Immovable Mage

– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 219, Season of the Rising Moon, Day 96 –

"I'm bored," whined Rafael.

"Don't care," said Terry, who was sitting cross-legged in front of a similarly cross-legged giant. "Can you feel that, Deekin?" He moved his mana in a specific pattern.

"Yes, but…" The giant scrunched up his face with concentration. "I can't feel my mana…"

"Hm…" Terry frowned. This might turn out to be more troublesome than he had initially assumed.

Time for Plan B… or C? Both?

"Continue practicing with Bugsby," said Terry while getting up. "Try to sense his location with your eyes closed and— You know what, no, let's do something else."

Not enough time to do it slowly.

"You need more mana to work with," said Terry. "I have an idea. Rafael?"

"Yes? Should I instruct him in the ways of martialism?" Rafael waggled his eyebrows at Deekin and then spoke haughtily. "You can call me master."

"Are you sure you have the patience to teach others?" teased Terry. "I remember someone getting bored just by watching me teach."

"That's because your teaching is wimpy," retorted Rafael. "Normally, you'd just throw him to the wolves and see what happens."

When Deekin nodded along to the ridiculous notion, Terry raised an eyebrow.

Guess the giants really are this realm's knucklebrains…

"That can be very entertaining for a master," finished Rafael.

"Not going to happen," said Terry. "Deekin is…" He couldn't bring himself to say 'a friend'. It wasn't just that he had only met Deekin recently, but that the mana-using giant was, in the end, still a giant.

Or already a giant.

A giant at heart, or rather in his brain and sense of self.

Deekin's mana accumulation had slowed down his aging and thereby his physical development, which affected some of his mental development as well. Terry suspected that Deekin was more intelligent than other giants of the same age, but at the same time also more child-like in other aspects.

Like being a sponge to cultural cues.

A good attitude for a student normally, but unfortunately, Terry didn't have endless time to straighten out his new acquaintance. He needed an advocate among the giants, and then to move on to deal with whatever was going on in this cursed realm.

As such, Terry knew his influence on the giant would be limited. He had already tried, and failed, to impart the notion that eating elves – or folks in general – was inherently wrong. He hadn't given up on that, but he figured he would have to somehow relate it to what the giant already absorbed from his own culture before it would get a hold in Deekin's mind.

"Deekin is our valued ally," said Terry after a moment of thought. "I'm not throwing him to the wolves." He grinned at Rafael. "You, however, are a wolf yourself, aren't you? You were bored, oh Heavenly Wolf, weren't you?"

"I don't like that grin you're wearing." Rafael narrowed his eyes. "Makes my neck fur stand up again."

"I think I have a solution to many of our problems, and you're going to help me," said Terry. He retrieved two souled cores from his storage bracelet. "One for you, and one for me."

Terry summoned divine barriers around the giant, shrooman, and beetlefolk.

Deekin, who had curiously watched Shroomling tend to the shrubbery, flinched when being surrounded by translucent golden mana.

"Don't worry, it's to keep you safe," assured Terry. "For now just watch while we prepare lunch."

"Lunch?" Rafael creased his brows.

"Training for us, mana for Deekin, lunch for everyone," said Terry. His mana vision turned purple and he circled mana into the two cores before flinging them to different sides. "Last one to defeat his opponent is a wimp."

"You're on!" shouted Rafael while dashing towards his lunch.

Terry was focused on his own fight against his core-summoned opponent. He spared some attention to ensuring that no harm would befall the spectators. He didn't notice how the look of fear in the eyes of his giant student slowly transformed to respect and awe.

***

"Good," judged Terry while examining Deekin's mana pool. Thanks to his mana perception, he had a good idea of where his student's limits were.

His raw mana-control based mana drain turned out to be a great way to trigger the giant's internal pull to increase Deekin's mana pool.

Not sure if that can still be called internal, though?

Terry was playing with all kinds of tricks to speed up the giant's cultivation process safely.

The giant had slept with the concealment necklace to trigger both the internal pull for his mana pool and train his mana regeneration.

Terry had shared some mana-imbued cold tea, which was the mildest mana supplement he had available.

They had eaten the mana-rich flesh of his core-summoned beasts, which was a good way to ration out specific amounts and measure the giant's reaction to foreign mana.

Deekin went through more successions of internal pull and external push than even Terry had done during his early training days.

