– Beginning of Arc 3, Unyielding Fury –

– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 215, Season of the Rising Moon, Day 92 –

Terry sat down on the floor in his spartan room within the Guardian facilities of the Libra Outpost. He placed his legs straight on the floor with a ninety degree angle between them. His left leg pointed towards the bed while his right leg pointed towards a wall.

He took a bite from one of the sandwiches that served as his breakfast and opened his notebook in front of him.

Afterwards, Terry retrieved two identical contraptions from his storage. Each consisted of a heavy stone block, a rectangular sheet of tertium, and a compression coil spring between them.

Terry placed one item each in front of his feet so that he could compress the tertium layer against the stone blocks resting against his bed and the wall.

Terry straightened his legs and compressed the coil springs. Afterwards, Terry tried to cast his Immovable Object spell with his feet as the focal point.

If his spell was successful, then the septimum layer would become transfixed and Terry would feel the decreasing pressure. When the spell deactivated, Terry would feel the pressure again and he would know how much his intended duration differed from the actual duration.

Terry had prepared the exercise equipment together with Elvis in the Chara Settlement, but he had not gotten around to using it much. Now that Terry was reasonably satisfied with his off-hand casting and overall casting time, he wanted to increase his options.

Next, Terry retrieved a ring that Ying had gifted him before their departure from Syn City.

Terry put on the ring and channeled mana into it. A slightly translucent purple vampire bat appeared in the air with fluttering wings.

“Hmm…” Terry poked the spirit projection from the ring. “Feels kind of squishy.”

Ying had wanted to thank Terry and since Terry was interested in soul spirits but incapable of the required spellwork, Ying had chosen an item with a similar effect.

There were two major differences between soul spirits and spirit projections. First, a user could not share a spirit projection’s mana abilities.

Not that a common vampire bat had any…

Second, the connection with a soul projection was very different.

Terry instructed the bat to land on his bed. Then, Terry opened the connection with the spirit.

“Ugh…” Terry groaned at the unfamiliar sensations that assaulted his mind. Another set of eyes with a different light spectrum. The smell of blood. The echolocation triggered by his own groan.

Terry hurriedly closed the connection again. “…that really doesn’t get any more pleasant, no matter how often I try it.”

Headache-inducing…

“Let’s maybe leave that for later.”

When my stomach is empty again.

“I can at least do some thinking while exercising…” Terry took another bite from his sandwich and then picked up his pen.

“Alright, what could have gone better?” Terry thought back to his recent experiences.

A lot?

“Hmm…” Terry bit his lips. “Maybe differently: Which opponents were the worst?”

Terry immediately thought of the phantom and death specters.

Ethereal creatures.

“Without the mana sublimator, I…” Terry shook his head. “No point dwelling on it.”

“Ah right…” Terry scribbled next to his previous entry. “Vicious and the liquifying soldier pose a similar problem.”

Terry thought about the kind of soldiers he avoided as well as the practice spars he had in Syn.

Flying enemies with long-range abilities.

Underground enemies with long-range abilities that can be triggered above ground.

“Hm…” Terry thought again of the Guildheads that had attacked Syn. “The creeper…”

Mana-cloaked assassins.

“Maybe, I’ve been getting too reliant on my mana sense.” Terry mumbled to himself. “Or, at least, I’ve been trusting it too much.”

But I can’t learn life sense… Eye-sight or hearing didn’t seem to work that well either with that Carlos… Sudden Death…

Terry took another bite when someone knocked at the door.

“Mmfff, yes?” Terry hurriedly gulped down his food.

“Morning.” Sigille opened the door. She raised an eyebrow at Terry’s setup and walked over.

When Sigille saw what Terry was scribbling down, she grinned. “Perfect timing then.”

“No need to get up,” said Sigille and sat down and leaned on the wall. “First things first. Here.”

Sigille handed over two items.

Tiny leather belts? Terry curiously inspected the items.

“They’re leg straps with the same sheath inscription as your belt,” explained Sigille. “I figured that your new aspected needles may require some space.”

Yeah, taking them out of the dimensional storage takes too long…

While Terry was very happy that he had found a way to use storage items for his aspected needles, it was a bit tricky to retrieve the needles from his dimensional storage, because Terry had to reclaim any decayed mana while the item was still in the separated space of the storage item.

“Thanks, I—”

“Don’t thank me just yet, I still plan to prepare a proper gift.” Sigille smirked.

Terry was stunned and felt inclined to humbly decline, but before he had found the right words, Sigille was speaking again.

