A month passes in a flash as Ter'vi teaches me what I asked for: Combat movement techniques & spells as well as the weaknesses and information I need in order to have a better chance of surviving my task.
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"It does what?!" I ask Ter'vi, not believing my ears.
Giving me an irritated look, Ter'vi repeats himself. "Like I said: If you aren't specific enough with your destination, you are very likely to end up half embedded into other objects; And that usually ends with a lot of blood and guts all over. Oh and you die. Quite painfully, if all the screaming is anything to go by." He says without any emotion in his voice; As if he wasn't talking about people dying horribly painful and traumatic deaths from slight overlooks in spell-casting.
"... Well, if that isn't terrifying as hell, then I don't know what is." I mumble to myself as I commit this fact to memory: 'Never, ever, forget to be extremely specific when designating location!'
"Right." Ter'vi replies flippantly. "So, I believe we are done. I have taught you what I can to help you survive your task, as I swore I would." He says solemnly as he inspects me.
Nodding to himself, he continues speaking with a firmer tone. "Now it is your turn to complete your end of the promise. Tomorrow morning, you set out."
Getting up slowly from my seated position, I deliberately stretch my stiff muscles slowly and carefully before I reply to Ter'vi's statement. "Yeah, I guess it is about time…" I reply slowly as I go through what I have learned in the last week of tutoring by a partially crazy hermit:
How to use my Chi to enhance my movements; Giving me the options to greatly increase instantaneous speed, increased speed to change the vector of my movements as well as increased ability to quickly decrease my momentum suddenly.
As a side effect of the training, I noticed that I can now sense magic, or Mana, as Ter'vi calls it, outside of myself, in my surroundings.
A combat movement spell: Blink; Which is a short range teleport - for distances up to 100 meters per cast of spells. They can be cast in succession; as long as the person in question can do the calculations needed to not end up halfway buried in an object or the like.
Knowledge of the deep forest and the dryads; basically everything that Ter'vi thought could be of any use to the task.
Most of the time was spent on the first two points; With a whopping whole 3 weeks spent on learning how to use Chi, with the blink spell taking almost a whole week to learn, with the last day or so we have been going over all the necessary information.
As Ter'vi had to teach me from the beginning how to even begin to feel Chi, unto then teaching me how to actually use it in practice.
That said, I'm still only barely able to pull off focusing my Chi enough to make use of it, but I'm working on it. Small steps cover big distances, eventually.
"Alright. Tomorrow I'll leave to go find your elder dryad essence; But before that, I need to pack some rations, and then eat and get some proper sleep." I reply to the partly crazy elf hermit that has been my teacher the past month.
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The next morning I am up before the sun rises; Gathering my rations and gear, which is basically my katana. Oh, and an old bag to hold the food rations, both of which I received from the crazy hermit.
Once I finished quickly washing off myself, eating a quick breakfast and swinging my new, well used, bag onto my back.
Saying my thanks to the partly crazy hermit elf, I start my trek toward the even deeper, supposedly even darker and even more deadly part of the woodlands of Eteria; The part called the point of origin of this enormous forest, where all the oldest and deadliest creatures of the forest live.
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After leaving the safety of Ter'vi's home I carefully make my way towards the highest concentration of Mana I could sense; which Ter'vi explained would lead me to the point of origin of the whole forest, eventually.
It is slow going, with hours passing without much changing; Be it scenary or mana concentration.
Except for the occasional stop to eat and drink from my rations, or refill my water-skins, so far it has been a relatively quiet and easy trip.
Walking along, I ponder the things that have happened lately while I move along as quietly and stealthily as I can manage without moving at a crawl.
'I really hope I don't run into that… thing that came out when I had to sleep up on the tree branches…
… I wonder how my training group is doing? Would also like to know how the city is doing...'
I continue walking along while giving my mind the freedom to ponder the topics that come to mind as they come.
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After a few hours of walking along, I break to rest an hour and build a small campfire to roast a small, well, creature that I managed to stealthily kill with a lightning bolt spell.
The creature reminds me of a squirrel, only, this 'squirrel' is enormous; It is the size of a monkey and more than likely a lot more dangerous than a regular monkey if it gets close to you, if the overgrown fangs and really sharp claws are anything to go by.
