Chapter 52 The Orbit

Four hours later, Evernya awakened on the couch, feeling refreshed. She took stock of her body, finding everything back to normal. Evernya stood up, deciding to follow Meira’s scent.

With a spring in her step, she followed Meira’s scent down the first-floor hall toward the enchanting room. As the scent trail indicated, Evernya found Meira sitting at a workbench on the right side of the room, reading over what appeared to be some notes.

Meira looked up from her notes to greet her kitten with a smile. “How are you feeling?”

“Great, the nap helped a ton,” Evernya replied, plopping down on a spare stool next to Meira.

Meira closed her notes, giving her full attention to her kitten. “I wouldn’t call that a nap you were out for four hours. I even tried to wake you up after two hours, but you refused to wake. The readings from your suit were good, so I just let you sleep. You really enjoy sleeping, though I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me since both feline shifters and dragons have a habit of sleeping a lot.” Meira teased with a smile.

Meira grabbed her tablet from the workbench to look over the readings from Evernya’s suit. “My, my, your body was busy. Not only are you fully recovered physically and magically, but all your physical readings improved. I am sure tomorrow you will notice a difference in your performance. Your body seems to respond well to being pushed to the limit.” Meira reported excitedly.

Unlike Meira, Evernya’s reaction was more subdued. “Cool. Hopefully, I don’t pass out next time. By the way, can I view those reading on my suit computer?” Evernya inquired.

“Yes, you can. The data is from your suit’s computer, so everything I see you can see. If anything, you will see more data than I can.” Meira replied, pointing at the icon on Evernya’s suit computer.

Evernya selected the icon that looked like a mini EKG machine, prompting her suit computer to display countless readings organized into tabs. “Thank you, so what’s next for today?” Evernya asked after a brief scan through the data.

“Originally, I planned to do some magic training with you. Then another round of physical training, focusing on strength. But I don’t want to do any more physical training today. For now, continue practicing with the weighted balls. I will give you your next task in a few hours.” Meira dictated.

“Should I focus on precise control or amount of balls I can control at once?” Evernya asked.

After a momentary pause, Meira replied. “Try to increase your total to seven or eight, then try to do precise movements with all of them.”

“I’ll try. I think I can handle seven, but I don’t know about eight yet.” Evernya responded with an uncertain expression.

Meira flashed an encouraging smile. “Your body rewards you for pushing your limits, so try your best for eight.”

Evernya nodded her head, then trotted outside through the open door in Meira’s enchanting room. She gathered eight weighted balls, carrying them two at a time to the top of her dome. Once she had all eight gathered, she sat down cross-legged at the peak of her dome to begin her training. A thought came to her, prompting her to set a two-hour timer on her suit computer, having forgotten to wear Meira’s watch.

With everything prepared, Evernya levitated her balls, one by one. The first six fit into orbit without trouble, but the seventh became tricky. With visible strain on her face, she gradually slowed her orbit until the seventh ball squeezed in. Her orbit wobbled as her mind strained to maintain her new seven ball orbit.

She spent the next fifteen minutes stabilizing her orbit. With OCD like attention to detail, Evernya insured all seven balls were smoothly rotating around her shoulders with identical spacing. To be safe, Evernya watched closely as her balls rotate in a perfect circle for another five minutes, ensuring they maintain the same speed.

Satisfied with her orbit and the strain on her mind, Evernya levitated the eighth ball into the air. Unfortunately, her orbit became erratic as her mind struggled to control eight objects at once. Her head throbbed as she forced her balls to maintain orbit. The throbbing only intensified the harder she pushed. Suddenly, one of the balls in orbit collided with another, forcing her to cut her connection with the floating eighth ball to save her orbit.

The eighth ball dropped into her waiting hands as she strained to smooth her seven ball orbit. A groan escaped her lips as sweat dripped from her brow, trying to tame her unruly orbit. Fortunately, after five minutes, she stabilized her orbit at the cost of a pounding headache.

