Chapter 41 - Progress

Finally, it was over. Kai was almost dancing on his feet as he got home. Three new books were held firmly in his arms, 2 silvers and change in his pockets. He said goodbye and thank you to uncle Muoi and knocked on his door with a smile. It didn’t last long.

Alana opened the door. He barely had time to put down his books when his mother said, “Come, we need to talk.”

Taking his hand she dragged him outside, leading them away.

“Mom, I know you’re mad, but—“ Kai began to say, but Alana silenced him with a glance.

They continued to walk till they reached their usual spot by the shore. Sitting on the cobbles so they could have some privacy. The lights of the Fortuna could still be made out in the distance.

His mother finally turned towards him, her expression unreadable to him.

“Kai…” She began, taking a moment to find the words. “Do you realize how reckless you have been?”

“Mom, I’m not a child.”

“This is not about you being a child or not. Important decisions should be made after talking with your family regardless of your age. You might be smarter than many adults, but you haven’t experienced this world like one.”

“I had everything under control. I—“ Kai protested.

“No, Kai, you did not. Muoi had told me exactly what happened. Your deal hung on the word of a merchant you had just met for the first time and probably will never see again. What if they decided to leave earlier, refused to buy or lower the prices? You trusted them blindly and took a risk without discussing it with me.” Her gaze nailed him on the spot.

Kai lowered his head. Put it that way, he felt a bit naive. “I…”

“Muoi is a good person, but it wasn’t fair to ask him for money. If something went wrong you would have put him and our family in a very awkward position.”

Kai nodded his head, castigated. He wanted to argue the risk had not been that big. But it was true he would have had no way of repaying the debt if things didn’t go as expected. He was still a child and whether he liked it or not his actions would have repercussions for his family.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think it through and came to ask you first.”

Alana's tone became a little softer, “It’s fine as long as you learn.”

The waves continued crashing on shore as they sat with no words exchanged between them. Their hearts settled down. Kai was the first to break the silence a few minutes later.

“Mom, since everything went well, I gained a few coins.” He said in a fake casual way.

Alana sighed, indulging him with a question. “How much?”

“About two silver mesars.”

His mother slowly turned towards him. “Kai, it’s not a good time for jokes.”

“That’s fine because I’m not. Here, take them.” Taking out the two silver coins Kai put them in the hands of a stunned Alana, who stared at them with disbelief.

He smiled proudly, “I didn’t work three days straight for nothing. I’m sure the money will be helpful.”

“Kai… This is your money. I can’t accept this much.”

“Why not? I won’t need them at the estate and I’d rather take a break for alchemy for a while. So there isn’t much I’d like to buy in Greenside.”

***

When the light filtered through his window the next day, Kai conceded himself five more minutes in bed.

I really miss my soft bed at the estate.

As the first five minutes turned into the second five minutes, he knew he had to get up. He had skipped his physical routine in the last few days for obvious reasons.

Just five more minutes.

He knew he would have to go if he got up. Taking a deep breath, Kai jumped out of his bed before he could change his mind. It was time to get back on track.

After a quick breakfast and meditation, he went out Running towards the beach. It wasn’t as bad as he thought. Pushing his body instead of his mind was quite relaxing. It was easy. He enjoyed feeling his muscles slight burn as he forced them to give everything they had.

This was probably the best state his body had ever been in. Taking a break for three days had given him the time to rest and grow stronger.

Jumping into the churning waves he felt he had missed having a good swim. Continuing beyond the minimum requirements of his routine before getting on shore.

Next were his stretching exercises to increase his flexibility. To his great surprise, he was finally able to do a perfect split.

Finally, he practiced his weapon stances. These required him to use his brain a little to check his movements, but it was mostly mechanical by this point. Done with today’s training, he sat on the cobble beach to think a little.

He liked practicing the knives a lot, but they had no reach and were not fit to be his primary weapon. If it ever came to that he preferred not to get so close and personal with his opponents.

This left: spear and sword, both equally good options. He resolved to decide between the two and take a skill before he had to go back to the estate.

The sword was the classical weapon of stories, but there was a reason why the spear was called the king of the battlefield. A longer reach was extremely helpful.

After doing a list of pros and cons for both, he decided to check his skills.