On a side note, I've noticed my control over magic has gotten increasingly stable and natural, while I seem to be able to do more with less mana; I guess this is kind of like how you learn how to use your muscles more and more effectively the longer and more you use them, only this is mana usage instead.
With this increased control, it only took me just a split second to form and send the lightning bolt straight at the creature, all the while suppressing the mana output to be enough to kill the creature, but not fry it so much that there is just charcoal remaining.
Shining the creature with my katana proved much, much harder than I thought it would be; Until I realized that I could just 'coat' the blade with a Chi layer to Increase its already stupidly sharp edge and push the cutting ability into ludicrously sharp ranges.
Just touching the blade to the skin now cut through it, as it if wasn't even there; It cuts so easily, the 'hot knife through butter' analogy doesn't even do it justice anymore.
With the skinning finally finished, I imapale the squirrel-like creature on a sharpen stick and set it to grill over the campfire while I stare at the fire and ponder about my current life and circumstances.
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Half an hour or so later, I am brought out of my thoughts by the sound of something rustling the underbrush.
Getting up carefully while surveying the area for movement I grab my sword's hilt and prepare to draw it at a moment's notice, should the need arise.
Tense moments pass as I stand perfectly stills while swiveling my head in search of motion as I try to spot the perpetrator of the noise.
A minute passes, but I can see no movement, and there has been no more noises after the initial one.
Relaxing slightly, I sweep my gaze around the area of my camp carefully once again, before I shrug and sit down once next to the campfire once again.
That is when all hell breaks loose as a dozen small green/brown creatures in leather pelts and with sharpened sticks or logs suddenly rush out of the undergrowth all at once while screaming some kind of warcry.
"UUUUAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!!!"
Shocked by the sudden appearance and warcries of the child sized green creatures that are screaming bloody murder, it takes me a moment to regain control of my limbs; But once I do, I quickly take a stance and prepare to fight for my life all the while I start gathering and condensing my mana to cast magic.
It only takes the small creatures a few moments to reach me however, and with my delayed response, I am already too late to intercept the first of the green things with magic as they are already upon me.
Sidestepping the first creature to attack me to its left, I bisect it in half at the waist as I counter attack at the same time as I move out of its clubs reach. "Shit! Goblins?!" I exclaim as I get a better look at the small green-brown creatures: They look like small children; If said children were the ugliest, dirtiest and most foul-smelling things the human race could cook up.
Oh, and they're apparently pretty darn dumb too, as they don't seem to know any kinds of group tactics; They don't work together with each other as much as they just blindly swarm their target; Also, they have no ranged weapons.
Which is very good for me.
Otherwise, this, would be a very bad situation to be in; But if they can't coordinate and don't have any ranged weapons? Well...
As I finish gathering and condensing the needed mana to unleash my spell; A blast of lightning, with me at the center as the lighting spreads out 360° around me, it only takes a moment before all of the small creatures lie fired inside out and quite dead on the ground around me.
Giving a quick, but careful examination of my surroundings, I breathe a sigh of relief and slump down on the ground to catch my breath and still my heart that's tried to beat its way out of my chest.
As the moments pass and my heart beat and breathing stills, my nose gets increasingly assaulted by the foul smell of these creatures; Which is not getting better as they have soiled themselves in death.
Now that I think about it, it reminds me of the first and most recent large scale battle I found myself in with the beast hoard attacking the city of Gerela, the Raz kingdom's capital. But at the time, the smells and and horror of it all didn't register in my mind; Not surprising, I guess, since I most likely was in shock from seeing, fighting and killing the first monsters I had ever seen in my life: The flight of Harrowers.
But now that I have… "Shit, have I gotten used to killing things? Is this my new normal?" I exclaim aloud, as the fact that this has become my new normal actually sinks in. "... Does this mean I'm going to eventually just go full on murder-hobo? Will I just kill because it is easier than actually trying to solve problems, personal or possessional?" I ponder aloud as I try to come to grips with my new self.
" … I need to really think this over…." I mumble to myself as I get up slowly from my slumped position on the ground. Looking around the carnage I've caused, I can only shake my head and sigh at the mess I've made.
...
… Wait. What happened to the birdsong?
"GRAAAAAAAOU!"
God damn it. "... Fuuu-!"
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End of chapter 25