Vic was standing at the edge of the cliff again, watching the waves crash into the rocks below all along the coast, sounding as if to be a ceaseless heart with each boom. The sun was setting in the distance and the clouds were a beautiful mix of reds and yellows and oranges, spanning across the sky like it was on fire. The wind was strong enough to lean against and warm, coming up from the sea below carrying the smell of brine and salt with it. He closed his eyes and let the wind hold him in place, taking in the world by sound and feel as he relaxed. I’m beginning to wish we could stay here. Vic opens his eyes as he is reminded that he isn't alone. He notices too that Mana sounds even more like a singular being now, the voice almost entirely singular as it spoke, and more gentle as well. He leaned away from the wind and looked behind him, freezing as he did.

  He was fully conscious now in the dream as he stared at Mana. Standing just behind him and off to the side as if to also watch the sunset, was a being made of a deeply vibrant and colorful black opal crystal. To Vic the figure was decidedly human in shape with an almost feminine face that held eyes which were emitting a deep blue glow and staring at him. He saw that the hair was also crystal, but not as a unified piece. It was made of flowing hair-thin strands of what looked like clouded white quartz and were down to its shoulders. The body was an average build for a human and completely made up of the black opal. He knew he was being rude by just staring, but he couldn’t help it. Is there something wrong with my form? Mana looked down at their body for anything amiss when Vic’s brain finally caught up “Nothing wrong at all, I didn’t know you had a form is all and was surprised by its beauty. I think I’m a sucker for opals” He looked around Mana and away from the cliff, noticing there was not a road behind them as he’d expected, based off of the place in his memory. Instead, he found that they were on the edge of an island with lazy slopes leading down to its center where a small mansion sat, nestled in the glade of a sparse forest. “Usually by now I would be awake, having realized that I'm dreaming but also coherent.” he looks back to Mana “so what’s the deal? Am I now “magic” enough to handle lucid dreaming or is this you?”.

  Mana, he realized, wasn’t actually standing but hovering just above the ground. Mana circled around him as if they were walking. I still am unsure of what dreaming is. I know what you said earlier, but I don’t know if I’m the cause of this or not. Is lucid dreaming a bad thing? He took another look back at the setting sun and saw that it was still in the same spot, leaving a permanent sunset at the horizon. He motions for Mana to follow him as he begins walking towards the mansion. “No, lucid dreaming is generally seen as a positive thing from what I remember. Sometimes when we dream our minds realize that we’re in a dream and then either get psyched into waking up over that realization or we continue on and sometimes even influence the dream or outright control it.” As a test to figure out what was going on, Vic tried to make an ice cream appear in his hand. Nothing appeared. “Alright, so we either aren’t in a dream or I don't know how to control a lucid dream.”

  They arrived at the mansion, having gotten nowhere in figuring out what was going on. Mana was the first to reach the front door after basically ice skating on the air and was looking all over the entryway wondering at the designs. Vic couldn’t confidently say that he recognized where the design came from as he looked the mansion over on the way, it looked more like an amalgamation of all the mansions he’d ever seen blended down and filtered into what they were standing before. Now, as they both stood at the front door, Mana looked at him and asked What do you think is going to be inside? He just shrugged and grabbed the doorknob to turn it and open the door.

  Vic opens his eyes and through the blur of sleep, sees that he is back in the pyramid. Aw, come on, man! We were right there! Mana’s voice was particularly loud as he rolled over trying to get away from it. “Can you keep it down? I’m trying to get back to sleep here.” He got a sharp feeling of annoyance through the bond in response. He was content to lay in bed for a minute, until he began to feel as if there were eyes on him. Slowly turning back over, he hears “One, I wasn’t talking. And two, you better not be getting anywhere other than the Feast Hall, you understand? We are due to leave in two hours.” Nirren was in the room with him and just standing there, poised to poke him with her long claws again should he need more encouragement. He did not. “Shit, I’m up, I’m up.” He threw himself out of the bed so as to not make a liar of himself on their first day of his “Epic Quest”. He looked around and realized he already had everything that was his on his person. To Nirren, he asked while stretching as they walked out of the room “So, we eat, grab the gear and leave? How long we walkin’ today?” Nirren gave him a look that told him all about how his mornings for the next month were going to go. “No. You will eat, I will grab the gear since I have already eaten, and then we will test how bad your stamina is as we make the half-day trek to our lunch stop in a quarter of that.” Entering the Feast Hall, he sat and with an air about him as if he were on death row having his last meal, he ate. Vic had a feeling the next month was about to be torture.

