Until his entire body was covered and there seemed to be yellow crackles of lightning. Alsian instantly asumed a running position and took off.
If it wasn't for Samuels ability with his eyes, he wouldn't even have been able to see Alsian. Even to his eyes Alsian moved fast, 'So this was the ability he had used when we were dueling'
It was as if wind and gravity made way for the flow of time as Alsian ran a few laps around the training hall. "Now this magic has several encores. You can increase the speed at the cost of magic!" Alsian shouted while running around, until he finally came to a stop in the same location he had started from.
He turned to Samuel with another cocky smile. "Now I have seen you use your gravity and flight spell, the flight spell is quite basic while the gravity spell is an worthy of being at least a 6th circle spell."
"Of course it works a bit different for a child of mana whom can use the magic a bit more carefree, but the fact that you can increase your own gravity or reduce it..."
Alsian looked at the roof and admitted, "Well, let's just say that if you combine it with the Acceleration spell you would have Flying Accelerated Gravity." He let out a small chuckle.
"You'd be able to become a living projectile that could fly between cities in minutes! There is of course an added strain from using time magic, you wouldn't be able to keep the Acceleration spell up for that long in the beginning!"
"But as you advance and become more used to the strain, well I don't see why you wouldn't be the fastest flying mage out there!" Alsian shrugged.
Samuel only felt that Alsian was exaggerating, but he was eager to try it in the future. "Alright I am ready!" He happily exclaimed with clenched fists.
Alsian raised an eyebrow. "I sure hope so!"
For the next hour Alsian carefully instructed him how to 'loan' time from the flux of time to envelop himself in. It was a more complicated process.
"You can of course take time from your own timeline! But I would only reccomend you do that when you really really need to..." Alsian said after the hour had passed.
"Isn't that easier?" Samuel asked and Alsian nodded. "Yes it is easier, and it also takes your own lifeforce... Your remaining time!"
"It can be great in a pinch, children of mana also live longer. But I am worried what the effects of doing so will do to your bloodline ability! Perhaps time can actually sap your life force in unimaginable ways! So I don't ever want you to do it unless your life is at risk!"
Alsian was speaking sternly and coldly as if he was reminiscing and it wasn't hard to guess that he had probably done it a few times in his life.
Which made Samuel look at Alsian more closely, supposedly a full time chronomancer had extended life combined with a longevity of being a child of mana, Alsian had told him he was in his 60s or something.
By all means he should have looked like he was in his early 20s, but he instead looked like someone in their late 30s.
As if to confirm his suspicion Alsian gave him a sad smile. "The cost of doing it multiple times. It was hard times when I had to risk my life daily! It pushed me to become this strong but it also stole a portion of my life."
He waved his hands about, "Not that I am too worried about it... I will still live for a very long time! Enough time to raise my children well!"
"Children?" Samuel instantly asked. Alsian had never spoken about children before. "Yeah I got several kids on the way. Speaking of which I will introduce you to my wife Sophia some day!"
Before letting Samuel get further off track he clapped his hands. "Enough chit chat about that for now though! You're ready, so let's go!"
Together they prepared the last of it before Samuel tried to finalize the Acceleration spell and use it. He could feel the torrents of time envelop his body and he felt as if he was free to run his heart out.
They ran a few laps together at amazing speed before Samuel had to stop, completely out of breath. "I completely... Forgot... To breathe!" He gasped for air.
"Hahaha, it may be magic but you are still using your legs to run in this scenario!" Alsian couldn't stop laughing for a while. Wiping away a tear of sweat when he finally finished.
"We are moving faster using the time magic, the next step that comes with a lot of training is getting your brain to get used to it. It takes a while before you can make a spell to use for combat."
After taking enough breaths to feel refreshed they used the Acceleration spell a few more times so Samuel could get used to it. Then they moved on to the Time Slowing spell.
It was very much the opposite of Acceleration, so much so it could be called 'Deceleration' rather than speeding up ones own time this one was based on slowing it down - or specifically that of an opponent.
But Alsian brought up that it could actually be used on an ally to save them from certain bad situations.
Much like 'Rewind' was about rewinding time, 'Deceleration' was in the same direction of going backwards. Therefore it was very simple for Samuel to learn it, by looking at it as the opposite of 'Acceleration' and it was true because the spells were essentially opposites of one another.
The hard part was learning how to cast it on Alsian while he was running around with speed. But eventually he managed to cast it on him a few times and it made Alsian look like he was running through a swamp or really deep mud pit.
The realization dawned on Samuel, "Wait! This reminds me of how I see things with my eyes!" Alsian gave him a thumbs up.
"Yep I assumed that your eyes have an inherent ability that kind of belongs to the same caliber, but rather than slowing down time like the spell - your eyes slow down the rate at which your head can take in information."
"Or speeds it up is the more correct term I suppose, it looks like everything slows down, while in reality you just process information a lot faster. Allowing you to react to things... Faster!"
Alsian wanted them to repeat accelerating and decelerating things several times just to make sure they stuck around. Much to his surprise he was having an extremely fun time teaching Samuel everything.
It felt like he was teaching out his legacy so the time quickly passed, until Alsian realized it was already quite late. "I think we need to pick this up another time! We have been going back and forth for hours now, training all this... And here I said I would keep it short!" Alsian sighed with a small chuckle.
"Can't you teach me the last spell first?" Samuel excitedly asked, he felt tired as well but he still wanted to keep going and for the first time in a long time Alsian looked at Samuel and saw the little kid he had seen whenever he had visited his cousins farm.
Through the ages the boy had been growing bigger, it made Alsians heart twist and he could only feel sorrow before seeing the man that was not standing in front of him... Almost completely grown up.
All he lacked was the wisdom of living for a while. With a happy sigh Alsian nodded, "Alright! I will teach you."
"For the 'Stop' spell it is all about completely blocking the flow of time!" Alsian demonstrated by holding his hands together, then he made one a fist and the other a palm and punched the fist into the palm that was blocking it.
"Bringing their timeline to a temporary stop!"
"Of course this spell has a lot of uses, it is useful in combat for its versatility, but it is not useful for attacking! Because when you stop the timeline of someone they become nigh immune to damage that flows from the timeline that continues."
"Only a very rare few of our already rare numbers have found ways to damage something stopped in time!" Alsian held out a dagger and dropped it, but he stopped it in time almost instantly.
He then took out another dagger and started slicing at the dagger that was stopped, Samuel could see that there was the same shimmering field of gold that didn't allow anything to pass through.
Leaving no damage to the stopped object, not even after Alsian released the spell was there any damage. "So it is good for specific moments, much like other time magic!" Samuel stated and Alsian seemed pleased with his statement.