Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

‘What even is sleep? I have no memory of what it is but I know it is important for some reason.’ Arthur looked up to the roof of the tent. ‘Why am I even here? Was I put here by a greater power or am I simply a fluke.’

Arthur raised his hand to look at his hand. ‘It's not like when I first woke up. I can protect myself now from any of those horrible goblins if I meet any more. All I need is more practice and I'll be a force to be reckoned with.’ Arthur closed his hand into a fist as he finished his thoughts before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.

*******

Arthur woke in the tent and sat up on the mat. Looking around the tent he saw Cassia asleep on a bed in a corner.

‘So that's what sleep is like.’ Arthur recalled his dream vividly. He saw many things and people that felt familiar yet also quite foreign to him. Arthur looked down at his hand again feeling his mana flowing through him. ‘It's just a matter of time.’

Arthur remained in the tent waiting for Cassia to wake so she could cast Comprehend Language on him, that way he could actually speak to people.

‘For the time being I should practice mana manipulation and see if I can get it to level two.’

Arthur took up a comfortable seating position and resumed his training by manipulating the mana in his body.

/- - - - - -\

+ Mana manipulation Level 1

\- - - - - -/

The speed and the amount of mana Arthur could manipulate increased by about 10 percent. It still wasn’t much for a proper mage but someone just starting out like Arthur this was a great accomplishment.

‘Excellent. Now I should try manipulating the water in the cup again.’ Arthur took the cup of water that was still on the small table he left it on the night before.

‘Now I need to somehow use my mana to move the water.’ Arthur focused his mana towards the water to fill the cup with a bit of mana. The mana slowly flowed towards the water and when it made contact nothing happened.

‘What? Why?’ Arthur asked himself confused as to why his mana did not displace the water.

‘It's not even interacting with the water. It's like the mana doesn’t actually exist. Does it take a while or something?’ With nothing else to do Arthur decided to try to leave the small amount of mana in the water while maintaining control over it. Worst case scenario it will function as mana manipulation practice.

For several minutes Arthur sat there moving his mana around the cup in a clockwise rotation and soon unknowingly the water began to do the same. Arthur could feel his control over his mana changing slightly. It wasn’t weaker, just not what he was used to.

When Arthur opened his eyes to see why that was he was surprised to see that it wasn’t his mana rotating on its own anymore, now the water was too.

/- - - - - -\

+ Hydromancy Level 0 (New)

+ Mana manipulation Level 2

\- - - - - -/

Arthur looked upon his little whirlpool in surprise. ‘I can feel the water's current as little as it might be.’ Arthur tried to have the water float above the cup but only a small amount did so.

‘My control must not be strong enough to do that.’ Arthur thought. ‘Will I need to bring around a cup of water every time I need to do magic. But none of the other magic users I saw had to bring water or fire around with them, the ones manipulating earth didn’t really need to worry about that though.’

Arthur's eyes caught something on Cassia’s bedside table, a small wooden stick clearly made by a competent carpenter.

‘I’ve seen something like that before. Those other magic users had big staves and little… sticks, do those act as a supplement for natural water and fire. They must have some sort of magic imbued into them that allows them to hold magic that then can be used at command.’

A sound to Arthurs right interrupted his thoughts. Cassia sat up on her bed raising her hands above her as she yawned and stretched.

“Good morning Arthur.” Arthur, not understanding what she said, pointed to his ear.

“Oh, sorry Arthur.” Cassia rushed over and cast Comprehend Language on Arthur.

“That is rather handy.” Arthur chuckled.

“If you practice enough one day you will be able to as well. Given your class passive skills you could very easily become an arch magus within 20 years.”

“Well I have already made some progress on that part.” Arthur showed the floating water to Cassia with a smile on his face.

“What!? How did you!? It's only been a day!?” Cassia was flabbergasted by Arthurs progress as not even the best prodigies throughout history were able to learn so fast.

“Just a little bit of luck and trial and error.”

Cassia stood in her place for several seconds before she recovered her stance. “Well as your teacher I am very proud of you.” Cassia tried and failed to hide her jealousy.

“Thank you very much, my humble teacher. Is there anything else you want to teach me?”

“Not for now. I need to attend a meeting regarding your discoveries in the stronghold. Until I come back you should continue practicing hydromancy. I expect it will be a while given how much ground you covered.”

“Do you know how long the meeting will last?”

“Several hours I expect.” Cassia sighed. “If you ever choose to join the mages guild, avoid a position that requires lots of meetings. They drain the life out of you even in small amounts.”

