"Nice, think I got most of the curse out now”

Mathilde spewed rainbow colored flames.

Luckily, going through the portal had given her access to her ordinary mana. Now that she could identify the curse, she could force it out of her.

It had been about two hours of walking, they were now over halfway to the treeline.

She was still working on her basic control of the magic.

Martin, who had observed her ridiculous high use of mana felt it was time to say something new.

“you got quite good at sending out light-flames, why not try something else, like heat flames?”

“ehh? oh yeah, that could be possible...”

“Obviosly, arcane flames is just another way of releasing mana, you should know that”

“I’m not stupid, I learned that when I learned [Force emission]”

The [Force emission] she had learned had more to do with manifesting the mana as particles, and let them push the surrounding, rather than what they would do when consumed.

Martin just sighted,

“all I’m saying is that you should practice more broadly”

“How come you’re not practicing something?”

The question took martin by surprise.

“uhh, because... it’s unpleasant, my [mind connection] gives me a headache, and using mana with the small mana pool I got isn’t very nice either. It isn’t as easy for me, as it is for you”

Mathilde gave him an irritated look. Hardly believing the words he spoke.

“Oh yeah!? That’s your excuse?”

“it’s not a lie…”

His words decreased in volume, he realized now how bad it sounded.

“Well then what about me and homework? Eh? Should I had stopped doing them just because it’s easier to you than me? You had eleven more years than me too practice those things and you telling me you didn’t practice because it was unpleasant?!”

“it sounds bad when you put it that way…”

Mathilde was vildly upset.

“Dude, MATH is unpleasant, I did it anyway. You got no excuse, you could had gotten so skilled had you practiced”

“it doesn’t change the fact that you should train in other ways”

“Know what?! NO! I’m not going to do anything before you start doing something, otherwise it’s just not fair”

Martin felt that he had to come with a comeback. After some moments in silence, however, he realized that she was right. He made an arbitrary “hmpf” sound.

“Fine” He agreed

“But then you have to okay with me randomly connecting to your mind”

Mathilde instantly lightened up.

“Cool, then let’s get too it”

She began emitting flames again, only this time she attempted to do it with heat instead of light.

Martin grimaced in pain as he began using his [Mind connection].

Matts legs shook, his head hurt and his stomach was a hard knot. He almost felt like throwing up. He felt weak.

It had been a few hours since he had completed the mediation and resumed his wandering.

He felt on his knees, shaking. He stood up again and stumbled some steps further, breathing heavily.

He knew that a human could survive a considerable long time without food, he had however not considered the unpleasant periods that would occur when he factored in the fact that he had to walk most of the time.

Thinking about it, he found that he should had had the reaction yesterday, as he could only assume he had something like a calorie-shock, his body had used too much energy without refueling.

His tank was empty, like a car trying to drive on fumes.

Maybe the reason for it taking so long was because of his unlocked ki? Letting him drive a little longer pr. liter?

He took another step, pushing him just a little longer. He knew he should rest. There was a reserve tank he would shift too. The car would start using his fat as fuel.

No he would use it as fuel. He cursed his sugar-low brain playing tricks on him.

He refused to rest. He didn’t care that it was one of those bad decisions people did when they had low blood-sugar.

[Force push]

Aided by his aura techniques he literally pushed himself to take the next steps.

He grinned, fuel or not, he was more than a car and would do without it. The situation somehow both filled him with dread and some sort of machoistic pleasure of not giving up in to the situation

He was a cyclist creating his own tailwind, a marathoner not stopping despite hardships.

When he crossed the finish line the audience would cheer on him.

Not that it was a race, nor was there any audience, but he saw no reason to use willpower on correcting his semi-disillusioned mind. It was not like he had the capacity to focus on anything besides taking the next step anyway.

His [Force push] and his newfound iron resolution helped him walk a good deal longer.

After a while he no longer focused on walking, he felt like a observer watching his hazy mind and body automatically taking the next step, checking the compass, [Force Push] himself that extra meter, pulling himself past formations and narrowly avoiding falling into the ponds.

The experience was surrealistic, minutes took an eternity to pass by, yet each hour passed by in mere moments.

He did not have the energy to look up.

He nearly stepped into another pond, and was about to take another step away from it.

Then a fish appeared. It was a typical 20 centimeter sized boring grey fish.

Matt just dizzily stared at it, barely thinking. He didn’t even feel hunger at the time being, he just observed and understood what it meant.

Had he energy left he would had laughed like maniac for making it. Instead he laughed quietly, his lips curled up in a just as manic grin.

With the last of his energy he got on his knees and reached out with a hand, dipping it in the pond.

Reaching the finish line, the audience exploding in cheers.

