Chapter 21: The Beginnings of Light Magic

After the pair woke up they went to search for a new place to settle. This time they had to find a place where no-one would even know they existed. Trip had memorised a map the area and saw that there was nowhere nearby where they could safely settle. This left only one solution. They would never settle. Trip and Alex discussed this idea, and they decided that they would travel in the direction of West Hrior. At this point it would be safest for them to head towards a country that was not in the middle of a war. Since they still wanted to keep their training at a high level they decided they would follow system where they would travel for a full day and then settle down for three. This system made it so that nobody would really see them. At this point they were in the north east of East Hrior, and Trip estimated that it would take them around a half a year to make it to West Hrior. That was estimating that they would walk 50 km a day during the days when they were actually moving. It would take this long, because West Hrior was approximately 2.3 thousand kilometres away. It certainly was a distance to travel, but it was better safe than sorry.

To be safe they decided to travel two days towards the direction of West Hrior and then they would start the plan they had. They felt the need to get as far away from this place as possible and as quickly as possible.

They started to walk; they were walking rather quickly, but not too quickly to be unable to see the fantastic nature around them.

They tended to stay off of already established paths and instead walked through the wonderful unknown scenery of East Hrior. It must be said that while the country was financially unstable its nature was stellar. Even by just walking through a forest one could still see that there was beauty in the surroundings. There were many types of trees. White trees, brown trees, even black trees. Trip did not know the names, but it did not matter. Occasionally they would see some green hills with blue waterfalls cascading down into large pools of water filled with hundreds of types of fish. The contrast of colours was amazing. Trip had always appreciated nature, and now that he had been gone from civilisation for so long that the wild had become his home.

After two days of walking they found a nice place to settle. It was not very flashy as it did not have any waterfalls or anything, but instead it was a simple little opening in a forest with a small pond. This was good for training and it was difficult to find, meaning that no other people would be able to abduct them. They set up camp and got some fish from the pond. They started a small fire and had a nice dinner before they went to sleep on a comfortable pile of leaves.

The next morning Trip woke up and he decided to start to learn and understand light magic. It was very interesting, because it was as if there was a crate in his mind that he could open, and that would give him the knowledge to start to train light magic. Trip opened this crate and found that there was no manual or anything that could teach him the ways of light magic, but instead what he found was a simple phrase. A phrase so annoyingly simple that Trip could not help but be confused by how he could learn anything from it.

‘Move your hands.’

That was what it said. This was supposed to be the simple light technique? Trip was incredibly disappointed, what was he supposed to do with this? How could he learn light magic from this? He could only sit there for a while and look into the distance. The phrase continued to reverberate within his mind. After a while he realised he had to train water magic as well, so he continued with that.

The next day continued the same way; he only thought about the phrase and then went to practice water magic. On the last day in the area he decided that he would spend the entire day on light magic. He sat down and closed his eyes. He thought about the phrase again. He then decided to do something very simple. He decided to move his hands. He moved his hands smoothly through the air, as if he were feeling the water in a flowing river. After a while he realised that this was not working so he moved on to randomly and chaotically moving his hands, similarly to fire magic. This did not work either so he went on to move his hands like the wind and the earth. But nothing worked. Everything he did simply didn’t work. He slowly started to realise that he had to further himself away from the basic four types of magic.

He looked up at the sun shining through the trees and saw that it was constant. The light only pierced through the leaves and remained that way. That was how light was. During night it wasn’t that the light change, but it was instead the provider of light that changed. Which in this case was the sun. This did not give Trip any insight into light magic. The instructions told him to move his hands, but in reality light did not move. So what could he do at this point?

Days passed and they had already moved to a different location. Again it was a similar type of camp and nothing had happened to Trip’s understanding of light. He would barely talk to Alex, he only thought of light. He was very annoyed and yet still intrigued by the statement ‘Move your hands’. He felt so stupid for somehow not understanding it.

One night he sat down and asked Alex “Hey Alex. What do you think of the phrase ‘Move your hands’?”

Alex thought a bit and then said “I guess it means that you should just move your hands however you want. Or whatever feels naturally.”

Trip looked at Alex for a second before looking at his hands. He did not say anything, but he instead closed his eyes and thought for a bit. ‘How am I supposed to move my hands how I want? All I know is water magic. It’s the only way how I know to move my hands!’ Trip thought.

Trip’s life has always been trying to get strong and working hard to learn water magic. He never thought of anything else, he never played, he never had fun. He only ever used water magic. That was all he knew, but after a while of thinking Trip knew this was not true. There was more to life than water magic. There was the beauty in the nature, there was his friend Alex, those things mattered to him. He realised that his life had always been illuminated by light. The water that he saw was illuminated by the light of the sun. But that was only one type of light. He thought of the unbreakable bond that he had with Alex and he realised that when he imagined that bond it was made of light. It was unbreaking and strong. It was a constant thing which could not be destroyed. This was like light. It could be obstructed, but it would always be there. It was not a particle or anything like that; it was something that everything had internally.

Trip felt happy that he had developed an understanding of what light was. He understood that instead of other types of magic where you had to take the particles from external sources, but instead that you had to find the particles within yourself. However he still did not understand how moving his hands would help him touch this special type of magic.

When he opened his eyes he realised something was different. His hands were moving by themselves. It was as if he subconsciously had connected to the concept of light and moving hands. His hands moved as if they were pulling a thread from inside him. He saw a small stream of light coming from his hands as his hands naturally moved. It was such a beautiful stream of light, so original and untouched. It was as if the light from the sun could not compare to it even slightly.

Alex noticed it from the corner of his eye and said “Woah. That is beautiful. I told you my advice worked.”

Trip did not notice that Alex had said anything. He felt his body tire out; it took so much energy from him just to keep up this movement for a couple of seconds. His vision turned blurry as he passed out. He woke up the next morning and grinned widely. He understood not only the concept of light, but also how he could find his uncle with it.

What he understood that light was within everyone. There was a light inside Alex, he felt that now. He felt the light inside him. He somehow even felt a slight amount of light from Grelin. He only had to train until he could feel the light from his uncle. According to his interpretation of light magic it would be that his uncle should have a lot more light within him than everyone else on the continent.

Feeling completely rejuvenated he looked at the morning sun. He then closed his eyes and began to practice again.