by Chris Vines
“That’s probably the point. We are essentially being trained to be elite soldiers, so we need to be used to being ready to fight at all times.” Brett informed him.
“So, where are you from?” I asked both of them.
“I’m from East Village. It is a small village set up in the edge of the Great Western Forest. My family is Beast hunters, selling meat, hides, and cores to the merchants in Pevnost City, which surrounds Fort Pevnost.” Brett responded.
Lucas then chimed in “I’m from Mount Rosly Village, named for the mountain nearby. My uncle owns the iron and gold mines, and my dad manages the iron mine. We are a minor noble house, with my grandfather in charge of the village. Where are you from?”
“I’m from here in Azyl City; my parents own a book and writing store, selling books, binding tools, and writing materials mostly.” I told them, and then asked Brett “What are cores?”
He looked at me questioningly. “Beast cores are what let Beasts gather Aether, and are the equivalent to our centers. They are worth good money, especially for stronger Beasts, as they can be used as power sources or gathering assistance. We mostly hunt level four and lower Beasts.” At my questioning look he explained, “Beasts are rated by the equivalent gathering level they would be. Level four is the equivalent to the Foundation Aether Compression level, so my dad and uncle have to be in the group to hunt them. You almost always want more people at the equivalent level to hunt a beast because they are generally stronger than we are.”
“Thanks for explaining. I got really sick and nearly died a year ago and lost most of my memories, so I’m still learning all sorts of information.” I explained. “ We nearly had to sell the store to pay for medicines, but I got better before then.”
“You think the sickness and medication helped you get the ridiculous talent levels you have?” Lucas asked me.
“Maybe. Neither of my parents had anything above normal talent. I wouldn’t recommend trying to improve your talent that way, though. It was not pleasant,” I said with a shudder. I waved over Jon as he walked in. “This is Noptep Jonathan, though friends call him Jon. His family owns one of the local laborer groups that unload ships at the docks. Jon, this is Brett and Lucas.” I introduced Jon.
“Yeah, I’ve met Brett already. Good to meet you, Lucas.” As Jon sat down, we tucked into the food. Mmm, Elemental bacon.
After breakfast, Jon and I took our plates up and found a bin next to the counter. Placing our bins in it, I winked at the server. Behind us came Brett and Lucas with their plates, and they gently stacked them in the bin as well. We headed to the classroom building, with Jon telling a crazy story about how he supposedly helped hunt down a thief by following him across the rooftops. “I managed to stop him from getting away so the guards could catch up, when I slipped and fell off the roof onto him.” He finished the story to our laughter while we reached the classroom.
Walking into the classroom, I waved hi to Bridget and did a small bow to Mentors Gutierrez and Lo. Counselor Sila walked in just after I sat down. Ming and Anberlin walked in after he did, making the classroom full. “Okay, today we will continue the theme of yesterday morning’s class, and unlock your other arm. After that, you will spend some time looking through your centers to find other potentially openable meridians, and you will present to me where they are. We will pick one or two to open, and that will be one of your tasks during the morning meditation period. Any questions before we begin?”
As no one was raising their hands, I raised mine to ask “Sir, why do we only open a meridian or two a day?” He looked at me and smiled.
“Good question. Mostly because each meridian opening takes from your total gathered base, and if that gets too low it can cause problems and cause some opened meridians to close. Additionally, the strengthening that occurs needs resources, so you need to eat a lot and your body can run out of stored nutrients if you open too many too quickly, though that is usually less of an issue. So when you present the meridians that you want to open to me, I’ll make the determination as to how many you can open. Now, you get to be the first to open the other arm.” I nodded and stood up, walking up to the front of the class. I saw the Mentors pointing out two others out of the corner of my eyes, realizing that my peripheral vision was better than it used to be.
When I got in front of Counselor Sila, I focused inward, sensing the edge of my center and found the spot that was opposite my right arm meridian. Grabbing some Aether, I flung it into the spot. The meridian opened with little difficulty, and I felt the impacts as it hit my heart, left lung, kidney, and stomach. The stomach impact riled it, and I felt nauseous. “Good, go on and sit down. Your stomach will quiet down shortly. Find a couple of meridians to open.” He directed me before waving at Brett to come up next. I staggered to my chair, holding my stomach and breathing deeply thinking don’t throw up. Not two days in a row.
I sat down and focused on my center. It took me a minute to get back into the right frame of mind. It’s hard to meditate when your stomach is roiling. Once I was able to focus, I started feeling around the edge of my center. I quickly found several meridians leaving around the top and bottom. Rather than immediately opening them, I tried to sense where they went. Moving my senses was difficult at first, with me leaving the meditative state rather than succeeding. After a couple of tries, I managed to succeed at sensing the start of one of the meridians coming out the bottom of my center. It immediately veered to my left, entering into the side of my stomach, where it turned to follow the rest of my digestive tract, finally leaving just before the end of my large intestine, at which point it came straight back up to my center. Huh, one that only goes into my digestive tract. That’s useful, I guess.
