Master Zoe walked up to Anthony staring him straight in the eye as a teacher ready for a thorough quiz.
“Tell me Bios, where are the four fundamental forces in the human body located?”
“The mind...” He pointed to his temple. “..the body...” He drew a line from his throat to his shoulders. “...the soul...” He drew a circle on his solar plexus. “...and the spirit.” He placed his palm on his stomach.
“There’s also the major organs and arteries but that’s for the advanced forces, for this we’ll start with the basics.” She marked twenty paces away from Anthony. “For this exercise I’m going to start throwing fireballs at you, while you use your little knife to either block, dodge or deflect my attacks without taking a step from where you stand. Each time I want you to try to use a different force until you find one that works for you. Did you get it?”
“I can dodge an attack if I’m not permitted to step out of place.”
“No problem, Bios.” She gathered five small fireballs on the tip of each finger and stretched her palm. “Try to dodge this.”
She released the five fireballs into five separate directions. Anthony barely had enough time to reach and grab his knife and calculate the trajectory of each strike. While two of them he was able to avoid by leaning to the left, the three remaining fireballs had been blocked. One, two fireballs were hit to the side, but the third one landed on his leather vest. It wasn’t enough heat to burn, but enough to leave a small scorch mark on his leather gear. There was a bit of pain, equal to quickly touching a searing hot iron, but not enough to leave him with a scar. It was to be expected from an experienced fire mage, just as the fireballs died down the moment they reached the brush and disappeared into the clearing.
“Come on, Bios, you’ve read all about drawing energy from different sources...” She again summoned another array of fire pellets in her hand. “...are you going to waste that knowledge to put it to good use?”
Anthony took a deep breath and stood up to stand his ground, with his knife held in front of him as he prepared. He took a deep breath drawing air into his stomach, the practice of Water Mages to draw on the power of spirit. When he was ready, he saw Master Zoe release her second assault this time with his knife at the ready to try his breathing. While he managed to deflect three fireballs, two of them graved his shoulders leaving him slightly heated, but determined. The next barrage of fireballs, he managed to strike four of the fire with the last one singed his hair. By the third strike he had managed to block every shot maintaining stance while drawing air into his stomach to draw on the power of spirit. Yet, after some time, he still could not draw on the power of any element around him.
“Alright, so it looks like drawing on spirit energy isn't working so try something else.”
Anthony closed his eyes and placed his free hand on his temple, the moment he opened them he could see the fireballs coming before him but he quickly managed to dodge two and deflect three more with his trusty knife. As she continued, he tried again, and again, until he could concentrate on mind power simply by lowering his brows. Still, no magic manifested no matter how much she kept trying.
“That’s some good mind flexing, but let’s see if your body can stretch?”
Anthony stretched his neck, shoulder and spine until he was sure they were all in perfect alignment and proceeded with the assault. It was harder to block and maintain perfect posture but he managed to block, dodge and deflect each strike as well as before. No results occurred, no matter how hard he tried to find a single element in his possession.
It had been an hour since they started training, but even trying a familiar force of soul produced no results. They switched back and forth, even tried combining the force training of two or more sources but nothing seemed to work. By the end, Master Zoe allowed for rest, taking a chance to address his numerous burns on his body. A special ointment she brought along for burns was given to him. He took off his leather gear to apply it himself one every burnt spot while Master Zoe pondered her next step.
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“You did good, kid, in fact better than I expected but...there’s something missing?” Zoe rubbed her chin in thought.
“Perhaps, with more training the techniques can be perfected.” Anthony sat in the dirt looking at the rising sun. “I’ve been patient for nineteen years and I’ll keep trying even if it takes the rest of my life.”
“Your technique is excellent, in fact better than most kids.” She complimented. “If you had no talent for Mage Craft I could tell, but it’s there and yet it’s not there at the same time.”
“I’ve tried every technique you instructed and I’ve drawn practically all of the four forces. What would be missing?”
“Unless there’s a force that we don’t know about...” Master Zoe was suddenly struck by invisible lightning as she complemented a bizarre notion. “...The Ion.”
“I beg your pardon, Master Zoe?” Anthony had never heard of the fifth source of power, not in any book or manual he’d ever come across.
“It’s a theory that I learned about when I studied at the Imperial Institute, dated back to the time of Helios the 5th Flame.” She spun the tale like a master storyteller. “Before he died he theorized that 5th Circle Magic was incomplete, that there was a force of energy that transcends all elements and allows humanity to access a potential greater than the sun. He called it the Ion, for it was the beginning and the end of all things, a power that transcended the heavens themselves.”
“How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders. “The Ion is considered a myth by most scholars, and they’re tried for years to find a way to discover it. I even tried to find it myself, but could have no proof that it even exists, but I never lost hope that one day I would.”
“How do you even know that Ion even exists?”
“How do you know you’ll become a mage, when all conventional evidence proves you have no magical ability?”
He was at a loss for words, knowing that this question was a difficult one to answer.
“Whether it’s intuition, stubbornness, or just plain old optimism, when you eliminate all avenues you strive for the impossible.” Zoe laughed remembering the first time she said that. “I told that to your mother and she told me some old fairytale about an ant and a mountain.”
“Funny, that’s the same story she told me when I was younger.” Anthony laughed at the similarities of the moral.
Their laughter echoed through the brush before it drowned out the sound of rapid footsteps approaching. Master Zoe turned her head to see a figure pushing a branch and leaves out of her face as she entered the battle scarred clearing. It was Iris, breathing heavily after running all the way to this point.
“Ms. Gaia...” She tried to catch her breath. “Need...help...Clio...”
“Slow down Iris.” Master Zoe held her head to give a moment to calm down.
“Sorry...had to run.” She caught her breath the moment Anthony had got up to his feet again. “There’s an emergency near in the Slums, Clio already left ahead of you.”
“On foot?”
“It’s only in Dotys, that's the closest village near Gourd.”
“It’s still in the Slums, I better go see if she needs any assistance.” She looked at Anthony with a stare as she walked toward Iris. “You’re coming too, kid.”
“I am?” He asked in surprise.
“Sometimes you can find training in the most practical of places, I mean, what do you think the Wind Mage who taught me Fire Magic did for a living?”
As he accompanied Master Zoe out of the clearing he contemplated these words. It was true that Wind Mages were considered natural healers, especially if they reached the rank of High Mage or High Master. At the rank of High Mage, they could become keenly acute to the air in their environment, especially in the human body. With this ability they could map out a person's entire body by a technique known as Sonar. At the High Master rank they could even perform a miraculous ability to close wounds and cuts in an instance with a process called Healing Breath. The Grand Master Wind Mages were said to be able to heal bone and organs in days and would take a body months or weeks to recover, but most of them resided in the Luxury States or Imperial Domains.
As they returned to the shop, Iris helped them gather vital supplies for the trip. With Master Zoe at the reins and Anthony riding beside her they headed off in their wagon to Dotys, more specifically a farm between Dotys and the city of Gourd. As they traveled down the bumpy dirt roads a puzzling question rattled around in Anthony’s head persistently. If Wind Mages were considered the best healers, what could a Fire Mage do to help?