Thran and Alrick weren’t there when I went downstairs, nor were they outside. It was later in the day than I thought so I started my routine from the front door.
Running around the training space had gotten boring so I decided to run around the crater until I got to the training space. When I got there, however, I noticed that the required total for running had tripled from yesterday. I was only halfway done now so I continued around until I made it to the training grounds again.
Doing the run made me realize how large this place really was. I mean when we were training, I didn’t really pay much attention to the area around me but with it being so open why wasn’t the training hall just built within the space and not in the wall?
Yeah, eight times around the fighting ring made the previous requirement, even with tripling that and only half that distance being around the whole crater, still made this place huge. The sparring dummies were grouped in a space about the same size as the ring but that left another completely empty space of equal size.
I guess if there was more than one person staying here there was enough space to have people training at the same time, but it’s not like it’d fit the same amount of people as there were training dummies.
Though I did destroy many of them during our training times and they apparently only reset overnight so if I tried hard enough, I could probably destroy them all on my own. Why not test that?
Between the time I had finished the other parts and I got to the last one the description had completely changed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Daily Quest: Intermediate training
Description: You’ve gotten better so lets kick it up a notch.
Completion Requirements:
Running: 30/30km
Sit-ups: 100/100
Pushups: 100/100
Squats: 100/100
Destroy training dummies: 0/40
Reward:
The increase of your physical abilities is reward enough
Failure:
Tallied up and punishment will be given upon meeting Alcoroth again
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I shivered. Did they read my mind, that total looks close to the amount of dummies set up. This would take a while. The sun though hadn’t gone down as much as I had expected. Even though it had set past the rock walls at this point, the sky was still illuminated. My pacing for the rest of my training must have picked up.
I wouldn’t’ve thought that I’d finish the running this quickly in the past. Let alone with the other ones. Since it was only the running that had increased and not the others. I wonder if an increase in those wasn’t considered helpful. The dummy destruction on the other hand, without my aura, would probably take a while.
Thinking about it again made me consider the pressure and then my aura and it felt not exhausted. Even though I lasted longer in the fights, this time I actually passed out and slept longer than I had before, wouldn’t my recovery time have been more? But I slept so that could have helped.
Last time I was awake, sat for a bit while I healed, and then started exercising and it was earlier in the day than today. How could I even tell though? I didn’t know what time of day the tournament started (I barely remember what the sun was like) and it’s not like I have any way to measure time. And apart from telling the time, I don’t remember if I could use my aura again at the end of my exercises. The previous requirement was just striking the dummy, using my aura to destroy it was kind of pointless.
Either way, I recovered much faster this time. Maybe it was because I was getting better? I had more points open so maybe that helped? Where was Cyrus when you needed him?
I shouldn’t be thinking about this, it was a waste of time. Well with my aura I could destroy them faster so it didn’t really matter if I wasted time, I wasn’t concerned that it would take me a while to complete the requirements.
I tested out the amount of destruction needed to count by using my sword first and slicing it in half. That didn’t count and the majority of it was still attached to the post holding it up in the ground. I cut the base of the post so that it fell over, and the number didn’t change either.
I put my sword in its sheath and took the belt and sheath off before going to the next dummy. This one I attacked until it was a crumpled-up mess. With that, the counter said one. I sighed; it was as if the system was encouraging me not to use my sword. But I had to get better at my sword anyway. As Alrick and Thran said, having more than one fighting method was useful, especially since I usually fight without caring about my limbs (not that they know about the last part).
I took out my frustration with my lack of thinking skills on the dummies and finished the dummies off. I turned to grab my sword and saw it was gone.
“You changed up your training?”
I turned to see Alrick cleaning my sword while sitting in a chair.
“Yeah.”
“How’d it go this time? You seem to be in a better condition.”
“I made it to the finals but passed out from aura exhaustion.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“From aura exhaustion?”
“Yeah, I’ve been calling it that, but I didn’t know if it’s a thing.”
“I haven’t met anyone while learning aura, and all the users I’ve met have been masters and they’ve never mentioned it so I’m not sure what it is. It wouldn’t hurt to increase your stamina; the dummy destruction should help with that which is good. Let’s head inside and eat I want to hear about your fights.”
“We’ll see if I can remember them enough to talk about them.”
I laughed slightly as I went over to him, and we headed back.
