As it turns out, Tiela meant she was going to start training Kaelum immediately.
After that awesome pastry, Kaelum wanted nothing more than to dive into bed. But it looked like Tiela had other plans, it seemed that sleep was going to be pretty far from Kaelum for a while.
‘Enter your soul space.‘ She commanded with an authoritative tone.
Before heading in, Kaelum quickly stashed the remainder of his coins behind his cupboard. After buying his slightly expensive pastry, he was left with just under fifty copper. It was worth it, though.
After leaning against the wall on his bed, Kaelum closed his eyes and focused in preparation to enter his soul space.
Right then he heard some movement outside, a head popped up by his window. Or rather, wall hole shortly thereafter.
The face opened its eyes wide in surprise before relief washed over it.
“Oh thank goodness, I thought the monster got you, Kaelum!” Said the person Kaelum now recognized to be Peake, the cheeky bastard that left to him to do all that heavy lifting.
“Huh, Peake? What are you talking about?” asked Kaelum in confusion. Peake hadn’t visited Kaelum’s home in quite a while.
“The flesh-eater, I haven’t seen you over the past week so I thought the flesh-eater got you!” Said Peake, as if that explained anything.
“Oh, I’ve been working until sundown for the past week” Kaelum explained his new working situation.
Peake replied in understanding “That would explain why I haven’t seen you, everyone’s been hiding indoors before the sun sets. Nobody wants to get caught by the flesh-eater.”
A second later, he processed Kaelum’s words, “Wait, you got a job? Like a real job where they pay you?” He asked incredulously. He then asked with concern “Are you working for one of the gangs? that’s dangerous!”
Not letting himself get sidetracked, Kaelums said “No, I’m not. But what’s this about a ‘flesh-eater’?”
“You haven’t heard?!” Peake asked in shock.
Peake waited until Kaelum shook his head to continue “People have been hearing strange noises in the slums at night and finding torn up animal carcasses in the morning. I’ve even heard some people have gone missing!”
Taking Kaelum’s look of horror as his sign to continue, Peake then said, “It must be some kind of monster that got into the slums, maybe a werewolf or a demon!”
Kaelum asked Tiela worriedly in his head Could there really be a demon or a monster on the loose?
‘It’s not unheard of that a demon might sneak into a city, but it isn’t likely. If there really is, the guards will deal with it eventually. Nothing to get worried over.’ She said confidently.
Peake took Kaelum’s silence while he was talking to Tiela as Kaelum being petrified in fear. Rather than keep talking on the flesh-eater, he decided to change the subject for Kaelum’s sake.
“So what’s this about a new job? If you’re not working for a gang, then where are you working?” Peake asked. There weren’t many jobs available for unskilled kids like them, a fact Peake knew well.
“Remember when all of us got rounded up by the guards? The day you snuck out of work and left me behind to carry heavy stuff all day?” Kaelum asked, laying the guilt-tripping on hard. After seeing Peake nod guiltily, he told him about his interactions with Karrow and his weird stares.
“Well that Karrow guy does seem weird, but at least he’s paying you…” Peake said after hearing Kaelum’s explanation.
Peake suddenly asked “Oh yeah, speaking of Karrow. Have you heard that the princess left Arum?”
Seeing Kaelum nod in affirmation, Peake continued “Well some people think she left a day early because of the flesh-eater. But I know better” He said with a sly smile.
This piqued Kaelum and Tiela’s interest, so Kaelum asked “Then why did she leave early?”
“The real reason is…” Sensing Kaelum’s interest, Peake paused before saying “Because one of the people trying to impress the princess actually snuck past her guards to meet her in her very bedroom!” He said with a dramatic flourish.
Kaelum’s reaction was far less than satisfying, he only nodded, thinking Oh, so that’s why.
‘Well, that was a useful bit of information that we didn’t know before’ Said Tiela sarcastically.
Peake’s sudden revelation didn’t seem to impress Kaelum, so he decided to continue saying “Not only did the person sneak all the way to her bedroom, the person was a mortal! Not even having a shred of mana!”
Peake stood, waiting for Kaelum’s surprised gasp, shocked look. Heck, he’d even settle for Kaelum widening his eyes. Alas, Kaelum still gave no reaction. It’s hard to be surprised when somebody recounts your own actions to you.
“Oh” was Kaelum’s only response.
“Man you’re no fun at all, I thought you’d be interested since you got caught too. At least all the other knight trainees in the city got mad that someone beat them to the chase.” Said Peake glumly.
