Chapter 19: Chapter 19 Training Magic

As they stood and deposited their plates, Nathan took note of the Heirs’ weaponry. Stella bore a tall and knotted staff, deeply carved with runes and with each knot inlaid with a glowing gem. Khachi picked up a polished steel kite shield that must have weighed at least forty pounds and a hammer that looked fit for demolishing walls. Interestingly, Sarah and Aarl didn’t have any weapons, just wide pouches like a fanny pack facing forward. Nathan would have bet dollars to donuts that those were bags of holding.

As they trooped outside other trainees were heading towards various training areas, with Jolba and a few other older adventurers talking to groups or supervising various activities. The Heirs ignored them all and strode around the side of the building, towards the very back corner of the adventurer’s guild complex.

Another team was also moving in that direction, but they saw the Heirs approaching and clearly decided to go somewhere else, ceding the private range of sand to the Heirs without a word or overt glance exchanged. The area didn’t have fancy magical targets, mostly being a walled rectangle of coarse sand. The back was a reinforced wall of loose dirt and hay. The targets painted on it were more a series of overlaid X shapes than bullseyes, but seemed to serve about the same purpose.

Nathan followed Khachi and Aarl out onto the center of the course, while Stella and Sarah closed the gate and stayed back. Nathan stepped to the left, took off his shirt and sat down on the sand. He didn’t recognize the exact meaning of the hand gesture that Aarl threw his way, but it was pretty clearly something along the lines of ‘what the hell, man?’

He gestured toward Stella. “I want to try eating a fireball, and it’s easier like this. Go ahead, shoot.” With those words Nathan focused on Stella, opening his senses to try to get everything he could out of what would follow. Nathan used [Focused Mind] to shape his attention, trying to mimic the state of mind that had helped him gain [Notice]. With a moment of stilled breath, everything Nathan observed gained a level of definition.

Stella shrugged, looked at Khachi, and said “I’ll start off with half a blow, don’t want to knock your head off within an hour of meeting you. That’s the sort of treatment you earn.” Then with a flicking gesture a globe of fire was sailing toward Nathan.

It was faster, more concentrated than the fireball that the Guardian Golem had thrown at him, but also smaller and not nearly as bright. Nathan barely had a chance to blink before the burning ping-pong ball sized orb impacted his chest, and flame washed over him. He tried to pick apart the knot of the spell as it detonated, but the spellwork blew apart even as it touched him. Nathan was left only with the feeling of fire and force mana raging against his bare skin, trying to burn him and blow him backward.

Nathan wasn’t able to separate the two in the moment before his back impacted the ground, a burning sensation at the front of his chest. Nathan felt mana at play there, and picked it apart, feeling a hot, fizzling sensation. It sort of reminded Nathan of the popping of a fire, with frequent and spontaneous bursts of heat. It was not very pleasant, but the sensation faded quickly, leaving him with a mild burn on his chest. He healed it with a quick application of stamina and sat back up to find the rest of the Heirs watching him closely.

Khachi had taken a step toward him, his hand beginning to gather faint yellow light. But then he saw the reddened skin fade before his eyes and he paused, looking confused before opening his mouth to speak. “... you’re not a spellcaster. But you healed yourself. And that fireball was… weird. Stella?”

She shook her head, frowning. “It didn’t explode right.”

Nathan shrugged. “Seems so.” He looked down at his chest, where shiny skin was roughening to a normal texture, scattered hair growing back at incredible speed. He was confused about this, because that wasn’t how burns worked. If there had been enough heat to burn him, that heat should have stayed around and continued to burn until he’d cooled the area down with water or something. But as soon as he got rid of the fire mana, the heat had also gone away. Huh.

Anyway, he looked back up at Stella. “I think I’ll need a few more to figure this out properly. Can you try throwing it a little slower, and maybe make it detonate slower?”

Stella looked bemused. “That’s not very easy, only a few mages in Gemore could modify a spell like that.” She paused for effect. “Luckily, I’m one of them. And I’ll only do it if you tell me what you’re doing.”

Nathan responded with a wide grin. “You’ll see. Gimme another. I’ll spell it out for you if you can’t figure it out.”

Aarl groaned. “Great. Now there’s two of them. At least they can be smug at each other.”

After a moment of pouting, Stella tossed another Fireball at him. This one was a bit larger, a bit more diffuse, and flew a bit slower. It hit Nathan’s chest and burned for a moment before detonating. But the detonation was a weak thing, as the fireball’s structure had started to fall apart the moment it touched Nathan’s skin. And he’d felt the weave of it this time. The mana had been woven together loosely. When it hit him, the force had expanded out to create a shockwave. That had activated and scattered the pattern of fire mana to generate even more of a blast and heat across a wide area. It was like a fuel-air bomb, where an initial blast scattered fuel across a wide area which then ignited all at once to cause the real destruction.

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