PoV Diego
'Are you sure this is going to work?'
I asked while hanging from the tallest tree nearby.
Dubir: Don't worry about it, I've done the math, this will 100% speed up the learning process. I've tested it myself.
'You're a weapon! How can you know?'
Dubir: Not all my wielders were strong enough to remain sane after obtaining me.
'Fine, I'll trust you this once-'
Dubir: Remember to spread the aura evenly across your body, or else you're going to feel the pain.
'It would be strange if I didn't feel any pain from a fall like this one.
Fury: Don't worry, we're far enough from the camp that your gas won't reach it.
'That's not the part that annoys me!'
Dubir: It's just a fifty-meter fall. What could go wrong? You survived far worse.'
'That doesn't mean it was painless.'
The plan was simple: I had to let myself go and block the fall using my arms imbued with aura. Theoretically, my survival instincts should've kicked in during the fall, and my body would automatically use the aura to defend itself.
So I let myself go, and the plan failed. Thankfully, I died almost instantly, resetting without any pain.
Dubir: See? You barely felt anything.
'Am I—you know that—I—what am I supposed to say here?'
Dubir: It's either this or the boring way that the wolf taught you.
'There must be an easier and faster way.'
Fury: This is the easy way.
'Spare me the bullshit, Dubir. There's no way this is an easy method to learn magic.'
I started to put on my dresses since they all came off after a reset and then started climbing back to the top of the tree.
'Don't you need to meditate for this kind of thing?'
Dubir: Meditate? This is aura! Aura is meant to be used for destruction, not harmony. You call upon an element and eat away the energy of the environment to either take control or create inorganic matter. In rare cases, you can even take control of organic stuff, but that's not something you'll be able to do any time soon, so we might as well ignore it.
'Fine! I get it! I'll stop nagging now.'
I finally reached the top of the tree.
'Attempt No. 2'
This time I managed to use the aura, but sadly I could not spread it properly, and I ended up dislocating my shoulders. I quickly bit off my tongue and some of my fingers to trigger an immediate reset. Once the gas disappeared, I was lying naked on the floor, cursing both weapons' names because of the excruciating pain.
Dubir: Hey, don't blame me; I've only given you the answer you were seeking.
Fury: How come you don't make any sound while fighting but can completely feel the pain now?
"Shut the fuck up!" I said this while trying to catch my breath.
"I don't know how that works either; it's some kind of ability that turns off all the feelings in my body, but sometimes it's active, sometimes not, and I don't have a way to control it." I answered while catching my breath.
Dubir: On the bright side, we made progress.
I was too tired to object to his statement.
Dubir: Now do it again. The third time's the charm, right?
"Wait a second. I can't. I need to rest."
I felt my heart beating in my throat; I wanted to throw up; and I started to sweat.
'Why is my body reacting in this way? I never did so before; is this an effect caused by that power?'
Dubir: Of course it is; you're a magical creature who's learning anti-magical powers. Of course you're going to feel like shit, but once your body adapts to the change, you're not even going to feel it.
I waited a couple of minutes before climbing back, this time naked. I regretted my choice when I was midway through, when many small pieces of wood started infiltrating my skin.
'You do know that if I fail this time, we're stuck here? My body gets too exhausted to move after the third reset in a row.
Dubir: Don't worry, I can take care of that.
'Suure'
I then let go and failed, this time because I landed on my back, so I quickly bit off my tongue while my vision was gone and I was barely breathing. After the reset, the situation didn't change. I was still in pain, I still couldn't see jackshit, and I still could not breathe.
All around me, Dubir started creating one of his illusions.
Dubir: Don't resist it, at least until we're back to the camp; otherwise, who knows? We could really end up lost in the middle of this horrible place.
The illusion started to take shape. I was on a small boat, lying sideways on a bench. In front of me, there was a woman who was playing a weird, long instrument that had many strings attached to it. It looked familiar.
The woman was wearing a long white and red dress and a mask that resembled a fox.
The small boat was being rowed by a couple of men in the back. There was a small wall that separated us, so I couldn't look at them.