I ended up talking for longer than I initially thought I would, and completely forgot to not talk in so much detail about the circulation I was trying. If they were real people, I didn’t want to stick out by talking about aura in a weird way let alone try to claim I had already almost managed to see mana when I just started so early. Especially since he said he hadn’t met many people that managed it.
“Can you describe that haze you saw a gain a bit more, but more specifically what you saw when it moved.”
I tilted my head confused and tried to think about it. I just saw it move I think, the memory of it was a bit fuzzy.
“My memory isn’t great, I can’t really describe it.”
There was a flicker of change of expression on Alrick’s face before he spoke again.
“Alright, well since you’re done with food would you mind coming outside for a little before you sleep? Thran can’t use anything but earth so it’s not useful to test it. But I can use multiple.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant but I’m sure he’d explain it.
“Yeah sure.”
We went outside and Thran sat on the ground leaning against the wall. Alrick stood next to me, and we faced the open space.
“Alright, I’m going to cast a small spell and focus and try to tell me what you see.”
He held a finger up, and pointed it towards the empty space. I turned my sight on and the muddled haze was still slightly visible even though it was dark out. Then I saw the movement and looked at it a bit more closely since I didn’t have to dodge, and it was a consistent stream of movement.
What I saw was the haze being parted away by the stream of wind he created, not the haze moving along the stream. I looked closer and briefly, and ever so slightly, in the gap, I saw a light green colored glow.
“It’s different than when I fought cause I’m not trying to dodge it but the haze moved away and then I think I may have seen a greenish glow in the gap.”
He had a big grin on his face. Well, big for an elf. It was different than the grins I’d seen on dwarves, much more reserved.
“That green glow is the mana used by the spell. I don’t want to go too in depth since mana theory is so complex, but I think I know what you’re seeing so I’ll try and explain it. Let’s, go inside so I can draw it out.”
We followed Thran into a classroom looking space, and he started drawing a diagram on the board. In chalk, he drew a circle in another circle and shaded the space outside the inner one. Then he drew a square separate from the circles and shaded it in.
I sat with Thran on the table in front of the board and Alrick pointed at the square.
“This is the haze you see, and I think what it is, is the natural state of the world’s mana. All the different types are mixed together and are indistinguishable. But when a spell is made,” he pointed at the empty inner circle “the mana used by the spell is distinct and separates the outer world’s mana. People use mana in two different ways.”
He drew two people; they both had a circle which I guessed was the mana core but one had an arrow from the mana core to the hand and one had arrows around the hand pointing towards it. He pointed at the first one.
“Most people, for long incantations take mana from their core and use that to create their spells. The mana travels along different paths that are created depending on your method of cultivation.”
He pointed at the second one.
“For quick spells that are more like the term of mana manipulation, they use the mana in the air around them to create the spells. Since the mana moves faster in the air than in their bodies, the casting time is lessened. But the amount of the specific type of mana around them won’t replenish quickly so they can only use quick spells with small mana consumption.
“That also acts as a way to reserve the mana in the core to be used in larger spells. There are some cases where a mage will use both. That’s only if they don’t have enough in their core to complete the spell so they take some from around them to accumulate the correct amount. But that takes a lot of time, so in a one on one instance that doesn’t really happen.”
Thran chimed in with, “and if you’re fighting a mage using the same mana type, you can exhaust the area of that mana type quickly which is one of the tactics a mage can use. The area will replenish naturally but it generally takes time.”
This was already more than enough information that I could actually remember without putting it into practice. And since it’s mana I really couldn’t put it into practice.
“Basically, what you need to aim for is being able to see the mana being used and not the mana in the world. I’ll think about how we can train that if you want, but that would be for tomorrow anyway.”
“Could we go over this again tomorrow? I’ll probably forget before I try anything with it.”
“Sure, sorry I got a bit excited is all.”
He rubbed the back of his head a smile resting on his face.
I sat in bed for a bit wondering what he was so excited about.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
If he were Mypheryn he’d be excited about talking about the specifics of mana’s presentation and go much more into detail than Alrick did. We were only talking about this because I brought it up and it would help me develop my sight better. It was all for me and not just someone sharing their interests. Still, he had that big grin on his face earlier and a slight one throughout. I really couldn’t think of a reason for it.
It was a strange feeling, but even though we probably wouldn’t be fighting tomorrow I was looking forward to it. I lay down and before I fell asleep, I worked on moving my aura around in my head trying to break past the next points. My sight had emerged when I broke past one of them before, so it’d probably be better if I opened more up there. And since the ones in the rest of my body opened up on their own while I was fighting, I just figured I could ignore them for now.
