Chapter Fifty Nine: Retracing Her Steps…
It was five years before Greg left the cave.
Five years in which he was being taught how to walk. While he could walk from the very first moment he came into this vision, he couldn't walk the way obsidian earthmovers could. His mother would spend half her time outside the cave foraging for food. Both her own and some that she would bring to him. The other half, when they weren't resting was spent training. Her mother would walk around him in a circle, stop, and then look at him. Greg didn't know if being merged with the beast had made him stupider or if it was memory being a true reflection of how it had been with the real beast. However, it took a month for him to understand that when his mother stopped, he was supposed to mirror her actions by walking a full circle around her and coming to a stop where he started.
And if that wasn't bad enough, it took him almost a year to understand that this wasn't just a game, his mother was actually trying to teach him something. In sharp contrast, the large beast would walk around him, her steps quiet as a whisper. He, on the other hand, would sometimes walk, sometimes run around her like an excitable child, his footfalls echoing out in the large cave they were in. The difference didn't register in his mind until he'd already done it thousands of times. When it finally registered in his mind what his mother was trying to get him to do, then began four grueling years of trying to move the earth with his feet.
As someone who had seen the fearsome might of the obsidian earthmover, the last thing he'd ever have associated with the beast was patience. Those five years inside that cave, however, changed his mind. Not only was he slow to pick up on what his mother was trying to teach him, but even after he finally understood it, it took years for him to finally do the same. During that time, Greg sometimes grew frustrated and started throwing tantrums, refusing to cooperate, and running into the walls of the cave. Sometimes even into his poor mother. Given how much thicker her armor was compared to his, however, he probably hurt himself more than he did her. He, however, knew firsthand just how little it took to piss off such a creature.
Had his mother felt like it, she could have easily stomped him to death or gored him through with her impressive tusk. Whenever he got into such a nasty mood, however, all his mother would do was gently corral him until his side was pressed up against her front legs and her massive head gently resting on her other side. Even as a young creature, he understood the gesture to be the embrace that it was. And somehow, with the secret magic all mothers seemed to have, it always seemed to calm him down. With gentle encouragement from her, he would soon be back to trying to figure out how to get the earth under him to move the way he wanted it to.
The one thing his mother remained completely firm about was the fact that Greg wasn't allowed outside of the cave. It was a mercy that his mother could simply move the earth to bury all their waste otherwise the place would have become intolerable pretty fast. Both out of curiosity and boredom, Greg had on many occasions tried to leave but had always been rebuffed. If his mother was present, she would just push him back inside the cave. Whenever she left to go get food she would cause small sharp spikes to grow all over the floor around the cave entrance. Spikes that his armor was not yet thick enough to overcome. It wasn't until his third year inside the cave that it clicked inside his mind that if he learned to walk like his mother did, the spikes wouldn't be a problem. She was making it so he equated knowing how to move with freedom.
In his fifth year, it finally clicked in Greg's mind what he was missing. And when it did, he also understood why his mother had to keep him confined to the cave. Starting in his fourth year, he started lying on the cave floor unmoving for long periods. After years inside a small empty cave, there was only so much exploration, prancing around, and playing that one could do. There was a small depression on the floor where he usually slept. It had formed as a result of his stony skin grinding away at the stone under him. It was in this small crook that he would quietly spend most of his day. It's a good thing his mother would insist that they play the circling-each-other game whenever she was around otherwise he would have just laid there until his muscles atrophied and he went into catatonia.
It was only after a year of lying on the ground that he felt the connection he had to it. The way he learned of the connection wasn't all that glamorous but it worked all the same. His mother walked into the cave using her earth manipulation abilities to drag a tree behind her whose leaves Greg loved to chew on. Over the months of lying in his little crook, however, Greg had come to love just sitting there on the floor in constant contact with the earth under him. Not even the temptation of the leaves made him want to move. His mother, however, would have none of it. He wasn't going to starve on her watch. She would keep nudging him with her nose until eventually Greg gave in.
On this particular day, Greg was feeling particularly attached to his small patch of dirt and didn't want to be moved. His mother, however, was relentless, and eventually, he had no choice but to give in. Feeling a bit resentful and unwilling to lose any more contact with the earth than he had to, Greg dragged his feet all the way over to where the tree was. Much to his surprise, however, his mother started to bellow and snort in the particular way she always did when she was happy. She also started running circles around him. Although confused at first, he was eventually swept up in his mother's joy and started running circles around her. It wasn't until they had been at this for a while that he picked up on the fact that the only sounds he could hear were the vocal sounds they were making. Looking down, he realized that all this time, the earth had been moving under him whenever he moved. He hadn't dragged his feet over to the tree, he had gotten the earth to move with him.