As I started to look around, I noticed that the boat was rowing on a massive lake. In the center of said lake, there was a giant tree, taller than any skyscraper I've seen in my life. The giant tree had pink leaves, and they periodically rained down, making the scenario even more romantic.
As I tried to get up, the illusion shattered, and I found myself lying on the wooden bed we made in the shelter.
'What's- where am I? Where did you see a place like this?' I asked him.
Dubir: Beautiful right? You should be grateful you're even allowed to take a glimpse of heaven! Khido! No heaven can match this city, everything here has been built directly by one of the many primal gods.
'Where's the city? or the place people live?'
Dubir: Unfortunately, I don't remember much of it now; slowly, even that beautiful tree will fade away from my memory. This place exists as a prize for the followers of the God of Hunt; only the one hundred strongest hunters are allowed to live here. That means I'll probably never be able to return to this place.
'Ah, my condolences.'
Fury: I've heard stories of this place; is it true that those hunters are weaker than the golden warriors?
Dubir: That's untrue for the most part. The minimum requirement to become a golden soldier is to be physically fit and to be a cursed soldier. Among all those soldiers, only one can probably go toe to toe against most of those hunters; the rest of them are too weak to even last a whole minute against them.
'Wow, this is… May I ask something?'
Fury:Yeah sure.
'How many interplanetary civilizations exist out there?"
Dubir: Not many; I would say at most there are a couple per realm, so we're probably talking about thirty or so, although we barely know if the fifteenth truly exists or was a lie.
'What kind of… I guess it was naive of me to think that there were a lot fewer civilizations like ours.'
Fury: Glad to be of help!
I didn't need much to fall asleep. I slept soundly without dreaming of anything. When I woke up, I was still alone in the camp. No one was in sight; the feline corpses were still untouched; my head was feeling a bit dizzy; I was still tired; my arms were numb and my neck stiff; and for some reason, my left ankle was hurting.
'You tripped on the way back, didn't you?'
Dubir: Sorry…
'Don't worry, I'm not going to yell at you. You did your best; you can rest now.'
I started organizing the meat of the first feline, then I skinned the second one and started separating the limbs from the main body. It was a bloody mess because I had forgotten to bleed them first. I barely knew anything, so I tried to imitate the wolf and cut off everything that was red.
I then chopped it all up into small pieces and smoked it. While the meat was smoking, I started working on the next feline. After everything was smoked, I poured everything into an airtight container.
It took me a couple of days to fully process the felines, and when I was done, I had enough meat to probably last a month.
After I finished processing the meat, it was time to refill my water tank, so I remade the filter and then went gathering water. I took a couple of buckets and put them on the filter.
When I resumed my special training, I started to notice myself making some rapid improvements. I also noticed that somehow, in the region where I was training, the vegetation started to grow more and more.
This training seemed to have good effects on my stamina; now I'm not completely unable to move after the third reset.
After a week, the team finally returned. Forren was pretty much unscathed. The same goes for Satsui. Tsuitame was covered in bruises, had many cuts all over his body, and seemed to have gunshot wounds. The girls were both passed out and frozen. They were also injured.
After making a couple of steps, Tsuitame fainted, and I had to carry most of them near the fire as they were extremely exhausted. Even Forren had trouble walking straight.
Dubir: I guess this time it wasn't as easy as before. Man, look at them; they're a mess already, and we've only just started this trial. At this rate, you're going to end up with only Forren left.
I had to wait a couple of days before they started speaking to me again, and the first one that spoke was Valis.
"What do you think you are doing?" She said this to me while I was heading to my usual training spot.
"Training?" I answered, confused.
"So you ditched us to train comfortably here, huh?" She shouted at me while the rest of them simply opened their eyes.
Dubir: Ha! Would you look at this? Just how entitled can one-
Dubir said this while showing me a scenario in which I grabbed her by the neck and started beating her.
'Calm down; she probably had a near-death experience; she's not thinking rationally at this moment.'
"I thought you didn't need me since you had Forren with you." I answered.
She then slapped me across the face. Her hands were trembling out of rage, and she seemed ready to start a fight.
"I know you're angry, but I wouldn't have been of any help in that situation, my body-" She slapped me once more.
