Tranquility

"Loki, it looks like you picked up ice bones fairly quickly", my uncle told me.

"Yes Uncle Vili, the cold was uncomfortable at first, but now it feels welcoming. My bones feel very lose as well with no loss of movement", I said this while moving around my arms.

Yea, that's the strange thing about reinforcement. Some manuals can have negative effects. Uncle Vili told me about a water manual that speeds up blood flow to increase healing. The side effect being the likelihood of bleeding out easily. That manual was discontinued because better water manuals have been devised with better effects.

I have a feeling I can develop my own water or ice manual based on my understanding of medicine to increase my healing rate.

"Now that you have some grasp over ice bones, I'm going to teach you what I understand about wind manuals", he said.

Uncle Vili has wind affinity only. He focused on making himself very fast and increasing his swing speed. That's the reason he always gets behind me before I could notice. His blessings also match his affinity well.

He continued, "I'm teaching you about wind because there are no manuals for lightning warriors except for lightning strikes which you can find in the royal library in the warrior section that you have access to now. Both lightning and Ice have parent origins in wind and knowing about wind will help you in the future."

Lightning strikes is a well known manual that allows my body to paralyze anything I come in contact with.

He then swiped his left arm in a blink across his body. "Wind is the element of freedom and speed. It's reinforcement allows you to move in ways you normally couldn't and at a faster way. Your fighting style is heavily reliant on being quick and adaptable so I will teach you what I know before allowing you to look at a manual. You shouldn't train in it though until you've built a lightning foundation of your own."

And I have some ideas on a lightning manual already. No one here knows some of the advanced uses of electricity that I do since I was raised in a society built on electrical energy. Plus my weeb status gives me some creativity.

My uncle kept explaining while demonstrating, "Wind elemental reinforcement reinforces two areas on the body primarily. Your tendons and your skin. On your skin it allows you to take advantage of the wind to move quicker by making a sheath of wind surrounding your skin."

Warrior language for aerodynamic skin.

"It also can increase the elasticity and durability to allow you to stretch in weird ways easier and quicker. This is how I dodged your knives during our spar in the trial", he said while smiling.

Even though I bitch and moan about Uncle Vili, he's a very smart teacher. His blessing is all about thinking fast. It allows his mind to keep up with his speed. He clearly knows my strengths and even though he knows he doesn't necessarily know how to train me in lightning, he's giving me the tools to figure it out myself.

Some of the best mentors in my life have been those who didn't force feed me the answer but forced me to figure it out myself. One of the things that helped me immensely in my accomplishments of my past life was knowledge of physics and chemistry.

For both subjects, I had incredible teachers. One studied teaching and thought, and had me logically problem solve my way to modeling a scenario to understand physics is just the science of measuring.

My chemistry teacher had me understand chemistry by constantly having me stuck in the laboratory until I understood how to work a lab and prove everything I was learning in a book.

Vili was having me do the same with weapon training and now he's moving to giving me the tools to go on my own path.

In essence this is the end of my apprenticeship with him, which is kinda sad to be honest.

[you are a masochist aren't you?]

It's not that, it's that I have respect for someone who taught me so much.

"Now onto our final subject, tranquility", Uncle Vili said with a sigh.

I guess he's feeling it too.

"Your fighting style I hate to admit it, really resembles mine with more of a devious undertone. One of the greatest weapons we have fighting like this is our minds. We think with clear minds and our actions are all precise and calculated. This is the reason we rarely use rage and only do so as a supplement to our tranquility and not the other way around.

Your father uses rage first then tranquility to keep clear headed. It helps keep the mana deterioration on his mind to zero while also helping him to ensure he doesn't hurt anyone. Most warriors fight like this in order to have maximum strength."

He then smiled at me and said, "I think they are all fools to do this truthfully and I think you do too".

I couldn't agree more. Instincts can only get you so far. Winning a battle before a fight has always been my go to maneuver.

I smiled back and said, "I believe I could run circle around them."

"Good then I am gonna impart you the method to do so", he said putting my head.

Already at this time I can see Nix in the courtyard beginning to practice his spear while Sif looks on.

Even if they understood what was being said, it's not like it would matter since they can't practice it. Most of Vili's important techniques and the manual were already imparted to me by memory transfer.

Vili sat on the ground and entered a lotus position. I did the same and sat in front of him. He said, "Now tranquility is not practiced by fight like rage. It's practiced by meditating. I'm going to teach you a ruin called cool. It symbolized tranquility, coolness, and cold. The reason I haven't taught you the tune for rage yet is because I want the first tune you etch onto you to be cool."

He then to a loose piece of canvas out of his bag and a coal pen. (Yes there's no lead here. There are multiple forms of writing utensils though including something similar to ink).

He wrote a word that looks like ᚲᛟᛚ.

"You will learn about runes soon but just know that just writing a rune has no meaning. There's a proper procedure to imbue them with power. This rune is to be written on your forehead, just below the skin using mana. Pure mana only as well. I will guide the rune to link it to your soul properly", he said raising his hand to my forehead.

Yes, the rune will be linked to my soul. Rage is linked to my body while tranquility will link to my mind and soul to protect it.

As I used mana like my ink and formed the rune, I felt a foreign Will of mana enter my head. He was gentle to not hurt me. He waited until the rune was completed to surround it.

"Use your own mana to follow the tendril of mana I am making", he said quietly.

I then saw him make a flow of mana to my soul. He stopped right outside the core. I followed suit and surrounded the rune while making a tendril along side his.

"I'm gonna teach you a trick now. Mana being used by others can be controlled in the correct circumstance. In this case, my mana is so close to your soul that I actively have to resist your will emanating of your soul to keep control. I'm going to complete the chain and release control, from there you will command the chain and will do the final link", he said while having his eyes closed".

I honestly didn't understand what he meant until his tendril began to form a chain with his last link ending right before my shell. Then suddenly his Will left and the mana fell under my control.

Seeing my confusion and astonishment he clarified, "Use mana to form a link of a chain with half inside your soul and the other outside. You will link it to the rest of the chain".

I did just that and the entire chain began to recede. It began to coil around my shell around the equator the shell with the rune following. My soul was chained up horizontally with the rune locking the chain in place.

I felt a refreshing feeling in my mind at this moment. I felt as if my senses were on overdrive. I could feel the grass beneath me and none of this felt uncomfortable. In fact I felt like I was relaxed and at peace.

"This is the first stage of tranquility. Every rank, that chain will evolve alongside you. I built that chain using a manual so there was specific nuances that you likely didn't notice, but just know as you study runes it'll likely become more clear to you", my uncle said putting a hand on my shoulder.

"I'm sure you can figure out the difference on your own at this point, but just know that the chain will allow you to think clearly even while under the effects of rage. I will share with you my edited manual of rage to compliment your tranquility in a few days after the start of you apprenticeship. You can figure out how it works on your own at that point. You can even make edits if you like. Take it like a graduation gift."

My uncle looked a bit melancholic at this point.

He said with a sad smile, "You have learned all I can teach you. If you have any questions you are more than welcome to come to me. Beyond that you have been the best pupil I have ever trained but, now it is time we end our training together. It's time for you to learn how to fly on your own."

"Your uncle Vili will always back you up in battle," he got up while lifting a red eyed me to my feet.

I couldn't help, but bow to him like a karate pupil. "Thank you for your training", I said hiding my tears.

"Warriors do not cry young warrior", he said smiling.

He then turned around walking away leaving a silent me and two nosy spectators.

[I didn't know you to be sentimental]

Shut it, this is a man's moment, you wouldn't understand.