Amorphous thoughts

With all the girls adamant on how they wanted Calla to wait for her clothes to be ready before presenting herself to the others, she remained locked in Emp's room all day long.

Emp didn't want to hold her in Bêtéclair for too long so if she had wanted to get the presentations over with and go home, he would have disregarded the advice of the girls but Calla didn't mind it too much. She reasoned that she wouldn't stay here for months and even then, it was only for this once and they'd go back to Dark-glint afterwards.

She didn't waste her time waiting for the clothes alone however. Emp split himself in two to maximize the use of his time. One of the two him went to class and applied himself to training while the other stayed with Calla and used his notes on Blackbull's classes to both study them and teach her how to read.

Teaching someone how to read was actually much harder than it seemed and Calla had that comically serious face the whole time she tried to decipher Celtine's writings. Emp did his best to read along with her and at the same time, go trough the proper way to conduct oneself with her. His slave had been thorough in taking her notes and nothing was missing, even when it didn't apply to him. There was no lack of material to go through to practice and this was perfect for Calla who wanted to learn more on the subject anyway.

With all that studying, Calla didn't have time to feel bored and combined with the frequent visits of the other girls to see how she was progressing and just chat with her, she had a good few charged days.

That way, Emp was able to refresh his mind on all the small things he had forgotten and the many relationship of the different houses across the empire.

In particular, what interested him was who was loyal to the Muraciers and who would side for the Grandbois no matter what. He needed to know what regions would support him even if the worst came to happen. For example, the Thornwatch controlling the northern border of Grandbois were more likely to follow the Muraciers than the Emperor. In contrast, the kingdom of Windblow which had almost no exterior borders was very likely to side with the emperor in case of a conflict.

The sheer amount of houses he needed to review like this took an absurd amount of time. If he had known all of this would become important, he would have paid more attention the first time Blackbull taught it all to them. He had believed that he would just go away so learning about all those nobles was pointless, how wrong had he been and how regretful he was now feeling.

Meanwhile, the other Emp did his best to improve on all fronts.

He spent a lot of time detailing magic and it was the least of his work. Every moment of freedom he had, he would go down to the training field and practice this or that.

First of all, with the help of Winfred, he learned the proper way to use the basic speed oriented self-magic. It took him a while to actually understand what he was told to do however.

That speed magic was in fact a poor imitation of the innate ability of a Fwan. Fwans could unlock their strength and speed at will and raise them in a sudden burst that could last for as long as they wanted but it cost them part of their overall lifespan.

The speed augmentation self-magic worked in the same way except it was far from what a Fwan could achieve. It was like comparing the speed of a toddler to the speed of a trained messenger in a hundred meters race. However, an improvement, as small as it was, was still an improvement. Emp wouldn't complain about it being inferior to a renowned innate talent.

To learn that magic, the first thing he had to do was to find the magu in himself. This also happened to be the hardest part in learning how to use self-magic.

To put things in simple words, Emp could compare his magu to the king of Artefine.

Obviously, he knew that he existed and knew he was in his castle in Bêtéclair but he had never seen him before. His magu was the same, he knew it was there somewhere inside him but he had never seen it.

The next step was to see the king once from afar, as long as he could do it, he would be able to make the most simple enhancements work. This was what he needed to accomplish.

The last step was the hardest, he needed to know the king personally in order to design his own self-magic. Like meeting and befriending a king, this would be ridiculously hard to achieve if you weren't gifted for it in some way.

Emp didn't really pay attention to the third step for now and just focused in trying to feel his own magu. If he managed to do it, he would be able to feel when the spell was active and when it was not. This was why it was the absolute first step in learning any self-magic. Without this, you would not even be able to tell if it was working or not. Emp thought it should be obvious whether the speed of someone was augmented or not but apparently, there were many in the past that forgot to turn off some self magic and consumed their whole body to keep them up for too long without noticing before it was too late.

