CelestialShadow
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Chapter 12 - Winter
🕑 Added 2023-11-22 15:36:17 +0000 UTCA few more weeks passed in the same manner, and luckily, no new Bronze beast appeared. Most days, Adion would manage to bring back a Gray Wolf to eat and smoke in preparation for the winter.
It had now started getting really cold, and a few days ago, it had begun to snow. So, Adion decided to move back into the mountain structure for the winter. He had enough food to last him almost four months, and he thought that should be more than enough. It was a tough job carrying all the meat and pelts up the mountain, but Adion had finally fashioned himself a backpack. Though not exactly a masterpiece, it did its job. The process of bringing everything up the mountain took a few days, but eventually, he had brought up everything he would need.
He now sat surrounded by soft wolf pelts and had a fire burning in the middle of the cave where the teleportation formation was located. He had water to drink in the small spring below the opening in the cave ceiling. He had enough smoked meat to last him months, and now Adion could focus solely on getting stronger.
This should be about the time for my 13th birthday. By spring, I will have spent a year here.
Adion felt the warmth of the fire, the warmth of the pelts underneath him, and the warmth of a stomach full of food. But that only made it more apparent to him the lack of a certain warmth he always had on his birthday until now—the warmth of family.
Adion sat by himself and thought of all the previous celebrations he had had. And for the first time since the day he got here, he allowed himself to cry.
—
Adion didn’t slack off in his training even though he missed his family; he knew that his mother and father were gone, and he knew he would avenge them. But his sister, brother, and grandfather were still out there, probably thinking he was dead.
His brother should have already started studying at Cyalis Academy, and Adion’s goal was to get there before he turned 17. His brother would be in his last year by then, and Adion not only wanted to find him easily, but he also wanted to take his chance and study there. He felt that it would be easy for him to join with his progress and strength.
He felt he might even be a little too fast in his progress. But he didn’t plan on slowing down. He would just have to find a way to hide his strength. Something he knew was possible but didn’t know how to do.
So Adion focused on what he could do, which was meditating. And practicing his fire and shadow mana control. And since he had so much time, Adion also spent some time practicing his water mana control. He had gotten that affinity from his mother and had no plans to waste it.
His goals until spring were to reach peak Iron, be able to fight using fire, see the degree of his shadow power, and figure out how to teleport. It was a long list, but Adion had time.
He quickly got into his routine, and every day, he would begin by meditating and feeding his core with space mana, then stretch his limbs and rest his Will by practicing his swordsmanship. Then he would eat breakfast and try to figure out how to use his space mana in different ways, mainly how to replicate the effect of the teleportation formation, then some shadow and water mana control before finally tiring out his Will entirely by trying to change pure mana into fire mana and conjuring fire as quickly as possible. After that, some more swordsmanship and some more eating before finally meditating before bed.
Wake up and repeat.
This continued all through winter until a little over three months had passed. Adion had gone down from his cave and entered the mostly collapsed old grand hall. He looked out over the Endless Forest, which was now clear of snow and showed the signs of spring.
The past few months had been really valuable for Adion. He had accomplished a lot, after all. A month ago, he had reached the peak Iron stage. And he could now confidently fight using fire. It would exhaust almost all of his Will if he wanted to conjure just a small fire, but it would still help immensely. Adion thought he should have enough Will to conjure a small ball of fire and freeze the space around a low Bronze for almost a second before not having the Will to fight anymore.
Unfortunately, those were the only goals Adion had reached during the winter; his shadow mana control had increased a lot, but it wasn’t quite good enough for him to do anything meaningful. He had only had the affinity for a year, after all, and focused almost all his time during that year on his space and fire mana.
Adion hadn’t been able to teleport either, but he was getting close. He was sure that it was something he could theoretically do, but he just hadn’t managed to get it right yet.
And now spring was here, Adion still had some leftover meat, but it wasn’t a lot, and he doubted much fruit had begun ripening. So, it was time to hunt again.
Adion had thought a lot about his long-time plan and realized he would never be strong enough to return to the sapi part of the continent without danger. Well, maybe someday, but that would take decades, if not centuries. And Adion wouldn’t wait that long, so there would always be a risk whenever he decided to leave.
The question was how big of a risk he was willing to take. Should he wait until he was Silver? A genius would take five years to go from Bronze to Silver, and even though Adion thought he would be faster than that, he didn’t have much confidence in reaching it before he was 17. And he wanted to be in Cyalis by then, even if Adion was a hard worker he wasn’t inexhaustible, he couldn’t just train all day every day with no break forever, he missed other people, most of all his family. And he decided he would meet them when he was 17 at the latest.
So Adion decided to start his journey when he reached Bronze. That was a pretty respectable strength, and most beasts in the Endless Forest were Bronze or lower. There were still a lot of Silvers, Golds, Diamonds, and maybe higher, though. And Adion didn’t think he could make it all the way home without running into any strong beast even once. He didn’t even know which way his home was.
So what to do? Well, Adion decided to make a gamble. He would continue to train until he reached Bronze and then make his way out of here. And when he found a strong beast, he would offer a Grand Soul Clarity Pill or maybe a healing pill in return for them escorting him out of the forest.
It was undoubtedly a risk, and the beast had to be intelligent enough to understand the value of the pill. But Adion had thought of a few ways for him to not just get killed once the beast got the pill.
But that was for later. Now, it was hunting time. And Adion looked forward to seeing how much he had improved.
Adion made his way down the mountainside for the first time in months. This time, he had his slightly improved backpack on his back, filled with dried meat and some wolf pelts. He also had a healing pill and a soul pill in his pocket, as always. The rest were left in the mountain until it was time to leave.
