The Quantum Wanderer

We went into the forest, same way we did last time.  We walked for a couple of hours.  The walk was a lot easier.  I don’t know if this was because of the physical training or the last level up.  Perhaps both?  I didn’t really care.

At one point, Andrew told me to get ready.  I immediately placed mana in my brain and eyes.  I should be able to fight it with the strength I had, I am thinking that improving on reflexes was the best way to go.

He told me to go forward, that I would be attacked.  His speech was a lot slower and lower, like a record playing in a slower way.  I don’t really know how much faster I was thinking.

I moved forward, carefully.

I heard a noise among the leaves.  When I looked, I saw not only the leaves, but also a mana circuit on both the leaves and behind it. When the creature noticed that I had my eyes on it, it jumped.  I stepped aside, and sliced the neck right through.  The head rolled off.

Then I saw something interesting.  It also had the little flame close the base of the skull, though it was very different than Andrew’s.  Andrew’s had a lot of layers, this one was a lot simpler.  The outer layers dispersed, going in all directions at once.  The part that came in my direction got absorbed by me.  The inner layers went transparent, until they disappeared.  The fire did not went out; it went transparent.

I turned off my mana usage, I don’t have all that much.  This time I had spent around a third of it.

I was stunned on the whole experience.

Andrew grabbed me by the shoulder, and shook me a little.

“Are you ok?  I mean, you eat meat, right?”

“Yes, I am good.”

“Your reactions are really good, congratulations.  Nice lis, by the way.  It’s a pity you did not get to level up.  This one gives you less…  doświadczenie.”

“Thank you.”

“Perhaps one more?  Let me clean this first and get the meat and the leather.”

“Sure.”

While he gutted my kill, I sat down, and looked inside.  I could sense my flame.  I could sense that the mana was actually being oriented from that flame.  If alive beings have that, would that make it a… soul?

Then it downed on me, when I killed the beast the outer part diffused in the air, and I got a portion of it.  The inner part just…  moved on?

But what if…

I tried infusing my mana through that flame, and it felt different.  I tried extending it a little outside my hand, and I saw that I could do it.  I then reabsorbed it, but I failed.

He stored the stuff, the lis was not really a big animal as the boar.  The meat would perhaps last for a day for a person, so we continued going.  And my mind was wild with possibilities.  I had to test my Hypothesis.  If I was right, I just found my way up.

We stopped by a hole in the ground, in an angle, and he told me to get ready once again.  He told me to get in front of the hole.

He moved to the back of this hole, and stabbed his sword in it.  When he took it out, something that resembled a rabbit with a horn in it came out, running at me.  I moved to the side, and instead of cutting it’s head off, I sliced the body.

It fell down a couple of meters  away, its breathing ragged.  I am sorry, little guy.  I got close to it, it wasn’t moving, it was just scared.   I forced my mana to go through my flame and then extend to my hand.  I placed my hand on top of the rabbit’s flame and dealt the finishing blow.  This time, I absorbed all of the outer part of the flame.

And everything went black.

When I wake up again, I am on the back on the bad, in Andrew’s house.  The sun is actually going down.  I went downstairs, and Andrew is, this time, placing a piece of steak on a pan, in the fire.

“What the bloody hell did you do?”

I hadn’t really waken up yet, I just looked at his face, kind of lost.

“The rogaty królik.  The thing you killed second.  WHAT. DID. YOU. DO?”

“Well, I tried something.  Why?”

“Normally, when you’re close to something being killed, you can feel the doświadczenie.  Even if it is just a little.  And there is kind of a way that it is distributed to everyone.  Even in my case, where I don’t benefit from it, I can feel it going inside my body.

“I got none.  It was as if it remained alive, and left us.

“More than that, you should not have leveled up.  Rogaty królik are poor in terms of doświadczenie.  Even if you were close to the next level because of the lis and some because of your training, and I am not saying that this is the case, you should not have leveled up.