• Skills:
• Running (lv74)
• Swimming (lv73>74)
• Meditation (lv63)
• Awareness (lv54)
• Herbology (lv52>54)
• Acting (lv44)
• Processing – Plants (lv32>35)
• Reading (lv19)
• Gardening (lv12)
• Sneak (lv7)
• Mana Sense (lv41)
• Mana manipulation (lv9>10)
• Alchemy (lv7>8)
• Inspect (lv6)

His reckless marathon helped the related skills grow a lot. Alchemy and Mana Manipulation in particular had a drastic increase he never thought would reach in such a short amount of time. Without the challenge and deadline looming over him, he would have never been able to push his limits so much.

It was a valuable lesson, but it had also been incredibly stressful. He wasn’t looking forward to repeating the experience anytime soon. If it had continued a couple days more, he would have reached a breaking point.

Looking back at his skills, he was disappointed that Meditation had not leveled again. He was quite sure he had been able to use it this morning while training, but he had found some very clear limitations.

If he pushed his limits too hard the skill wouldn’t activate. The action had to be within his scope of comfort, preferably something methodical that didn’t require him to come up with new ideas.

He would probably never be able to use it in everyday life, but—if his hypothesis was correct—it could become a great asset during training. Helping him focus and deal with the tedium of repeated actions.

Planning about the future, he decided he was going to ditch Gardening for a weapon skill. At the estate he spent a lot of time tending to plants but going back to Greenside made him realize he was not always going to live near a large garden. In the future, he would probably buy most of his ingredients.

With these decisions made, Kai had a clearer mind. It was time to go back home, but he wasn’t that tired yet and there was one thing he had wanted to try first. With his higher Mana Manipulation, it might just work.

Running had been stuck at the threshold for a while. This time he wanted to get something more than the same boring basic evolution.

Dora had once explained to him how most people evolved physical skills with mana. Sometimes it even happened unconsciously after repeating an action countless times or in  extreme situations.

Kai hoped for a more controlled evolution. He had the theory down, now it was time to see if his mana skills weren’t just for show.

Getting up for another little run on the beach, Kai split his focus trying to manipulate the mana inside of him. Mana naturally helped and sustained his body as proved by the side effects he suffered when he consumed too much. So, if he concentrated on the right muscles and ligaments, he should be able to push them harder and reduce the strain.

Kai had already practiced standing still, but doing it while running was harder than he thought. Hopefully, he just needed a proof of concept and the evolution would take over the burden.

Come on just a bit longer.

*Ding*

Running reached lv75 – Max, congratulations!

Running (lv75) ➔

You are presented with two choices to continue your journey:

• Stay the course. You won’t gain significant new benefits, but you’ll deepen your insight into what you already know.
• Consume a small quantity of mana to reduce the strain on your muscles allowing you to go beyond your usual limits.

Is that even a question?

*Ding*

You chose the second option, Running (lv75) can now reach lv100.

Wasting no time, Kai tried it out and continued his run. The first thing he noticed was that utilizing the new function of the skill was optional. He took a moment to find the right mental command to activate it.

With the assistance of the Guide, small filaments of mana separated from his channels and accumulated in all the relevant muscles he was using, mainly in his legs. There was a small drain on his reserves, but it was barely noticeable. He could probably keep it active for hours without a problem.

Exhilarated by his new ability, Kai sprinted along the shore. Moving at the fastest speed he ever reached, the salty breeze blew through his hair.

He soon made two discoveries. First, the mana consumption was proportional to his speed, doubling during his sprint. Still not huge, but something to keep in mind. Second, his mana only helped his muscles and ligaments, it did nothing for his lungs and need for oxygen.

Maybe in the next evolution I can fix that.

Looking at the sun, he had already been out for a couple hours. Strolling through Greenside to get home he couldn’t help but plan for his next evolutions. He was certainly going to do something similar with Swimming, maybe focusing on his need for oxygen if he could figure out how.

After his triple option with Meditation, he had unconsciously considered evolutions up to fate and circumstances he couldn’t predict. That was the wrong mindset. They weren’t random but something you could purposefully pursue.

Reaching his ugly house, he was going to be alone for most of the day. Kea had started going out again with her friends, doing only the spirits knew what. With no schools or adult supervision, that was what was expected of her at her age.

