The Sixth School

Chapter Eighty-Three: Learning From The Healer...

Greg sat in silence within his teacher's cave. Carefully holding a quill, Greg's hand moved at a steady pace across the piece of parchment before him. Ever since his teacher's admonition on the importance of correctly drawing magic runes while they were trying to close the convergence, Greg had made it a point to improve his handwriting. Until he was reasonably capable of writing out the strange alphabet of this new world with consistency, then it would be risky for him to start taking on the arcane tongue. Unlike the other languages of the world, the arcane tongue had the capacity to interact with mana and bring about all manner of effects. If he didn't get the runes exactly correct, then the best he could hope for is that they didn't work. There was, however, a very real chance that they could backfire and harm him if he wasn't careful.

This time, Greg hadn't been as lucky as when they fought the abyssal creature. It took him two whole weeks for him to awaken from the coma that usually followed possession by Morpheus. Luckily for him, Olivia didn't take quite as long. He had no way of knowing how long she had been out seeing as he had been passed out at the time. But from what she had said when he'd asked about it, the familiar had only been passed out for a few hours.

Naturally, Greg had asked what had happened. This wasn't because he didn't remember, but because it allowed him to know what story Olivia would come up with and let him go with that. Her answer had been simple, Greg hadn't been ready for the personal pocket space he got from the system and it had taken his spirit body a while to adjust. Of course, Olivia had only communicated this through their bond, knowing that half the value of this reward lay in the fact that no one knew he had it. Greg had agreed with the choice to maintain secrecy. Alena was his teacher and she'd given him no reason to distrust her so far. But just as she probably had secrets of her own that she didn't reveal to him, he too planned to keep a few cards of his own close to his chest. Greg didn't know what Olivia told his teacher, but his teacher hadn't asked Greg about it when he woke up. Instead, she'd just calmly tended to him like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Greg did not say anything either.

Passing out had also given Greg a boon that he hadn't expected or planned for. According to Olivia, because Greg hadn't actively given up on the rewards, the window that had the rewards had been put in some sort of limbo. The moment he chose to open it, he'd have to buy the rewards he wanted or give them up. But so long as he didn't touch it, he could operate the rest of the system as usual. Greg had no way of knowing for certain one way or the other. He suspected, however, that the reason the rewards hadn't been lost when he passed out was because Olivia had already given them to Morpheus, who she thought was an 'Elder'. Morpheus had in turn said that they would be Greg's reward for the lifespan he lost. Greg suspected that even if he'd gone into a century-long coma, the Primordial would never have dared take them back.

The reason this was a boon was because it allowed Greg the time to question his teacher about aspects. Unlike his personal space, Olivia had explained to him that he wouldn't be able to hide his lust aura. To mages lower than the fifth tier, it might be hard to notice it. But as soon as Greg used his lust aura around mages of the fifth tier and above, they'd almost immediately figure out what it was. Before they saw the rewards, Greg didn't have any way of knowing that the lust aura would be among them. With the rewards window now in limbo, however, he wanted to get as deep an understanding of aspects as he could get. That way, when the system gave him the promised nascent insight into the aspect of lust, Greg would be able to make the most of it.

The other thing that Greg had pending was the life order promotion elixir that was still inside his personal pocket space. Just like had been the case with cashing in his rewards for the feats of lust he'd obtained, Greg was once again waiting to recover from possession by Morpheus. After the fight with the abyssal creature, Greg needed a month to recover. This time, however, he'd have to wait three months, possibly more. Shocked, Greg had asked Morpheus why. The language of creation had been the simple reply. This was, after all, the strict reserve of beings higher than deities. According to Morpheus, the fact that he'd used the language of creation was the reason for a hundred of the one-fifty years of lifespan he lost. If all Morpheus had done after possessing Greg was throw threats around, Greg would have only lost about fifteen, to perhaps twenty years. Twenty-five if Morpheus hung around longer than he needed to. The writ of eternal servitude that Morpheus wrote into the fabric of reality took out about thirty years of Greg's life. Healing his index finger with the language of creation, however, was what had taken away such a large chunk of Greg's longevity. After learning this, Greg had stared at his right index finger for close to an hour trying to decide if it had been worth it. Not that he could do anything about it now.