I immediately said status, to take a look:

Attribute

Value

Name

Marcelo Souza

Titles

Sword

Adept

Unarmed

Adept

Level

4

Health

120/120

Mana

150/150

Strength

20

Agility

19

Intelligence

30

Defense

18

I explained to him about the mana strengthening that I had used; that instead of muscles, that I had reinforced my brain.  And *that* was responsible for improving my timing during the hunt.  He told me that he had never thought of doing that.  And that nobody had that practice, since they believed that thinking happened in the heart.

Heart reinforcement helped the body to get a little more agile, and even more with the stamina.  The mana in the eyes helped to see in the dark, or to see farther.  But apparently I was a first one to think of doing it that way.

And definitely the first one to gain levels that way.

I should not mention, nor do this kind of thing in front of anyone, it was dangerously close to necromancy, a big no-no.  Necromancers are killed on the fire, as opposed to normal executions.  Of course, their hands and tongues are cut before that, as it is with every mage, to guarantee that he or she will not cast during the execution.

With that, he prepared some of the lis that I had eaten the day before.  I was still kind of tired, so I ate, washed the dishes, and went to bed.  The sink was now really easier to use.

Next day, we started the magic training.  The first one to learn was the fire.  He told me that he was not going to be a good teacher in magic because he had not learnt magic formally himself; he had got it the way monsters have magic, innately because of his hero status.

I asked him how that would fare in a fight.  I mean, if I can create fire in the distance, then I would be able to create the fire inside another person, no?

He explained me that what I was thinking about was a curse.  And that they are very difficult to practice, because there is an innate difficulty on making your expelled mana penetrate other people.  Even healers had some difficulty with it, and it was a welcome piece of mana-effect that was going inside the person.

They did some research on it, but just like my “ghost eyes”, it was something that they did not manage to understand the cause.  The barrier was just there.

He explained, though the feelings associated with it.  That he would envision the flame, and let his mana be expelled while holding that picture in his [mental screen].

I tried this process, and it was really tiresome.  By the end of the day, I was able to light a flame above my finger.

The training routine continued like that.  Fight learning, magic learning, language learning.  Every 3-4 days we would go hunting, I would defeat something small by myself, he would get a bigger prey.  Sometimes a boar, sometimes a wolf.  The names he used were natural to [common], though.  My levels increased started to slow down noticeably after level 6.

I wasn’t passing out after the level gain.  With the [Soft River] technique and a knife, I managed to actually be closer to my prey, and trained obtaining the [experience] in a way that was less convoluted than the first one.

I continued my training, applying hard.  At one point, I became able to throw a magic ball, that he called a [fire bolt].  In that one, the fire was supposed to move forward by burning the behind of itself.  I took a look at it, using what he called my “ghost eyes”, and saw that the fire was actually burning mana, the mana that I ejected.  That meant that the farther the target, the less fire that would hit it.  Not only that, but after some specific distance, the spell would just die.  It would consume all the burning mana.

This is not very effective, but let’s learn the way of the land before we try to come up with new stuff.

At one point, I was alone, and I was wondering…  What if I outputted light? 

It works, and the light goes everywhere.  It was as if my hand was a light bulb.  The mana expenditure was not all that bad.  Well, this could be useful, but…

What if I try to make this light ‘ordered’?  Instead of putting all sorts of frequencies, I could pull out one, let’s say some green, and tried to make so the waves ran side by side, as opposed to all over.

It kind of worked.  The mana expenditure was a lot higher than expected, but the point I pointed the light to was blinding.  It looked liked I was creating another lamp on the wall.

Hum, I think that I have to train my laser a lot.

Day by day, I started training it, so that I could use a much lower potency with it, and also control the frequencies.  I knew that if I could set the frequency just right…  I trained against a glass of water, and worked!  I made it boil.  That took me a week.  And I learned the right frequency to use.  I knew the frequency was below visible light, microwaves are way longer, lower frequency than light.

We tried going deeper into the forest.  He said that he would give me support, but that I should try getting better prey, not level 3 or level 4.

We came into a clearing on one side, there was a huge bear on the other side.  It stood up on two feet.  I immediately turned on my ghost eyes.  It growled, and I could see that it’s growl contained mana.  It actually sounded a lot scarier than it had to be.

