บท 25: Chapter 24 - Punching Rocks
Tect woke up as the sun began to rise the next day. The best part of the Mountain Heart was its weather, it was always warm, it always smelled fresh and in the mornings all the plants glittered with dew making the surreal feeling more magical than it already was. Tect used this time to make a pot of tea, it wasn't as good as Moidra's but with the herbs that Azulak had shown him it was light and refreshing. Then Tect began doing a series of stretches he had found in his memories from Azulak that warriors would do every morning to prepare for the day. The stretches were not complicated, but the slow manner in which they were done had his muscles burning pretty quickly. The stretches were also stimulating the mana in his body to begin flowing through his limbs and back to his core. The stretches lasted for about 30min but Tect nearly collapsed afterward.
"That looked way easier in my memories."
Laughter radiated from his ring. "That's because the warrior in that memory had been doing those exercises every morning for nearly 200 years. One day you will be that proficient as well."
"Lets hope I get the chance. I'll rest for a few minutes and then we can go into the mines."
Tect rested for about 10 min, the mana flow was still active and it helped him recover from his exhaustion more quickly than normal. Tect then grabbed his short sword and made his way towards the mine.
When he reached the point where he fought the day before he noticed that the clay core was gone.
"Hey it's gone. I wonder if the one that ate it is still nearby."
"Hopefully it is, just go slow and observe your surroundings carefully. Most of these little shits have good camouflage, thankfully very few are smart enough to use it properly."
Tect moved forward cautiously, after about 300ft Tect came to a split. The right side stayed fairly level, while the left sloped downward.
"Which way should we go?" Tect Asked.
"Stay right, we don't want to bite off more than we can chew right now. The deeper we go the more elementals we will find, and currently one seems to be your limit."
Tect nodded and began to move forward along the right path. It didn't take long to find his next target after that. Standing in an open natural cavern was an elemental that stood about 5ft tall. It was definitely more powerful than the small one yesterday, but hopefully it was also slower. Currently it was occupied eating a stalagmite. The sound of the stone being ground was like nails on a chalkboard. Tect slowly approached it with his sword drawn. At about 10ft away he assumed the stance he was learning yesterday. As he closed the distance the elemental turned. Its face was nearly identical to the small one yesterday, except it's larger body was slightly reminiscent of a hippo. It let out a monstrous roar and charged at Tect. Thankfully at such a short distance it couldn't build up much speed or momentum and Tect easily sidestepped it. As it flew past, Tect slashed with his sword taking a small hand sized chip from the beast's flank. Unfortunately the impact numbed Tect's arm and left it feeling swollen and tingly.
"Not good, this one is much stronger than the one yesterday, I'm not sure I can beat it."
"Relax, just focus on dodging, dodging is an important skill too. You don't always have to kill a beast to win, sometimes surviving is winning too."
Cold sweat formed on Tect's neck, "Nothing about what you just said is helping me relax."
Azulak laughed, "Consider this, the best is big and slow. You are small and fast, and this space has a limited size. You have an overwhelming advantage here, the elemental only has a strong defence. Speed and agility will often win out over high levels of strength so use this time to focus on footwork, stay light, conserve your energy, and wear the beast down. When it can barely move, I'll explain to you how to defeat it quite easily."
Tect Grunted in dissatisfaction but did as he was told, for several hours he dodge the beast, sometimes by a very narrow margin. The beast was beginning to show signs of fatigue when suddenly it turned and ran for the wall.
"Quickly, before it gets away, there is a triangle indentation behind the head, stab your sword into it as deeply as you can."
Tect Jumped high into the air, aiming for the creature's back, just as he was landing he saw the triangle and aimed his sword at the center. The tip of the sword punched through with ease, the triangle was made of thin stone layers and as the sword broke through the creature lost its footing and slid across the ground. As it came to a stop Tect stood and leaned all of his weight onto the short sword sinking it to the hilt. With a popping sound the creature began to crumble.
In the pile of stone Tect spotted two round objects, one white and one silver.