Stubbornly refusing to give in, Evernya increased the mana flow to her brain while working to smooth out her orbit. After ten minutes of smooth orbit, her headache receded to a mild throbbing.

For now, I think eight balls are too much. Maybe after I work on precise control with seven for a while, I can squeeze in an eighth. Evernya thought as she focused her attention on her seven ball orbit. First, she inched her orbit outward, gritting her teeth at the increased strain. While enduring and intensifying headache she expanded her orbit, only stopping when she felt the warning signs of her approaching range limit.

She closed her eyes, cutting off unneeded senses as she ignored her throbbing brain to smooth out the nine-meter diameter orbit. Even with increasing mana flow to her brain, her migraine continued to intensify to the point she could barely think straight. After ten minutes of maintaining her expanded orbit, her migraine became unbearable, forcing her to pull it back in.

With her orbit now only two meters, the strain on her mind diminished. She sat with her eyes closed, relaxed, allowing the seven balls to orbit her gracefully. While maintaining her orbit, she pumped as much mana as possible into her brain, weakening her headache back to a mild throb.

Five minutes later, with her headache subsided enough to continue, Evernya sped her orbit up. She gradually accelerated the seven balls equally while paying close attention to their orbit, smoothing out any imperfections. Over the course of five minutes, her orbit sped up to breakneck speeds now blurring around her body, looking more like a solid gray ring than separate objects.

Still not satisfied, Evernya continued to throttle them faster, ignoring her returning headache. She clenched her closed eyes as she concentrated on keeping the streaking gray balls under control. A few seconds later, she felt a hint of instability, forcing her to slow her orbit. Learning from her lesson, she gradually reduced their speed, knowing an abrupt change would be painful and draining.

She spent the next ten minutes dialing her orbit back to her preferred graceful pace. By this time, she was sweat covered and panting with a pounding headache. A sharp pain shot through her mind, warning her of her approaching limit. Evernya carefully slowed her orbit to a stop before, one by one, cutting her connection to her balls, allowing them to slide down the dome to the ground below.

Evernya checked the timer to find she spent just over an hour practicing. She paused the timer, then slid down the dome herself. Upon contacting the ground, she swayed on her feet, forcing her to lean against the dome for support until her body recovered a few seconds later. With a slightly drunken stride, she walked toward the sliding door leading to the kitchen.

Once inside the kitchen, she zeroed in on the double-door stainless steel fridge. Inside the fridge, she found a dozen two-liter smoothies of various flavors. After picking one at random, she chugged it down. She scanned the kitchen before setting the empty jug on the counter to the right of the fridge, not knowing what to do with it. Unable to resist the temptation, she grabbed another smoothie to go, sucking it down as she trotted back outside.

She plopped onto a patio chair while drinking the smoothie. After ten minutes of relaxing and planning her next training session, she sprung to her feet. Along the way to her training spot, she telekinetically grabbed seven balls one by one, setting them into orbit while holding the eighth. With a bend to her knees, she hopped to the top of the lawn ornament and sat down cross-legged. After setting another timer, she resumed her training.

Determined to orbit eight balls, she levitated the eighth into the air while simultaneously slowing her orbit. She focused all her mental power into keeping control as she carefully squeezed the eighth ball in orbit. The urge to do a happy dance was almost overwhelming, but she resisted, knowing one lapse of concentration could lead to failure.

Twenty minutes passed with her busy stabilizing the orbit until she sped it up to its normal pace. Her eyes clenched as her mind strained from the load of controlling eight objects at once, but she refused to give in.

She battled to remain in control of the eight balls for the next ten minutes, making steady but excruciatingly slow progress in lessening the load on her mind. Despite the discomfort of controlling eight objects at once, she tried to extend the orbit out. Already halfway to her goal, she felt a headache forming, but she pushed through it. It took another ten minutes before she extended her orbit to a diameter of nine meters.

