CHAPTER NINE

Self-Actualization

“Come on, Number One, concentrate.”

“I’m trying, master.”

“Try harder.”

Honestly, it was a tall order. Despite the past year of intense physical training, my seven-year-old body could barely endure the chilly morning air of Mt. Eigen’s summit. I couldn’t help shivering every fifteen seconds from the cold brushing against my skin.

“Maybe if we started a fire…”

“Building a fire would—”

“Disrupt the connection with the self that I’m trying to discover by forcing my body into a state of extreme conditions.” I sighed. “Won’t even let me put on my jacket… this is child abuse, you know.”

“You’ll live.”

Yes, Captain Wolf’s approach to understanding the School of Enchantment wasn’t what you’d call scientific. Not at all like the grounded laws of sorcery he’d taught me a few years ago, but more of a psychological theory that honestly made very little sense to me.

He called it, “The state of self-actualization,” which he explained to me a year ago was his basic premise behind discovering enchantment.

“If transfiguration and conjuration spells manipulate one’s exterior surroundings, then enchantments are spells that affect the interior — the inner workings of the body itself.”

“And that’s why everyone thinks I cast an enchantment on Lieutenant Weber… because I forced him to stop hurting me?”

Yeah, it had been a few days after I’d left the hospital, and I was a little more comfortable talking about the incident.

“Exactly.”

“But what does that have to do with this self-actualization thing?”

“The madam’s theory of self-actualization contends that individuals who are faced with extreme circumstances can maximize their abilities and resources to realize their full intellectual, creative, and arcane potential.”

“And that means…?”

“Think about it yourself, kiddo.”

Yep, no freebies or hints from my master — as if my life wasn’t hard enough already. It didn’t take me too long to understand his point, though.

“Lieutenant Weber was beating me up… and I thought I was going to die.”

“That sort of extreme circumstance allowed you to tap into the hidden potential within you.”

“And that’s how I cast an enchantment…”

After days of feeling skeptical about my actual abilities, I was finally beginning to accept that there might be something more to Captain Wolf’s confidence in me.

“But if extreme situations are all it takes to learn how to cast an enchantment, then how come no one else has done it?” I frowned. “A kid getting beaten black and blue by an adult isn’t exactly an original story.”

“True enough.” Captain Wolf shared my frown, although he perked up pretty quickly after he revealed more of his theory. “But self-actualization is a highly personal process that varies from person to person because we’re all individuals with different motivations.”

“So, it’s not limited to arcanists?”

Captain Wolf ruffled my hair like he often did when he thought I was being smart.

“There are a lot of famous individuals all over Armestys who’ve achieved incredible success in their field; artists, musicians, mathematicians, soldiers — their works are lauded, not just for being exceptional, but because they’re miles ahead of the competition.”

“And you think these people have achieved self-actualization?”

“That’s the idea, kiddo.”

It was an interesting theory, for sure. How a person’s perspective of self could make them achieve heights no one else could reach. But could I really be one of these people? Me? The kid who’d been nothing but ordinary in my past life?

“What kind of motivations are we talking about?”

Captain Wolf raised his fist to my eye level.

“The madam framed her theory of self-actualization within a hierarchy of four motivations.”

He raised his index finger first.

“The physical needs that keep us alive like food, water, and shelter.”

He raised his middle finger next.

“The need to feel safe, secure, and unafraid.”

Then the ring finger came up.

“The need to belong and feel loved.”

Finally, he raised his pinky.

“And the need to be recognized and respected by others.”

All this psychobabble was making my head dizzy, and I think that showed on my face because Captain Wolf flicked my forehead to keep me focused.

“Um, are you saying I need to get high marks on all four needs to reach self-actualization?”

“Not necessarily.” Captain Wolf crossed his arms. “I think just one of these needs should be enough.”

“And, um, which need’s mine?”

“You already know, don’t you?”

Dammit, I did know. The incident was the key factor here.

“It’s the second one… isn’t it?”

“Yeah, your need to feel safe and secure — to survive — I think that’s your trigger to accessing your hidden potential for enchantment.”

I didn’t like where this was going, because it could only mean… “You’re not thinking of beating me up, are you?”

“Have I ever been that cruel?”

Captain Wolf’s response sent a bucket load of relief splashing down on my head. His next words though, well, let’s just say relief washed away from me really quickly.

“There are other ways to simulate extreme conditions.”

“B-but…” I wracked my brain to avoid whatever hellish training he had in mind. “Self-actualization won’t actually teach me how to cast an enchantment, right?”

“No, it won’t,” Captain Wolf admitted. “But it is the one way we know that might allow you to cast another enchantment. And once you’ve done that a few times, we’ll work on you remembering the feel of it, which should lead to you understanding the basic concept of how an enchantment might work.”

“Like muscle memory.”

“Yeah, that’s the idea.”

“So, um,” I was afraid to ask but I had to, “what now?”

“Well,” Captain Wolf grinned an almost impish grin, “we find out what it takes to trigger your survival instincts.”

And so there I was, a year later, meditating on a patch of cliffside by the peak of Mt. Eigen with only my PT gear to protect me from the extreme mountain weather of Eura’s autumn season. Not that this training method was doing me any good apart from wishing I had a cup of hot cocoa in my hands.

