Eternium ~ Ch 20!

<Hey, Dale.>

“Yeah, Cal?” Dale whispered the words, not in an attempt to hide himself or be stealthy, it was because he could barely breathe currently. A strike to his chest by Gomei had driven the air from his lungs, and now he was trying to regain his wind while holding off three flame-touched greater lizards.

<So, there are a few people working on setting up a portal for the Northmen. I’ve been talking to my Wisp, Dani, and she’s pretty adamant that we go to another hidden location.> The words paused as Dale focused on some tricky footwork to avoid a blast of flaming Mana. <Right, so, there’s no more help from me in seeking out people. Just wanted to let you know.>

“That’s fine, Cal. We’re in crunch time anyway.” Dale landed a blow on a lizard’s neck, using his Aura to simulate ‘sharpness’. With his fingers held rigidly, his hand acted as a sword and sliced open the creature from neck to groin. Dale winced, he was still getting used to using only as much Mana as intended.

“Is this too easy?” Gomei shouted at him. “You can talk to your friends at the same time? You should have just said so!”

Gomei pulled a few leavers, and a swarm of the lizards charged at Dale from the wide-open gates. “Let’s go over today’s lesson again, Dale! I’ll ask a question, and you answer! What are we working on?”

“We are working on controlling my body when my Mana is at full power!” Dale shouted in reply, stomping on the foot of a lizard to bury it in the stone and give him a moment to dodge away.

“Why?”

“So that I am used to the motions, and using my body as a weapon becomes second nature!” Dale flipped in the air, grabbing a Beast as he moved and chucking it ignobly at another of its kind.

“Why doesn’t everyone leave their Mana in their bodies at all times?” Gomei shouted over the thunderous sound of two bodies crushing each other.

“They don’t want to damage themselves and the people around them!” Dale snapped back thoughtlessly.

Gomei appeared next to Dale and slapped him into a huddle of the lizards. “Wrong! Try again!”

“Leaving the body stuffed with Mana can cause burnout!” Dale turned the slap into a corkscrew dive, punching through the chest of a lizard and emerging coated in blood on the other side.

Once again Gomei was next to him, and this time Dale was whacked into the ground. “Wrong! The real reason is that most Mages don’t take the time to learn how to actually control themselves at all times! They only act as a true Mage when it is convenient, or when they are in battle! This. Makes. Them. Weak!”

Gomei was shouting in his winded trainee’s face. He flickered and vanished, giving Dale a view down a lizard’s open mouth as it lunged for him. Dale reached out and gripped the jaws closing in on him, tearing the mandibles off the Beast’s skull. “I don’t understand.”

“Correct!” Gomei laughed from his position by the levers. “Do you think Moon Elves leave their bodies undefended, weak, barely perceptive? What is even the point of being a Mage if you are going to act like a C-ranker in your normal life? Today’s lesson is this: you will have your Mana flowing through you at all times. Control it. Control yourself. People burn out because they cannot control the Mana and stop it from rampaging in unwanted ways. They damage things around them because they cannot control themselves.”

Dale was so shocked over this revelation that he failed to properly execute a block and was taken to the ground by a scaly tackle. The other lizards in the arena piled on, and Dale was hidden under a sea of biting and wiggling bodies. A flash of Mana made all of them still, and Dale pushed through the pile of steaming meat and scales. “You mean that Moon Elves… always?”

“Always.” Gomei confirmed, leaning forward with gleaming eyes. “This is why we are better at everything than a normal Mage. We don’t neuter ourselves for convenience. Also, I’m a trifle surprised that you grasped sword Aura so easily. In another life, it would have likely been your ultimate ability. Here it will be only another tool in your arsenal.”

“It does feel natural.” Dale admitted as he shifted his Aura back to a thin mesh of pure Acme Mana. He had found that the natural state acted to dampen any Mana coming toward him, as it would absorb a portion of any type. It wasn’t suited to truly being used in combat in its raw form, much to Dale’s displeasure. “But how will I get anything done in the next few weeks?”

