BT - Book 1 - Chapter 86

“You have to focus the mana more into your arms, you know until it twangs,” Trevor said unhelpfully as he demonstrated a spear thrust in slow motion.

A ball of energy, barely visible and little more than a heat mirage, curled around the end of the speartip before bursting apart.  Micah frowned at it, tapping his chin.  He could see the usefulness of the wind mana shattering inside a target, but that wasn’t the issue.

“Twangs?” He asked, raising a single eyebrow.  “I’ve worked with spellforms that take entire books to record.  Sometimes, each individual ritual requires thirty to fifty pages detailing the specific variables that will be in play at the time and location of the casting.  I have NEVER heard someone boil an entire ability down to ‘making the mana twang.”

“I don’t know,” Trevor planted the butt of his spear into the ground, “the mana just kind of swirls around for a bit in these patterns and then it all jumps out at once.  But you know, with a twang.”

Micah sighed, massaging his temples for a second.  They’d moved out from the grove to the lake where they’d felled the tortoise.  Between the five of them, they’d managed to put together some rough wooden lodgings that were significantly better than the shack Micah had built ages ago in the grove.

In the distance, Ravi skimmed over the still water of the lake, batting at it with her paws while Telivern and Jo played some sort of elaborate game of hide and seek in the nearby trees.  He turned back to Trevor, trying to hide his frustration.

“Maybe you could describe the patterns the mana swirls around in?” Micah suggested, struggling to maintain his carefree smile.  “Those are the spellforms and they are what I’ll need to recreate if I want to replicate the martial art.”

“I don’t know,” Trevor slumped against his spear.  “Gods, I’m no good at this Micah.  I can try, but the fact that you actually taught me magic is a miracle in and of itself, I’m not cut out to try and teach this stuff to someone else.”

“How about you try Trevor,” Micah pulled out a small leatherbound notebook that he had on hand for exactly that purpose.  “I really need to learn the spear art you got as a part of your blessing.  Wind spear works, but against higher level opponents it’s both inefficient and a joke.”

“Are you sure you need it?” Trevor asked hopelessly.  “You use your magic on enemies most of the time anyway.”

“Yes,” Micah crossed his arms.  “I don’t use wind spear much because it isn’t that strong.  Your martial art is uncommon, and at level forty I should be able to evolve it into a rare ability.  A rare martial art might not put me at the peak of melee fighters in Pereston, but the very minimum it will let me hold my own against them for long enough to bury them in spells.”

“I guess,” Trevor took the notebook from Micah, looking at it like something slimy pulled fresh from a midden heap.  “Still, I think we’re gaining enough levels from the Cavern of Rust that we don’t need this.  It just seems redundant to me to spend time on this sort of stuff.”

“First of all,” Micah replied, “it’s mostly you guys gaining all of those levels.  Level growth slows a lot as you reach equilibrium with the monsters you’re fighting.  It’s not like I haven’t had my own gains over the past three weeks, but I’m not exactly swimming in new stat points like the four of you.”

“Second,” he stared his brother down pointedly, “I thought we were past this Trevor.  I get that it’s hard to teach someone a martial art.  Mursa as my witness, teaching you was one of the greatest chores I’ve ever had to struggle through.  At the end of the day though, this might be the difference between life or death.”

“I know,” Trevor sighed.  “It’s just intuitive for me.  I think that might have been why I struggled so hard to learn when you were trying to teach me magic.  I just either understand how to do something or I don’t.  I can’t explain how things work because I don’t really get it myself.”

“I understand Trevor,” Micah walked over to his brother.  Together the two of them watched Jo gleefully chasing Telivern through the forest.  “I want you to try though.  Spells are nice, but in a one on one duel, I’m not sure that I’ll be quick enough without foresight.”

“Right now we’re making it work because the Luoca can overpower almost everything,” he shrugged helplessly, “but when I go toe to toe with the Khan, I’ll have to be solo.  He’s not a speed based fighter, but he has enough levels on me that I don’t want to stand still casting a spell.  He’ll boil me alive.  I need to be able to hold my own in hand to hand or this entire plan is done for before we even really start.”

“How strong is he anyway?” Trevor asked, looking back at Micah.  “You’re always so worried, but I’ll be honest.  I’m pretty sure you could take on the guildmaster from the Lancers and beat him two out of three times right now.  With a couple years of levels, he should be a breeze.”

“At least level sixty,” Micah cracked a smile as Telivern flapped its wings, aiding a jump across a stream to escape Jo.  “I’ll eat my spear if his blessing isn’t at least Rare.  I had him fighting a fully empowered Luoca.  It barely won.”

“Fuck,” Trevor cracked open the notebook, glancing down at its blank pages without an ergo of excitement.

“Once I can solo the Decrepit Behemoth,” Micah set his jaw.  “Then we can talk about me fighting the Khan.  It won’t be a sure thing, but at least it’ll be an actual fight.”

“Gods,” Trevor exhaled.  “That bad?”

Micah just nodded.  In the distance, Jo landed in the stream after trying to leap across and catch up to Telivern.  The stag snorted with laughter before primly trotting off.

