The lectures continued to get longer until we would spend close to twelve hours in the mental classroom even though only four hours would pass in real time. Then again, my grandfather isn’t a boring teacher, so his lectures aren’t some horrible chores to get through, especially now that I can have a full stomach. Another wall of the classroom in my mind had transformed into a glass wall for more diagrams and key points for my grandfather’s lectures. The room itself would also adapt and change to what we would need. A series of lectures on what the villagers would probably call alchemy or potion brewing transformed the space into a room with several vials and instruments.
Learning about chemistry was fun as nearly every lecture had something explode. After chemistry we returned to discussing biology and how chemicals could be used to kill bacteria and that processes in the body relied on chemical principles to function. My grandfather even taught me math and how it applied to the world around us through the sciences. Honestly, I can’t grasp everything he teaches me, but my grandfather tries his best to instill understanding as he will often review old material especially when he thinks I am bored with new material or found a different subject more interesting.
Before I knew it, I was running through the colorful season of autumn, and each step was accented by the delightful crunch of leaves that form a tapestry on the forest floor. The exercises like my classroom learning didn’t decrease in intensity after my grandfather almost killed me. If anything, the exercises became increasingly strenuous even when my essence was working with my body in harmony. However, my stamina quickly catches up to my grandfather’s tasks, and I take myself to greater extremes every day.
“How many laps have I made?” I ask my grandfather as I run at a near sprint through the trees.
My grandfather yawns within me, “You’re on lap thirty, and it is time to switch to running on your hands. What time is it anyway?”
I jump and flip myself over in a fluid motion and continue my run on my arms, “last I saw the sundial it was approaching evening, not sure which hour though.”
I continue to run upon my hands until the moon is just barely peeking over the ebony cliffs and I beeline for my camp. I push off my hands and land crouching on my feet. The drone of the waterfall my constant companion for the last few months welcomes me back to the place I’ve called my home away from home. I stroll over to the pool and drink water from it, not necessarily because I need it but because it feels nice to have the cold liquid cool my mouth and throat. I have changed a lot since I began training. I had muscles before training, but I lost them during the first two weeks of training where my body shriveled under the task of extreme exercise with no food. I still remember my mother’s face when I returned home for the first time. She thought a skeleton had walked into her home, and nearly didn’t let me leave to return to my training. Now my musculature seems to rival Gareth’s except on a smaller frame.
I flex at myself in the pool of water, enjoying the results of how far I have come. I had been torn down and rebuilt over and over these last few months, but what progress I’ve made physically hasn’t been made equally with soulcraft. I continue to look at my reflection and with my hair as long as it is now, I almost look like a buffer version of my grandfather except with both my eyes intact. I dislike how my hair is always getting in the way and with that thought my hair severs itself to a shorter more manageable length.
“Grandpa, when are you going to teach me soulcraft?” I ask, like I always do around this time of day, “The seasons have changed, and it seems like every time I ask you to teach me you drain my essence from my body and knock me out before responding to me. Thankfully it isn’t as soul racking as the first time you drained me, but I want to learn more. I think, I’m more than capable now.”
I feel the leeching of my essence, but today I’m not just going to have this be my answer. I fight back against the gloves and have my essence run away from their pull leaving my hands empty of my essence’s presence. I refuse to have my grandfather dodge me any longer. My time is running out.
“Finally! I swear boy you put too much trust in me,” says my grandfather’s voice and I hear him clapping only to look down and see my own hands making the sound for him, “I’ve been waiting for you to fight back against me, as I was using that as a marker to continue your training. Granted you were ready about a month ago, but I promised myself not to further your soulcraft training until you demonstrated enough control to at least fight against me. Then again you were able to fully resist, which again perhaps I should have at least dropped a hint in the past.”
“I thought that draining me of essence was a necessary part of training?” I say in disbelief, “that’s why I have not fought against it until now. You said it was to weaken the essence flesh barrier, whatever that is, so I thought it was necessary. If I could have gotten out of convulsing until I black out every night, I would have done this months ago.”
“Again, I apologize for a lack of clarity in my teaching. Also, to answer your question, the essence flesh barrier is something that forms commonly in humans as a secondary measure to keep their souls and essence in their bodies,” explains my grandfather quickly, “The barrier forms when essence not permitted to exit the flesh interacts with the flesh in a way that forms a sort of physiospiritual barrier. For celandil essence keeps the soul inside the body without the barrier and is able to exit and enter the body without resistance. My working theory is this difference was the sort of spiritual evolution that led to the divide between humans and celandil. Though, I do think that with enough training even a human could become a celandil, much like how we are training now.”
“Good to know that you weren’t completely lying to me,” I say my thoughts still stuck on the revelation that I could have just fallen asleep normally and avoided flopping around like a fish on land until my body gives out for months now.