Honestly, though, this meditation thing was the easiest of what was sure to be another hellish day of training which was way tougher than even the training I had with my crib mates. Speaking of my crib mates…

“Hey! Hey! We train like hell every day!” came the chant from down below us.

My crib mates were already jogging back from Mt. Eigen’s summit, and unlike the previous year, they now looked like proper child soldiers moving in lock-step with each other. Even Number Two, who was at the very back of their line, didn’t seem to have as much trouble as before. Well, at least he wasn’t falling over from fatigue anymore.

I waved at them, and Number Three, who was always watching out for me during morning drills, waved back just in time for Sergeant Schmitt to catch her.

“Get back in line, Number Three!” he snapped. “You rugrats aren’t good enough to train with Number One!”

I winced at hearing my name used like that.

Over the last twelve months, the major’s cronies had begun to set me against my crib mates. They would prop me up like I was some perfect kid and then tear my friends down with verbal and physical abuses they hoped would goad my crib mates into awakening new powers as I had.

I wasn’t there to see these abuses happen, but seeing the bruises constantly appear on their bodies whenever I did get time with them was proof enough of what they were going through.

And whether intentional or not, the major’s cronies kind of turned me into a villain too. Like I was on their side — and that sent a lot of resentment my way. Nowadays, apart from Number Three, only Number Four and Five would sit with me at lunch. The rest, they looked at me like the hell they were living through was somehow my fault, which it kind of was.

They didn’t even care that Captain Wolf was training me three times as hard, only that my master never abused me like the major’s cronies did to them. For most of my crib mates, it looked like I was having the time of my life, and I kind of was.

Every day since I became his apprentice, Wolf and I would go through a routine of combat and mental training designed to help me stimulate that hidden potential of mine. Although it’s been a year and I haven’t really achieved that state of self-actualization he’d gushed over.

Our day would start with a short run up to Mt. Eigen’s summit two hours before my crib mates went for their daily jog. Once there, Captain Wolf insisted on CQC training — close-quarters combat for you uninitiated types.

“Combat is an extreme circumstance that should trigger your survival instincts,” he’d reasoned.

That usually lasted two hours, long enough for my crib mates to arrive on Mt. Eigen and watch me spar with Wolf, which, if they were thinking clearer, would tell them just how difficult my training was. Because Wolf pulled no punches, and I’ve often been on the receiving end of our exchanges.

Afterward, Wolf and I would spend another hour meditating near the top of Mt. Eigen because he thought being around nature would help me understand the nuances of natural energy more clearly. Yep, it wasn’t just about enchantments all day. I wasn’t allowed to forget the fundamentals of the other two schools, too.

“All matter is energy, and all energy can become matter,” I often repeated like a kind of meditative mantra.

Wolf would always tell me how impressed he was at how quickly I could harness natural energy into myself, and how huge the amount usually was. He described it to me once as a near-invisible sphere of magical energy half my size enveloping my body while I sat in the lotus position.

I’m like a Son Goku… Man, I sometimes wish someone in this world could get my pop-culture references…

The meditation was also a two-parter where the extreme conditions of Mt. Eigen’s weather might also allow me to discover self-actualization. That didn’t work as well as we would hope.

After meditation came transfiguration lessons. And unlike two years ago, these lessons were more practical than theoretical. So, while my crib mates continued their studies in a Hogwarts-style classroom, my training was once again held in the wilds. The Evergreen Forest south of the institute, mostly.

Why this forest? Because Evergreen had an abundance of iron ore deposits peppered inside its boundary kind of like those ore outcroppings one would mine in a role-playing game. This meant we didn’t have to dismember pieces of furniture anymore, something the institute’s quartermaster was pretty happy with.

“Try to speed things up like I taught you,” Captain Wolf advised. “The enemy won’t wait for you to get your things in order before they attack.”

“I know, I know… faster’s always better.”

This kind of training — which was another sort of extreme conditioning — had a military application to it, too. So, while I prepped my materials, Wolf unloaded on me with rubber bullets from his handgun. They rarely hit me. Although the ones that did strike their marks really stung. But you try concentrating while the sound of gunfire assaulting your ears and see if it doesn’t drive your focus away. Still, with a bit of creativity mixed with desperation, I’d managed to find ways around Captain Wolf’s distractions.

Two years ago, I used a pair of gloves to bypass the need to rewrite an arcane array to transfigure a piece of iron into a dagger. The gloves were gone now. They’d been replaced by snug-fit, iron-plated leather gauntlets, not unlike the ones worn by the medieval knights of my old world.

I’d scrawled different types of array combinations into the four iron bands of each gauntlet, one for every kind of equipment type I imagined I would need on a battlefield.

Now, after moving a good ten yards away, Captain Wolf raised his arm and pointed his handgun at me.

“Are you ready?”

I responded with the thumbs up as moments like these usually made my throat too dry for words to spill out of my mouth. Nerves.

“You better be.”

A shot was fired, and the first bullet flew past my left ear. I didn’t even have time to duck.

Fuck, that was close!