Because of this, he had sat himself in the garden away from the training field along with Celtine and did nothing for hours on end. Winfred called this meditation but Emp just called it a waste of time. He kept feeling the urge to get back up and go do something more productive like training with the blessing of space or sparing with Brenia or even challenging Winfred. Instead, he was stuck here, sitting on a bench with his eyes closed and trying to find something invisible and intangible.

At least Celtine kept him company. She was sat right at his side and was imitating him. She kept her eyes closed and tried to to find her personal magu. From what he could see, she wasn't having much better results than him. Searching that thing was like searching for your own soul, how could anyone feel that?

At first, it was even worse because he kept getting distracted by his bottomless bag. Every time he closed his eyes and looked into himself for anything special, he always fell into the black space of the bag. Removing the bag from his side helped a bit to focus but not much because now, he kept being drawn towards the anchor Space drove into him two years ago. It was very upsetting.

Unlike back then, he couldn't find magu by searching for something that was out of place because as Heinrich had explained, it had always been an integral part of him.

It was very hard to focus on something you could not really feel or see, his mind kept wandering to other places and he almost fell asleep a few times while he was trying to find his own magu.

According to Winfred, there were many ways to find your own magu but for most people, this meditation thing was the easiest. Some other methods were very risky and almost never used like igniting your own magu in order to feel it clearly. Thinking it seemed to be quicker, Emp wanted to try that but Winfred refused to do it and told him to try the other way for longer.

"Just be patient, or not, it all depends on what sort of person you are. Understand yourself and then, you will find your own magu. I don't get all that magic nonsense for the most part but I know that the affinity test is really useful for finding your own magu. Heinrich told you all this, right? It's about your personal magu being closer to other types out there thanks to how you are as a person. You need to think about yourself properly, find out what makes you you and not someone else and then, using that, understand what makes you close to your affinity and with that, get a feel of your own magu."

Winfred might not be the best teacher for things related to magic but he did help Emp remember some other exercise he was asked to do before.

Back on the bench, he closed his eyes again and started thinking about himself. He went through everything that happened to him since his creation and tried to get a feel for every event in his life. The anger, the joy, the sadness, the pity, the awe, anything he remembered, he relieved it in his mind. He watched over everyone he knew, observed every place he had ever visited and thought about all the things he needed to do or wanted to accomplish.

He thought back to the sand swirling around him to show him what were his affinities and how some didn't go to him clearly. Some part of him had still been missing then, the remaining affinities relied on an emotion he had not really felt yet or some other convoluted condition. He was willing to bet that the pink powder would now be more active since he discovered his love for the girls. This meant he still lacked the yellow powder and the silver powder.

He wondered what sort of thing he still needed to feel in order to stimulate them. Did it matter in his quest to find his own magu? Could he truly understand himself if those two likely important aspects of him were still missing? Or were they like love, already a part of him he had just never understood. Maybe they were like rooms in the school. Even if he never saw them, they were still there. They had to be or the school would be full of holes. Even Heinrich said it, everyone had every emotions, it just so happened that they were more in tune to some. In that case, everything he needed should be found in his own behavior.

What was it that made him himself? Was it his love for Calla? His desire to help those around him? His determination to protect those close to him? Was it something grand like his destiny, how he was made to become an emperor? Was it more simple than that? Was he just a man who liked to feel the wind in his hair as he looked at the horizon, or the guy who liked to feel water flow between his toes as he contemplated the detours of the river? He tried to fit himself in many roles but found that none fit him perfectly. He was not the son of Marcy, not the son of Chinui, not the son of Love, not the husband of Calla, not the next great general or an emperor nor even a smith. He wasn't a survivor or a murderer, a hero, a fighter, the reckless guy who went too far when angry or a simple man.

If he wasn't really any of those, then what was he? All of those at once? After thinking about it for a long time, he came to the silliest of conclusions. Emperor was simply himself, it was just as complicated and simple as that. Wasn't it the reason why the magu of everyone was unique even though they shared common magic affinities?

Knowing this, if Emp was himself, could he also be a general or an emperor? Could he be a butcher, a smith or a logger or was he simply himself whatever the clothes he wore?