It didn’t take him more than two hours to reach where he had spent most of his time in this forest—the first and biggest Red Royal apple tree he had found. No fruits could be seen yet, but he could see some flowers starting to show. It might not take long before apples start growing. In about two months, it would be around the time he first discovered the tree, and by that time last year, it was full of apples.
He left his backpack by the tree and made his way deeper into the forest, towards the Gray Wolf area. Adion wasn’t confident in trying out any place where there might be Bronze beasts or stronger.
It wasn’t long before Adion noticed a peak Iron Gray Wolf trying to sneak up on him. Adion quickly gathered the space mana he had under his control between himself and the wolf like he always did, and when the wolf leaped to attack, Adion froze the space around it and quickly slashed his sword across its throat, killing it.
Adion could feel how it struggled in his frozen space, but it didn’t have a powerful enough Will to fight against Adion long enough before it died.
Hmm. I could probably take on four more of these before having exhausted my Will to a dangerous level. I could move on, but not while carrying the wolf’s body. That seems like a waste. And even if I want to test out my full power, I will probably run into a Bronze beast eventually—no need to look for trouble. Perhaps I can try fighting with just my sword next time. I can always surprise it by freezing space and kill it if I can’t get the upper hand.
Adion thought about it for a while until he decided to head back with the wolf’s body and not take any stupid risks. He would continue fighting the way he had, as it was the safe way to fight, and Adion didn’t want to grow overconfident. It would be a shame if that were his downfall.
I’ll just focus on meditation and practice my mana control. I will go hunt only when the food runs out. I will have plenty of fights when I leave here.
When Adion returned, he butchered the carcass and lit himself a fire to eat and smoke some meat for the coming days. Meat from beasts could last much longer than meat from animals, but Adion wanted to be safe and smoked it anyway.
He then quickly got into a slightly new routine, following much of his previous schedule, except he would go out to hunt every couple of days. The wolves never seemed to run out, though some days he wouldn’t have any luck even after spending the whole day searching.
—
After almost four weeks, Adion sat by the tree and felt the sun warm his face, but he wasn’t focused on that. He was focused on the space mana he had released from his core and gathered just a few feet away from him, as well as the space mana around him and inside his body. While it was hard to sense anything inside another's body, one's own was quite the contrary. It was very easy to feel mana flowing in your own body.
I am there. The space mana under my control is here. It’s all space under my control; I decide where it is, and I decide the truth. The space mana is infused with my Will. My Will comes from my soul. Where my Will is, so is my soul. I can feel the surroundings through the space mana as though I am there. I am there.
Suddenly, there was a shift, and the space mana Adion had gathered in front of him was now behind him, and Adion was now a few feet away from where he was just a moment ago.
I did it! I teleported!
Adion could barely believe it. Well, he could. He had theorized that it should be possible ever since he thought about the way he was teleported here, after all. The key in Adion's mind was to feel the surroundings through his space mana, not like he usually did, but as if Adion was at the place where he had space under his control, just like how he felt both the cave in the treasury and the cave in the mountain for a short while before he teleported here.
If he could manage that, he should be able to take the next step. The tricky part was how to feel like he was somewhere he wasn’t, and Adion had made almost like a mantra for himself to repeat. By infusing more Will than it would take to control the space mana and keep increasing it until that area of space held so much of his Will that it was like a small part of him was there. And then grab hold of that feeling and use every amount of Will he had almost to order and a bit like convincing the space that the places were the same under Adion’s control, and he could decide where he actually was in that space.
And it had finally worked. After hours of practice every day for months and months, he had managed to teleport for the first time. It took a long time to get into the right state of mind, and as he succeeded, he noticed his Will had never felt so tired before. It felt like a struggle to even manipulate the smallest amount of space mana around him.
But Adion wasn’t sad. His strength would increase, his Will would get stronger, and he would gain more control with practice. And he knew how powerful this ability would be if he could use it consistently in fights.
Adion had noticed that after constantly converting pure mana into fire mana and conjuring fire, the process required less and less Will. It's almost like he was initially doing a sloppy job of it and was now getting increasingly more efficient with it. He planned on laying that practice to rest for a while, as he really wanted to get his teleportation up to par. He wanted to see how quickly he could do it, how far he could do it, and what all the limits of his new power were.
After a few days of practice, he noticed something concerning though: he was only able to teleport to a space that was entirely under his control, and thanks to the wisdom pill, it was a lot larger than it would have been otherwise, but it was still only the size of a grown man, meaning it would get tighter as Adion continued to grow, and he wouldn’t be able to teleport too many things with him, and even if he figured out a way to bring a person with him he wouldn’t have the space for it.
I need to find out what kind of power those pills gave me and how to increase it.
Adion continued his practice, and after a few more days, he succeeded in teleporting his sword into his hand. He had put the sword a few feet away from him and focused his space mana around it and the area around his hand, and just like he had done with himself before, he switched places between the two spaces. It still took a long time to get there, though, and it exhausted his Will. So it was meaningless as it was now, but Adion liked where this could get him in the future.
Maybe I can eventually just keep all my belongings safe in some hidden place and just teleport them to me as I need them. That would have really come in handy with the pills and elixirs I need to carry with me. All it takes now is one curious and strong beast or sapi, and I am done.
Adion also tried to increase the distance between the locations he teleported to and from but noticed it got just a little harder every few feet away until increasing significantly in difficulty as the distance passed around 100 feet. But that was connected to how well Adion could control space mana at a distance, and that kept improving as Adion trained in using his space mana and every time he advanced. So he would just need to practice like usual.
And practice he did, every day following his new routine. His control in teleporting increased significantly as the weeks passed, but it was not good enough to use in an actual battle. Adion would be long dead from any beast's attack before he managed to teleport, but Adion was convinced he would get there eventually.
