CelestialShadow
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Chapter 17 - Truth and lies
🕑 Added 2023-11-22 16:43:30 +0000 UTCThe days turned to weeks as Fellion and Adion continued their training. Fellion now only released the aura of a normal living creature. Adion wasn’t allowed to sit still, either. He was moving around and practicing his swordsmanship and mana manipulation while attempting to sense him. White was also there some days, adding another variable to Adion's aura sense. It took all Adion had to be able to focus and pinpoint Fellion's location, but after two months of practice, Fellion finally decided to move on.
“Continuing this training will show diminishing returns from now on. We will now continue with the next stage in your training.” Fellion said.
“Will I train how to manipulate my aura now?” Adion asked.
“No, that is still too soon. How will you manipulate your aura when you can’t even feel the differences in others? Right now, you have reached a satisfactory level in sensing an aura, even the weakest kind in a stressful environment. But what can you tell me about the aura? Can you sense age and strength? Can you tell lies from the truth? This will be the next thing we will focus on. If before you saw aura as a glaring sun or a weak candle, as you so aptly put it. Now, you must learn to tell how the flames move, the heat and color, and what it all means. You have already practiced how to sense someone's strength for these past two months. But remember that I am not the only one with the skill to trick your aura sense. Don’t trust it blindly.
“We will begin with one of the second easiest things to tell about an aura: age. Age is different from strength in that you can’t change it. Not even I could release the aura of a 10-year-old.”
“Even with your skill in aura control? How can that be possible?” Adion questioned.
“It is not only constricted to age. No one can change their aura into a lie. I know you might think I lied about my strength when I released the aura of a Stone stage beast, but it is not a lie. It is simply not all of the truth. In my soul resides the strength of a Stone stage core. I also have the strength of every stage and substage up to my actual strength. I am never lying. I am simply hiding part of the truth.
“You could show the strength of an Iron core mage, hiding your Bronze core strength, but you could not release the aura of a Silver stage mage, as that would be a lie. This applies to everything you do with your aura. You can hide everything you want, your intent, for example. If you have the intent to kill me, you can hide that from me with sufficient aura control, but you can’t fake the intent of love towards me unless you have it. Do you understand?
“I do, and it makes sense. But why can’t I hide part of my age just as I do with part of my strength?”
“It does indeed seem a little similar, but remember that aura comes from the soul. You have the soul of someone who is 13 years and ten months old. No part of your soul is ten years old. Every day, every second, your soul ages and changes. Your age is bound to your soul in a way. There is no ten years to show while hiding three. Your entire soul is 13 years old, every single part. I admit that you could apply a similar logic to your core strength, but this is the way it works. You can always try yourself to find out what is possible to hide in order to give off a false aura.” Fellion explained patiently.
“Okay, I understand. So how will I practice sensing age if you can’t manipulate it to different ages?”
“We will take a walk and take a look at the magical beasts under my rule. Just like strength, age is something many humans can sense to a somewhat accurate degree with otherwise poor aura sense. So it is quite easy to learn, especially for someone with your talent. First, try to sense my age. I will hide everything from you but my age for you to get a clear view, so to speak. It should prove a challenge to get it accurate as it is quite high, I must admit.”
Adion sensed the change in Fellion's aura and could now clearly sense his age. Usually, Adion would have had no idea what part of the aura he sensed indicated age, but now it was super clear for him. He had always felt that Fellion was really old. Just like he had been able to sense the presence and strength of beasts before his aura training while hunting in the forest. He had somewhat of a feeling of people's ages as well. He had, after all, spent a life with a lot of people around him, knowing their ages and feeling their aura. Even though he didn’t consciously think about it, a small feeling for it got stuck, and Adion could at least tell that Fellion was the oldest being he had ever met.
He knew about the lifespan of the stages up to Diamond. A normal person without a core had an average lifespan of 80 years; of course, they could also become over 100, but it was very rare. Every stage after that added about ten years to one's lifespan, with a Silver living to 120 years on average. Then, Gold mages who could become 150 years old, and Diamond mages had an average lifespan of 200 years.
But Adion had no idea what range he could guess for a beast above Diamond. Just the fact that Fellion was a beast could mean that his average lifespan was a tenth of a human's or ten times as high. He had no way of knowing. But if he had to guess from what he felt, he would guess 400 years.
“I think that you are at least 300 years old and probably close to 400.” Adion finally guessed.
“Hmm, take a guess again by the end of the day, and I will tell you,” was all the answer Adion received.
They spent the day walking around and visiting the beasts that resided in this part of the forest. As they all had great respect for Fellion, they listened to his request, and those who could hide everything but their age from Adion to give him a clearer view of their aura did so. Adion quickly grasped a better understanding of what gave away the age in the aura, so after a while, he requested to guess without the beasts hiding the rest of their aura. His guesses didn’t take much of a plunge, and he quickly improved after guessing and confirming hundreds of beasts.