  —----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  It’s been twelve days since they left Surda and Vic was just about ninety-three percent sure that Nirren was out to kill him. Every morning until lunch he was tasked to run alongside her as they trekked to the Southern Tribes and he was nowhere near keeping up. Despite looking like an extinct giant ground sloth, she moved as fast as a sports car when she wasn’t slowing down and baby-ing him as he tried not to keel over and die of exhaustion or when he flubbed on the impromptu obstacle course that was the jungle. When they stopped for lunch, Nirren would teach him to hunt and make him cook. He found it not much different than fishing and it gave him a reprieve from the sprinting. He got into the routine of trying to meditate on how to use magic with Mana after eating or just overall trying to improve his control and casting of it. A lot of the work on that front was mostly just internalizing both what Mana was trying to teach and trying to find ways he could connect it to the ideas that he had been reading about in books for years. It was more difficult than he was originally hoping for but as long as Nirren gave him an out from endurance and stamina training, he’ll take it.

  The first few lessons they went over were things that Vic would need to consistently work at over time. Control, according to Mana, was pretty self explanatory but as he tried out some of the movements and patterns that Mana was teaching him, he realized that the techniques required more and more internal visualization. The first couple exercises were comparable to simple circuits that he would guide a string of mana along. After the second circuit, Vic got a little worried and asked Mana Will I blow up if I get these wrong? He could tell Mana was expecting a question like this because they answered quickly with an amused tone. Sure, but I’ve been watching you puzzle through the patterns and am pleased with the level of caution you’ve taken so far. The patterns we’ve been going over so far are basic and harmless, meant to give you enough room to be inefficient while also showing how proper Control is supposed to appear. At your current rate of progression, I believe we will be able to soon move into more dangerous territory; patterns where more fine and efficient Control is required to prevent bodily harm.

  When it wasn’t about Control, it was training Casting. Mana started him out with casting just the body mod spell so far since he was decently familiar with it and it had the benefit of being his first spell, so according to Vic it held a “special place” in his mind. Mana would do their best to test his concentration as he was casting, or manipulating the mana to cast it, by distracting or interrupting him as he worked. After the first lapse in concentration he asked again about the consequences of improper casting and the answer was similar from when he asked about Control. Like with the Control aspect, or any aspect of magic, there will always be a potential to blow up if done wrong enough. As far as Casting is concerned, the issue comes from the issue of where the already gathered mana is supposed to go if Casting is done improperly. With Control, it overloads the mana pool- as you call it- and you end up damaging your ability to draw mana or to manipulate it. With Casting, the pattern is already realized but the supply is thrown out of alignment which can cause a multitude of problems ranging from severely underpowered spells, accidental casting of a different or unknown spell entirely, to runaway mana drain- which can cause a whole slew of other equally dangerous outcomes. Vic had gone slightly pale as Mana was speaking. But don't worry! I’m here to make sure you don’t blow us up!

  After they would practice casting and control for an hour or two, Vic would then get the shit beat out of him by Nirren until he either couldn’t get up or until they had to sleep. It wasn’t like Nirren was trying to torture him, he was effectively fighting a grizzly the size of a SUV with swords that was hopped up on Tren . ”You have the stamina of a rat and the toughness of water, but that's better than what you started with.” Nirren was standing on her hind legs looking down at him as he lay at the base of the tree she swiped him into. Vic was too busy trying to cast body mod as a means of fixing his broken ribs and wrist, while Mana monitored his health and kept up a constant mod to dull his pain senses so he wasn’t screaming anymore. He still felt the pain, but with the spell his broken bones felt more like major bruising and his lacerations felt like scratches. Vic wasn’t yet proficient with the body mod spell to handle all that and was still trying to practice his Casting and Control as he worked. Mana was a great coach the whole time while also being the rest of his body’s regulator as well. It made him wonder if his situation was anything like what Gillermo del Toro imagined for that movie where two pilots shared the body of a mech. The idea was a fun thought experiment to dwell on as he mirrored his left arm and ribcage to the right ones. To Nirren he had no rebuttal to her observation; she was right but he did feel a sense of pride at her acknowledgment of his progress.

