Chapter 32: 29: Cultivation for everyone

Túeth’s POV

Túeth could feel the tension as she watched the master. She was still mentally exhausted from the task he had just assigned her, to answer three questions that once answered would give her the basic idea of how to perform a spell. This, she assumed, would be the first basic spell she was to learn. “Well then, how about we start with this? Nymph, please show yourself to our guest.”

“Yes!” At the master’s words, Túeth was somewhat surprised to see a small glowing child-like sprite appear from the wall. She had seen a nymph create a face on the wood of the Lakira tree before in order to communicate with the house’s inhabitant, but something like this was certainly quite new to her. She had only heard of dryads being able to manifest a form like this, but the master had quite clearly called this a nymph. “Good to meet you!” The child-like being greeted her. “I’ve already seen you before, but I guess this is the first time you’ve really met me. I am the spirit of the magus master Eirlathion’s house. I would normally demand to be addressed as such by outsiders, but since you have been accepted as the master’s apprentice you have the right to simply address me as nymph, just as you would the spirit of your own house.”

Túeth could only stare in open-mouthed amazement at the words of the spirit of her master’s house. It was generally acceptable to simply call the spirit of a house “nymph,” but in the case of the spirits of powerful individuals such as the elder or a powerful magus that was never acceptable. Even the spirit of the house of such an individual must be shown respect and be called by a name that acnowledges their master. For her to be given the honor of foregoing the spirit’s name, it meant that she was fully accepted as a member of this powerful house, and the permission had just come from the spirit themself.

“I... no! I couldn’t do that!” Túeth protested the spirit’s words, looking to the master almost in desperation, begging him with her eyes to revolk the words that his house spirit just said. He did not deny them though. He did not back them up either. He did not even attempt to assure Túeth it was fine. He just seemed to look at her with a satisfied face.

“So, you can see the spiritual form of a nymph.” He said. “A normal person is not able to do that.”

Yes! That was right! Túeth had been so distracted by the meaning behind the Nymph’s remarks that it had almost caused her to forget about the even stranger thing that was right in front of her face!

“Only a mage who has developed their spirit to the extent where it can start to support a spell of the third rank can see spirits in their spiritual form such as Nymph.” The master said, looking at her approvingly. “I thought you might be able to see them. Aerien was also able to see Nymph’s spiritual form last night. It was a bit surprising, but when I saw that I figured out a little bit more about what kinds of changes the Heaven’s Fall seemed to have caused. The intense spirit energy that was around at that time seems to have infused itself directly into your spirit Túeth. You may have not formed any vessels for your spells yet, but the spirit that houses them has already been remodeled to quite the extent. Normally a mage must develop their spells, and then in turn use their spells to reinforce their spirit. You, right now, have gained the ability to skip a great deal of the process involved in developing your magic. If you wanted to, and had the ability, I am certain you would be able to at least form a rank three spell right now as your first spell, never even needing to bother with an apprentice’s spell in your life.”

“Wh... what? What are you saying?” Túeth responded. She had heard every word the master had just said to her, but not a single syllable of the entire thing seemed real. No, it couldn’t be real. This kind of thing really didn’t just happen. It must be a dream of some sort. That had to be it. Not just asked to be a mage’s apprentice, but to hear she was already an advanced mage without even practicing magic a day in her life? Yeah, that has to be it. This has got to be a dream.

“Túeth, are you certain you do not need a break?” The master asked. “I know this is a lot to take in, you can sit down for a little while. After this, I will be teaching you how to actually form a spell vessel within your spirit, so you will need to be paying attention.”

“No, go on.” Túeth responded. Despite how off balance she was with this whole thing, her mind simply refused to allow her to stop. In fact, it was almost as if every time the master suggested she take a rest, this thing simply welled up inside her as though it was panicked at the idea of stopping and any objection she may have had before that was simply cast aside as though it was insignificant.

The master looked at her skeptically, but eventually he decided to continue. “Alright Nymph, thank you for your help. Please go back to watching the girls.”

“Ok, they just woke up from a short nap a bit ago anyway, I probably should keep an eye on them.” the spirit of the master’s house said before charging into a nearby wall and vanishing from sight.

“Now then, let’s begin the real lessons.” The master said as he pulled out a chair and took a seat, gesturing for Túeth to do the same. “So, now you know that spirit energy is the energy of thought. How about mana energy then?”

“Well, it’s the energy of magic.” Túeth answered this question easily. The specifics about the nature of spirit energy were not very well talked about, but mana energy being the energy necessary for magic is something all children hear as they grow up. This is also why the children are taught to be cautious of humans. Humans are unable to produce their own mana, and human mages would gladly have an elf as a slave in order to aid in their ability to develop and restore their spells. There should not be a single elf who does not know about this.

“That is correct,” the master says. “Elves produce mana as easily as breathing though. So, why is it that your average elf cannot just cast any spell they want with all of their mana?”

“Come on, that’s not even hard!” Túeth protests the question her master just asked her. “You also need...” Túeth stops speaking mid thought as she realizes the direction her master is probably going with this, and she is already despirately wishing she could stuff her impolite comment from a second ago back in her mouth. This question may be easy, but the question that’s going to come right after this one is definitely going to be another one that causes her head to hurt.

“Túeth?” Her master calls her with a concerned tone.

“Oh! Sorry! You also need spirit energy to form a spell. You need both mana and spirit energy.” She hastily finished the answer she had previously frozen in the middle of. After this, she was bracing herself for what was going to come next.

“Hmm... alright then.” Her master was looking at her with concern in his eyes. Never the less, he went on to ask his next question. “So, knowing what you know now about spirit energy, why do you suppose that is? If mana is the energy of magic, what does spirit energy have to do with magic?”