Greg was taken out of his musings by the flash of a formation on the far side of the cave. Having seen it work several times before, Greg wasn't shocked to see his teacher appear on it a second later. This was a teleportation formation that linked his teacher's cave to a spot two hundred feet away from the black lake that had formed where the convergence had been. Heeding Morpheus's advice, his teacher had begun setting up a powerful confinement formation around the lake. According to her, it would take a total of six months to complete, but once it was done, not even the abyssal creature that had chased after them would be able to break out of the resulting cage. If the abyssal ooze had noticed anything, it didn't show it. Thus far, it had remained completely inert, barely showing any signs of life let alone aggression.

She had been close to the peak for hours so it didn't surprise Greg when the healer moved over to the comfort side of the cave where the fireplace was. Greg knew that his teacher had such fine control over her own body that if she wanted to, she could easily get her temperature to rise with little effort. His teacher, however, preferred the heat of the fireplace whenever she felt cold. Rising from where he was seated, Greg followed her with his parchment in hand as was usual whenever she returned. Initially, this cave had been planned and decorated with only one occupant in mind. His teacher had added a second seat by the fireplace when Greg became a regular visitor. Taking the parchment from him, she sat in one of the two generously upholstered chairs and started reviewing his work.

"Your handwriting has improved by leaps and bounds," His teacher said with a pleased smile. Greg quietly smiled, happy that his efforts were bearing fruit even as his teacher quietly began to read the short story he'd written. The story itself wasn't that important, the major reason for this little exercise was for Greg to show his command of the Origin tongue and the underlying grammatical rules of the language. Greg had already become fluent in the human tongue, both spoken and written, months ago. They had since moved on to the Origin tongue which was orders of magnitude harder to master as it somehow encompassed the language of six different races within. The human, Elven, Dwarven, Orcish, Gnomish, and Draconic tongues all found their roots in the Origin tongue. While each language has since evolved in its own unique ways, if one had a good grasp of the Origin tongue, understanding any of these languages would be far easier than it otherwise would have been.

A snort of amusement left his teacher as she finished the story Greg had put together. "Depending on the curse used, your prince is more likely to enter into a wakeless slumber than wake the princess up," She stated. Not being particularly creative, Greg had just used the fairytale of sleeping beauty as his story. Greg was thus left unsure how to answer his teacher. Mercifully, it didn't seem that she was expecting an answer from him as she continued. "Your understanding of the Origin tongue is coming along well, but your bias for the human tongue is showing in the way you described the sleeping curse..." For the next half hour, Greg sat and listened as his teacher went over all the points where he could improve when it came to the Origin tongue. By the end, both of them were already toasty from the fireplace they'd been seated close to. "Now, what are you training today?" his teacher finally asked when she was done with her lecture on language.

The question didn't confuse Greg. While his teacher couldn't teach him any earth spells, there was a lot that the healer could still teach him, especially about the basics that were common to all users of mana. Even before he passed out for two weeks, Greg had already been introduced to some exercises that would help in mastering the use of his mana.

When it came to mana, there were three aspects that Greg needed to master. Speed, control, and precision. Apparently, the deftness with which he could weave together spells would depend on all three. If he didn't have any speed, his enemies would always have a starting advantage over him. If he didn't have control, he would send either too much or too little mana to the wrong parts of a spell matrix causing it to fall apart. In the best case, this could just be a waste of mana. If things didn't go his way, however, the backlash from the spell could seriously injure Greg. If he didn't have precision in weaving together spells, then he'd be gambling with his life every time he tried to cast a spell. The wrong rune here or a badly drawn one there and he could easily kill himself even before his enemies had to.

