Penitent-Chapter 13: New Flows

A month passed without anything else significant happening, and things fell back into routine. Wake up, treatment, magic, language, lunch, military norms, or quartermaster duties in Michael’s case, bushcraft, conditioning, and combat. As they started to gain greater mastery of the magic, language, and norms, more time was devoted to combat. This coincided with their physical growth from small, into large children. It made sense. There was less they needed to learn magically or through language, and they could handle greater amounts of combat and conditioning so it was a smart transition.

The physical conditioning was made up of mostly running. Running fast, running slow, running while holding something, running uphill, running downhill, it was only occasionally broken up with a number of exercises he recognized from his old world. These included pushups, squats, lunges, and even burpees. It was unpleasant, but he seemed to have less trouble than everyone else. Waking up feeling loose while everyone else had to basically drag themselves out of bed. He wondered if it was just a matter of perception. He remembered what it was like to have old bones and muscles that ached.

Michael was finding his new body to be aging very differently from his old one. His jaw was becoming more defined, he was taller than most of the others, and while he’d been a bit of a pudgy kid in his old body, this time he was lean and strong. Davi was the only one in their close knit groups that was taller than him, and he was also much larger, his jaw already defined enough as a child to cut glass and a naturally angry set to his eyes. Pyotr had an average size and build, but his arms seemed a bit long for his body and his black hair and blue eyes made him look very striking, though the frequent sunburns he experienced from his pale skin ate into that impression a little. Marcus was the shortest of them, aside from Ollie, and had a narrow frame and face that made him look somewhere between a fox and a rodent depending on if you wanted to compliment or insult him. He kept his hair long, somehow managing to hide its length whenever they were taken to have it clipped, and he had the darkest skin of all of them, looking greek with a heavy tan. Ollie, of course, was the smallest because his growth had been slowed for magical training, and he did not appreciate that. Between his size and constant shit-eating grin, he was very punchable, but they all had the maturity from two separate lives to keep them from doing so, most of the time.

In the barracks during the short hour before the barrack lights were shut down, Michael found himself curious about what Ollie was doing. He no longer participated in combat training or bushcraft, and instead spent that time doing additional training with Teft and the others that had shown mage potential.

“We’ve been learning more spells, but mostly we’re being taught how to weave spells of our own. It’s kind of a balancing act between how much magicka you can channel, how many focuses you can hold, and what you’re trying to do. If I wanted to shoot a bolt of lightning at someone for instance, I would have to be sure my channels could handle what I’m imagining. If I use just a word as the focus, that can make my imagination run too wild. If I have a string of words, that can make it more specific, and easier to channel magicka toward. If I have a phrase and a physical focus I associate with what I’m trying to do, then that makes it even easier, though there’s always a limit to what’s possible. We’re encouraged to experiment with only the basics for now, settle on specific spells that we can create reflexively, and not try and do any improv as it’s dangerous. The more settled a spell in your mind the more likely it is to gain a title or deed to it as well.”

“What about the burning magicka channel pathways?”

He scowled. “That shit sucks so much ass you wouldn’t believe. It feels like if scratching a chalkboard manifested as a drill moving through your body.”

“Ah,” said Michael, gripped a bit by the visceral description. “What does it do, though?”

“It makes your channels stronger. The more channels you connect, the more easily you can move magicka through your body. I thought it was easy enough already, but I do find that I’m much less spent when casting after forging new channels.”

Pyotr, who’d been listening in, piped in. “How do you do it?”

Ollie shook his head. “You guys don’t want to do it. It sucks, it hurts, and you guys still won’t be able to throw fireballs or anything like that.”

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Pyotr shrugged. “I can think of other reasons it would be useful. I want to live a full second life, with drinking, friends, and maybe a woman or two…or three. This could help me survive.”

Michael nodded, “Agreed on most points,” he wasn’t so sure about the women and drinking, but he’d hold that decision until after he hit puberty again. He knew well that making choices about all that at this juncture was pointless. None of his currently pre-pubescent thoughts on sex were going to matter anymore once the testosterone started flowing again.