That was the first time he felt his connection to the earth below him and it was the starkest realization he ever had up to that point in his life. Rather than forcing it to do his bidding, Greg only had to communicate his intent to the earth below him through their connection. Rather than tell it to rise when he wanted to take a step, he only had to ask it to take a step with him. They weren't two antagonistic forces but rather, two parts of a duet in a dance with each other. When he moved, so long as he was clear in his intent, the earth would move with him. When he took a step, it did too. It was a weak and tenuous connection at first and if his mother hadn't confined him to that empty and bland cave, he probably would never have found it. Boring and sometimes frustrating as it was, being forced to stay in one place surrounded by nothing but stone for close to five years is what eventually allowed him to connect to the element in a way that he otherwise never would have…
***
Alena opened her eyes when she felt someone enter the cave. Turning her head towards the side of the cave where the teleportation room was hidden behind a wall, she watched as the form of her student, Roka, walked through the wall and into the cave. But while it was his form, she knew that it wasn't the real Roka. The real Roka was still seated cross-legged just a few feet away from her holding the obsidian earthmover's beast-core. As such, there was no surprise on her face as she watched the Roka that had just walked in slowly morph back into the form of the familiar.
"I've told his mother and sister that he'll be busy with you for a few days and that they shouldn't worry," she stated.
"What did they say?" Alena asked neutrally.
An amused smile crossed the familiar's lips as she answered. "His mother quietly told him that he shouldn't try to bed you lest you kill him," She relayed.
In any other situation, Alena would have found the warning just as amusing as the familiar seemed to find it. At present, however, her worry for her student wouldn't allow her to find much humor in anything. Her gaze turned to the mouth of the cave, the bright orange colors of the twilight sky telling her that the sun was about to set. Her hand unconsciously clenched in worry as she turned to once again regard the boy, Roka. Since morning right after his infusion of mana and their discussion on his elemental awareness, Roka had been stuck like this. She had been forced to give him the other two infusions of mana while he was still in this state. So far Roka had been forbidden from controlling his mana in any way. As such, the fact that he wasn't in conscious control of himself didn't affect the process in any way. Still, with every passing moment, she grew more worried.
When calm and relaxed, Alena could create a formidable soul tether formation in about five to six hours. Her fear drove her, however, and she had managed to put together the soul tether formation around the two of them in roughly two hours. How to perfectly fit the different elements of this new formation in between the central sigil and the first formation that they'd erroneously prepared had been quite the challenge. She, however, had always been able to rise to the occasion whenever she was put under pressure and she'd done so this time as well. Olivia's help and input had also been instrumental in helping her accomplish this. Finishing the new formation, however, turned out to be the easy part. What came after was the real challenge…
***
For almost five years Greg had been curious about and looking forward to finally leaving the cave. When the time finally came, however, he found himself feeling nervous about it. His mother stood just outside the cave looking in, calmly waiting for him to work up the courage to leave. The spikes were still all over the floor at the mouth of the cave. They, however, had spent the past one month inside the cave training his movements. By now, his connection to the earth under him wasn't as tenuous as it had been the first time they had connected to it. There was no fear in him that he wouldn't be able to cross the threshold of the cave. Instead, it was the prospect of what lay outside the safety of his familiar cave that had him hesitating.
In the end, however, his curiosity and anticipation won out over his fear and he walked out into the wide open world… only for him to run back into the cave after seeing just how big it was outside the cave. In the end, it took a lot of coaxing and silent encouragement from his mother before he was willing to leave again. Over the next weeks, they slowly explored the area around the cave, his mother allowing him to become used to the idea of the outside bit by bit. At the start, his mother would always be the first one out of the cave where she would wait for him to muster the courage to follow. By the end of the third week, however, the order flipped and he would be the one to exit first, making impatient noises for his mother to follow behind him. It was six months later when they finally left the cave for the final time.
In reality, creatures such as them weren't sedentary. If they found a good place, they could mark out a territory, and hang around for a year or two before moving on. Otherwise, no one place could sustain creatures like them for too long. In the course of the five years that his mother had been in one place raising him, she'd gradually been forced to go further and further away from the cave just to find enough food to sustain both herself and him. Towards the end of the five years, most of her time outside the cave was spent just walking to and from her feeding grounds. It was in their travels outside the cave that Greg learned the next facet of his connection with the earth.
