Chapter 7

Theo was troubled as he made his way to the pond. The scene in the Grove playing over and over in his mind. The anger he had felt flow through him as Smith stepped on the flowers confused him. He didn’t understand why it had angered him to such a degree. He was sure it wasn’t just an excuse he used to start something with Smith either. He had felt genuinely angry.

It almost felt like someone else was channeling their anger through me. But that doesn’t make sense either, how could I feel someone else’s emotions like that? I’m not an empath, and I’ve never felt something similar with any of this group while I was around them.

He arrived at the pond and sat to take the bandaging off his legs. I know she said the poultice would be fine in the water, but I don’t want to waste their supplies. Who knows how long that woman will be unconscious for. Unfortunately he was filthy and wanted to wash off.

Wading into the stream his mind was brought back to the anger he had felt.

Now was that anger another instinctual response of this body? I mean I’ve definitely noticed changes from when I was on earth. For one I was never so calm under stress previously. There was no way I would have been able to rush in front of a freaking lynx back on earth. But while I didn’t quite realize I had done it at first it wasn’t like I felt fear while fighting the beast.

Actually bringing the fight with the Silver-toed Lynx into his mind caused a different emotion to bloom within his chest. Is this excitement? The idea of challenging another one of those Lynx is exciting to me. The realization startled him. Back on earth while he had trained in boxing for a while he never truly enjoyed the fights themselves. But now he couldn’t deny that the idea of a hard fought battle sounded… fun.

Wading out of the water, Theo put his shorts back on and headed toward the Grove. Thinking about the fight with the Lynx made him remember another aspect of that fight. When he had first engaged with the Beast, a fiery sensation had passed through his legs before he traveled a dozen meters in the blink of an eye.

He had never felt a sensation like that before. That had to be magic, there’s no other explanation for it. Now the only question is, can I reproduce it? He vowed that he would learn to control whatever it was.

Arriving back in the Grove he found that the entire party was gathered together. Deciding to not bother them he sat under the Grove Tree and tried to recall the fiery sensation. He sat there for a couple of minutes, mind clear thinking back to the fight. A surprised gasp escaped him as he felt the familiar sensation bloom within his body. He felt it spreading out from his chest to envelop his entire being.

He saw a bird way off in the distance and the desire to get a better look at it bloomed within him. As if in response to this, his senses seemed to blossom as the energy enveloped him. His hearing became more acute, his sense of smell heightened, his eyesight clearer. He felt as if he could differentiate the touch of each individual piece of grass below him. The energy in his body swarmed towards his eyes, and his eyesight zoomed as if he was looking through a pair of binoculars.

It was a glorious looking bird of prey. The feathers were reddish brown. Its tail tipped with bright red, while its face and chest had spots of white. The bird sported viciously sharp looking talons and a beak that he had a feeling would tear flesh from bone with resistance. Its eyes were a deep brown with hints of red. The large pupils looked as if they could see everything. Theo got the distinct impression that it had made eye contact with him. He saw a faint translucent image of the hawk interpose over itself. He focused on it and all of a sudden his vision changed.

The hawk was now a translucent bold red color with fuzzy vein-like lines running throughout its body. Masses of the veins were centered in the animal’s head and chest. His vision panned out now and he could see the different colors coming from everything. Trees were a deep brown, the sky a grayish color, he could see animals that were miles away. Some were red like the bird of prey, others green, purple, or blue. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the party he was currently with. All of them were gray like the sky. However, They all had the veins running through their bodies, same as the bird of prey. Some being more distinct than others

He heard a sound off in this distance and the energy flocked towards his ears. His hearing expanded, he could hear the flap of wings as the bird of prey soared through the sky. He could hear running water from a stream that was miles away. He could hear the contraction of muscle as one of the party members made their way around the Grove. Faintly he heard the sounds of battle. Interest piqued; he wished to hear it better and the energy responded. More of it flocked to his head, then things went terribly wrong. All of a sudden he was sunk into darkness as his hearing grew to even greater heights.

“What the hell!?” he exclaimed in surprise.

The energy continued to grow, and Theo heard the wind pick up around him. He felt as if he was full of the energy, full to the brim, but the energy continued to grow still. Pain shot through his chest and out to his limbs as a groan escaped him. The wind around him picking up into a gale.

“Release it you fool!” He heard an indistinct voice yell.

“H-How?” He gasped.

“How!? Shit! Hold the image in your head of all the energy dissipating out through your skin.”

Theo could feel something touch his back and some of the energy start to be siphoned out of his body. He held the image in his head and more of the energy began to leave his body. The pain lessened quickly, and as the energy reduced so did his senses. His smell and touch both returned to normal. His eyes, instead of returning to normal sight, remained with the darkness. His ears heard more than before but not as much as when the energy filled him. He could hear the breath of whoever had talked to him. He could hear the swishing and rubbing of the clothes of those nearby as they walked over to see what the commotion was about.

“I… I can’t see!” panic grabbed him, his breath beginning to quicken.

“Calm down! Tch, quickly tell me what happened!” Theo could now tell it was an older man’s voice.

Theo took deep controlled breaths trying to quell the panic that was rising within his chest. He brought his hands to his chest then down to the ground around him.

“I was trying to recreate a fiery sensation that I had felt when fighting off the Lynx. I was successfully able to do so and while the energy was running through my body I saw a bird off in the distance. The energy reacted and I was able to see the thing up close. Then I heard a noise off in the distance and the energy reacted again, enhancing my hearing. With the enhanced hearing I heard faint sounds of battle and once again the energy reacted allowing me to hear it. That was when my vision cut off.”