“Okay, let’s make some progress tonight then,” says my grandfather changing the subject, “I think we should celebrate what we have been able to achieve, through a small lesson that will change the rest of your training from this point forward.”
“So, what are we going to do?” I ask excitedly, bouncing my weight from foot to foot warming up my body to ready myself, “are you going to teach me to cast flames from my hands or create a water sword? Ooh, how about teaching me how to levitate objects? Maybe speed growing a carrot?”
“I’ll teach you how to expend essence to do amazing things tonight, within your body!” says my grandfather, and I feel almost disappointed.
“I’ve been kind of doing that for a while now, even without you telling me how to do it,” I say feeling my shoulders shrink, “I mean, I learned I could fill my body with nutrients long ago, and now I use that same logic to fill my stomach whenever it growls at me.”
Without even really thinking my essence responds to my words and my once empty stomach fills itself. I give a little burp and I identify what I filled myself with. Deer meat with fried vegetables, and potatoes and gravy currently reside in my stomach. Whenever I will it, my stomach fills with whatever I crave.
“I know boy, but haven’t you wondered why your strength only seems to increase in accordance with physical limits, where your endurance increases almost exponentially?” my grandfather asks.
“I guess it is a bit odd that I haven’t really been able to run faster, or lift more than what I am physically able,” I say now curious what my grandfather is going to teach.
“You may not have noticed but your soul burns essence to push your physical limits further. I have specifically designed my exercise and teaching regimens to be in sync with the strengthening of your soul, so that the essence expended is equivalent to the essence your soul produces,” explains my grandfather, “This is why you can almost continue exercising perpetually now. However, have you ever thought about pushing your limits? Have you ever wondered that perhaps you could do what you can do over several hours in a second?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever thought those things. All I have noticed is that I have been able to keep up with whatever you sling my way,” I admit looking at my arms and legs and wondering if I’m going to destroy them like I did at the beginning of my training with this next step my grandfather is proposing.
“You are stronger than you think Skath! Your soul has been growing stronger as we have been exercising it through your mental and physical training. Now let’s give you a push to see beyond the physical again and delve into the strength of your soul once more!”
“You aren’t going to almost kill me again are you,” I say nervously, “I mean sure it helped, but dying isn’t exactly pleasant. It took you two weeks to nearly kill me through physical abuse and starvation, I really don’t want to go through something like that again.”
“No! That was a necessary evil to fix some hang ups produced by your father and as long as we train gradually, we should avoid a second near death incident,” says my grandfather somewhat exasperated with my questions, “now, fell that tree by punching it only once.”
“Wait what? You said something about equal and opposite reactions a few days ago, so wouldn’t physics lead to my arm exploding into meaty chunks if I could even come close to producing the forces necessary to punch through a tree?” I ask surprised that my next lesson could lead to self-mutilation.
“Just trust me on this,” says my grandfather taking control of my body and walking me over to a tree whose base was wider than I am, “Also, remember that a celandil’s essence can alter the essence of reality, just because you know the laws of reality doesn’t mean they completely apply. Now start swinging.”
I give a half-hearted swing at the tree and I can see in my mind’s eye my grandfather brings his hand to his face. I walk around the tree and I know that it would take laborious work with an axe just to cut it down. Apparently, the secret is to basically just do several hours of work in a second, I think to myself. How is that even possible?
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Just punch the tree!” yells my grandfather in my skull clearly sick of my hesitation.
“Okay here I go,” I say reeling back my fist and I beg internally that my arm will be safe as healing it up before biceps and triceps day will probably be something my grandfather will expect of me to do. My eyes snap into the misty world of essence, and I move a majority of my essence into my punching arm. I throw my fist forward with all the force I could muster, focusing on almost an image in my mind of me being successful and felling the tree in a single punch.
I hear a massive cracking noise as my fist impacts the tree and I feel as if one of my grandfather’s explosions had gone off in my arm. I feel a burning not in my body but where the essence had pooled in my arm. When my fist finally came to a stop, my arm is completely submerged inside the tree. I pull myself free and I feel the agonizing pounding that I feel every time my grandfather drains me of my essence. I fall forward onto the tree and catch myself with what little energy I still have left in me. I push myself off of the tree’s trunk and examine the tree. A hole the size of my arm was punched straight through it. I looked through the hole in the punched tree and several large splinters had jammed themselves into the trees of the forest behind it.
“I really have been holding off too long,” says my grandfather in surprised shock, “I was expecting you to punch it at a rate where it would shatter the tree in a way it would be felled. I didn’t expect you to punch so quickly that the path of least resistance in the tree was tearing a hole right through it.”
