I walked as fast as I could without making myself seem like a madman, meaning Rethi had to just about run to keep up.

“Master Max! What happened?” he just about yelled after me. I turned and gave him a scolding look. Here, in the middle of the street, was definitely not the place to expose information that could lead to me being identified as a Champion.

Rethi withered beneath the look but continued walking alongside me while keeping a watchful eye.

The walk was brief as we made our way up the stairs to Mayer’s home and burst through the door, almost running into Mayer, who was standing in the hallway sipping tea with eyebrow raised. He spoke a moment later.

“Such a rush to meet me in the morning?” I laughed somewhat tersely.

“Yes actually. I can shift now.” Mayer’s eyes lit up slightly, a little bit of excitement flaring through them. I realised that I always felt and saw people's emotions far more visceral when I had the attention of their eyes.

“That’s good news. It generally takes a lot for me to train someone to shift, and even an expert needs a few weeks at least.” I furrowed my brow, did he not know?

“Mayer, did you know that the Sharah is a method of shifting?” Mayer’s brows now furrowed as well.

“Theologically, yes. It was said that those with the highest commitment to the Sharah were capable of creating storms with their steps. I have met a few that were capable of something similar.” I simply deadpanned and looked directly into his eyes.

“Looks like it’s just the Sharah’hin that have managed to do so.” Mayer continued to look me in the eyes, his surprise evident before he muttered something about Champions and ran a hand over his face with a sigh.

He waved me into the lounge room and we sat, Rethi taking the extra seat near me and listening, his eyes wide with wonder or something similar, I wasn’t paying enough attention. Mayer looked at me for a moment, then asked what had happened. I recounted the attack from the Jothian boy, and then explained, in as much detail as realistically possible, the feeling of using the Sharah for shifting.

“Then right after all that, when I was sitting down with Rethi, 3 notification appeared at once. I don’t even think I have had 2 at once before.” Mayer nodded patiently, but I could see the growing worry in his eyes. I decided to not look at it further lest I see the real magnitude of his worry.

“How well do you remember what they said?”

“Pretty well. The first one was just an achievement for shifting the first time I think,” Mayer nodded, “The second was about a Prophecy. Something about a blasphemer being in a prophecy that even the Sharah’hin had forgotten,” Mayer closed his eyes and started rubbing the bridge of his nose, “And then the last one was about becoming an Apprentice Sharah Hammer Wielder. Stuff about walking the path of the Sharah.” Mayer didn’t even try to disguise his groan. I didn’t dare check his emotions, that would probably only make me even more worried than I already was.

It took Mayer another 5 minutes before he spoke again, but Rethi and I simply sat and waited for him to speak like lost puppies.

“Okay,” Mayer started, “first of all, nothing to worry about with the shifting, that seems normal enough, despite it’s pretty odd usage. We will test it later, but I have a good idea of what it may be, based on your description. The prophecy...” Mayer thought for a moment before speaking again, “I don’t know of any prophecy including in the Sharah or Sharah’hin. Prophecies, however, I do know a little about, and they are terrifying and horrific, and always, always have an element of disaster, no matter how positive it may seem.” He held my eyes, asserting his point before he sighed and continued.

“Prophecies are just one big question. They wait around and linger until someone eventually solves it. If you become part of a prophecy, then you will become part of the outcome as well. Prophecies never state certain outcomes, and only speak in riddles and uncertainties, even ones directly relayed by the requisite Gods themselves. If I were to be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t even bother go looking for what the prophecy says, because all it will do is muddy the waters when the prophecy eventually happens to you.”

I was part of a prophecy? Me? The most unequipped possible person for the job. Basically anyone of the other champions could probably deal with a prophecy better than I could hope to, but I was the one that had to stumble into it?

I felt an unreasonable little flame of anger burn in my chest for Mayer. Don’t kill the messenger seemed so reasonable when I wasn’t being told that I was a part of a prophecy, especially one that we didn’t even know what it entailed. Was it the end of the world? Or was it about a kingdom or a war? There were too many options, and it only made the flame in my chest burn a little hotter.

I don’t think I had been this angry in years about anything, let alone since coming to this wild place.

“What’s a Sharah Wielder?” I asked recounting the achievement I’d got, curiosity overtaking my misplaced anger.

“Ah, old and powerful Sharah’hin. Like blade priests of sorts. Opponents that, if I were to ever fight them, I’d be wary about.”

“What were they like in battle?”

“Frankly, they were terrifying,” Mayer laughed a genuine laugh before thinking further, “When a Sharah Wielder showed up, it always became a legendary battle. I never saw one fight personally, but I’ve heard the tales and seen the aftermath. As far as I could tell, they fought like a storm of blades, and nothing ever truly came out in one piece when they were involved.”

“A storm of blades?” I couldn’t honestly reconcile what I had done with my measly usage of shifting and a storm of blades. Mayer nodded.

“I suspect that it is because the shifting they used was telekinetic in nature.” There was a slight gasp from Rethi. I looked towards the boy, and gave him a quizzical gaze. Telekinesis isn’t that crazy a concept, possibly on of the more boring ways that you could use magic, or shifting in this world.

