A Surprise on the Track

Hearing the question, Spir sighed before saying, "Using some of our body's internal power, we can slightly manipulate nature. It takes months to get really good at it. Even the simplest ones."

Continuing, Spir noted, "the step technique I talked about just helps passively dampens steps. It burdens the body, but it's super useful when sneaking around. It's not some superpower, though. It doesn't just remove footsteps entirely, just makes them quieter."

"How?" Ask Mors with a deep-set burn to know more.

Scratching his ghostly head, Spir responded, "We don't even know. Techniques are the closest thing to the legendary magic that runs alchemy and enhancements. Humans use these techniques to match the effect of artifacts without repeatedly using expensive trinkets. But we aren't even sure how they work, so your guess is as good as mine."

Magic in the world was a legendary thing. No one could say, "I can control some magic," and any that did just use artifacts and were laughed at. People knew magic existed because of the wondrous effects of artifacts, pills, and potions.

No one could explain why in the process of enchanting a human, there are no magical properties. But that is the way the world worked and you can't fight it.

Legends tell of strange artifacts that did once give people magic, but it drove the user insane. And when people tried to reproduce these artifacts, all of them ended in horrible tragedy.

Light sparkled in Mors's eyes. Even if he couldn't reach magic, he could try techniques. With no hope of getting a yes, Mors asked, "can I try?"

"I mean sure, I was trying to slim down the learning material. Hmmmm, let me think," as Spir raised his head.

After a moment of staring at the ceiling, Spir announced, "I am changing the training plans then. You will have it do some extra running."

Returning to look at the patient Mors, Spir explained, "To start a technique, you got to harness a sort of energy that usually goes unnoticed. While you are running, when you reach a state of near exhaustion, try and feel your surrounding for something new."

"I guess sure, I'll go running until I feel exhausted for a chance at learning a technique. Any other tips?" Mors asked with a plea.

And to crush some of his hopes, Spir replied with, "Nope. Some are fast at feeling it, and some aren't as lucky," before entering into Mors's body.

With a sigh, Mors left the house, deciding to return by sundown. With was only in a cool 6 hours.

The worst part? It was the hottest part of the day at the moment.

After taking a sip of water, Mors left to run around for a while. Thankfully the town had a running lap, which ran along the walls of the town.

It was supposed to be for guards to move between towers, but since they never really needed to use it, adventures used it to run some laps.

Quickly reaching the central circle, Mors noticed that the crystal seemed dimmer than before. Only slightly, almost not noticeable. But it was definitely there.

Looking around, Mors found no one either looking at the crystal or anything. 'Maybe it's normal?' Mors thought with a hint of confusion.

He decided to look over it again and found it back to normal. Weirded out, he began to think it was his eyes messing with him and wandered away.

With a light jogging pace to start out, Mors headed over to the pseudo track.

Passing all the shops on his way towards the gate he entered , Mors decided to peek into the shops some more.

To which he found them having signs that announced something like, "Try the Grand Rejuvenation Technique!"

After hearing about how hard it was to learn techniques from Spir, Mors guessed these shops were trying to steal money from heroes.

Like a gambling shop, with an amazing prize but it's up to lady luck if you actually learned it.

Accelerating a bit more, Mors quickly reached the track where he took a moment to pause and catch his breath.

Maybe it wasn't the best idea to jog so fast as his body began to hurt slightly.

But after taking a few breaths and feeling slightly refreshed, Mors started his jogging trip.

Within a few minutes, he felt his breathing again. He slowed down and tried to feel for this feeling Spir told him about.

With his attempts to feel something internal coming up pretty empty, he even closed his eyes. Just for a moment, to try the place where the crystal matrix existed.

With a peek in there, Mors didn't find that feeling. But he did find something weird as the crystal diagram was moving all on its own.

Light flowed down the strings that connected the symbols together. Strangely enough, Mors could feel it pulling on something from outside, while also pulling on something inside him.

Unable to pull himself away, Mors found himself forced to watch whatever was happening until…

*Bang!*

A searing pain knocked him to the ground. Opening his eyes, he found what just seemed like a wall of blackened steel in front of him.

Then the steel moved around revealing a face. It blended in quite nicely with the surrounding body, but Mors could see the person's clearly gray eyes.

With a concerned expression, the man quickly asked, "Are you ok? You shouldn't go running into people."

Standing up, Mors quickly said, "Sorry, I got stuck in my head."

"How did you get stuck in your head while you were running?" The man asked. Mors would have expected the man to get mad, but his tone just expressed curiosity.

Taking in some air, Mors situated himself before deciding to tell the truth, "Some strange symbols trapped me in my own head."

"Well, that's not good. Do you know where you got them?" the man asked with concern. He quickly took out his notebook as if preparing to write down whatever Mors's said.

Mors began to feel concerned, and started thinking maybe the crystals symbols were a bad thing. With these thoughts, he decided to say, "After looking at the big crystal at the center of town."

As soon as Mors started, the man wrote down what Mors said, up until "center of town," to which the man paused and blinked a few times.

Shaking his head, the man asked, "The crystal where?"

Confused about how the man didn't hear him, Mors repeated, "The center of town."

Hearing that, the man just took a deep breath as if he was the one that just ran. Seconds after, the man asked, "and can I request you to draw a few of those symbols?"

With that, Mors felt that he had ruined his second chance. He had looked at something he shouldn't have. With a quick nod, the man passed the notebook.

Looking back into his head, Mors quickly picked out a patch of close symbols. With a shaky hand, Mors placed a semicircle of weird symbols onto the page.

With another deep breath, the man look at the page and asked, "Can you meet me here tomorrow?"

With some fear, Mors replied, "Absolutely!"

And with that depressing encounter, Mors watched the gigantic man run away towards a large building bellowing smoke.

With a great sigh, Mors was about to run again before he felt someone exiting him. Within a second, Spir, Genn, and Afiero exited, each with a confused face.

They looked around, searching for something before turning back to Mors, asking, "What just happened? We couldn't look around or leave."

"What!" Mors quickly shouted out in surprise, quickly replying in a quieter voice, "I just bumped into someone, and they decided to help me."

"What did you both talk about?" With concern on his face, Genn asked.

"I was talking about the cry-" As Mors said that, He noticed that all the ghosts seemed to freeze.

Like they were stuck inside of a moment in time. With dull eyes like statues.

Intrigued, Mors asked, "Hello?"

…

…

…

Nothing.

They seemed to be frozen by something.

'What's going on?' Mors thought, and became curious as he quickly circled around them.

This went on for a minute before suddenly… the three turned into cloud of mist and then back into blobs.

Concerned Mors tried to touch them and found him able to.

With worry and panic, Mors quickly tried to push them into his body. Success! As they disappeared, and he felt them enter into him.

'What could have done that?' Mors quickly looked around for something, only to find three joggers looking at him with confusion.

Not minding them, Mors found nothing at all. Completely baffled, Mors weighed his choices.

Should he return to the house or continue his run?

With a moment to think, Mors decided to continue the run, since he found himself unable to interact with the ghost inside of him now.

If he just returned to the house, he would have to wait for them to come out. He was still hoping, even after all of the weirdness, to feel that energy Spir talked about.

So picking up his pace, Mors started his run around, in search of the technique energy.