Though Kaelum didn’t care much, this last part caught Tiela’s attention. Surely a bunch of young jealous knights aren’t going to become a problem in the future… Hopefully… At least nobody knows Kaelum is the one who did it. She thought to herself.
A few seconds after Peake’s grand reveal and Kaelum’s nonreaction the last slivers of sunlight shone through the hole in Kaelum’s wall. Upon seeing the last rays of sunlight fading quickly, Peake made a sour face at Kaelum’s seeming disinterest in the topic and hurriedly got up. Saying “Well, I’m glad you’re not dead.”
Peake laughed, saying “But I’m gonna run home before the sun sets, I really don’t wanna be out alone after it gets dark.” It seemed the talk of a monster running around the slums had spooked even Peake. Kaelum had never actually seen Peake scared, he always held the image of a brave older brother in Kaelum’s mind.
After bidding Peake goodbye, Kaelum went back to his bed, only slightly worried about a monster running around the slums, he wasn’t a kid anymore, after all.
‘Alright, come into your soul space so we can begin.’ Said Tiela, glad to have gotten rid of the distraction and wanting to start their training immediately.
Kaelum had almost forgotten about their training but quickly entered his soul space at Tiela’s behest. Opening his eyes to the realm of pure darkness, the only lights coming from himself and the pink-haired woman clad in golden light. She looked the same as ever.
He asked with a yawn “What kind of training are we doing? It’s kind of late…”
“We’ve already wasted enough time, if we want to meet our deadline of one year then sacrificing a little sleep is worth it,” Tiela said, not impressed with Kaelum’s lack of enthusiasm. Now that she was his master, she’d have to beat some motivation into him.
Smiling at the thought, she continued “You’ve been training your body with work over the past week, but we need to clear the rest of your veins before we can do anything else.”
Kaelum nodded. That made sense to him.
She explained “Right now you’re being held back by your inability to fully cycle mana. A lot of the mana you take in with your breathing technique is being released back into the air because it can’t complete a full path through your veins.”
“I’ve felt that,” Kaelum said, “And I’m collecting even more now than I was before we cleared my right arm’s veins.”
Tiela said “That’s because you’re now able to complete more of a circuit now. The closer to a full revolution through your body, the more mana you’ll be able to absorb.”
She then said, “There are a number of spells and techniques that every knight worth his salt should know, you also can’t learn these until you’ve opened all of your veins.”
“It seems a lot of my training is being held back by my veins,” Kaelum said with a sigh.
Tiela replied, “Exactly, so currently we need to clear this bottleneck before we can actually train you in earnest.”
Having explained the first steps of his training in earnest, she had him sit down cross-legged in preparation. Though this time she didn’t push any mana into his body after putting her hands on his soul body’s back.
Tiela explained “We’ll be using your newly acquired mana to clear the rest of your veins, rather than mine. Start circulating your mana and then I’ll take control.”
Kaelum did as his master told him, starting his breathing technique to circulate his mana. He thought he had amassed quite a bit until Tiela popped his bubble with her words.
“Alright, this much is barely enough to work,” Tiela said as she took control of his mana. “Hmm, this feels similar to my mana but slightly different.”
Always eager to know more, Kaelum asked “Everyone’s mana feels different?”
“Yes, everyone has an affinity and after taking in environmental mana into their bodies, the mana starts taking the attributes of the mana that they have an affinity to. Mine is ice, by the way.” She explained.
Tiela’s explanation came just as she shaped his mana into a drill and started laying into his unopened veins.
It hurt just as much as he remembered, forcing his thoughts away from whatever question he was going to ask next. He was single-mindedly focused on not screaming in pain.
After about an hour of Tiela drilling into his veins with mana, she called it quits and Kaelum was able to take a deep breath. It wasn’t a fun experience by any stretch, but his body felt amazing afterwards, it almost made the pain worth it… Almost.
Though their session lasted a far shorter amount of time than their first, it was still just as unpleasant. Tiela hadn’t used up all of Kaelum’s mana but she had been able to clear all the way down to his left elbow today.
She explained “Alright, we don’t want to use all of your mana so we’ll stop here tonight. With more of your veins opened you should be able to absorb more mana while practicing your breathing technique tomorrow. At this rate, it shouldn’t take more than a week until we’re done opening all of your veins.”
Thinking of his days ahead, working and training from sun up to sundown, Kaelum thought aloud “That doesn’t leave me a lot of time to find food, what with working and training all day…”
“That reminds me,” Said Tiela “We need to set some ground rules!” She said with a glare that bore through him.
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