Wild Dragon of Rome 43 (Patreon)

After an intensive crash course on the magic of Germanic tribes that took most of the afternoon, Astrid walked away to cook dinner, leaving me alone to ponder about the lesson.

I had made great progress, mostly because there were a lot of common aspects when it came to elemental magic and shifter magic, at least for the first-order, which was the beginner phase. A successful first-order mage requires only two things. The successful transfer of vitae to their body, and channel the mana to feed it.

However, I didn’t alert Astrid about the extent of my improvement. If I told her that, I would need to tell her about the reason, including my past — and uncertain future — as an elemental mage, including the fact that I still had four elemental cores. Damaged, maybe, but still elemental cores.

No, that wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have immediately. Her hopes of turning me into a holy warrior made her very open, and I didn’t want to jeopardize that.

Instead, I focused on cataloging the information I had collected, and comparing it with the elemental arts.

Vitae transfer was simple in both cases. Take a small piece of developed vitae — formed by the spells of another mage in the case of elemental mages — and inject it into the body of the target.

Mana channeling wasn’t as simple.

Without some expensive medicine and other external aids, even the ability to feel the environmental mana required years to develop. Back when I had been learning, it took me six months despite not using anything. My grandfather had refused to use any of the common medicines, instead choosing to train me — or torture me and disguise it as training.

Of course, only years later, I had learned that using external medicines left most mages weak when it came to sensing and manipulating mana. There was a reason I hated and loved that crazy old man in equal measure. Even with all the pain, he forged me into something more than a disposable dabbler of magic.

I shook my head, dispelling those thoughts, and focusing on the differences in magic.

While the first-order state of both traditions was similar, just feeding the vitae with mana slowly but steadily. The first real difference started with the breakthrough of the second-order. For shapeshifters, it was a smooth transition, letting the growing vitae slowly spread to their body and let it bond with the parts of their body, letting it awaken in any part of their body, before feeding to spread.

Once spread, the vitae had turned into a part of the body completely, with no chance of reversal.

Trying to do the same would have been a death sentence. At first-order, the vitae was not a part of the elemental mage. Reaching the second-order requires the opposite, gathering the vitae into one impenetrable core, and isolating it.

From there, it required the mage to slowly and carefully feed it with magic, and let it grow while trying to imprint the cores with their own understanding of elements, turning vitae into something that aligned with our body … and more importantly, our mind.

Hurrying up to that stage didn’t have a pretty end. Elements were not merciful.

As for the third-stage, the elemental mage finally lets vitae spread into their body, but even then, it is something aligned, but separate from the body, a distinct layer. Even at that stage, it was possible to flush out the elemental vitae completely and start from the beginning.

Meanwhile, for the shapeshifters, the third-order by represented by their whole body bonding with the external vitae, an inevitable transformation. It wasn’t exactly something I was happy to hear. Transforming back to human didn’t mean the vitae was gone, or even contained in one central location like elemental core.

It wasn’t good news. It meant, that even if I perfected the art of shapeshifting, it meant that I was only able to get rid of its external markers, and not solve the problems behind it.

“One step at a time,” I muttered, not letting that realization discourage me. As long as I learned how to reverse the direction, it would be enough.

Assuming, of course, I could actually do it. As I sat next to a rock, leaning with my eyes closed, I was failing to make even the smallest difference. Astrid had long gone to bed, and Lillian walked to me. “How’s it going?” she asked.

“Not as well as I hoped,” I said as I opened my eyes.

“Anything I can do to help,” she said.

“No,” I replied. “It’s just that the way they treat their vitae is different. It’s supposed to be something violent, something to be contained and herded, or it can easily destroy us. Even at its gentlest, it still needs to be seized, channeled.”

“Elemental vitae is not that bad,” Lillian said.

“It is, compared to the way they use it,” I answered. “Instead of fighting and controlling, they are embracing the vitae, letting it spread to every part of their body. There’s no reversal.”

Lillian frowned. “Does it mean that her assistance is not useful?”