Only because I didn't have a safe way to do this many…

Little by little, Terry sharing mana supplements and helping the giant directly led them to work with increasing amounts of mana coursing through Deekin's body.

"I can feel it!" Deekin shouted excitedly.

"Good." Terry smiled.

That means we can start the next phase.

Terry retrieved the dungeon's bottle-artifact. He mixed some of the spore-powder with the Terry-naturalized mana potion and fed the contents to Oz before holding out the bottle to Deekin. "Move your mana to fill this up."

***

Terry made sure there was always a full bottle of Deekin-naturalized mana potion available.

The bottle acted as a safeguard in case Terry ever misjudged the ratio to avoid mana corruption as well as a means for a safe external push of more mana to increase Deekin's pool another way.

With the bottle as safeguard and accelerant, Terry could pull more of the stops and they sped up their mana cultivation training further.

Terry had Deekin soak some of the shroomans' spore powder with Deekin-naturalized mana, which Terry then mixed into Deekin's food to let the powder work as an amplifier for the giant's mana sense.

By all accounts, their training was a rapid success, but to Terry, it still felt too slow. He was trying to cram years of mana cultivation training into weeks at most, because he couldn't afford to wait forever to get answers.

Already, Terry was surprised they hadn't encountered any more hunting parties from the local elves or the hostile expedition members.

Guess the sun elves didn't share our location with the Moon?

Are the moon elves wary of entering the territory of the giants?

Did Yorgos give up? Knowing that he can't stop Bugsby's abilities?

Who knows…?

"Good, you're getting the hang of it," praised Terry and stopped moving his mana through Deekin's body to guide him. "Continue on your own. I'll check your accuracy later."

"Yes, Master…" said Deekin respectfully. He could already feel the increased strength in his muscles, which was simply awe-inspiring. "Thank you, master."

"Don't call me that," groaned Terry. He sent a glare towards Rafael, who was fighting against two core-summoned beasts. "If you have to call me anything, then 'Instructor' would be more appropriate."

Master sounds creepy.

"Yes, ma— Instructor." Deekin corrected himself.

"And if you want to thank me, stop eating folks," said Terry.

"Yes, Instructor," said Deekin, much to Terry's surprise. "It is wrong to eat folks. Even little folks. Little people aren't always weak. Even little people have the potential to be strong. It's wrong to eat folks with potential."

Terry grimaced slightly. It wasn't exactly what he had tried to impart in his student, but no matter from which angle he tried to approach it, it appeared impossible to get the idea of value beyond strength across to the giant.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Whatever Terry said, it was still filtered through Deekin's own lens of experience and how the giant had learned about the world.

It is wrong to eat folks with potential, huh?

An improvement, at least.

Close enough, perhaps.

***

Terry was observing Oz disintegrate and absorb the remnants of their lunch. The gluttonous goo never stopped eating, no matter how much Shroomling insisted the slime should be full.

Compared to the proper meals I feed him, this amount should not matter that much…

Terry moved his eyes to the second blob of ooze sliding over the area. While his student and his tamed slime had been stuffing themselves with mana, Terry was still trying to figure out how the slime's separated body part worked exactly.

How the slime managed to liquify mana to form the blob, specifically.

Thanks to the spore powder, Terry got a close impression of how Oz's satellite ability worked, but unfortunately, he failed at replicating it with pure mana control.

Oz seems to press its mana from all sides at once. Uniform force and fast.

The bottle achieves a similar effect by spreading the mana around the inner coating. Thin and uniform. Layer by layer.

Terry's vision flashed purple and he circled his mana into the core of a water slime while paying close attention to the mana movement during the core-summoning.

"Yes, you can eat it," said Terry. Through his link, he could sense his tamed slime wanting something and the greedy wiggles in soulsight were enough for Terry to understand what the insatiable blob wanted.

Terry had tested feeding more slime cores to Oz before, but none of the cores had been accepted as a bonded core by Oz.

If I get the chance, I should get more shadow-aspected slime cores…

Terry watched Oz trapping the water slime's shadow and then enveloping it entirely. He watched the process absentmindedly. His conscious thought was trying to play back the sensation from the summoning itself.

The manifestation of mana as matter.

Oozing matter.

Liquifaction.

Terry furrowed his brow. He had inspiration, but he lacked the raw mana control to follow through.

The only tool he had for assisting his mana control were his external focus refractors.