As it turns out, within the confines of a small cave, he could easily keep up with his mother. It was once they were outside the cave and in the open forests and plains that he learned just how great the gulf not only in speed and endurance there was between the two of them. Large as she was, and unhurried as her steps seemed to be, she somehow always managed to pull ahead of him. He would often find himself having to run just to keep up with her walking. And while the difference in their size might have explained part of it, it couldn't fully account for why even while running, the gap between his mother and himself would still grow. And unlike back when he was in the cave, this time his mother wasn't quite as willing to coddle him as before. Not only would she never stop or slow down for him, but even when Greg seemed to be catching up she would somehow pick up pace without moving any faster. For the next year, Greg would be dead tired by the time the end of the day came along. Despite his best efforts, he never caught up by the end of the day, instead his mother usually had to circle back to where he'd collapsed from exhaustion.
It took him a whole year to learn the concept of borrowing strength from the earth. And while the pace might be considered slow by some, compared to his former learning speed, it was rather fast. Asking the earth to move with him was all fine and dandy as a foundation for his future abilities. In the end, however, it was little more than a waste of energy and mana, not to mention pointless. After all, he was already moving himself, what did it matter if the earth moved as well? It wasn't until one afternoon, watching his mother seemingly walk leisurely in the distance that his frustration made him stomp the ground with utter frustration wanting to move as fast as she was. Greg who'd been huffing and puffing as he ran after her at the time, almost fell forward on his snout when the earth shifted forward slightly.
Having already grown steadily familiar with his earth connection over the course of that one year, he immediately picked up on the difference. For the first time in a long time, he just stood frozen in one place. It was one of those moments where just one piece falls into place and suddenly the whole puzzle snaps together into one coherent picture. It suddenly clicked in his mind why, despite never looking like she was moving with any haste, his mother was always moving far faster than he was. Even better, why, despite this, she never seemed to get tired the way he did! As it turns out, she wasn't wasting energy getting the earth to repeat what she was already doing. Instead, she was borrowing the strength of the earth to propel herself forward. As such she was moving at two, three, even four times the speed for less than half the energy simple walking would require. Just three days after making this discovery, he was easily and leisurely moving beside his mother…
***
"You are his familiar! You are supposed to be connected to him at the level of the soul! How is it that you can't reach him, even with the formation?" Alena asked with clear frustration.
The soul-tether formation, as its name suggests is supposed to act as an anchor. A lifeline that one can draw on to find their way back to reality no matter how deep into an illusion they sink. Even more than just being a road map back to reality, it also acts as a way of preserving one's identity so that, no matter what they see, hear, or feel within the illusion, they won't lose themselves to it. By the time they had finished carving out the soul-tether formation, Roka had only been inside the illusion for two hours. Alena had been already worried as depending on the illusion, years may have already passed inside his head. That, however, had been more than a day before.
Since then, they made several attempts to connect with Roka's soul, all for naught. He had already gone into the illusion without first being anchored by the soul-tether formation, so some difficulty in connecting to him was to be expected. The complete lack of even minimal success, however, left the two of them both stunned and completely baffled. At first, they had thought that in their rush, they had probably gotten something wrong with the formation. They had gone over it again with a fine tooth comb looking for anything that might explain their failure. But other than one or two minor errors that didn't, in the final analysis, affect the formation all that much, they found nothing.
After there were no more flaws left in the formation, they made another try. Given that she made the first attempt, Alena allowed the familiar to make the second one, hoping that she would have greater success than her. Two hours later, the familiar too gave up in frustration. Whatever was going on with the boy and the beast core, he seemed to have been locked off beyond their reach with the formation. Whether he would pull through this whole ordeal, seemed to depend entirely on the boy alone, a proposition that left her with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. And so they had alternated in their attempts to make use of the soul-tether formation half a dozen more times, all to no avail.
"As I've told you three times already, I can only tell what is going on with him based on the thoughts and emotions passing through his mind. As soon as he connected to the beast-core, it's like his soul got locked behind a fort. No matter what I do, I can't reach him through our connection. I mean, if it was that easy, do you think I'd be sitting here with your grumpy self? She countered. The answer was snippy, but so had been her question, so Alena couldn't exactly blame Olivia. The two of them were just an unhealthy mixture of worried and frustrated.