After that one, I found a few others that were similar. A second one from the bottom ran to the bottom of my spine, all the way up it until it connected to my brain, then back down to my center. One from the top went into my left lung, up my airway to my nose, moved down the top of my mouth, back down the other side of the airway to my right lung, along the diaphragm then back to my center. A meridian left the side of my center to go through my right kidney, down to my bladder and organs down there, before looping back up to my left kidney and center. The last one I traced, at least before going up to talk to Counselor Sila, was one that seemed to zigzag across my chest and back as it traced my rib cage, shoulder blades, and collarbones.
After I finished tracing that last one, I looked up to see Counselor Sila looking over the class, with no one talking to him yet. I noticed that several people, including Anberlin, Ming, and Lucas, were gone already. I stood up and walked over to Counselor Sila. “Ready?” He asked me. I said yes and described the five I had traced. “So, which one would you want to open if you could only open one?” He asked.
I thought for a couple of seconds, then said “I really don’t know, sir, I’m not sure what the benefits from any of them are. So I’ll follow your recommendations.”
“Good identification of your lack of knowledge. I would start with the airway meridian. It will help your stamina increase faster and helps you gather faster than most since it’ll slowly pull some Aether from each breath. Very minute quantities, mind. Next, open the digestive system. This will help with pulling Aether from the Beast meat and Elemental plants we feed you here. It also will help with getting more nutrients and less waste. You can open both of those this morning, though I recommend doing the second one in the restroom. The expulsion of impurities from that meridian will be … explosive.” He finished with a laugh. My stomach felt a bit queasy again hearing that.
“This evening you can open up the spinal meridian. It’ll strengthen your spinal column, making it more durable, as well as slightly speeding up your reaction rate. If you want to open up that meridian, though, you need to eat a double helping of everything at lunch. They will have significantly more food available for the next two weeks, to help all the new students build capability faster. Make sure to stuff yourself at every meal from now u
ntil, well, ever. You are lucky; the airway and stomach meridians are small enough that you can open three additional today. Good luck and you are free to go. Come back if you have any more questions. Look for some more meridians tonight. We’ll be opening your legs tomorrow morning, but you’ll have the opportunity to open another tomorrow night,” he gently shooed me away, and I saw Jon was waiting.
“Good luck” I said and left, heading to the pavilion I spent part of last night at. I reached the pavilion after a couple of minutes and looked around at the flowers and trees here again. Sitting down on the cushion provided, I centered myself. Okay, so let’s open up the respiratory tract meridian, then I’ll observe and carve the Air rune near where that meridian connects. After that, head back to the dorms, go to the bathroom, and open the digestive meridian sitting on the toilet. Yup, nothing speaks to the grandeur of surpassing nature’s bounds like sitting on a toilet, I mused to myself.
I felt along my center to locate the opening point for the lung meridian again. Once I found it, I slowly spun Aether until I was ready and released it into the opening. Aether flowed into my lungs, up my airway, through my nose and mouth, then back through my vocal cords and other lung into my center. After completing the circuit, I breathed deeply, getting even more scents than before. A crazy mish-mash of scents and tastes were apparent, though not as overwhelming as it had been when I first opened the senses meridian. Exhaling, I began to cough as my lungs and vocal cords spasmed. A minute of coughing resulted in hacking out a couple of small globules of disgusting black phlegm. I spat a couple of times and pulled out a water bag. I rinsed my mouth again before drinking some. “Ugh, that was gross, especially with enhanced taste buds.”
After a couple more drinks, I pulled out the Air memory stone, ready to hurt to get it right. I activated the memory stone and watched as the teacher began to draw. The rune was surprisingly simple. It started with an even spiral parallel to their chest, followed by another, perpendicular to the first that started at the same spot. Two more formed an interweaving eight pointed star, with a final circle connecting the endpoints of the four spirals. Of course, just because it was easy to describe did not make it easy to draw. The hardest part was to get the spirals to interweave without touching. It took me a good hour and a half to get it down, leaving me with only half an hour or so before lunch. Huh, I’ve gotten much better at telling the passage of time. I wonder why? Maybe the senses or life meridian helped? Guess it doesn’t really matter, but it sure is useful.
I hurried back to the dorms, stripped off most of my clothes, and went to the restroom. No one else was here, which was good. I sat on the toilet and focused, ready to strengthen my stomach. I wonder if this will help me eat spicy food better. I thought as I opened the meridian. I felt extremely nauseous at first, though the pressure left my stomach and went the other way. After about five minutes and many, many flushes, I felt much better and cleaned out. Focusing on that meridian, I sensed that the workings of my innards were improved. I cleaned up and got dressed. As I did so, my stomach let me know that it had been emptied and wanted filling, immediately. Wow, I’m hungry!