A tool that seemed poorly designed for his current purpose.

For spell slicers, intensity and sharpness mattered most, which had led him down a path of explosive built-up, propulsion, and layered pressure to get the best results.

For his disruption domain, the key had been repetition. Repeated focusing to achieve what a single refractor couldn't.

For making his disruption fields mobile, he had required the same as for his unstoppable shift combination: accuracy. Accuracy achieved by picking the perfect refractor shapes to redirect the mana exactly where it should be.

None of that prepared him to use the tool for the challenge that consisted of uniform compression.

Terry's eyes drifted from his notebook to Oz. From Oz to the ongoing spar between Rafael and Deekin. From them to Bugsby and Shroomling, who were pruning sickly roots and branches from a nearby tree.

Back to his notebook.

To the horizon.

Terry was deep in thoughts when his eyes started to return repeatedly to his own mana-crafted equipment. It took him a while, before he could put his subconscious idea into explicit words.

Terry put his pen down and instead unsheathed one of his throwing needles.

One of his mana-shielded throwing needles.

Mana shielding.

Terry remembered the martialist talismans he had used in the folded space. One of which had summoned a barrier of hexagonal tiles. It had allowed him to create a trap for Vicious. The barrier was extremely resistant against pressure over a wider area, but not so resistant to a narrowly-focused attack.

Mana shielding.

Two-dimensional tiles. Three-dimensional crystals.

Terry had no experience using mana refractors to assist in creating a uniform compression, but he did have experience in creating all kinds of mana shields. Shields whose primary purpose it was to avoid any gaps.

Terry also had experience in picking such shields and using his mana touch to identify the slightest gaps to exploit.

Identifying the slightest place of imbalance.

Almost in a trance, Terry began shaping new kinds of refractors around him. Not in the spiraling sequence like he had done before, but in an oval assortment of combs, almost like a bee's nest.

Terry shifted the manacombs around until they were as spherical as possible. Then he began layering more comb-like focus refractors around.

Layer by layer.

Every successive layer was shaped to feed mana into the next layer further towards the center of the core where a single spherical gap was waiting.

Terry allowed his mana to flow around his focus construction as if it was a shielding to be picked. He closed his eyes and focused on the prickling sensation in his mind.

Every irregularity was eliminated.

Every point of imbalance was corrected.

Every annoying itch in his mind was purged until there was nothing left but balanced focus.

Terry opened his eyes and contracted his mana bubble with all the force his outstanding general mana control could muster.

More.

More and more mana was pressed into the focus core.

Layer by layer, the mana traveled inside the core while being compressed increasingly and uniformly.

Until he made a mistake by messing up the speed of feeding additional mana into the core…

Terry took a deep breath. To his own surprise, he wasn't frowning.

He might have failed, but he had gotten inspiration for a new tool that might help him achieve his goals.

He might have failed, but so what?

Every failure was a step towards success.

Terry began adjusting his focus core and tried again. He quickly immersed himself in his practice and became completely oblivious to the grin that was growing on his face.

***

Terry was so immersed in his experiment that he didn't even notice that he had become the center of everyone's attention.

Rafael watched Terry with a claw tapping on his chin. He had noticed a strangely familiar mana movement around his martial brother and was intrigued enough to call off the combat training for Deekin.

Eventually, Rafael couldn't contain himself anymore. "What the Wastes are you doing?"

"Huh?" Terry blinked and jolted out of his daze.

"Are you trying to mimic a dantian?" Rafael pointed a claw at Terry's cluster of honeycomb focus refractors. "I praise you for finally seeing sense and joining me on the righteous path of using mana, but that's not how you do it. Your dantian belongs inside of you. Inside. The core establishment stage is not just named for forming your core but for forming your core. At your center."

Terry tilted his head without interrupting his compression experiment. "Core establishment? What's that?"

"The stage before nascent soul," explained Rafael as if that should explain everything.

Terry puckered his lips and let his mana sight wander over the martialist mana structures he could perceive in Rafael's body, of which the largest was called dantian and resided in his belly.

"Mine isn't solid anymore." Rafael pointed out. "You're meant to break the core again at a later stage."

Terry rubbed his chin while trying to recall the different martialist mana structures he had encountered in his travels. He was wondering if he could somehow work in some inspiration from them, too, when his attention was drawn elsewhere.