"Alright we got two cores from this one."
Azulak laughed, "No creature has two cores, one is probably an egg."
Texts eyes were as wide as saucers, "This thing is an egg?" He held up the white sphere and began to observe it closely.
"No, That is the core. That elemental was eating stalagmites so it's mostly a calcium silica core. But take it with you, we can use it to deoxidize the molten cores later. It's a good combination for making stronger metals.. The egg is the shiny silver orb. Silver is a good color, that puts it in the upper class of elementals, it's evolution potential is very high. Too bad you don't have an affinity for taming. Still keep it, if you find a tamer it should sell for a decent price."
Tect pocketed the core and egg, "Im exhausted, let's go out and have lunch."
Tect left the mines just before noon. He grilled some deer, and sliced one of the star melons he picked up before. The sweetness of the melon paired really well with the grilled meat, and Tect was feeling much better.
After eating Tect sat looking over his short sword. It was a very well made piece of equipment, but still, striking creatures made of stone had caused several nicks to appear on the blade.
"Azulak, the cores of the creatures are formed by the material they eat, isn't it?"
"Yes, but that only applies for these basic earth elementals, other beings follow different rules. In addition the earth elemental cores are often a mixture of different materials. When we melt them down we will purify them by removing the non-metallic elements. Hopefully we can find and restart the main forge room, otherwise it will be a pain to accomplish a decent purity."
"What is going to happen when this blade breaks or the creature im fighting is too large for this blade to cause a fatal wound." Tect was clearly aware that the length of the blade was barely enough to finish the last elemental he fought.
"Well to be honest, that blade will not work to kill the larger elementals, but by the time we reach them you will need to learn to bolster your attacks with mana. Using the blade as a conduit to inject mana will make it possible to kill even the largest elementals. You could also learn force techniques that would let you focus your attacks force to a single point causing massive internal injuries. Those are mostly fist techniques though, and personally, I think you should focus primarily on the sword, and have a minor focus towards battle magic."
Tect nodded as he absorbed all of this, "Learning basic fist techniques may be a good idea, especially if I'm disarmed or worse captured."
"Yes, I guess that's true. Instead of going into the mine again let's practice out here. Get in a comfortable position, we will start with mana manipulation."
Tect found a tree that had a slight lean to it and sat with his back against it, slightly reclined.
"Good, now visualize your mana heart. And pull a small sting of mana from it. Try to make the string as thin as possible without breaking it."
Tect concentrated, he saw the green crystal in his mind. A thin membrane of mana surrounds it, and tect needs to draw this membrane into a thin string. He reaches out with his mind and begins to pull the mana, it starts out like pulling a piece the size of a hand.
"Good, you've got it. Now Just shrink what you are visualizing pulling it with. Or try visualizing different tools."
"I can visualize tools, it's not just… like, my hand and fingers?"
"No of course not, it's your mind space. You can visualize anything you want."
Suddenly in Tect's mind space Arnold's smithy slowly solidified, at the center was the large mana heart. A pair of black smiths tongs reached forward and grabbed the membrane drawing it out. The mana thread was much smaller this time, in relation to the mana heart. Tect took the drawn membrane and clamped it with a second device. As he pulled the membrane with the tongs, it was drawn through a small hole on the second device. After about 2 inches the membrane snapped.
"Damn, I thought I had it." Tect was frustrated by this failure.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! I have never seen someone with such strong visualization before. You made massive progress there. The only critique I have is that the method you used left the end large while the center thinned. Keep trying and try to focus on narrowing the end as well. The thinner you can get it the better the next step will go."
Tect practiced for hours that day, the next day he woke up and got working again. His mind space had become rather complicated. The previously empty space now had a large contraption made of various gears chains and grooved rollers. Tect drew out the mana membrane and placed it in the first roller as he cranked a handle making it all rotate. The mana membrane was drawn forward and into the first grooved roller which reduced the size to the diameter of a rail spike. From there it looped around a wheel and into a second roller that made it the size of a thumb, and finally a third roller that reduced the size to a nail. Tect had tried a forth roller but it became too hard to crank the wheel and he got a headache. The first time he had tried forcing it and passed out only to wake up in a puddle of blood that came from his nose.
