Chapter 38 — A Rainy Day Study Session

When they got back to her room, Ria had Leon help her out of her armor. She had to be careful not to lose her shirt or pants when he pulled on each part. Unlike her pull-over armor, Leon didn’t have any problems with his since it had hidden fasteners and opened in the front like most jackets did.

Both of them smelled of sweat, but the most they could do about that was use a wet towel to wipe their faces and under their loose tunics. Sending Leon downstairs to wait while she bathed would be rude and a waste of their limited time together, so a real bath would have to wait until he went home.

Ria looked out at the heavy rain pelting off her now closed window, and placed her armor and boots in the washbasin. She had used air magic to keep Leon and her from getting wet, but that didn’t keep her boots from getting muddy. Leon had left his boots on the first floor by the stairs.

Ranger had stayed on the second floor and curled up on his bed to take a nap, leaving Ria and Leon to be alone in her room. Naturally, Grandma Fana insisted that Ria leave her door open while Leon was here, which Ria found amusing, but she did as told.

“I’ll try to get my work done early tomorrow, so we can go interview the pet owners and neighbors in the afternoon,” Leon offered.

Ria nodded. “Thanks, I’ll do the same.”

Unfortunately, Grandpa Orlan had bought those dire wolves that were hunted, and Ria was going to have to help butcher them tomorrow, so she would be busy in the morning as well.

“Is there anything that I can do to help prepare the scrolls?” Leon asked.

Ria shook her head. “No, let’s have you use this time to work on your magic skills like originally planned. Once you can control your inner energy, we can start testing you for affinities.”

“Okay. What do I need to do?”

“Did you learn the Inwardly Focused Meditation technique?” Ria asked.

Leon scrunched up his face a bit. “Sorta.”

Ria sighed. “Guess we’ll start there. Might as well get comfortable.”

“Alright.” Leon arranged his padded armor so he could sit on it and mimicked the Inwardly Focused pose. “Ready.”

“No, that’s not quite right.” Ria used her hands to apply pressure to each place where he needed to adjust his posture. “Lean back. Elbows up a little. Move your shoulders this way. Look up more, that’ll help with your spine alignment. There. That should be good enough.”

Leon had become really quiet when she was touching him, and now that she looked, his face was kinda red… it was too cute. She suddenly had an urge to pull up his tunic and tickle his sides, but that would undo all her work.

“Ehem, the problem with the Inwardly Focused technique is that once you achieve a deep enough focus, you won’t be able to hear my instructions. For this first task you only need to achieve the meditative state and become aware of which sense your energy sensing is tied to,” Ria instructed.

Leon looked at her puzzled. “Which sense?”

“Ah-! Don’t move… argh,” Ria complained, pushing his head back and sitting down in front of him so he didn’t have to move to look at her. “It’s just a theory of mine, but I think our minds have a hard time understanding what is being perceived when we sense energy, so it becomes an extension of one of our other senses. For me it was the sense of touch. When I touched a focus tool for the first time, I felt a warmth. That was my own energy reflected in the tool.”

“That’s why you asked me if your staff felt warm?” Leon asked.

Ria nodded and sighed. “If we had an unattuned focus tool for you to use it would make this much easier, but all of mine are attuned to me. I think the energy inside mine will resist your control. Buying one of your own is the best solution. It’s just that if you have an affinity, buying one that matches your affinity is better.”

“You mean like your staff?” Leon asked with wide eyes. “Aren’t things like that expensive?”

“Yes, but having a focus tool is important, and there are more affordable options. My phoenix quill, for example, is a powerful focus tool for fire magic and was only 4 silver coins. I’m sure that Master Rigure would have more affordable options for you,” Ria pushed.

Leon groaned. “That’ll use up my remaining savings.”

Ria suddenly had an idea. “Well… since we’re trying to work on your sensing, maybe using mine is fine. You already know what my energy feels like. Or sounds like. Or smells… forget I said that.”

