The Quantum Wanderer

Sleeping wasn’t easy.  So much stuff, my mind was thinking about all the stuff happening.  This crazy new world, this crazy new reality.  Then you have Andrew, with all that history.  Since he mentioned that he had died during The Great War, I can only imagine that it would be in the First World War.  That means that he was probably taken here from the 1910’s.

I wonder how long he had been around, because that would have happened some 80 years ago.  Perhaps time here moved in a different fashion?  That was something that I would not be able to really measure, because I did not have any clocks/watches on me.  Their time measurement would, of course, be based on their notion of day.  So I wouldn’t be able to tell if their day was earth 24 hours or not.

Most of normal reality here seemed similar, though.  His former wife even postulated one of Newton’s law.  With exception to magic.  I still had to understand how that worked, but I guess that he would be showing me that in a little bit.  I understood, however, that magic would allow me to alter it in some way.  I still don’t know which.  Perhaps I could even use it to learn more stuff.

When I wake up, the sun is on my face.  I didn’t realize at what point I slept, but it really did recover me.

On top of a nearby table there was a bowl with water, and a towel.  I washed my hands and face there, got dressed with some clothes that were on the chair close to that table, and went downstairs.

The leather pants are a bit stiff, and the boots not all that comfortable.  Everything was done with some rough leather.

I left the leather jacket on top of the chair, and went downstairs to wait for Andrew.  He was, again, by the cauldron, stirring the stew very slowly.

“Good morning.”  It looks like this guy has eyes on the back of his head.  I didn’t make that much noise coming out of the room.

“Good morning.  Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“Well, if you were chosen by the gods, that means that you are supposed to be a good person.  And you’re a fellow earther on top of that.”

“How so?”

“The gods are all about balance.  And balance in this planet is a lot harder to keep, because of magic.  On Earth, even the best soldier cannot face a greater force.  It doesn’t matter how well you box, if 10 people come after you, they are going to beat you up.  Not here.  I alone was able to change a big part of the tide of the war with the ‘demons’. 

“When the war with other races is going badly, humans do a summoning spell.  The thing is, they don’t control who is going to be summoned.  Not even general characteristics.  When the ritual happens, the chosen person is provided.

“The ritual is expensive, though.  Very, very expensive.  Some very high level mages are lost.”

“They die because of the ritual?”

“Not necessarily, their ability to do magic is stripped on some.  Some actually die.  Since the ritual requires so much mana, their circuits are just fried, they loose their ability to do magic.  I don’t know if they would be able to learn everything from scratch, I didn’t really ask that.  There is not much asking and answering around...  Actually, you are one nosey kid.” And laughed a little.

He served me a bowl, and while I drank/ate it, he continued, “we are going hunting a little.  Do you prefer a single hand sword or a double handed one?”  He pointed to the table, and I saw some sword on it.

There was one close to the head of the table, beautifully worked.  Along the table there were 2 swords, medieval style, a longer one with a longer handle, and a shorter one.  When he saw me looking at the swords, he said “The good stuff is mine.”

I picked up each.  They were heavy.  Right now, I could only use the shorter one, and only with my two hands.

We ate, and he washed the bowls like yesterday.

I went outside to the little house, and did my stuff.  There were some sticks with cloth on the walls, I really hope they were made for what I think they are…

I equipped myself with the stuff he gave me (I did not know if this was really a gift or if I was just borrowing, he just told me to pick the stuff up), and I followed him into the forest.

We walked for what seemed like a long time (1 hour?  I wasn’t really marking the time).

We got to a clearing, and stayed at the very beginning of it, near the trees.  He looked up, as if trying to hear something.  I heard nothing.

He got some rope (I hadn’t even realized he had some with him), and made a lasso.

All of sudden, the world was almost upside down.  I hear this roar, that puts me stiff, and hear a lot of noise from close to it.

There was a boar, with the lasso around its neck.  It is trying to move forward, towards me, and Andrew has the rope close to a tree, and is using it to hold the boar.

Only then I notice that I am sitting on the ground.

