Elemental Theory
After our drills, Lord Amun guided Jaimess, Jonet, and I through the formal wings and through the same set of great blackwood doors that we'd passed through the week before when we came here.
As I'd noticed and grown extremely uncomfortable with on our way in, the external yards of the Cole estate held within it, a piercing silence that hung in the air like the strings of a spider's web pulled taut. Creating tension in the air that made one feel as if the trees themselves had eyes and were waiting to attack at any moment.
The land itself was a frigid field of abundant snow, rock outcroppings, massive, meters-wide trees and ice attributed flora that surrounded them. All repeating in an almost random fashion for a kilometer past the estate's walls.
And I was certain that not a single living animal could be found anywhere inside that space.
Excepting us, of course.
In silence, we followed Lord Amun through the forest until we came to a stop before a withered stump and a tree that'd been felled by curved cuts and grooves that were impossibly clean to make.
Then, he turned about to face us and proudly spread his arms to his sides. "This will be our training grounds from now on." He proclaimed before dropping his arms to his sides and assuming his pacing. "Now tell me, what weapons have you been trained in?"
I stepped forward at once, bowing at the neck. "I have experience fighting with my hands and have studied combat theory with the sword, My Lord. But have otherwise received no practical weapons training."
He silently nodded before turning to Jaimess and his meek expression.
"I have not studied or been trained in any weapons, My Lord." Jaimess bowed somewhat apologetically. "Only in academics."
"Neither have I, My Lord." Jonet quickly added. "I only know recovery magic."
"No matter." Amun waved their apologetic auras aside. "I'll have you two train with short blades for now until you decide what you want to use for yourselves. And Toril." He turned to me with a stern gaze. "You will no longer be using a sword."
"B- But why, Your Grace?" I stammered, forcing my shaking head still.
"Swords are more than useless against armored opponents." Lord Amun curtly explained. "Which, according to what I've read, consist of most of humanity's enemies; be them orcs or trolls or demons or dragons. Even other humans are commonly armored. Daggers are at least able to exploit the natural gaps or weaknesses in such armor; be it natural or otherwise. Swords, not so much." He meekly shrugged. "So, choose something that has either great piercing power, something that deals blunt damage in addition to cutting damage, or something with more mass, like a mace or flail."
"I- I understand." I bowed. "Then…" I hesitated as I struggled to think of what best to use. Other than reading about and sometimes carrying swords. The only thing I had any notable experience with was a bit of hand-to-hand fighting and chopping firewood.
'Oh.'
The answer was obvious. So much so that I felt a bit of shame as I resolutely met the Lord's gaze. "I shall use an axe, My Lord."
"Good. As for me." He nodded and walked over to a tree and conjured a holed plate of what appeared to be a more sinister concentration of shadow magic.
After conjuring the abyssal disk, it began floating out and upwards towards the crest of a young tree to hover in place for a moment before descending upon the trunk. And I, Jaimess, and even the placid Jonet became visibly horrified at seeing the snow, branches, and most of the trunk itself simply disappear from existence. We stared at the snow-capped twigs falling helplessly to the ground as the branches they were attached to were consumed by this energy. And at the long staff that remained from the gaping hole in the center of the disk; a hole that Lord Amun collapsed once a thick, two-meter-long stick had been formed before canceling the spell. Allowing it to haphazardly fall before him and ring the forest with the gong-like rings of knocked wood.
He then spent the few moments carving a blade out of the end piece with a bit of the same magic extending from his finger like a long nail, then proudly held up the finished piece overhead. "The spear will be my primary weapon of choice."
He then turned back to the felled tree that served as a landmark and began the same process three more times. Carving out a pair of daggers for Jaimess and Jonet and a one-handed axe with a flared head for myself. And for the next hour or so, the Lord had us conducting basic drills. Continuously, monotonously, we slashed, stabbed, and swung our weapons at the umbral the clones of us he'd conjured from our shadows; our Doppelgangers, only stopping to hear the ghostly wail of our clones criticize and correct our form.
A strange experience, to say the least.
Everything we did was closely analyzed by the Lord and immediately rectified on the spot through our doppelgangers. Even I, who'd been trained since I could stand to fight with at least my hands, received many pointers from the Lord that not even his grandfather's best teachers had noticed. Concepts like 'leverage' and 'momentum' and 'rotation' and how they applied to fighting. Ideas that even made Jaimess' little frame gain a slight power up to his attacks.
With the passing of the hour, we cast the weapons aside at Lord Amun's order and moved on to a short demonstration in unarmed combat.
I quickly grew fascinated in an art the Lord referred to as 'grappling.' Wherein he'd wrestle us to the ground and either choke us out with our collars or his limbs or put tension on our joints with the leverage of his entire body. A style he highly recommended Jaimess to use along with himself and Jonet, as it favored someone with a smaller, more agile frame and allowed them to easily break someone's joints or limbs, regardless of how strong their opponent was.
After that brief, but knowledgeable demonstration, we took a short break just after nine in the evening and ventured back into the service wing for a late-night snack.
A lapse in training that I was certainly grateful for, as Mr. Flay's meals were undoubtedly one of the greatest benefits to living in the Cole estate.
Not only did he cook us whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. But his meals were always just enough to leave me fully satiated, though not so much as to make me lethargic. On the contrary, the meals seemed to significantly boost my energy and made me think of the long days I was now subjected to, as an afterthought.
Under any other circumstances, I'd have been burnt out for sure; I assumed.