"Couldn't you at least pretend to be concerned about us?" She asked, grabbing me by the collar of my shirt.
"Would that even matter?"
This time she tried to punch me, but due to my ability, her fist couldn't land on my face.
"YOU-" Before she could try to punch me again, I put my right hand in front of her face and rapidly created the heatless flame. As soon as she flinched, I proceeded to project her into the ground.
"Calm down-"
"HOW CAN YOU ASK ME TO CALM DOWN WHEN I ALMOST DIED THERE!" She screamed at me while trying to free herself.
"What did you expect? This is a test from the God of Combat and the God of War! Death will always be around the corner! Weren't you the magic prodigy here?"
"HOW CAN YOU EVEN-"
"Boss, at this point, it's useless to argue with her; I would suggest-" Said Forren.
"Have you explained to her why-" I asked Forren.
"Yes, I did."
"Call Satsui and bring her to the lake. She clearly needs to cool her head down before she makes any other stupid decision. " I ordered him while getting off of her.
After that, the girls stopped talking to me altogether, while the rest didn't seem to have any problems interacting with me. I spent the rest of the day showing Satsui the progress I had made thus far.
"You're probably the only one who can train in such a way." Satsui commented when I told him about the special training lessons.
Thanks to them, manipulating auras has become more "normal".
It's not really about whether it's normal or not, but the feeling of it. It feels weird and unnatural for me to use aura, and that is probably the single biggest factor that is obstructing my growth. Now it just feels a bit more natural to play with it.
Then, for the first time, I started practicing the flame rings and managed to make a full circle with the right hand and a little over a half with the second hand.
"Can I ask you something? Why are you making me do this? " I asked.
He then proceeded to create a sword made of fire.
"So this training is the basis of what could be described as the most basic technique." he said, creating many fire circles with his right hand.
"With a little modification to this technique, you can create a fire that is also solid." He then grabbed one of the circles and threw it at a nearby tree, exploding on impact.
"Now, if you use the basis of that technique, you can-" He then started singing his blade.
"Increase the reach-" The flames started expanding, increasing the range of his sword..
"Make it more durable. You can make the extension have whip-like properties, and with enough experience, make it so that the whip can still cut your enemies." He said this as he started swinging the flaming whip.
"There are, of course, other uses of aura, but I think it's better for you to stick to the basis." He continued.
"I mostly use it like this." He said this, engulfing his fist in flames.
"I'm using it to both increase my raw power and to create what is basically an armor around my fist to punch safer and harder." He then started practicing a couple of punches on the same nearby tree. It was on fire, but he did not seem affected by it.
Then he started absorbing the flames. It was something I had never seen before, and it even took me by surprise.
"Once you finish that, then you'll need to start walking, leaving a trail of floating fire. Then you'll steadily increase your speed until you can effectively use that technique in combat. If we're lucky, you'll be able to use that in four to five months. " This time he created an entire blade and a shield of a weird black matter.
"Keep it up, you're promising." Said Tsuitame, touching my shoulder with his closed fist.
"T-thanks, I'll do my best." I said it awkwardly before resuming my training.
PoV Ben
I don't know how I did it, but somehow I managed to manifest an aura. About a week ago, I was bored, so I started watching the survival show. I then saw the hero Haxion training all by himself in the middle of the night. He would sometimes start talking to himself, and during that time he said that to use aura he had to squeeze his butt most of the time.
I then kept imitating his weird training, except for the suicide part, and after a week I managed to catch a glimpse of his aura. It was only for a brief moment, but I was overjoyed. Even I, a non-magical creature, was capable of using magic-like abilities.
"Of course, a normal human won't be able to create magic." "Are you crazy? Of course you aren't on the same level as us." "It's impossible for you to ever be able to wield mana." Those words kept resonating in my head the whole week. I felt like an idiot trying, but now I proved them wrong.
I was right. It didn't make sense that those warriors were that powerful without using mana.
'It's weird that it was that simple for me, because we would've discovered this ages ago.'
Then the white wolf started explaining some techniques and showing them off. It was extremely cool to watch them.