  Vic got up after a few minutes of working and looked down at his clothes, or what was left of them. “You know, pretty soon at this rate, I’m going to run out of clothes that aren’t just strips of that canvas only good enough for a loin cloth. I’m pretty comfortable with my body, but I don’t think you want to be seeing all of this-” gesturing to himself “- for the rest of the month right? Can we tone it down on the combat training just a tad bit?” Nirren returns to all fours, rolling her eyes and meandering over to the camp for the night “We haven’t gotten to the combat training yet. What we’ve been doing was just evasion training. I will say that since you’re showing a decent level of effort and somewhat improving, I will “tone it down” a little moving forward. We also should begin actual combat training soon as well.” Vic fist pumped as Mana slowly reintroduced his normal pain levels, causing him to let out a panicked “AH” and immediately run over to his sleeping mat and lay down in preparation for the full brunt of the pain.

  Through gritted teeth, Vic asks “Goddamn it, I fucking hate this part, why do we have to do this again?” He could feel all the previously broken parts of himself protest at the slightest movement. For the literal tenth time now, it is important you don’t keep the pain shut out unless in dire circumstances. If you just go on living without pain, you won’t realize when your body is about to give out on you. No, for the tenth time again, I will not be your “health bar” you ass! Don’t bother recommending it or I’ll boost the pain receptors instead, you hear? Vic just lay there, groaning in pain for a while as the pain continued. “You know you could use this time to meditate right? Might even take your mind off the pain a bit.” Nirren was sitting next to the fire and skewering pieces of meat off the roasting raccoon- bird hybrid she caught earlier. With a sarcastic tone, Vic responded “Good Idea, I’ll get Right on that!” and rolled over on his mat and began his channeling practice. He started with topping up his mana pool over the course of a half hour, then began moving and rolling the static through his body. This both gave him better practice at controlling mana as it traveled through his body in order to reach where he wants or needs to cast, but he also found a secondary benefit in doing so; it let him learn the layout of his anatomy.

  He first picked up on it one day after he got his shit rocked by Nirren. He had a broken arm and dislocated shoulder from trying to avoid a body shot, turning and tucking inward to dampen the impact of the strike. As he and Mana were later applying the body mod to the broken areas, he noticed that the mana could almost be used as a localized x-ray. After he noticed, he brought it up to Mana and they began testing it out more, trying to build out a method for him to more accurately be able to image his anatomy in his mind. It was just the day before when they finished a semi-decent method, the one he was using now to try and memorize the layout of his body to better mend in the future. He and Mana were pretty excited when they realized they created a pattern-less way to use mana that was effectively just a consistent channeling spell with almost no real cost to it while also providing a sizable benefit. Not to mention, he actually felt like a proper Wizard or Sorcerer from his favorite books now! He helped create a spell! He continued scanning the damaged areas from the day's training, getting more and more tired as he went and spent mana, finally falling asleep after another hour.

