Sore. If there was one word to describe his life right now, it would be sore. James readjusted his position on the saddle for the hundredth time, hoping to find some comfort. “How long until we can take break”, he called out.

Ava looked back at him in exasperation before her eyes evaluated the condition of his horse. Her expression warmed. “The horses could use a break.” she exclaimed before jumping off her own horse.

James struggled to keep his balance as he dismounted before simply giving up, laying down on the grass and closing his eyes with a big sigh. Ava took both their horses and tied them to a nearby tree. "We need to prepare for camp." she nudged him.

"Try to gather some firewood while I feed the horses." she ordered.

It took some willpower to convince his body that rest was delayed. The seeping cold of night time gave him the final push in dragging himself off his butt and walking into the woods trying to find suitable branches of wood for a fire. He realized far too late that he didn't have anything to cut wood with.

x-x-x-x-x

The fire cackled as they ate their meal in silence. The stew tasted surprisingly better than it looked. After the meal, James started scribling in his notebook: Quantifying a roughly 1mm strand of mana 1m long used for a Motion spell as 1 Mana, I have roughly 30 mana before I start feeling the effects of Mana depletion. The effects of an Motion spell last roughly 30 seconds before I have to recharge it with what I assume to be an additional 1 mana. Does the Motion spell have any limits to have much mana it can 'take' at once? Next experiment to try.

Once he felt he was "full" again, James would continue his experimentation. Ava was staring at him curiously. "What are you even writing about?"

"Magic of course!"

"But you barely know any!"

"All the more reason to experiment." James explained how he was calculating things like mana quantities and expenditure.

"I believe the scholars have a similar sort of system but it is not useful for anyone else. Everyone develops their own feel for their magic. As you use your magic more, you develop an inner sense for whether you can cast one or two more Motion spells before you are exhausted. There seems no point to this?", Ava explained.

He could see her point of view but he was a hard fantasy sort of guy and even if the feel based determination worked, he absolutely needed numbers for accurate tracking. And trying to explain that would take a lot longer. "I'm just used to thinking of magic in this way." Ava gave him a weird look but dropped the topic.

"Alright, show me the progress you've made," she inquired.

James sat down cross legged and poured his entire waterskin into a bowl. He knew any spillage would mean he'd have to walk a couple miles back to the stream to refill it but by now he was confident in his control. He felt "full" when he tried to reach for his mana and while there wasn't any other measure, he assumed that meant he was close to or near full mana.

Motion!

The water rose up, all at once and then split into 8 different strands which spread in a circular pattern like the tentacles of an octopus. They spun faster and faster before blurring together into a torus shape. A whirring sound was emanating from the water spinning as it was at such speeds. Suddenly the water all combined into a single blob and shot off as soon as it formed at an insane amount of speed. And right before it was about to hit a treek trunk, James made a grabbing motion with his hand and stopped it, the mark on his hand glowing with the strain and the extra threads of mana needed. The water sloshed around as if in an imaginary container before settling into a floating blob form which James redirected back into his waterskin.

"Ho..You lied to me! It is not possible to achieve that level of mastery with the motion spell in a few months let alone a few days. You have previous experience with this?" Ava's inquired with a shocked look on her face.

"It's not that I have experience with magic. But a deeper understanding of water from my past helped me shape and bend the water to my will much more easily."

"With the speed you're going, you'll be able to Summon water for us soon. That should help us with our travels." Ava had a smile on her face.

"You know I'm good for more than just a glass of water right?" James replied.

"Yes. yes. You have shown remarkable progress. Prodigous even. I just hope we can get you the knowledge needed to go beyond the basic three. It would be a shame otherwise. Now, give me a few minutes while I set up the perimeter ward."

James knew she needed absolute silence to cast. The ward itself was actually pretty amazing. It was a 'death detection' ward and informed the caster of any death in a one mile radius and any mana signatures around that death. Technically it was still possible for someone to sneak up on them hence the need for a watch still but without killing an ant or a plant in a forest as dense as this one would be difficult. The mana signature detection would help her isolate other mages or humans, instead of a random animal. At least according to what she had told him, he was still confused how she could tell the difference.

It took a few more minutes for Ava to visualize and finally cast the spell. James could see a faint dark pulse emanate from her body and spread outwards.

"All right. It has been cast. We can relax a bit more now." Ava exclaimed before rolling out her bed roll and laying down on the ground on her back.

"So what happens after we get out of Selen?" James asked. So far, they had avoided any traces of civilization. But that would end as soon as they were out of Selen jurisdiction. At least James hoped so. He was a city boy and getting tired of this off the grid living.

"We need to find a way to make a living but other than that, we should be free. You can go your separate way if you so desire. Any sense of responsibility you have to see me to safety should be satisfied." Ava mentioned.

