[Arc I] Chapter 28 – Lunar beam forward?
***
Damn dam damn. I could feel him growing suspicious. I had to think as little as possible, affect everything as little as possible… but still, we were inside my mind! Anything I thought affected the dream… and so, I try my best to meditate, be nothing.. If necessary respond, but without thinking…
***
“Clown, I feel stressed”
“Yes my lord” - responded the ugly eel.
“Your deformed appearance fits your job well. It is very magnanimous of our teacher to hire you, as indeed, with this ugly appearance, far too similar to dirteaters, it would be difficult for you to find reputable employment elsewhere”
“Yes my lord”
“But less talking, amuse me”
The eel made weird face, as if shocked by my statement. “Bwah” - I released more water through my gills than usual. After a moment of exaggerated panic… it started to do a weird dance. Moving left and right… and then it started biting water! How foolish! How naive! Pretend warrior!
“Mwah, yes, yes, that pleases me!”
“But sir, Hasn’t it started?”
I turned around, and indeed! Master started his lecture, without minding that I wasn’t there. The old geyser always ignored me, no matter how much I practiced, how much I improved. Shallow bastard. Still, I listened carefully… even though I saw this scene hundreds of times in my dreams.
“Many of you ignore it, so used to water, and swimming, you don’t even realise you are doing it. But you must never forget. This. Is. Water. And to swim forward, you can’t push against it! You slightly divert it… and suddenly, the force that was stopping you from moving, is now giving you speed! Moonbeam movement is similar!”
I didn’t get it then. What did he mean? You swim by moving your muscles, you want to swim faster, you move your muscles faster! If you are still too slow.. Just train! Improve! Don’t talk fancy about being weak!
“You cover your scales in mana, and try to make it flow around you! Use your own mana to affect its path! But that, that would not be a secret art by itself would it? Many have learned it before.The second part, what fewer realise is that mana has will. The trick is to use the mana that you can control, to temporarily convince other mana around you that it also just so happened to want to go to the place you are going. It will increase the flow, and make it easier to move. Finally…”
SsssSsssSsssssss
“What is going on? Why are we on the Selun? Master?! Aren’t you dead?! Is that me?”
Suddenly, Guerop appeared, older, and unfortunately dignified… I felt panic, but it didn’t seem to come from me? And then I started panicking.. And then one more source appeared, and it got stronger, and…
And I woke up.
***
It took my all to move, even an inch back. My mind felt tired, as If I just took a 4 hour long math test while juggling. And stretched.
Having one person in one's mind felt uncomfortable, having multiple went beyond that. I’m never planning on testing that, but it felt as if something terrible was about to happen… the shape of our minds was getting blurred.. Was I about to become a blob of snakes and human minds?
While I got interrupted, and didn’t practice much of mind resistance skills, I didn’t feel like trying again, especially with awake fish. I could see the confused minds of Guerorp and Blopliob.. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them was angry at the other for waking them up. Though their shouting is about to wake everyone in their shoal up. Well, not my problem.
Instead of problems, I have a great haul…
Mana manipulation: 0.4/10 (no mana core) |
Flow control: 0.1/10 |
Lunar beam flight art - 0.1/10 (unavailable! insufficient lunar mana affinity) |
Mana movement: 0.1/10 |
While most of the dream seemed useless, the last part brought me great benefit. Not only in terms of increased skills but also knowledge. It also gave me an idea- so it seems you can use mana to move/block movement of related fields. And the fish concealment field seemed to use small hints of mind-related mana. Doesn’t this mean I finally found a clue on how to deal with my problem?
I didn’t get to hear the end of the lecture though… It seems I will have to try inviting the fish over to my head again. And it will have to happen before the moon grows much more and the knights go back.