While the dwarves live for the most part in the mountain range, known as the Darkwall Mountians, that separates us from the Darklands; they have some cities in the other mountains around the world. The dark elves say that there are vast highways underground and that they have an empire under the feet of all those on the surface. That idea is of course laughed at in any respectable circle. Aside from the draconians they limit all outsiders from the majority of their cities but aside from their skilled smithing they have nothing worth fighting to take from them.

Lykou

A week has past since I started being taught by Kylana and while I have been astounding her in the speed that I pick up the theory and to a lesser extent learning to manipulate mana there is one aspect of magic that I suffer setback after setback, raw ability.

“Tired already?” Kythia asks in a mocking tone as my latest attempt at Magic Missile fizzles failing to do more that blacken the log sitting on a stump in the clearing where Kylana has us practice any potentially dangerous spells.

“Says the girl who has been suck at this level for years” I counter.

She frowns at the reminder that it has taken me a week to reach the point where she set magic aside in control. Kylana smiles at the remark.

“At least I can cast more than twice” she shouts back after a second.

“And the only thing you have is brute strength” Kylana interrupts as she always does when Kythia makes fun of my inherit weakness.

There has to be a way for me to improve Mana Potency. Base values can change, Draconic Blood Expansion already proves that but how do I strengthen it? Raw practice until I hit mana exhaustion at least once a day isn’t doing anything but maybe helping my pool grow as I rise in level.

Is my guess that it is like a muscle wrong? Or that I’m not feeling any resistance as I cast the issue with that idea?

“But mom, it isn’t fair that he gets to make fun of me but I can’t him” Kythia complains.

“Lykou improves on a daily basis. When I can brag the same way about your progress in magic I won’t let him mock you either” Kylana says.

“But it’s hard to make mana do what I want.”

“And squeezing a small amount of mana for all you can isn’t? He didn’t have the mana for that last spell but did it anyways. Now it’s your turn, show me a good Magic Missile and prove him wrong.”

Even though the cadence of mana blocks me from directly understanding the words Kythia says I recognize it as the spell her mother demands and that her anger is also added.

A red bolt near twice the size of my last try forms and slams into the log. The bolt of force splintering the bark and leaving a small hole behind. Power, raw magical power. How is it that I’m supposedly draconic but suck in the aspect of raw magic? Dragons are supposed to be the best at raw power, aren't they?

“You’re to angry and that bolt flew perfectly straight. A skilled opponent would have dodged that waste of mana” Kylana says with a smile even though it was better than most of her tries today.

“Still, our time for today is up. Lykou, I’d like to talk to you when you’re done here” Kylana continues knowing full well that I’m going to do some exercise here while waiting for my mana to replenish before trying a few more times before dusk.

Kythia looks troubled but does not leave like she normally does while I clear the splintered wood from where I will do some push ups and crunches. After a few minutes she bites down on nothing before walking up to me.

“How do you do it?” she asks.

“Do what?” I ask wanting to make her say it. Teasing her is fun even if I still haven’t figured out if there is any relation between her and the silver haired woman in my dreams.

“How do you make Magic Missile not take the most direct path?”

Should I tell her or tease her some more?

“Is that all you want to know?”

“How are you learning so fast?” she asks.

I smile, I don’t know why but I like the idea of teaching her. I don’t think I would consider teaching the brats of Naliya’s class anything but I find myself enjoying this. This is also part of the reason why Kylana is pushing her so hard, to get her to ask for more help.

“Outside practice. Every day I repeat all the spells I was taught outside of class and read more than just what she tells us to. Hard work is my secret. If you want to be better practice, if you don’t understand something ask someone who does.”

She holds her tongue for a moment as if thinking about what to do with my answer before she asks almost in a whisper, “teach me.”

“What?” I ask with a grin.

“Then please teach me after mother’s classes, please?” she asks embarrassed and upset at doing so.

“Only if you’ll teach me what you’re better at than me” I answer.

She is way better at martial skills and she does know things I don’t about magic even if she doesn’t know it herself. A week cannot compare to years of instruction regardless of her not paying as much attention as she should have.

“Deal, now how do I make irregular paths?”

“Strings, multiple directions or by marking the target.”

She just looks at me, bit getting anything out of that brief list of hows.

“I can demonstrate after I get some mana back.”

“How?”

“You can feel when your mana touches other mana. I’ll take a tiny part of you mana along for the ride.”

“Ride?”

“I’ll have my mana drag yours along for what I do.”

She nods at that before saying, “then spar with me while you wait.”

“Don’t put all your strength behind it. This is to teach not give me a beating” I say while moving into a readied stance.

Kythia does not answer before striking me with a jab. It hurts and I know that it’ll leave a bruise but I also know that she could have hit much harder with her advantage in stature.

I throw a left jab only to be caught and twisted to a position I remember from that dream. I block a strike that if it did hit would have broken my elbow. This style is the similar to that dream.

We spar until I fall to the ground breathing heavily and I clearly lost, many many times. This feels familiar. As if this was not the first time she beat me in a spar.