“I will see you when you get back then.” Arthur and Cassia said their goodbyes.

While Cassia was attending the meeting Arthur continued to practice hydromancy.

‘I’ve been doing this for an hour now.’ The large droplet of water floated as Arthur split it in two and made one circle the other. ‘If I am to make more progress I will probably need to manipulate more water.’

Arthur reached to the cup of water and set it in front of where he sat. While reconnecting the water he had before and keeping it floating above his left hand he reached out his right hand towards the cup. His hand only a few inches from the water.

With great difficulty Arthur was able to gather a few droplets of water and have them float above the cup. The pitiful amount of water shook as though Arthur could control at any second.

For Arthur it felt like he was holding that extra water forever until…

/- - - - - -\

+ Hydromancy Level 1

\- - - - - -/

Suddenly the water stopped shaking and Arthur could feel his control over the water he currently had easily doubled.

Arthur could feel that the amount of water he could control was vastly increased even if it was only relative to what he could do before.

‘Alight. Hydromancy clearly takes more effort and time to improve upon as opposed to just manipulating mana. That's probably because mana doesn’t have any physical properties and isn’t affected by things like gravity or even physical objects for the most part.’

Arthur continued with his hydromancy training and gradually increased the amount of water he was manipulating. Suddenly Arthur started to feel a slight headache that soon became so bad he couldn’t focus anymore.

“Oh fuck.” Arthur clutched his head. ‘I can hear my ears ringing and I feel exhausted. I should lay down for a minute or at least until the ringing stops.’ Arthur learned back onto the mat and looked up towards the ceiling.

Minus the ringing and exhaustion Arthur felt quite good about himself, he was learning magic after all and based on what Cassia said he was likely doing very well.

Perhaps he had simply overdone his magic training and that's why his ears started ringing. He would need to ask Cassia when she gets back. After about 20 minutes the ringing had completely subsided along with the feeling of exhaustion.

Arthur sat up and he thought of something that may be important. ‘From what I can tell it is daytime here. That means that the training area might be in use and if I'm right Hambel will be there.’

Arthur quickly stood up and rushed out of the tent with his sword. ‘I don’t expect I will be using my magic in combat for a while, so I should at the very least learn the basics of how to use a sword. Preferably from Hambel.’

Recalling the way from the night before, Arthur quickly made his way to the training area passing a few other people who he had seen the day before.

When Arthur arrived at the training area he could see a few people in a variety of different armours from leather to plate training. Sitting at one of the tables drinking something from a mug was Hambel.

“Hey Hambel.” Arthur waved as he made his way towards the table. When Hambel saw Arthur a large grin formed.

“Hey there Arthur. What brings you out here?”

“I thought I should take a break from magic and learn a bit about swords from you.”

“You’re learning magic? Is Cassia teaching you?”

“Yes she taught me a bit and left me to go to a meeting.”

“Oh, How much have you learned so far?”

“Well I learned to do this.” Arthur reached out his hand towards the mug in Hambel’s hand and lifted about a handful of the pale straw coloured liquid up and above Arthur’s hand.

“Nymbus beard!” Hambel shouted as he almost fell on his seat. “You learned that in a day!?”

“Cassia said that I am very talented.” A large grin formed on Arthur's face.

“Well you certainly are something. I never had any talent for magic, or many others in my family for that matter. We Dwarves leave that for elves and you humans for the most part.”

“Speaking of magic recently I had a terrible headache and my ears started ringing when I was practicing magic earlier, do you know what that was?”

“Well i'm not a mage but you most likely just overused your mana. You only have so much and if you use too much you will start to feel unwell. So be careful because in some very extreme cases people have been killed by it.”

“Well then it's a good thing I stopped then.”

Hambel stood up from the table. “You said you wanted to learn swordsmanship did you?”

“Yes I did.”

“Well then follow me then.” Hambel walked towards the training area picking up two training swords on the way. The two took up a corner where they wouldn't be disturbed unless someone went out of their way.

“First things first-” Hambel tossed Arthur one of the training swords “-show me how you hold your blade.”

Arthur held his training sword that was in the shape of a longsword, clearly Hambel is more perceptive than he looks. Taking a two handed grip on the sword with his right hand above his left he held the sword out in front of him with the dull blade pointed towards Hambel.

“Not terrible for someone with no training, but I think it would be better to show you the problems with your stance than tell you.”

Hambel took his position holding his far shorter sword with just one hand. “Go ahead, show me what you can do.”