D.E.M.O.N.S: Getting Summoned Weekly isn't so Bad

— Kat —

After some more back and forth about Kress their conclusions didn’t really change. Everyone was quite on board with Nixilei’s idea that this first week would set the tone for the relationship between Kress and Stan, likely dictating how it was going to survive long term. Once that was settled, Nixilei and Asteodia had relaxed and started drifting together.

The pair hadn’t really noticed, but they’d originally picked a large beanbag that let them both sit on it without touching. Throughout the conversation they’d moved until they were now pressing into each other’s sides while leaning back. Lily was of course, simply sitting on Kat without any shame of that fact so the newer couple still had a ways to go, but it was good progress.

Now, Lily and Katt didn’t want them to realise what they were doing, snuggling into each other like that. So they needed a new topic, and Lily had the perfect one. “Changing the topic to something else, how do you guys train your magic?” asked Lily.

“Why?” asked Nixilei. “You seem to be doing well for yourself already,”

Lily let her shoulders slump and her ears droop, looking very cute tin the process. Of course, Nixilei was picture Asteodia with a similar look on her face, but that wasn’t important. Probably. “Because I’m doing well with paper magic but my shadow magic just feels… lesser. Sure I haven’t been working on it long… but if I had to explain it… it’s like… like my understanding of shadow magic is too shallow.

“Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by the paper magic book, but so far, all the best shadow spells rely on my shadow actually moving around. Which, now that I’m thinking of it… is weird because Midnight isn’t doing that at all… so now I’m wondering if I’m going about it the wrong way,” explained Lily.

lightsΝοvel.cοm “I’d guess it’s because Midnight is aligned with Darkness and not Shadow,” said Nixilei.

“Wait… there’s a difference?” asked Lily confused.

Nixilei nodded while explaining, “Yes. It can be a subtle difference at times, and it would be wrong to say that darkness and shadow magic are completely different… but they are a lot like ice and water magic. Closely linked, but technically different. Still, you can probably empower your shadow with darkness magic anyway, but that’s just me guessing.

“Remember, healing and regeneration affinities are quite different as for some reason healing mana doesn’t like to heal the person who holds it. Healing mana tends to be more diverse in its ability, but regeneration is much more efficient… but it takes a lot of mana and technique to heal anyone that isn’t yourself.

“As for empowering your shadow… it feels like you’re going a long way with that already, in fact… I think you have a lot more mana for that then normal. Or your shadow is oddly accepting of mana,”

[Huh… I didn’t think that would be the case. This feels like it’s taking forever.]

*I’m not sure… perhaps it’s something that’s meant to take years?*

[Possibly.]

“Well… thanks for the help? It’s still weird to know that Shadow Magic and Darkness Magic are not the same thing… but whatever I guess,” said Lily a little dazed by that newfound knowledge.

“Well, it’s also possible that Midnight is a shadow mage thinking he’s a darkness mage,” pointed out Asteodia.

Lily groaned and leaned into Kat’s shoulder. “Kat magic is confusing,”

“Why are you complaining to me, I don’t use it,” said Kat while patting her head.

“Urgh, clearly I am alone in this world and nobody understands me,” grumbled Lily.

Asteodia and Nixilei shared a look of commiseration at Lily’s horrible acting but didn’t say anything until she got it out of her system. When Lily finally turned back to the conversation, she asked, “Right, so… how do you both practice magic?”

Nixilei and Asteodia looked at each other for a few moments before Asteodia bumped Nixilei shortly and the fae sighed before starting to talk, “For me, at the beginning at least, it was a lot of healing scrapes and bruises around the orphanage. I was heavily encouraged, as long as I wasn’t exhausted, to heal anyone who came up to me as long as it was just a small injury. Cuts, bruises, that sort of thing.

“At that level it’s more about just pushing your mana into your fingers and running it over the wounds. There is a spell for it, but it’s extremely basic and doesn’t really help much. Then I moved onto longer cuts and larger bruises, though bruising tends to remain easy as long as it’s just skin and muscle being bruised. Now, I want to stress that none of this was exactly fast back when I first started.

“It took me over a minute to heal a bruise and for cuts it could be five or more. Sure that’s a lot faster then healing naturally, but compared to throwing fireballs within the first few training sessions, I was stuck running my hands over scabs for like a year. At the time it annoyed me a bit because a lot of kids would just expect me to be able to heal them even if it was more serious…

“But the adults at the orphanage always ensured that the kids knew being healed by me was a privilege, not a right, and if they were mean about it they’d quickly be blacklisted. Usually only for a month or two, but I think it could’ve been longer? I never had it come up honestly. Most of the kids that got blacklisted for more than a week didn’t tend to repeat that behaviour.

“Anyway from there I started to learn the spell for healing that sort of thing, and it was nice because I could cast the spell and then walk away. Sure it might still take a minute or two to heal up, but it meant I didn’t need to concentrate on it for longer then a few seconds. Took less mana as well…

“Anyway, things sort of escalated from there, but as for what I do now? Well I obviously heal any injuries that my team gets, but that isn’t exactly ‘training’. For me, it’s quite hard. I can’t just cut myself and then heal the skin over and over. I’ve done that training already and it’s something that’s stuck in my head now. I could probably heal that sort of thing in my sleep.

“So a lot of my practice comes down to imagining scenarios and then going through the motions of healing the fake person, casting the spells as I go. It’s rather annoying, and while you can tell if the spell fails… you obviously can’t tell if you were using the correct spell in the first place, as there’s nothing there. For me, I guess it’s more a matter of gathering knowledge about healing and then going through the motions,”

Asteodia smiled and jumped in once it was clear Nixilei had finished speaking. “Yet for me it’s completely different. I have a good deal of mana, not a massive amount, but a good deal. I focus primarily on manipulating fire without spells, though I know a few of them as well. For me, meditating next to a fire is the best way to practice. I’ll start a small fire and then practice by trying to get my magical fire to mimic the real one.

“It’s surprisingly intense and gives me a deeper understanding of fire, or at least I feel it does. It’s part mental exercise, part meditation and part magic manipulation. My teacher, crazy bastard that he was, practiced that method using four different fires all burning different types of wood, and sometimes with magical catalysts. Then creating twelve flames that would have the two closest to the flames matching them, and the one in the middle a mix,”

“That’s… that’s very advanced,” said Nixilei shocked.

Asteodia waved Nixilei off, “Eh don’t get too excited the guy who taught me didn’t spend much time on teaching a single person, they travelled around a bunch all by themselves. So I only saw them like… once a year if that. Oh, and personally I think they were cheating with the fancy twelve flame setup… unless they’re like Thyme and secretly super powerful… hmm… might be worth asking Thyme if they know my old teacher,”

“Yes that… I can hardly imagine doing something like that,” said Nixilei.

Asteodia shrugged and said, “Well it’s not like I’m anywhere close. I already said, I’m still stuck on the first level. I might be able to move up to two magical fires soon, in fact I probably should’ve already. You aren’t supposed to perfect it, just get close, and then move up a level to push yourself better… but apparently I have a bad habit of perfectionism so I haven’t been moving up yet, probably stalling my process,”

Nixilei leaned over and gave Asteodia a light peck on the cheek, “I think I can find a few ways to encourage you to increase your magical training, don’t you agree?” whispered Nixilei huskily into Asteodia’s ear.

*Ladies and Gentleman. We’ve got ’em.*

[That we do Kat. That we do. Mission accomplished.]