The experience of yesterday caught up to me. Baydí, huh. She's awesome. So strong, and her horns are nice looking. She even offered to train me. Someone so strong and unlike another strong person I know. Ehh, Rex, I'm thinking of your boring ass. I grabbed for my horns, still left in a ragged, spiky form. I grab them and let them slide back into flames. I held them tight, and stretched it out into a thread, mimicking the water of Baydí's horns.
"Heo, that's weird." I jumped, slamming my flames back into my head, and turned them solid beneath my hand.
"Stella!"
"You weren't really trying to hide it." Stella scoffed, flicking her messy hair out of her face.
Still in her pajamas, she threw her pirate jacket onto herself.
"We barely talked about the two training camp invites we got. Which one do you think? Actually I think I know."
"What days are they?" I returned my horns to the flames uncomfortably.
"I don't know when Jace would want us, but Baydí's is… today." Stella pulled her phone off a charger and checked the time. "Now actually."
"But, what about our clothes?"
"Let's hope they don't notice I guess."
"Ew." I said to myself remembering as far back as I could I hated stinking.
When I walked that long trip to high school every morning, I almost wore nothing to keep from sweating. We left the hotel and started walking towards where Baydí held her training camp. We passed a convenience store and I caught sight of a product I saw a bunch but was too much for me to wanna grab. It fits a convenience store. If only we had that money… I stopped walking.
"Stella, we have money!" I pointed profusely at a clear bottle with light green runes coating it. "We can actually buy a quick clean." Stella turned strangely to me, her clothes as dirty as mine.
"Something tells me you've been thinking of getting one of those."
"Just shut up, we're pretty dirty might as well right?" I didn't even bother for her response, I walked towards the door. The automatic doors opened and a source of Fayha's smell hit me in the face. Candy and treats had its own respectful isle, not like normal isles I'd seen before, unique food to the country was fit between the usual items. Walking to the far frontside I grabbed the sealed grey bottle. The green runes twinkled at my touch.
"Heo, that's gonna be like forty five dollars we'd lose for getting two."
"I'm not stinking so it's just going to be twenty."
Stella paused to herself for a second. Birds still reeked off of her and it seemed as if something clicked in her mind and she grabbed her own.
"Just buy them together so we don't pay too much tax."
I rolled the bottle in my hands as we continued to walk. As I spun the bottle over and paid more attention to the runes I saw the green change to blue. It was for a second but I could also sometimes see it turn pink. Are these different enhancements? Can I see them better now because I have some enhancer skills? I had never intensely looked into job skills, not even the only one really suited for fighting which was enhancer. I just knew if I wanted to be as strong as possible it was a must. The only downside to it was that job skill was your only good chance at a real job, so going for more fighting I better not fail and go broke and starve.
"Stella, should I try making my own?"
"Not unless you wanna be sued, the runes for every buyable item are copyrighted."
"Yeah, I guess just go and copyright enchantments are the only way an enhancer can make money."
"Should have just been faster and come up with the ideas before everyone else." Stella laughed.
We got outside where the camp was held. The place looked almost exactly like the other forest did, just in different spots. The walk took us two 'ish hours. The quick clean bottle was in my hands and I put a small amount of magic into it. The bottle shimmered and the cap popped off as the spell washed over me. It left behind a stain on the dirt below me, the dirt and whatever else on me created the stain and a smell wafted up from it burning into the ground.
"Wait wasn't it supposed to go back in the bottle!"
"That's your problem now Heo." Stella's bottle popped and correctly washed over her and returned to the bottle before shutting again.
"Do I leave it?"
I scratched my head and looked around the entrance to the training camp. Before too long I'd seen Baydí inside, she looked to be speaking and explaining something. She opened her eyes and clapped. The people there started to focus on something, then Baydí noticed us at the entrance. She raced over to us, definitely not as fast as she was when we were fighting that skeleton, while her sword was not sparing her armor as it clanked against it.
"You two decide to show up?" Baydí asked, looking at Stella and I, our previously worn clothes smelled cleaner than they ever were. "Oh, you two had to grab one of those for the first time huh?"
"Yes we did, we would have been another three hours late if we washed our clothes only." Stella chuckled.
"Only clothes? Like only?"
"Unfortunately the way we left Mila should have been more professional than it was but it's whatever." Stella responded.
"It kinda was our only way to get here so it's cool."
"What way did you get here?"
"Our friend can do a little special magic." I answered.
"Wow, they gotta be talented to be able to teleport between countries. What's they're name I might know 'em?" Me and Stella turned to each other, I shrugged and turned back.
"You know who the leader of the church is?"
"Hahaha!"
Baydí laughed a big belly laugh and slowly calmed down. She looked at our faces not even slightly laughing at the apparent joke.
"You aren't kidding are you?"
"Nope." We both replied.
"You two know the Hero of Teleportation!? He's not ranked but he's gotta be close to the strongest in the world, along with the president of Mila, Yeal, and her guard, Flamé. Hell, King is supposed to be on par with Flamé also." Baydí calmed down again. "You two are full of surprises and it's kinda scary at this point. You aren't hiding a presence or two right?"
"Man, I wish." I said.
"Anyways I changed what I was going to teach today because of you. I planned on just some basic survival skills but you Phoenix." She looked at me intensely. "You made me think of a flaw a bunch of people have starting out. Magic usage and keeping a good amount of it just in case."