“No, I didn’t say that,” I replied. “Even if it couldn’t change the situation, it should be able to grant the ability to remove the external markers. That’s the most critical aspect. The rest … we could see once things calm down and they stop searching for us.”

“Maybe they already did?” Lillian offered.

“Maybe, but are you willing to risk it?” Her lack of an answer was enough to answer in itself. “But that’s enough studying for the night. Now, it’s my turn to be the master.” Lillian gave a saucy smirk. I chuckled. “Unfortunately, I’m being more literal than you hope. We’re going to work on your magic.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my magic,” she said defensively.

“On the contrary, there is a lot wrong with your magic. Even before your rapid increase in power destroyed your control, you were having trouble with explosive displays. And, now, it’s even worse. You take too long to gather your mana, and when you release, it’s not steady.”

“I don’t think it’s that bad.”

“Follow me, and we’ll see,” I said and brought her some distance from the camp so as not to wake Astrid up. She was doing well controlling her distaste for elemental magic, but I didn’t want to take a needless risk. That, and she was tired after the day she had, more mentally than physically, and there was no point waking her up.

Once we were sufficiently away from the camp, and near a small hole filled with water, I pointed a rock at a distance. “Why don’t you attack that rock. Three sequential attacks, identical, and as tall as your palm,” I said, giving her a simple exercise. She raised her hand, her face twisted with focus.

She waved her hand, pulling some water from the nearest source, before she formed three identical water blades. They flew one after another, each landing a target. “See, perfectly delivered,” she said smugly.

It wasn’t perfect. While the water blades were of similar height, the differences were still noticeable. However, that only covered the real problem.

“No," I said. "Come with me.” I walked toward the rock we picked as a target, with three fresh indents. “Look at them, do you see a difference?”

“No, they are all at the same size,” she said with a frown.

I ignored the voice in my head, one that sounded grouchy and stiff, telling me that those weren’t as tall. There was a fraction of an inch difference between the tallest and shorter. A difference that my grandfather would have never accepted and demanded perfection.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the only difference between the three. And, unlike the fraction of difference based on the height, it was more important. “Look at their depths, the first attack created an indent twice as deep as the second, while the third attack barely left a mark.”

That made her blush. “I just focused on the height like you asked,” she said.

“I also said identical.”

“Alright. I will show you,” she said with a renewed competitiveness. We went back to our spot, and she delivered three more attacks, but when she delivered the third one, she was frowning. She didn’t need me pointing to realize she failed. “Again,” she muttered as she launched another trio of attacks. Then, again…

Only after dozens of attempts, she was able to achieve something close to success, and even then, she took almost fifteen seconds between each attack to perfect her attack. Hardly something that could be copied. “It’s harder than I expected,” she admitted.

“I know, that’s why I offered to train you,” I said. “We need to work on your control. Hold a blob of water in her hand, and start alternating it between turning it into a disc and a sphere.”

“Easy,” she said after a few repeats.

“Of course it is,” I replied even as I leaned down, and grabbed a broken stick. “True. Now, why don’t you try again while trying to dodge this stick,” and swung toward her. Well, swung was an exaggeration. I gently brought it toward her, giving her plenty of time to dodge. She ducked under it, but not without losing control of her water, which turned shapeless.

“What was that?” she asked.

“I need you to be able to cast spells without stopping channeling your mana,” I said.

“Is this the kind of training your grandfather made you do?” she asked.

“No,” I said with an amused chuckle. “If it was my grandfather, you would have been on a rope, trying to balance yourself. More importantly, he wouldn’t have held back.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s barbaric.”

I shrugged. I didn’t want to waste my time defending him, particularly since she was right. While I benefited a lot from his training, I had no intention of subjecting someone else to the same treatment. “Maybe. But we still have to work. We don’t know when we have to fight again,” I said.

That was followed by an hour of intense training, where we alternated between practicing her attack and control exercises. We only stopped when she was out of mana and exhausted.

“It was exhausting,” she said, then smirked as she grabbed my shirt. “Since you depleted your mana, take responsibility, and replenish it.”

My smirk matched hers.