While Lord Amun would be just heading to bed, Jonet, Jaimess, and I would awake at seven in the morning and head to our classes after breakfast. While I was unsure of what the others were up to during that time, I would spend the next five hours studying combat theories, learning of chivalry; or the knight's code of conduct, cleaning equipment, and conducting endurance training before going to lunch just after 1 o'clock. Then, the next four hours would be spent in my formal classes; studying literature, arithmetic, courtly manners, and musical studies before finishing the day with an hour of chess.
With the passing of dinner and around an hour of downtime, the Lord would emerge from the shadows at around 7 in the evening; just as the sun was setting. In the beginning, that would be when the Lord would slip through dimensions and reappear in the library, where he'd then spend night reading and writing. Leaving us to resume our rest period until we retired for the night.
This night and every night thereafter, however, those long hours of rest and relaxation would instead be spent conducting additional training until the Lord Amun found himself satisfied.
Whenever that may have been.
Our return to the exterior yards at ten came the moment Jaimess and I were either dreading or looking forward to the most. Elemental Manipulation.
Personally, I had been looking forward to seeing His Grace's prowess ever since Master Everandus' first mentioned his need for two vassals back at the boarding school. If His Grace was truly the grandson of the High Necro King, then his potential for magic had to be nothing short of legendary.
He sat in a lotus position before the rotted stump and asked us to sit before him. Jaimess must have noticed the sudden class-like atmosphere, as he eagerly lowered himself into the same position and gave Lord Amun his undivided attention.
I instead, sat on my legs with my knees out in front of me; as the lotus position caused too much pain to my hips. And Jonet sat in much the same position.
"I need you all to learn my theories on elemental manipulation." Lord Amun began. "Now, it is agreed upon that humans use mana to bend or manipulate the elements at will, and that is what we call elemental manipulation. Correct?"
"That is correct, Lord Amun." Jaimess quickly nodded.
"My theory is that such avenues of thinking are wrong." He countered with a curious grin worn on his face, unsurprisingly causing Jaimess to recoil in surprise. "Instead of using mana like a glove or a second hand that takes hold of the elements and bend them to our will." Lord Amun went on to say. "We're instead supposed to use mana to create the environment needed to force the elements into behaving as they naturally would."
"I… don't understand, My Lord." I shook my head in confusion.
"Fire a gust of air at that tree." He ordered, pointing to one of the massive trees to my left.
Without a word, I rose to my feet and turned my attention to the designated target. With only a bit of focus, I pulled a constant stream of mana over my hand, dragging the air along with it at a faster and faster rate before extending my hand outward with a sudden burst of energy. And just as my arm fully extended, the vortex of air flowing over my hand billowed out in front of me towards the tree before impacting. Sending a frigid gust back towards myself and rustling the snow loose from the lowest branches.
"Nice." Lord Amun nodded after I turned back to face him and bowed. Then, he stood and took up my earlier position before the tree.
If he focused in that moment, I didn't notice. I only felt a surge of mana cascading towards his hand before he outstretched his palm in much the same manner as I had. Only a near-visible pillar of air burst forth towards the tree and impacted against the trunk with a dull thud. Creating a raging tempest that billowed the sitting snow every which way into a cloud of fine white dust.
"W- what." I gasped, staring in disbelief at the black grains of wood appearing through the settling snow and shredded bark and as the second passed with my words. "What… what was that?" I turned to Lord Amun, mouth agape.
"Compressed air." He casually explained as he held out his hand once again. And just as before; albeit far slower, a field of mana surged from beyond the treetops towards the center of his palm, concentrating the air itself into the center of his hand. Where he held it and said. "Imagine that everything; air, water, and even the ground itself; are all made of tiny particles, far too small for us to see by normal means. Just like the energy in our mana wells." He gestured to his chest with his free hand. "The amount of particles in any given area is what's called, density. By increasing the density of air, a force called pressure is simultaneously increased. And pressure is the key to manipulating air."
He charmingly grinned at us before extending his palm towards the tree once again.
Focusing this time, I saw the sphere of mana he created to condense the air change shape into that of a pipe that extended to just centimeters before the tree like a cannon aimed at point-blank range.
Resulting in a similar scene of destruction unfolding before our awed eyes.
"Pressure." He repeated as he turned to face us once more. "Is the secret behind manipulating the air."
After a few moments of silent contemplation, Jaimess looked up to the Lord with practically glistening eyes "Incredible." He gasped. "And what of fire, My Lord?"
"Fire is different." He quickly explained with a wave of the hand. "You can think of it as something that requires a specific formula to create: air, fuel, and heat."
The Lord held out his hand and began concentrating a significant amount of mana in a coin-sized region of his open palm. "The fuel, in this case, is provided by mana; as is the initial heat source." With that said, he flicked his thumb, causing the mana to sort of grind against itself in his hand to create a sort of spark. Igniting the concentrated energy into a fist-sized bonfire.
While small, its heat licked at our exposed skin as we watched in amazement from over a meter away.
"Once it's ignited," Lord Amun said. "The surrounding air will keep the flame lit, so long as there's a fuel source; or a stream of mana keeping it alive.
"Earth and water, however, are both as straightforward as they were. For now at least." The Lord sighed, then swiftly rose his fist as if he were cursing someone; causing the sitting snow next to him to suddenly explode upwards. Giving way for a small lump of earth to rise into the form of an irregular stump. "And water; as we all know, can be pulled from the environment and be used as a cutting tool."
'For now, at least.' I wondered about the meaning of his words before he spread his arms out once again, halting my thoughts almost immediately.
"This is the standard for all who follow me." He coldly declared over the small flame still cackling away in his hand. "We'll practice this for the two hours and before retiring for the night. And this schedule will continue until you master my manipulation theories.
"After that." He wickedly grinned. "We'll move on to the next stage."
'The next stage.' I despairingly chuckled to myself while nodding my affirmations. 'This is unreal.'