This is going to hurt ...

The old man sat in his study that night. The rain had started to fall soon after they had arrived from the forest and grew into a mild storm with the occasional flashes of lightning. Besides the sound of rain and thunder it was a quiet night. While John and Minerva had been away all day he was making and engraving unique scabbards for the twin swords. You finally have another person with whom you can show allegiance, he thought as he admired his handiwork. He had decide he would start teaching the boy the next day. The engravings on the swords were such to seal the power of the blades until such a time when the boy was ready, only then would he be able to remove the sword from its sheath.

He activated the spell by infusing his own lightning into the scabbard. The lines along the engravings turned a pulsating blue. This was one of the things that he would use to test the boys power. He wondered how long it would take for John to manifest his power to a level that the swords would accept and allow him to use them. He placed them on his desk once he had completed and walked over to sleep. Those two had gone to sleep early so he made a mental note to wake up before they left. He was yet to inform John that he was ready for training seeing as how everyone was excited that Minerva was now able to use her fire spirit. He had been surprised when they had walked in with the bird flying behind them.

The next day, everyone woke up around the same time. It had rained late into the night guaranteeing a goodnight sleep for everyone. The sun was out like the day before and yet it was wet and muddy outside so it looked like no one was going anywhere that day. John had offered to make breakfast that day and Minerva was assisting when the old man walked into the kitchen. He was carrying both swords one in each hand.

"Good morning," he said handing the swords to John, "get used to them, from now on you have to carry them everywhere, wear one on your back and the other on your waist, we start today,"

He walked over and sat by the table as Minerva brought his food. John was visually excited as he did as instructed but the old man was quick to tell him that they wouldn't be doing anything too flashy since he was just a beginner and a bit too old to be learning basic magic. John's shoulders fell in disappointment.

After breakfast the horses needed to be fed. This was something the old man did himself but since he had found a new apprentice he delegated. Feeding horses was hard work. The old man had no mercy for John. Even though his wounds had only begun to heal John had insisted that he was alright so in a way he had brought his new found pain onto himself. This new task took him nearly all morning. I have to do this daily? John had thought. When he had finished and washed up he went to look for the old man so that they could begin proper lessons.

"Do you understand why I am asking you to do this hard labor?" the old man asked.

"To strengthen my body will strengthen my magic?" John replied.

"That is half right, most people start learning magic before they are ten years old, by your age many have already specialized. What I will give you is a crash course." the old man explained, "you will train your body, mind and magic at the same time and hopefully in a year you will have caught up, but all this will depend on the effort you will have put in." At this point Johns shoulders hung even lower.

A year was such a long time, but he had already seen how powerful magic was remembering the old man in his battle. It wasn't that he was hungry for power, he just wanted to see what he could do. He resigned his fate since this was not in his control and asked what the next lesson was.

"Try unsheathing the smaller sword," John tried but the thing didn't budge, "I have sealed the swords, the day you are able to pull the swords from the scabbard is the day you have grown your magic to a point the swords can accept, they will be your judge not I." The old man explained that they would wake up early and practice the sword before they even ate. It would be pointless to have swords and not know how to use them.

They were standing in the open space outside the stables. The horses were looking at them like they were following the conversation. Minerva who was too stubborn to admit was curious about magic came to watch this lesson. She used her wood to grow a chair and pretended to read a book while stealing glances towards the pair: master and apprentice. The old man raised his right hand and a flash of lightning hit the ground from his hand. She was bit surprised that she let a shriek escape making the pair look at her. So this is magic, he didn't commune so it must be. She closed her book and now watched them without hiding.

"Remember the day I administered the test. You placed both hands and pulled magic from the ball, In essence you were pushing your magic into the ball but if feels like you were pulling its magic. Your first task is to do this, with one hand and do this," the old man using his right hand made sparks of lightning dart around on his hand. Do this along with everything you do today. You should do this until the sparks disappear."

The way magic worked was by forcing the interaction of internal and external magic effects could occur. Like oil and fire. There had to be an interaction of magics for a combustion to occur. In this case combustion was simply the appearance of sparks on the hand. The goal of this exercise was to deplete all the magic in the body. The magic reservoir had a limited amount and once fully depleted the person would die but the body was self preservative, immediately the reserve fell below a certain point the body would automatically start absorbing external magic to fill up the continuously depleting magic.