“Or tastes like?” Leon teased with a laugh.

“Ugh. Don’t say it! Just hold still, okay?” Ria demanded and ran over to unpack her focus tools. Gods, she sure hoped Leon’s energy sensing wasn’t connected to his sense of taste.

“Whoa… is that really a phoenix feather?” Leon asked, awed, when she returned with the vividly red quill.

Ria grinned at his reaction and wrapped it in flames. “Now, hold this between your palms. It has my energy as well as an energy of its own.”

Leon wanted to ask the obvious question but went along without complaint. He really was way too trusting. Ria let the flames die out before placing the quill between his hands and placed her own smaller hands overtop his.

Like this... was sort of like holding hands. Ria blushed a little then put the thought out of her mind. She had work to do. “Now, I’m going to guide you through the meditation process, when you are deep enough, I’ll start flowing my energy through your hands. That way you’ll be able to notice the difference between your own energy and mine. You can also try to repel my energy if you want. Ready?”

Leon started to nod then caught himself and said, “Yes. Ready.”

Giving her voice a steady cadence like a chant, Ria explained the steps needed to achieve the meditation, eventually assisting him in counting his heartbeats and timing his breathing. After what seemed like ages, his breathing and heart rate slowed and synchronized.

When Ria started flowing her energy from one hand to the other through Leon’s hands, she remembered what Master Rigure had said about a ‘gentle touch’ being more effective. Using that gentle touch, Ria noticed that the different ‘materials’ of Leon’s hand resisted or accepted her energy differently.

Closing her eyes, she concentrated on identifying the differences. Idly, she wondered if seizing control of the energy within another person’s body would allow her to temporarily paralyze the person or even move their body around like a puppet. If she could stop their heart or breathing… it was a terrifying thought. She would definitely have to work on Leon’s ability to resist other mages before she left for an academy.

After a while, Ria got bored and healed the training blisters on Leon’s hands. He really had put in a praiseworthy effort this morning. A quick scan of his feet showed blisters there as well. Healing his feet while only touching his hands was an interesting challenge. Finding efficient pathways through his body, she moved enough energy to accomplish the magic.

A knock came at the door.

Ria looked up to see Grandma Fana with a tray of cookies and tea.

“That looks more like praying than magic,” Grandma Fana commented. “I brought some snacks to help with your studies.”

“It’s called the Inwardly Focused Meditation technique. I’m trying to teach Leon how to sense his own inner energy,” Ria explained then poked Leon a few times. “Time to take a break, Leon.”

Leon looked up. “How long was I…?”

“Heh. Looks like you succeeded at learning the meditation technique, at least,” Ria told him with a wink. “Be careful. You can fall asleep like that, and your arms will be really sore in the morning. Let’s have some tea and cookies while you reflect on what you learned.”

At Leon’s confused look, Ria got up and received the snack tray. “Thanks, Grandma Fana. This is a big help.”

“Of course, dear. Maybe we should have Leon stay for dinner?” Grandma Fana suggested. “There’s still plenty of food left over from last night’s celebration.”

Ria nodded. “Yeah, this is going to take a while, so if Leon doesn’t mind, I think that’s a great idea.”

Leon stood up and shook out his arms. “Sure, I’d like that. I think my parents will be happier if I don’t return until late…”

Ria was sure his parents would be even happier if he spent the night and brought back a daughter-in-law to help around the bakery. No way was Grandma Fana gonna allow that to happen on her watch. Heh.

“Let’s do that then. Just leave the tray outside the room when you are done. I’ll come collect it later,” Grandma Fana decided with a nod and headed back downstairs.

Placing the tray on the floor, Ria poured tea from the delicately painted teapot into their teacups. Leon sat across from her and helped himself to a cookie. She sampled the tea and took a cookie for herself.

Both the tea and cookies were quite nice. The cookies had a buttery nutty flavor with a hint of spice. The tea was flavorful but mellow. She’d have to ask Grandma Fana about the tea later. If she and Emily couldn’t find a tea they liked when shopping together, this one was definitely good enough for the tea party.