Luckily for Greg, several games had already been designed to help new mages practice in these three areas. To train speed, there was a game called sixteen rings. The concept was rather simple. Over a small square board, there were sixteen floating rings, each of which was spinning at increasing speed. From the first one that turned once every five seconds to the last one that turned five times every second. To beat the game, one simply had to thread their mana through the center of all sixteen rings without touching the sides. As soon as a ring was threaded, it would stop spinning allowing the mage to proceed to the next ring. In the beginner version of this game, touching a single ring would just disperse one's mana at that point, allowing the mage to keep retrying at the problematic ring. In the intermediate version, touching even a single ring would cause the whole thread to be dispersed forcing one to start over every time they messed up. In the advanced version, the speed of any individual ring wasn't fixed. A ring that was turning at the rate of one turn every three seconds could turn into a blur in the next second, and the reverse as well. Like the intermediate version, any misstep in the advanced game sent one right back to the start. So far, Greg could only reliably get to the tenth ring in the basic version of the game.

To train control one had to pass a globule of their mana through a maze-like gauntlet without touching any of the walls. If it was just taking mana from point A to point B, it would have been all too easy even for a beginner mage. The gauntlet, however, was filled with different 'traps'. There were places where the walls acted like magnets forcing the mage to clamp down on their mana really tight lest it be drawn to the wall. Other parts had mana disruptors that would cause the clump of mana that was passing through the gauntlet to fall apart. There were places in the maze enchanted to drastically slow down any movement of mana through it. If a mage lingered too long in these areas, their clump of mana would eventually come to a stop and refuse to move again. Other parts were the opposite, mana inside those areas would move so fast that if one wasn't in firm control of their mana, it would slam into the nearest wall in a straight line. With this training game, the strength of each trap, plus their total number went up with each rise in difficulty.

The method to train precision was the one Greg found the most calming. Here, speed and control didn't matter, instead one's ability to recreate patterns was all that was tested. A board with several runes engraved onto it would project a 3D pattern in the air just above it. It was the task of the mage to recreate the pattern displayed. Once the mage had recreated the pattern to the best of their ability, they would try to overlay it with the pattern above the board and it would judge how close or how far one was from successfully recreating the pattern. At the start, the patterns presented were simple shapes and symbols. The more one progressed, however, the harder they became. His teacher had shown him one of the more advanced patterns available and Greg couldn't even make heads or tails of what he was looking at. Part of him was almost certain that the pattern changed every time he looked away then looked back. According to his teacher, there were other games that trained a combination of any two or even all three skills. She, however, had insisted that he build his foundation on these three games first before he moved on to more complex exercises.

"Actually, I was hoping you could teach me something different today," Greg replied.

It wasn't yet time for his evening infusion of mana on the now crystalline sigil. The healer had thus been getting up, ready to tend to one of her many ongoing research projects. She, however, paused mid-rise before sitting back down. "What is it?" She asked, a note of curiosity in her voice.

"I am not sure if it is considered rude to ask this of someone, so forgive me if I'm being too direct. I was wondering, what aspects did you have mastery of?" Greg asked.

From the way her brows rose, it was clear that this wasn't among the range of questions she'd been expecting. Her head tilted to the side as she considered the question for a while before speaking. "Asking someone what aspects they've mastered is a lot like asking what weapon or fighting style they use. If it's someone you're already familiar with and close to, then it's not that big of a problem. Whether it's just curiosity or you plan to exchange a few pointers, the person asked probably won't mind. If you do the same with someone you are unfamiliar with, however, it might be considered an attempt to probe someone in preparation for an attack. The reaction you get to that question might be poor depending on the temperament of the person you ask. Besides, even among close friends, it's rare that a mage exposes all their cards,"

"That being said, aspects are rather tricky things to hide. I'm certain you remember the abyssal creature that chased us. No one had to ask what aspects it had mastered as its very being was integrally tied with said aspects. Everything about a mage becomes infused with the aspects that they choose to master from their aura to their bodies to the very mana that they produce. To not expose all their cards, most mages will enhance the aura of one aspect while minimizing the rest. This way, any potential foes will never be certain if they are seeing the full picture or just a part of it. If they attack based on the aspect on display, they may be shocked to find more aspects being brought into the equation than they were prepared for. Now, I'm curious, why are you suddenly interested in aspects?" His teacher questioned.

