A Way Forward

Chapter 95: A Way Forward

/To central command,

the northerners have pushed our front back. Bries has been taken over to them, the villagers who refused to evacuate now either dead or under new leadership. Our supplies from there have ceased coming, and we need more rations lest my soldiers starve at the front.

They also sent one of their heroes to us, Eylomer of the northern ice, and he has been hacking apart morale alongside any structures we establish. He doesn't seem to tire or sleep, either, and we have been unable to regain our footing. As things stand, we need reinforcements, lest our hold on the northeastern front crumbles.

I advise you all to start putting forth some damn effort in these battles. Any more footsoldiers are sending cattle to a slaughterhouse. I need resources enough to combat a damn hero, and if they don't come, we'll simply be mowed down. The situation has not been more urgent yet.

Sincerely,

Marcus Gaud of Hurric, executing field officer and leading general of the east./

- - - - - -

'You may need to keep thine enthusiasm today, young Mercury, as I fear my lesson may be rather dry.' old Dreamweaver spoke. 'As your ihn'ar and expertise with mana progresses, this one believes it may be part for thee to finally touch the loom, and to feel the woven threads.'

While Dreamweaver had told him that the lesson would be dry, their words certainly didn't make it sound very boring.

'Old Uunrahzil, I don't quite understand,' Mercury replied, writing a little confusion, but mainly curiosity.

'That is the point,' the ancient one before him thought with what Mercury could swear was a little bit of a smirk. 'Your task today is to understand. The dream you see, the one we are currently in, is woven of the thread, and this one would wish for thee to find that thread. Then you will understand.'

Mercury shook his head. He clearly understood all those words on their own, yet all chained together, he just didn't quite get it. 'I apologize, teacher, but what is it that I must do?'

'I ask thee to see, young one. Open your mind with ihn'ar, and truly seek to understand. Once you have done so, I wish for thee to look beyond the tapestry, beyond that which is the product, and search what makes it tick. Certainly, when you understood grass, you also understood its complexity? I wish for you to find the intrigue, the puzzling strangeness of thine dream.'

Old Dreamweaver spoke with finality, and Mercury could tell that even if he were to ask anything else, his only reply would be silence. So, instead of worrying, Mercury decided to take his new lesson step by step. First, he just had to enter ihn'ar, right? That was doable.

So, Mercury used <Breath>. He didn't have lungs, but that wasn't important. He knew the feeling of breathing, and so he breathed, his imaginary chest heaving as it filled with air that wasn't truly there. Then, it latched onto his blood, and began the long journey through his body, before being breathed back out. All things happening simultaneously and in perfect harmony.

Breathe in, breathe out. Slowly but surely, Mercury's mind became more serene. His thoughts began to settle down, the lake of his mind coming to a standstill as the wind stopped blowing. Breath by breath, the waves lessened, until Mercury could truly feel stillness within himself.

Then, he waited patiently. First a few seconds, then a couple minutes. He was waiting for the certain feeling that he was ready to receive whatever it is the world showed him. He kept his eyes closed, breathing in and out as the seconds ticked by silently. Mercury waited for a little longer, every time his mind sought to stir taking a slow breath.

Eventually it came. Like a light that he could grasp onto with his paws, the feeling laid down in his heart, taking over his whole body with serenity. Still, Mercury waited a little longer, for the feeling to settle in, get comfortable and have it grow stable. Then, finally, once he was sure it wouldn't just disappear if he moved, Mercury opened his eyes.

Everything he could see was layered with a slight golden sheen. The air, the soil, the grass, the sky, the buildings in the distance, and even old Uunrahzil, but Mercury couldn't see any loom, or threads, whatever that meant.

'Don't just look, young Mercury. Look!' old Dreamweaver sad, and Mercury closed his eyes again. Clearly they didn't wish to show him whatever secrets the world was hiding, so he would have to reevaluate.

Instead of simply gazing at the air, Mercury decided to open up his mind. With it, he felt into the air, noticing how many triz of mana were floating in it, each and every one calling out to him quietly, but he didn't focus on them. They were small, yet there were gaps between them, and it was those the cat decided to focus his attention on.

He knocked on the gaps with his mind, seeking if they were dangerous, and his answer was silence, so he investigated further, seeking to see what laid in between, and again there was no answer. His mind could not find anything, yet his mana heard his intent, and as always it answered.

