“Rohmat permeates everything. It’s the basis of all that exists. It’s the minimal expression of existence, the very energy, or rather, the soul of the world. Well, I guess how you end up viewing it depends on the school of thought that you decide to follow, but that’s besides the point. The ground, the sky, the rivers... rohmat is everywhere.” Denizan explained to a serious and attentive Helion. His son was sitting cross-legged in the grass of their training grounds, at the foot of a hill, on the river bank, so close to their home that they could see the house from there.

He had taken almost a week before starting the training to fix the damages to the house and the garden, inform mayor Thonkson about the death of the monster responsible for the trails of destruction along the east forest of the valley, as well as to let Helion rest from the experience. Denizan wondered what the child was really thinking about sometimes. He had not complained a single time about the delay and instead had insisted on helping him with the repairs and cleaning. As his father, he had been rather apprehensible of letting him clean the blood, but he showed incredible mental resilience in the task.

Denizan couldn’t avoid feeling rather proud if maybe a little worried about the boy. Perhaps it was just a way of dealing with the trauma, him trying to feel useful in any way. The Wielder knew the twisted paths a mind that stayed too idle after a loss could wander to. He had seen it far too many times during the Rebel Province War, lost too many companions that way. It was better to let the boy deal with his feelings at his own pace. A body with its energy spent had little chance of staying awake in the night with the sole company of dark thoughts.

For that reason, he felt that the few days before the training had been good to help the boy vent his initial feelings. Now he was really ready to start, or at least that was his hope. The whole father business was way harder that he had ever imagined it would be.

“Now, I could go on and on about theoretical fundaments of rohmat channeling, but I’ve always been a believer in practical demonstrations. So watch this.” Helion watched intensely as his father raised his hands toward the river. The air trembled slightly around the Wielder, his dark blue hunter long coat floated softly, reflecting on it the patterns of light in a surface of water although he was several meters away from it. “I’m channeling rohmat right now. What do you think of that?” He asked, pretty proud of his display.

“I can’t see anything, dad. Just your coat moving.” Helion responded deadpan and disappointedly.

“Right! Of course. I forgot that Unarmed can’t normally see rohmat. Here, let me make it visible for you” Closing his eyes momentarily, Denizan focused his rohmat enough that anyone, even a coreless Unarmed like Helion, could see what was actually happening around him.

Around the Wielder, waving rings of light danced in rhythm, up and down, surrounding him. A current of blueish energy syphoned from the softly running waters of the river and a brighter white from the sky above him where the midday sun shined majestically, weaved together into the dancing braids of power called by his will. Rohmat.

The boy opened his eyes wide, his mouth agape and his body forward. “How are you doing that? You never showed me before! Is that why you are always moving with the weird poses by the river every night? I thought it was some sort of secret training!”

“Well, it is training in a way. A Wielder must always train and channel rohmat whenever possible. While it may be an infinite resource in nature, it is rather finite inside us. Let me show you what I mean” Denizan focused on some of the rings of rohmat, letting the rest surrounding him, and willed them to go inside his core. Making sure that Helion could see, he let go of all restraints and pulled his core out. A floating sphere of light, no bigger than a small child’s fist, came out floating of his chest, a little over the solar plexus and right of the heart. The center of his being, his soul, all that he was and ever could be. A pure essence of power, concentrated, refined and trained for decades. His Core.

He flinched under the strain of getting his Core materialized out of the safety of his body. It had been quite a long time since the last time he had done it, after all. But it was worth it. Helion needed to understand.

Surrounding the sphere were drops of matter, shining and liquid. Three different colored liquid substances, reflective and dense, shifting from physical to translucent, as if fighting against their forceful exposure. He was making the extra effort of letting the center of the Core in display, separating its layers so the boy could see every part. It felt like making an anatomic dissection of his own body while awake, and it hurt almost as much.

He gulped and ignored the pain. This was nothing compared to what his heart had felt the past days. Even less to what Helion was feeling, no matter how much of a brave face he put on. He may not be the greatest teacher, nor have the most ample of knowledge, but Denizan was gonna make sure that his son got every detail possible that he could show him.

“This is my Core. Every Wielder has one, and its creation is the first step to becoming one and one of the requisites to earn the right to hear the Emperor’s Word. It is rohmat, focused and shaped, channeled though my body, contained by my will and keeper of my soul, which, yes, is actually inside it as you may venture I’m implying.”

