Novaris: Adventure in the Shattered Fang Continent

The party took some time to rest and recuperate before continuing their walk toward the area where the fey bunnies had been spotted. During this brief respite, they checked the area where the portal had opened and couldn’t find any aberrations. Under the assumption that the bear had been sucked into the Astral, they left things be. After all, even if the two brain huggers survived, it’s not like they could do much about it since the two monsters were now safely in the Astral.

Approaching the area where the bunnies had been, they didn’t find anything since the monsters wouldn’t just wait around. Tesilim had been hoping that his ability would update and point him toward where the bunnies were, but sadly, it was not to be. They had to find the bunnies the hard way, which, for at least Tesilim, meant more training.

“Alright, Tes. I know you have been working hard to cast spells via your presence, as instructed. However, now it's time for you to learn another crucial ability.” Alyx said, breaking the silence of the group.

“And what's that?” Tesilim asked, turning towards the gnome from where he had been looking around, trying to find bunny footprints.

“Tracking, or to be precise, sensing.” Lili chimed in.

Tesilim, not the dumbest tool in the shed, got what they were saying and quickly spread his presence outwards. He could feel the mana around them floating upwards as it always did. As he tried to sense his surroundings Tesilim realized that he had been relying on his sight and other senses more than he thought. So far he had been able to scare things off with his presence because he had been able to actually see the creatures. Seeing them helped him focus his presence on them, helping pierce through their natural hiding capabilities. Now, however, as he felt around, he couldn’t detect jack squat. Not even his companions that were right in front of him. In fact, his shocked face gave Alyx and Lili all the information they needed.

“Well, glad to see you aren’t fully an idiot.” Lili teased.

“I'm glad we are finally able to cover this. Honestly, we have been trying to get you to be stealthy and all that but have yet to show you how to sense things properly. That's definitely our fault.” Added Alyx as his teaching sensibilities came to light.

“Wait, he doesn’t know how to sense things with his presence?” Rose questioned in a tone that clearly stated how shocked she was that she had been traveling with such a newbie.

“Hey Tesilim, how long have you been using magic?” Jasmine asked genuinely as he gave the elf an “aww, you poor soul” look.

“Uh…” Tesilim had to think for a second before responding, “I think it should be maybe three months now.”

“See, Rose, he is barely just starting. Give him some credit.”

“Alright, that's fair. He is pretty good, considering we all got top-tier training.” Rose added, responding to Jasmine while giving Tesilim a thumbs up.

“Thanks? I guess?” Tesilim answered before looking back to Alyx so he could continue his lesson.

“Alright, this is going to take a minute. Why don’t you guys get comfortable.” The gnome said as he threw his little box to the ground, getting odd looks from Jasmine and Rose. Well, at least until the box unfolded into a door, which then opened, revealing the room inside.

“By Sol’s Light! That is amazing!” Shouted Rose in excitement as she approached the door.

“That is amazing! Alyx, where did you get this!?” Jasmine added, her shocked face matching Rose’s.

“Uh, a custom item from a friend. Feel free to make yourself comfortable.” The gnome answered with a smile on his face. He could never get over seeing and hearing the reactions from others upon seeing the incredibly magical item that even someone like Tesilim could sense. Speaking of Tesilim, who was staring longley at the doorway, Alyx needed to return to the lesson.

“Alright, Tesilim, this whole lesson is actually really straightforward. Sensing other things is much like identifying them. You need to use your own power to overcome their defenses in order to sense what's underneath.”

“So, kind of like spell casting through my presence I need to focus my will through it, but then what? With a spell, I am just focusing on one spot. Wouldn’t it drain me if I tried to constantly do so over a large area?”

“It would, at least at these low ranks. What you need to do is send out pulses of your will through your presence. Start slow. You will get lots of information back as you overcome all the weaker bugs around here. Shouldn’t be too bad, though, since your presence shouldn’t be able to spread too far just yet.”

Heeding Alyx’s advice, Tesilim sent out his presence to its max reach of around 12 feet in an all-encompassing sphere around him. Well, it was not all-encompassing since it didn’t penetrate the earth more than an inch or two, something Tesilim figured was something he also needed to work on. It didn’t take long for Tesilim to get the ability to work, and the delay mostly came from him trying to figure out how to detach his will.

So far, when he had attempted to cast spells, it had been by stretching an ethereal line of his will outwards and using it as an extension, then making his magic come out from the tip of the line. Thinking back on that, Tesilim felt there was no way that's how the pros like Alyx used their presences to cast. He imagined casting through your presence was properly done by just having your will completely fill the space of your presence, making it like a small domain. He doubted he could do such a thing at such a low rank without being drained, but he figured it was knowledge that was good to have.

