NOVEL NEXT Chapter 34
More days of practice took place as the meeting officially came to an end and preparation for the expedition down south went into full swing. And while all this was happening, Grud was sitting in front of five pebbles while Zargall sat behind him.
“Again, and try to lessen the power of your push even more.” The voice of Zargall sounded from behind Grud, Grud closed his eyes for a few seconds and opened them again as he focused on the pebbles in front of him.
With a force of will to control the exit point of the pulse of mana and restrain the mana output, Grud released a pulse of mana that sent the five pebbles across the large tent with the speed of a casual toss.
Seeing this, Zargall nodded and said, “Good, even tho there is not much progress on your mana structure, you can now reliably send mana in the direction you intend to. And somewhat control its strength.”
Grud mentally fist pumped ‘Yes! Finally, when I agreed to this training, I did not know it will be this tiring. My mind was so tired I could not stay awake to make love to my wives for the past few nights, and I missed hunting for the past few days too. But now that the training is over, I can fina-’
“Now we can move on to the next part of the training.” Zargall said, cutting off Grud’s mental celebration. “There's more? What else is there to learn?” Grud said with an exasperated voice.
Hearing the frustration in Grud’s voice, Zargall muttered something to himself about youngsters and huffed in annoyance, “Yes there is more, now shut up and listen. The point of teaching you to push things around is to let you learn to project mana from your body, now the next step is to maintain the mana outside your body and have your mana act upon the world. Observe.”
Zargall raised his hand and Grud saw a tendril of mana come out of each finger from Zargall’s outstretched hand, those tendrils snaked thru the air, in a spread out direction. Each mana tendril sought out and engulfed a pebble that Grud tossed across the tent with his pulse of mana earlier.
After all five pebbles were in the grasp of the mana tendrils, they were levitated off the ground and brought back in front of Grud, when the pebbles touched down, the mana tendrils dissipated, leaving Grud staring at the pebbles in excited wonder.
Blind as Zargall was, he did not need to see the look on Grud’s face to know what he was feeling and said with a smug voice, “Not so tired now are you, master this and anything you can see, you can reach, it all depends of your strength of will and mind.” this was met with furious nodding and Grud excitedly attempting to do the same without guidance when an idea popped into his head.
‘If just pushing pebbles is just releasing mana in small short pulses, is not what Zargall did just one long continuous pulse of mana? I do not know how he made his mana flow around like snakes, but I can try to have my mana come out of my body for a start.’ Grud thought to himself and began moving his hand.
Before Zargall could continue with further explanations, Grud raised his hand and pointed his index finger at a pebble ‘Let us begin small with one pebble.’ Grud concentrated on just one pebble thru his fingertip and sent his mana forth.
What came out Grud’s fingertip instead of a mana tendril was a crude beam of mana that smashed down on the pebble, chipping off a decent chuck of the pebble and some of the floor when the chipped pebble shot away from the impact and shot a hole in Zargall’s tent.
What came after that was a sudden bout of lightheadedness from using a large chunk of mana so quickly, this was followed by a *BONK* on his head from Zargall, “I have not told you to do anything yet, and you go off blasting mana without knowing what you are doing and making a hole in my tent!” this was followed up with two more bonks to Grud’s head.
“Now shut up, keep your hands and mana to yourself until I say so, and listen!” Zargall said, then lifted his hand in front of Grud and wriggling tendrils of mana slowly emerged from his fingertips, “What you did just now was continuously push a large amount of mana from your finger directly at the pebble, what you need is a gentle touch, not the uncontrolled force of a mana pulse. This may be a bit hard for you to do at the moment without a proper mana structure but we are just going to let you have the feeling for it, the rest will be down to practice.”
Zargall dispersed the mana tendrils and told Grud to stretch out his hand and continued, “Now, you are going to do the same steps as the mana pulse, the only difference is that you are not going to accumulate mana in your hand, but you are going to go thru the motion of releasing your mana without accumulating mana. Now try.”
Grud looked at his hand and concentrated, ‘This feels weird, after practicing for so many days and suddenly missing one step feels wrong.’ Grud thought but tried anyway. After trying restarting a few times, Grud finally did it and saw a stream of mana gently wafting out from his palm.
