Kai, Thane and Nixie sat down on the floor of their training room.

“Ok, yesterday we talked about what we were going to do for your training. Today we are going to continue that.” Thane said as he started to explain Kai’s training. “We are going to start on your mana control training. You have already started to take control of your mana. Now I want you to close your eyes and attempt to feel the small amounts of mana that naturally resides in your body.”

Kai nodded before closing his eyes. Kai reached inside of himself feeling out his body. Kai started to explore his body. He could vaguely make out his body and anything exact was impossible for him to make out. Kai focused on feeling out what he could.. Slowly things came into focus and he was able to start making out different parts of his body. While he wasn’t able to differentiate between most of his organs and flesh, only having a vague notion of what he was feeling. He was able to fairly clearly see his blood vessels and bones. After some examination he was able to make out some of the blood mana that seemed to always reside inside of his blood. It was constantly pumping through him, empowering, cleaning and powering his body.

Studying his bones Kai learned something that he had been vaguely aware of previously but hadn’t understood the full extent of. His bones were no longer bone or at least not entirely. They were now made up of the same kind of death metal. Studying the metal Kai got the vague feeling that something had been left behind for him. He simply needed to reach out and take it. Kai didn’t reach out. He knew that now wasn’t the time to start investigating whatever that was.

After some more looking around and trying to get a better sense of his body. Ka decided it was time to use his eye. Allowing mana to flow into his eyes Kai focused the enhancement on his magical senses. Kai could feel mana flowing through his body and into his eyes. Kai’s body came into sudden clarity. It wasn’t perfect but it was fairly good. Kai was able to make out the different parts of his body and was able to make a bit of mana that he had not previously seen. Kai continued getting a feel for his body before finally opening his eyes.

Thane and Nixie were sitting in front of him quietly conversing with each other.

Thane smiled at Kai upon seeing his eyes open. “So how did it go?” Thane asked him.

Kai explained what he had seen and the different methods he had employed to be able to see his body. Only leaving out what he had seen going on with his bones

Thane nodded along with Kai’s explanation. “Even without using your eyes you were able to see more than I had expected but that isn’t really surprising.” Thane siad. “You should have a good enough understanding of your body for us to start this next bit of training.”

Thane nodded over at Sarah prompting her to move over besides Kai and lay her hand on his arm.

As she was doing this Thane started to explain the next part of the training. “When you control your mana do you use the image of a hand or something similar to control your mana?” Thane asked.

Kai nodded.

“That’s what I figured. Most people will use a hand since it’s most familiar and is instinctively easy to use.” Thane’s eye pierced into Kai's to make sure his words got across. “But, this is extremely inefficient. Mana when in your body acts like some kind of mix between air and water. This makes it extremely difficult to control when you use that kind of method. What you should instead do is try and shape your mana into something that aligns with your affinity. This will give it a familiar shape and give it extra strength since it will now be more than just raw mana. For your lightning affinity you should try and make a bolt of lightning with arcs branching off of it. For the fire affinity wrap a small inferno around the bolt. Though for now it would be best to leave your blood affinity alone. Like I have said before, while there is nothing wrong with the affinity. It has a bad reputation because the people of this empire are constantly fighting against people with it.” Thane said to Kai.

Kai nodded at his words and closed his eyes. Kai focused inwards. Kai reached out but this time it wasn’t with a hand. It would almost be more accurate to call it a blanket but that wasn’t completely correct either. Flaring his eye Kai was able to get a better feel for the magic involved. He wrapped the almost blanket around some of his mana. It integrated itself into the mana. Kai shaped the mana changing a large part of it into lighting and the rest into fire mana. After the mana was changed Kai finished shaping the mana into a many pronged bolt of lightning wreathed in flickering fire. After Kai had formed it once he let it break apart. Gathering some more mana together he recreated the bolt again.

After doing this a few times Kai opened his eyes and looked at Thane “Now what?”

Thane raised an eyebrow. “You can do it already?” He asked.

Kai nodded. “It takes a moment but yeah.”

Thane blacked in surprise. “Well you picked that up quicker than I expected.” Thane said. “Ok since you can do that for the next training we are going to be killing two birds with one stone. There are spells out there that were made to negatively affect someone. Your mana will naturally fight them off but it’s inefficient. Unless there is a large power difference between the two and if there is generally it won’t matter how easily you fight off the spell. So for your training me and Nixie are going to take turns using part of a spell to get our mana inside you. At first the mana will be in the spot where we are touching you and fairly easy to find. As you get better we will hide the mana in random places in your body. This method will allow you to gain better control of your mana while also learning how to deal with foreign mana.” Thane said. “So are you ready.”

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Kai closed his eyes and created a bolt of fire wreathed lightning. Kai sent the bolt shooting throughout his body before opening his eye and nodding in assent.

