Chapter 30

The boys spent the next day hanging out at Yaeth’s place, lounging around in the large comfortable sofas placed strategically around the house, feasting contentedly on the cake leftover from yesterday’s desert, before they had to return to campus.

When he woke up, Raiel noticed a quiet ache permeating his whole body, as if his bones were trying to slowly push their way out through his skin. His stubble was also coming back out again, forcing him to ask Yaeth for his father’s shaving tools. For now, it was light enough, that no one noticed so long as he frequently shaved it clean, but Yaeth said that as time went on, it would become thicker, denser and more difficult to hide even if he shaved it.

The other boys of seemingly similar age had nowhere near the same facial hair growth, but the real mystery was how explosively fast it had appeared. To be honest, Raiel could not be sure what his own age was. He assumed somewhere between thirteen and fifteen, but it was difficult to tell.

A wide, lush garden lay behind their house, well-tended and healthy. In their area of town, the houses had extra land for things such as gardens and additional buildings. While they had a gardener employed to make sure the garden stayed as healthy as possible, Yaeth’s mom liked to spend her free time there, as well.

They had moved from the sofas to Yaeth’s favorite spot in the garden, behind a cluster of dense berry bushes, where he could generally spend his time alone with studies or hobbies because Yaeth had finally insisted that Raiel demonstrate his abilities.

“So, you want to see what I’ve been doing recently?” Raiel asked, a smirk sneaking onto his face.

“Of course!” Yaeth exclaimed, an excited glint in his eye. This was what he wanted to see. The real thing, up close. Yaeth had dreamt of possessing those fantastic powers and abilities since he was a little boy, so he listened to stories and information about it whenever he stumbled upon it. That his roommate was capable of that which he desired had come as a shock and brought about feelings of both envy and excitement, although he had hidden it as well as he could.

Raiel held out his hand, as if to shake hands, beckoning with his fingers for Yaeth to take it. When he did, Raiel held fast in an iron grip and his grin grew even wider.

“Okay, watch this.” he said and locked his gaze on their joined hands. As Yaeth looked, his jaw dropped open further and further while the seemingly normal nails on Raiel’s fingers elongated, their tips narrowing towards the center, becoming sharp points. Where a human’s nails lay on top of the fingertip, Raiel’s had now dug themselves into the flesh beneath without spilling a single drop of blood, embedded in the finger bone.

As they grew, they began to poke painfully into the back of Yaeth’s hand, eliciting a muted hiss through gritted teeth. With a shit-eating grin, Raiel loosened his grip and his claws ceased their transformation, staying in their abnormal form as he curled and uncurled his fingers.

“Holy shit… you’re actually…”

Yaeth had not exactly been doubting his friend’s words when he said he could do it, but seeing it for himself now really made an impression. Those amazing powers and the stories he had heard about the infusion warriors had always been nothing more than a distant fantasy. A notion to long for but never reach. Fuel for bitter envy. But, now envy was not the only feeling in his stomach. A growing seed of excitement had settled.

“What else can you do?” he asked, rubbing the small mark left by Raiel’s claws.

Instead of answering, Raiel let his ears grow to three times their normal length. Yaeth burst into laughter at the ridiculous sight and reached to touch them.

“What does it do?” he asked curiously.

“I don’t know.” Raiel answered honestly, sighing. “There doesn’t seem to be any real difference from the normal size. It might not do anything.”

“Huh. I guess there are useless things as well, eh?” Yaeth wondered out loud, scratching his chin in thought. “Oh, I know! Can you do the hand explosion thing?” he exclaimed, his enthusiasm palpable. Even if he could not do it himself, just seeing it up close was uniquely amazing.

“Hand… explosion?” Raiel’s face revealed his confusion and surprise. “That… sounds very painful and like a bad idea.” he concluded with hesitation, dreading the direction in which his friend was already steering this little demonstration.

“Yeah, like a wave shoots out form your palm and hits stuff. I don’t know what they call it, but I think it’s a pretty normal technique. I’ve seen it used in mock tournaments in the past. It looks super cool.”

Raiel quieted for a moment, thinking back. He could not recall having done anything of the sort before. How would it even be done? If it was shot from the hand, would it not be feasible that the energy came from within the body and was somehow ejected into the air? It sounded counter-intuitive to attempt such a thing, when, in his mind, the substance residing within his body and that which flowed constantly through the air all around him felt so separated. Certainly, they were essentially the same thing, but the two different domains they inhabited, inside the body and outside, set them apart. For the two to mix just did not seem logical. Raiel could not explain why it felt like that, and even then it was likely that the two shifted and mixed naturally all the time.

“So, how would I do that?” Raiel asked.

“Uuh, I’m not sure. Being no expert, I think you just… grab the power in your body and… fling it out through your hand as hard as you can, like bam! and then it happens, right? Hand explosion!” Raiel had hardly seen Yaeth’s eyes sparkle so much, an absurdly gleeful expression emanating from his entire person.

“I see… I guess I’ll give it a try, then.” Raiel said and stood from his up, brushing grass and specks of dirt of his trousers. Breathing deeply, he reached for that familiar presence within himself, immediately feeling it reach back, establishing a connection.

Projecting his will onto the substance, he gathered a figurative chunk of it in the middle of his chest, slowly directing it towards the shoulder and down through his bicep, further into his forearm and then finally his hand. Opening his hand as wide as possible and turning his palm towards the ground, he pushed in an attempt to force it out through the skin of his palm.

Nothing happened. It did as he willed, but it got no further than his hand.