If he happened to be turned into bear, transformed by evil magic, would he still be himself or would he be a bear? Could a bear be him or could he be a bear as well as himself? Would he become the bear or would the bear become him? Surely neither were right, he would merely be himself in the body of a bear. He could not be a bear like a bear could not be him even if it tried.

Nobody could be someone else than themselves, this was why talking to the magu in other people was so difficult.

Whatever his name was, whatever position he occupied or title he was given, he would still only be him. He was not everything he ever thought and did because in reverse, both of those all came from him, mistakes and good ideas alike. He had always been himself and would always be. He could grow and change but in the end, he would still be the same because the changes were a part of him too.

Emp felt satisfied by the idea, even though it was so silly. All of this did not help him find his own magu however. He had lost track of what he was doing at some point and found himself drawn to the Sacred anchor of multiple simultaneous space occupation. It really was a mouthful of a name.

Where was that thing? It was a question he had asked himself many times already. Space had planted it into his shoulder but it wasn't really there. It wasn't into his body and he wasn't wearing it but he still knew it was there. It was planted into something, a something Emp knew was there only because the anchor was stuck into it.

He had hoped this was the magu he was looking for but it wasn't, it had no reaction at all to any magic words.

It was a very strange thing, he did not feel it, could not sense it, could not see it but still, he knew it was there. It was formless too, not like a puddle or a slime monster but truly formless, it had no bounds despite being reasonably sized, far from being infinite, that thing was constrained within him. It was a part of him but not like an internal organ he couldn't really feel, it seemed that this thing was there just to be there and did nothing. Truly, the only way for him to know it was there was because the anchor was with it. He found it very mysterious and wondered what the book of answers would say about it...

He continued his attempts to feel that place, circling it with his thoughts and prodding it with ideas but he could not find anything about it. Emp kept wandering through his mindscape until he started feeling something. At first, he thought he had finally forced a reaction out of the thing but no, it was instead something that was knocking on his forehead.

The moment he understood this, everything he had worked for up until now unraveled around him as the knocks became clearer and clearer. He opened his eyes and discovered he was heavily leaning on Celtine.

"Wha... What happened?"

< Master fell asleep while meditating.> The girl wrote in front of his blurred eyes.

Did he really fall asleep? He thought he was onto something... What was it? He couldn't remember what he was just doing. Was it about the magu? It was so frustrating to lose a good dream like that.

Emp sat back up properly and stretched his arms and legs. He rubbed his eyes awake and apologized to Celtine.

"Sorry Celtine. Did I disturb you?"

The girl shook her head with a smile.

"Did you manage to find your own magu while I was sleeping?"

She nodded with a bigger smile. As expected she didn't... Wait, she did!

"How did you do?" He asked with great interest.

< It was super easy, I just sang to myself and I felt it stir something in me.>

That simple!? He continued to read with interest, he wanted to know how she thought of that.

< Fly and sing, that is what I do, that is who I am. Once I knew it was about our nature, it was easy to think about. The man tribe have a much deeper understanding of magic than us. I would have never thought that when I called for the help of the wind, I was sometimes helping myself instead. I was using some self magic and I didn't even know about it. The wind was inside me the whole time.>

He understood that cursed blood had more magu in them so they had an easier time of finding it but that was quick. It was almost frustrating how simple it had been for her. Said like that, she could have found it the very first time they tried if only she had thought about her favorite thing to do before.

If that was the case, did he simply need to gaze at some scenery and focus on some reaction inside of him? Either it was that or the elements where inside him and he didn't think this was the case. The wind wasn't really inside her, it was just a figure of speech... Right?

"Let's go back in our room then, I'd like to try something."

They went back to the room, didn't disturb Calla and the other him in their study and sat down at the balcony. He looked off into the city and tried to focus on finding his inner magu again.

From what he understood of Celtine's story, he needed to immerse himself in something he enjoyed or perhaps simply felt strongly for and then examine himself while this was happening. The hardest was probably to do both at once. If he was enjoying and immersing himself in the scenery, how could he focus on himself?