I then began imagining the vast possibilities of a person wielding various elements to an extreme degree, and just as I was about to compare them to other weapons we currently have, I came to the realization that a bullet could still kill those people.
I then sat on my bed and started checking if something had happened in the meantime. Apparently, the golden soldiers were seen flying almost every day in many different countries. The homeless have started to invade the empty houses, and vandalism has started to rise.
'Some people already found a way to get out of their houses and start a mess? Are they crazy? Those soldiers could kill them at any second, and they do!'
Suddenly, a plate of food materialized in front of me. It was my lunch. The God of Combat is basically holding our planet on life support while this special trial is in place.
We receive free food, electricity, and water, but in exchange, we cannot leave our home. Those who can leave or were not in their own house during the announcement don't receive those benefits.
Thankfully, when all this happened, I was the only one in the house, so now I can finally enjoy the house alone.
The owners of the house, since they were tied to political figures, died during the invasion. My mother, at the time, was traveling with the owners while I was staying with some of the servants.
Everything happened in a single night. All my friends were outside drinking and having fun, while I was locked inside my own room by my strict mother.
I tried to get out, but I was simply not strong enough to bust down that damn door.
As I scrolled down, I saw many photos of people going wild in the cities and videos of homeless people or people who cannot return home who are begging and threatening others for food and water. I also saw them almost killing others to get the food others were kind enough to throw. Many policemen resorted to extortion at gunpoint.
The comments under each post were extremely negative. Many of them wished them death, while others were trying to suggest a way to avoid them. The ones who even showed a slight amount of sympathy were bullied and mass reported, as most of their accounts were banned.
'Everything's going crazy; I never imagined everything would go down this bad.'
I then tried to search for something positive and found out that a lot of wild animals had started to roam freely around the city. The moment of cuteness didn't last for long, as the pinned comment said not to approach them as they were far more aggressive than usual. In the comment, there was a video of someone trying to pet a wild male deer, only to get killed by said deer.
The least disturbing thing I managed to find was someone flying through a random city with four kids with him.
Then Maisha called me.
"What's up?"
"The sky." I answered.
"How funny! Anyway, today I called you because I was a bit worried about you." She seemed nervous and was speaking very fast.
"What's there to worry about?"
"I saw some homeless people break in."
"I'm safe either way; they would need to get through a 3 cm-blinded door to be able to steal my food, and without the key, it's basically impossible to break in, and only my mother has the key, and she's nowhere to be found at the moment." I said this while lying on the bed.
"What about you?"
"We almost died if it wasn't for my dad. The rifle he always held dear came in clutch yesterday."
"And to think you always wanted him to get rid of that."
'That's weird; we don't live that far away from each other, yet I haven't heard a single gunshot.'
"Have you watched the survival trial?" I asked to change the subject.
"No, I didn't. Why are you asking me that now?"
"No reason."
"You know that even the famous Diego Haxion could use magic while not being a magical creature." I tried to mention it in a casual way.
"Are you really still obsessed with-"
"Hey, listen to me for a second. He's learning magic from an alien. He calls it "aura" and it's extremely similar to what mana is for magical creatures."
"Ben, I think it's time to let go of that-"
"Hang on, this is the best part. I have practiced almost the same thing since he started, and I managed for a split second to use it. We can use magic. Do you know what that means?" I was so excited that I jumped out of bed without noticing it.
"Ben, I think you spent too much time alone. For fuck's sake, you and I both know that what you're saying is-"
"Then how can you explain that golden army? Most of them are humans, just like us."
"Even then, I don't think you should-"
"Why should I stop here? I tried my whole life to use magic, and finally it started bearing some fruits." I was a bit upset, but I still tried to keep my composure.
"You almost died multiple times for such a stupid reason, Ben. I really think you should reconsider this. I really love you, and I don't want to suddenly find you dead in your own house, please-" She couldn't finish the sentence as she started sobbing.
I remained speechless.
"Ben, please tell me you're not going to try something dangerous. You promised me when-"
"It's just... I don't... This past month, I discovered so many new things... So much has happened…"
"Ben, please promise." She was crying harder and harder.
"Don't you worry, I'm the best. You chose me after all."