That was fast.

He throws the rope over a branch in the tree, and starts pulling it.  The boar is still trying to attack me.

It gets to a point where the boar is on its hind legs, shaking all over.  I can almost feel it’s despair to try to get out of the rope, but feeling that it is tightening.

Andrew shouts to me “Hey, kiddo, are you going to stare all day?  Go for the neck.”

When I get closer to the boar, it starts shaking even more violently.  I go really slow.  I pick the sword, and the frenzy intensifies.  I put all my strength behind it, and I slice its neck.  It cries out.  I do it again, and again, several times, shouting, until I am covered in blood, and the boar is dead.  I feel a sensation on my skin, like something refreshing.

The rope is stuck in the cut I made.

Andrew lets the rope go, comes close.  With one slice he finishes the cut, severing the boar’s head cleanly off.

I look at myself, covered in blood, and look at the boar’s head.  I just killed.  I just killed. I don’t feel all that good.  I had never killed before.  I go over to a tree close by, and throw my breakfast away.

“Those city boys…  Kiddo, you do realize that the chicken you ate in Earth was killed, right?”

“Yeeaahh…”

“Anyway, take a look at your status”

Again, the screen in Portuguese:

Attribute

Value

Name

Marcelo Souza

Titles

Level

2

Health

30/60

Mana

0/50

Strength

10

Agility

9

Intelligence

20

Defense

8

Andrew gets the bloody rope, and ties the boar’s body by it’s hind legs, and again puts the rope over a branch.

He lifts it a little off the ground, and starts skinning and extracting the meat from the boar.

His movements are quite fast, to tell the truth.  I don’t think I could do that in that speed.  He looked like a machine.

I watched as he removed the leather, and a lot of meat of the boar, already in huge hunks.  The internals were all left at the place.

We went home.  We got there kind of close to sunset, really.  I was tired.  The long hours walking, with that kind of heavy clothes, plus the whole killing the boar, that was enough to call it a day.  While I used some river water to clean myself at least a little, he prepared the soup, poured the two bowls, and went outside, to dump the rest of the cauldron’s content out.

“Starting tomorrow, you do the dishes.  You should have mana tomorrow morning as long as you just sleep.”

“What is mana?” I asked him.  I had an idea over fantasy tales, but I wondered what was mana for them.  Specially since they actually used it.

He shook his head slightly, made a face like he was thinking, “I have no idea.  That’s the first time I hear anyone making that question, actually.  And I have been friends with some knowledgeable mages when I worked for the king.  I can tell you what it feels like, it feels like a fuel that you replenish when you rest.  Much like when you get tired of running.  It’s just that, instead of running, it is doing magic.  The difference is that you have numbers associated with it, because it is a useful way for one to tell how much they can actually practice of magic.  Anyway, tomorrow we train.”

“Thanks.”

I remember going to my bedroom.

After waking up and having breakfast, I went over to the sink.  I looked at my status, and now my amount of mana was 50/50.  I touched the hot water bump, but nothing.  I looked back, and Andrew told me to close my eyes, and use my “mental screen”.  I would use it to “look inside”.  I would feel the mana, and then will just a little bit of it out of my hand.

He told me to go little by little, otherwise I might overcharge it.

I went about doing that, and at some point the sink started to stream out hot water.  The more mana I placed there, the more hot water would come out.

He told me then to get that manipulation daily.  That that is how people train the basics of magic.

After I washed everything, he told me to sit around the table.

“So, let’s go about this, now that you have mana.

“Mana influences not only the world around you, but also inside you.  You can use your mana to reinforce yourself, get strength, speed, skin toughness, heal yourself.  You can also expel it, and create fire, water, earth, and change the world around you.  The deeper the change, the more mana you will spend.