I dropped to the grass as the second shot was fired and picked up the chunk of iron ore the captain had peppered across our battlefield for me.

Fuck, I need my shield!

I smacked the blades of both my forearms against each other so that the arcane array on the fourth band — which would be at the bottom part of both gauntlets — would connect the ‘iron’ with the ‘shield’ as a completed circle that was the source code for my spell.

Then I let loose the bundle of magical energy I’d already stored within me, causing blue sparks to fly out of the now glowing array. These sparks transferred over to the iron ore in my hands, disassembling it into tiny shards that quickly reshaped into the round iron shield I desperately needed to survive this training.

I was just in the nick of time too because I heard three gunshots, with two of those rubber bullets smacking against the front of my shield. Luckily, there was enough iron for my shield to cover most of my top half.

That’s five… three more to go!

“Here I come!”

I know, I know, I shouldn’t telegraph my moves, but I couldn’t help feeling excited at the prospect of finally beating my master in a gunfight.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard this before.” He taunted.

He fired another shot at me, one I barely blocked from hitting me in the forehead.

“Sheesh, someone’s trying too hard!” I taunted him back.

I smacked the knuckles of my fists against each other so that the bands wrapped around the top of my gauntlets would clink together and the ‘iron’ and ‘chain’ I needed would be transfigured from the shield resting in my right hand.

As transfiguration worked its magic, I was already running forward while thinking the captain would get distracted by all the shiny sparks in front of me. It was wishful thinking.

The seventh shot grazed my leg, causing me to nearly stumble to the ground. I barely just managed to avoid a wipe-out though. Thankfully, the knotted cord of iron chain I transfigured from my shield was already in my hands.

I threw the end of the chain — which had a kind of dagger-like tip to it — high into the canopy of pines above me. And after I heard the satisfying thump of its tip finding purchase in the branches, I launched myself upward so that my momentum would swing me high and forward along the trees like a kid-sized Tarzan, which I imagined made it more difficult for the captain to aim his last shot at me.

The bullet missed but just barely. It hit the trunk of the tree behind me with a loud thud while my slightly sideward swing continued uninterrupted.

It’s going to take him at least three seconds to reload and cock his gun. More than enough time for me to attack.

While my right hand held onto the chain, I smacked my left wrist against my right wrist so that the bands at the top of my forearms would link together and form the ‘iron’ and ‘sword’ I needed for my counterattack.

I felt gravity take hold of me again as the sparks of magic began to eat away at my iron chain to transfigure it into the short sword that flashed to life in my right hand.

And yes, I was falling again. But there was enough momentum in my swing that I was flying straight into Captain Wolf’s position — and he hadn’t even bothered to reload his gun.

“What’s he—”

I noticed it too late, the sparks of magic dancing across his handgun’s barrel. A second later and a bullet made entirely of ice exploded out of his gun and right in the path of the careless seven-year-old me.

I’m not entirely sure how I blocked the bullet with my sword — call it instinct or reflex or maybe even a sudden burst of self-actualization — but I just managed to pull it off. Unfortunately, Captain Wolf’s ‘Ice Bullet’ had the special ability to coat my sword in a sheathe of ice, giving it an added element that made the arrays on my gauntlets suddenly useless.

Damn, he’s good…

It was the last thing I’d think of right before he met my charge with one of his own. His was a clothesline that sent me rolling three-hundred-and-sixty degrees in the air before crashing hard onto the forest floor with a great big, “Yow!”

I lay on that leaf-strewn ground while I felt my new bruises begin to ache, and I would have lain there all morning if I hadn’t heard the slow clapping of someone who came to interrupt our training.

“That was an excellent match,” Major Heinrich said as he walked out of the shadows of the trees. “Number One is learning to use his surroundings very well. It won’t be long when he can fight on par with our regulars.”

“That’s way too soon to think about, sir,” Captain Wolf answered.

Meanwhile, I jumped to my feet and moved to stand slightly behind Captain Wolf.

“You are coddling the boy, Captain,” Major Wolf chided. “His ability for repeated transfiguration while in combat is already at a high enough level that even the primarch will be impressed.”

“He’s only seven, sir.”

“And yet he acts mature enough that one can’t help but see him more as a young adult.”

For fuck’s sake, I’m starting to feel like showing off is repeatedly biting me in the ass…

“Well, Number One,” Major Heinrich turned a critical gaze my way, “do you think you will be able to achieve it today?”

He motioned behind him, and one of his goons, Lieutenant Sigmund Sauer, a tall scarecrow-like man with short-cropped golden hair and narrow eyes appeared out of the shadows just like his superior had. This man, who had replaced Lieutenant Weber as the major’s adjutant, carried a glass jug of dark red liquid with him.

“Major—”

The major cut Captain Wolf off with a raised hand. “Thanks to your tutelage, the boy has shown remarkable results, Captain.”

I’m sure he thought this praise would butter Captain Wolf up, but my master’s frown only deepened. Still, this didn’t dissuade the major one bit.

“I am certain he will be able to achieve that which we have all sought for so long…” Major Heinrich smiled an almost devilish smile, “…the power to lay even the old gods low.”