NOVEL WEB (Chapter 18) Burst
"Come on, wake up." I grumbled as I felt Tulip shaking my good shoulder slowly. My eyes opened to look towards her slowly. "It's already daylight out we need to get moving while its still cooler out."
"Fine..." I sighed out as I forced my legs to move under myself. I felt exhaustion raking across my body, my limbs were sore still from the previous day. And my mind was weary from the previous night working on my magic near relentlessly. It was a struggle to give myself enough support to stand up with my left arm bound so tight to my body but after a moment, and with the help of Tulip pulling me to my feet, I found my footing.
"Lets go... We can at least move slower today, so don't worry about asking some questions today. Not like we have anything else to do." Tulip was audibly trying to keep her voice upbeat and happy, but I could hear how she was struggling with that very thing with how each word seemed to pause unnaturally long.
"Well... I still don't know much of anything about the world, so why don't we start there?" I asked after a few moments of silence that simply hung between us as we began towards the stream to continue following it south.
"What about the world do you want to know? I can't guarantee that the information I give will be one hundred percent accurate for a lot of it. The world changes pretty fast." Tulip spoke with her slowly returning grace in the tone of her voice.
"Well... I didn't even know there were people in the world that weren't humans. My knowledge of the world pretty much extends to Berinia and that's about it." I replied calmly as my gaze turned skyward, it honestly felt pretty enjoyable out in the early morning before the humidity turned to overwhelming heat.
"Oh... Right." Tulip sighed from my lack of knowledge as she pinched the ridge of her nose. "I won't get into the political system of the world since that is, honestly too complicated to be worth the effort of explaining right now." With a half breath Tulip slowed down so that we could walk side by side while she spoke.
"Lets start with the easiest area, Berinia. As you know the population is pretty much all human. About ninety percent of the people in Berinia are pure blooded humans, with the other ten percent being mixed between Ogres, and Dwarves. Ogres are massive usually, and tend to be a little dense. Dwarves are similar, just usually being pretty short. They are also incapable of using magic, and usually dislike mages. Both of them have their own kingdoms to the East and West respectively, though they are much smaller than Berinia. The Ogres live in a Kingdom called 'Alcor', and the Dwarves in 'Great Peak'. They are both close allies with us."
"Of course you know the Elves, they are the other major power in the world, with Elligorse being the place where Berinia even originated from. It was a colonial region of Elligorse a little over two hundred years ago, and after a hundred years the war with the Unspeakables began, and Berinia found itself to be liberated of the Elves. Beyond that there are a few minor settlements, but no real major players on the world stage. There are of course, other species but we can probably talk about them later." Tulip finally let her held breath out as a heavy sigh. Her eyes shifting over to me, expecting another question.
"What about further north? You said that the Elves were in the center of the continent... Surely they don't control the North as well?" I asked after a few moments of thought with my eyes traveling to the ground before us to focus on where I was walking.
"Further north is a barren wasteland of mountains and forests. Nothing is alive up there, at least as far as anyone knows. There might be a few tribes, or villages, but even that would be expecting a lot honestly. It rarely gets above freezing for a few months a year, with conditions like that it would be a miracle to survive up there." Tulip replied evenly once more.
"Huh..." I let the information sink in as I tried to make a map of the world in my head. It didn't help that I had utterly no idea how big the world really was, so it left me without any real reference point for half of it. "Then, magic it is again. But this is one I'm just curious about, who was the War Mage? I always heard stories that people talked them up into some kind of legend. But no one ever seems to have actual information."
"Honestly? I don't think anyone knows. Its a part of history that's just been lost over time. People don't really know anything about that part of history, and I don't know why. There are only a few tapestries of the war, and that's all we have to go off of." Tulip for a few moments sounded disappointed, either in herself, or for the lack of history. And it was a sentiment I somewhat shared.
"So no one knows if they actually existed, or if they are just some kind of figment of history." I sighed in reply, only to look down and sigh again as my stomach growled. Already not appreciating how long it had been since I last ate. My eyes shifted back towards the river, I was honestly surprised when I saw a bit of movement in it. "Any chance you can teach me how to use some kind of basic offensive magic?... I might be able to catch one of those fish with it."
"You really don't understand how this works do you..." Tulip sighed as she turned to the river, crouching next to it. I followed suit, doing much the same. "I guess I can try, but my magic is specialized in a completely different area."
"Try and just bring a bit of mana to your hand. Don't focus on channeling it to your attunement, just the raw mana is fine." Tulip spoke slowly as she gave me time to focus inward. It didn't take too long for me to get my mana moving, but keeping it in my hand while I awaited further instructions from Tulip was a massive challenge.
"Try and get just a little bit for now, we don't want to destroy your good arm. Once you have what you're satisfied with, push it into your finger so you can aim it. When you see a fish release it, but by releasing the tension away from your body and not back into it. This is called a mana burst, its a rather crude and inefficient way of using mana. But it's a universal attack that just about anyone can use." Tulip fell silent as she moved back away from me by a few feet both to let me focus and to avoid any collateral.
With a slow, steadying breath I followed Tulip's instructions. I focused on leaking mana out of the charge I had in my palm back into my body slowly while at the same time I attempted to slowly push some towards my index finger while I curled the rest of my fingers in to focus just a little easier.
I was forced to pry my eyes open so I could even see where I was attempting to aim, and I was startled to see a sky blue glow emanating from my finger. The shock nearly made me lose the already shaky control I had over my mana, to such an extent that I suddenly released a flood of power into my hand that only made the glow more brilliant.
"Let go of it Kirin!" I heard Tulip scream for a moment before there was a blinding flash, I felt an overwhelming force explode out of my hand. For a few seconds I thought I heard rain, but I also felt my body moving far faster than should have been possible, and the next thing I knew all I could see was black.