“Maybe we should try training again,” Trevor tucked the notebook into his pocket and took his weight off of his spear.  “I think the issue might be that Windburst is a first level ability.  By this point, it’s just second nature for me.  It seems counterintuitive, but maybe we should start with a more complex ability like Wind Barrier?”

“Is that the one where you wave your spear in a crescent and it deflects arrows and spells?” Micah asked, nodding slowly.  “That’s one of the more useful abilities I’ve seen you use.”

“Honestly?” Trevor chuckled, “I’m sure I’ll learn more moves as I level up but it’s really just four main abilities right now.  Wind burst, Wind Barrier, Flash Step, and Returning spear.  Everything else is rather situation specific.  I guess Rustling Wind lets me meditate and restore my mana a little quicker and Calm Before the Storm gives me a ten percent bonus to my speed if I hold still for ten seconds, but that isn’t the sort of thing I’m using every day.”

“I’m assuming that Flash Step is a movement ability,” Micah tapped his jaw.  “That sounds like it could be very useful.

“It is,” Trevor flashed him a grin, “why do you think I’m only a little bit slower than you when we spar?  I swear whatever your level by level stat gains are cheating.”

“That’s one I’d like to learn for sure,” Micah responded thoughtfully.  In combat, speed was life, and that precept only became more true in his case.  The faster party could control the range of engagement, meaning he could hopefully run circles around the Khan while peppering the man with spells.

Micah didn’t hold any illusions about what that would mean.  Speed would give him an advantage, but the Khan was hardly helpless at range.  He would still need to dodge globs of magma and spikes of rock, but that was preferable to getting melted from standing too close to the molten titan that stood guard at the end of his journey.

“From what I’ve seen,” Trevor continued, pulling Micah out of his own thoughts, “my martial art should be easy for you to learn.  I’ve tried to make sense of the rituals and enchanting you play around with, and all of them make my eyes cross.  Once you get the feel for the mana flows and movements, it should be a breeze for you.”

“Wait,” Micah cocked his head at Trevor.  “Was that a wind magic pun?”

“Maybe,” his brother winked at him, “Now grab your spear and let’s give this another shot.  I’m not promising anything, but if you could sit through hours of me tearing my hair out and trying to sneak out to flirt with girls, it’s the least I can do.”

He just rolled his eyes, pulling up his spear to mimic Trevor’s posture, knees slightly bent with the haft of his weapon held between his thumb and index finger, his other hand on its butt.  Trevor exhaled slowly, swirling his spear in the air.

Micah could feel flicker of mana passing out of his brother only for the circle traced by Trevor’s spear to glow green, gaining the solidity of an iron plate for a three count.  Then, his brother inhaled and the light faded.

“Okay,” Trevor turned back to him.  “I don’t know if you got that, but the first step is building up mana in your arms and chest.  Then, you draw the outline of the barrier with your spear and imagine a bunch of little triangles in it.  I think the smaller you can envision them the better, but if you don’t completely fill up the barrier the entire thing will fail.”

“A basic mana circuit then,” Micah nodded knowingly.  “That makes sense even if you don’t see triangles and squares that much.  It’s usually circles or octagons.”

“Sure,” Trevor shrugged.  “I guess?  If that’s what you call a bunch of interlocked triangles with wind mana in them, that’s what it is.”

Micah began pooling mana, willing it into his arm and chest simultaneously.  He lifted his spear, beginning to trace a circle in the air, the image of hundreds of scale-like triangles appearing within it.

“Shit, sorry,” Trevor blushed.  “That won’t work.  The most important part is your breathing.  You need to exhale your mana and let it fill the triangles.  As soon as you breathe back in, your body will reabsorb some of the mana and the ability will cancel.”

He glared at his brother before setting his feet once again and repeating the process.  This time, he exhaled, willing the mana in his lungs to leave his body with the stale air.  The circle traced by Micah’s spear  flashed brightly before shattering.

Micah shook his head, ears ringing but a wide grin on his face.  He clearly hadn’t learned the ability, that would take weeks of practice, but unlike their aborted attempts with Wind Burst, he actually had a feel for this portion of the art.  Not much, but a thread that he could grasp onto and follow.  WIth enough practice, he’d be able to finish off the specific move at which point the martial art would be added to his status, along with some instinctive knowledge of their operations.

It was still better to learn a martial art from a book or a master, but given Trevor’s struggle with relaying information, it didn’t seem that MIcah would have that luxury.  Perfecting a single move of a martial art wasn’t the most common method of learning it, but from the dozen or so theory manuals Micah had stolen from the Royal Library, it would work.

“Say,” Micah glanced at his brother.  “We just keep calling this ‘your martial art’ and that’s incredibly awkward.  What’s it called anyway?”

“Actually,” Trevor grinned at him, “it’s a brand new art.  I got the option to name it when I woke up on my sixteenth birthday.”

“Oh Gods,” Mica mumbled to himself, face in his palm.

“It’s good to know that Trevor’s Incredibly Talented Spear-art finally has a worthy disciple,” his brother burst out laughing, doubling over as he slapped his knee while Micah just stared at him, half in awe and half in disgust.

“You’re a child Trevor,” Micah shook his head, struggling to keep a hint of a smile from his face.  “How the fuck are people supposed to take me seriously when I tell them my martial art is named TITS?”

Trevor literally fell to grass, tears streaming down his face while he laughed.