Back to his challenge of releasing his will, Tesilim found that if he thought of himself like a signal tower, the idea of sending out his will without it being attached to him was much easier. The first pulse spread out from him as it traveled outward from somewhere in his chest. Not where his heart was but instead to its side on the spot right at the center where his spine was. It took a second for Tesilim to realize what was happening and why it had come from there, but in retrospect, it was obvious. That was where the soul was. He hadn’t thought about it before, but the soul had to be somehow attached to a person. For some reason, he had thought it wouldn’t actually be located somewhere so straightforward. Instead, Tesilim thought it would be attached to the body via some mystical thread from a far-off realm where all souls were held, but it looked like it wasn’t.

Anyways, back to his sonar ping of will. The pulse traveled outward, not finding anything in the air around him but plenty on the ground. It was an odd sensation; there was nothing he could really sense via normal sense all around him, and yet as the pulse traveled, he could feel the minuscule resistances of bugs be overcome. And suddenly, the ground was littered with tiny presences. Tesilim couldn’t identify what each thing was, and the further outward his will traveled the more feedback he got until his brain was trying to pull him in all directions.

Alyx, who had been watching Tesilim, saw the look of confusion on his face and blasted him with a burst of his will. The act caused Tesilim’s base self-defense instincts to kick in as his soul channeled his will automatically to repel Alyx. This then caused Tesilim to break out of his shock.

“Thanks. That sucked.”

“No problem. That is not what usually happens since training is often done in a more secluded environment, but it's also a good way to train your mind.”

“I guess, but isn’t it a problem since you can’t really use it in combat? After all, getting overwhelmed while trying to stay alert with it seems like a good way to get killed.”

“Well, yes, it would be a problem, but that's why we train to make sure we can do it while in combat. That’s actually the next step in our little session today. As you are now aware, when you see the pulse, the information is transmitted back to you. This is done via your presence. Now, what you have to do is make it so that your presence stops bringing you back unneeded information.

“Okay, but how the hell do I do that?”

“You have to alter how your brain interacts with your soul.”

“Oh, okay. That sounds simple. Okay, brain, you heard that? Tell my soul not to do stuff.” Tesilim answered sarcastically and heard a snicker of laughter from Lili, who was chilling on a nearby tree.

Alyx, who just gave the elf a flat look, continued, “Look, it is really just that. It is a full inner adjustment. Your presence works through your soul, and your soul is linked to your brain. You legitimately have to train your brain to want to ignore certain information. This will then translate over to your presence via your soul connection and stop it from giving you irrelevant information.”

“I don’t know, man, that sounds hard and like it's going to take me quite a while.”

“Alyx, I think you have forgotten the other way to do this.” Lili chimed in, seeing that things were beginning to come to a halt.

“What other way?” Alyx answered before going quiet. He took a few seconds to think clearly and recall some information. It didn’t take very long for the gnome to remember, and he looked over at Lili, “But that way is so basic. Not challenging at all.”

Lili, hearing Alyx, raised an eyebrow. “Alyx, not everyone is blessed by two gods, trained by top-tier magic users, or a descendant of a crystal elf and gnome combo. Everyone else uses the other method because they both accomplish the same thing, except one is much easier.”

“Fine…” Alyx answered dejectedly as he turned back to Tesilim.

“Alright, Tesilim, what you need to do is…”

Tesilim had to admit the second way was better, and instead of having to alter his brain right away, all he had to do was flex his will a bit more. The premise was to make it so his will only looked for and sent the information that Tesilim wanted to learn. Not only would this stop him from being overwhelmed, but it also slowly conditioned his mind to ignore the things he was telling his will to not look for or send.

So, under Alyx’s tutelage, he made it so his will would not bring his attention to one particular creature and attempted to give him all the information about it. Instead, it became like a proper sonar. He knew things were there, but his mind wasn’t ripped apart as it tried to pay attention to everything at once. Now, he could have his will scan something, and if it didn’t match a simple criteria that he set, it wouldn’t even alert him of a hit. Meaning he could scan his surroundings and set the condition not to alert him if something was lower rank than him.

“Best not do that. Dismissing things because they are simply under your rank is a quick way to die to a sneak attack. Plenty of people, me included, can disguise themselves as a lower rank. It takes skill, but it can be done.” Lili had told him.

“Lili is right. That also extends to spells and magic in general. Remember Tesilim, anything that can be done with magic and be countered by it.” Alyx had added.

In the end, it was all a matter of experience and power. His two teachers told him that the more he learned about magic and mana and how they felt to his senses, the easier it would be for him to sense things. They also stated that even with all the knowledge in the world, if you couldn't pierce through the veil and defenses of another creature, then it didn’t mean much. A person’s will could be strong, but the rank of their soul was what it channeled through, which was why ranks mattered, and will alone could only take someone so far.