WW Chapter 106: Knightly Teaching (Patreon)

Sorry for low chapters this week

After a few short minutes, Ezra was left alone again. When approached, he explained that he had gotten pretty close to the end of being an Adept, and explaining that it was for political reasons that everybody was pushing him to hurry up and ascend already. As such, after getting another round of congratulations, the rest of the day was spent in near silence. There wasn’t much of the day left anyways, and when the time came to set up camp, the tents went up and everyone retired to their beds.

Ezra was fortunate enough to be spared from being on watch that night while Telemachus had first watch, so he went into his tent, got comfortable, and listened to what Jormun had to say.

I said that I wouldn’t do anything stupid about training you when we move forward, the grizzled ghost said right off the bat. He rubbed his chin, his beard making a scratching noise as he did. So, here I am, not doing something stupid.

The ascension from Initiate to Adept—actually, tell me what you think it is.

“Initiates are just able to sense aura and eventually pull it into their inner world. In my case, I pushed it out twice back then and paid the price, but you can just really sense it and pull it into yourself. As an Adept, I can change the affinity of the aura once I’ve drawn it into myself. Also, my inner world has affinities of its own, and using aura to augment my attacks isn’t dangerous. To me, at least,” Ezra answered with a joking smile.

I guess that’s on me for not asking a particularly clear question. More than what you just said, what do you think changed in you with the ascension?

Ezra rolled onto his back, lacing his fingers behind his head as he thought about that question. Jormun simply floated to be maybe a meter above Ezra, floating perpendicular to the younger man. After maybe thirty seconds of consideration, Ezra thought he had an answer.

“Now I can move aura into my body instead of just in my inner world. And, pushing it around inside my body isn’t a problem either. If I want to move faster, pushing it into my legs isn’t going to hurt me. Before ascension, I couldn’t do that without breaking something. ‘Something’ being myself.”

That’s about right, Jormun nodded. Each step of the path towards Sainthood is one that changes the way you can interact with aura. An Initiate can only sense it and pull it into themselves, while an Adept can then reinforce themselves and something that they are touching. A Pseudo-Knight is able to create a shroud, which is a constant presence of aura that you pull from your inner world to surround your body. A Knight can do the same, but their ability to push aura away from themselves is much greater, and the shroud is more integrated into their bodies. A Knight can swing a sword and hit somebody five, even ten meters away if their aura is well suited to it and they’re well trained.

Jormun went silent at that, and Ezra waited for him to continue to explain the final two tiers. The old ghost didn’t, so Ezra prompted him, “And for a Master or a Saint?”

Jormun’s face twisted in frustration before he sighed. I’ll explain to you why I’m hesitant. You are very talented. Genuinely, if you had the opportunity to train for just another couple of years, I can guarantee that I could help you to become a Knight without any real danger. The problem with you understanding the difference between Knight, Master, and Saint is that, even if you don’t intend to, you might start pressing to do things that can kill you if you fail to accomplish them.

Ezra’s breath caught in his throat at the firm warning. He swallowed and then asked, “What do you mean?”

The first time you used aura to strengthen one of your attacks was in that spar against your old captain. What was his name?

“Georg.”

Yes, Georg. Sorry, I should’ve remembered that. Anyways, you were sparring against him and knocked yourself out by using an aura-infused attack. Now that you have more experience, how weak was that attack?

Ezra hadn’t ever thought of it, but he considered it for the first time and quickly laughed. “If I hadn’t known what I was looking for, and if it didn’t throw so much more wind than should have been possible, I wouldn’t have called it an aura-infused attack at all. At least the time that I killed the orc the attack was alright, even if unimpressive by my current standards.”

Exactly. And even with a crappy attempt, you knocked yourself out. If you try to do the things that you saw me do as a Master, or to attempt to create a domain, you’ll die. And that’s not a maybe. If I give you too much in the way of information right now, I worry that, in a moment of stress, you’ll subconsciously pull on that faintest sliver of information that you have and kill yourself. This is one of the ways where your talent could seriously endanger or even kill you. I’m happy to teach you, but I’m worried about giving you this information and what kind of injuries you might inadvertently give yourself if I give you this opportunity.

