Sell you a Bridge chapter 319

June 22nd 2016 Mysterious Tower, 10:00 AM EDT

I  was up the next morning bright and early ready to train. I had a goal  to do some rituals with the girls to top up my points and try for  another keyblade either today or tomorrow depending on when I felt up to  it, but for now I was going to learn to battle with my keyblade. Master  Yen Sid (as he requested to be called) had decided to put me through a  sort of obstacle course, a massive open space that seemed like some kind  of pocket world, some kind of dark stone mesa under an orange sky.

Master  Yen Sid stood across from me, instructing me before it was time to  start the course. "As you may have noted, certain types of energy and  power require the use of your gift to function, while others are native  to you. The desire fueled energy you use to empower your spells with  demonic taint requires the use of your ability to exercise. Based on  what you've told me this is because that, as well as the ectoplasmic  power you wield are expressions of your gift through use of these  'points' you've mentioned."

I nodded. "Right. But since I  started my training with Tommy I don't need points anymore. At least not  in most situations. I just leverage my ability directly to fuel the  effect. After all the training and growth that gets easier every day. I  barely feel it anymore. I can throw out a ton of those blasts, even big  ones. They're not nearly as tiring as trying to change things about  reality."

"Be that as it may." Master Yen Sid drawled  gravely (which is to say, the same way he did everything). "You are  straining your ability far more than is required. Between your  conversation with Delirium and the battle I witnessed on the stairwell, I  believe I understand the general limits of your combat casting. If we  say that you have a pool of Deception energy that enables you to create  any energy you wish, you would be forming the spells entirely from that  energy. Is this correct?"

"Sure." I said easily. "Since it  can be anything it's easier to shape than most things. I just create  the lightning, the demonic energy, and the ectoplasm, and smash them all  together through the image for Thunder. Seems to work pretty well based  on how Marluxia reacted."

Master Yen Sid sighed. "It does  not, in fact work well. You are wasting a great deal of power. The  spells you use are designed to easily accomplished by ANY magic user,  and having access to a keyblade makes you one of those. You ability is a  separate pool of energy from your magical reserves, to use the earlier  example. You have a much larger magic reserve, and the toll for using it  is much lower. Can you see where I am going with this line of  discussion?"

With a wince, I let out my own sigh. "Yes." I said  with a grimace. "You're saying that I should be casting spells like Zee  and the others, with my magical potential as a keyblade wielder. I can  still infuse my ectoplasm and demonic energy where needed, but I don't  have to do so, and it'll be much less taxing. Not to mention with a full  third of my energy coming from somewhere else, my maximum output for  spells like my dark ice lightning will increase dramatically."

He  nodded in approval. "Well reasoned. Yes. All three of those factors are  important in combat. But that, in fact, is not the only thing you will  be learning. I brought you here to instruct you in magic, and I will do  so. I have asked Zatanna, Dreamer, and Morana to sit in because they may  be able to glean some of your progress through your bond, and because  demonstrating the spells will be helpful for them down the line. To  begin, I will first perform all of the entry level spells you will be  learning."

Raising both his hands dramatically he began to  weave them through the air. A series of images appeared above him, but  rather than create a spell and fade, they stayed frozen in the air, six  of them, only two of which I recognized at a glance. "These are the six  basic spells beginner practitioners all learn." He pointed to the most  familiar, which flashed yellow, a familiar burst of electricity smashing  into the ground. "Thunder, which you use often, is the first." He  gestured to the second one I recognized. A green flash this time, and a  burst of life energy. "Cure is the second. Third is Fire, which is self  explanatory." The image flashed red, and a sphere of flame appeared  around him.

"As you can see." He said calmly from within  the blaze. "The Fire spell is a defensive aegis of flame. At higher  levels its use can be changed, but it is regarded as a key beginner  spell because it possesses both offensive and defensive utility, being  highly mobile as well as defensible." He flicked his fingers and another  image flashed, this one blue. "Blizzard is simple and direct. It flings  a piece of dense ice at the enemy at high speeds. With your own  cryomantic capabilities I expect you may find many more ways of  enhancing this, but for a direct fight simple is often more than  enough."

The third image flashed green (though a much  lighter more ethereal green) as he moved again, another sphere. "This  spell is one that I debated teaching. The defensive version of the air  spell Aero, allows one to fly, a capability that at least some of your  party lack, but can also be combined with the defensive fire spell to  devastating effect, creating a powerful explosive blast." He flicked his  hands again, and the other images faded, showing me the last one in  perfect relief. "This last spell is the most dangerous. It is, by all  rights, an intermediate spell, but with your power and durability I feel  safe teaching it."