The pounding in my body continues and I feel myself collapse to my knees. My physical body refuses to move, and my attempts to lift myself up with my spirit were fruitless. I keep struggling but in vain.
“Rest boy, you’ve earned it,” says my grandfather giving me a thumbs up in my head, “you’ve learned your first lesson of essence manipulation, though we will have to work on restraint. Just rest, as we have another day of learning and new exercises tomorrow.”
I can only bring myself to grunt in response, as I wait for my soul to stop bounding off the walls of my flesh. I’ve trained for months and all I can pull off is a single punch, which leaves my entire body and soul absolutely helpless. I feel so frustrated that my limit is so pathetic, and what feelings of pride I felt are replaced with disappointment.
I wait until the ripping feeling in my chest finally ceases and I regain the ability to move my body. I look at my arm fully expecting it to be mangled, but not a single scratch mars my flesh. I guess my grandfather was right, even though it makes no sense given all the science he shoves down my throat. I get up from the ground and walk around stretching my body and look at the full moon now at its zenith in the sky. It’s been so long since I have visited Uzuri, Gareth, or even my family.
I hear a rustling in the woods behind me, and I see Gareth emerge from the darkness, behind him I see torch lights. Gareth seems panicked as he quickly approaches me.
“This is where you’ve been,” whispers Gareth looking behind himself, “looks like you’ve been doing well. Uzuri misses you by the way.”
“What’s going on?” I ask looking into the forest, “what are those lights.”
“The boys of the village are bored, and I couldn’t keep making excuses about not hunting you down and giving them their favorite pastime,” says Gareth looking into the woods again, “I’ve been trying to keep them away from you, as your mother said you were out here doing something important. She is a terrifying woman by the way. That’s beside the point, you need to run…”
“You found him Gareth!” yells a boy carrying a torch and I note that his nose is a bit crooked, “it is finally time to teach this whelp where he belongs! Between the teeth of Martog!”
The boy yells for the others and Gareth and I are quickly surrounded by boys with sharpened sticks. I see Gareth look around himself and his eyes glaze over in a glare. He mouths an apology to me and turns to face his friends.
“This whore’s shit will be reminded of his place!” shouts Gareth to the praise of his lackeys.
“He’s been spoiled for far too long, with you being so busy. Ram a fist into his gut and make him hack blood,” yells a boy carrying a sharpened stick, “He can’t escape. Not without being skewered.”
The gang of boys laugh at this comment and begin to thrust their spears in a rhythmic fashion into the ground, to create a sort of drumbeat. I’m surrounded and there is no escape. Then again, this has happened so many times in my life that I no longer feel fear being surrounded by spears and torchlight. I brace myself and nod at Gareth. I hear the boys jeer and call me all names I have heard hundreds of times before, only to smirk knowing that to a certain extent some of their names hold more truth than they once did.
I can’t help myself, but I begin to laugh loudly as now I’m exactly what they fear. I’m a warlock, a lich, an alchemist, a wizard, a celandil. The boys take a few steps back their eyes wide and terrified. I can’t help but feel that this whole situation is ridiculous. However, though I am stronger than I was before, maybe even strong enough to stand up to Gareth, I have my oath to keep.
Suddenly my grandfather pops into my mind again, “let me take control to begin. I have a few things to show you. You may not be fully recovered, but I’ll show you the meaning of restraint.”
I feel a sort of tingle throughout the entirety of my body, and I am possessed by my grandfather. My eyes forcefully shift to the world of mist. Gareth appears to be much like the specter me I dealt with the day I almost died, as his image though made of the mist is extremely defined, but the difference between him and the specter was I could see his soul glimmering inside him. All the boys appeared like this to my eyes. I know my grandfather knows the intents of my heart and won’t do anything I regret, or at least I hope so.
My body assumes a fighting position that I knew my grandfather must have learned from his time in the celandil military. I find myself bouncing on my feet to keep myself light and nimble. Despite the confidence of my movements, I grow nervous and try to resist my grandfather, as I do not wish to fight.
“Don’t worry Skath, we will not hurt the boy. I wish to show you the fruit of our training is all,” says my grandfather within my thoughts, and I relent and let him have complete control of my body.
“What are you doing Skath,” whispers Gareth surprised that it appears that I am going to fight back and beams accepting my apparent challenge.
I used to fight back against the beatings but eventually learned that it was faster just to let him beat me unconscious without resisting. Though I don’t hate Gareth for these beatings, in fact I kind of thank him for introducing me to what I consider my future. To help soothe my wounds as I waited for my body to heal itself, I began to learn how to heal by learning the healers craft from my mother and teaching myself after her limited expertise expired. I learned how to care for my wounds, and in learning all I could about medicinal plants and their preparations from listening to their essence, I wanted to be a healer not just for myself, but for others as well. I would eventually swear to Uzuri that I wouldn’t harm another, a sort of healer’s oath which I hope to keep.