Then he passed out.

The twins reached the woods.

The edge was densely packed with bushes and trees. The ground was filled with ferns and mushrooms. The high trees had all sorts of creepers growing on them, some blooming with huge pink beautiful flowers.

Some of the bushes were the same as those from Balmas, growing in the forest near the academy Omo. They had the same yellow berries growing on them.

Mathilde happily took another step towards the bushes.

“Nice, I was beginning to feel famished”

As she approached it, the woods instantly exploded with movement as hundreds of unseen small creatures fled from her presence.

It made her stop for a second.

A squirrel sized fairy-dragon clinget to the side of a tree, and made “Sceerrp” sound at Mathilde and Martin. It then opened its almost butterfly like wings and revealing, in stark contrast to its Mud-green body, an absolute stunning bright red color-pattern on the underside of its wings. Then it flew away too.

Compared to the other animals it had a strong and beautiful magical aura.

A moment passed, then Mathilde reached out and began eating the berries.

“I’ve never seen a fairy-dragon in the wild before, looks different from the one in the zoo” She commented.

“Naturally it’s another sub-species of fairy dragons” Martin said. His face was pale from practicing the [Mind connection]. He too began to eat the berries.

The two siblings then started going through the forest. They quickly found some fruits to replace the berries growing at the edge. Water didn’t prove a problem either, as there was plenty of small rivers and bodies of water spread throughout the lush wilderness.

If possible, the forest felt almost more alive than it began with. The underground just crawled with life, all larger animals made way when they felt Mathilde’s presence. An anteater panicked and almost tripped into the anthill, made from green ants, it was eating from, when it detected them.

The most powerful presence they felt was continued to be the occasional fairy-dragons, sometimes rivaled by a wisp or two.

Still, they didn’t feel entirely safe. All it took was for them to walk wrongly in on one of the boars of the forest, or encounter a predator that didn’t feel intimidated by Mathildes mana pool. Just because they couldn’t feel them didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Whatever the predators existed or not, they didn’t encounter any.

Martin used [Mind connection] on Mathilde.

“I think It’s time to make camp for the night, the sun is setting and we need to make a fire and shelter”

“if you think so” Mathilde responded in her mind.

They found a place in which the leaf-roof wasn't as dense, and they could se more of the sky.

A stream passed by next to them.

Mathilde started collecting stones for a fire place, meanwhile Martin started using a fallen over tree and twigs to make a shelter for the night. The space would be just large enough for two persons to sleep.

When he was done he looked towards the fire place. Mathilde had collected a good amount of wood.

She now sat in front of the readied fire place with a concentrated look on her face. She held some twigs above her left hand. Arcane flames reached meters above it. This time they didn’t glow as brightly, instead they gave off more heat.

The twigs started smoking and embers started to show.

She made a dissatisfied sound and threw the twigs into the fire-place, then she took another hand-full and tried again.

She wanted them to combust in glorious flames! Not barely glowing like the pathetic results from before.

The arcane flames she made danced irradicably as she, with no luck, tried to make them do what she wanted to do.

Martin guessed what that was.

“till you have learned to make the flames smaller, and not larger, you could try to use this trick”

He showed her some hand movements while he continued talking.

“you see, with this movement you start an initial spin… and if you hold the other hand like this, in a tube form, make sure you have a high density of rotating mana there but don’t use it, then push the flames through it, you should be able to produce better flames”

She just stared at him.

“Dude.. that sounds so wrong.”

“Dammit, I don’t care, just try it”

“Okay”

After a few attempts, all stopped by Martin’s correction before she could even finish it, she did it.

A hand movement, then a hand position, then magic. Violent spiraling flames shot out of her hands in a downwards angel.

A blast of wind hit their faces, the earth around the fireplace was scorched by the splashing arcane flames, some twigs were broken by the sheer physical force the arcane flames had.

The flames still would had reached as far as before. This time, however, they stayed in a much denser shape.

Not only that, Mathilde was astonished by how much more mana she could put into the flames.

The power-difference from before was clear.

The wood had instantly turned on fire.

“Awesome!” she yelled. Then she started bombarding the fire place with more of the spell.

Martin just had nervous twitches around one of his eyes. He almost regretted teaching he something that dangerous.

The night passed by.

Mathilde complained about the wisps constantly flying around her, and her mana pool, but otherwise it passed by eventless.

Then a rumbling began, like a distant earthquake.

They woke up. Mathilde with a annoyed sound. She mumbled something about the wisps ruining her night sleep.

They got up.

Then she felt something.

At first, she wasn’t sure what it was, it felt like her ice-mana which confused her. Then she realized it.

There was an enormous flow of mana beneath the ground…

…and it was coming their way!