  —----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Vic woke up on the twentieth day feeling a lot less shitty than usual. He usually took a few minutes to fully wake up and get prepared to run his lungs out, but today he could feel a noticeable change in his body, as if it was moving easier and more fluidly than before. He felt like a well oiled machine and more powerful. “Hey, Nirren? Would there be any particular reason that I would be feeling like I’ve suddenly gotten a new body?” He looked over himself, half expecting to see an unfamiliar body under him. He only found the same beat up and bruised form he was used to seeing each morning. Mana did you do something? Nirren looked over from where she was cooking another weird animal hybrid for breakfast over the fire ”It sounds as if you’ve reached the first step in the path towards harmony to me.” He turned his attention from his examining. “We discussed this a little back in Surda, we Beastfolk become in tune with the Land and the Light as we strive for Harmony. Remember?”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  He vaguely remembered one of the three Beasts mentioning it but that felt like forever ago. He and Nirren had covered a lot of distance since then, the whole time was dedicated to training both his mind and his body to failure. Vic was able to run at a dead sprint for a few miles at this point and was now able to keep Nirren in his sight most of the time they did obstacle training. He was an adept caster with the body mod now and he was drawing in more and more mana each week. I helped no more than I needed to, Vic. You’re the one actually moving and training. He felt like he was the only one benefitting from this arrangement when Mana spoke like that, no matter how many times they told him they were growing alongside him. Vic tried to see a difference in their Dreamscape every night on that island, but he wasn’t able to see any changes which made him doubt Mana and feel as if he was being told a lie for his benefit. He knew Mana pretty well at this point and knew they were only going to talk it out when they were ready, so he would just have to trust in that and move on.

  He thought back to that conversation in Surda before asking “So, what, I’m slowly turning into a super-human? Will I eventually grow to be as strong and invulnerable as you if I keep this routine up?” Nirren chuckled and shook her head. “It’s much more than that, but for the time being, yes. We tend to reach this step in a year or two after we first feel the Light within us as we strive to incorporate it into our daily lives, but by continuously stressing and condensing your mind and body training we have done the same amount of work in a much shorter time at the cost of quality.” Vic didn’t like the sound of this but before he could argue, Nirren held up a claw as if to keep him from interrupting. “The cost to quality is extremely negligible in the earlier steps. You end up paying for it later, but not in a way that ruins the path. You just need to work at it longer later.” He was still worried and a little pissed off that he didn’t have a say in the matter, but Mana brought up an unfortunately good point. This would have been the best path forward to prepare you the quickest way possible. We’ll take our time later and follow the path properly. Unless you pull more bullshit magic theories out of your ass, that is.

  Nirren tossed him a leaf wrapped chunk of the animal cooking on the fire as she put it out and began packing. “You know the drill.” As she finishes covering the fire she points in a direction and continues “Let’s see if you’re fast enough yet!” Vic rolls his eyes and groans, knowing it useless but that never stopped him. He grabs his makeshift bag he made of leaves and twine he’d made from long stems of the plants, throwing the packed meat into it as he takes off in the direction she pointed. They had been doing this for the last couple of days now that Nirren felt that he would be able to at least run from anything that would try and eat him. All he had to do was make sure to run a straight line in the direction she pointed and stop when she either caught up to him or once he saw her waiting. She only ever had to catch him because he somehow strayed from the line. You think today will be the day Nirren will need to actually pick up the pace? Now that I’m boosted by the path? As he ran, he paid attention to how his body moved now compared to the day before. It was a surprisingly large difference, at least to him but Mana was there to tame some of his excitement. Do I think you’ll beat Nirren? Probably not. But I do think that you’ll get to where she’ll be waiting a lot faster than before. You said it was, what, like fifty miles last time? We already got you running almost five minute miles the whole way with active stamina management from me. We might be able to get a sub-five minute mile now! As Mana was explaining, Vic was still paying attention to his movements as he ran, but he focused more on what they were saying towards the end. I’ll also need to learn to do that active stamina management thing you do as I run. I don’t want to leave you stuck being my body’s manager the whole time, despite how many times I’ve jokingly called you my health bar.

  He and Mana would talk a lot about the world around them as they ran. One day, he found that he was able to get into a sort of auto pilot while running that left his mind free to wander, but that only came after a few pretty bad collisions with trees or boulders. He would talk about his life on Earth, his hobbies, his family. He would sometimes try and recount some of the books he’d liked, but he was admittedly bad at storytelling so it wasn’t nearly as good even to him. And he’d read the damn things. He tried to ask about Mana’s life before the Bond, he was very interested in what a non-corporeal entity’s life would be like. Mana tried a few times to explain how life works for their kind, but they weren’t able to find the right words or be able to paint a coherent picture for Vic. After a few tries, Vic wondered if they could find another Node and figure out a way to tap into it with his senses. He mentioned the idea to Mana and they were quiet for a minute before coming to a conclusion. That might work but there is a lot to try and figure out and maybe even more to invent before I would recommend trying something. I appreciate that you would like to learn, but to me, we are in the same boat. We are both from different worlds and are now here. You now are experiencing magic and I am here experiencing a physical realm. He never really considered how they were basically in the same boat in that regard. Two strangers in a strange land. I never read that book. Wonder if it was any good?