“I think my energy-sensing is different than yours, Ria,” Leon said after sipping his tea. “It’s sorta like I can feel the energy and sorta like I can hear it, but more like a pressure. The feeling is hard to describe.”

Ria nodded. That his was different wasn’t unexpected. If everyone was the same, then teaching a mage how to unlock their energy perception would be a standardized process instead of the haphazard advice contained in the book.

“That you’ve figured out how to use it is the important part,” Ria encouraged and took another sip of tea. “The next step is to use your will to move that pressure around. Once you can do that, you’ll be able to use magic tools and start learning energy transformations. The energy transformations are what turns your energy into magic.”

“Okay. How do I practice that?” Leon asked.

Ria bit into a cookie and thought about the methods that would work best with the tools they had. “Until we get you a focus tool to practice with, pushing your energy into a heatstone is probably best. You’ll still be able to feel your success even when using the Inwardly Focused meditation.”

Another cookie in hand, Leon considered for a moment then nodded. “I was hoping for something more specific than try it until it works, but I guess that’s just the way magic is. Each person is different and has to figure out those things for themselves, I guess.”

“Yep. I think that’s probably true,” Ria agreed. “I painted wards over and over again while willing the ‘warmth’ into the lines. Once I had enough control over the process, I practiced pushing the energy into my staff and drawing it back out again. I also practiced moving my inner energy around my body. Filling muscles with energy boosts strength, and circulating energy accelerates healing and fatigue recovery.”

“That must be the body-strengthening that the guild instructors were talking about,” Leon realized.

After their break, Leon resumed his meditation with the heatstone pressed between his hands, and Ria got to work with her grimoire. Using a regular ink and paper, she was copying down any pattern or glyph that might be useful toward finding the missing pets.

Ria suspected that the whole process would be much simpler if she had a book on divination rituals. Surely, there were divination rituals for locating missing things, and those were probably the first divinations learned. Instead, she was shoe-horning the divination into a ward.

The tricky part was in how to define the object being searched for. She didn’t have a glyph for ‘pet’ but there were ones for ‘owned’ and ‘animal’. Even with that, she still needed a way to specify the owner. One existing method required the person’s blood to be dripped into the divining circle, but Ria would prefer a solution that was more… reusable. Placing the owner's hair in the divining circle was workable if less reliable… wait!

Hair! If Ria could get a sample of the pet’s hair, then tracking them down was a simple matter of using a part to find a larger whole. And that would work even if the pets were already dead.

While Ria was excitedly scribbling out possible divination diagrams to solve her problem, she heard a soft thump and turned around to see Leon slumped over weakly.

“Ah! You used up too much of your energy, Leon!” Ria realized and dug out an energy restoration potion for him.

“Sorry… didn’t realize…,” he mumbled.

“No, my fault—for not mentioning it.” Ria waved off his apology and helped him drink a sip of the potion.

His hands were sweaty and the stone was still warm, so he must’ve had some measure of success.

“I think I’ve figured it out, but it’s really tiring and takes a ton of effort,” Leon said after pushing himself back to a sitting position. “If that was all the inner energy I have though…”

Ria shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. Efficiency is really poor at first, and your inner energy increases with use and practice. I’ve more than tripled my starting amount already.”

Leon sighed in relief. “That’s good to know, at least.”

“Yep. You should be proud to have succeeded so quickly,” Ria congratulated him. “According to Luventi, it takes many apprentices months of hard work to reach even this stage.”

“Months… ugh, I would have hated that,” Leon muttered and rubbed his head.

“Haha. Maybe you’re a prodigy like me? Take a break and relax for a while. For testing your affinity, I need to get some supplies from Grandma Fana,” Ria told him and hurried downstairs excitedly.

Grandma Fana must’ve checked on them while they were busy, since the tray was already gone.