Slowly, the drops of silvery liquid he usually kept in his core reached out, seeping into the outside and allowing him to feel the air. It was slightly humid, warm, and quiet, he felt that much, but then his intent probed more deeply. His mana came in contact with the other triz, yet it was under his control and thus it shrank even further, becoming so small it snaked around the drops floating in the air, probing into the gaps between them.

Seconds ticked by as Mercury looked closer and ever closer, his expanded mana becoming thinner than a hair, then still smaller as it began to taste at the nothingness in between. The gaps that laid between what was, the distance that was so much greater than that which existed.

For a moment, it reminded him of molecules and atoms, the way that they were mostly made from nothing, yet with that foreign thought, the golden understanding he had amassed shattered, and Mercury was brutally slung back out of ihn'ar.

'Foreign thoughts?' old Uunrahzil asked, and Mercury noticed. 'Leyren, mine student. Time is not what we lack. This is simply your next task. It is not urgent nor pressing, I simply ask thee seek to do it properly.'

Mercury nodded towards his mentor as he closed his eyes again and began to breathe, yet the airflow was shaky at best, his body shivering from the backlash. He continued to try and wait it out, but his focus just wouldn't come back, his thoughts always drifting off, and after a couple failures, frustration set in.

'Do not force it, young one. Leyren, always. Perhaps this one ought to trikko thee patience before anything else?' Dreamweaver asked, though they wrote it with enough amusement to clearly identify it as a joke. Slowly, Mercury nodded.

'Yes, Uunrahzil,' he said after a little while. 'I understand.'

'Good,' the old one nodded, 'then perhaps thee wishes to improve the veins of thine mana?'

'What do you mean?' Mercury asked, puzzled once more. 'My veins fill my body, what more is there to do?'

'Furthering them, of course?' old Dreamweaver asked back, equally confused. 'Thins astral body is not thine real one, is it?'

'But these veins can only empower parts of me that truly exist, no?' Mercury asked back.

'Of course, yet is empowering your flesh all thee seek to do with magic? Then why not go down the path of stamina instead, it is much easier and superior in that manner? To make veins for mana, to carve pathways for it, cannot only be done to one's own body, but to the very flesh of the world as well, young one. Is this not basic knowledge anymore?' as Uunrahzil spoke, they seemed genuinely confused why Mercury didn't think of this on his own, as if it was a truth so self-evident it needed no explaining.

'But... how?'

Mercury almost felt as if his teacher was blinking at him in confusion. '>How<?' they asked.

'Yes, how?' Mercury nodded.

'Well, the same as always, young one. Grind away at whatever barriers there are with thine mind, sharpen it until it breaks apart the stops that seek to oppose you. Thine thoughts are more than a simple weapon to make thine flesh stronger, they are tools to see, to discover, to understand. If there is something in the way of that understanding, thee should simply break it down. That is as well as I can put it.'

For a moment, the mopaaw remained silent, staring at his teacher still with some confusion, but very slowly, he nodded. 'Alright, I shall try.'

'Ah, perhaps it would help to think of your head as a tool in the most literal sense. When flooding thine own body with mana, it is like doping, where your thoughts are a syringe administering the substance. When you form spells, your thoughts are the hand that shapes clay, and when you dream, your thoughts are the loom, weaving threads into the tapestry that we then see. Yet, when you carve out your veins, the channels for your mana to flow, what tool would you use? Claws? Fingernails perhaps? A knife? Nay, you would take a chisel of course.'

As old Dreamweaver finished, there was steadfast certainty behind their words, and that alone already told Mercury he could take it very literally.

And so, he focused inwards again, visualizing his core until he could see it, and then he walked his mind alongside the network of his mana veins. Through his skeleton and his muscles, then slowly to the furthest ends, along thin capillaries, all the way to his kin, as far as the veins went, until he hit a wall where there was no more space to go.

There, Mercury paused and collected himself. He didn't channel his mana to crash against the walls and erode away at them, but instead, he visualized a chisel, and the essence within him listened. His mana gathered, latching onto his thoughts, forming a sharp tip with a long stem and a handle, and then behind the chisel it formed a mallet as well.

He took a few moments to make them more stable, to gather more mana and compress it down, pushing the triz closer to each other and making it as solid as he could get it. There was a lot of resistance as he tried to do so, like squeezing a full bottle of water, but even then he tried to keep it as pressurized as possible.

Then, by boiling some of his mana, he made the mallet slam into the chisel, as it accelerated towards the border of his astral body. A moment later, the chisel collided with the rock, and Mercury felt his mind press against the boundaries of his being, which then cracked. What had once confined him was loosened, and although a tiny amount of mana escaped, he cared little, seeing as the rock soon reformed.