  Vic had been running for about two and a half hours at this point when he realized he hadn’t gotten tired yet. Hey, how much was the first step supposed to boost me? I haven't gotten tired yet and this is usually well past the point of me usually complaining, right? He could feel Mana do a scan of him as he continued racing through the jungle. It should have made a decent dent in your time for sure but maybe the hard focus on stamina and endurance training did more for you than we thought? As Mana stopped speaking, he saw movement out of the corner of his vision. He turned his head and saw Nirren rising from a sitting position in disbelief as she saw him zip by. Vic, look out! Too late, he turned back around just in time to bodily slam into the trunk of a tree and bounce off, landing into the bushes nearby and losing consciousness.

  Vic woke up to laughter next to him. He opened his eyes and finally understood why “seeing stars” was a saying. He tried to get up but got dizzy and settled for moving his head to look around. “That has to have been the funniest thing I have ever seen!” another bout of laughing “I wish you could have seen yourself! I swear you left a dent in that tree!” Vic was about to ask how long he was out but Mana seemed to guess what he was going to ask. You were only out for maybe a minute or two, don’t worry. I already looked for damage and fixed anything I found, you’re just gonna have a mad headache for a little bit. He successfully rolled onto his front and pushed himself off the ground to stand, looking at the tree and rubbing at his head trying to work out the growing headache. Thanks Mana. To Nirren, he raised an eyebrow “how fast are you exactly? I just did like fifty miles in two hours, that’s insane!” Nirren nodded before answering. “Us Beasts can vary pretty badly in speed. I would fall under the faster category, while someone like Mel would have been in the middle somewhere and Barus would be slow. I admit to being surprised at how fast you were in getting here.” Vic was about to break out into a little celebratory dance before she interrupted him “You’re not the fastest human I’ve met, though.” He stopped. Usually when humans came up with Nirren, it was of her killing them. Or it was about the group he was trying to meet up with. It was always a downer of a conversation. “There was a magus a few years ago who was almost as fast as I am. Operative word being “almost”. He was part of a Scavenger group that was able to push pretty far into the Basin; I was summoned to eliminate him and his group because they’d been hitting our larger supply routes and killing off some of our lesser leaders. Basically an assassin of opportunity." She looked off into the distance as she spoke, Vic thought she was remembering the fight. “Anyway, glad you’re able to pick up the pace now! I hated having to wait so long for you to show up. Now, I believe we can begin practicing with that blade-arm you can make!”

  That night they fought with Vic using the blade. His body having been basically upgraded allowed him to evade more often and even attempt a few strikes back at Nirren every so often. Not that any of them hit, she was a monster when she wanted to put him in his place. He had almost no technique with his blade other than to attempt to slice out at her when he thought there was an opening he had a slight chance at taking. Otherwise he was just flailing his arm as he evaded, focusing more on avoiding additional broken bones. Every time he got hit he also noted that his body reacted a lot better and with less pain than before the upgrade to the point he had to make sure Mana wasn’t upping the pain resistance. Whatever this path is that I’ve begun is starting to look like a really good boon. Mana sent a nod of agreement through the Bond. After a few hours of sparring combat with Nirren, they settled for the night after a quiet dinner. Vic was trying to guess how close they were from the Southern Tribes based on a flimsy memory of the arguably inaccurate map he saw of the Basin before they left. He’d already asked Nirren if she’d brought a map with them but she just ignored him and continued packing for the next day.