Greg didn't miss the fact that his teacher hadn't answered his first question. Rather than revealing any of her aspects, she'd instead addressed the issue of whether it was rude to ask the question or not. She had already stated that not even close friends told each other everything though, so Greg wasn't too bothered about her secrecy. It was just simple curiosity on his part, and now that she hadn't answered, he didn't plan to press her on it. The question had allowed him to broach the subject, and for now, that was enough. "I was hoping you could teach me everything that someone getting ready to learn an aspect would need to know," Greg directly answered, seeing no need to hide what he was after.

The healer pursed her lips for a second before responding. "I think it's a rather admirable trait to be so forward looking Roka. However, you can barely crawl and you are already thinking of flying," She said, her tone lightly admonishing. "It'd be irresponsible of me as your teacher to indulge your curiosity when you are yet to master the basics," The healer calmly but firmly stated, rising to her feet once more.

Greg could completely understand his teacher's thinking. In any normal situation, she would have been right. To start talking of aspects to a mage that just ascended to the first tier barely three months ago would be putting the cart before the horse. Greg, however, was in a rather unique position, which was why he was quick to explain his curiosity. "In a few months, I'll be granted nascent insight into an aspect. I was just hoping to be prepared to the best of my ability," he said.

His teacher, who had already risen to her feet, froze in place, her disbelieving gaze fixed on him. Greg could tell that she was uncertain whether to believe him or not. Her logical mind was probably arguing that there was no possible way what Greg had just said, was true. Smart as she was though, she probably knew that it would be a pointless lie to tell. After all, if a few months passed and he didn't gain any aspect, he'd be exposed as a liar. Sitting back down, his teacher pinched the bridge of her nose. A helpless laugh escaped her at the absurdity of the situation. "The number of mages stuck on the fourth tier because they can't grasp an aspect is damn near countless and yet a mage barely three months in the first tier is just bestowed one," She spoke. Despite speaking out loud, Greg could tell that the words weren't directed at him. Her next question, however, was. "When we were preparing to close the convergence, I was left with the impression that the highest tier of items you can access through your so-called Magic Shop is at the third tier. An aspect is most definitely not a third-tier item. So, was I wrong?" She asked her tone incisive.

"No, you weren't. I didn't buy the aspect from the Magic shop, it's a reward for accumulating a certain amount of lust," He answered. Greg had promised never to lie to his teacher and he'd endeavored to stay true to that promise. Nevertheless, every time he had to use a play on words to keep his secrets, he couldn't help the uncomfortable feeling that filled him. His words weren't a lie in the strictest sense. He had bought the aspect, just not from the Magic shop. And it was through the lust points that he'd amassed that he'd be able to buy the aspect. When the two true statements were put together, however, they wouldn't lead one to the truth of the situation.

"Lust?" His teacher repeated, her tone contemplative. Her gaze drifted away from him for a second as she seemed to be working out something. When she turned to look at him, she had the look of one who had seen right to the heart of the issue. "It would seem that you weren't underselling the Maelstrom Ascension manual when you asked for 'kisses'," She stated. Once again, Greg was reminded of the fact that his teacher had a formidable intellect. Centuries of study and magical research had left her with a mind trained to see the larger picture even when provided with a few clues. Greg had been trying to keep the details of the system hidden but in so doing he just exposed another part of it. From a simple statement, she'd worked out the fact that Greg was gaining lust points from their little trysts.