Chapter 16

“Allow the mana to come to you. To flow through you. It is everywhere. It is as much a part of the universe as you are. It wants to be with you. It wants to be inside you. All that you need do is let it in. Release your inhibitions. Open yourself up to the cosmos and all the wonders it can offer.”

—Basics of Meditation, Stratas Peetal

Lecture Hall F was not one of the usual selection where Sylvas had attended classes, it was actually far higher up the tower, which meant that the missive demanding his arrival in 10 minutes was cutting it very fine indeed. He eventually came across the door, having first run right past after mistaking it for a cupboard, then let himself inside to find Instructor Vilmander sitting there. His legs were crossed, his eyes were closed, he seemed to be lost in deep meditation. 

Sylvas did his best not to disturb him, creeping closer, and settling down to sit on the cushion that had been arranged opposite. The lecture hall genuinely wasn’t much bigger than a cupboard, about the size of Sylvas room in the Blackhall, but with the added bonus of racked up seating and a desk occupying the vast majority of the floorspace. He was practically nose to nose with Instructor Vilmander before the other man’s golden eyes shone out from beneath heavy lids. “Meditation is the most basic technique to draw mana into the body, attuning yourself to it, drawing it in with each inhalation, storing what you can in your core, and then allowing the rest to escape you.”

In the peaceful silence of the room, Sylvas felt himself starting to slip down into meditation himself, to join the man and recoup all the mana that he felt like he’d been burning away constantly in the past week, but Vilmander shook his head. “It is also the worst way to accumulate mana.”

Sylvas blinked.

“The most efficient is direct absorption from Etherium, followed by that mana-sharing trick you pulled during your training games. After that we have all of the various specialized techniques to cultivate mana, followed by the inert accumulator devices like the one on your wrist and then finally meditation. The accumulator is technically less efficient, drawing an incredibly small amount of the desired mana, based exclusively on the density of said mana in the area, but it has the benefit of not requiring any input to function, something that cannot be said of meditation which requires your full attention and renders you utterly incapable of performing any other task.” It was the most words that Sylvas had heard out of the man in their time together and it left him slightly taken aback.

“So, you think I should learn a new technique?”

“No,” Vilmander corrected. “I think no child should be taught meditation. But we correct the errors of the past now.”

“My technique is cycling. The mana in my core is pushed out into my circles, it returns to the core carrying more with it, the natural vacuum created by its absence draws mana in to replenish what was lost. This too is slow, but constant, steady. I can move, function, think.”

Sylvas prepared himself to try it only to startle at finding Vilmander’s hand suddenly on his wrist. “This is not for you.”

With a few passes of his hands, a few twists, Vilmander constructed an illusion of Sylvas between them, looking somewhere between a sketch and one of the medical scans that they used in the infirmary. “Your body.” He flexed his fingers, and the top layers faded away, leaving the channels carved through Sylvas’ flesh and the core at the center, all alight with mana.

“This is wrong.” A shake of his hands, and the bright glow of Sylvas mana was replaced with darkness, like a tumor, it spread through his illusory body. “There. Gravity affinity mana. It draws.”

“It draws?” Sylvas repeated back, completely unaware of what Vilmander was getting at.

“By its nature, it pulls, it brings things to it. The denser it is, the more it draws, the less there is, the less it draws. You have a natural mechanism to regenerate your mana store. Simply make your mana dense within you, and it will call out to other mana. More efficient than my cycling, same principle, create a natural situation that makes the mana go where you desire.”

“If that worked, wouldn’t I be drawing mana all the time anyway?”

“The gravity pulls both ways. What is within pulls more in, what is without tries to empty you. Increase the density.” Vilmander was watching Sylvas like he was an interesting experiment about to provide valuable data. Not excited, but invested all the same. “The intensity of your pull.”

Closing his eyes, Sylvas turned his attention to his core, to the very center of it all where the densest piece of mana inside him had been compressed. He looked on that tiny event horizon in the middle of his self, and he squeezed. 

The mana all around it fell into the center of the core easily, as if it had been teetering on the brink all this time anyway, and suddenly with the same amount of mana, the gravity of it became much more. All the other mana in his core began collapsing inwards like a dying star. Sylvas gasped as it happened. He was falling in, being imploded by the bad advice of an Instructor who wanted nothing more than to make him a weapon of war. He reached out one grasping hand towards Vilmander, but the older man watched him implacably with those golden eyes and not a care in the world.

The mana that had filled his core all collapsed inside of the central nucleus, the mana that was in the carved channels through his flesh all flowed in as well. All the mana in the surrounding area began to be drawn by the vacuum. It was a slow drift at first, imperceptible except to his second sight, and even then, only barely, but the longer that he looked, the faster the gravity mana seemed to flow to him. 

It felt a little like having a heart attack. The clawing pain at the center of his being, the fear and confusion as it carried on even when he tried to slow the pace. His core was refilled, and the mana flowed onwards into dark heart of him, drawing more and more.

“How do I… stop? How do I stop it?” He gasped as more and more mana drew inside him and sank down into his core and the hungering darkness within.

“You simply reverse how you began?” Vilmander seemed nonplussed.

Sylvas toppled from sitting onto his side, clutching at his chest. “Can’t.”

“You must.” Vilmander’s voice was stern, as though Sylvas was a child misbehaving, not a mage rapidly approaching the point of going supernova. “It isn’t as though we have another mage who can shift gravity mana around for you.”

“Hurts.” Sylvas gasped out. Pushing against the influx of mana with all his will and only just managing to slow it.

