sense went all fuzzy in that area. It was becoming a little clearer with each attempt, but I was still a long way from figuring it out.
We practiced until Alex ran out of mana again. Between my greater control, and the fact that my exercise needed me to re-adsorb my mana, I was still mostly topped off. I wish I could’ve given him some of my mana so we could practice a little longer, but that wasn’t possible without very specific and difficult to obtain Skills. Skills that I obviously didn’t have.
Alex was making great strides with his training. By the end of our second session, he had all but mastered the limitation method and had even made a decent start at shaping a sphere without limiting the mana. He would master both soon enough. After that, we could move on to more complex shapes, like cubes, cylinders, stuff like that.
It would be a long time until he could even attempt the more abstract shaping exercises like levitation, though.
Since he was out of mana and the weather was still really nice, we decided to dive back into the water and swim some more. We splashed around for some time, seeing who could make the biggest wave. I won, but it was close. Alex could make a mean splash with his tail.
It was fun, but we were thoroughly and truly exhausted by the end. Instead of getting out of the water, however, we did the same as last time and laid down in the shallows to watch the clouds.
We both pointed out the funny shapes we saw, and it was interesting to see how we both saw the same cloud but saw a totally different thing. Like, with one cloud I saw a hill with a tree on it while he saw a dune with a cactus. Those clouds were usually the most fun to watch.
Eventually we had to get out of the water, though. It was getting late, and the temperature was dropping fast. Plus, the sun would set soon and we both wanted to get home before it got dark. So we got out of the water.
We dried off, and I used some careful fire magic to dry Alex’s underwear so he could dress himself. We then grabbed all our stuff and made our way out of the small forest and back to our room.
Once there, we both showered to get rid of the sand and other debris that had found a home in the gaps between our scales and went to bed. We considered staying up a little longer and maybe read together for a while, but the long day and swimming had drained us. We needed to be up early for the combat class, and we definitely didn’t want to be tired for that.
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The next morning we got dressed in our combat suits and in my case, the panels. We then checked it over thoroughly to see if it was properly secured, turned on, and everything like that. It felt a bit unnecessary, but it was now required that everyone had their own suit checked out by someone else and I wasn’t going to argue with Scott.
The class itself was as normal, though it was clear that Alex's control over his lightning mana had improved a lot already since yesterday. No doubt a result of his classes yesterday and of our practice with mana manipulation. He even tried using the mana with his sword a few times, though he wasn’t very successful there yet. Our opponents flinched every time the sword sparked or crackled, however, so it wasn’t entirely wasted. But from the lashing of Alex’s tail, it was clear he wasn’t satisfied with that.
Tiki was pushing herself, too. After the first half of the week, she decided she needed more experience with close quarters combat and now only shot a few arrows in the beginning of a match before ditching her bow and switching to her daggers. Occasionally she even used her bow as a melee weapon, just to experience it.
I liked how she thought about it. It was the same train of thought as professor Scott and I had with the gryphon training. It was better to experience it here in a safe environment than having to figure it out on the go during your first encounter with it.
The gryphon training felt like forever ago now. And it would be a while still until I was needed for that again. That kind of training was end of the year stuff, not something for the beginning. I kind of missed it now, weird as that was. I didn’t like playing the role, but the fights were usually fun and challenging.
I was pushing myself, too, of course. But there was only so much I could do with these opponents. They just weren’t strong enough right now to put up a proper fight. So I pushed my magic instead. I was getting faster and faster with using the lightning cube to draw in lightning mana with each day, and got cleverer with my usage of it. I doubted it would ever be a replacement for creating the mana myself, but it worked well enough for now.
After the sparring sessions—where no one got hurt this time, luckily—Scott made us all circle up around him.
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“Today was the last day of training,” he said. “I hope you were able to get to know your team members a little bit and that you can now work together. If not, come visit me after class. I want to reiterate some information in case anyone missed it or forgot. We’ll be meeting up here at this field on Monday morning at sunrise. From there we’ll travel together to the Dungeon Caves of Elmar and we’ll arrive sometime in the afternoon. If you haven’t packed yet, don’t wait too long. If you wait until Monday morning, you will panic and you will forget things. If you aren’t sure what to pack, or don’t have a suitable backpack, also visit me after class.”
He went on to explain a few more things about the exact times and briefly listed some of the things you really should bring with you, then dismissed the class. Our group worked rather well together, Alex and Tiki both already had a backpack, and I didn’t need one, so we left.
Tiki had somewhere to be, so Alex and I took our break alone. Since we had the time and the mana, I helped him practice his mana manipulation. After the break, we headed towards our basic lightning magic class, and on the way there Alex asked me about what he should tell the professor.
“Felix, can and should I tell professor Hobold about the prefix?” he asked. “It’s your species it references, so you should have the final say.”
It was something I had thought about previously. How could I not? The answer was simple, though I felt a little guilty about taking the opportunity away from Alex.
