I stared at their expectant faces and realized I’d dug myself a hole deeper than the canyons outside Argent’s barrier. Move rocks with my mind? Sure, if by "rocks" they understood "my yo-yo" and by "move" they ant "make it jump a few pathetic inches off a table." The gap between their excited visions of massive stone walls and my reality of barely nudging a toy felt wider than the wasteland itself. My newfound confidence, briefly resurrected by Phinyx’s vibes, died like an ant fighting a horde of corruptors.
"Actually..." I tone it down, rubbing the back of my neck, "it’s still a work in progress. Very experintal... tiny pebbles for now."
"Oh." Kira’s excitent dimd visibly. "Well, that’s still impressive. I can’t move anything with my mind."
Phinyx nodded, his perpetual calm undisturbed. "Small vibes grow into big ones. The flow starts sowhere, man."
I forced a smile. "I’ll show you when I’ve mastered it better. Right now, I should probably focus on these laps."
"Smart move." Kira said, glancing at the vast expanse of the training room. "We should all stick to our assigned tasks."
The conversation shifted away from my exaggerated claims, much to my relief. I promised myself I’d work twice as hard practicing spells. But for now, I had miles to run and muscles to strengthen.
Phinyx stationed himself at regular intervals around the track, ready to boost with his emotional vibes when exhaustion threatened to drop . The first twenty laps went smoothly, my improved stats making the initial stretch easier than before. But around lap thirty, familiar pain began creeping into my legs, and my lungs burned with each breath.
"Energetic vibe, purpose vibe, strength vibe." Phinyx chanted as I passed him, his voice gentle but focused.
The wave of energy washed over . My muscles still ached, but the pain receded just enough to keep moving. It wasn’t the elimination of fatigue, more like a temporary numbing of my body’s distress signals. The effect was growing stronger as Phinyx honed his ability, but I knew my body was still doing the work, still bearing the strain. The vibe just made it possible to push past normal barriers.
"Forty one." I murmured as I completed another circuit. "That’s... sothing..."
"You’re doing great." Kira called from where she practiced growing thorny vines in complex patterns. "Just eleven more to beat your record."
Eleven more. The number seed impossible. My legs felt like liquid fire, each step a negotiation with muscles threatening revolt. Even with Phinyx’s support, I wasn’t sure I could make it.
But I thought of the Corruptors beyond the barrier. Of the headless king whose eye I’d switched. Of the children in Argent who might face exile next year if we couldn’t change things. I thought of Silas and Petra, running for the barrier, so close before the darkness took them.
I ran.
Lap fifty blurred into fifty one, into fifty two. My world narrowed to the rhythm of my feet hitting the ground, the count in my head, and the blessed monts when Phinyx’s vibes would wash over , giving just enough to continue.
My legs moved like they belonged to soone else, chanical and distant. But they moved. And when I finally crossed the invisible finish line for the fifty sixth ti, I collapsed onto the grass Kira had grown earlier, lungs heaving, vision swimming.
"Fifty six." Phinyx confird, kneeling beside . "New record."
I gave him a weak thumbs up, unable to speak through my tired breaths. Progress was progress, even if it felt like dying.
That evening, I checked my stats while soaking in a bath. The physical torture was paying off, slowly but asurably. My strength and constitution had inched upward, and my agility was growing faster than the rest. But intelligence remained my highest stat, boosted by the ntal gymnastics of spell learning.
The next day, I could barely walk. My muscles had stiffened overnight into sothing resembling dried paste, and each step hurted horribly. Physical training was clearly out of the question.
Perfect day for more spell work.
I limped to the library, settling into the sa chair I’d occupied when mastering Pulse. The book waited for , its ancient binding creaking slightly as I opened it to the next spell.
Aegis.
The page contained another complex pattern, though the arrangent was different from Pulse. Where Pulse had been all about directing force outward in a concentrated burst, Aegis seed designed to create a barrier, a shield of force that could deflect incoming attacks.
Useful, certainly. Potentially life saving.
And utterly pointless compared to what I really wanted. After all I was the supposed weapon, why would I learn shields?
I flipped to the next spell. Quickstep. The na alone sent a thrill through . Movent. Speed. The ability to cross distance in an instant. If I could master this, my physical training would take on an entirely new dinsion. Instead of just running laps, I could potentially flash across the training room in bursts of magical speed.
And in combat against Corruptors... the possibilities made my heart race.
Unlike Pulse’s single central pattern, Quickstep required three interconnected spheres of visualization. Each sphere contained its own internal geotry, its own rhythm and flow, and all three needed to harmonize perfectly while maintaining their distinct identities.
I stared at the page, already feeling the headache building behind my eyes. This was going to be significantly more difficult than Pulse.
But I’d killed a Corruptor king. I’d survived exile. I could learn a damn spell.
I settled deeper into the chair and began the now-familiar process of building the pattern in my mind, starting with the simplest elents of the first sphere. Hours passed as I constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed the pattern, each attempt getting slightly closer to understanding.
By evening, I had a fairly stable visualization of the first sphere, but adding elents to the second caused the whole construct to collapse imdiately. My head throbbed with each failed attempt, and by the ti I gave up for the night, even the thought of rebuilding the pattern made wince.
’This is much harder than Pulse...’ I thought, tired and with a headache.
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