Túeth was a little surprised at her master’s question. It wasn’t because the question was unexpected. As a matter of fact, it was almost exactly the question she was expecting. However, there was something about how he had phrased it that just made it seem a lot easier than she was anticipating. It even almost felt like he had somehow secretly told her the answer already embedded in the way he asked the question. It just made all the pieces fit together.

“Umm... maybe the spirit energy somehow controls the magic?” She speculates. The master nods, but seems to keep looking at her with a look of expectation, urging her to go on. In other words, she was on the right track, but that was not a complete enough answer. “So, the spirit... it is the energy of thought, so you need it to tell the mana what it is supposed to be doing, and that’s how you would make a spell.”

Her master gave a nod after she finished speaking this time. In other words, he had accepted that answer this time. “Indeed.” He said. “This is the reason why a mage needs to build up spirit energy well in excess of what a normal elf requires to survive. The body of your spirit is comprised of spirit energy. However, in order to use magic, you must gather extra and crystallize it in the center of your spirit. Then, you use this captured and crystallized spirit energy to tell your mana what to do. This is the essence of what a spell is.”

“Now then,” her master continued, “next I will teach you how to accumulate and crystallize the spirit energy. Fortunately, this house happens to have the very best conditions for gathering spiritual energy, those children produce plenty of it.”

-

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Aerien’s POV

‘Is that all? He must be leaving something out.’ Gaerien scoffed at our mother’s lessons over our mental link. When we had woken up from our trip into Gaerien’s mental world, we heard our mother’s lessons beginning. As such, we decided to stop and listen before going on with anything else.

I could sorta see the source of her disappointment, Ether guy really hadn’t explained anything that was new to me either. I had already learned almost everything he had just said from Gaerien already. Although, I do have to greatly admire Ether guy’s use of the Socratic method. Plato and his mentor never existed in this world, but it seems that with such a powerful instructional tool it is inevitable that it would be independently discovered in another culture separated by an entire world.

Right now, our mother was being given a far more valuable lesson than whatever magic Ether guy was imparting to her. He was teaching her how to think. He was teaching her how to seek answers for herself, and how to reason through problems on her own. The only time he ever provided any information for her was when it was something she truly had no way of knowing before hand.

Really. The more I listen to the guy interact with our mother, the more respect I have for him. If only there were not that one matter.

I cast a glance over to the boys who where interacting with us now that we were “awake,” and they had been listening in as well. (That’s kinda cool, it’s like we’re in one of those cultivation novels!) Rolwen said a line that peaked my interest.

(What!?) I asked with a tone far more harsh than I had expected.

(What are you talking about?) Levin followed up.

(It’s a kind of thing on the internet, Chinese based webnovels. Uhh... do you all know what web novels are?)

This was a new concept on me. However, now that he had explained this much my mind began to catch up a little bit. Gaerien had explained to me before about how, with spirit energy being the energy of thought, Earth having so much of the stuff stagnant allowed thoughts and memories from outside to easily reverberate through the world. As I understand it, this cultivation stuff seems to be some kind of standard way things work outside of Earth. As such, it really is little surprise there is some kind of fiction that talks about it. Perhaps the reason it’s not more widespread is because of how esoteric the concept is. As such, naturally most artists would ignore it rather than delve into it once they have picked up the concept from “outside.”

As we had provided no response to Rolwen’s question, merely looking at him with slack-jawed expressions, he quickly began to explain basically that web novels were the newest wild west of free-lance book publishing over the internet, anyone who had a harebrained idea could publish it on the internet. That’s how I interpreted what he told us anyway. He seemed to gush on for quite a while about his favorite series he would read back on Earth and wondering how the lives of the characters had progressed since he was gone.

(Ok, that’s cool and all Rolwen,) I finally interrupted him, (but...)

(So, what does Earth say about) “culwaton.”Gaerien interrupted me, not even seeming to care at all about how badly her baby mouth had garbled the word ‘cultivation.’

(Uhh...) Rolwen responded, slightly at a loss. (Well, I don’t read much of them myself. They are kinda niche, not a lot of people can follow them with all the meditation and stuff, but it’s supposed to be you can actually become a god by meditating or something like that.)

‘Hmm... of course the humans have a short attention span for the important stuff.’Gaerien complained to me secretly over our mental link. ‘maybe I should start giving them my lessons as well.’

 

‘I’m not really sure how exactly you are going to be able to get across complex subjects like that through baby babble.’I respond. ‘Also, that would mean revealing your status as a goddess to them. Not that that’s bad, but we will have to watch how we handle the reveal. Well, considering Rolwen’s reaction here, maybe it actually won’t be that hard a reveal after all.’

(Anyway,) Rolwen decides to start filling the airspace with words again. Gaerien and I had gone mysteriously quiet, and Levin of course didn’t seem to have much to say about what Rolwen was on about. (What Ether guy was just saying to your guys’ mommy sounds a lot like the stuff I hear about is supposed to happen in these cultivation worlds.)

(Well, maybe we should learn it too.) I “suggest.” (First though, I want to talk about something. I think we should stop keeping secrets, and I think Gaerien and I should start.)

Author's note

Another somewhat early chapter. I have had the releases for the Subscribers ready to go since last night and finally decided to post them after I got home from a family cinco-de-mayo party. (It was not really a fun party, but that's a personal matter.)

Anyway, after releasing the subscribers' chapters, I did not have the patience to keep to the schedule here either, so you all get a surprise early chapter. (I don't think anyone's going to complain.)

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