"Ca… can we contact her?" Alena tentatively asked. There was clear hesitation in her voice as she did. Part of it was because of the capricious nature of such powerful beings. The last time they had called her she had seemed perfectly reasonable. But that may have been merely because she had something of worth to offer her in trade. Who knows how she would act if called on for this? The other reason behind the hesitation in her voice was the price they would be asked to pay. Alena wasn't naïve. Help from such beings never came with no strings attached. A sorcerer she once knew had warned her that it's not when they ask for exorbitant payments for their aid that you should be worried. It's when they offered to do something for a pittance, or worse, for free that you should run for the hills. If they called on Olivia's true self, perhaps what she would ask in return would be something neither she nor her student would be willing to pay, worse yet, she might not ask for something, keeping this as a card against them that she could use at any point.
"Have you ever had students, Alena?" Came the strange question from the familiar.
A number of faces fleeted through Alena's mind even as she nodded. "I've taken a few under my wing over the years," She replied.
"Did you swoop in to save them every time they got themselves into a bit of trouble?" The familiar followed up with another question. Alena remained quiet, the answer not having to be spoken out loud. Part of nurturing one's students was allowing them to make their own mistakes and to learn from them. Alena had been prepared to pay exorbitantly for any help offered, she hadn't been ready for complete apathy and disinterest. "If I were to try and summon my true self because of this, she would do little more than glance our way before going on with whatever else she has going on.
"But… but, what's happening here has probably never happened before in the magical world! Wouldn't she, at least, be interested in that?" she countered.
"Why do you think she would even bother to glance this way?" Olivia questioned in a flat tone. "My true self has been alive for so long Alena, that it would break your mind to just consider it. The number of times she's encountered something that has never been seen before in the magical world is such that such things stopped garnering her interest thousands of cycles ago," Olivia informed her. "At the risk of sounding vain, the fact that you discovered something that actually interested my true self enough for her to descend is probably the biggest accolade of your life," She added with a shrug.
While it did indeed sound vain, Alena understood what the familiar meant. In a way, she shouldn't have been that surprised. Even the first time she descended, when Alena had tried to use Roka as a bargaining chip, Olivia's true self had countered that she had several backups to what it was she was doing with the boy. If Roka got himself killed, she highly doubted that Olivia's true self would notice let alone care. With a sigh, she turned back to the boy. "I'm going to give it another…"
The words faded from the healer's lips as her eyes caught something she hadn't noticed before. It took a few seconds for her to recognize what it was she was looking at. Alena remembered that she hadn't taken back the Azra's bead from the boy even as her eyes went round as saucers! Was… was the bead glowing brighter than before?…
***
Inevitably, the time came when he had to part ways with his mother. From start to end, they had been together for almost twenty years. Through all kinds of terrain and seasons they had stuck together, Greg slowly learning from his mother. Not only about his connection to the earth but also about how to survive in general. The best plants and trees to eat from and which to avoid. Which terrains they do best in and which ones to avoid. Which beasts they could afford to challenge and which ones were to be avoided completely. How to stay cool in the heat of summer and how to keep warm in the chill of winter. Everything from the big to the small, his mother had quietly passed on to him through the years.
In that time, he had grown, not only to match his mother's size but to actually tower over her. From running After her when he was younger, now he was the one pacing his steps so he didn't leave her behind. Whether it be instinct or something else, Greg wasn't sure how he knew it. He, however, knew that his mother was old among their kind. He was among her last, if not the last calf she would ever have. He probably had a few other siblings that came before him, but having never met them he was only concerned for his mother. Which was why it came as such a shock when she left.
After years of them going to sleep together and waking up together, it never even occurred to him to stay vigilant lest she leave in the middle of the night. But that's just what she did. After years of learning from her, Greg almost immediately knew that this was her final lesson. That he needed to learn how to make it on his own. The knowledge, however, didn't stop him from running around for hundreds of miles for almost a week looking for her. All for naught. Whether he was the one that went in the wrong direction, or his mother that knew how to evade his pursuit, he would never know. All he knew was that she was gone.
In the end, scared, sad, and angry, he'd searched out a mountain and dug a cave into it, just like his mother had once shown him how to. A cave big enough that his mother could also fit inside with him, and then lay on the floor waiting for her just like he used to when he was a calf. A week passed by in this manner and despite his hunger and thirst, he never left that cave, lest she come and not find him. This was the reason Greg was so elated when, through his earth connection, he felt the steps of another creature like himself. Probably delirious from hunger and thirst, it never even occurred to him that it could be anyone other than his mother. This was the first time the earth was turned against him.