  Mana, you wouldn’t be so cool as to have eidetic memory would you? He was laying down now looking up at his left hand, examining the crystal in his palm for the thousandth time. As awesome as I am, no I don’t have eidetic memory. Why? Vic sighs. Was hoping you would be able to remember the map and give a guess as to how far we’ve travelled so far. Doesn’t matter anyway, it's been almost a month so we should be getting close. It’s not like Nirren would let us near the Tribes anyway, too likely to get gutted this close to the front. He tapped at the crystal in his palm with his other hand, causing it to emit a Tink with every tap. You want to try at the new Node again? Vic looked over and watched Nirren finish packing for a second before sitting back up on his mat and assuming the same position he used every night now for his meditations; Criss-Cross-Apple-Sauce, thank you Ms.Gleese for your wise teachings in kindergarten. He sat with his left hand laying palm up in his lap as he tried to focus on the node there. They had sat like this for the last few nights trying to figure out what the node was supposed to do. He was able to fill it with mana, but that was it. It would just take the mana but never release in the form of a spell or effect. After ten minutes of settling his mind and body, he began workshopping ideas with Mana.

  Alright, so we know it takes mana like a sponge and doesn’t follow the same casting or channeling rules as the body mod spell does. Another ten minutes of silence passes as they wrack their brains. Mana suddenly interrupts his thinking with a question. What happened when you made the Node? Vic thought back for a second. I felt a crushing in my hand and then light engulfed me and the Core, then the Core said Node created, I started burning away, then it swiped whatever a Node Order is. Why, you think the Core made this useless? Nope. I think we need to try and make the node again. He was unsure if that was a good idea. You did just hear me remind you that I was literally burning away, right? Mana was too excited to roll their metaphorical eyes at him. You were being burned away because you used raw Mana from the Core. it was too pure for you to cast with. The Core helped you when you were guiding it into your body for the improved mana pool. It had no clue you would be stupid enough to try to use the mana for something else. He thought through Mana’s explanation and after a minute, decided that it was good enough for him. He just wanted to cast new magic.

  Vic recentered himself in his mind and took hold of the mana in his body, starting off with a minute amount so that he didn’t blow off his arm or something, he pulled the little ball of mana to his left palm and began to compress it both mentally and physically. It only took a second before he could tell that this attempt was different in that he could actually feel a build up of the static just like when he cast the body mod spell instead of it just sitting there like the last attempts. Just as he was noticing the difference between attempts he felt a burning jolt shoot through his clenched fist and out the back, through his knee and out his leg into the ground, all his muscles tensed along the way as if a rolling spasm passed through. He sat there in mental and literal shock. Then he started laughing out loud causing Nirren to look over at him judgingly from her sleeping spot near the dying fire. With a giddy grin Vic relayed “We got it to work! I’ve got Sith lightning!” Nirren’s face was enough to warn him about being too loud too late around her, she liked her nights quiet. “Lightning, you say? That’s a pretty uncommon magic to wield. I will adjust the sparring tomorrow to accommodate. Go to sleep.”

  Feeling a little put out, Vic turned away from Anti-Fun and began casting again. Try casting without looking like you’re constipated this time. And maybe with your eyes open. Too excited to be annoyed at Mana’s tone, he just followed directions. For the next hour, he sat and cast over and over with increasing amounts of mana. He would keep condensing the Mana in the crystal until he saw a spark inside which would bloom out in varying arc sizes to his finger tips or to whatever he had in front of his hand. After a few more tests he realized he could use uncast mana to guide the arc away from his body, and if he reinforced his hand with it, he would only feel a dull heat build up with every cast. He had to stop shortly after that though due to the arcs having a zapping noise to them at larger mana casts and with the way Nirren looked over at him after the last one, he knew tomorrow was going to suck. As he finally lay down for the night, Mana asked You called it Sith lightning earlier, what is that? Another story from your world? Vic rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. Yeah, it was a bunch of bad guys in a story that had the ability to shoot lightning out of their hands. Should I be concerned that you’re happy with using evil powers? He thought about it for less than a second. Nah, just because they used it doesn’t mean the power was evil. Plus the Rule of Cool dictates that lightning powers are dope. With that he falls asleep with Mana following to the Dreamscape soon after. What’s the Rule of Cool?