He let his mind wander off again, thinking back on the conclusion he came with about his own self. He must not have been far off then, if he had not fallen asleep, maybe he would have found the magu.

He watched smoke rise in columns over the colored roofs of the city, the birds nesting in nooks and crannies along the high walls and the tiles overhead, the people wandering in the forest of stone and wood.

The city was it's own thing too, he thought. It wasn't just Bêtéclair, it wasn't the city that housed the school or a city with a temple of Love, it wasn't the city of towers or the capital of Artefine. This place was it's own, with all the people living in it as part of it, bad and good, with crooked buildings, magnificent towers, rich nobles parading in weird clothing and people lacking food as well.

What was the magu in this whole thing? Was it the people living here? Was it the very air? How was he to translate it back to his own body? Was it in his blood? In his mind? Bound to his soul perhaps?

An idea slowly took form in his head. Something he had missed, something he had been told before, something that should have been obvious. Heinrich had said it all the very first time they met. Magu isn't something that belongs to you, it is a part of you. If Emperor was simply himself, than the magu was part of it no matter what he thought about it. The moment the idea was clear, in his head, everything became easy. He felt really stupid, it was as if he had been searching for a feather that he had hung over his ear just earlier.

The reason he could not find the magu was simple, it was because he was looking for something like the anchor or the bag. He was searching for a sensation that would be close to feeling a leg or an arm but in fact, all of it was coated in magu.

Celtine had been sort of right, the wind was indeed inside her like the color purple or Calla or his goal to become the Emperor was in him. It wasn't something attached to him, it was in him from the start. He was the magu itself like he was flesh and bones, he was his will and his desires, he was all of it and all of it was him.

The truth was, he could not feel the magu, just like he couldn't feel his kidney. Maybe Celtine was truly able to but he wasn't. He could not see it either, only the fwans could. However, he was able to move it. Moving his own magu was simple in the end, it was like moving an arm, he didn't even need to think about it, he just did it. He moved it around in his body, gathering it all in a spot and then stretching it all over his body again.

Unable to feel the magu, he had no way to tell if this was actually working until much later. After a long time of practice, he was able to tell what was happening to the magu, not from it itself but instead, how the rest of him felt from its actions or its inaction. It was a bit like one cannot hold a flame but one can tell they are touching it from the burning sensation.

Emp found it fascinating. The more he played around with it, the more it's concept became coherent in his head. When he worked it too much, it would tire like a muscle, when you did nothing with it, it just slept through your whole body.

With magu in general being sensible to ideas and sounds, Emp believed it might be influenced in its behavior by how he thought about it. Since he believed it to be a facet of his being, than it was. Celtine saw it as wind so it might be moving like gusts of air at her command but his own was simply himself. Not an extension of him or an additional limb, it was him as a whole.

Using the overburdening hammer as a test, he felt the exact same thing as usual while lifting it. He felt drained of his strength and all the muscles in his body burned. Knowing it was a form of self magic however, he paid careful attention to the magu. The truth was that every time he picked up the hammer, it started raging and stormed all over its body like a mad tempest, destroying his muscles like fire in a bale of hay.

The magu itself seemed to disappear in the process. If he attempted to do anything with it just after moving the hammer, nothing would happen. Then, it would come back like gentle water and wash over his body to repair the damage it had caused. In the end, he felt it had grown a bit stronger, just like his body.

When he talked to Heinrich about all this the next day, he was told by the mage that he should be able to get a feel for the magu one day. Apparently, people like him with a strong earth affinity often had a hard time to feel their own magu. They were always looking for something tangible and the magu was anything but that. The best way to describe it would be that it was a spiritual sensation, even though it had noting to do with spirits or the soul. Those with a strong earth affinity were too grounded to just feel it, they required something more real.

Heinrich was very impressed by the clever way Emp solved this problem. He couldn't feel the magu itself but instead became aware of it's effects on himself. That was enough to learn and use self-magic but the mage encouraged him to continue to pay attention to it and keep trying to get a feel for the magu itself until he didn't need to rely on his trick anymore.

Emp understood it was important so he agreed to continue to pay attention to it while practicing the use of self-magic.