“Really!? Kinetic shifting is actually possible? I thought it was a myth! Everyone says that it breaks too many Laws!” Rethi blurted excitedly.

“Breaks too many Laws?” I asked directly after, looking between the two. Mayer smiled at Rethi.

“I’m surprised you know of any shifting theory. It’s not generally something that a person in a small village would go out of their way to learn.” Rethi blushed a little and mumbled about a book he’d read a few times.

“The Laws are the rules that are set by what I guess would be our Gods, or maybe the universe itself. They are not inviolable, by using shifting, we can utilise Ether to ignore some finer details on the weaker end of the spectrum, and entirely break multiple laws on the stronger end.” He stopped to take a sip of his tea that he was probably keeping warm with shifting as we spoke, “Telekinesis is one of the types of shifting that was at least thought of as impossible without either incredible power for little usage or a specialised method. It falls under the same category as space, time and gravity shifting. Though, some methods have been used to allow for shifting of them, but they tend to be very… destructive.”

“So you are saying that the Sharah’hin have basically been sitting on the method to reliably and efficiently utilise telekinetic shifting?” Mayer laughed and nodded.

“Quite the scandal, really. The Sharah’hin that know of the telekinetic shifting will be extremely unhappy that a Blasphemer found the secret, and you will be hunted by them without doubt.” He must have seen the worry that I felt, and the worry that I could feel radiating off of Rethi in that moment.

“It is bad, I won't lie to you, but there are solutions.” At his words, my gaze grew quizzical, and then he grinned almost wolfishly. I could feel Rethi shiver beside me.

“Rest well, we will meet tomorrow morning for some true training.”

---

It had been hours since that talk. There had been one person that I was told to go convince of a post-mortem today, earning me one more Mind stat. Which was stupidly low in comparison to the massive increase of twenty in the morning, plus the four from earlier that week. So, a twenty-five Mind stat increase. I was a little bummed that the increase from convincing people of post-mortems was so small in comparison to the twenty increase from learning how to shift. I had been warned by Mayer, or the ancestral teachings of Ryan, that this massive increase wasn’t going to last. After a ridiculous amount of work I finally managed to shift, and received a good reward for it, I think. However, Ryan did say that the rewards didn’t scale sell. Would that mean that I would achieve another big milestone to only receive ten measly might, even if I work for months?

I shook aside my dark ponderings. For now, however, I felt amazing. The last time that I had felt anywhere near this good was when I received the achievement after the almost three-day stint of hammering in fences. But now it was multiplied by at least three. My body felt more fluid, courtesy of the increase in agility and the increase in strength made every action feel just a little more achievable, except for using the hammer, which only seemed to retain the same difficulty no matter how strong I got.

The really amazing one, however, was the increase to Mind. The effects of the increases didn't truly come into effect until after the talk with Mayer, but now the world seemed far clearer, like I was looking through foggy glasses before. I could feel every sensation in far more detail and the little subtle nuances to the Sharah that I had to fight so hard to find and incorporate into my katas were far easier to find, it was almost natural even.

I could sense the shifting of ether in my movements. The whispers of imperfections in my movements called out for me to fix them. It was almost trippy to perform the Sharah now, and it felt far less like a simple kata now, more like it was a language of movement.

I realised that my katas were the equivalent of babbling like a child, there were some words hidden behind many sounds and expressions that weren’t comprehensible at all. The hours passed and the moon bloomed overhead in a spectacular showing of just how bring the night could be.

My katas began to rapidly progress into something that was somewhat legible. Once I started to feel what felt like little sparks of energy coursing through my limbs it was as if I was intoxicated with the rhythm of it, no longer was the Sharah something that I had to think about and maintain every little motion, now it was like movements flowed by themselves, like all I had to do was tell my body to do one thing and it would do five follow ups to that one thing in response.

That training session was both the most constructive session of the Sharah that I had ever performed, and also felt like the absolute shortest.

I felt like I was only just getting somewhere when a sword came slicing towards me from the gloom of the early morning.

On instinct, I moved away from the sword and without looking or thinking I made a similar motion as I had done so yesterday. This time, instead of the strain of walking through mud, it now felt more like water, and the pull on what I now assumed to be the ether inside of me was far more willing to acquiesce to my whim. My body began to virtually hum with power just before the movement was entirely completed, and when it did the snap of power within me releasing was immense.

The next slash from the sword was soundlessly swung wide, sending the arm of the assailant careening off to the right, before it was quickly and expertly reeled in, and remained at the assailant's thigh.

It was eerily quiet, given the amount of power that I had thought that was contained in that blast of kinetic energy. I gave the assailant another look, expecting to maybe see one of the older Jothian boys or their father, but was instead greeted by the face of a jovial Mayer. With Rethi off in the back watching on with wide eyes and gaping mouth.

“That packs quite the punch, Max.” I was about to open my mouth to apologise, but Mayer waved his hand dismissively. And turned to walk away, assumedly with us to follow but before he turned he leaned in closer to me.

“Don’t use that on anyone but me until you have that under control. That would have ripped Rethi’s arm off.” He winked at me, a little grin the met with the mischievousness of his eyes.

Then he walked off, Rethi and I scrabbling to follow.