A small henge of earth stood timidly in the shallows of the lake. It had a face with a large smile carved on it which was soon slapped by a flush of flames that continued on, barely dissipating before they hit the trees.
"Maybe we should move it a bit forward," Paley dissolved the henge and rebuilt it, which suddenly gave him an idea, he ran back to Rauba who was sat on a small platform floating on the water. He opened his palm to face the new henge, a circle of magic lettering appeared a few meters in front of him and from it shot out a Firebolt that burned the henge but didn't do significant damage.
Rauba was racking her brains, trying to think of some solution to their dilemma.
"Paley, I don't think there is a way to do this. I think Aneros' story might not be completely true," Rauba reasoned.
"Manoha Buul also threw long-distance attacks,"
"Those were air-slashes,"
"She should've faced the same issue." Paley produced a small, concentrated flame above his palm, "Everything tries to spread out." He relaxed his hold on the flame and it expanded, losing some of its light and heat, next, he let the flame vanish and produced a ball of twisting air that was potent enough to make their clothes rustle, "Even an air slash should've dissipated," He flicked it toward Rauba but only a light breeze hit her face.
"Okay. We've tried brute forcing it. We've tried long-distance conjuring. We've tried holding it together, but once the spell is out of our range, we can no longer control it."
"Is this range limited?" Paley closed his eyes and took relaxed breaths. He quickly began feeling the mana around him as he used Dyaahn breathing. He cast another Firebolt toward the henge, and he could feel the mana leaving his body and travelling to the henge.
"It's the same mana. No change in the way it feels, just the distance. If I can somehow find a way to control my mana outside my body..." He looked around, "What about the Unbound Mana around me?"
"Paley..." Rauba yawned, "We didn't sleep last night, can we call it a day?"
"I told you you could go back, Rauba"
"No, I have to be here in case you discover something,"
Paley chuckled and began preparing another spell. A few minutes in, however, Rauba fell asleep on the platform and Paley finally decided to take a break. He gently reshaped the platform to be softer and more bed-like and bought her over to ground, taking a seat beside her and looking out at the mana zone lake. He recalled Teerom's telling him of a part in Aneros' tale where he sniped a far away enemy with a concentrated lance of flames. Paley had asked him if Aneros had ever used long-rage attacks. He pressed his mind, unable to stop obsessing over this issue of long-range attacks. It was a simple endeavour with Earth Magic as spells tended to remain solid regardless of how far they travelled. But the other three main magic types dissipated before they reached their target.
"Maybe I could ask Teerom to pull some strings and get some books on-"
A thin grimoire descended onto his lap and he found Libon above looking down at him with an innocent smile.
Considerate of the sleeping Rauba, Libon whispered excitedly, "Might this solve your problem?"
"Libon Xuebe's grimoire..." Paley read the title, "Thanks, Libon,"
"Which Libon?" Libon's joke was bad enough to be funny in that way. "He's the greatest mage to come from Lusitra in the last 300 years," Libon took a seat next to him.
"He was a monster hunter, wasn't he?" Paley opened the book and began skimming through the pages. It mostly detailed Xuebe's personal spells and there were some entries on how he came up with their names; he was a heavy foodie so all of his spells were named after foods. For example, there was one spell called Paella which was a long-range attack where he'd place his hands on the ground and make a spark traverse toward his target and then explode into a violent burst of fire.
It appeared as though Xuebe's spells were all quasi-long distance, relying on raw force to hit their target. But the third last page finally caught Paley's eye and his hand stopped the quick flicking of paper. "To break the limit," Paley read the title out loud. The page detailed a day when a foreign mage arrived in Lusitra in escort of his king. It was the first time in recent history that a Lord Mage stepped foot into Lusitra, the backward country of Eri. Xuebe, taking an interest, asked this mage to duel him, which the mage had accepted amusedly. The duel began with both men 30 meters apart, Xuebe described the Lord Mage as being relaxed, almost at home, with little in the way of a fighting stance. Xuebe's description of the match ended there, the next thing he knew he was being treated by Healers, having almost died. Somehow the Lord Mage had managed to hit him from 30 meters away. And it was a quick, powerful attack. He had searched from the Lord Mage, determined to learn this new world of magic, but he had left along with the monarch he escorted. Xuebe summarised that he spent the next two years in seclusion, trying to understand magic, engaging in Dyaahn breathing and visualising his goal. At some point, he began to feel a sort of ceiling above him. This he creatively called 'The Ceiling'. That Lord Mage must've broken through this ceiling, this limit. Tragically, Xuebe died saving the city of Gouon a few months later and couldn't begin the training to break that limit. The last sentence of his grimoire read "I must break this limit. Imagine the smiles on my parents' faces, when Lusitra finally declares its first Lord Mage after centuries".