Gareth swings and the world around us slows around me. A burning sensation fills my head, and I hear Gareth’s voice, “heavy blow to the face to disorient him, then haymaker to his gut as he recovers from the first punch.”
“You hear him don’t you,” says my grandfather now appearing as a hazy ghost walking amidst the crowd of boys, “now that I’ve trained your mind to perceive time at different rates, you can listen to the boy’s soul at your leisure and make drawn out yet split moment decisions.”
I try to move but my body seems to move as slowly as Gareth is and his fist is slowly approaching my face. I try to force my body to move faster but I can’t. It’s like I’m walking through a river when the current is strong.
“Remember, it is only your mind that has been trained to perceive time like this. Your body is still tied to time as it is. Though if you were to somehow move faster than you can physically, perhaps you could move out of the way. Abandon the physical and move with the spiritual,” instructs my grandfather as he tries to demonstrate the movement I should replicate by playfully shadow boxing with one of the boys encircling me.
I feel my grandfather take control of my body and though I am still moving slowly I begin to move much faster than before. Gareth’s fist grazes my cheek as I dodge his fist.
“Let’s mix things up,” says my grandfather with a chuckle.
Time began to slow and speed up around me. Every time Gareth would launch a new attack, time would slow long enough for my grandfather and I to listen to his soul and predict his next attack and then my grandfather would begin the motion to dodge out of Gareth’s range and time would speed up. Every time I felt my body quicken or time slow the burning sensation in my mind and body would return, and my soul felt less and less still within me.
“You see,” says my grandfather as he puppets my body out of each swing, “you do not need to constantly slow your perception of time, nor do you need to constantly force your body to move faster, as that burns essence quickly. If you learn to use exactly what you need, then you can expend essence slowly much like your marathon sprints. In addition, if you can find the sweet point of essence expenditure to production you can train your soul to produce essence more rapidly. Therefore, you can eventually learn to constantly use soulcraft without worrying about accidentally using all the essence in your body and releasing your soul from the mortal coil.”
Gareth continues his assault and my grandfather’s control became less and less as I learned the rhythms of slowing time, prepping my dodge, and then executing it in real time. It was strange to feel like nothing could touch me and then during one of Gareth’s more desperate punches I felt something slip. I felt my soul begin to bound off my flesh, and time no longer slowed for me, nor did my body dodge as fast. I was all at once tossed to Gareth’s onslaught and my body was beginning to betray me.
The boys that once watched in stunned silence returned to their boisterous cheers and name calling. Gareth noticing that something was different now, slowed his assault and changed tactics. He wound up a large punch and jammed it into my gut. I was expecting to have all the air knocked out of me, but he pulled his punch.
“Go down, and I’ll lead them away from here,” whispers Gareth as he pulls his fist from my gut, and then launches an obviously aimed punch toward my face. I act like I’m hit turning my face at the last second to only receive a glancing blow and fall to the ground. The crowd cheers and Gareth calls for them to follow him.
Some of the boys jab the butts of their spears into my back as they pass me, but they seem to be satisfied with what they have seen. I watch as their torches disappear into the forest from where I am on the ground. I strain against my body, but it refuses to move. The ricocheting tearing in my chest takes a long while to calm itself, and only when it is calm my limbs begin to listen to me again.
“If you had actually thrown a punch you could have taken him down,” says my grandfather offering me a ghostly hand, which my hand phases through as I attempt to accept my grandfather’s help, “who knows if you hadn’t been recovering from that unwieldy punch you could have kept that up until that monster of a boy tired.”
“I didn’t want to swing back, knowing what happened to the tree,” I say knowing that my grandfather must know the real reason I didn’t fight back. I try to get up to my feet, but I stumble and decide it’s probably best to sit instead, “Why does my body just give out when I begin to run low on essence to use?”
“You don’t know how to identify your limits, and sometimes you rely on your soul a little too much,” says my grandfather taking a seat next to me, “When you are using soulcraft heavily I’ve noticed you tend to let your soul take full control of your body. Which once your essence becomes limited what once was moving your body begins to prioritize keeping your soul in your body; thus, your body collapses. Funnily enough you have the exact opposite problem from where we started. You are now losing touch with your physical body.”
“Any advice on how to fix this,” I say with a frustrated sigh as my body now moves freely again now that I know what my problem is.
“Learn to control your essence separate from your body. I know we had to sort of unify the two to begin training, but now we need your body and soul to operate in their own spheres,” says my grandfather, “I needed you to train your body and spirit, which kind of required us to use a stopgap method. Now that we have reached the full potential of the stopgap, we can truly begin to train.”