8. Fire Body Magic

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The sound of crashing waves was the first thing I had heard upon gaining some consciousness. I had expected to feel it crashing onto me, but I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel the sun's rays beating down onto me, nor did I feel the sand underneath me. Panic began to set in as I couldn't find myself able to move my limbs as I opened my eyes.

"Oh, you're up."

I turned my eyes to the voice to see a young adult with black hair and black clothes. He had a gentle expression on his face as he cooked something over a small fire pit. One of his hands was holding a pan with a bunch of vegetables inside it and the other rested inside a large white sash that wrapped over one of his shoulders and fell to the opposite waist.

"I apologise if you can't move," he said, "I administered muscle relaxers and pain medication to treat you. Your left arm was sprained and your eye looked infected and neither seemed like something a young girl should want to wake up to. It should wear off about ten minutes or so, and the food should be almost done by then. Try to flex your muscles and take deep breaths to help blood flow."

There was nothing else for me to do in the situation I was in, so I listened to his instructions and tried to get control of my muscles back before I tried to move my limbs. The deep breaths helped me calm myself down while he cooked what looked to be a salad of some sort. Within a few minutes I was able to help myself up to a sitting position. I saw that I had been changed from the rags I had been wearing into similar dark robes to him, my arm was in a brace and placed into the white sash for support.

"Why…did you change me?"

"Well, I couldn't just let you catch a cold. Those robes were torn at the waist anyway so all I had to do was a small amount of impromptu tailoring. Anyway, here. I apologise if it doesn't taste too great, it's been a long time since I cooked for anyone."

He scooped the salad onto a large flat rock and gave me two sticks to eat it with. He did the same for himself and began to eat it by pinching the food in between the sticks. I looked at the salad, a combination of greens, nuts, and berries and decided to eat it. I was too hungry, and he himself ate it so I could only hope there was nothing poisonous in them.

The salad ended up being extremely bitter and my obvious distaste for it must have shown as the man in front of me gave me an awkward chuckle.

"Sorry, but you can't say I didn't warn you. Bitter fruits tend to be the safest to eat anyway, since the ripper ones are often the poisonous ones."

"It's not that bad, I guess. I've had worse."

"Ahahaha! Well, that makes me feel more confident."

He seemed boisterous yet there was a distance between us that he seemed to be suspending. One that I didn't plan to break anytime soon. 

"Where are we?" I asked in hopes that I was anywhere near civilization.

"Akane Beach," he said bluntly, saying the name of somewhere I was unfamiliar with, "But how did you end up on shore?"

Jellal's words rang through my head, and I knew I couldn't tell him honestly.

"Umm…our ship crashed somewhere out in the sea. How I survived, I don't know how to answer that."

"Do you have anywhere to go?"

"N-No. My…my mom was the ship's helmsman, and I was raised on the boat my entire life."

He sat there and scratched his head in thought about something, not seemingly convinced about my story but not caring either. He reached into his robes and pulled out the rope that had Grandpa Rob's cufflink on it before handing it to me. 

"This washed up on shore with you, so I'm assuming it's yours since I didn't see any other debris," he said before standing up, "Come on, lets see if you can walk."

He grabbed my hand and pulled me up to my feet without warning. I stumbled a little bit with the drugs still seemingly affecting my legs but after a few minutes of trying to find my proper balance I managed to stand on my own. The sudden movement made me experience a wave of vertigo, however.

"You alright?"

"Y-Yeah."

He nodded before turning toward the mountains and pointing towards the mountain range.

"Beyond there is a village, that's where I'm going to take you since I can't take you with me. Someone there could take you to Port Hargeon down the coast, I'm sure. If you ask around you might be able to find at least a friend of your mother. Whatever you do is up to you, I guess."

He shook off the remnants of the salad on his pan before shoving inside a small rucksack that he slung over his shoulder. The mysterious man started to march forward towards the mountains without any warning or care for my input. I put the rope with Grandpa Rob's shackle around my neck, entirely uncertain as to what I would do from here on out.

Minutes passed of quiet hiking between the two of us. The mountains were steep and covered in thick green trees that made it impossible to see through the area around us and the dim light made me unable to see the tree roots that were sticking out through the thin trail of dirt. I ended up tripping on one of these roots, but since one of my arms was sprained I couldn't put my arms out to stop my fall. On instinct, my body flared up and dissipated into an amorphous cloud of flame and reappeared back on my feet a ways off. The black robed man looked at me in mild intrigue after seeing me perform magic.

"Well then," he started, "I could tell that you knew magic, but this just makes things better."

"W-What do you mean?"

"The guards of this village all use fire magic, a practice that stems from the philosophy they follow apparently," he said as he resumed walking, "I don't know much about it, but you can probably learn more about fire magic if you join them when you're older. That is, if you do want to know more. Elemental Body Magics are pretty strong on their own."

"Wait, you know what my magic type is?" I said in curiosity. I had only awakened it the previous day, after all and had no idea what I could do with it.

"Mhm, and you don't?" he said with curiosity.

"N-No," I replied awkwardly, "It just sort of…manifested. I guess."

"Hmm, well then," he looked up to the sky as if sorting his thoughts, "Body magic in a broad sense is the ability to change the abilities or even strengthen the caster's own body with magic. One of the Wizard Saints, Warrod Sequen, used body magic to prolong his life by making himself more plant-like, for instance. Elemental body magic is using magic to turn one's own body into an element or energy. Its strong suit is defence and mobility. Take what just happened for instance, you just fell but were able to correct the way you landed by moving in the shape of flame. The defence part is a tad tricky to master, though. There are nuances that can restrict it."

