Soul of the Warrior

Chapter 173: Mana Lessons

"You know, I've been thinking about this, but what's the deal with these engagement requests to Kefira?" Ameliyn asked.

Reivyn was seated with his family having an evening meal after a long day. Kefira was present for many of their meals, but she didn't make it to all of them. She was focused on her own training with her mentor, and her life didn't revolve solely around Reivyn.

"It started off as a test of my mettle," Reivyn answered. "Her mother wanted to ensure I was the best candidate for Kefira's spouse, so she deliberately set things up for others to try their hand. The rules are that 'officially' there's no stance from the imperial family, but 'unofficially' they're on my side.

"After everything that's already happened, though, I think it's become more of a game for her mother than anything else. It started with a banquet that insinuated Kefira was looking to be courted, but nothing has happened for a while now. I imagine the next shoe is going to drop any day."

"That's stupid," Ameliyn said. "You're clearly the best candidate there is, no matter where they look. They should just announce it and be done with it. Why cause all this unnecessary headache?"

"You're looking at it with a bias, mom," Reivyn replied. "Plus, I just said it wasn't real and that it's a game to entertain Silfa. That first banquet ended up actually being quite an enjoyable experience. I don't know what she's going to throw at us next, but I can't imagine it will be anything serious."

"If you say so," Ameliyn shrugged. "I did meet a young man who claimed to be Kefira's future fiancé."

"Really? You've interacted with the young noblemen? When?"

"It wasn't a young nobleman, as far as I know. He might be from a noble family, but that wasn't part of the introduction I received," Ameliyn explained. "It was Kefira's senior apprentice-brother, the direct disciple of her mentor."

"Oh, I know who you're talking about. His name is Oryin. Kefira's talked about him a few times, and she views him as a literal brother. He's no threat."

"I trust your judgment."

The dinner continued with Reivyn and Refix discussing different things about the training they were doing in the Striker gym as well as the concepts Reivyn was trying to impart to the military officers that would take over his job instructing warfare against other humans. Refix, when he wasn't busy with his own things, accompanied Reivyn to the training grounds. He was interested in everything that his son was doing, and he had his own unique ideas to share.

It had been over half a month since they had first attended the Striker gym. Refix never formally joined as one of the members, but he had built a rapport with the trainers and was welcome any time. They still paid the fee. It didn't hurt to be courteous. The boss at the gym had tried to decline the payment and pay Refix instead, but Refix didn't see it that way. He was mostly there for his son, and any advantage any of the other trainees received was purely incidental.

The twins had begun receiving instruction on different crafting methods, expanding their repertoire of things they could make. They had finally reached their Tier 2 Classes, and Reivyn had been shocked to learn that they had Epic Tier 1 Classes when it was revealed that their Tier 2 Classes were also Epic.

Does that mean I would have had an Epic Tier 1 Class regardless of whether or not I had had a forced Class transition? Would I have had access to Epic Tier 2 Classes if I had been able to select the inherent Epic Tier 1 Class like my sisters? Would I have been able to advance to a Legendary Tier 2 Class if the conscription had come after I had been able to receive my Epic Tier 1 Class?

Reivyn didn't know, and he was unlikely ever to know. The questions were endless, and with no answers, so he simply threw them to the back of his head. He was genuinely happy for his sisters, but he felt a little strange now that they were technically in the same Tier. It wasn't the same thing at all, with him being so close to officially advancing to Tier 3, but the technicality made him feel as if he was lagging behind.

He knew deep down that that wasn't the case. He had been frozen in time for three years, and he had deliberately halted his Level advancement, but he hadn't really considered the possibility of being around the same Level/Tier as his younger sisters. He knew it would happen eventually, what with how Levels increased per Tier and Experience requirements increased while gains decreased. He had thought they wouldn't be around the same Tier until he was mid to late Tier 4, though.

The twins had advanced to an Epic Tier 2 Class called Scion of Refinux. Everyone was a bit confused by the name. At first, they thought it was the System making an error on Refix's name, but that couldn't have been the case. They just tossed it away as not important. It truly wasn't. The important thing was that they had such a superior Tier 2 Class without having to jump through all the hoops Reivyn had had to.

Their Tier 2 Class focused on magical crafting, just like they had already been doing, and the Class Skills were nothing to scoff at. They were able to manipulate materials with their Mana just as easily as if they had access to the tools for mundane crafting. Reivyn had watched as they melted some metal at room temperature and melded it into the shape they wanted. Usually, a skill like that wouldn't become available to a Crafter Class until Tier 4, even if they had an Epic Tier 3 Class.