Even so, you’re an adult. You’re a trained Adept, and I think that I will let you hear what information you think you can without hurting yourself.

At that, Ezra couldn’t really be frustrated with Jormun. The old ghost was giving him agency as well as an explanation as to why it might be better to hold off. After considering it for a few short moments, Ezra decided to ask a clarifying question.

“With what I tried with the aura-infused attacks, that was just me basically desperately pushing on the aura I already had. As an Initiate, I couldn’t really do anything with the aura I had. Now, though, I already have something to do with my aura. If I’m in a desperate situation, I don’t think I’ll really be able to try those things because I’ll just try the things that I’m already capable of. Right?”

That isn’t exactly correct, but it isn’t exactly wrong either, Jormun pursed his lips. How about this. It looks like you’re wanting me to give you this information. If you are, I’ll tell you the step that changes somebody from a Knight to a Master, and then a tiny bit of what makes somebody a Saint. Like that, you should be pretty far away from actually trying to do it, purposefully or not.

“Great. Go ahead.“

To become a Master isn’t just progress with your inner world and aura. Instead, it’s also an expression of immense familiarity with a particular thing. Do you remember the weapons you saw in that dream? I pulled them out of my inner world. The most difficult part of becoming a Master is being able to see the soul of a weapon, or armor, and then integrate that into your inner world. When you ascend to Mastery, it’s done with your tool in hand, and it enters your inner world. Then, you can pull it out and it becomes a perfected version of itself. 

Ezra nodded. “I can see how I wouldn’t be able to try that in a moment of desperation.”

To become a Saint… Jormun hesitated as he tried to figure out how to give information without being a threat to Ezra’s life. When you become a Saint, what I know from the several times I touched on that boundary and stepped back, your inner world becomes more real. And creating a domain is based on that. I can tell you more about it when you’re at least at the peak of Knighthood, because at that point, accidentally attempting to create your domain won’t kill you outright.

“Makes sense. Now, you were going to tell me something about becoming a Pseudo-Knight before I so rudely interrupted you.“

It’s not rude. You’re trying to understand. A Pseudo-Knight is able to create a shroud, which is understanding how to impose your will on your surroundings. Instead of infusing aura with something, which is really just an extension of your body, the shroud is something that existed entirely beyond yourself. To put it in a word, the change from Initiate to Adept is going from an observer to a participant. I don’t have some pithy observation for becoming a Pseudo-Knight, though.

“But the difference is to be able to push my aura out of my body better,” Ezra nodded.

That’s about as much as I’ll tell you before worrying that I’ll keep you from being able to gain enlightenment by yourself.

“So do I need to be able to create a shroud in order to ascend?“ Ezra asked. “Or is it just a deeper understanding of my inner world?”

Never stop trying to understand your inner world. When new things happen to you, something to do with your inner world will change, however small it is. The inner world itself is a reflection of your perception of the world. Sometimes, the form that it takes doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but that’s what it is. If I thought that your understanding of your inner world was lacking, though, I’d tell you. Your last couple of experiences with storms fixed me of that thought. That said, yes, you need to understand the basics of how a shroud works before you can ascend. Any attempt you make will fail if you don’t have a pretty firm understanding on the mechanics behind making a shroud.

“What do you mean about the last couple of experiences?“ Ezra asked as he mentally tried to push aura out of his hand. Obviously, it didn’t do anything.

What I mean is that you continue to grow with every exposure to a storm you have. Your aura has grown sharper, faster, and heavier over the past month. There’s always room to grow, but you better understand your inner world as well as well as storms with each day that passes.

Ezra nodded and focused on trying to understand how to move the aura in accordance with what he was told. As he lost himself in the movement of his aura, his consciousness faded away, and, in a dream-like state, he experienced meditation and sleep as one.

***

“Today, we’re going to cross the border into Ember,” Basil explained to all the soldiers. “Everybody, be ready. The borders are heavily patrolled, and there will be a checkpoint on each side we’ll  pass through. We’ll be fine on our side, but on the other… well, things might get stressful. Hold yourselves to a high standard, because they might try to start something.”

The way that Basil looked specifically at Ezra had him pursing his lips, but he couldn’t bring himself to fully disagree with the obvious insinuation. He could be trouble, and had been historically. 

“Then let’s go.”