Frowning, he gathered it again in his chest and let it flow to his shoulder. When the flow of substance reached his bicep, he willed it to rapidly accelerate towards his open palm, feeling the force rip through his arm like a rushing river. Raiel felt the energy slam against the inside of his hand, the skin blocking any emission of force like a solid stone wall. Instead of going through, the substance rebounded and pulsed around inside his hand and up through the arm, undulating like a lake in a storm.

“It’s not working…” he mumbled, studying his open palm and the back of his hand, where the pulsing sensation was quietly fading. “It won’t come out. It feels like running into a wall.”

He was obviously doing something wrong, if it was a recognized ability among other infusionists. According to Yaeth, the force should be fired from within the person’s body, but in Raiel’s case, that did not happen. If other humans could do it, then he should be able to do it as well. But he wasn’t. Why?

“Uuh… Maybe you just need to practice.” Yaeth commented, his eyes narrowed in thought.

“Yeah, maybe.”

They both sat in silence, pondering Raiel’s inability to perform that technique and Yaeth suddenly clapped loudly, making Raiel jump in surprise.

“What do you think about when you try to do it?” Yaeth asked, his gaze intense.

“What do I think about? Erh… I don’t really know.” The replied was hesitant, unsure of where Yaeth was going with this.

“If what I’ve heard about the energy is correct, the result an infusionist brings about is dependent on the strength of the connection between them and the energy, their ability to manipulate the power, their physical and mental strength and resilience and finally, the image they hold in their mind.” he explained, pointing a finger at Raiel as he spoke. “So, I ask: what do you think about when you try to make the energy fly out?”

Raiel stared at his friend, still unable to comprehend what he was trying to make him realize. “I… I don’t know what I think about. Nothing in particular, I suppose.” was his only answer.

“Well, you say the force was blocked from exiting through your hand. I think the problem could be a matter of visualization. So long as your will is imparted, the force will largely act as you expect it to act.” Yaeth said, his hands waving around in excitement. “That’s how I understood it, at least. Of course, there are limits, but that should be the general idea of it. Naturally, the energy isn’t contained within your body, but rather a part of a constant flow through your body. Maybe the problem is simply that you can’t imagine it leaving, and therefore it isn’t.”

“Wow… You really know a lot about this stuff, Yaeth.” Raiel remarked incredulously.

Suddenly embarrassed, Yaeth cleared his throat and chuckled. “Yeah, well, I’ve always been fascinated with it. I think it is amazing, that humans can perform such extraordinary feats even though we didn’t always those capabilities.”

“Right. I read something about that, but never got further into it. I even have that book in my drawer still, I think.” Raiel said, nodding along. “What was that event called?”

“The Evocation.” Yaeth uttered reverently, his smile widening. “It’s almost three thousand years in the past, but I can’t think of anything more amazing than that. A race called the Vaalr bestowed the ability to harness the energies onto humans, creating the first infusionists. The stories also say, that the Vaalr was another kind of human, with a weaker physique but a natural aptitude for infusion, their very beings commanding obedience from the energy.” Yaeth’s eyes were practically glowing as he recounted the ancient tales and legend to Raiel.

“The Vaalr all disappeared long ago,” Yaeth continued, seemingly oblivious of anything but his own story. “and there are numerous theories as to why they suddenly vanished. The most accepted, however, is that we killed them.”

Raiel’s eyebrows shot up. “They killed them? Why?” He could almost figure out the answer, but it was good to be sure.

“The became afraid of the Vaalr’s power. Even if they had been awakened to some of that power themselves, they were not in the same league.”

As expected. The base motivation was survival.

Yaeth continued. “But then again, these are all legends. It a long time ago, you know. We can’t really be certain that that was how it went. Although, it’s quite certain that we are not able to infuse by nature. At least not to the extent that some are.” Yaeth seemed to catch himself midway in his speech and cleared his throat again. “Uhm… So, anyway, maybe you should try that thing again.”

“Right.” Raiel chuckled and returned his focus to his inner self, collecting the energy in his chest again. Like before, he let it flow to his shoulder where he let it sit for a moment as he attempted to alter his state of mind, imagining the skin, bone and blood not as walls and obstacles for the substance but rather as penetrable matter, freely letting the substance pass through. Then he accelerated.

His hopes were dashed when the substance crashed against the inside of his palm, bouncing back and up through his arm as it had done last time. But instead of thinking about it, he immediately gathered the energy in his chest again, repeating his actions. Again, he imagined his palm to be open and permeable and sent the substance flying. Once more, a failure.

He tried ten more times as Yaeth looked on, excited to be a part of it.

The exertion was beginning to seriously wear on him by the thirteenth or fourteenth attempt, his breath coming out ragged even though he had simply been standing or sitting for the most part. At the same time, his frustration grew as well.

His image was open and wide, freely letting the substance depart from within him, and yet it refused to leave. His fifteenth attempt saw much of the same result as the previous and the frown that had developed on his brow deepened even further.

With gritted teeth, he began the process anew, gathering substance in his chest and directing it to his shoulder. He pictured his palm as a narrow corridor. His bones were tubes along which the substance could flow, his skin divided into a thousand tiny holes and his blood carried the substance out with its flow. Then he pushed.

The wind swept through the grass, sending shivers through the straws. No. The wind was quiet, not a breeze present.

“I heard something… Like a poof.” Yaeth whispered, his eyes wide. “Did you just…?”

Raiel looked down at his palm. It looked normal. But the sensation…

“I did it.”