I nearly sprinted to the dining hall. There were several bins of bread, cheese, and grilled fowl available, along with a large salad bowl. I quickly filled a plate up, sat down at the first available spot, and inhaled the food. The food helped settle my stomach and replenish the Aether spent on the meridians. “Wow, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone eat that quickly,” came a deep, female voice with a slightly disgusted tone. I looked up to see Haodha Anberlin looking at me.
“Hi. Yeah, I was really hungry after opening some meridians. Would you like to take a seat?” I asked, hoping I could mend some bridges here.
“No thank you. I just wanted to let you know that my house will not press Nicolai to mend his relationship with you, but we will not encourage him to attack you either. We will be neutral in this matter. The clan head asked me to inform you of this. Have a good day.” She said as she walked away. Well, at least it’s just me versus Nicolai, not me versus the Haodha clan. At least right now. If I keep embarrassing him, it might escalate.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I got up to get a second plate as Xiao and Ming came in. I waved at them, filled the plate up again, and sat down. This plate I’ll eat slower and enjoy the taste I thought to myself as the Lo’s sat down with me. “How was your day?” Ming asked politely.
“Good,” I responded, “opened another three meridians so far, hence the second plate. How about you?” I asked.
“Good as well. I’m hoping we get to move beyond meridian opening to gathering techniques, rune craft, or channeling soon though.”
Xiao chimed in saying, “I can’t wait for Beast knowledge. Our cousin said that the first class of Beast knowledge is when they introduce Wind Wolves, and I want to tame one. He said that taming a Beast can let you form a soul bond with one, which can improve your affinity with their respective element. Also, my father has a Wind Wolf soul partner and he’s so amazing.”
“Are soul bonds common?” I asked him.
“Not really. There are channeling techniques that can assist in forming one, though I don’t know which ones. Dad said it took a long time to build their relationship enough to form a soul bond, and that it requires the Beast to be at least level four or higher. Hopefully, we’ll find out more in class today.” After that, we finished eating and got up. Xiao gave me a questioning look when I took the plate to the bin. I waved to Jamila and Vaya, who were sitting together with a group of other young women, mostly minor nobles by their accessories and posture. “You know they have servants to clean up the building after every meal?” He said as I rejoined them.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t hurt me to be kind to them, so I’ve chosen to do so. You never know when the kindness you show someone will come back around to you.” He nodded at that and he gave a pensive look, but he didn’t go back for his plate. Changing the behavior of nobles will take a long time, I thought, but at least the majority of the ones I’ve met don’t conform to my worst stereotypes.
As we walked to the classrooms, I asked them about life in a major Clan. Ming described long days of training, in weapons, history, and economics. As the heir, he had to be ready to take over at any time and to lead his Clan well. That was why he had been delayed entering Azyl Academy. He had to finish some of his inter-clan training first. “I already knew my talent and affinity before coming here because my Clan has a method of testing. They had me attend here more out of tradition than from any expectation that it would let me grow faster. I’m also supposed to make friends with new talents and interact with our rivals in a friendlier manner than we would outside here,” he finished explaining as we entered the library. “Having some positive acquaintances with the Volkov, Haodha, and Kowalski Clan juniors helps keep major conflict down.”
The chalkboard was set up again, this time with a message to go to the same classrooms as before. Xiao excused himself to head to his classroom, while Ming and I went up to ours. At the front of the classroom as we walked in was a middle-aged woman with dark skin, black hair, and piercing blue eyes. Next to her stood a fox with silver hair whose shoulders reached nearly to her waist. Wow, that’s a huge fox. We bowed to her as we walked in and then found our seats. As I did so, I saw an owl at the back of the classroom. It was a deep brown with gray speckles and nearly twice as large as an owl from earth. That seems to be a theme with elemental animals; I guess the Aether makes them bigger.
Brett and Jon walked in after we did, and right as they sat down the Counselor introduced herself. “Now that everyone is here, let us begin. I am Counselor Taiga and will be your instructor in Beasts, Elemental Beasts, and soul bonds. With me are Akira, my soul bound Pokryc Fox and Cichy, my soul bound Spedis Owl. Yes, contrary to common belief it is possible to have more than one soul bound partner. We will discuss how and why when we get to our discussion of soul bonds.”
“We will spend the majority of the clas
s discussing different Beasts that are common to our kingdom, the Great Western Forest, the Skraj Mountains, and the Dividing Sea. These creatures will be the ones that you will encounter and most likely have to defend against if you choose to do so. Today, we will begin with an introduction of the Beast ranking system and give examples of each rank.”
Beasts are given a level based upon how strong they are. Level one was roughly equivalent to a person in the low Vapor Gathering stage. There were very few animals that did not reach level one. Some examples of level one Beasts were the Elemental Fowl that we’d been having for dinner for a while. Level two was up to the high Mist Gathering level, which was where they started to get dangerous, especially in large groups. Earthen Boars and Horned Rabbits were the examples given. Horned rabbits. Rabbits with horns. And they could kill me. I … can’t compute.