After breakfast the next morning we went over what we discussed last night and then went outside.
“What were the steps you did to start your aura sight?”
“Well, it really started with some blindfolded training and telling the difference between his hits and then it kind of just clicked and I could tell before he swung.”
“Alright, I think we’ll do something similar then. I’ll switch between the two forms of activation, and you’ll try to tell me which one I used.”
“You should switch the types of mana you use too.”
Thran was seated on the ground, in a relaxed position behind us again.
“That way he can distinguish between the types too. If he can already see it then might as well help him see the coloring differences too.”
Wouldn’t that just make this whole thing harder? Wait, no it wouldn’t it’d be the same thing that Cyrus was trying to get me to do, notice on instinct not notice what I think I’m expecting.
“We’ll do this for the morning and go back to sparing in the afternoon. Can you close your eyes and see if you can sense the mana in the air still?”
I tried it and I could, so I nodded even though it wasn’t as clear an image as aura was.
“Alright, let’s do it blind folded then. That way we isolate which sense you’re using.”
He produced one from his pocket and I put it on. Then we started.
The way I saw mana was the exact opposite to aura, I saw everything and then the gap that was Alrick. So, it was easy for me to see the form of activation where he used the mana outside his body as he cast the spell and saw the mana change outside his body after the spell was cast.
“I don’t think this is gonna work. I can already tell which you’re doing since I see all the mana except for the mana in you.”
“So, you can see the separation between activated mana and stagnant mana but not the type of activated mana specifically. That’s what we should work on first, the activated mana needs to be brighter in your sight. That should be the first thing you need to see. It’s like clearing your senses and only noticing the things that will impact you first.
“So instead of the two methods of activation, why don’t you discern the type of mana I’m using. I’ll use the quick activation method, since it will separate mana from the haze around.”
I nodded and he started. After an hour or so I started to see the colors more vibrantly and the haze around it started to dissipate. Once I got them consistently and as soon as he started to gather it, he patted me on the back.
“Nice work.”
I still had my blindfold on and for a moment I could see a slightly different muddled glow from him.
“Now the muddled color you see in the world, is how mana is stored in the bodies of people with multiple affinities. Since Thran only has one affinity, why don’t you try to see the mana in him.”
I turned and concentrated. Much like with my aura sight, it was something that just clicked. I thought momentarily about what mana I wanted to see and then that was all I could see. And then there was a small accumulation of earth type mana in a point where I thought he was.
“I think I see his core. But it’s kind of just a mass I don’t see any pathways.”
“Mana is stored in my core and will only move when I use it.”
I assumed he started to use it as a demonstration since the glow of the core diminished slightly, and I saw a faint line of mana travel along the line and into a point. The length of it looked like the length of his arm. And the points it passed through were similar to mine.
“If you see it like that try to open your eyes.”
I took the blindfold off and the glow was still there. Much like with aura, his body was overlaid with the path of mana I saw.
“This is how a non-augmentation manipulator will use their mana. You’ll only see it in the path that they intentionally move it. Augmenters move their mana throughout their body at the same time without any precision. Depending on the enhancement they try to go for it will be more present in that space, but you’ll still see it throughout.”
He switched it and now I saw a glow over his full form, the lines becoming more and more distinct.
“Like we said the paths are different depending on which ones they use. I think that if Alrick uses one mana type at a time in this method you’ll be able to see his paths.”
I looked at him and soon saw a similarly tinted glow and then a gap in that glow where his core must have been. The paths themselves were different than Thran’s. Thran had multiple going down each of his limbs and down each of his fingers and toes, whereas Alrick had singular paths that then filled the space around them with a softer glow.
With both of them though I could see specific points they all went through. And it was similar to the first pressure points I had felt. I poked at one of the points in Alrick’s body.
“If this part of the pathway was blocked, would the mana stop flowing?”
Then it registered that I had just touched him without asking and so I got away from him.
“Yeah, but blocking one is difficult to do. A sharp impact in the precise location would be needed and depending on the skill of the user, it would need a harder force.”
He didn’t say anything about me touching him.
“If you were able to do so, that’d give you an advantage in a fight with a mage. They would need the time and skill to reopen that. If their core is small, it would take a very long time for them to re-open it. Generally, the bigger their core, the more control they have and the quicker they’ll be able to clear it. But unless their control is impeccable, they won’t be able to try and clear it during a fight.”