"Once you reach your limit I'll tell you what to do next." the old man said and walked back into the house.

"That's it?" John asked doubtfully.

"Are you questioning your master?" the old mad replied with his back to John and disappeared into the house.

John walked over as Minerva made another chair for him, he sat and started practicing. Closing his eyes he tried to recall the feeling he had a few days before and once he felt he had grasped it he opened his eyes and started pushing/pulling. He felt a very slight tingle on the palm of his hand and he didn't even see sparks so he wasn't sure whether he was imagining it. It took a lot of concentration to maintain it. He couldn't even think about anything as he did this and yet he was supposed to do this alongside everything he did that day.

It was not approaching lunch time and the biggest huddle was here, he had to eat as well as maintain it. This was even harder because when he started he did it with his dominant hand that meant he had to eat with his other hand which in itself was hard enough as well as maintain his magic. He was sweating so much from this little exercise. he had clearly underestimated the old man who was watching John eat in amusement. The first two hours were particularly hard but by the third hour his right hand was practically numb. He felt that he was at his limit so he called the old man to tell him that. The old man grabbed his right hand to shake it.

"Congratulations, you've finished the first part." the old man tapped his back which made John feel a bit of relief, "Now try pulling again then, push." the old man told him. He did as instructed and small burst of lightning hit the old mans hand which was right in front of John's. The old man instructed John to sit with his back behind him and placed his hands on his back. the left behind where his heart would be and the other behind the point where the wound was.

"The point of this crash course is to push our body to the limit. I am going to count to three then I want you to do what you just did. No matter what happens you must be in control and release, do you understand?" the old man said pensively. John nodded as he swallowed. This talk was frightening yet thrilling. "This is going to hurt, if you want to stop, now is the time." he repeated but John didn't answer which he took as a statement saying he was ready to go.

The old man begun to count: One, two... At this point John was hit with a surge of current. He felt like his heart was going to explode. Without thinking he pulled then pushed and a large surge flew from his right hand hitting a stick that was on the ground throwing it quite the distance. He felt that if he hadn't done that his heart would have real burst. Before he had time to center his thoughts he heard the old man begin to count again behind him and he braced himself for the pain. As it shot through him he released this time using both hands and the same surge as before flew out. His breathing had quickened and his heart was beating so fast he could almost hear it.

The old man started counting again. How many more of these could he take. Even he wasn't sure. At the right time John released and an even bigger surge flew out, only this time he wasn't hit with a current from behind. The old man stood straight and smiled satisfactorily.

"Try pulling only," the old man instructed. Doing this John noticed that his hand was all covered in electricity now. "I wasn't too sure that was going to work the old man said.

"Wait - that - was an - experiment." John asked between pants.

"The theory was solid, and it seemed to have worked," the old man replied. John didn't have the energy to argue. He needed to calm down. Thankfully he wasn't the only one around. Minerva stood up and glared at the old man.

"You could have opened his wounds or worse, killed him. You cast magic on his heart." she said angrily.

The purpose of this was to increase his magic reserve as well as the speed of refiling his magic reserves. When the body is at its magical limit it starts to absorb external magic to refill but this is done at a steady rate since the external magic had to be converted to a form that is compatible with the body. The old man had theorized that as long as the magic was the same as that within the body then the external magic didn't have to come from nature but could also be from another magician. Since the amount of magic received was currently bigger than the reserve could hold and was received very fast there was a chance that the reservoir could burst causing harm to the body hence some had to be released. When pushed his magic a second time the body became aware of how fast external magic was refilling the reserves. And when he counted down a third time the body expecting a huge influx of magic temporarily expanded the reserves which then caused natural magic to flow in very fast.

After this explanation John and Minerva looked at the old man perplexed. They weren't dumb but that was a little too much for them to immediately understand. he tried to draw in the mud but it couldn't stick and he insisted that it worked which was enough. The old man then told John to repeat what he had been doing before lunch until he reached his limit again.

At this point John was physically exhausted but couldn't slack of and he started again.