He moved the sphere closer to Helion down the ground level so he could see better. The child moved a finger to touch the shining Core, but his father stopped him immediately. “Stop.” The boy pulled his hand down, looking at his father confused. “A Core is a manifestation of everything a person is. Touching another’s Core is equivalent to touching their souls, more even, as it is an accumulation of everything they have endured to reach the point they are at. You won’t normally see a Core like this, if ever. It will be safely guarded inside the body, ethereal even if some opened up the torso. What I’m doing right now is the most dangerous thing a Wielder can ever do. Care to try to answer why?” He left the question hanging in the air, but his boy only needed a few moments to think about it, straight as an arrow.

“It’s your source of power, but that means it’s also where you are vulnerable,” Helion frowned at his own words, perhaps disappointed that Wielders had such an obvious weak point. “If anyone were to attack it right now, they could hurt you real bad”

“Close, but no. If someone were to attack it right now, I would die Helion.” Denizan was the no bullshit type of man, so he gave the clearest lesson possible. The expression of surprise and then fear in Helion’s face assured the Wielder that he had understood the lesson. What he was doing was profoundly stupid.

“I don’t want you to die! Please, stop!” The boy almost got up from the ground, but Denizan commanded him to stop with a hand.

“You understand now that a Core is a fragile thing. By making one’s soul into a point of focus around which rohmat can gather and concentrate, Wielders create a weak point in themselves that the Unarmed, or any normal non-Wielder human, don’t naturally have. The soul is not something that human hands can touch unless willed itself to exist by our foolish pursue of power. Do you understand?” The child nodded, waiting for him to continue the demonstration. “Right now, my Core is completely exposed, unguarded and unprotected in any way. Even a punch from you would probably damage it enough that it would take me a very long time to recover, if ever from the fractures the impact would create in it. Having my Core out and manifested like this hurts quite a lot. It’s not an amount of pain I can’t endure, but it hurts nonetheless. It’s not something to play with and not something you should ever do without an excellent reason. Good? Good. Now, let’s see how a Core can be protected.”

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Denizan moved a hand and one of the tears of liquid floating around the Core expanded rapidly, like a mantle of oil that enveloped the ball of light. His son barely managed to keep silence, fearing for his father’s life after his explanation, but he trusted his teacher. Good boy.

The substance quickly covered the entire sphere until the last ray of light died out. Now the Core looked like a big dirty yellowish gray metallic marble, an aura of energy trembling around it with the other two droplets orbiting it like moons around a planet. The texture of the Core wasn’t completely smooth, but rough and slightly uneven.

“This is my Iron layer. The first layer that a Wielder creates to protect their Core. The physical show of a Wielder’s interiorized Skills and proof that they have been truly tested and accepted by the Emperor’s Word. It isn’t until you manifest this starting layer that you are acknowledged as a Wielder initiate at all. Those that reach this point are usually known as Irons. It isn’t really metal, as you may be wondering, it’s just called like that because of how it looks. Or so I’ve been told anyway.” He shrugged, taking away importance from the matter. “You could discuss the philosophical implications of having metal looking material around your soul with a Wordkeeper if you wish, but I’m a very practical man so I’d rather stay on the task at hand.” He moved his hand again, extending his will again to reassemble the other layers. “Next is the Bronze layer.” The drop of orange brown enveloped the Iron layered Core, gulping it down like a voracious beast until there was no sight of the gray anymore. Now it looked almost twice as big as before, like a baby’s head. There were some small green marks here and there in this layer, like signs of past wounds now scarred as corrosion. Denizan couldn’t avoid flinching in pain at the sight. Some things could never be forgotten.

“What is that? The green things?” Helion asked, curious but worried.

“Those are marks of Rust.” He suppressed a shudder at the memories. The screams. His face, haunting him to this day.

“I can’t do it anymore Denizan,” echoed the voices of the past. “I want to give in. I don’t want to fight anymore. You could join me too. All of us. Embrace his howling...”

The Wielder shook his head to push away the darkness. He was gone. He died in the trenches south of Miorzaris. All of them did. Ghosts can only haunt you if you let them in.

“Dad?” The concerned voice of his son took him back to reality, far from battlefields filled with the cries of the dead. And the howls that came after from those not as lucky.

“It’s a little difficult to talk about, Helion. Someday I’ll tell you about it. I promise. For now, you need to know that Rust is a form of Decay rohmat. The most common, in fact. And Decay rohmat is extremely bad for you. These are the wounds left behind after it hurt me, before you were born. It didn’t pierce through the layer, but it was close. The damage used to be much greater, but I’ve gotten better after these years.” Not without too much rest in the safety of the valley, he thought bitterly.

