“I thought I told you not to think about it too much while I was gone!” Lia’s voice caught me by surprise as she entered the clearing with Marin in tow. “You’re still right where I left you!”
“Lia, I did it!” I exclaimed as I sprinted out to meet her. “I figured it out!”
She turned to look at Marin with an amused expression, then looked back at me expectantly. “I was only gone for half an hour. You really figured out how to use Detection through the air that quickly?” she asked with an eyebrow askew.
“Yeah! Well, sort of. I’m sure it’ll work eventually,” I conceded. “That doesn’t matter, though. I figured out something even better!”
“What’s better than—” she began, but was cut off by a burst of air from my upturned palms. She jumped back and brushed a displaced strand of hair from her face. “How did you figure that out?!”
“I was thinking about what you said before you left, about how there was nothing to suffuse mana into and air not being a thing,” I said, mimicking her earlier inflection. “It’s certainly different from how our Detection works over solid objects, but air is still made of the same, uhm...the same sort of…” I trailed off as I searched for an explanation that avoided the topic of molecular structures and other, more advanced sciences. “It’s hard to explain with words. I can just show you later, once you’re done for the day.”
“Show her what?” Marin asked, popping up beside her. “I want to learn whatever it is too!” At her request, I sent a swirl of air around her head as well, which elicited an amazed gasp. “That’s amazing! You’ve got to teach me how to do that!”
“I think you’re still working on your basic combat enhancements, aren’t you?” I asked. “This is one of the more difficult bits of magic I’ve figured out, but you’ll get to it eventually. I promise.”
She screwed up her face and brushed by me. “Fine, fine. But Lia says I’m learning quickly, so it won’t be long!”
Lia rolled her eyes and grinned as she followed her enthusiastic student to their usual training spot. “You’d be learning a lot faster if you could settle down and meditate without talking so much!”
I made my way around to the back of the house with a laugh as the girls began their usual back-and-forth. Lia approached training differently than I had, but her style seemed no less effective based on their results. Although they had only been training for a few weeks, Marin had progressed rapidly through both the combat and magic lessons. Her combat style was much more aggressive than anything Lia or I taught her, most likely influenced by both her energetic personality and her burning desire to learn everything she could as quickly as possible.
While Lia did her best to temper Marin into a more thoughtful, deliberate fighter, the fiery passion she brought to her lessons always kept their sparring matches interesting. They trained with an impressive assortment of weapons, all created from the onyx blade of the King’s Sword; Lia had developed a fondness for the artifact once we had mastered its enchantment, and she used the power to create matching sets of weapons for her teaching plans. Through every implement they used, Marin excelled in one particular style: unarmed combat. Something about the form had clicked with her natural aggressiveness, and she advanced so quickly that she began to put Lia through her paces when they sparred without enhancements.
Although the main focus was on teaching Marin the basics of combat and magic, Lia always insisted that she and I should spar with Marin watching to show what all of her training was working towards. I wholeheartedly agreed, though mostly for my own personal benefit; while our magic study was intensely rewarding, my calisthenics and solo workouts were boring and ineffective compared to true combat drills. Unfortunately, the clearing around our house proved too constricting for any battles that involved enhancements, so I had quickly added a training ring to my continually shifting list of projects. The list had grown significantly shorter as I worked through furnishing our home every afternoon, but the remaining items were large multi-day endeavors which would require Lia’s help to finish.
Even without a training ring, I was surprised at how far my own skills progressed during our short practice bouts on the lawn. Our forced adherence to fighting without enhancements narrowed our focus to technique, strength, and endurance, all of which grew rapidly day over day. I often found myself on the losing end of the battles, with Lia standing over me triumphantly as I rolled in the dirt. It was clear that she had become comfortable in her own unique fighting style that combined my teachings with things she had learned from our short time with Val and her extended combat with the General. The enchanted onyx greatsword only further exemplified her skills; usually in the form of paired longswords, she swung the blades with a speed I had difficulty matching without a boost from Combat Acceleration.
Our daily routine became comfortable enough that I eventually lost track of how many days had passed. Apart from the shifting nature of Marin’s work, we had no use for marking which day of the week it was, and our contact with the outside world consisted entirely of dinners with the Corells and any random traffic we happened to see passing on the main road through Detection. The isolation suited us perfectly; I found myself smiling freely around the house without the cloud of Virram’s influence hanging over my head, and Lia’s infectiously upbeat attitude told me she