“You may not realize it, but you have helped a lot in Syn.” Sigille watched Terry seriously. “Without you, we would have had to play catch for way longer. We would have had to waste much more mana. Many more soldiers of the Devout Division would have died before we joined the battle against the horde. The battle would have become much more difficult as a consequence.”

Terry scrunched up his face skeptically.

Sigille snorted amusedly at Terry’s expression. “You remind me a bit of Matteo when he was younger.” Her expression softened and she insisted: “I’m being serious.”

“Matteo and I might have been able to shorten the game by sacrificing an item but those are hard to come by.” Sigille shook her head slightly.

Sigille puffed her cheeks and then sharply exhaled the air. “However, if you feel it’s unwarranted, I have an offer that might interest you.” She waited for Terry to catch her gaze. “I intend to prepare a gift.”

“I could pick one right now…” Sigille paused and Terry thought he had seen that look in her eyes before. “...or I give you a training challenge and if you pass it, then I will prepare something really good.”

Like what? Terry raised an eyebrow and his gaze subconsciously moved upwards.

“Like an item at the level I would use myself,” said Sigille.

Woah, can she read minds? Terry opened his eyes widely and stared at Sigille.

“No, I can’t read minds,” said Sigille amusedly.

She totally can! Terry’s expression froze.

“You have a very honest face, Terry,” said Sigille and chuckled before her expression fell. “Which is not always a good thing.”

Sigille looked worriedly at Terry. “That reminds me, this place is not going to stay this empty for long. You need to remember that you are not in Arcana anymore. Be careful.”

Sigille’s face turned serious. “You may want to keep some of your cards hidden. In particular, I would suggest that you keep your recently discovered applications of your mana to yourself for now. You may also consider being more reserved with respect to sharing your spell limitations. People you trust or work together with are one thing. Everyone else is something else.”

Terry furrowed his brow.

“Just a suggestion.” Sigille shrugged. “You should be able to weigh the pros and cons. In the end, it’s your life. Your call.”

The strange glint returned into Sigille’s eyes. “So? The challenge?”

“You mean, I could even receive an item with the divine hammer inscription?” asked Terry. He was already nodding without being fully aware of it.

“Few people have learned to control and direct the inscription properly.” Sigille raised an eyebrow. “But I figure your mana control should at least help you with it.”

“What’s your interest in this inscription?” Sigille asked as if she was already expecting a certain answer.

Terry glanced at his open notebook.

Ethereal, liquified, flying…

“From what I saw, it could help me with a number of troublesome opponents…” Terry’s voice trailed off.

“We’ll see,” said Sigille. “Depends on how you do. If you do well, I may add another challenge. I take that as a yes.” Sigille clapped twice. “But before we start, what do you want to learn?”

Huh? Terry was taken aback.

“I mean I have my own ideas, of course, but I want to hear what you are thinking yourself,” elaborated Sigille.

Terry glanced at his notebook and then replied: “Disruption discharges.”

Sigille grinned and nodded. “Perfect, then we are in agreement on what you should learn first. I would suggest three topics in total. Disruption discharges, burst techniques, and general combat practice.”

The strange glint returned again and a corner of Sigille’s lips rose. “Problem is, you are a bit difficult to place. Your mana foundation is too high to place you against students your own age. Your balanced state has already become abnormal— Don’t believe me?”

She did it again!

Sigille shook her head. “In Syn, you were facing proper soldiers. While they did not have much practical experience against undead hordes, they did have training and none of them were in your age group. Furthermore, you have not even finished the common mana cultivator path.”

Sigille took a deep breath. “Which brings me to the next half of the problem. I can’t place you with the older students that would be appropriate for your mana foundation, because then your opponents will have a variety of problematic spells or they will know proper burst techniques. Or both.”

Terry had to acknowledge that she had a point and he nodded.

“While I instruct general courses, my own class consists of those with external mana control impairments,” said Sigille. “I’ll instruct burst techniques there and you are free to join. However, until you learn proper disruption discharges, it will be difficult to find suitable partners for combat training.”

The glint in Sigille’s eyes intensified. “To avoid wasting time, I want that gap to be closed as soon as possible. Official instruction will start with the Setting Moon. That’s your deadline.”

Sigille grinned and waited for a reaction.

Terry blinked. “A week?”

Sigille shrugged carelessly. “Show me what you can do. I want to see how far you can advance on the topic in a week, yes.”

***

Sigille and Terry were standing in a special area of the training grounds. It was a free space with several round melon-sized items placed at fixed locations.