“What’s Decay rohmat? Isn’t rohmat all the same?” The question took him a little by surprise. How could he have forgotten? He really was a lousy teacher if he could slip up with such basics.

“I’ll explain in a moment. Let me finish this up.” Another hand movement and the last drop, the gray white of his Silver layer, was added back to his Core, making it now a little bigger. Not as big as he would have wished. Too much time and rohmat had gone into his recovery and not enough into developing his Silver layer on the road to Gold. Maybe if he hadn’t been hurt during the war, he would have been strong enough to be in time to save her from her fate...

No, those thoughts were of no help. He had to stay focused. The past was gone, down the river of time. No matter how much it hurt.

“Now my Core is complete. This is my last layer, the one I’m in right now. This means I’m a Silver Core, or just a Silver, as most people would call me. I haven’t been a Silver enough time that the difference between layers would be as noticeable as the one from Iron to Bronze, just a little over a decade, which means I have much room for improvement. Let me answer your question by using the rohmat I have kept floating around me before it degrades too much.”

Denizan moved his arms around, almost like he was dancing, following an invisible tune that only he could hear and feel. The remaining braided rings of blue and white rohmat he had gathered before concentrated and danced with him, moving like a snake in the air. With a final push, the rohmat went into his Core, absorbed by it in a single strand until it was all gone.

“The blue light was Torrent rohmat, coming from the water of the river. The white light was Radiance rohmat, channeled from the daylight itself. There was much more blue than white, mainly because I’m better at channeling moonlight than sunlight, but it’s good enough for this demonstration. I can use both types of rohmat, as well as the neutral pure type that every Wielder can use from the ambient charge that is everywhere. Neutral rohmat, while ever-present, is quite inefficient as a source of power, as you are gonna have to convert it inside your Core by cycling it through your body until it turns into one type you can actually use for your skills. Neutral rohmat can be used with lots of Skills, though, just not the ones you are actually gonna want to use.”

“Does that mean I can use those types of rohmat, too?”

“Not necessarily. There are seven types of rohmat. Torrent and Radiance you have already seen. Then there’s Flame for fire, Cyclone for wind, Ground for the earth, Life for all things living, and then the sacred Metal. Genetics play a big part, but the power of the soul goes far beyond just heritage. Each person is very different and while direct family members usually share Affinities of Rohmat, it’s not always a norm. There are theories about it, but again, ask a Wordkeeper. I have no clue about the complicated stuff.” He hoped the explanation was good enough to convince the boy. He really was not good at hiding things in plain sight in his words, as much as he could do it with his body in the wilds. It sucks to be the one to give the Affinity talk, he lamented.

“What about Decay?” asked the child, sounding wary of the roundabout explanation. “You forgot about that one”

“Of course,” he sighed, somewhat glad that he had made that question, “you are far too clever to deceive you.” He returned his core inside himself, shuddering with the sensation of power and safety that it provided once again. “Decay is an exception to the rule. I mean the Trihepta rule. All magic comes in threes and sevens. Such is the Emperor’s wisdom. But Decay,” he paused, unsure about how much to say, “it’s another matter entirely. It’s not of the Emperor. It’s not of the natural world. Decay rohmat is not just things dying or getting old, that is normal. It’s the end of all things. The corrosion of our very souls besides our bodies and minds. It’s the power of... Him.” The voices cried again in the distance in his mind. He ignored them. “You know who I’m talking about, right?”

“Yeah. Mom told me.” Helion said with a solemn voice, far too mature for a boy shy of being 6 years old. He truly was ahead of his own age, for better or for worse. Denizan was really gonna have a hard time with this one all on his own.

“Don’t fear saying His name. He feeds on your fear. On your doubts. So say it.”

“The Sin King.” The boy at least showed some apprehension in saying it at loud, so he whispered it. Denizan could feel someone walking over his grave. Not that it would be the first time.

“Good. Now, if you don’t have any further questions, we can continue. You have plenty of time to learn how to create your Core, you won’t be eligible for the Word until you are at least thirteen. In the meantime, you can aim to learn at least one of the Trifecta Psalms. You are perceptive and clever, so I think the best fit for you would be the Psalm of Clarity, so you can see rohmat on your own without me making it visible. It will make training on your own easier down the line and it’s the one I’m best at anyway. I’m mediocre at Might and Purity is…” the words of the dead whispered, silenced by the power of his Core amplifying his Clarity once more, but not gone. They would never be gone. “really hard for me since the war, so better start with what I’m sure I know how to teach properly. First, we’ll begin with channeling exercises...”