"What do you mean by nuances?"

"Well," he paused as he looked around before he found a dried out stick on the ground and broke a still alive one of a low hanging branch, "Let's use this."

When he turned back around he swung the dead stick at me. I closed my eyes and raised my arms to protect myself only for the stick to go right through my body as it parted in flames in the area he struck before reforming again.

He then gently swung the fresh stick at me and it didn't go through me. Instead it bounced off of my head as I had lowered my guard.

"Hey!"

"Sorry, sorry," he said with a smile on his face as he clearly took joy at my expense, "But it's a perfect demonstration. Both of these sticks are the same thing fundamentally, but one thing separates them for the purposes of our discussion. The dead stick doesn't have any ethernano, but the living one does."

"And ethernano interacts with ethernano," I replied as I caught on, "Meaning the living stick could interact with me…"

"That's right," he said, "All living objects have ethernano inside of them, as it is as important to life as oxygen is. Elemental bodies are affected by living objects hitting them, and the same could be said for other forms of elemental magic that don't rely on a solid body to manifest."

"What's the difference?"

"Well, magic uses ethernano as fuel and uses it to retain its shape when cast. However, solid magic such as ice-make magic has its shape made after its cast so it would go right through you, that is if the caster isn't manipulating the shape of the object even after its construction. But a proficient ice-mage could try and overpower your own magic and freeze your body, even if it is made of fire. Then there's the natural interaction of non-physical forces. If a water body magic user got hit with lightning their body would just absorb the lightning and hurt them, meaning a lightning body user would naturally overpower a water body user. However that same water body mage could potentially suffocate your flames before you can boil away their water," he explained, "But magic power also comes into play, and this is operating under the pretence that these are unaltered elements and not a sort of special water magic. If you could overpower the water mage's magic or raise the temperature of your flames you could win, but the reverse can also happen. And this can also apply to ordinary forms of these elements. If you aren't seeking to overpower anything then a bucket of water could potentially douse your flames. Or at least affect you. Conversely, if fire meets fire, it's just going to be two equal forces cancelling each other out unless the other can overpower the other."

I listened to his words and felt like I understood what he was saying, but there was more I wanted to know.

"So if a weapon was coated in magic it could hit me?"

"Yes."

"And…is there any way to protect myself from this with my magic?"

"Only if you practise. Here, let's try it again."

He grabbed another branch off a tree and poked me in the ribs with it, to my annoyance.

"Try to morph your body around it. Instead of letting the object mould your body as it passes through, try and do it on your own."

I tried to do what he asked, closing my eyes and picturing my body forming a hole in my ribs that would let the stick phase through me. It was tricky, but I understood the concept. Up until this point I've been reacting on either emotion or instinct, so finding another way to use my magic was tricky. He himself got bored, poking me in the ribs over and over again, but eventually with one of his more aggressive pokes it sank into me. When I opened my eyes and looked down the same picture I had in my head, a large ring of fire in my body right where he was poking.

"Yep, just like that. The trick should be to consciously change the spot on your body where the attack is going. Now, try to coat the stick in fire."

I did as he said, easily emitting flames from my body that quickly turned the stick into ashes.

"When someone gets close enough to attack you, burning their weapon or even their fist will at the very least discourage further attacks," he said as we started walking again, "Elemental body magic is defined by its ability to be an offensive defensive. You'll be able to ignore the attacks that come your way and attack in retribution. Your body will be your greatest weapon. That is, if you don't choose to learn other fire magic, miss…"

"Oh, umm, it's Lyssa," I answered the unspoken question, "Thank you for the lesson, mister…"

"Spriggan. And you're welcome."

We quickly found ourselves overlooking a village that was in the basin of a half ring of mountains, but to call it a village would be an insult. It was expansive and covered every part of the forest. The buildings were developed in beautiful red asian architecture. The outer fields were dedicated to farming, the northern section looked to be the wealthy hub, the centre was busy and bustling, and the streets were lined with various market stalls. To the west several large temples stood and the red gates that led into and out of the city had towers lit with fire. In the mountains opposite of us stood a large bronze statue of a skinny robed man with some sort of paper talisman that hung from his hood and covered his face. Large red ropes were draped all over the statue and each one had actual paper talismans attached to them.

"Well then, Miss Lyssa, this is farewell."

I turned to the man that had healed me, fed me, and taught me about my own magic all in the span of a few hours for seemingly no reason at all. Curiosity filled me, as well as slight worry.

"Why…why did you help me?"

He just smiled and started to walk away.

"Because I'm older than my looks would make you think. I have sins I'd like to pay for, and acts of kindness should be the rule to human nature, not the exception."

I stared at the retreating figure of the mysterious man as I felt an unknown weight behind his words, but they held such a sincerity that I could tell there was no lying in his words. He meant what he said, and after experiencing years of torment, I agreed with him on a personal level. I cupped my hands in front of my mouth and took in a deep breath.

"Thank you Mister Spriggan!"

He just waved backwards to me, his body not turning around. Feeling that this was the last I would see him, I began to make my way down the mountainside and towards the entrance of the village. When I approached, the two guards immediately got on guard and a wall of fire surrounded me.

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