“Good.” Zargall said, “Now reach out and hold the mana that is leaking out of your hand.” Grud concentrated on his palm for a few seconds, then turned to Zargall and asked “How?”
Zargall paused for a few seconds with a contemplative face then replied, “Hmmm… maybe it is because most people that try this are further along in ability before trying this…. Try… you remember the feeling when I traced along your body for you to form your mana structure… try that but extend the feeling to include the mana coming out your palm.”
To that, Grud concentrated on his palm and it took a few minutes before the wafting mana on top of Grud’s palm took the form of a fuzzy tendril that seemed to flow along with the gentle breeze of wind that was not present. “I did it!” Grud said excitedly.
Zargall nodded and said, “Good, now to extend it, imagine the trace for your mana structure extend further.” Grud did as instructed and his mana tendril went out around four feet before it could extend no further and started leaking mana at the end of the mana tendril. “I cannot go further, I can feel it heavy on my mind.”
Zargall nodded, “That is normal, as you practice and complete your mana structure, you will be able to extend further, now bring it back in. You are going to try to move the pebble, there is no trick to this part, you will have to use your mind to will the mana to pick up the pebble”
Grud brought the mana tendril back and as instructed, tried to extend the mana tendril to the pebble in front of him. After glaring at his palm for a while, the only thing Grud managed to do is make his mana tendril flail around like a drunk snake until his mana tendril managed to accidentally smack down next to one of the pebbles.
‘Right, now that it is next to it, I just need to curl around the pebble.’ after concentrating for a few seconds, his mana tendril began to twitch “Yes… Yes!”, then instead of the mana tendril bending at the tip to curl around the pebble, the mana tendril bent at the base of his palm, “No No NO!”, effectively sweeping the pebble away.
Grud let out a long frustrated groan. “Again, you almost got it, you will be practicing this for the rest of the day.” Zargall said, which elicited another long groan.
By the time the training session came to an end, Grud had only managed to pick up one pebble but did not manage to put it down without dropping it. He was so mentally burnt out that he skipped dinner and went straight to his tent to sleep.
—
(AN: I will be using <> and >< for conversation over telepathy/mind link.)
<Mita… Mita… can you hear me?> Nita called out to Mita who she could feel was currently hitchhiking in her body to feed off the seed that was pumped into her this morning.
>Yes. Sister. Can hear.< Mita replied in a choppy, cutoff sentence ‘She seems to be improving in her language.’ Nita thought to herself.
Nita finished off the weaving of a basket for the day, passed it off to another tribe woman before waving goodbye, and walked off behind some trees and continuing her mental communication with Mita, <You know that the tribes will be going on an expedition south soon, right?>
It took a few seconds before Mita replied >Tribes. Going big hunt?< Nita thought about the wording of Mita’s question, ‘Hmm… that's one way of putting it.’ <Yes, tribes going big hunt, but what I wanted to ask, is if during this big hunt, can you stay with Grud?>
A general sense of confusion radiated out from Mita >You. No go?<, Nita shook her head <No, only the men are going, I do not know how long they will be gone.> After Nita said that she felt Mita’s sadness.
>Why?< Mita asked >Why only males go big hunt?< This question reminded Nita herself of asking the same question to her mother when she was small enough to bounce on her mother’s lap and chuckled to herself.
<Because hunting is dangerous, especially if we are with child.> Nita told Mita while stroking her baby bump. <We all have our roles to make the tribe strong, the men protect, provide and fight. The women raise the children, make the home, feed the family and satisfy our husband. That is why I ask if you can follow Grud on this big hunt, to satisfy our husband, you are the only one of us who can do so safely.>
After saying that, that was a minute of silence before Mita spoke up >Mita understand. But if Mita go with husband Grud to breed, and sister say only male go big hunt. Other males also bring mate to breed?<
After deciphering what Mita was trying to say, Nita chuckled again, <No no, other men are not bringing their wives to relieve themselves, they will take care of themselves… in other ways. But I am asking you to go with him because our husband is special, he releases too much seed and I want to ask you to take care of his needs while we are not able to.>
After a few seconds a general sense of acknowledgement >Ok, I will breed husband Grud while he is on big hunt. I will… miss you.< Nita smiled <I will miss you too, take care of Grud when he leaves.>