Legacy

The Mana slowly flowed from his pool into the torso to then spread towards Aymon's limbs. When he tried to muster all his concentration to create a small flame on his palm, a second Mana stream disrupted the calm flow causing extreme pain. It felt like the raging energy was going to burst the channels where it was flowing through, nearly making him faint.

"Cough... cough... Dammit, even though brother gave me his Mana pool it's more of a hindrance than an additional power. How should I even learn to control my own Mana when his keeps interrupting the stream and almost kills me every time." Some drops of blood landed on the floor as he coughed.

Three days already passed since he read his brother's diary. Through eating everything that was given to him he could recover all the lost energy of the body. After getting back in shape he began to train under Aiduin, the former master of Haemir. But there was the problem of his second Mana pool interfering not only with magic exercises but also physical training. His concentration was continuously disrupted by the constant fight between the two powers within him. Obviously, Aiduin never talked about the technique to steal Mana pools from other persons and therefore couldn't ask his master for guidance.

Hence he found himself sitting on the bed and thinking for a solution to be able to control his Mana flow.

"Given that both pools are hindering each other I could either learn to use both of them simultaneously or try to fuse them into one pool. Either way, I'm gonna risk to damage my channels when trying consequently, the question is how high is the probability of success in each method?"

He walked up and down as he tried to figure out which solution to use. After an hour he finally came to a conclusion.

"If I can learn to merge two pools I could continuously increase my Mana capacity by absorbing and fusing new pools, while with the other technique I would need to learn to manage every new pool I might get my hands on. Conclusion no matter the success rate it's more efficient to go with the first one."

With his legs crossed, he sat down on the floor slowly breathing in the fresh air with mouth and nose, then holding it in and lastly letting it out in a constant stream. While repeating this procedure, his thoughts gradually drifted into nothingness and he only felt the two power sources deep within his body clashing with each other. One shining in a strong red while the other flickered in a gentle blue. With the red pool being way bigger then the blue one Aymon decided to let the smaller one get swallowed. Without further ado, the red one started to deprive the blue pool of it's Mana. The two power sources began a fierce fight over each other's dominance in the body causing him internal damage.

"I need to merge them in harmony without suppressing one of the pools otherwise I won't be able to use the full power."

Blood was running down from the corner of his mouth as the red and blue gradually began to mix and slowly turning into a dark violet. The pressure on his organs slowly subsided signalizing that the process was finished. Exhausted by the damage taken he lost consciousness and collapsed on the floor on which he was sitting on.

"Agh, my head hurts and I can't even move my body, what in Riane's name happened yesterday." He recalled the events of the day before while gradually regaining his consciousness.

Not being able to stand up he remained lying on the hard floor.

"Since I can't move let's use the time to watch if I'm finally able to control my Mana flow. A small flame should do the trick."

Without moving he started to equally distribute the newly gained energy throughout his body. After he took the needed Mana he quickly started a small chant. In the beginning, nothing happened but after a short while, his palm began to heat up causing him to panic for a moment as suddenly a big flame appeared. It was way bigger than it should have been, instead of a small candlelight he got a campfire in his hand.

"For Fuck`s sake I wanted a small one, how did it become so big?!"

He quickly stopped the flow of his Mana barely avoiding to burn down his house.

"Was this enhancement in spells caused by the new pool? I should be more careful with it and especially to who I show it. But with it, I got a step closer to my aim of destroying the Empire."

10 weeks before winter, the Empire forces began to set up camp on the other side of Ogeroy Creek preparing for an invasion when the river freezes.