The next day brought no breakthrough. Nor the day after that. Each session in the library followed the sa discouraging pattern. Progress on individual elents, followed by collapse when I tried to integrate them.
"The three spheres." I muttered to myself on the fourth day, trying a different approach. "They have to flow into each other, like three wind currents."
This perspective helped sowhat. I managed to hold two spheres stable simultaneously for a few precious seconds before the ntal construct dissolved again. But the third sphere remained elusive, slipping away whenever I tried to incorporate it.
By the end of the week, I was ready to throw the book across the room. My intelligence stat had risen to 9, making it my highest attribute. I should be able to figure this out. I’d mastered Pulse in two days. Why was Quickstep proving so impossible?
On the seventh day, I abandoned the library, my pride wounded and my patience exhausted. If I couldn’t make progress with magic, I’d fall back on what I knew worked, physical training.
"Back for more punishnt?" Kira asked when I entered the training room, eyebrows raised in surprise. "I thought you were focusing on your mind powers."
"Change of pace." I grunted, already stretching my legs for the run. "Sotis you need to step back from a problem."
She nodded, understanding without needing further explanation. We’d all hit walls in our training, monts when progress seed impossible no matter how hard we pushed.
Phinyx joined shortly after, ready to provide his emotional support. "Going for a new record today?"
"Let’s aim for at least fifty seven." I said, setting a modest goal. Just one more lap than last ti would be enough to salvage my pride after a week of magical failure.
And surprisingly, it ca easier than expected. My muscles, rested from a week of ntal rather than physical exertion, responded with new vigor. The stats I’d earned previously translated into real endurance, real strength. Even without frequent vibe boosts from Phinyx, I maintained a steady pace through forty laps.
"You’ve improved." Phinyx noted during a brief water break. "You have a renewed vibe of energy."
"Thanks." I took another long drink. "ntal training has helped rest my muscles."
By the ti I hit lap fifty, I knew I’d make it to fifty seven. The exhaustion was there, constant, but manageable in a way it hadn’t been before. My body was adapting, growing stronger with each challenge I threw at it.
When I crossed the invisible finish line for the fifty seventh ti, I didn’t collapse. I slowed to a walk, breathing hard but still functional. Progress. Real, asurable progress.
That night, I checked my stats again.
Strength: 7
Agility: 9
Constitution: 8
Intelligence: 9
Wisdom: 5
Luck: 5
My physical attributes were catching up to my intelligence. With agility and intelligence tied at 9, I was becoming more balanced, less lopsided in my developnt. But the Quickstep spell still eluded , a frustrating reminder that raw numbers weren’t everything.
I lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, trying once more to visualize the three spheres of the Quickstep pattern. The first two ca easily now, almost second nature after a week of practice. But the third remained stubbornly out of reach, collapsing whenever I tried to integrate it with the others.
What was I missing? Was it simply a matter of more practice, more intelligence points? Or was there sothing fundantal about the spell that I wasn’t grasping?
Maybe so abilities were simply beyond for now, despite my growing stats. The thought was humbling, even a little frightening. I’d gotten used to overcoming challenges through sheer determination, pushing through pain barriers, forcing progress through repetition and will.
But this was different. This required understanding, not just effort. And understanding couldn’t always be forced.
Tomorrow, I decided, I’d try again. And if I failed again, I’d try the day after that. So challenges took longer than others.
I closed my eyes, letting the pattern fade from my mind. As sleep pulled under, I wondered if the problem wasn’t in the spell itself, but in how I approached it. Maybe I needed to stop trying so hard to control it with a slow, steady rhythm. After all this spell was about speed, maybe I needed to do the movent faster.
Maybe the third sphere should move with an extre amount of speed.
With that thought floating through my mind, I drifted into my dreams. There I was running in circles around the training room. I imagined going faster, and faster, accelerating and taking off.
At that mont I woke up, and decided to try forming the pattern in my mind again.
The first sphere and the second one were easy to do by now, almost second nature, every line, dot and scribble moved without colliding, in a harmonious way.
Then I decided to make the third sphere move with as much speed as I could imagine.
It would probably collide, but I had to try sothing new, so I concentrated, waited for a mont where it could spin, and then I did it.
An open space ford between the first two spheres for less than a second, and there I decided to make the third sphere rotate, fast.
It then started moving and was able to spin once, and twice. I felt how everything connected for a mont, but then it all collided again.
It was a breakthrough nonetheless, but the puzzle proved to be as hard to learn as it would be useful.
It was the middle of the night, so I just laid back on my bed and continued with the easiest and more important part of training. Resting.
As I woke up after a while, I started thinking about what I should train for today, or if I should even train that day.
I got up from my bed, put on my usual clothes and boots, and the mont I decided to take a step, a strong wind hit my face. I tried rembering if I had let open a window, but when I turned my head, instead of my room I saw the sky, the ambient light that signaled morning went through my eyes and then I understood.
’At least it waited for to put on clothes...’
I had found myself lost, on the top of a building that I didn’t even know existed in Argent.
Reviews
All reviews (0)