Ollie sighed. “Alright, I didn’t realize you were both such masochists.” He flexed his small hands a bit. “The first step is to feel your mana channels.”

Michael did so, feeling the line that moved from his left wrist to the pit of his stomach as well as the dozens of smaller cool pools scattered throughout his body.

“Now, you’ll need to channel your mana, but just in one of the channels, almost like you're going to cast a spell, but not quite.”

Michael found one of the small pools that was very close to another one, and started to work up the magicka in the pool, feeling it grow cold like ice.

Ollie, whose eyes were closed, continued. “Good. Now you need to focus all of that magicka toward the edge of that channel, in the direction that you want to connect it to.”

Michael started to push it, feeling some resistance as he did so.

“You’re going to have to push harder than that,” said Ollie with his eyes still closed. He must’ve been sensing what they were doing somehow.

Michael listened, pushing the magicka harder, trying to imagine it forming a drill that was rotating at a point. The resistance gave way and his entire body shuddered with so much discomfort that he pulled back immediately.

He opened his mouth and rubbed his face before shaking out his hands feeling a kind of unpleasant wriggling sensation all through his body, as if he’d just seen a roach.

Ollie looked at him. “I told you, it’s ass.”

Michael nodded. “Your description was apt.”

Pyotr’s eyes were still closed, and while his face twitched a bit, his expression remained calm.

Michael, impressed, closed his own eyes again. He repeated all of the steps, but this time he braced himself for the discomfort. He nearly pulled back again when he broke through the resistance, but pushed this time, gritting his remaining teeth. It wasn’t painful exactly, but it felt wrong and it was a very difficult feeling to ignore. Still, after nearly ten straight minutes he connected the two pools. He opened his eyes forcing deep breaths to make the feeling of wrongness leave him. He didn’t feel any different.

Ollie nodded. “Do that a dozen more times and you’ll start to see some improvement. I’ve had to burn hundreds of the fucking things so far,” he shuddered.

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Michael shook his head. He thought he would try it again, but doing it again right after the first one just wasn’t something he could push himself to do after a long day of learning and training.

Ollie turned to Pyotr who was sweating profusely and frowned.

“Whoa! Take it easy,” he said, grabbing his arm.

Pyotr opened his eyes. “Ah, did I push myself too far?”

Ollie closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Yes! Three channels at once the first time you do it is way too fucking far.”

Michael shook his head, flabbergasted.

Pyotr shrugged weakly, seeming exhausted. “I am used to discomfort. It was not so difficult, and you are an excellent teacher.”

Ollie nodded. “I was, and am, yes, but still you need to pace yourself if you do that again. Prakash had to go to the infirmary for rushing through burning channels.”

Michael frowned. “I’m sorry, did you just imply that you were a teacher?”

“At a trade school. I taught mechanics.”

Michael let out an exaggerated sigh of relief. “Thank god. For a second I thought that you’d been in charge of molding young hearts and minds. That would’ve made me question Australia’s sanity even more.”

“Fuuuuck you,” he replied in the high pitched tones of a child.

Pyotr and Michael shared a laugh.

“That’s what I get for helping you assholes.”

“I do appreciate it,” said Michael.

“As do I,” said Pyotr with a nod.

“Good, you're both fucking welcome.”

Almost as if on cue, the lights were shut off. A few people meandered in quiet conversation, but most everyone went straight to their bunks to sleep, too tired to keep talking. Michael sat there quietly for a few moments. It had only been a short while, but he already felt recovered from forging that small channel. He closed his eyes and sensed his magicka again, finding two more nearby ice cold channels the size of small pools. He repeated what he did before, pushing himself through the resistance and discomfort until he’d forged another channel. He panted for a few minutes, and then pushed himself to do it one more time. If he did a few a day, he would eventually have them all connected. Even if he would never be a true mage, having a few more tools in his arsenal could only help.

The next day Pyotr struggled to get up and move.

“Try to forge some more channels last night?” asked Michael.

Pyotr shook his head. “No, I am still exhausted from those first three I think. It may be some time until I do it again.”

Michael nodded, but frowned to himself as he did so, wondering if he was doing something wrong that kept him from being so exhausted by the process.