Thran pointed at one of his points very close to his core.
“If you managed to hit here, you’d incapacitate most mages. That’s why they’re at a disadvantage in close range combat.”
“As a mana user, the only way to disrupt it would be to inject the opposing type of mana into that point. So, it’s not something that physical augmenters concern themselves with. They are born with a high mix of mana types and unless they’re taught correctly and diligently, they never learn to separate those types. With so many types flowing in their pathways at all times, the counter element wouldn’t be able to do anything. And in most cases, they can’t train to effectively use it because they can’t separate the mana types to properly oppose their opponent’s.”
Thran stood up and dusted his clothes off.
“Aura could probably do it, however, remember that outside of a close combat situation it’s not something aura can do. I don’t want you to test it out on me, since I don’t want to spend time clearing my pathways, but I can teach you a way of holding your fists to help direct your aura more.”
“Thran, he’d have to change the form of his aura to do that anyway.”
“He’s been doing it subconsciously while we fight. Why can’t we try and teach him to do it by choice.”
“What do you mean?”
I just used my aura to cover things, the form was the same.
“Now that you can see mana, I’ll show you something more specific.”
I waited a moment and then saw a blade form of mana. There was no physical form but the color of the mana that was in his hand was definitely earth.
“This level of proficiency is not something you’ll see outside of any elemental-kin, but we can use the particles of mana themselves like you use your aura. Using it in this way doesn’t use up the particles themselves, it simply takes control of it momentarily. It’s not as structured as aura is and isn’t sturdy enough on its own to go against any physical weapons, but when fighting hand to hand you can cut through most natural objects.”
That reminded me of the slash I received from the air elemental.
“Now try to make a knife sized blade with your aura.”
“Ohhh I get what you mean.”
Alrick’s comment made me feel like I wasn’t the only one learning, but I didn’t know what part of it he hadn’t understood.
I made the blade no problem. It was the first step of the aura manifestation I had done. I just didn’t need to do it anymore since I simply covered my blade with the aura or my hands.
“Now make a needle but use the same amount of aura you made the knife with.”
My control level of aura amounts was where this probably wouldn’t end up working. I tried to condense it instead of taking it in and it was harder and harder the smaller the blade got.
“That’s enough, I can tell you’re struggling but now we know that’s what you need to work on. Condensing your aura within specific points of space. Once you do that you can create a precision like needle to disrupt the flow of mana in someone else. Aura in that form usually can only interact with mana or aura and not living things. So it won’t hit the person, but it will hit their pathway.”
I was trying to understand what he meant, the amount of information we went over in a short amount of time was more than I could process as quickly as I wanted to. I furrowed my brow trying to think and Alrick put his hand on my shoulder.
“That’s enough theory for now. For the next hour let’s get back to my mana. I’m going to start mixing the colors and I want you to try and distinguish which ones I’m mixing. We’ll see how far you get but you should be able to see my core itself soon after that. You won’t be able to see all of them at once for a while but if we can get you to at least three, you’ll be able to see most people’s cores. And we’ll go back to the pathway interruption stuff after lunch.”
One thing at a time, but the more we talked, the more it felt like I shouldn’t try to learn the sword, and just focus on the martial arts. Losing limbs aside, having to think about so many things made it feel like choosing one would just be easier. I’ll have to ask about that another time though.
I only managed to get two colors before lunch, and it wasn’t too consistent, but Alrick complimented me, nonetheless.
After lunch Alrick and I went to the sparring dummies. Thran had left when he finished his food to set something up so when we got there, I saw what it was. He had made a dummy out of stone, with pathways that were similar to the ones in him. They were carved into the stone and went through points that were more circular, which probably were meant to be the points to target.
“Alright, if you could condense your aura enough, we’d do this with my mana flowing through the pathways but for now I’ll just show you the physical moves you’ll aim for. And then we’ll spar one on one, and you can see how difficult it is to hit them in a real situation.”
I nodded. I let him take my hands and he placed my fingers in such a way that while they were in a fist, my thumb provided support to push my pointer finger up more, so the knuckle stood higher from the others.
“You would then focus that needle thin aura from this point and aim for those points. For now, just practice hitting these points on the dummy.”
I did that for a while and then once he noticed that my form seemed more comfortable, we started sparring. We still went from sword to hand to hand like before but this time the hand to hand was more about me getting one hit on those points. That side of sparring wasn’t as fun as I’d hoped. There was so much thinking involved that I couldn’t just enjoy the fighting.