By the end of the day, he could at least sense the beast's ages up to 60 years with only a year or two off the mark. This was when they weren’t hiding their age, of course. Adion wanted to try feeling the age of a beast while they were hiding it, but Fellion said he was nowhere near to being able to perceive that, so he quickly gave up.
“Alright, now that you have got a better feeling for the age of an aura, you should try me again,” Fellion spoke at the end of the day.
Adion focused, and now he could compare it with everything else he had felt that day. Many beasts were over 100 years old, giving him a better idea of Fellion's age.
“I change my guess to 600 years old,” Adion said.
“Hmm, not bad. I turned 654 this spring. I hope you won’t have too much use of sensing ages this high in the future, as even if they hide their strength, you can be guaranteed that they are strong enough to kill you with a thought.”
“Wow, that’s amazing. You must have so many stories to tell.” Adion said and was curious about what kind of life Fellion had lived.
“Hmm, I suppose when it all adds up, I’ve lived through a lot. But I spent most of my life in this part of the forest, taking care of my tribe. If you return here someday, I might tell you a few stories. But for now, you should focus on practicing.”
“Yes, I know. But if some interesting tidbit comes to mind, I don’t mind taking a break.”
“Hehe, I will keep it in mind. Now go and rest. We will continue our training tomorrow.”
“Alright, thank you for today as well. Good night, Fellion.”
Adion returned to his cave and found White sleeping already. The Deep Snow Wolf, as Fellion had called him, spent a lot of time outside, hunting beasts. Only occasionally would he come back to rest for a few days and spend some time with Adion.
Just as he had done every night over the past two months, Adion practiced both his space and fire manipulation for two hours before falling asleep. He wanted to practice more but would feel bad keeping Fellion waiting in the morning. Fellion never woke him up in the morning as he said that getting enough sleep was important for someone Adion's age. So Adion held himself back from practicing for too long into the night.
He always made sure to get some meditation in during the day, though. Even if he wasn’t progressing as fast as before, he didn’t want to completely stop.
The next day, Adion met up with Fellion in the glade that had basically become their training ground by now. Fellion turned to Adion as he arrived and spoke.
“You can now feel the power and age of an aura to an adequate degree. Don’t forget to keep practicing when you get back to the humans. If you want to reach my stage, you have a lot of work to do.”
“I definitely will!” Adion answered, excited at the thought of having such power.
“Good. Now, we will spend the next few weeks practicing how to tell lies from the truth. This will also help you feel the intent in aura, which can be useful in uncovering hidden enemies who wish you harm. I will begin without hiding anything about my aura at all, something quite difficult to do, as a matter of fact. People tend to instinctively hide some things about themselves, such as when telling a lie. So don’t get conceited if you begin to be able to separate truth from lies. Even a common farmer would still hide their intent better than I am about to do. We will work our way up in difficulty in due time, but for now, tell me if I am speaking the truth or lying.”
“Alright, I am ready,” Adion answered.
“My name is Fellion. I am 653 years old, and I am a human.”
“Lie. Well, obviously.”
“Yes, but could you feel a difference in my aura?”
“Yes, I felt something change, but I can’t pinpoint it at all.”
“Well, I will tell you about a regular day I had before you came here and throw in some lies. Focus on every word and stop me when you think I lied.”
“Alright.”
Adion continued to practice and soon got a feeling for lies and truth. But it never got any easier. At the end of the day, Adion was feeling a bit discouraged. He turned to Fellion.
“I get somewhat of a feeling when you lie, but it is not getting any easier for me. Is there something I am doing wrong?” Adion turned to Fellion and asked.
“Oh? I obviously try to hide my intent little by little. It wouldn’t be any good practice if it were too easy, so I am keeping it to a level to challenge you. We are still not at the level of even a normal non-mage adult, though.”
“Oh, I see. You were doing that the entire day? Just how good is your aura control?”
“Well, I still have a far way to go, but I believe that few, perhaps none, on this continent can control their aura better than I can. I have spent a lot of time helping to train the beasts under my rule, which in turn helps me practice my control.”
“Oh? You used to train others before I got here?”
“Yes, I have been trying to raise another beast to the Soft Soul stage for a long time without luck. But I have a few beasts under me that seem promising.”
“Oh, I see. I hope that it turns out well for you.”
Once again, Adion got used to the routine of training his aura sense all day in the glade with Ferrion. It was tough work, and Adion almost gave up his private nightly practice. But a life of stern discipline, as well as his previous weakness, had instilled a fire within him that wasn’t put out so easily, so he continued to practice for at least two hours every night.