“What have you been training with us for?” Gomei closed his eyes, remembering that Dale was a human and needed more hand-holding to reach a conclusion. “Use the martial forms for movement. You’ve been working to learn our habits and footwork. Use them. You think that the silent steps are only used for murder? Apply them to all your motion. They are crafted to create minimal impact on your surroundings, keeping you hidden. Moving in such a way will reduce the risk you have of blowing down the camps with a sonic boom, at the very least.”

Dale coughed, trying not to blush from the slight jab. He hopped in the air and twisted, flinging off any blood that hadn’t already dried on him. “What about speaking, or listening?”

“I won’t lie, it’s going to be boring listening to people speaking at what feels like half speed. It’s going to be hard not accidentally hurting someone.” Gomei was now inches from Dale’s face, seeming to have flowed across the ground to arrive. “I cannot express how important it is to have fine control as a Mage. Even the dungeon has started to recognize this, much to our amusement.”

“What?”

“Nothing for you to concern yourself with right now, Dale.” Gomei looked around and confirmed that every opponent had been defeated. “I think you have a solid grasp on what we were trying to teach you today. Ignore societal norms. Be better than those around you. They are lazy, you are not. If you are lazy, we will fix that.”

Dale swallowed deeply and nodded. “Not lazy, teacher! Not lazy at all over here.”

“Alright. Looks like the sun’s coming up.” Gomei glared at the sky, it was throwing off his sense of time. They had been traveling East and North, and he was familiar with the fact that the sun rose at different times during the day around the world thanks to the portal system. Still, he had wanted to keep Dale fighting until sunup, and this technically counted. “Get going, I have my own work to do.”

Dale grimaced as the Elf vanished. He must be using some combination of invisibility and speed, because Dale still couldn’t track him using normal methods. Walking toward the mess hall of the academy, Dale did his best to ignore the people around him. You would think that the early morning would mean people should be sleeping, but most of the students and all of the teachers could go without sleep for extended periods. Add that to the fact that the world as they knew it was ending, and the only way to prepare was to fight…

It was obvious that tensions were mounting. The portal to Cal’s soul was still not operational, and since that was the only escape plan, people were getting ever more nervous. The sleep deprivation and constant fighting weren’t helping with that. Dale accepted his portion of food from the attendant and found a table, groaning as he sat. With a small amount of focus, he shifted his external aura to a sunlight pattern and let the light healing take care of his bruises and irritable mood. Anyone who came near him was touched by the Mana-powered aura and walked away with a smile.

He noticed that and shrugged. Why not let them gain a benefit from his presence? Dale stood from his seat and smashed into the ceiling, reducing his chair to kindling at the same time. He fell back to the ground and destroyed the table as he landed. “Ugh. I had been doing so well.”

“Hey!” One of the people serving food came over and glowered at him. “You can’t just smash the place up because you don’t like something! Pay for this damage!”

“Sorryaboutthat.” Dale’s words were so fast that they were nearly unintelligible. He took a calming breath and tried again. “I. Am. Sorry. About. That.”

When speaking slowly and deliberately, he was able to mimic a normal sentence to the man’s ears. Dale handed over a few silver coins and the server nodded stiffly. “Good. Didn’t mean to come over so angry, just a lot of people smashing things these days. Looked like you did it intentionally, ‘cause you really wrecked that table. Listen, I hear they have a training center for Mages now, if you need help?”

“I’m good, thank you.” Dale sounded normal, and he carefully shifted his weight around in the steps needed for total body control. To those watching, Dale stood smoothly and seemed to almost flow out of the room. His extreme grace was actually him moving very slowly and picking where to put every footfall, but anyone under the Mage ranks simply wouldn’t be able to tell. Dale rolled his eyes when he saw people watching him. “Too bad I didn’t train as a dancer.”