“These things will absorb most of the emitted mana so that you don’t flood the whole area and cause disturbances,” explained Sigille.

Afterwards, Sigille raised her fist in front of Terry. “While an aspected discharge requires a complex refractor to separate aspects, a disruption discharge only requires a focus.”

In his mana sight, Terry saw a funnel-like mana flow along Sigille’s arm that led to a convex shape at her knuckles.

Sigille punched her fist towards empty air and a wave of mana escaped accompanied by a dense net of sizzling mana lines visible in mana sight.

“There are two aspects to a disruption discharge,” said Sigille. “First, you are drowning your opponent in mana that has been naturalized by yourself and that is therefore harder to harvest for others. Second, there are disrupting concentrations of mana traveling along the wave. I refer to them as spell slicers.”

Sigille rocked her head from side to side. “Generally, a mana cultivator does not control those in detail. However, you can practice to increase their intensity and frequency. You need to do that if you want to disrupt spells and imprinted items, because the wave alone won’t be able to accomplish that. What counts there is the mana intensity, the mana velocity, and the sharpness of the slicers.”

“How does the focus work for that?” asked Terry.

“Well, think about the different aspects: intensity, velocity, sharpness. This translates to compression, propulsion, and shape. You build up enough pressure and then create an opening to have the mana released forward. More pressure, more speed.”

Sigille became pensive. “Real mastery includes control over the dispersal and travel distance. You do not want to create a giant wave just to disrupt a tiny spell structure.”

Sigille raised her fist again. “I’ll demonstrate some more. I have about an hour before I am required elsewhere.”

Terry carefully observed the mana flow and subconsciously moved his mana accordingly in his own right arm.

“Alright, let’s start with you then…” After Sigille had demonstrated a disruption discharge for the third time, she turned around… and became stupefied.

Terry was examining the mana refractor in front of his knuckles and he punched out.

A mana wave with sparsely placed mana lines of higher intensity was travelling forward from Terry’s fist.

Huh… Terry blinked perplexedly. Why didn’t I learn this sooner?

“There are barely any sizzling mana lines though…” Terry absentmindedly mumbled to himself. “And it’s somewhat sluggish.”

Sigille shook her head and grumbled quietly: “With my external mana control, it took me more than thirty years to create a wasted refractor that was remotely comparable and the kid is actually complaining…”

Sigille stopped herself and grinned with anticipatory eyes. She cleared her throat. “Well, I can see that you have made the first step. I’m looking forward to what you can achieve by the deadline.”

Sigille stayed to observe Terry’s initial progress some more and then left with an expression that was a perfect mixture of exasperation and anticipation.

***

“Hmmm…” Terry carefully observed his latest disruption discharge.

For the past day, Terry had mostly repeated his basic disruption exercise with each of his fists. Nevertheless, Terry could not resist and also experimented with changing his focal point from his knuckles to his palms or even to the side of his hands.

Terry sat down on the floor of the training ground and scribbled in his notebook. He had created a list of reference discharges he had seen before: Bjorln, the inscribed earth giant, Lizzy, the lightning-gifted Thanatos soldier, one of the cultist soldiers, and Sigille.

Terry furrowed his brow. “While my mana travels further than Aunt Sigille’s, her discharge had a much higher density of intense mana lines…”

Which is bad… Those are the parts that can slice up spell structures.

“Maybe comparable to the cultist soldier…” Terry tapped his pen on the notebook.

I did not get a good look at the discharge from the Thanatos soldier, but I could have sworn that the mana travelled faster than mine…

“Pa’s discharge in their sparring match was way wider, but he and Ma also faced several mages…” Terry puckered his lips. “Wait…”

Come to think of it, something was different in Pa Bjorln’s discharge… There was a noticeable cluster of sizzling mana lines in the center and the velocity was different at different locations…

Terry looked at his hands. “He used both of his arms at the same time.”

Terry stood up and tried to mimic the actions he remembered from Bjorln. He spread out his arms and created a mana refractor on the knuckles of both of his fists.

Terry struck out both fists at the same time and emitted two overlapping discharges.

Terry could see a similar phenomenon to Bjorln’s disruption discharge. The spell slicers were more densely packed in the area in front of him while further out, they were even rarer than in his one-handed discharge.

Success!

Regardless, Terry frowned. “This seems a bit like cheating. Aunt Sigille only used a single fist.”

Pa isn’t a cheater!

“No, but that was combat.” Terry mumbled to himself. “The challenge isn’t.”

Aunt Sigille hasn’t even clearly stated what she is expecting from you…

Terry shook his head slightly. “She expects me to do my best. This isn’t it.”

