CelestialShadow
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Chapter 36 - Gaps
🕑 Added 2023-11-30 10:24:27 +0000 UTCAdion was sitting on his bed, fully clothed, as the first rays of sunlight lit up the room. He had planned to get a good night's sleep, but when he started meditating the night before, his mind had wandered, making him stay up all night.
He had thought a lot about concepts ever since he learned about their existence, but he had not made any progress. According to Benji, it was a hard thing to force. You had to give yourself plenty of time to think about it. Adion had decided to focus on his concepts regarding space first. Since he had a space core, that should be the easiest. Once he grasped how to strengthen his space mana with concepts, he would try to find a way to do the same to his fire mana.
The problem was that he didn’t know what kind of concepts he could implement in space. The fact that fire gets stronger the hotter it is was something easy to understand, but what about space? The only thing Adion could immediately think of was that if his space were more stable and unmoving, he would be able to freeze stronger opponents in space. But Adion didn’t use his conjured space to freeze opponents. He used his Authority over the world’s space mana.
He still couldn’t do much with his conjured space. Even emptying his entire core only conjured space the size of a grain of sand. But Adion had been thinking that he should still be able to find a use for it. With concepts, it was definitely possible.
He had not experimented very much with his conjured space, instead relying on his Authority for everything. That seemed like a waste. So, during the night, he had conjured his own small amount of space and tried to see what he could use it for.
What can I do with you? Adion thought as he stared at the small amount of conjured space in front of his eyes. It couldn’t be seen, of course, but Adion felt his conjured space exceptionally well through his mana sense. What did space mages of the past do to fight using this power?
A benefit of his hard-conjured element was that it stayed under Adion’s control for a long time, even without Authority that would have held true. So he had only needed to conjure it once and had been playing around with it almost the entire night.
When a fire mage conjures a flame, they use fire mana and convert it to a physical thing. The moment the fire is conjured, there is no fire mana to interfere with anything, but that quickly changes. The pure mana that is ever-present takes on the affinity of the conjured fire, guided by the Will of the world. What started as a fire wholly controlled by the mage is soon filled with fire mana that takes control over the fire and guides it according to the Will of the world. If the mage doesn’t take the fire mana that appears under control with their own Will, they lose control of the fire. It can be done for a while but gets more challenging as time passes.
This is true for all elements, but the easier an element is to conjure, the weaker control the mage has over the conjured element. This means that something as hard to conjure as space is also incredibly easy to control. It’s been hours, and Adion still feels that even if some pure mana has started to take on the space affinity in his conjured space, it’s not a challenge for Adion.
Of course, he could use his Authority when that happens. But Adion didn’t want to rely on his Authority all the time. He wanted to explore the path a space mage without Authority would have to take.
Besides, Adion knew there was a difference between his own conjured space and the space he controlled thanks to his Authority. He didn’t know exactly the difference, but he could feel that he was closer to his conjured space somehow.
Could it be concepts that differ? I don’t have any concepts embedded in my space mana yet, though.
But that would make sense! When I use my Authority over space and fire, I only control the elements as they appear in nature. Just like Sahra said, my fire almost feels like a regular campfire.
But I can freeze space? That doesn’t seem like something space would do without concepts.
Adion could feel that he was close to an answer, but some things still didn’t make sense.
Don’t think too much about the information you have. A lot of knowledge is lost in this Age. If anything is possible, what could be a theory that explains everything I can and cannot do?
The sun was now well above the horizon, and his teammates had surely already met up for breakfast and started their day. Thankfully, no one bothered Adion, probably because of last night’s incident.
Yes! That explains it!
Suddenly, Adion grasped something resembling a theory that could explain his abilities.
Space doesn’t freeze naturally, obviously. It does so because I somehow Will it to, with concepts. The same is true for fire. I have already Willed it to burn hotter when I control it.
Neither space nor fire behaves like that the moment I take control over it, or conjure it. I have to use a lot of Will to change how it behaves.
It also gets easier with time, perhaps when I understand these concepts better? But it takes a lot of Will every time. A fire mage with the concepts already embedded in the fire mana in their core simply has to conjure the fire, and it will burn as hot or even hotter than when I use all my Will to make it burn hotter.
But this is excellent news for the future. Not only have I been able to use concepts before I even understood what I was doing, but I can do it for elements outside of my core. I still have to use a lot of Will so that could be a problem when it comes to my fire magic.
But space wouldn’t have the same problem. If I can change the space mana in my core to be attuned to the concepts I have understood, I could freeze space without even having to use my Will. I could conjure space, stable and unmovable space, and trap opponents in it.