By the time she reached her goal, a pounding drumbeat resonated through her mind, prompting her to retract them to a more manageable diameter. After shrinking her orbit to two meters, she closed her eyes, trying to focus on recovering. Unbeknownst to her, she entered a meditative like state causing her to lose track of time.

An unknown time later, her eyes fluttered open as if she had just woken up. She glanced down at her suit computer, shocked to find over two hours passed in a blink. On instinct she checked the orbit of all her weighted balls, finding them all in graceful orbit around her. She double-checks her connection, confused why they were orbiting her with the strain of a single ball. As an experiment, she sped them up to testing her control, finding them more responsive than ever.

After returning her orbit to idle speed, she looked down to find Meira watching her from a patio chair with a big smile on her face. Careful of her orbit, she slid down the dome to the ground before trotting toward the smiling elf with eight orbiting balls in tow.

Upon reaching Meira, the smiling elf bombarded her with congratulations. “Good job, Evernya! When I said try for the eight ball, I didn’t expect you to sustain the orbit for over an hour!”

Evernya ignored the praise, as she felt she didn’t earn it. “I don’t know what happened. I could barely control all eight, but then I closed my eyes for a second. When I opened them, it became easy. I know they are all orbiting me, but it feels effortless.” Evernya stated while her eyes scanned the gracefully orbiting balls in confusion.

Evernya’s explanation only increased Meira’s excitement. “Oh, my! Congratulations! Your telekinesis affinity surpassed your mana grade! You accomplished what every young mage strives for in a day! From now on, telekinesis will be much more efficient and easy to control! Your affinity is probably somewhere around level 6 now!” Meira gushed, bouncing in excitement.

As usual, Evernya didn’t share in her elves excitement, instead confusion and curiosity reigned. “Why is it such a big change?” Evernya asked.

Upon catching her kitten’s lack of excitement, Meira calmed down to explain. “When your affinity is below your mana grade, your control suffers because it has to work harder to rein in the more powerful mana. Now with your affinity higher, your mana grade won’t fight with your control nearly as much. Your sudden increase in control results from this.”

“Makes sense, basically higher mana grade means more power but less control. Affinity doesn’t hurt power, only increases control and increases efficiency. So you want high mana grade but even higher affinity.” Evernya summarized.

“Correct. Many young mages fall into the trap of wanting more power, leading them to put themselves needlessly at risk. I’ll get into how to increase your mana grade later. For now, I want you to focus on your affinity, as your mana grade is more than enough for your age. Besides, your mana grade will raise on its own until you reach your natural limit.” Meira lectured, hinting at future lessons.

Evernya fell silent for several minutes while watching her balls leisurely circle her. “So what’s next? I feel like I’ve outgrown these balls.” Asked Evernya while effortlessly altering her orbit’s speed and diameter to prove her point.

“Well, first try to orbit ten at once, then we will move on.” Meira directed.

Excited to move on, Evernya trotted to the hole in the dome to retrieve two more balls via telekinesis. While keeping her eight ball orbit stable, she slowed it down before slipping two more in without trouble. Once all ten are in orbit, she returned her orbit to idle speed as she walked back to Meira.

To show off, Evernya rapidly accelerated and decelerated the balls in front of her Elven keeper. “Wow, this is almost too easy. I think I could control more if I wanted.” Evernya stated, allowing her Alpha arrogance to leak through.

“Orbiting is hardly complex. You could try more complex maneuvers, but for now, we will move on. These weighted balls function similar to gym weights. Over time, they become too light for certain exercises but still have uses for others.” Meira commented, buzz-killing her kitten.

Dejected, Evernya severed her connection to all ten balls at once, allowing them to drop the to ground with a thud.

“Your progress in only 24 hours is astonishing, but I doubt you will improve as quick from now on. Once your affinity overtakes your mana grade, progress slows to a crawl.” Commented Meira to prepare her kitten for future disappointment.