The only downside was that their Mana reserves weren't able to keep up with their Class Skills. They wouldn't be able to maintain a decent pace of crafting using those Skills until they either Leveled them up significantly or until they had already advanced to their Tier 3 Class. Fully unlocking their Bloodline would work, but their parents were going to follow conventional wisdom in that aspect. The twins were going to have to work without the advantage to gain Life Experience before they were afforded the boost.

"I have one final lesson for your Mana training," Ameliyn spoke up as dinner wound down. "It's really two exercises, but I'm going to teach you both of them tonight, hence the 'final' lesson. They're not the last things you'll learn, but they're the last things I have to teach you.

"You know that weaving tapestries within your Spells grant significant boosts, but I don't think anyone has ever instructed you on how to increase your ability to do so. Come with me, and I'll show you."

After the family cleaned up the remnants of dinner, they dispersed to their different areas. Reivyn followed his mother into a side room where they would have some privacy.

"There are two aspects to how powerful imaging can be in your Spells," Ameliyn started. "Speed and accuracy. Accuracy doesn't necessarily mean how realistic your image is. It means how close to the concept you have envisioned your image represents. Naturally, a more realistic image will usually better represent the concept you're imaging, but not always.

"Speed goes without saying. If you have to waste minutes creating an image that will give a 10% boost to your Spell, then you've wasted your time. You could have just cast the Spell multiple times without any kind of image. You need to be able to imprint your image nearly instantaneously, and there are a couple of tricks to accomplish that that I'll explain to you later.

"First, you need to focus on what kind of imaging you'll be creating. The best method that I know of is to start simple and move your way up to more complex. The easiest imaging you can do is abstract watercolors.

"Affinities have a range of colors they can manifest as, such as red and orange for fire, and blue and white for water and ice. There is overlap in the colors, though, and they don't have to be exact until you've become a Master. Even I don't always manage to create perfect images at a reasonable speed, and I've been practicing for nearly two decades.

"The first exercise is to build your Spell shell, select the Mana appropriate for the imaging, then slam that Mana into the interior of your Spell shell. Just fill it in as quickly as possible. Don't worry about anything else, to begin with.

"Then, you dissipate your Spell shell and do it again. Dissipate the shell and do it again. Over and over. Each time you slam your colors into the Spell shell, make small tweaks to better represent the concept you're trying to imbue.

"Let's say you want to increase the explosiveness of a Fire Blast spell. Obviously, you would choose Fire Mana, but another good Affinity to select to compliment the Spell is Air Mana. Air Mana is predominantly green in color, but what makes up green?"

Ameliyn paused for Reivyn to think about what she had said and ponder the question. He had never really gone too in-depth with the imaging aspect of Spell Casting, and even Kefira had focused her more advanced techniques she taught to him on the weaves and knots.

"Green is yellow and blue," Reivyn answered.

"And Fire can be represented by red, orange, and yellow," Ameliyn continued.

She held her hand out and created a Mana ball representing what she was explaining. She went step-by-step so that Reivyn could follow along with the logic.

She started with a maelstrom of deep green that slowly shifted into yellow. It was like a mini-tornado. As the color shifted to yellow and expanded ever outward, the colors deepened into orange, though there were still some strands that shifted back to yellow to continue to represent Air. The orange continued to shift in hue until it was a deep red, and Ameliyn was left with a perfect orb. A green tornado filled the interior, and it seamlessly shifted colors until the outer edge was a deep red.

"This is a great watercolor representation of a Fire Blast Spell," Ameliyn said. "You won't be able to do this yet. Instead, you should start with this."

Ameliyn held her other hand up and copied the process. This time, she didn't make any shapes, and she didn't have the colors meld into each other. At the center of the new orb was a green dot. It was surrounded by a yellow ring, then followed by orange and then red. The colors were distinct, and the image was very simple.

"You might not even be able to get something like this the first several times you try it," Ameliyn said. "Don't be discouraged. You should probably start with a two-dimensional image, too. Just form your Spell shell, then gather Affinities to fill the imagining, and slam it into the interior of the shell."

"That seems easy enough," Reivyn said. Ameliyn gave him a skeptical look. "As an exercise concept," Reivyn hurriedly amended. "I mean that the training seems simple enough."

"For now," Ameliyn agreed. "This is only introducing you to the most basic form of abstract watercolor imaging, though. This is what I would create for my own Fire Blast Spell."

