Understanding the Unknown

After hours of paying the utmost attention to their training regimen, Axum quickly fell into the thought of how he could try to learn about this energy. He couldn't communicate with these people, and he couldn't research them without them knowing what he was asking.

But Axum wasn't one of the best mages for nothing. After a few days of paying attention to their movements and feeling the flows of energy, he thought that he had reached a basic understanding of the differences between magic and this new energy.

Where magic in his past world was one of mental gymnastics and an in-depth understanding of the world, this energy seems to be more innate. Like it's a natural part of their bodies, and the energy isn't being augmented like in magic but instead commanded by their limbs. In magic, he could be sitting down and cast a multitude of spells without physical movement because of his innate understanding of the periods and energy. But in this world, it seems like the physical movements and effort is half of the battle.

After the fourth day of intense concentration, he was being whispered about by his classmates, who found him paying extreme attention to their classes. While he didn't care much about their opinions of him, Zhao Wen seemed to be a bit annoyed. While he was feeling some comfort of having a pseudo-elder sister watching out for him, he noticed that he had put up mental blocks toward people who had seemingly positive intentions toward him.

He concluded that he is still a bit traumatized towards people trying to get closer to him, and it made him feel uncomfortable and sad at the same time.

To try to make it up Zhao Wen, he bowed his head slightly after pointing towards the group mocking him. She seemed confused, and after a second, her lips slightly curved upwards and nodded her head.

With his studies toward this world's energy were coming to a bottleneck, he decided to try an experiment testing his deductions. When he was back in his room, he started with trying to move the energy around in his body, but there seemed to be no response.

'Do I not have the energy inside my body? Or do I have to train in a certain way?'

Eventually, he got a positive result, but it was not using energy inside his body but outside. He concentrated like he was a rookie mage again and tried using the basic conjuring techniques for elements.

A dull blue light was sitting in the middle of his hands, and when he was thinking of progressing to the next idea, the door suddenly opened.

Zhao Fang and Zhao Wen were at his door again to help with his injuries. But they weren't able to see the small ball of energy because of how faint the light was.

When they sat down again to remove his bandages, he put up his hands to get the attention of Zhao Fang.

She tilted her head, and he placed his hand on his head and then pointed at her. Then he looked at her with a questioning face and offered up his hand.

She pointed at his hand with a questioning look on her face, and he nodded back.

She then tilted her body forward slightly and placed the tips of his fingers on her forehead.

Axum then closed his eyes and started concentrating on building a link, trying to start a form of conversation where they didn't trade words, but images and intent, while using energy as a form of medium.

Amazed at this alternative form of talking, Zhao Fang then started talking in her mind to him but found that her words weren't being understood. But soon figured out that she could portray intent with the images and feeling she could send that he could then decipher.

(I'm just going to shorten the conversation into words cause fuck trying to type emotions and intent into fucking text - btw "()" is going to be authors note)

"Are you feeling any pain?"

He was surprised that the first thing she mentioned towards him being about his well being, he paused momentarily at the warm feelings of motherly love that he hadn't felt in more than a decade.

"No, but thank you very much for everything you and your daughter have done for me these past few days. I won't know how I will repay you for doing so much and for no benefit." Axum expressed his honest opinions towards the matter.

"Our family has a tradition of being kind towards strangers, and while the whole clan might not feel like taking you in and caring for you was the best choice, I am glad that you are doing better."

Zhao Fang made her opinion on the subject while also noting the people that were making pressure toward her to stop treating him.

"Was that what that argument was about the first day I was here?" Axum made the connection in his head about that time that the middle-aged guy yelled at her the first day he woke up.

"Yes, he is my husband, and at first, he thought that taking care of a strange-looking guy like you, who is also dressed very nicely, would bring trouble to the clan. When he realized you were awake, he knew that his worries about the situation were useless once you woke up, so now he's trying to delay the opposing side until we can get an idea about who you are and why you were injured."

"Yeah, from your clans' point of view, a random stranger shows up with strange clothes and is injured is a difficult thing to decide on. Am I a noble who was defeated in battle? A merchant who was attacked by bandits? A lot of the endings result in you being on the bad end of the stick, and once I was awake, you kinda ran out of hope of choosing to play the neutral party, and I guess you decided to put your full weight behind my side."

After a lull in the conversation, Zhao Wen poked her mother's cheek because they had been sitting in silence for a few moments with their eyes closed. Zhao Fang opened her eyes, broke contact with Axum, and turned to her daughter and started to explain the situation to her.

After Zhao Wen's eyes became larger for a second, she also leaned her head forward and closed her eyes. So Axum placed his fingers on her head and did the same.

"Wow, this is amazing, I can't understand your language, but we can still talk!" Zhao Wen quickly became excited, but after losing a bit of connection because of the lack of concentration, she immediately calmed down and re-engaged in deciphering his message.

"Yeah, now I can slowly learn some of the language and stop being a dead beat and at start to pay off the debt I have with you."

"Huh? That won't be necessary, though. We did what we did to help you because you were injured and didn't expect repayment for it. So you don't have to worry about that."

Axum didn't know how to respond to that, but he didn't think he could win this argument, so he stopped there and diverted the topic to explain what happened to him. But he just showed some of his memories instead of telling different worlds and magic.

After a long pause, she turned to her mom and spoke a few words before motioning towards him to do the same with her mom.

Her mom also paused for a while before reconnecting, and after showing her his memories, she asked him where he came from.

"I'm from the Aternic Empire, and I assume you haven't heard of it before?"

"No, what was that thing on the floor that glowed before you were absorbed by that black ball?"

After explaining magic from his world and how he noticed vast differences between this world and the one he was from. Zhao Fang fell silent for around a minute before talking with Zhao Wen. Zhao Fang then pointed to Axum and said a few words before Zhao Fang left the room, but leaving Zhao Wen.

Zhao Wen sat down and reconnected with Axum and told him that her mom was going to talk with her husband about his situation and that Zhao Wen should start teaching Axum the language.

While speaking with Zhao Wen he started to notice a bit more about her, even though she was slightly older than him, he thought she was still cute. Axum stood roughly 188 centimeters (6'2 ft), she was the smaller 170 cm (5'6 ft). She also had slight fat in her cheeks that made her seem like she was kind of smiling all the time. Her skin color was a bit whiter and cleaner, and she had a pleasant smell that added to her charm.

The day ended with Zhao Fang entering the room after a few hours since her departure.

Thanks to the thought transmission ability, which grants high-speed communication and a direct understanding of words, Axum was coming to a basic knowledge of the language. He wasn't well versed enough to have good conversations, but he was able to get far enough without needing the thought transmission as a crutch. He could instead ask the questions in Tanin, the native language of the area.

Zhao Fang quickly expressed that he should head to bed, but tomorrow he was going to meet with a few people to discuss his future.

After the mother-daughter pair left, he was left alone with his anxiety, and he didn't mind if they kicked him out after he was healed. But it seemed that Zhao Fang was being pressured by the clan, and he wanted to try his best to help Zhao Fang and Wen.