Nothing but a crack, it was quite disappointing. Actually, there was almost no sign of expansion even now, his veins seeming to want to close up inwards rather than outwards, but Mercury didn't give up. Continuously he slammed against the borders of what he was, yet before he could make the first proper gap, old Dreamweaver took him from his thoughts.

'Young Mercury, you are growing wa'hc. Be patient and keep working on what I told you today. Do not let the world confine you to what you think you are, instead, be what you wish to be. I'm proud of your progress.'

And with that, the mopaaw opened his eyes to the midday sun. With a long sigh, Mercury stretched his legs and tail, before stepping out onto the welcoming grass. The rays were warm, but the shadows were cold, and Mercury saw the first few leaves sail to the ground. It was a little windy, but with his fur the cat was well equipped.

He started to walk through the forest little by little again, looking for something else to eat. Obviously, the lizard yesterday had not quite been enough, and he definitely needed something more, but with the time of day he didn't need to search for a long time. Hunting small critters got a lot easier with <Telekinesis>, since he could lift mice and such off the ground, leaving them struggling helplessly.

"Ghost hands," Mercury smiled to himself as he wolfed down a squirrel. Its tail had a very nice curl to it, alongside with some barbed hooks it used to stabilize further when hanging onto trees. It was a very enduring predator that ate not only nuts but also insects and spiders, quickly snatching them up whenever they landed close to it, or so <Appraisal> said.

While eating he thought back to how hard hunting used to be, with him having to wait and then jump on them, when now either the grass held small prey down for him, or he could use <Telekinesis> to lift them off the ground. Procuring food for himself had really become much easier, he thought with a smile.

But he didn't let his thoughts wander for too long. Soon, he dedicated his attention back to his astral body. He could feel the area he had begun to work on during the dream, where he was beginning to hack down the boundaries of the flesh and work towards a true self. Again, he smirked. This was more akin to something a cultist would have said in his old world, yet here he was, doing things that would usually be attributed to something like an eldritch horror.

Mercury shook his head as his mind formed a chisel again, the sharp point hammering down on the walls he had built to confine himself in, breaking out chunk after chunk. It felt strange. There were no warning bells ringing in his body, and he could tell there wouldn't be any adverse affects, yet still it felt strange. Unfamiliar, in a way, and also foreign.

It was natural to feel that way though, since he was very literally expanding his mind to a place outside of his body. Especially given the fact that he was used to nerves which would only let him feel within his regular confines, this was obviously very new. The feeling was actually quite similar to mana expansion, which to some degree let him feel and touch things beyond where he actually touched.

Something like this would obviously always feel unfamiliar, but he trusted old Dreamweaver, and so he continued. Mercury shook his head at the thought of them again. He was so happy to finally meet them again in his dreams, yet he also noticed again just how different they were. To them, going against the self-imposed boundaries was so natural, while Mercury never would have even thought of it.

Maybe that's how he looked to people like Yvette. He naturally thought of absorbing mana from the surroundings since he had read of it before, while to them that was something people needed to be taught before trying it. After all, you couldn't do that with stamina.

Wait a second.

For a while now, Mercury had found that strange. The system was usually very fair in terms of different routes of progress. They were different in method and result, but not necessarily in quality. So, if he could absorb mana form the air, yet training his stamina needed him to up his dexterity, was that not unlike the system?

Usually, it wouldn't allow one energy to just be gathered and the other one to be clawed from within oneself. And stamina also used different terminology than mana. He coursed his mana, and expanded his stamina, dragging it up from the depths of his vessel.

With that thought in mind, Mercury paused the expansion of his astral self, letting go of the chisel, and instead chose to focus on his stamina for a moment. He tried to imagine his vessel, like a well from which he would bring the stamina by the bucket, letting it flood his every cell, and it worked. He saw the well, and he could feel what it was like, so then, he peered down the well.

There, he saw something sloshing green and buzzing with energy, the very vitality that kept his body moving resting down there with waves on its surface, seemingly eager to jump out and fill him up to the brim. Consistently, small bits of it flooded out, just enough to move his jaw. And when he peered into the well, at the very bottom of it, he could see small crystals forming.

(Please keep in mind that this is not actually how real stamina works! The human body does not have a well inside it! If you tell this to your biology teacher, they will probably laugh at you. Deservedly so.)

And then, when he focused his mind on one of the crystals and ground it down with the power of his thoughts, it crumbled and dissolved.

[Your Sp have increased by 1!]

LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOO!!!