Ameliyn dissipated the other orbs and instantly formed a new one. The image of a star exploding in great detail appeared above her hand. Reivyn was gobsmacked at the image in front of him. He could feel the power in the image his mother displayed. There weren't just the concepts of Fire and Air mixed together. He could sense Plasma, Light, Darkness, and even her Tier 4 Celestial Affinity was in the mix, among others.

"That's... different," Reivyn finally said. Ameliyn smirked.

"That's the first part of the final lesson for today," Ameliyn said, the orb winking out of existence. "The last thing I'm going to teach you is derivative of Mana Circulation.

"Until now, you've circulated your Mana through your meridians to increase your Affinities. There's another exercise you can do that will help speed things up. It won't directly increase your Affinity Levels, but it will increase your progress rate. You might be asking yourself, 'why isn't that the first thing we learn, then?' And the answer to that is that it's not possible until your Affinity Level is around 60.

"You need firm control over the Mana in order to do it safely; otherwise, you could cause irreparable harm to yourself. Do I have your attention?"

Reivyn nodded his head.

"The last method is to disperse the Affinity into every inch of your body. Fill each and every cell in your body with the Affinity. You want to steep your very being in the Affinity. If you don't have a firm grasp on your Affinity, you could destroy your cells with the Mana, and when they reform, they will be fundamentally different. They will be built out of that Affinity.

"This would greatly enhance your ability to Level that Affinity, but for that cell, it would be forever locked out of every other Affinity, effectively crippling that part of yourself. If someone was only able to use one Affinity for their entire lives, it would be an acceptable thing to do, but people aren't like that. Life isn't like that. I have no idea what would happen if someone remolded their entire being into one of one specific Affinity, but I doubt it would be anything good.

"Your meridians are designed to carry Mana, which is why this isn't a concern when doing your Mana Circulation, but the rest of your body isn't built that way. I'm sure you've noticed that any time you've wanted to move your Mana about to a different part of your body, say releasing a Spell from your feet, you actually move the Mana there along the meridian lines and the point of expulsion is also from the meridian."

Reivyn thought back to the many times he had infused his body with Mana. He had done it many times when using his body as a weapon and activating the Elemental Weapon Skill, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized his mother was right. He wasn't actually infusing every aspect of his body with the Mana; instead, it was radiating out from the meridian lines inside his body. There was a difference between radiating Mana out from the meridians and infusing the cells on a fundamental level with the Mana.

"Another reason why we don't teach this method first is that it's painful," Ameliyn continued. "When you infuse Fire Mana into your being, you'll heat up and feel like you're on fire. When you infuse Ice, you'll cool down and feel like you're frozen. It's quite uncomfortable. Imagine what it would feel like to steep your entire being with the Slashing Affinity. One has to have the necessary willpower to withstand the exercise, and Pain Resistance doesn't afford any protection."

That last statement got Reivyn's attention. There were very few things that could bypass Pain Resistance. He realized that his Mental Fortitude and Iron Will were about to get another round of advancement in the near future.

"That's basically it for the last lesson. You'll feel when your cells are straining, and you need to retract the Mana. Remember, only use the Affinities you've reached Level 60 or higher on, or you won't be able to control them well enough on such a scale.

"Because of the nature of what you're practicing, you should always do this exercise second to last. Do all of your Mana Skills training first, then when you're wrapping things up, do this exercise followed by regular Mana Circulation after.

"Don't try to use Mana Absorption at the same time unless your Affinity is 80 or higher. I know your basic Elements are above 80 at this point, but you need to gain some experience with the exercise before you try to complicate things.

"I'll leave you in peace to practice for now, but call me before you first attempt the last exercise. I'll come to watch over you, so nothing goes wrong."

"Alright, mom, thanks," Reivyn said.

Ameliyn gave a small smile and kissed Reivyn on the forehead before departing. Now that he was alone, Reivyn got down to business with his new training method.

He formed his Spell Shell and flung his Mana Affinities inside over and over again. His mother was right that he wouldn't be able to achieve even a basic two-dimensional representation of the Fire Blast Spell right away. The colors were only in their approximate locations, and he continued to tweak them over and over. After an hour of hard work, he finally had a decent-looking ring of colors.

Am I going to have to do this for every single Spell I know? Reivyn thought with despair. I'm sure after gaining a modicum of expertise in the ability, I'll be able to shave some of the training time off, but every Spell has its own unique concept. Many Spells have more than one.

Just the Fire Blast Spell has several. What if I want the explosive force not to contain as much Fire? What if I want the fire to burn more in a condensed space? That's three different concepts I'll have to practice, right there.

His parents weren't lying over the years when they said training was endless. He was finally figuring out what higher Level Casters did all the time.