"Hey! Enough of that kind of talk. Here I thought we were becoming friends now. We'll stick together until it makes sense not to."

"You're right." She acquiesced. "But-"

"Motion!" Yelled James. He had spotted a wolf prowling a few meters right behind Ava, ready to pounce. The water from his waterskin rose, sped up and slammed into its face. The wolf was thrown back a few meters and there was blood dripping from its face as it shakily tried to stand back up again.

James had no more water at his disposal but thankfully Ava had turned around and figured out the situtation. Trenor she called out and a dark blob emerged from her hand and made its way towards the wolf who was just getting its bearings. The wolf stared at the slow moving blob but realized too late that it was coming towards it. Its body seemed to absorb the blob near its neck before it let out a startled yelp. Darkness spread across its neck before the wolf collapsed, clearly dead.

When James went closer to examine the effects of the spell and realized that it seemed like the wolf's neck had years of decay in a short amount of time. Giving the wolf's body a light shove with his foot to confirm it was dead, he was surprised that the wolf's head actually came apart, severed from the rest of the body. For the first time, he could imagine why there was such a stigma around Death mages. This was the stuff of horror movies. He was careful not to show his horror too much when he turned back towards Ava.

Thankfully, she wasn't looking his way and seemed to be lying down with her eyes closed. It seemed like she was running empty on mana. He felt like he should still say something, "Woah. Thanks for that. That's a pretty gruesome spell but I can't imagine we would have fared too well in a meelee fight."

"You too. The spell is too slow moving to have caught the wolf unaware but your Motion spell knocked it just enough for me to catch it off guard." She replied still keeping her eyes closed.

"Err, looks like you need the rest more so I'll take first watch this time." James told her.

"Thanks James."

x-x-x-x-x

James was bored. It seemed like he had reached the limits of what the Motion spell could accomplish and while Ava had promised to help him tackle the Mutate spell tomorrow, that didn't mean that he was not bored right now. To think that he would ever have been bored doing magic. And keeping watch. He took another look around his surroundings trying to identify anything that might do them harm but like the last time, things were unchanged.

Right now he was thinking about how fast he could move the water with his Motion spell. Was there a speed limit to movement by magic? No matter how much mana he put into it, it seemed like he could not get it fast enough to be dangerous enough to kill on impact. It seemed like after 10 threads of mana, there was no noticeable increase in speed. It could definitely injure someone but definitely not incapacitate. Maybe the mutate spell would allow him to transform it into icicles he could rain down on his enemies like that Blizzard spell in WoW. He hoped the transformation did not affect the max speed limit of his Motion spell but that had yet to be tested. Hell he didn't even know if he could Motion any ice in the first place! He put another few branches to the flame that seemed to be sputtering out. Now fire, fire would have been destructing enough even at the lowest level he imagined. He had his palm facing the fire trying to warm it as he stared into the fire. He remembered the red light that had flashed when he had tried to light up his mark the first time. There was a tingling sensation in his head as he sought to understand. He remembered his chemistry classes, what was fire? All it was was a chemical process of combustion, an oxidization of the fuel source. And at that moment, he let his mana extend into his mark. His hand was engulfed in a red light. But unlike the last time, it was controlled. Breath in, breath out. The glow swayed with his breath. He felt alive. He felt intoxicated. And he cast the only spell he knew. Motion A faint red glow emerged from his palm and when it impacted the fire, the fire itself blew forward as if something had exploded near the flame. His expression immediately turned panicked as he got up. Fortunately, the flame was rendered to thin, once moved by the Motion spell and outside of a few pieces of the grass that had caught the flame, the rest of it sputtered out. He quickly stomped those out and hoped Ava had not awoken. He sat back down with a sigh when he realized she had not. Fire was dangerous but more than that, something about using magic on it was intoxicating. Something that made you abandon all reason. He needed to be careful. But he was excited about telling Ava that he could actually do Fire magic when she woke up. He decided not to wake her up immediately, letting himself stew in the shame of what could have happened due to his carelessness. If Ava had been positioned on the other side of that fire, he shuddered at the thought. Shaking his head and calming himself down, he lit his hand with the blue light of Water magic again. It calmed him enough that he figured he should at least attempt to re-light his mark with fire magic again just in case it was a fluke. He found that he just had to visualize the element and he was able to easily switch between red and blue light permeating his mark. What if he had access to all the schools of magic? As excited as he was, his attempts to try out each of the other colors met with failure. So it wasn't as simple as picking out your favorite color. Unable to dampen his excitement, he fed a few more twigs to the fire and pulled out his notebook. Experiments could wait until tomorrow under Ava's careful watch but he could start preparing!