By the end of the day, I only managed to hit him once. We continued that for four days. On the fourth though I managed to distinguish colors more consistently than before, and I felt more comfortable with the new had position that switching from one to the other was smoother. I still didn’t manage to hit him more than once or twice though. I wasn’t really concentrating on doing it since when I wasn’t thinking as much it was much more fun than it had been.
During breaks, and at meals while eating I was practicing condensing my aura and at night, I worked on clearing my pathways in my head. I didn’t get too far but I managed to clear two more by the fourth day, ones near my ears.
My ears, right there was something I was thinking about a couple days ago. Well, if it came back to me, I’d think about it then.
At dinner on the fourth night, I remembered that I wanted to ask them about, but not the ear thing.
“Why are you still training me on the sword since it seemed like I should focus on Akulai-E?”
“There is a chance at times that you will lack stamina to keep up with using martial arts. Swords require less stamina and depending on the situation you’d feel more confident using one over the other. I think it’s better to give you as many ways to fight and survive than not.”
“But I’m still not great with a sword.”
“Your opponent might not know that. If you fight with a sword and appear weak, they’ll let their guard down and then you can use it against them. There are many ways to fight and beating them with skills alone isn’t always the best way. I know thinking isn’t your strong suit and it takes the fun out of a fight but with this it isn’t something you even need to bother thinking about or planning for.
“Your opponent will make their own assumptions on their own with or without you taking how you come off into consideration. If you carry a sword on your hip, they’ll consider that as your method of fighting and plan accordingly. Just carrying it does, but if you can make your way through enough fights with it, others you’ll get to who may be better will only focus on that and not consider you having other methods.
“It’s a minimal effort strategy within a fight, but you still need to take the time outside of it to train.”
Thran sighed, “if you hate thinking so much, don’t do it. Just trust your teachers and learn what we tell you. Ingrain it as instinct and later when you’re older and maybe want to think more, you can.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Thran went to bed after that, and I sat outside alone for a bit looking up at the sky. It had already been longer than the last time I was here, so I’d probably leave tomorrow. If I won the final this time, I’d be back with Alcoroth and Mezu. The more they talked the more I thought that they were real people. I’d have to talk to Alcoroth about it when I saw him. He’d probably be able to figure it out.
I liked Alrick, I felt comfortable around him even if I couldn’t completely explain why. Maybe it was just the sort of thing about feeling connected to people of a similar race? It was that surface level of comfort that I had felt for most of my party mates. If we spent more time, it may have ended up closer to the level I had with my uncle and with Lukon.
But if he was a real person, would I ever see him again? And if I did, would it be on the same side of the fight or against each other? I couldn’t beat him as I am now, and I don’t know how long it’d be until I’d be able to do it. Even though I was comfortable I still tried to hide my healing ability as best as I could.
I stared ahead of me.
Yeah, it was good I didn’t spend more time with him. Attachments like that make things more difficult. I hope I didn’t see him again.
…
…
Would I even remember him if I did?
…
“What’re you thinking about?”
Alrick sat down next to me. I glanced at him briefly before looking back up at the sky.
“Just tomorrow, what I’ll get when I win, you know.”
“Your sword is already good, so you’ll probably just get new armor suited for your combat style. Maybe some with enchantments. It depends on you are, and then you’ll move on to the next challenge.”
If he was a climber further up in the tower but was limited to what he could say I probably couldn’t just outright ask if he was talking about the other floors. Or I could ask, to test the system’s response.
“I’ve spent so much time on this floor. I honestly don’t know how long I have been here. I’m supposed to be climbing quickly but it doesn’t feel like I am.”
I looked at him and the next words that came out of his mouth were garbled before he froze.
A ding and a banner appeared.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Conversation concerning the tower is restricted, discussing it again will result in a penalty.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The banner disappeared and Alrick unfroze and repeated “What’re you thinking about?”
The system stopped me from asking about it. What a surprise.
“Just about the tournament, I got four days this time do you think it’ll start again tomorrow.”
“They usually get enough people within four days. If we get more time to train, I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”
“Yeah, you’re right. If I leave tomorrow though thanks for your help. You’ve probably gotten me to the point where I can win in the final, so I won’t see you again.”
“It’s good to have confidence, have fun.”
I stood and left him. And he was right, the next morning, before breakfast I was teleported away to the arena for my third and final (hopefully) run.