Instead of explaining there, she took us to a group of starting adventurers and then resumed teaching the class.
"Hopefully the exercise helps but since some new faces are here let me explain again."
She held her hand out and water magic formed. It then turned to pure magic and spun slightly in her hand.
"To gain more control over your magic you need to be able to manipulate it while not over doing it. You'd either continuously use more magic to maintain the spin or you over work your brain. Those are the two ways you can get exhausted in a fight. So practice maintaining a spin at whatever speed you'd like without using extra magic, and not stressing your head."
She again opened her four eyes, and snapped the pure magic into water. She let it sink into the earth below her.
Stella and I both tried. Our hands both sprang forth flames, mine being more ragged and Stella's being more calm and quiet. Turning fire magic into pure magic isn't too hard. Just like, take out the flame attribute.
I envisioned a lake of water being my magic, and a lot of food coloring turning the water orange. I took that mental image and tried to reverse the process of my natural magic. Pulling at it my flames only seemed to savagely twist.
I looked to my left and saw a human who was also practicing. He summoned pure magic just like that. Not a hint of another attribute was behind it. Then I looked at Stella, she was also struggling to pull out our innate flames. I looked back up at the front where Baydí started a fifteen minute timer. Oh shit, I'm going to fall behind.
I closed my eyes and returned to that process of pulling out the flames. This isn't easy to set up for dragons, did she skip over teaching this? Oh, probably because I was late. I had lost that image in my mind and raced through imaging it to try again. This time the flames seemed weaker and I had lost magic from the initial amount.
Damn, I don't practice with pure magic because I don't get a use out of it. Uhh! I guess I'll need it for enhancement magic. I reimagined my orange lake and tried to pour purple food coloring in. The lake turned magenta and my flames flickered out of existence. When the purple filled the lake the magic came back. It had been just reforming. My hand felt light and magnetic. The wind blew into my hand and it became very cold.
That is not it but maybe it will be easier to change it in this form. The gravity magic held in my hand seemed to have physical weight as the world folded slightly around my hand. It wasn't actually folding but that was how it looked to add more mass without more room. The gravity is easier to condense since it's not taking up real tangible room. I tried pushing the pulling force into itself. It condensed and the magic molded into itself thicker than normal. The magic blipped out of existence when I imagined changing it.
What the hell? How can I use something I don't know at all? That was the point of the glass at churches, to allow people to feel how the magic was so they could better understand it. But I had no idea how pure magic felt, let alone how to use it.
I reimagined the lake, it hummed a warm amber. Maybe if I tried to use both at once it would become something stronger or even out? So I slowly poured in both orange and purple. Like I thought, the colors left both, leaving behind a white, with a rainbow hint behind it.
Pure magic control? Well that's not totally a good way to do it for others but easy for me. The pure magic held still in my hand, condensed from the past gravity. Instead of using gravity I tried to spin the magic within itself. A little push and it was spinning.
Well now I can skip that step knowing how it feels now. I just use it like fire and gravity, but its strength is far weaker.
I had held it and I turned to look at Stella. The flames in her hand wiggled and spun, almost like it was desperately holding on.
"You need help Stella?" I asked, not really sure how I could help.
"Uhhh." Stella's face lifted up from the floor and sweat streamed her face. She tried to say something but the flames whipped out and she returned to her focused state.
"Ok…"
I kept the spin on my magic, my strength in it wasn't high but it felt more like holding onto flames and gravity. It wasn't difficult, more natural than the other two were to learn. It felt like my horns when I'd change the form of them.
The fifteen minute timer was up and Stella was still struggling to rip out the flames. Stella's face dropped, she released the magic and looked up at Baydí.
"Nice job y'all, you should continue to practice this when you get a chance. Next I will teach you some basic techniques if you are camping out, which might happen if you are out farther than the capital."
Baydí ran us through steps that you'd find in any video on the internet, she would take time to fully demonstrate the skills. Her experience helped her point out common mistakes in them. Stella's face was still and unchanging throughout, she limply followed the steps. I opened my phone to write all that Baydí said down. The training camp had ended and Stella's face stayed the same.
"Wanna try it again on the way back?" I asked.
"No, not really." Stella's response came out flatly.
I scratched the back of my head and felt my horns. My eyes grew wider and I grabbed Stella's hand. She flinched, caught off guard by me grabbing her. I pulled her hand in and pressed them into the black crown on top of her head.
"Your horns!" I pulled out some pure magic and showed her it. "They are the same, just try recreating that feeling that you sense in your horns into your flames."
She pathetically looked up at me with no confidence in her ability. She closed her eyes and I dropped her hand. Her naturally calm flames appeared. Instead of her flames turning ragged, an even more calmer energy appeared. The flames dispersed and pure magic formed.
I was taken aback by it. I didn't think it would work that easily even though my process took longer.
"Damn…"
"Wait!" Stella's brightening face turned sour as she stared at me. "You didn't actually believe it would work, did you!"
"Ohh… caught."
I turned and bolted out of the camp, Stella chasing after me. She hurled a couple of flaming spears at me. When they hit, they hit the skin on my arms or my hair and only pushed me farther forward, not damaging me at all.