"Ok make two 6 ft sections of that mana wire. Then we are going to install a glyph and conduit in your arms."
Tect spooled the wire on to two thimbles and cut it using shears.
" Ok now visualize your body inside the mind space."
Tect did as he said, a large humanoid figure appeared in his mind space. At the center was the mana heart but the figure was dark and showed no sign of having mana anywhere else.
"When you do your morning stretches the mana is radiated outward throughout your body. This is the most basic method of using it. It can heal your injuries or heighten your senses. What we are going to do is etch a mana conduit. It is a highly precise way of controlling mana. First take the end of the mana wire and attach it to the mana core. Don't worry about doing anything special, just make sure it doesn't reintegrate the wire."
"Ok." Tect takes the end of the first wire and touches it to the mana core. The mana core immediately tries to reabsorb the wire, but Tect holds it firmly.
"Now you must anchor it in your body following the diagram I showed you. Once you get a few anchors in it wont pull so much."
Tect anchors the wire just below the pectoral muscle and inside the armpit. Once he does the pull stops and he anchors at the inside of the elbow and the top of the wrist.
"Good, now just loop the wire into the design on the back of the hand, anchoring at each knuckle then back to the wrist."
Tect did as he was told, the pattern on his hand was beautiful like flowing calligraphy that some of the fancier human ladies and the clergy would use. Tect then anchored the remaining wire back to his wrist, inside of his elbow, and armpit. The final anchors were above his pectoral muscle and his sternum, then he connected it to his mana core. Nothing happened which was a little disappointing.
"I expected a flash of light or something. This seems anticlimactic."
Azulak laughed. "Just do the otherside, once you're done leave this space and the circuits will etch themselves."
Tect did as he was asked, then just as he was leaving his mind space he heard Azulak.
"Sorry for this next part, but you'll be ok in an hour or two."
Tect didn't even get a chance to ask what he meant when a searing pain in his chest threw him to the ground. A feeling like hot liquid metal flowing up his arms nearly made Tect pass out. For two hours he endured that feeling tracing out the mana wire he just put in his arms.
When he could finally move again he grabbed a water skin and drank until he puked, then drank a bit more slowly.
"First time is always bad, thinner wires make for less pain later on."
"That was horrible, why would I ever do that again?"
"Well once you see what it can do you'll beg me to show you more. But your body can't handle many conduits right now. Especially not until you can shrink your mana wire some."
Tect was shocked, "Why would I want more, what even is it?"
Azulak laughed, "Your ancestors were very clever, one of the ways they learned to manipulate mana was by observing mana beast. The circuit we just made mimics the mana flow of a Boulder Eating Bear. If you wanna see what it does, go find a boulder."
Tect grumbled a bit but quickly found a large boulder. "Ok, I have found a boulder. Now what?
"I want you to visualize fluid flowing from your mana core through the conduit we put in your arms. At first you'll have to visualize this process every time but eventually you'll just think about it and it'll happen just like other actions and movements. Once your fist starts to feel like they are getting uncomfortably hot, punch the boulder."
"I'll break my hand, why would you want me to break my hand?"
"You won't break your hand, just try it."
Tect began the visualization, and his fists began to warm up. Unfortunately, Azulak was unaware that years of forge work had made Tect's hands highly resistant to heat. Tect Circulated for nearly five minutes before he threw his punch. Tect's fist flew forward with curls of steam rising from his knuckles, and when his fist struck the boulder it exploded, fragments flew nearly 30feet from Tect. Then the overcharged mana rebounded, throwing Tect 30ft backward, causing his body to dig a trench in the field.
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DissonantWhispers
DissonantWhispers Tect's visualization is so good because he was a slave. Visualization and imagination are very much linked, so when someone spends years imagining what it would be like to be free it gives them very strong visualization skills.
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