Over the years, while they moved around with his mother, she had always avoided others of their kind whenever they encountered their territories. As such, the one thing his mother hadn't taught him, whether directly or by watching her do so, was how to fight. Sure, they had play-fought before, but it had all been in the spirit of play and not with any serious intent to harm. Which was why he was so unprepared for his first fight. When Greg left his cave and ran in the direction of the footsteps he felt through his earth connection, only to find another of his kind that he'd never met before, he was heartbroken. It felt like he'd been abandoned all over again. The pain quickly turned to anger and without thinking or care for his presently weakened state, he charged at the other male.
The only reason he made it out of that fight alive was because the other male was a juvenile just like him. A few years older and more experienced in fighting yes, but not quite as lethal as a mature bull would have been. The other male had been in enough fights that against a novice like him, he could easily dominate. He, however, hadn't refined the art of fighting enough to be able to take his life with ease despite Greg's inexperience and weakened state. On his part, Greg was stunned the first time the earth he had grown so used to and dependent on was turned against him. Boulders shot up into his belly and knocked the wind out of him, spikes sent into his armor trying to sink into his flesh, and dust sent up his nose trying to suffocate him from within. By the time Greg regained enough sense to turn and run, he cut a sorry figure. Battered and bloody, he barely managed to escape, the earth under him doing the bigger part in his escape…
***
It was the end of the sixth day since Roka received the obsidian earthmover's beast-core and sunk into an illusion. Seated opposite him also with her eyes closed trying to use the soul-tether formation to reach him inside the illusion, was his familiar Olivia. Alena, on the other hand, had a large tome out with the black quill independently flying across its pages. She was speaking out loud every single change that the boy's mana pathways exhibited so that the quill could record them. Kept stuck to the top of his head by a minor adhering spell, was the pathways scrying orb. The clear glass orb that she had used to track the development of Roka's mana pathways since they began using this new awakening method.
It's odd, almost unbelievable how things come together sometimes. Just six days ago, the boy had come up with the theory that one's affinities had something to do with their mana pathways. A day later, the evidence one would need to prove that theory presents itself. Of course, there were some prohibitively expensive potions out there that could help improve one's affinities, but no one had ever thought to look a the mana pathways of the ones taking it right after they took the potion. Besides, Alena doubted that the potions would have as pronounced an effect as the one she was witnessing in the boy.
Roka had a poor affinity for magic in general. That the earth element was his best affinity did not mean that he had a strong affinity with it. Put up against most other mages of the earth element and his affinity would be bottom of the barrel. He would have been an earth mage simply because it just happened to be the best one among his other, frankly, trash-tier affinities. Over the last five days, however, the light from the bead had been steadily increasing. Roka had gone from having a terrible affinity for the earth element to an average one.
Before, his best hope, if one was being realistic, was getting to the fourth tier and going no further. And even then, getting to the fourth tier would have required that he put everything he could into the effort. Her promise to get him to the fifth tier could only be made because it was in a school of magic that she herself had already ascended through before. Now, looking at the glowing bead in the boy's hands, the fifth tier wasn't too far-fetched for him. The sixth tier was a distinct possibility if he was diligent. The seventh tier could also be achieved if he put everything he had and more into the effort of ascending the tiers.
Alena was glad that she had been meticulous in tracking the development of the boy's mana pathways right from the start till now. It was because of this that she was able to pick up, not only on the more noticeable changes in his mana pathways but even the minor ones that would have been all too easy to miss. Without his theory, she would have never known where to look to understand the changes in his affinity. With it, however, not only did she know where to look, but she'd also gotten the direct proof that he'd been right, with the changes to his mana pathways, his affinity was also changing along with it.
Of course, she wasn't unaware of the fact that this new change rendered her previous study of the new awakening process moot. She had been closely studying how his mana pathways and possibly his core would develop as a result of awakening him through the sigil. The significant changes to his mana pathways over the past five days meant that she could no longer ascribe the end result to just the sigil. It was a bit annoying and frustrating to scrap all her previous work, but neither she nor the boy had known what to expect going into this. Neither could take the blame. As things stood, Alena just took it all in stride and hoped that it would all work out in the end.
A gasp from Olivia as she opened her eyes caused hope and anxiety to well up in Alena in equal measure as she turned to the familiar. "What is it? Did you connect to him?" She asked.
The familiar, however, shook her head. "No. I think the illusion has run its course," She reported with clear worry at what to expect, in her voice. "He… he's coming out on his own," she added…