“Shit, this is why you don’t mess with unbound mana! You need a Healer or a Priest. But we’ll never make it in time.”

“There may be another way.” A woman’s voice cut in.

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“What do you mean another way, Trish?” The older man asked.

“In ancient times they would use unbound magic to try and heal incurable diseases. Theo you need to reopen to the Mana. Let it fill you, but this time you must will the Mana to return you to normal.”

“Trish that’s insane, he may just end up doing more damage to himself. He doesn’t even know what mana is!”

“No it can work! All the mana hasn't left him so it still has the memory of what just occurred. As long as he strictly wills it to undo what was done then it should be safe. It won't entirely be like using Unbound mana! Markus you act as a safeguard and help him regulate the amount of mana in his system.”

“That’s insanity Trish! He’s more likely to hurt himself or his surroundings than fix anything!”

“No, it can definitely work! Just remember Theo, you must bind the mana to your will and limit the amount that flows through you. Clearly think of what you desire the mana to do and it will follow. You want it to return you to your previous state. Keep that desire firmly in your mind.”

Theo hadn’t fully followed their conversation. He did understand however, that there was a way to fix his vision, and he was willing to take whatever the risks were to do so.

He nodded his head in the direction he had heard them. “Let’s do it.”

Theo recalled the sensation of the energy filling him and instantly, almost as if the energy was eager, it returned to him. He panicked as more and more energy filled him. Terror reared its head as the energy didn’t appear to be slowing. He felt a hand press against his back, same as before, and all of a sudden some of the energy was being pulled out of him through his back.

“Impulsive brat!”

“Good, now imagine the changes that occurred but in reverse.” Trish added.

Theo clearly remembered all the sensations of his enhanced senses. He first brought his desire for enhanced hearing to the forefront of his mind. The energy jumped at his call and filled his head and ears. He could once again hear the sound of the stream from miles away. Instead of battle, he heard the chomping of jaws as something ate its hard earned meal.

He recalled how the energy had flowed from his eyes to his ears, and reversed the flow in his head. He desired for the enhanced vision he had used to view the hawk. Slowly light began to return to his eyes. His vision started blurry before sharpening to an extent he had only ever experienced once before. He could see the individual leaves of trees from hundreds of meters away. The level of clarity with which he could see amazed him. A small part of himself wondered why he had to give up this level of vision. He quickly stomped down on that part of himself, and focused his entire being on returning his senses to normal.

His hearing was the first to be reduced. He no longer heard the stream. Then the breath of those around him was lost, until all he could hear was the chirping of birds just outside the Grove. Next was his vision, slowly objects in the distance become blurrier and blurrier. He no longer saw the individual tree leafs, then he barely saw the individual branches of those distant trees. Finally his vision also returned to normal.

“It… it worked!”

“Now, same as before, remove all the mana from your body” Trish instructed.

Holding the same image in his head as he had the previous time the energy slowly, almost reluctantly, left him.

“Incredible, it truly worked?” Markus asked. His voice filled with wonder.

Theo nodded his head “Yes, I believe so at least. Everything appears to be back to normal.”

“Oh thank the Goddess.” Trish slumped over as she took in a deep breath. “Well good, but you better realize that you were incredibly lucky Theo. I really wasn’t sure that would work. You could have been blinded for the rest of your life.”

“Indeed, you must never use Unbound Mana again! Not just to protect yourself, but also those around you.”

Theo nodded his head at them. “Yes I can agree with that. That was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life.”

All three of them sat in silence for a couple of minutes taking in the situation that had just occurred.

“Now if I can ask, what exactly is the safe way to utilize… mana?” Theo asked “How was I able to use it safely previously against the Lynx but just now it caused so much trouble?”

“Well the first rule to safe use of Magic, which is the art of using mana, is that you must control the amount of mana that you utilize. The more mana you utilize the more dangerous. As Trish said earlier, mana reacts to our desires, and thus will do what it can to accomplish those desires. The more mana you are utilizing the more drastic things mana can do to accomplish your desire.”

“Exactly,” Trish added next. “With this case with your vision and hearing you were utilizing an immense amount of mana, so when your desire for enhanced hearing happened, the mana reacted to accomplish it. The larger the desire that you want to accomplish the larger the cost. Sometimes that cost is purely the amount of mana and mental energy needed to complete the desire. But in this case the desire you had was larger than what could be accomplished with mana itself...”

“So the mana used my vision as the cost for increasing my hearing?” Theo finished for her. I wonder how that works, does it rewire the brain so that the visual system was instead used for the auditory system?

“Then in the case with the Lynx, I utilized a smaller amount of mana and my desire was to intercept that Lynx before it could attack you. So mana accomplished that by increasing the power of my legs...”

“Yes, but there was another key difference. When you used mana against the Lynx you didn’t allow it to fill you first then set your desire correct?” Markus asked.

Theo nodded “yeah, I simply wanted to make it in time to intercept the Lynx.”

“Exactly, you brought the mana in with a clear desire of what it was to do. Once it accomplished that, it then left your system. You’ve also likely noticed that your legs are quite sore right?” Theo nodded in response. “That’s because you moved at a rate that your body was unaccustomed to. You’ll need to train while utilizing mana if you don’t want to have something worse happen, especially during a fight.”

At that moment a large yawn escaped Theo.

“Okay let's call it there. Both of you are injured and need to rest.” Trish cut in.

The two then got up and headed back to the makeshift field hospital that had been set up. Theo leaned back against the Grove Tree and was asleep in seconds.