She tried to say something, but it was incomprehensible. I had to wait for what felt like an eternity for her to calm down. At that time, I felt like the biggest asshole in the world for making her so upset.
"Why can't you promise me?" Her voice was still trembling, but I felt a bit of anger from her.
"I… babe-"
"After you learn that, what? Do you have any idea how much it hurts? What's the point of having it?"
"W-when I think of why, the first thing that comes to mind is what happened in Zendal. Do you remember that?"
My answer seemed to have left her speechless for a moment, then she hurried to say:
"Babe, that was my fault; I was distracted at the time and didn't realize-"
"Were it not for your father, right now I wouldn't be yours."
"It was my-" She started sobbing again, but this time I didn't let her finish her sentence.
"How can it be your fault? I was simply too weak. Our world is going through drastic changes. I feel like if I stay this way, I won't be able to stand by your side anymore."
"Promise me then—promise me that as soon as it gets dangerous, you'll stop immediately."
"You have my word." I reassured her, and then the call ended.
As I started to concentrate more and more, I started to feel the flow of aura in my body. My heart was being pumped towards my head and feet. All I had to do was redirect it toward my arms. Of course, saying something is not the same as doing it. It feels like one of those massive rivers that flows extremely fast. I felt like I could get overwhelmed at any moment, but I still continued.
This went on for a couple of days until I was finally able to freely move around the aura inside my body. As Diego also pointed out, it's extremely difficult to move around while also controlling the flow of aura. If I had to give an example, it would be: It's like painting using only your feet while playing an online fighter game. It's not impossible, but I doubt any normal person could achieve such a feat.
On the third day, the intruders knocked on my door and started demanding that I give them my food. I wanted to record the whole thing, but then I remembered that the police weren't a thing anymore, and this has now become a lawless land.
Their threats quickly turned into pleas. They tried to make me pity them by saying they had a baby with them. When that didn't work, they reduced their demands to only water, and then they tried to smash the door. I don't know what else they did, but they triggered the defense system and got themselves killed. To be frank, I didn't even know this mansion had one, so whatever they tried to do, I hope it was worth it.
As soon as the defensive system got activated, all the windows got sealed, and each door got an extra layer of protective sheet metal. My girlfriend called immediately.
"What happened?" she asked.
"I don't know; those homeless triggered something in this house and got themselves killed in the process."
"Are you okay?"
"No, now whatever chance I had to get out has become slimmer and slimmer."
"Don't worry, it won't last long. Anyway, have you heard of what is happening in Heidon?"
"No, what happened?"
"Apparently they can now exit freely and still get the food, so maybe we won't have to wait a long time to be free. I'll definitely free you from there." She said it in a very sweet tone.
"I guess I'm waiting for you then."
I gave her some kisses and then resumed my training and switched to video calling. I wanted to show her my progress.
"So, other than making those strange movements, have you learned something?"
"At the moment, it's extremely hard to make a flame. A heatless flame is even harder, but I can do some home exercise with no problems."
"Really? Wow." She didn't sound impressed at all, but I was happy anyway.
I then took the stance Diego was using and tried to create a flame on top of my hand. It took me a couple of minutes to create it and another couple of minutes to reduce the heat. As I tried to move the flame, it died almost instantly.
"It's much harder than it seems, isn't it?" She smirked.
"Well,yes, so what do you think?"
"I would still prefer it if you didn't learn that altogether, but I'm happy you're doing just fine."
"Of course I'm doing fine. I'm her majesty's one and only knight."
"Please stop that; it's embarrassing." She said this, hiding her face.
When we were kids, we would usually play the knight and the princess. She used to demand that I call her princess.
"You got fitter." She noted this while getting closer to the camera.
"Oh, you mean this?" I said this while flexing my abs and biceps.
"Wanna see more?" I said this as I got my shirt off and started posing.
She started whistling and encouraged me to take off the rest of my clothes. Unfortunately, as I started to get undressed, her father entered her room, so I simply rushed to close the video call.
"Aisha, we can hear you from downstairs. We know you haven't seen each other for a month, but keep it down."
And that was probably one of the worst ways to end my day.