18 Reunion (Part 1)

[POV AQUILES VIRIDIUM – YEAR 271]

After four hours of riding, Aquiles had considerably distanced himself from the village and, after surveying the surroundings, realized there was no one nearby. Then, he began to ponder. "I'll ride to White Harbor for 4 days; it would be a waste not to use this time to train my magic!" Aquiles decided and quickly began to conjure a fireball. The horse was startled by the sudden flame that appeared in Aquiles' hand and started to jump and rear, trying to throw him off. The abrupt jolt caused Aquiles to lose balance and shoot the fireball into the ground just over 10 meters ahead. With both hands free, Aquiles clung to the saddle, and when he regained his balance, he pulled the reins tightly and calmed the animal.

Now, with the horse standing still and holding the reins short in his right hand, Aquiles began to conjure his magic again. The horse startled again, but this time did not jump, only moved uncomfortably. "Why are you so scared? I'm not going to hit you with this," Aquiles cursed in an irritated tone.

As time passed and Aquiles repeated the process, conjuring fireballs, water balls, earth balls, and wind balls, in that order and then shooting them towards the distant trees, the horse began to lose its fear, and Aquiles managed to get it to walk again without further issues. "In King's Landing, I'll have to use my healing powers frequently to cure people. The {Disease Mastery} ability is a passive ability, so it won't spend my mana to cure diseases, but I still need to increase my mana reservoir if I want to use the {Gift of Healing} frequently. Now that I think about it, I guess it would be better not to use such ability in King's Landing; the Mad King might see, and that would be problematic," Aquiles conjectured, and just the thought of meeting the Mad King already bothered him.

After deciding to only use {Disease Mastery} to cure diseases, another question came to his mind: "Now that I've stopped to think, once I arrive in King's Landing, my magic won't progress anymore, as I won't have time to train it. After all, the Faith of the Seven is not at all in favor of any kind of magic. Although not explicitly prohibited, I still believe that if I were seen, I would probably be accused of Witchcraft. Should I go straight to Braavos?" He pondered, but he also didn't know how the people of Braavos would react if he were discovered.

Aquiles silently pondered as he continued to shoot fireballs, water balls, earth balls, and wind balls at the frozen trees along the way, in order to stimulate the growth of his mana reservoir. Aquiles continued firing non-stop for a few minutes until all the mana in his mana reservoir was spent.

After his mana was depleted, Aquiles reflected on his progress. "When I arrived in this world, I could only shoot 6 times and had to conjure hundreds of times, but now, in less than a month in this world, I can already shoot 21 times and only need to conjure once. That's a significant improvement, considering I barely had time to train," thought Aquiles with satisfaction as he saw his progress. "How much would I evolve if I dedicated 100% of my time to training in the use of magic?" This doubt lingered in his mind.

Looking at the four floating balls, one of each of the four elements, rotating above his hand, he began to imagine the future. "I still have 27 years until Robert Baratheon arrives in the North to name Ned as his Hand... Wouldn't it be better to use one year of that time to increase my mana reservoir and master a few more spells?" Aquiles questioned himself quietly, considering which path to take.

"God had said that the {Lord of Magic} ability could even replicate the effects of the {Voice of Nature} ability... But how do I do that?" Aquiles questioned himself mentally and then reached out and fired the 4 elemental balls to the side all at once. Then, he brought his hand over the start of the horse's neck and began to infuse the mana from his core into the animal while giving it a command aloud: "Run!"

Unfortunately for Aquiles, it wasn't that simple. Although he managed to infuse half of his mana reservoir into the horse, nothing happened. The horse didn't even seem to have heard Aquiles' command and continued trotting slowly along the road. "If only that stupid God had given me the knowledge I asked for, it would all be so much simpler." Aquiles thought, but dared not say it aloud, fearing the 'Almighty' might hear him.

"No matter, I'll keep trying based on trial and error until I get it right. Either way, I'm using mana from my reservoir, so it shouldn't make a difference in my training, as long as my mana reservoir is completely depleted!" Aquiles thought, continuing to inject his mana into the horse and ordering it to run, but still yielding no results, or at least that's what Aquiles thought.

As Aquiles rode on, time passed, and soon night fell. With that, Aquiles left the road and headed towards some trees. Upon reaching there, he tied the horse to the tree trunk, took off his belongings, and finally removed the saddle from the horse. After removing the saddle, the animal immediately lay down on its side on the grass, and Aquiles quickly dug a small hole with his hands to serve as a trough and filled it with water, conjuring the Brivose Darilza magic (Water Ball) thinking that the animal was exhausted. But the horse didn't drink the water, it just closed its eyes and fell asleep. Aquiles could hear its breathing, so he judged that it just needed to rest and moved away.

During the days Aquiles had spent with Ser Rodrik, he had learned to clean his catches. Aquiles then took the rabbit he had brought from the village and tore its head off. He then used the {Gift of Healing} ability to heal the two parts and thus got two rabbits. Just this trick depleted a good portion of his mana.

Aquiles stored one of the rabbits and cleaned the other, throwing the entrails away from the campsite and, after gathering enough wood for the night, he lit the fire with the Brivose Darilaros magic (Fireball). With the food being prepared, Aquiles sat by the fire and began to warm himself, stretching his hands toward the fire, still pondering the idea of spending a year to refine his magic before going to King's Landing.

As time passed, the meat was ready, and Aquiles began to eat. After getting full, he threw the leftovers away from the campsite to avoid predators approaching and went to sleep in his canvas tent. As the fire warmed his feet, he fell asleep. The next morning, Aquiles got up and dismantled the camp. As he was taking the saddle to put it on his horse, his eyes widened. "What the hell? Since when was my horse so strong?"

The garrano that Ser Rodrik had given Aquiles was ordinary, measuring 1.5 meters in height and with aged brown fur, sturdy in build, but more fur than muscle. Its brown mane held dark gray signs between the fur due to the animal's advanced age. However, now, literally overnight, the horse had completely transformed.

The garrano had transformed; its constitution had become muscular enough for its muscles to be easily seen with every movement of the horse. Its aged brown fur had disappeared, replaced by a brown coat with a silky sheen that lightly reflected the sunlight. This was in terms of size; overnight, the horse went from its 1.5 meters in height to nearly two meters.

"Is this really my horse? It's tied up as I left it, but why has it changed so much?" When Aquiles questioned himself, it didn't take more than a few moments before he formulated a hypothesis in his mind, and he inquired with doubt and uncertainty: "Was it the mana?"

Approaching the horse, Aquiles began to stroke it, and the animal did nothing, remaining as gentle as before, while Aquiles smoothed its back fur and then its mane. "If it really was the mana that did this, it'll be easy to find out... I'll inject mana into you, and if you change, it'll be confirmed." Aquiles decided, and then began to inject mana into the animal.

Since the camp was already set up, Aquiles decided not to progress with his journey and simply waited there for a day. The next day, Aquiles' hypothesis about mana being responsible for the horse's evolution proved correct when the horse grew again, now to 2.5 meters.