He brought both hands down at me,  palms flat, and I took a defensive stance, planning to block whatever  came my way, only for my eyes to widen as my knees began to buckle. A  sphere of black energy manifest above me, and as I watched, began to  descend toward my head. I had my armor on, so I wasn't worried it would  hurt me too much, but even I felt some danger from the thing, and  instinctively shadow ported away from the site of the impact, watching  with awe as it tore a huge furrow in the dark stone of the plateau.

With  a snap, Master Yen Sid dismissed the spell. "That." He said with a  small bit of smugness. "Was a Gravity spell. In fact, it was the weakest  Gravity spell. Gravity, in its primary form, is a tad limited. Gravira  the second form, is far more deadly. Graviga, the master tier of gravity  magic, is a frightening weapon that can easily crush entire cities when  cast effectively and with proper form. You are far from that point,  however. These images are growth tools, allowing your spell mastery to  expand as you become more familiar with them. Learning the apprentice  levels of these spells will put you on the path to mastery, but only you  can follow. Now. I will give you one hour to practice. Then you will  demonstrate."

Most people would have freaked out if told  they only had an hour to learn a bunch of magic, but between perfect  recall and Outer Body this would be a snap. The hardest part would be  learning to cast without using my abilities, but since he told me it  could be done, I would do it. Outer Body would help with that too. I  nodded solemnly to my teacher and walked over to sit down on the ground,  legs crossed, and closed my eyes to enter the Outer Body Meditation  Trance.

As always, a version of my appeared in the dark.  Unlike usual however, I wasn't training against a past foe. I was  standing in front of Master Yen Sid. While this wasn't exactly combat,  I'd been close enough and seen enough with aura sight that I could  recreate his little tutoring session. So I did. I watched him carefully  as he cast each spell, watched how his aura shifted, and I realized as I  did that he'd given me everything I needed to succeed.

I  watched him cast Cure and Thunder and then the others, and as he did I  put together why he'd done it this way. It was a cheat sheet. He was  showing me what the casting of the spells I already knew looked like  compared to the new ones, which would let me adapt my current  techniques. It wasn't just that either. The more I watched the more  obvious it was that Master Yen Sid had specifically tailored his  performance for this exact situation. Every motion and shift of energy  was designed to allow me to gain maximum enlightenment on how to cast.

Taking  up position opposite him, I mirrored everything he did to cast the  spell I was most familiar with, Thunder. Instead of doing what I  normally did and reaching for my Deception power, I ignored that and  just performed the steps directly. I made sure to call out the keyblade,  but I just constructed the image and PUSHED. Nothing happened.  I...didn't even know where to start with this. It was like flexing a  muscle you had never flexed before. You know it's there, but you can't  make it move because it's so underdeveloped from lack of use.

Getting  an idea, I tried conjuring versions of all my friends learning cure.  Some of them had zero magical experience, so they must have been tapping  into something. I watched their energy a few times, comparing it to  Master Yen Side, until I was pretty sure I had figured it out. My muscle  analogy was more appropriate than I'd thought. As I cast, I focused on  the strength in my muscles, clenching them to generate some power (this  was purely an imagery thing, I was just feeling how the power moved the  first time) and then funneled THAT into the image for cure.

A  green flower sprang up, and I felt the power inside me diminish VERY  slightly. Like it would have if I'd exercised hard before  becoming...everything I was. Once that happened, I realized why I could  do this now when I never could before. I was a god now. Divine beings  were pretty much made of magic, so I had casting ability with that  native divine power in my body. The divinity wasn't something I paid  points for, it was native to me.

That  made think about the ghost and devil powers and how they were part of  my body too, but I still needed to use my Deception energy for them. It  might be the same kind of thing. I was just so used to tapping into the  power of Deception and utilizing that versatile energy that could become  anything. I'd need more than just a couple minutes in Outer Body to  crack that problem though. It was something to train while I waited to  give everyone their keyblades at least.

For  now, I was casting magic, without using points or giving myself a  headache. My body had so much potential there was no way I'd run out  anytime soon, and this should reduce stress on my powers during combat  so I could focus on things like my armor.

Grinning  to myself at the breakthrough, I switched from the Cure spell to  Thunder, trying a second spell, and nearly fell over as a COLUMN of  writhing lightning ripped apart the darkness around me. Apparently the  'slight' effort at using my inborn magic wasn't enough. I was going to  need to work on controlling that divine energy to make sure I didn't  blow up a mountain or something. With a sigh, I started casting it  again. Trial and error it was then.