“How do you know Wolven Fist?” Kythia asks, the first words either of us spoke since the start of the spar.

“A dream, I was taught parts of it in a dream” I say out of breath and for some reason she just nods.

“Do you have enough mana now?” she asks.

“Give me a moment to catch my breath”

After about half a minute I stand, I really hope my idea for showing her will work. The basics of counterspell is to inject mana and disrupt the caster's mana. It might be possible to do the first without the second.

“Kythia, I’m going to hold my spell readied and you’ll have to push the smallest amount of mana you can into it and then not resist anything I do and just focus on watching it.”

She nods and I chant everything save for the last syllable of Magic Missile while forming the small cylinder that is filled with the mana that is to detonate on impact. I feel a twinge of pain and my spell all but collapses as something slams into it.

I barely manage to wrap my mana around the foreign construct and while it makes my energy bolt lopsided and deformed I do incase it and incorporate it with my spell.

I nod to Kythia as she looks at me and she takes a deep breath releasing control of the foreign energy I feel, allowing me to push at it as it slowly becomes a miniature version of my own spell as I restart the chant to aid in my focus. This time I continue through the final syllable and the bolt of force slams into the log with a slight spin and arcs along the path I planned by putting different amounts of mana in the vectors of the spell.

Kythia stares at the log after it was hit before I see her eyes following the path that the bolt took.

“Can you show me again?” she asks after a minute.

“Maybe, it took more out of me to drag and shape your mana than I thought.”

“How come the directions you set hit the target even though they don’t point to it?”

“Math” I answer and she frowns as most do.

At least I feel like most people don’t like the subject. I don’t actually know, I can’t remember ever talking about it with anyone, just how to do it.

“The directional movement of a default Magic Missile have three parts a rate of release, an amount of energy and a direction. The one I just used was slightly different. There were six of them but each had a preset direction and a delay instead.

The rate of release and amount of energy let’s me know how far in a direction it’ll go while the delay let’s me set when it will do so.”

“And how does that make it hit the target?”

I grab a stick and start drawing in the loose dirt as I explain, “that log is two hundred and seventy eight hand spans in front of us at a slight angle. As long as all the directions add up to that distance and direction it’ll hit.”

“No, there’s still the earth pull.”

“That’s just an additional direction that you have to add in.”

Maybe I should switch to that other tongue, it has a word for vector while this one does not. . .

“That seems like a lot of work to do the same thing” she comments so I can only assume that she has understood the concept.

“But it makes it seem like you’re attack missed before it actually does hit.”

She nods at that but asks, “are strings and this marking easier?”

“Strings are easily counterspelled and to use a mark you have to have placed it beforehand.”

“How do they work?”

“A mark pulls your spells to the target while strings are used to guide you spell As if it were a puppet.”

“Why did you show the hardest way?”

“Because it is the best way. Now you try it before I’ll show you it again.”

She does not hit the log but a branch in the trees around us. She really needs to work on control.

“Alright, come here I’ll demonstrate once more but then I’ll have to go back to the village” I say and she nods.

It feels ever so slightly easier the second time I shape and drag Kythia’s mana along my spell even if this one is a failure as far as damage goes, leaving only a slight mark of soot on the side of the log.

A bead of sweat forms on my brow and I feel the emptiness of being almost out of mana once more. I glance at the falling sun, there is maybe an hour before it is dark.

A moment later I start the ten or fifteen minute walk back to the village, the sentry ignoring me from the roof where she sits as most of the huts have a fire burning as they cook their evening meal. No one stops me as I reach Kylana’s hut where she is waiting for me by the door.

“You cutting it close. Did my daughter ask you to help her yet?” she says while welcoming into her hut.

“She did. I taught her a bit about indirect aiming.”

“And?”

“She listened and tried it but failed the first time though in a way that proved the method as possible.”

“She figured out a way to attempt what you explained in a few hours?”

“I showed her the form.”

“How?”

“I had her inject a tiny bit of mana into my spell and not resist as I used it as part of my spell.”

“A butchered attempt at complementary casting. Interesting, and she got the form right from that? I don’t think you could have shown enough detail in that manner.”

“I don’t know, maybe if her mana is the majority she’ll feel more detail. I’ll try more things tomorrow.”

Kylana smiles, “good. I am glad that taking you as a student has helped her.

Now there is something else we must discuss, has Alana told you about how to be recognized as an adult?”

I shake my head. Aside from some basics of who is who and a bit on magic she hasn’t told me much of anything.

“In the pack as a male you must hunt alone and bring meat to the pack twice. On a night when the moon is full and one that has no moon. Doing so shows that you will be able to provide food for your den.”

So I have to prove I can be a provider, that seems oddly sensible.

“Why are you bringing this up now?”

“You’re smart, isn’t it obvious? What is the following full moon?”

“Something I was never told about” I guess and she frowns.

“What has Alana even taught you of the pack?”

“Next to nothing, but to be honest I am not in her hut very often.”

With a sigh Kylana continues, “tell her or Analais to explain to you what the Paring Howl is. You can figure out the rest from there.”

I nod, not sure what else to do.

“Well go on.”