I shook my head at him. “I’d appreciate it if you kept it to yourself. While I don’t think professor Hobold will tell anyone, I can’t risk someone overhearing him, or it slipping out while he’s drunk or something. If everyone knew you could get such a powerful prefix just by being my friend and me teaching them… I don’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering if the people I meet want to be my friend or just want the prefix. I have that bad enough already with dad being my dad.”
He nodded. “I didn’t think of that. Don’t worry, I’ll keep it to myself,” he said. “You know I’m your friend because I like you, right? Not because of anything else.”
I nodded back at him. “I know. And thank you. I’m sorry that I’m making you miss the opportunity, though. I’ll find a way to make it up to you,” I said, an idea already forming in my mind.
“It’s fine, Felix. Though, if you really do want to make it up to me,” he said, grinning, “how about we go out for a picnic this weekend?”
I grinned back at him. “That I can certainly do. Though I don’t feel like that’s enough. You’ll be missing out on private lessons by a master of lightning magic. It would’ve been immensely helpful to both your Skill level and understanding of the magic itself.” I shook my head. “No, a picnic wouldn’t be enough. I have something else in mind, though, but I’ll keep it a surprise.”
Before Alex could ask what I meant, we arrived at the classroom. It seemed we were the first, since the classroom was empty except for the professor. He sat at his desk in the dark classroom, reading a book. A small lightning bolt hovered next to his head, giving off light and illuminating the pages.
Looking at the wall, I found what I needed and turned the light enchantments on. The professor looked up, blinking in surprise at the sudden lights, then invited us in.
“Come in, take a seat. I’m sure the rest will be here shortly.” He turned to Alex. “Have you thought about my offer?”
Alex nodded. “I have, and I’m afraid I’ll have to keep the details to myself. Sorry.”
“Okay. If you change your mind, the offer remains,” the professor said, and that was it. I was glad he didn’t push.
The rest of the class went as normal, and I spent most of the class practicing with the cube. My efficiency was high enough now that the losses of practicing were less than my mana regeneration, so I could practice the whole ninety minutes. Alex did the same, though he practiced with his sword.
Occasionally the professor wandered by to offer advice or to see how we were doing. If he purposefully came by less often because Alex told him no, or if he gave us poorer explanations and help, neither me nor Alex were able to tell. I hadn’t expected the professor would, but it was still pleasant to know.
The rest of the day was pretty pleasant, too. Alex went off to his basic magic class, where he, without a doubt, would continue practicing his mana control, while I went to Advanced Elementalism for the first time in quite a while. I wanted to ask the professor if they could tell what my mana was doing when it reached my pool.
When I arrived at the class, it seemed I wasn’t the only one who wanted to ask the professor a question, so I joined the queue. Luckily, most had small and simple questions, and only a few minutes later, it was my turn.
“Ah, Felix! Good to see you again,” professor Mila said. “What can I do for you?”
“I know you have some of the best mana-sight in the whole Academy, and I was wondering if you might help me with something.”
It wasn’t entirely true. I knew quite a few people who had better mana-sight than professor Mila—for instance, dad or Elena—but no other had Mila’s knowledge of elementalism and Affinities. Besides, a bit of flattery never went amiss.
They smiled at me. “Of course. What is it?”
“I have this issue when reabsorbing lightning-aspected mana. I can’t tell what it’s doing when it reaches my pool, so I was wondering if you could take a look.”
Their eyes went towards my stomach, or more precisely, to the mana pool organ near there. “I can certainly try.”
Nodding, I took the lightning cube out of my chest pouch and started channeling mana into the crystal on the top. I reabsorbed the now lightning-aspected mana a few times until professor Mila told me to stop.
“That’s enough. Sorry, Felix. I don’t have a clue. Looking into your mana system is like looking into a mist. I can see the surface details, but the deeper I look, the murkier it gets. I can tell the mana is flowing towards your pool—great control, by the way—but I can’t tell anymore than that.”
I sighed. “That isn’t surprising. Elena describes the same when healing me. I’m guessing it’s just a dragon thing.”
“Oh. Well, there’s nothing we can do about it if it’s biological. Not all is lost, though. While I can’t look for you, I can still try to help you train your own mana sense.”
I shook my head. “My mana sense is fine. I can see everything perfectly. It’s just that one area that gets fuzzy when I try to look while I’m reabsorbing the lightning mana.”
They raised an eyebrow at me. “Have you tried looking while you’re not reabsorbing the mana?”
I opened my maw to respond, but froze—I hadn’t done that, no. I’d been so focused on trying to look that the idea had simply not occurred to me.
Looking at the professor sheepishly, I answered them. “No, I haven’t. Thanks for pointing it out.”
They smiled at me and nodded, then turned to the next student. Having accomplished what I came for the class for, I decided to go back to the dorms. Alex, obviously, wasn’t there yet, so I only made a drink for myself, lit a few scented candles, then sat down and settled into a comfortable position, my focus already turning inwards. Something told me I would be there for a while.