Chương 40: Personal Library
It wasn't long before Runa brought back a meal from the kitchen. She diligently assisted him in eating his meal since she did not want him to use his injured arm. Once he had eaten, he laid back to get some rest. The travel had worn him out, and while he had tried his best to rest as he could on the trip back, horseback was not the easiest place to sleep, let alone when you are injured, and abrupt movement could worsen the wound.
When Jien awoke the next morning, he found Runa waiting outside his room. Once he had gotten past the usual grogginess, he heard a light knocking on his door before Runa had let herself in. Jien had figured that she would be ready as soon as he was awake, after all she had just last night told him that she could practically tell the future to a certain extent. If used wisely and with methods that she had likely been taught it wasn't a surprise that she would be able to tell when he was about to wake up among other things. Not that she would necessarily even need to since it was hard to break one's internal clock once it had been set to a certain schedule for long enough.
Runa had brought with her the breakfast that Jien would usually have to go to the dining room and eat with his father. She once again assisted him in eating before beginning to work on his injuries once again. She expertly went through the motions to clean the wounds once again and apply the potions and salves before bandaging them once more. The wounds were only bleeding lightly at this point due to the combination of healing remedies and his body striving to return to normal. That being said, his shoulder would need time even after the wound stopped bleeding as he had been stabbed right through.
As Runa had told him last night, after she finished with his wounds and assisted him in dressing both Mark and Emily came to inform him that until he healed up, he wouldn't be doing anything physically strenuous. Instead, they would spend some time each going over their specific lessons regarding the arcane arts and then would allow him to rest to help with the healing process.
The lessons started with Mark; he had Jien work to memorize some basic spells meant more for survival than combat. The training at the academy wasn't all about how to fight, it also covered topics ranging from law to wilderness survival and a number of different specialties. There were a number of spells that were best used for the sake of survival methods, as well as methods of using combat spells that good assist in utility as well. These became the main focal point of Mark's lessons since his job was to get Jien ready for the academy, not strictly to teach him how to fight.
Emily on the other hand had been hired to teach him the use of the rapier and how to wield it in combat. This led to her lessons being a bit harder to perform. In the end she decided to have Jien watch her perform several martial forms. She wanted him to memorize the movements and when he was healed enough, he would then have to learn them himself. For this lesson she stuck strictly to physical movements without the addition of mana manipulation or the arcane arts, but she informed him that she definitely would be adding them in once he was healed and able to perform the different forms correctly without them.
Her movements were so smooth that they were like flowing water. Her feet skated across the floor as if it was ice and she a professional ice skater. Her blade often seemed to move with such speed and precision that it would seemingly vanish from one location and appear in another. She performed the same forms in repetition, slowing down her movements each time so that Jien could see the same movement at several speeds to interpret what the form was truly trying to convey. While Jien would have preferred to have learned more arcane arts from his fencing instructor, he did find the graceful routine interesting and did his best to memorize the different steps as requested.
Once she had spent some time performing the different steps and walking through any questions he had had, Emily left her student to rest after performing a graceful bow. It wasn't long after that Runa came and knocked on his door before entering. She greeted him as normal and then moved to sit on his bed as she had before. It was time for her to start her own lesson regarding ocular arcane arts and she was taking the matter seriously as she looked Jien in the eyes, her expression a mix of calm and slight solemness. This wasn't something that beginners should be learning in her mind. The ocular arcane arts were rarely used because for the most part many of the functions they provided could often be gained through other less dangerous magical methods. That being said, many experienced magi would dabble lightly in it, as they would with many other potentially dangerous methods. Their experience in the field made this more reasonable than letting someone new to the arcane arts potentially destroy their eyes.
Despite this she knew that now that Jien was aware of this option and the possibility of it being the solution to his failure to cast the Personal Library spell, she felt that if she didn't teach him, he may attempt to do it without her guidance. To avoid the risk, she had come to this decision, and she would do her utmost to ensure that he wouldn't be injured in doing so.
"I'll be taking your hand and guiding the mana flow for you during these lessons. Your job is to learn the flow of the mana and to understand the feeling of the amount of mana being used. It is very important that you stick firmly to the amount of mana used so as to not damage your eyes, do you understand?" To this Jien nodded his head with a look of serious concentration in his green eyes.
After this confirmation Runa took Jien's hand between her own and closed her eyes in focus. It was always harder to assist others with mana flow than to cast a spell yourself. Mana, while universal in a sense that it was the fuel used to cast spells, was also personal. After the unsealing rite would be completed the Aether drawn into the body would be 'tainted' by the very essence of the person distilling it into mana. This was part of the reason that experts never did find a way to use the ever-present Aether to bypass the need of mana. The personal twist that the mana received made it what was capable of casting spells, and in turn the body would reject mana of others naturally.
That being said it wasn't impossible by any stretch to inject your own mana into another. It was just difficult and if you lost concentration the body would force the intruding mana out, sometimes forcefully enough to cause injury. For this reason, Runa focused deeply as she used a whisp of her mana that she guided through Jien's body. She then guided it through his mana pathways, up his neck and then further along the nerves leading to the eyes.
She made sure that the amount of mana was just enough to make the method work and not an iota more. As one who had been using similar methods since her youth, she was familiar with just how much was needed. As the mana reached Jien's optic nerve and flowed into his eyes, they began to glow with a slightly blue radiance that complimented his green eyes nicely.
Jien had felt the amount of mana being used, though it was only a minute amount. The tinge of warmth that had flowed from his hand up to his chest and then further up until it had reached his eyes was glaring and yet in a way almost imperceptible. Yet when the mana finally entered his eye, he knew it was just the right amount for the method. His vision became sharper, catching finer details around him. From the motes of dust floating in the air in the sunlight streaming through his window, to the grain of the wood used to create his bed's frame. He could see so much more than before, and it was a wondrous sight.
And then the urge struck him deeply while Runa was still silently channeling mana through him. The urge to cast his second spell, Personal Library. The urge was so strong, so instinctive that before his mind could stop him, he let the feeling that the lich had put in his mind mix with Runa's mana in his eye. In that moment a voice spoke as if whispering in his ear, both familiar and not at the same time. "You finally got it, though admittedly with some outside help."
Tình trạng nguồn điện hàng tuần
-- Xếp hạng
Quyền lực 
-- Đá
Quyền lực