Kai didn’t like the idea much, but it wasn’t up to him. Most of the people he interacted with after leaving Whiteshore were those who made trouble. His vision was a bit skewed. He was sure there were plenty of good kids. Probably.

Finding himself with a lot of free time, he considered his options. One thing was sure: no more alchemy for a while. Exploring Greenside didn’t hold much appeal either, the town was only so big. He couldn’t say he was familiar with it like his pockets, but he knew enough to satisfy his curiosity.

Kai could also read his new alchemy books, he was excited to have gained the first volumes of what would hopefully one day become a big personal library. Still, that was just more alchemy and he did not have the mind for that right now.

Looking around his cramped room, his father’s notes and books offered a much more appealing alternative. He had not forgotten his plans. There were less than two weeks till the ceremony and he wanted to learn the basics of the Vastaire language before then.

Taking a big folder full of yellowed papers Kai sat on his bed. The idea to spend a cozy day among the old pages sounded perfect to him. The right measure of challenging and relaxing.

At dinner time, the whole family sat down at the table together to eat. Enjoying the food and talking about their day.

After they helped clean up the dishes. There was one more thing to do. He had skipped the last few days since he had no mana to spare, but he had not forgotten or given up. He wanted to help his sisters gain Mana Sense.

Kai could tell, Ele was not very enthusiastic about it, probably hoping he had forgotten And, after the previous failures, Kea was not as eager either.

It seemed to be the curse of living in Greenside, people never expected anything good to happen. As if the heavy humidity suffocated their desires and flames of hope. They easily resigned to their boring routine.

Kai didn’t know if he was misinterpreting the facts. His view was hardly impartial and he had not spent enough time here to spew definitive judgments. He might be imagining things to be worse than they really were.

In any case, he would not let his family give up so easily, even on such a minor thing.

“Are you sure this is even possible to get Mana Sense this way?” Kea said. She never had much patience after all.

Kai tried to sound confident. “Completely sure.”

Not even a little.

Ele gave him a patient smile. “Come on, little brother, we can start with me.”

Sitting across from each other, Kai put his hand over her sister’s palm. His Mana Manipulation had improved a lot in the last few days. Which immediately became apparent as he easily manipulated his mana outside his body.

He needed to succeed.

No more wiggly constructs barely holding together, his attuned mana looked more stable than ever. Usually, he just slammed his mana onto her sister’s hand, today he tried a more subtle approach.

Molding his mana around her skin and slightly poking around.

Ele let out a laugh, “It tickles.”

“Are you sure you're doing this right?” Kea interrupted.

Kai suppressed an annoyed response and forced himself to smile at his younger sister, “I’m sure.” He turned towards Eleni. “Try to close your eyes and ignore every other sensation. Focus only on the feeling on your hand and tell me what you feel.”

Looking at his serious face, Ele hid her smile and followed his instructions, giving this test an honest try. Now it was all on him.

Controlling his mana even more carefully, Kai tried to be as delicate as possible with his touches. When Eleni told him she couldn’t feel anything, he increased the pressure just a little. He wanted to stay around the minimum perceivable threshold. Only enough that his sister was 50/50 sure that something was happening.

Kai’s brows furrowed in concentration, even with his improvements this level of control was challenging. His reserves had been completely full in the beginning, but they soon started to dwindle as the minutes went by.

Alana and Kea silently observed from the sidelines, while Kai and Ele were completely focused on their task.

When his mana reached around 70%, Kai was forced to stop to keep enough to try with his other less grateful sister. He had truly thought this time was the one. Now the doubts he had suppressed came knocking.

Are we wasting our time in a fool’s endeavor?

Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice Ele had her gaze lost into the void. She finally murmured, “I can’t believe that worked. I was so focused I must have missed the notification.”

His head snapped up. “Did you get Mana Sense?”

Ele mouth turned into a big grin, “I never doubted my genius brother.”

Kai was too happy to point out the obvious lie, getting swept up in the celebration. Alana came to congratulate them both too.

“When is it my turn? I want to learn that skill too.” Kea said. Her previous skepticism was completely forgotten.

Kai sighed, now that he proved it could work, his sister would surely pester him till she got what she wanted. “Give me a moment to rest and we'll start.”

Changing things for the better was possible after all.