But that will take a lot more space than a grain of sand. I won’t be able to do that for a long time. Still, it’s good news. Now that I know what I’ve been doing, I might be able to practice it more efficiently.
And I can focus on some other concepts for my space mana that might be useful even with a small amount of space. Maybe sharpness? Like Lomin’s wind, I could use a tiny blade of space. And speed, I guess. What would I need to make a projectile of space?
Adion once again began thinking hard. He pictured himself fighting underwater. It was something Adion used to imagine space in a more physical sense when he needed inspiration. Even if Adion had a space core and great affinity to space, he only understood it intuitively, and when he tried thinking more practically about it, he struggled. Space was different from other elements, such as fire, earth, and water, after all.
When he conjured his own space, he wondered what had happened to the space that was there before. He then pictured a water mage conjuring water beneath the surface of the sea, and that gave him a clearer picture of what happened. It wasn’t exactly the same, of course. Adion didn’t feel any pressure that he guessed a water mage would feel from conjuring water if they were deep enough.
But it was helpful to get ideas nonetheless. Just like a water mage deep under the surface was surrounded by water and needed to fight with water, Adion was surrounded by space and needed to fight using it.
If I was a water mage surrounded by water, how would I use my water to attack?
The image immediately popping up in Adion’s head was a fast and spinning ice projectile. Water mages would have trouble conjuring ice, of course. Otherwise, there would be no difference between them and the much rarer ice mages.
But it could be done, as water and ice were very closely related. It was simply a difference between concepts, so if a water mage really wanted to conjure ice, they could do it with enough work, but Benji had never heard of anyone succeeding when Adion had asked about it.
But I’m not a water mage. I am not looking to conjure ice. But many concepts should be similar. I need space that is a lot more stable than the surrounding space. That’s something that should be relatively easy with my experience. I also need speed. If that’s even a concept, it might just be a question of higher mana control. I’ll look into it. I definitely need sharpness or a concept of piercing or penetration.
This will all probably take a while. But I see the path ahead of me clearer than ever.
Adion tried implementing those concepts in his conjured space, but other than making space more stable, he had no success.
I guess it would be strange for me to succeed right away. And according to Benji the easiest concepts to grasp and improve are the ones that are already there. Fire is hot, so it isn’t that difficult to make it even hotter. That might be the case when it comes to making space stable, too. It is already very stable. It’s not flowing around like water. So, taking it a step further never caused me much trouble.
But sharp space? I’m afraid that might take some effort. But with the amount of space I can conjure at the moment, I might not be able to do anything for a while anyway.
Unless I can keep the space I have conjured under my control long enough to conjure more. That would take a while, though. But it would do good to test my limits.
Adion decided he had done enough experimenting for the moment. He had been up all night, and even though he didn’t use his Will all that much, he used his brain. And unlike spending the night meditating, spending the night thinking and manipulating mana was exhausting.
So, since they wouldn’t be going anywhere until the client showed up to talk to them about their escort mission, Adion decided to finally get some sleep.
—
“Do you think he’s still mad?” Rufus asked as he and his teammates sat around a table eating breakfast together.
“I don’t take Adion to be someone that holds on to petty grudges, don’t worry,” Benji assured Rufus.
Rufus was still a little concerned, though. He was good friends with everyone on the team and liked them a lot, probably more than anyone else he’d ever met. He had only known them for four years, but it felt like a lifetime. He saw them all as friends that he wouldn’t hesitate to risk his life for, and he was sure the others would do the same for him—a rare thing to find in this world.
But despite that, Rufus was really glad Adion had joined the team. For one, he was a fascinating kid, and he seemed to be a person you could trust your back to if the fight they had on the road was any indication. And even if he was still a bit young, he was mature for his age. Surely, life hadn’t been easy for him, forcing him to become strong, both in mind and magic.
But it was also nice to have someone else to talk to who was a little more like himself. Benji and Sahra had known each other since they met at Cyalis. They were also a couple. It wasn’t strange that there would be an obvious difference between the two and the rest of the team. That left him alone with Lomin a lot of the time. He didn’t really mind, of course. He wouldn’t hesitate to call the faelin his best friend. Or, well, out loud, he would hesitate. But in his mind, he had long come to see Lomin as such.
But Lomin was weird. Not that that was bad; Adion was plenty weird himself. But there would be gaps in the relationship, just like the gap in his friendship with Sahra and Benji was the fact they had a different and higher kind of relationship with each other. His and Lomin’s gaps were plenty. They thought of life differently, liked to talk about different things, and liked to spend their time in different ways.