Paley heaved a sigh and looked up to see a watery gloss covering Libon's eyes. "I'm named after such a great man... I won't disappoint this name." He promised.
Paley gave him a reassuring smile before he stood up. "Thank you, Libon." He handed the book back.
"I got it for you, Paley." Libon refused.
"But it has your name on it,"
Libon smirked and accepted the grimoire back. Paley approached the lake once again with shut eyes, visualising a staircase in front of him. His steps wading through the water became steps on this staircase. Soon, he hit the ceiling. He couldn't climb any further - this was the limit. With confident calm he pressed his palm against it, it was smooth and wet, almost as though it had a layer of jelly before the solid material began. A violent torrent of flames spat out from his hand as he melted through this ceiling until he could finally take another step freely. Quite quickly, he'd surpassed it.
But nothing changed. He tried to cast a long-range spell but it was just as ineffective as before.
"Looks like there aren't any extra perks that come with being a Quimnia apart from all the magic types," He mumbled disappointedly to himself. What disappointed him more was the futility of that whole exercise; he thought that it would actually work. He turned to leave the lake but "One more try," he said.
Rauba woke up half an hour later and, through watery and sore eyes, she saw him excitedly practicing, throwing spell after spell as he snacked on meat to replenish it quickly. "I can't compete with him," She resolved with a humble smile and stood to return to the orphanage. Libon met her on the way, which resulted in an awkward walk back; he did attempt a few times to talk to her but she was largely unresponsive.
Dillie had arrived at the orphanage; she quietly rehearsed something, standing with her hand ready to knock on the door. After a third rehearsal, her knuckles hit the door at last and Teerom greeted her. "Is Paley home?" She asked. Her question was answered by Rauba who had just returned with a drained Libon - he'd tried the whole way back to conversate.
"He's at the lake,"
Dillie pieced together that he was training. "I'll come back later, then," She politely tried to excuse herself.
"Why don't you come hang out with us? We're playing Duopoly." Teerom offered. She recoiled at that, having come last at least a hundred times.
Libon jumped at the opportunity and invited himself and Dillie in; she decided to just roll along with it. They must've played at least 30 games of Duopoly; the sky had begun to turn red by the time they were done. Dillie began to think that Paley would be too tired to listen to her request when he came back and excused herself, but as she got up, he came in, covered in ash.
"What happened to you?" Adimia asked.
"Burned a tree down by accident," He answered and then acknowledged Dillie, "Hey. You joining us for dinner?"
"No, I wanted to- how was training?"
"Uneventful," He could tell she wanted to ask him something. "What did you want?"
She tried to avoid it, trying to be considerate that he was tired but he pressed her and eventually she gave in, whispering "I wanted to get your opinion on a painting,"
Paley agreed, asking where it is, to which she apologetically replied that she was too scared to move it and so left it at home. He produced a heartening smile and assured her that he wasn't the least bit tired; a white lie.
He took her back to her home on a golem of earth as it was magnitudes less taxing than flight. She guided him into her room where the painting proudly stood. He took a few moments to inspect it closely. It was of the lake in the mana zone. What impressed him the most was the accuracy with which she replicated it: the intricacy of the details and the realism of the shading pointed that this was created by an elite artist.
"You did this from memory?" He finally asked.
She nodded.
"Incredible. It's incredible. How did you get this good?" Paley asked.
"I painted everyday in the summer. As they say, practice pays off. The music player you got me helped a lot too."
"Yeah, no kidding. Can I see some of those?"
She apologised as she had left them at her grandmother's place back in Yazen. To which he simply requested to have a free pass to see her future paintings; that made her giggle. "You think people will buy them?"
"I don't know about people, but I definitely would."
After a silence, "...I don't want to be a knight anymore." She began guiltily.
"You'll pursue painting?"
She nodded.
"Great idea. I can already see your signature being spread across Eri." His words were too kind. They made her feel as though her guilt was insignificant.
"We'll have to give up on that dream..." She talked of a dream that they envisioned about a year ago where Negie and Dillie would become Great Knights, the wings of the Quimnia essentially. It was embarrassing for Paley as they pedestalised him far too much, but he liked that they were enjoying themselves.
"You will always be one of my wings. You're part of my family, Dillie."
"But I could've done so much more good as a knight. I could've helped others; made their lives better-"
"Any work is valuable if it brightens someone's day... as long as you're not harming innocent people."
Those words made her smile. "Thank you, Paley. Wait, what do you mean by family?"