After he was allowed to use Self-magic, learning how to activate and deactivate the speed enhancement didn't take that long at all. When activated, the effects weren't life changing but they were still noticeable.

The spell didn't really change his true speed but it did help him keep up with it. With the elixir, his speed had already greatly improved when compared to his old self, his movements were sharper and so much faster that he couldn't even follow them himself. His thoughts could not go as fast as his own body anymore and it was sometimes unexpectedly dangerous as he often moved further than he wanted, either with a swing of his weapon or simply in a run. Now, thanks to the speed magic, he was able to cope with the speed much more easily so even if he went all out, he could still keep track of his own movement, for the most part.

To him, it felt as if the world around him moved slightly slower. His head worked the same as usual but everything else moved almost as if they were stuck underwater. It wasn't that effective but it was the closest thing he could compare it with. Something stronger, like the magic of the mouse might really make everything move as if it was underwater, or maybe even worse, but the basic spell only had a fraction of that power.

His own limbs felt sluggish too but with his already enhanced speed, it only made him easier to control his movements, he was still moving faster than before he took the elixir even though everything else was slow. The truth was that it wasn't the world that slowed down, it was his reaction speed that was improved at the cost of a greatly quickened heartbeat and a sensation of tiredness that would only get worse the longer he used the spell.

Once he understood how it worked reasonably well, he didn't think he'd need much practice to use it well in combat. After all, the only thing he needed to do was turn it on before the fight and turn it back off once it was over. He just needed to make sure he would be able to activate it as quickly as possible if he was in a pinch. All his training in self-magic thereafter consisted of activating and deactivating the spell again and again to improve his execution speed.

He put an afternoon of efforts in this but after that, he started going over everything else he needed to practice as well. He would activate the magic and then try to improve his martial techniques and experiment with the blessing of Space. Once he felt tired, he would cut off the self-magic and practice classic magic instead, along with his coordination and multitasking ability. After that, he would go back to the first again and cycle between all those every day after the classes were over.

The blessing of Space in particular was a lot of fun to play around with. Honestly, he should have trained a lot more in its use a lot sooner. Everything was a question of perspective, as long as he perceived things the right way, a lot of seemingly impossible manoeuvres could be done.

Testing things out with Brenia, Nessa and Penny, he found a variety of interesting things to do with it.

He could already hit things from quite far away but he started to understand that this ability was even more useful than that. As long as he had the right mindset, he could slash flowers from a few hundred meters away using his sword or block or deviate things that should not reach him. He could pretend to attack, force the opponent to parry or dodge an attack that would not come and then strike while they were unbalanced from not receiving the hit they expected.

He was also starting to feel that he didn't really need to see what he was doing to use the ability, it was all a question of feeling. For example, he had thought that he needed to look towards were he was stepping for it to work but it wasn't the case. The fact that he was looking or not didn't have any influence on the distance itself. This meant that he could now make giant backstep if he was careful about the distances.

What he felt would be the greatest advantage would be to perceive different things at different distances all at once. For example, the current him could think of everything as close or everything as far but he could not think of Brenia being close and Nessa far. This made it so he had to make a choice at every moment on whether he wanted to be close to everything or far to everything. It was hard for him to choose which was the best sometimes.

On a good note, he was now able to grab things from the bag in any position at all. With how the bag worked and how he could easily perceive things to be closer to him than they really were, it was easy to convince himself he was close enough to the bag to touch it and get something from it. This way, from other people's perspective, he was making things appear and disappear from his hands even though for him he was just grabbing them form the bag or dropping them in.

With all of this, he improved greatly while he was waiting to present Calla to the others. Once it would be done, he planned to duel the teacher and hoped to improve again. Hopefully, all this extra training would be able to let him keep up with those possessing special techniques for a while. The next step would be to either make his own or find a way to learn about the many secrets the Muracier house held...

Just thinking about it, an idea crossed his mind, could he not just ask the book of answers about that? Why had he not tried it sooner?

He tried to keep his hopes low, the book had the tendency of disappointing him.