You really want that divine hammer inscription, huh? You don’t even know what results you would need to receive that.

Terry shrugged. “Maybe I’ll fail her expectations, but I won’t know if I don’t try my best.”

You are already comparable to that cultist soldier. Didn’t Aunt Sigille say that’s already abnormal? They’re all older than you.

“My external mana control is better.” Terry shook his head determinedly. “I should do better.”

How could I make better use of my external mana control in this?

A pensive look entered Terry’s eyes…

***

Sigille stood at the training grounds and observed Terry’s training progress from a distance.

Terry performed discharge after discharge in a rapid succession. If it wasn’t for the discharged mana, one might mistake it for a martial arts exposition.

“Where did you pick him up?” A tall and muscular human man had stepped next to Sigille.

“Greetings, Palmer,” said Sigille. “You’re back early this cycle.”

“Last demon fortress wrapped up quicker than expected,” said Palmer. “The elementals had clashed with some mana corrupted before we arrived. So what’s with him? Does he have a vendetta against mages or something?”

“Not really,” replied Sigille with a smile. “But he did have some memorable encounters with ethereal creatures and long-range casters. That’s my nephew from Arcana. Whaka Terry is Little Silly’s accepted son.”

Sigille stroked her chin. “I’ve given him a challenge. He is supposed to improve his disruption discharges as much as possible until the Setting Moon arrives.”

“I figure he should already pass?” Palmer spoke in bewilderment. “Does he know that what he’s doing is, shall we say, unusual?”

Terry threw out punches, palm-strikes, and hand chops one after the other – every one was accompanied by a disruption discharge.

“Bordering on ridiculous?” continued Palmer.

Sigille chuckled. “Yes and no. I told him something like that before. He may nod, but it doesn’t seem to sink in. During this challenge, I have no intention of pointing that out again.”

Meanwhile, Terry had started incorporating side, turning, and hook kicks into his routine.

Sigille smirked. “Care to take a guess when he started learning disruption discharges?”

Palmer examined Terry with inquisitive eyes. “How old is he?”

“Turned nineteen this season.” Sigille spoke while shaking her head.

Palmer turned to Sigille and searched her face before turning back to Terry. “Well, that makes my first guess a bit unlikely. I could imagine Arcana having some way for prenatal training but preconceptional training seems like a stretch even for them.”

A moment of silence passed between them while they observed Terry’s training.

“At this point, the mana absorption spheres must be close to their limit,” remarked Palmer.

Sigille snickered. “Look at the floor around Terry.”

“...are those mana containers?” Palmer raised an eyebrow. “He’s recycling his discharged mana into his own containers?”

Sigille snorted amusedly. “Terry is a bit zealous when it comes to avoiding having good mana go to waste.”

“That’s…” Palmer was flabbergasted. “Shouldn’t someone with that kind of external mana control have the option to learn proper anti-magic spellwork? Why does he focus on discharges?”

“We all have our own circumstances, don’t we?” retorted Sigille.

Sigille decided to follow her own suggestion and keep Terry’s mana type a secret for now. After all, the image of Terry as a promising mage proper from Arcana could act as a deterrent for trouble.

“Besides…” Sigille grinned again. “It would have been such a waste for Terry to not learn disruption discharges given what he has already achieved after barely three days.”

Palmer jerked his head around to face Sigille. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope.” Sigille pulled her lips back and raised her eyebrows while shaking her head slightly. “Terry’s mana foundation is more than a little absurd and I guess this is playing to his strengths.”

“What the—?!” Sigille’s expression froze.

Palmer quickly turned to Terry again to see an intense discharge that had been expelled from Terry’s palm. The density of spell slicers was a league above what Terry had demonstrated so far.

“What did he do to achieve that outcome?” asked Palmer as he crossed his arms.

“I…” Sigille’s eyes were still wide open. “I think Terry just layered several focus refractors.” She grinned subconsciously. “I could detect a refractor way apart from his palm. Come to think of it, he told me once that he was practicing to increase his reach in mana control.”

“It’s rare for a mana cultivator to have that kind of external mana control,” murmured Palmer. “Now I feel like training some more…”

Palmer glanced at Sigille. “Up for a friendly spar later?”

“Sure,” replied Sigille. “What’s the score?”

Palmer snorted. “Still embarrassing, but I plan to bring it to an overall tie this season.” A challenging glint appeared in his eyes.

Sigille chuckled. “I wish you luck. It would be nice to have someone take over. I’ll be travelling for a bit next cycle.”

***