I extended my hand, pointing at its head, and let the maser go.  It looked at me for a couple of seconds, and fell forward.  Andrew looked at the bear laying down, looked at me, and asked

“What the hell happened?  Was it magic?  I didn’t feel much mana leaking out, it felt more like a strengthening than a spell.”

“Well, that happened because when you do a fire bolt, you have to actually make the mana get there, because the mana is carrying the fire.  There are a lot of different lights.  Some lights are not even visible to human beings.  Depending on the light, there is a ‘color’ that will heat water, and substances that contain water.  Like that bear’s head.  I heated it up, it passed out.”

“Ok.  A fire bolt, that would just made it angrier, would have cost you some 10 mana.  How much did you spend?”

“Three.  I am getting better at it.  The first times I used, I spent 5.  Besides, you don’t really need to put power behind it.  I could have spent more, perhaps 5 mana, and killed it, but I just made it pass out.  I want the [experience], right?”

“Ok.  Just don’t mention this to anyone.  While we are talking about it, don’t mention *any* of your crazy ideas to anyone.  You could actually get persecuted for it.”

I got close to the bear, placed my hand using my [experience trap] on the bear’s neck, and stabbed it with the sword, killing it swiftly.  This time, I made so the [experience] got fed a little slower, so I didn’t pass out.  The buzz I got, though, was impressive.  I took a quick look, and was amazed.  Four levels in one go.  Even Andrew let a “Holy crap!” escape.

At this point, I closed my eyes, used my ‘mental screen’, and searched myself to look for anything happening with me.  This time, I felt like I received a little more than just the upgrades in the skills.  I felt a little weird.

I felt some weird feelings in my body, so I did not hesitate, “Status”:

Attribute

Value

Name

Marcelo Souza

Titles

Sword

Adept

Unarmed

Expert

War Cry

Adept

Level

10

Health

180/300

Mana

450

Strength

50

Agility

49

Intelligence

60

Defense

48

My face must really have been weird, because Andrew snapped his fingers in front of me, and asked:

“What?”

“Well, I think I got more than what I bargained for.  I am not sure, because I don’t really keep looking at it all that much, but…  Have we been training more of Unarmed than Sword?”

“Nope.  The opposite, actually.”

“Hummm…  Do you want to do a quick test on something?  Can you come at me as if you were going to attack me?  My Unarmed went up.”

I relaxed my mind to the best of my ability, so that my muscle memory could do the reaction.  He came at me, using a very direct chop from up to down.  I took the step as I normally, but instead of a Soft River counter, I started a slap, and had to remember that I didn’t want to hurt him, so I slapped him in the back.  He flew almost 3 feet, and rolled forward.  He stood up, and brushed the dirt aside.

“I wasn’t expecting that.  It packed a good punch for your level.  What is that?”

I looked at the bear.  “I think I may have got it from the bear.  I kind of don’t believe it myself, but it is the best hypothesis I have right now.  Can we try again?”

We went through the same motions.  When he was about to chop me on the head, I tensed myself, and used the War Cry.  It looked like a roar, and it had mana in it.  I got chopped square on the head.  Andrew held his chin, and came to the same conclusion as I did.

“Well, you kind of managed to absorb some of the bear’s skills.  That thing you just did, is there a skill for it in your Status?”

“It’s called War Cry.”

“Hum, I have heard that some barbarians can actually use something like that.  They embed mana in their voices, and their shout can do stuff.  They can give courage to allies, thus increasing their attack power, they can scare enemies, making their attack more cumbersome, therefore more ineffective.  I heard that some of them might scare the enemies so much that they freeze in battle.  It didn’t do much to me, of course, but I felt something.  It would give you an edge on someone on your level.

“And this is not, by all means, a large bear.  You have a lot bigger game towards the center of the forest.  Heck, there are parts that *I* wouldn’t go.  I don’t want to try my luck against a fucking dragon.”  And he laughed.

“I thought you were the most powerful…”

“The most powerful *human*.  That doesn’t mean that I am all powerful in this world.  But I am curious to where you will get.”

“Aren’t you afraid that I might take revenge on the kingdom?  I mean, they were going to kill me, right?”