When he’d started this, he had clenched a fist around the mana in his heart, in his pain and confusion, that fist remained clenched. He forced it open now, the hand in real life at the end of his arm, and the grasp around the mana in the center of him which was considerably harder, it was arthritic and aching before he was done, but it was done. The rush of mana slowed to a trickle and then stopped.

Letting out a rattling breath, Sylvas took in what had happened for the first time. All of the mana in his core had now stabilized to a level of density it hadn’t reached since he joined the Ardent, as dense as when he’d first began and been told that it was a danger to himself and others to have such intensity to it.

It seemed that rules were made to be broken. 

He touched the mana in his core with his awareness and found it just as responsive as any other, just thickened and condensed to occupy less space. There was enough space inside him now for so much more, if he went back to condensing mana like this, his core could contain twice as much, maybe even more. After a few moments of panting and waiting for his core to explode, implode or otherwise catastrophically fail, he accepted that maybe he was going to survive the next few minutes.

“Good. Again.”

“Again?!” Sylvas whole body still shook. “The first time nearly…”

Vilmander spoke over him with the certainty of a man never interrupted. “The first time flexing any atrophied muscle will hurt. This is what you were built for, what your affinity and embodiments all drive towards. Do not abandon your potential so readily.”

“If I do it again…” Sylvas cut himself off this time. It will be easier.

One steadying breath later and the mana was rushing into him again. Once the center of his core was as dense as it could get, the flow was steady and continuous, but not vastly different from when he was meditating with deliberate intent. He supposed that as he grew stronger, adding more circles, it might be possible to increase the density further and speed things up, but by then the expectation would be that he’d be retaining much more mana too, which meant… He unclenched the fist around his heart and tried to breathe steadily once more. “What… What’s the point?”

Vilmander raised a bristly brow. “The point?”

“I’m only drawing as much mana as when I meditate.” Sylvas got his hammering heart under control a lot quicker this time around. It was easier. “What’s the advantage in changing techniques?”

“What’s the point of walking and breathing at the same time?” The instructor rolled his eyes, golden light whipping around the dim room as he did. “Activate the technique, then go for a walk, a run, a sleep, lift weights with Chul. Anything other than casting is available to you.”

The possibilities were endless. There had always been long periods in most fights when he wasn’t actively casting. Being able to regenerate mana while still maintaining awareness of what was going on around him was a massive boon. But how much of a boon remained to be seen. “My embodiments?”

“Perfectly usable, except for your arcane channels, as they’re occupied with incoming mana.”

It wouldn’t hurt to still be able to fly. “Spells that I’m maintaining?”

“Contraflow mana through one channel to support it, isolate it from the rest.” Vilmander seemed to be weighing the odds. “It will take practice, but it can be achieved.”

And once I’ve done it once, Lockmind means I can recreate it identically the next time without muddling around.

“So I can regenerate mana and still fight?”

“To a degree. You will be limited by the unpleasant sensation, I suspect?” Vilmander looked like he had in every lecture, as if the student knew the answer and he was just waiting for it.

“I can block the discomfort.” Sylvas said, earning a half-nod from Vilmander. “Can I cast through a contraflow channel?”

“Inadvisable and likely self-destructive.” 

Yesterday, Sylvas wouldn’t have thought twice about that second part, but he was growing, slowly but surely, into a wiser person. “Something to revisit once I have the hang of the rest. Thank you, Instructor.”

Vilmander didn’t seem pleased or amused. His eyes flicked to Sylvas own only very briefly before he looked away. “I do not need thanks for performing my duties.”

“Yes, sir.” Sylvas deflated a little.

Without missing a beat, the Instructor cast another illusory double of Sylvas. “You will be working on your Paradigm next.”

This part was something that concerned him. Apparently the way that he used his various circles of magic to manage his second sight and mental state were both frowned upon, but short of tearing them all apart and starting over, he wasn’t sure what could actually be done. “Is this about untangling the…”

“Waveform needs work.” Vilmander had absolutely no courtesy whatsoever. “Explore the cliffside complex, use it to navigate.”

“How do I…” The spell struck him entirely unexpectedly, he hadn’t even realised that the other man was casting until the flare of golden light hit him. Dazzling him so much that he fell over backwards yet again. His mana was still in turmoil after the last attempt at condensing it, so he couldn’t cast, but he rolled to his feet and got his fists up for all the good that they’d do him in a fight with a full-blown wizard.

There was no follow-up attack, but neither was there any reprieve. The aftereffects of the sudden burst of light should have faded by now, but everywhere that he looked everything remained completely dark. He couldn’t even make out shapes. He was blind. Vilmander had blinded him. “What the…”

Vilmander cut him off before he could say anything too inadvisable. “Dismissed.”

He took another breath, this one to steady his temper. Yesterday an instructor beat him almost to death, today an instructor had taken his sight, he was really starting to think of Strife as a hostile work environment. Swallowing his anger, Sylvas did what he was meant to do, he extended out his other senses, reaching his hands out to try and prevent any collisions. He remembered which way the door had been, so he set off for that, only to immediately crash into something. A moment of mental mapping later gave him the layout of the room. Lockmind recalling it to him perfectly and allowing him to overlay his absent sense with at least an idea of what was around him. He moved with more confidence now through the total darkness. Reaching the door and even grasping the handle before the instructor called out to him, “Don’t bother going to medical. They’ve instructions not to treat you until after the end of your day.”

Sylvas hadn’t even considered it. For all his insight into the technical side of magic, it seemed that Vilmander had a pretty poor grasp on the mentality of its practitioners. “Yes, sir.”