"I can show you if you want. You just…" Rafael narrowed his eyes. "Are you listening? I'm telling you the core has to be formed inside of you. I've never heard of anyone condensing a core outside their body and…" His voice trailed off.

Terry was dismantling his focus core of comb-like refractors, but that wasn't what caused Rafael to turn silent.

No, the stunning thing was not Terry abandoning his madness.

It was that Terry had somehow succeeded, or at least not failed completely. To Rafael, it didn't make any sense, but to Terry it meant everything.

A single droplet.

A single droplet of translucent light-blue liquid was hovering in the air.

Terry subconsciously pointed at the droplet. He moved his finger and his naturalized droplet of mana followed. It buzzed around him and followed his mana control's every whim.

Neat…

But…

"What's the point of that?" Rafael asked with a stunned expression.

"Good question," mumbled Terry in thought. He had succeeded, both in confusing his martialist friend and in condensing a single drop of liquid mana.

How that external droplet of mana would ever help him achieve the liquification of mana inside his mana channels wasn't clear at all, though.

At the very least, I'll have an alternative way to achieve the same kind of mana potion compatibility as the bottle from the dungeon.

That's something.

Not what I was aiming for, though.

Small steps.

Terry barely managed to prevent himself from speaking his inner dialogue out loud. It was easy to get lost in his thoughts, but it was a lot harder to forget the spectators if one of them was as giant as Deekin.

Is there really no cost to moving it around? I guess I don't lose mana to move mana. Never thought about that. But still. This is mana with physical form. Shouldn't that cost something? I can't notice anything…

I wonder about the rate of decay. Does the liquid lose the naturalization at the same rate as regular mana?

"Later," whispered Terry and stood up.

"What are you going to do with that?" Rafael squinted at the droplet of mana. It looked like an annoyingly intense glow worm in his mana sight. He somehow felt compelled to chase after it, but managed to refrain so far.

Terry could feel someone's suggestion at what to do with it. He looked at the gelatinous glutton whose soul practically begged Terry to feed him.

I know I already fed you. Don't try to pretend otherwise.

Then again…

Terry was curious. He had fed Oz his naturalized mana before, but this condensed drop of liquid was new. He floated the droplet to the shadow slime and signaled his okay.

Oz did not bother to carefully prod the drop and simply folded itself over the floating droplet of mana to swallow it.

Terry observed the droplet maintain its shape and begin to pulse inside the shadow slime. He made sure to monitor Oz's soul for any warning signs of harm, but instead of harm, it appeared the slime liked it.

Oz moved it ever more closely to its dual core where it floated and fizzled slightly while continuously sending pulses of usable mana through the slime's viscous body.

"Huh…" Terry furrowed his brow. Perhaps more of a slowly digested snack?

Anyway…

Terry clapped and moved his gaze to Deekin. "I see you have the leeway to loaf around. I hope your mastery of the burst techniques I've shown you can serve as justification for that. Otherwise…" He retrieved something from his storage.

Deekin shivered. He remembered that stick. Whenever his master, who wanted to be called instructor, summoned that stick, it warned of impending pain. That stick was the signal of a mistake made or of a useless thought invading Deekin's mind.

A sharp poke for the former and a forceful thwack for the latter.

Deekin had wondered about the different treatment. His master had said that a lack of focus was far more dangerous than any other kind of mistake he might make.

Deekin didn't follow the words but nodded. He didn't need to understand the answer, because it didn't answer the question he had wanted to ask. Deekin had really wondered how his master could tell the difference.

How could his master tell when his mind was wandering? Tell when he was not focusing properly on the spar or instructions?

Deekin was continuously awed by his mysterious little master. With every day that passed, his instructor master proved to him that little people had the potential to be incredibly strong.

So perhaps… Deekin, too, could become strong? Perhaps Deekin was not as worthless as his brothers and sisters had always made him feel?

If someone as small as his instructor master could become this powerful, then what heights might Deekin be able to reach?

Deekin promised himself to never eat little folks again. Who knew how powerful they could grow up to become?

Right when Deekin was thinking useless thoughts, the scary stick arrived to thwack him over the head and punish him for his distraction.

"Focus," mumbled Deekin to himself. A word his instructor master liked to repeat. It was hard to focus. His mind didn't like to focus. His tribe had never cared about where his mind might drift to. The ways of instructor master Terry and furry master Rafael were truly strange.

***