“That is a looong talk.  Let’s do it at home.

“Anyway, let me teach you how to dismantle your kills.  If you decide to go to a village or city, you can actually get someone to do that for you.  But it is never a bad thing to know how to do it.”

And then he showed me how to dismantle, how hanging the animal head down and decapitating it would drain the blood; he showed me how to extract the pelt.  And how to cut following the animal’s muscles and tissues, to get to the steaks, and how to extract the gem.  He told me that only some beasts have gems.  In particular, beasts that have skills have them.  And that they are valuable and can be sold in any Adventurer’s guild.  They apparently have a lot of uses.  I started to inquire about that, and he told me to just wait.

After collecting everything, we went home.

During dinner, I could not hold my curiosity any longer. 

“So tell me about what we were talking during the hunt…  What do you think the king was going to do to me?”

“It’s amazing that this is the first time that you talk about that.  Took you long enough.  I don’t think they were going to kill you; if they intended to do so, they would do that in the castle, not send you out.  The way I see it, they were expecting a level 100 hero, and received a level 1 child.  They would have to evolve you just like anyone else in this world.

“Remember how I already mentioned to you that they paid a very high cost?.  I heard that they always loose 4 court magicians for the summoning.  And they don’t generally have more to spare.  On my turn, I heard that only one court magician was left.  They have a lot of magicians in their army, but few of them get to Master on any magical skill, and only a handful get to GrandMaster on any skill.  It is a lifetime process.  Most magicians in the army and the adventurer’s guild are Adepts, though you can find the Experts here and there.

“I was summoned because the power of these magicians could not be counted upon.  They were too fragile to travel long distances, and even though they have healing magic here, this healing magic doesn’t work as well with aging and diseases.  Some diseases react worse than others to healing magic, but they are just not that good.  So the magicians had a lot of kickback from the summoning.  The lucky ones lost their magic.  The unlucky ones…  You get what I mean, right?”

“Yes.  I understand it a little bit.  Do you have any idea on what they were intending on doing with me?”

“There are some villages, mostly farming, that are close to the forest.  There is one that is actually close to here.  They probably intended on dropping you somewhere remote, where you would die naturally.  Of course, in a way that the failure of the summoning would not come up.  Either that, or keep you locked up somewhere far so that no questions were asked.”

“So, I would be fucked, one way or another.  And what am I supposed to do with all this?  What am I supposed to do with my skills?”

“Son, I have already lived a long time.  I have lived 2 lives, I have already died to one wife and widowed to another.  I just helped you because I knew that you were not a bad egg.  Otherwise, the gods would not have chosen you.  It is part of their deal with each other.

“Do what you will.  I don’t have any ties to either humans, or human races, or demons, for that matter.  They would have killed my honey pie just for being with me.  But bear in mind that every history book only contains one point of view.  The king would have screwed you over, but it’s not like he is completely bad.  And the demons are neither completely bad nor completely good.  Everyone just…  is.  And finally, even crime lords think they are doing good when they are controlling their area with an iron fist.  And even when they do so, crime in that particular area tends to be non-existent.  Even chaos and order need each other to survive.”

I paid attention to what he was saying.  He had a lot more depth than I expected from some soldier from 1910.  But then he had lived a long life.  He had seen the best and worst of human kind in two different lands.

And even friends that I had left behind, that were really intelligent and smart with numbers, were sometimes not so smart on other areas, such as human relationships.  Heck, I knew a guy in college that had a weird OCD; he would walk down the halls, tipping his pen against the wall.  Now the bad part was that if he was tapping against a wall, and it was an empty classroom, he would enter the classroom to tap the pen against all walls in the classroom.  And this was one of the top guys expected to go on to get his masters and phd in physics.

Not saying I am too normal myself, just that compared to those…

I got back from my musings when Andrew snapped his fingers, “Hey, ziemia to Marcelo! Time to do the dishes.”

And we continued with our lessons, learning [common].  He actually decided that my [common] was good enough, so he decided that we would only communicate in it from here on.

I went to bed, my mind was all over the place.