Kai felt a strange invasive sensation of cool water invading his arm. Before Kai could even start creating the bolt of lightning his mana lashed out. Almost all of his mana instantly lashed out destroying the mana that had started to seep into his arm and sending small crack-like cuts through his arm.

Nixie’s hand jerked back small sparks of lightning leaping across her fingers. Nixie examined her hand and then Kai’s arm before casting a spell to heal him. “Cooling waters flow into the flesh. Soothe wounds and restore the body.” Water mana flowed out of Nixie and into Kai knitting flesh back together.

“When foreign mana enters the body with the purpose of harm, your mana will naturally react to protect you. Its response is generally difficult but possible to restrain and very rarely leaves any kind of mark.” Nixie said as she examined Kai’s arm. “This kind of response is unusual and this level of injury is unexpected but easy enough to deal with. Now that you know what is coming you can work on restraining your mana. Once you can successfully restrain your mana then you can slowly start to take full control of it.” Nixie looked into Kai’s eye from where she was examining his arm. “Just remember that you can always stop if you need a break or choose that this isn’t what you want.” Her voice was full of care and Kai knew that there would be absolutely no judgment either way.

“I want to continue.” Kai said. “I want to take control of my future. I want the strength to never have to go through what I have gone through again and the strength to never lose someone again.” Kai’s voice was quiet but full of resolve. “ But what about you? Didn’t that hurt, I don’t want to hurt you.”

Nixie smiled warmly at Kai. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. Your mana wasn’t able to travel too far into me. It only felt slightly tingly.” Nixie told Kai. “We can continue whenever you want.”

Kai nodded to her. “Again.” This time his words were hard and full of resolve ready to take any chance to seize his fate.

Nixie’s mana gently flowed into Kai’s arm. Yet again Kai’s mana lashed out with explosive force destroying the invading man. Kai reacted to late restrain the mana but he managed to mitigate the damage done to his arm. Glancing down at his arm Kai saw that the damage done was slightly less than it had been the last time.

Nixie nodded in approval. “Good job, take it slowly one step at a time until you have mastered your magic.” With that Nixie healed Kai up and they went back to training.

Nixie’s cool mana flowed into Kai. Kai’s mana lashed out in an explosion of power. Kai grabbed onto it like a cowboy holding onto a bucking bull. His efforts to stop the mana were almost completely ineffective. Almost, Kai barely managed to hold back a small portion of the mana resulting in a slightly smaller injury than the first one.

Nixie nodded at Kai as she healed up his arm. “Good now we just gotta do that until you have full control of your mana.

***

A couple hours later Kai trudged his way up the stairs and into his room. He was completely exhausted and his body was covered in sweat. Opening up the door Kai found the tub of hot water that Sarah had promised him would be ready when he went up.

Kai collapsed into the hot water after having taken off his clothes. Kai used the soap he had been provided to wash off all of the sweat covering his body. Leaning his head back against the rim of the tub Kai smiled to himself. It might have been exhausting and he had pushed himself further than the others had wanted him to. He was happy slowly but surely he was making his way towards one day being strong.

Reaching his hand out into the air one finger extended Kai tried something. Focusing Kai directed mana into his finger and then started dragging it down through the air. Nothing happened so Kai tried again. Yet again nothing, finally on the 6th attempt Kai saw a small flash of light blue light.

Kai couldn’t help but smile. The others might not know anything about runic magic but that didn’t mean that Kai couldn’t start learning how to use it on his own. Kai spent the next half hour attempting teaching himself how to create runes. His progress was slow and he didn’t manage to make anything even close to the lines that he had seen Arthaya make.

After resting in the hot water for half an hour Kai finally got up, got changed and sat down on his bed to finally start reading the book that Athena had given him. As Kai read he did some minor mana control practice by sending mana to his eyes. Kai found that he was able to read and understand the book surprisingly fast.

The book was about a talented warrior with a fairly impressive fire affinity supported by a less impressive wood affinity. While the story took place in some war and was a history book Kai found that it read more like a fantasy book. Kai found a strange sense of enjoyment from reading the book. That he hadn’t ever felt.

Eventually Kai went downstairs and ate with the others. As always Kai enjoyed the meal, while he never talked all that much the others were always loud and boisterous. Kai found enjoyment in the simple company of people he considered family. Eventually Kai and Sarah went back to their room, they were both laying on their beds when Kai asked her a question.

“Sarah, do you guys plan on staying here long?” Kai asked.

“No at most only a couple months if that.” Sarah said in response. “Why do you ask?”

“Well I was wondering if we could visit Amberhill. I’m curious what happened there.”

“Of course we can go there.” Sarah said. “It’s not too far away from here so we won’t have to go far.”

“Ok,” Kai said. “Goodnight Sarah.” With that Kai fell into the comforting black of dreamless sleep.