That is why he was glad that Adion had joined. Some gaps could be filled. Adion had gaps as well, of course. He was secretive, a very private person. Rufus liked to ramble on about his problems and his perceived slights openly. And he wanted to listen to his friends' grumblings in return, preferably over a few beers. But he had Lomin for that. If there was something the faelin had going for him, it was his ability to listen to everything with his full attention. Never missing a word no matter the conversation. He was also by far the greatest storyteller he had ever met.
So even if Adion and his relationship would have gaps, he was fine with it, there were other people around him to fill them. And Adion had the ability to fill the greatest gap there was in his other friendships: women. Rufus had always liked talking with girls, and if not that, talk to other guys about girls. But this group of his was hopeless. A couple and a faelin. So how could he not be ecstatic when a young man, single and human, appeared in his team of friends, ready to accept Rufus as a mentor in the subtle art of talking with and about women?
But things were not off to a great start. Adion had seemed to share his interest and accepted the challenge of chatting up girls with more confidence than Rufus had thought. Unfortunately, it ended in a brutal failure. And it was even witnessed by the sadistic duo that constantly shoved their own happy relationship in the face of the others.
Rufus feared this would be a tough hit for Adion and perhaps turn him to the ways of the faelin. He would be alone again—this time, not only with Lomin as an opponent but Adion as well.
Rufus shivered at the thought.
“Maybe he’s just sleeping in. He’s a teenager, after all,” Rufus commented.
“He’s usually up earlier than you, though,” Sahra commented.
That’s true. Could he really be so devastated to not even want to show himself?
“Alright, when Adion eventually gets down here, no one should mention last night,” Rufus told the group sternly, “It’s his first rejection, and we shouldn’t forget that even if Adion is strong and mature for his age, he still basically a kid.”
Sahra had a small scowl on her face, “Just when I had something good on him,” she sighed, “Alright, I won’t mention it if he is really that bothered by it.”
“Good,” Rufus smiled. If Sahra wasn’t going to bring it up, he wasn’t worried about anyone else.
Suddenly, a group of people approached the table where Rufus and his friends were sitting.
“Excuse me,” A thin middle-aged man spoke. He seemed to be the leader of the small group. He had a small smile on his clean-shaven face. Rufus thought he gave off a confident but still humble expression. “Are you the team that accepted the mission to escort our group to Wender?” The man continued as he held out a piece of paper confirming they were the group that had issued the mission.
“We are,” Benji said as he got up from his chair with a smile. He shook the man’s hand and handed over a paper of his own. “I’m Benji,” Benji introduced himself to the group, “These are my teammates, Sahra, Lomin, and Rufus.”
Rufus and the others got up and shook the man’s hand.
“My name’s Gustad,” The thin man introduced himself with a smile, “I’m a merchant from Terren, a small town a day's journey from here. I’ve recently gotten a lot of good business, thanks to my daughter, Dellia, here.” Gustad gestured to an average-looking 20-year-old girl next to him. “She was accepted as a disciple by the local alchemist when she was young, and she has shown incredible talent for the art. She has already surpassed her master. In order to continue improving, we have decided to relocate the family to Wender. Products from alchemists have been in high demand ever since the Fire Phoenix returned, so we’ve made enough money to hopefully establish the family business in a big city.”
“I congratulate you on your success,” Benji said with a smile, “And on having such a talented daughter. I’ve always been interested in alchemy. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make use of the time I had in Cyalis Academy to fully absorb the knowledge there.”
“You’ve graduated from Cyalis Academy?” The daughter, Dellia, asked.
“Mhm,” Benji nodded.
“Amazing,” Dellia said with stars in her eyes, “I would have loved to go there, but I only reached Bronze half a year ago. And I thought I worked really hard. I can’t imagine the work it takes to reach Bronze by 17.”
“Hehe,” Benji grinned smugly, “Well, it wasn’t easy, but through-”
“Are these the clients?” Benji was suddenly interrupted by a young man approaching them.
Excellent timing, Adion. Rufus thought to himself, trying not to break out laughing.
“Ah, you’re up,” Benji said as he turned to Adion, “This is Adion, everyone, the last member of our team. Don’t let his young age fool you. He is a Bronze mage and strong enough to fight low Silver beasts by himself. As a team, no beast below Gold can threaten us.”
“What!?” Gustad, Dellia, and the rest of their family stared at Adion with their jaws wide open.
Comments
johannes andersson
Hell yeah!!