“When you rest, your body naturally recovers mana.  The kind of rest will, of course, influence how fast the mana is recovered.  Also, the more mana you have, the faster you will recover, but the time to completely recover will still be slower.  For instance, I have 3000, I can recover that in a night’s sleep, while you can recover your 50 in 4 hours meditation.  Still, even if I am up and about, doing stuff, I am going to recover 100 mana in an hour.  Even the growth of stuff tend to be balanced.  It really looks like a physical training.  It is just a training of something that we didn’t have on Earth.”

“What are the limitations?”

“Basically, we have stuff that we are used to doing already with mana.  Those are the spells.  They are really hard to create, and that is what most of the time of the elder mages here is used on.  They research new spells.  If you get to that level, then you’re welcome to try to create any spells.

“We are going to start the training with the sword.  It is easier, the results are quicker.  And after that, if you move the mana in your body, you may actually learn to defend yourself pretty quickly.

“There is just too much information that you would need, and, frankly, I am not a knight school.”

He gestured me to the door, and I went outside.  He took a minute more, and then met me.  He had two wood swords, on in each hand.  He threw me the one in his left hand.

They were longswords, but round ones all over.

“I am going to teach you what I can, but I wasn’t really able to learn much.  I already came in too strong.  That means that I could overpower most soldiers and captains just with plain strength and mana usage.

“But learning to fight is important, it is a huge advantage.  It can give you power to offset several levels of difference.  Even if those levels would be really hard to overcome.

“Don’t be too overconfident, though.  Remember that the other party can also know the sword.

“There are two different styles that I am going to teach you.  One is to be used against humans, and the other one is to be used against monsters.  If you think that what you’re fighting may be thinking, you should use the one against humans.”

“What is the difference?”

“Well, humans actually use weapons as opposed to body parts.  That is a big difference.  The second one is the use of a brain, that makes stuff like using faints a need.  And then there are things that you can use against bipedals that would not work well against a quadruped.

“Let me first show you what a fight against a sword fighter looks like.  Attack me.  And don’t worry, specially with the wooden swords, you won’t be able to hurt me.  And I mean it.  I could sit in a chair and you could try to chop me, and nothing would happen.

“Now, place your left foot forward, your right foot should be a shoulder’s length away.  Face me on the front.  Place the two feet forward.  Good.  Now do your thing.”

He assumed the same position that I was in.  I got kind of close, lifted the sword, tried to jump forward a little and tried to chop him down.  He did one step ahead with his left foot, and moved his right foot out.  He chopped from up to down as well.  His sword struck me on the chin, I fell down.  That hurt.  He kneeled besides me, and told me, “Kiddo, this is not a game.  All the sword fights are life or death.  Actually, most sword fights are about death.  Someone is going to die.  If you want to keep living, it is going to have to be the other one.

“Now use that meditation again, feel the mana going over the area of your chin.  Let it go through, and feel what areas are hurt.  Tell your mana to fix it.”

I did so, and very slowly at first, it started to feel better.  When it was reasonable, I stopped.  He stood up, and looked at me patiently.  Then extended his hand, and helped me to get up.

“Now, of course, I could win this just because of my speed.  If you paid attention, though, you saw that I wasn’t overly fast; I just moved around.  I actually used the same speed as you.

“No mana, no tricks other than something that anyone, even a farmer, could do.  No sword reinforcing either.

“There are different styles of fighting, of course.  Depends on what you need.  There is a style for braw, there is a different style for sword, there is a different style for grappling.  There are even styles that borrow stuff from another one.  There is a style for fighting against swordmans that is called the ‘soft river’ style.”

“How is that one?”

“Well, it borrows the foot technique from the sword style, using the opponent’s movement.  Let me show you.”

He dropped his sword, got in the same feet position.  His arms were pointing in my direction, fingers extended out. 

“Do your thing”, he said.

I tried the same attack.  He moved the same way, but his back foot moved a lot more to the side.  His arm extended hit me in the jaw because of my own movement, and I tumbled to my right.  While I lost my balance a little, he continued turning, and place his right hand between my two hands, in the hilt of my sword.  He didn’t even close it.  The time I took to regain balance, he stepped forward once, pulling the hilt down to his left.

I was on the floor, my own sword against my neck.  This was messed up.

