Chapter 7: Preparing for summer
The next day Dalvin acquired all the information he needed about Alise's schedule. If he couldn't begin full scale training, then he would simply prepare for this summer break. They also discussed removing his presence from the mountain just in case and Alise offered to bring some clothes from a second hand store for him. That way even if someone spotted him the amount of suspicion he drew would be minimized. Also, they worked out a backstory for him as a german botanist. Alise said his accent reminded her of a german-english speaker. She also offered to bring books on english and books on german. Diong all of this would give him a far greater ability to blend in. In her opinion it would also set the stage for him to enter local society. The biggest hurdle they had was money. If he wanted to explore the human town on his own it would be best if he had money. He had offered to just create precious stones or minerals to sell but Alise said that could draw too much attention. The best plan they could come up with was that he work part-time with her father, this would minimize his exposure and work as a foothold to introduce him. The story they came up with was that his botany trip was self-funded and was not going as well as wished due to unforeseen expenses. After finding Alise in the mountain he learned her father was a plumber. He had taken some engineering classes in college and figured it was a good way to right his financial ship. Dalvin wasn't sure how well this would work but Alise assured him it was a good story. Even though she was a child he had to give more weight to her knowledge of this world. Also she was going to bring him copies of some documents...ID and passport if he remembered correctly. Apparently he had to forge realistic versions of them. Another precaution that was necessary according to her. And so with all their plans outlined and in place the two of them began preparing for summer, he had one month.
The next month was very busy, most of his time was spent carving out a home inside the mountain. He had carved out a large section inside the earth consisting of several chambers. One chamber was living quarters and another was a training area. The training area was heavily reinforced and installed with a source barrier that he would use the Eye to power. He could not foresee what Alise might do while training so best to take all possible precautions. Other areas consisted of his new workshop where he was starting to rebuild some of his equipment, and he also set up a mining camp. Not that he hoped to find source stones, but he still had some interest in this planets geological structure. Besides when he felt safe enough to use the Eye openly he would be making a world of his own and he could use this planet as reference. All these chambers were linked to a secret entrance built into the cave he had formally lived in. He taught Alise how to find and activate the source stone on the entrance. She had been impressed by all his work and had dubbed it Lonely Mountain. He had insisted he wasnt lonely but she had said it was the name of a dwarven home from a story and just laughed. In addition to this he had finished the other tasks as well. He learned english and german and could speak and write both. He also with the help of Alise 'smartphone' studied botany which also lead to learning Latin an older language of this world. Alise had remarked that he must not sleep much doing all this work, which had led to a funny discussion. Apparently humans on this world slept every day. He rarely ever slept, Alise had asked if that was related to the source. It was possible to do so but that wasnt why, he had explained that dwarvin physiology was far different than humans. Much like her planet dwarves, at least his race were source forged. His people had been made as laborers so they were designed to have maximum uptime and durability. She had seemed troubled by that but didnt ask any more questions. And in such a manner his days past until summer had finally come and he could train Alise wholeheartedly.
Alise arrived early as usual an together they made their way to the training chamber. He instructed her to sit at the desk he had made and stood in front of her preparing his lecture at the image board he set up. Much like the 't.v.' of this world the image board would translate thought into images. It was a common teaching device on his world. He turned back to her,"Are you ready?" She smiled brightly and nodded."Ok, first I will describe the basics of true source combat. Until now you have been using water but that is just a practice tool for safety purposes. Source combat however is far more dangerous, the basic skills you must learn are creation, void and sourcesense. Creation skill involves two abilities, first to use the intuitive method to bring forth any natural element you desire. Secondly creation can be used to distort the source field creating entirely new elements. This second method is extremely dangerous and will come later in your studies. The second skill is void, this is the opposite of creation. Void is the ability to remove an element from a given target or location, this can be used aggressively or defensively. This skill can be hard to visualize making it hard to master and likewise can be very dangerous. However you will learn the basics as it is very necessary. The last skill is sourcesense, this can also be divided into two categories. The first is the ability to sense elements. That is to say if I set a glass of water and a glass of salt water in front of you, you would be able to feel the sodium chloride in the one glass. This is generally achieved by performing a scan but I have heard of other methods as well which we will explore. The second aspect is sensing the source field around you. This will allow you to detect abnormal movement by the elements indicating that someone is using the source. I have been told this skill comes with time as you gain more experience using the source. In addition to all of this there are several aspects you must improve personally. The most important is what you like to call your mana. Normally the generation of 'mana' puts so little strain on your body it would be undetectable. However when you are wielding source that strain is amplified. So to simplify your 'mana' is directly linked to your physical endurance and will have to be trained. The other thing you must do is improve your physical combat ability. I have learned basic soure-selfdefense and will teach you that but you must expand beyond that as well. I can also perform body augmentations on you as well but I will leave those decisions up to you. As iI realize that is a very personal decision. I will be using them but you dont have to do so. With all of that said do you have any questions?" Alise leaned back in her chair,"Boy do I ever!"
Weekly Power Status
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