“Again, no mana, your speed, your strength.  The ‘soft river’ is a good one when you don’t really want to hurt your opponent, just control him/her.”

I stopped to think that people around here were not as uneducated as I thought.  At least in these matters.

“Let’s get a pause, and then we can start our lessons.”

I went inside, got some water from the sink, while he smiled.  He place his indicator in his mouth.

I went back out side, and he started.

“First, we have the instance.  I already showed it to you.  The first thing to know is that the place of your body is given by the back foot.”

Saying this, he stood in front of me.  Then, with a half step forward, he placed his left foot to the left of my left foot.  Just a little off.  Then he placed his right foot all the way around, and now he was by my side, and we were both looking at the same direction.

“It is also important that you keep in mind that your center of the universe is always right in front of your belly.  10 inches away from it, really.  Whenever you want to do something that is going to require skill or strength, that’s where you put it, right?  When you saw a piece of wood, don’t you position yourself so that the saw is in a way that your hands are right in front of you?  The same thing applies here.

“I am now going to do the same thing, just putting my hands up, as if to defend myself when I do the left step, and bringing them down when I do the right step.”

He showed me those steps.  Did two of them, very slowly, to each side.

“Now do this until it become natural.  After you’re finished, I want 100 pushups, 500 situps, and 20 laps around the house, on the inner side of the fence.”

He left me there, and went inside.  I looked at the fence, it was kind of close to the house.  I hadn’t paid attention yet.  To the left and right it was a little wider.  I went around the house to take a look, and there was this kind of plantation there.  All of it inside the fence.  20 laps was not going to be easy.

I lost time doing the exercise.  Looking at the shadows, I spent a long time on it. 

After that, I did the exercises.  Of course, I couldn’t do them all in a fast way, but I did keep to them.

The sun was already starting to go down once I was finished.  I finished up for the day – self cleaning, supper, bed.

Next day, the lesson was falling down.  Three different kinds of it, actually.  One forward, rolling, one backwards, also rolling, and one where I would fall down on my side.  We chose a spot of soft earth for those exercises, close to the plantation behind the house.

I did the different rollings for hours, until midday.

After that, we started some basic training, both swords and hands free.  The training was a set of attack/defense, kind of choreographed.  But we did many of them.  He told me not to worry about learning the moves on the first try, it’s the repetition that counts.  The idea is that I should not worry about learning with my head, thinking takes too long, and gets you killed.  You have to learn with your muscles, with your gut.

Again, by the end of the day, the exercises, and again I just dropped dead on my bed.

The following day, we talked about imbuing myself with mana.  He said that he doesn’t want me to use that when we are training techniques, but I have to learn to imbue mana on my muscles, and try to extend it to the sword to be able to do damage on some of the more resistant monsters and armors.  That’s how I would get more strength on my attacks.

That night, before sleeping, I did some testing.  What would happen if I tried to reinforce my brain with mana?  I did it, and didn’t really notice much difference.  But when I tried to reinforce the back of my eyes and my eye nerve with mana, something happened.  I started seeing this fog all over.  And I was absorbing it.  I could see mana.  Taking a look over my body, I could see that is was kind of following my nerve system.

The following day, during breakfast, I looked at my Andrew (there wasn’t any kind of contract, but of course he was), imbued my brain and eyes with mana.  When I imbued my brain with mana, I noticed that stuff started to move slower.  I probably didn’t notice this yesterday just because there was nothing to actually be slower.  This is nice.

When I looked at Andrew, I noticed that his mana ended up concentrating to something in the back of his head.  He told me that trying to “inspect” him was kind of creepy, to avoid doing that.

During the nights, he started teaching me to speak [wspólny].  I learned that that meant [common], because it was the language spoken around in the continent.  They only knew of one continent, and it was a single land mass.  It ended up that that was the humans’ language, spoken as a second language by most other races.  Even some demons, educated ones, would actually speak that. 

After two weeks of training, he told me that we were going back to the forest.  It was time for my first real hunt.