Bloodfallen: Curse of The All Knowing

“So what have the two of you been doing this past while?” Calavia asked while taking a scoop of soup. She was eating at a faster pace than both Arthur and Gaelin, clearly whatever she was doing while working a few hours before used up a lot of energy.

“I’ve just been working for the southern guard, brewing some potions that they would find useful and taking part in a raid on a criminal hideout.” Arthur answered while Gaelin instead held up a potion he kept in his pocket, it was a potion drowsiness and what was selling the best in the market for some reason. One person would buy up several of his potions at a time and leave just as quickly leaving only the money he used to buy them behind.

“What kind of potions have you both been brewing?” Calavia asked a little awkwardly, she didn’t know very much about alchemy or why people found it interesting. Heck even the restoration magic she was using so often was basically just a hobby until a few months ago. She actually specialized in pyromancy, but she didn’t have the courage to get back to mercenary work and she doubted she would be able to for quite some time.

“Mostly healing potions for the raids in question, a lot of things can happen to both the guardsmen and the people they are hunting down. Sometimes the criminals need to be brought back alive and they have suffered wounds too deep to make it back, with healing potions even at the most basic level you can slow the bleeding and bandage the wounds enough to keep them alive for interrogation. Speaking of which, several members of the city guard use clothes as a sort of improvised bandage, do you know anything about that?”

“Well that isn’t the worst thing to use as a bandage, but yes. Anything from fabric to even leather can be used to bandage wounds as long as the material is long enough and can be tightened enough to stop the bleeding. Though as a healer I must recommend that you seek medical attention if for whatever reason you are wounded and bleeding.”

As the conversation moved to other topics the three also moved onto the salad which they ate in the very same bowls they had their soup in after quickly rinsing them out with water and drying them. Arthur had to bring out three forks so that they could actually eat the salad without using their hands, noticeably this was the first time Gaelin had seen or used a fork as he held it more like a knife than it should have been.

“Mmm, this is a pretty good salad Arthur. Was this the first time you have made something like this?” Calavia asked while chewing, something she probably should avoid doing but made Arthur smile by her honesty and enjoyment of the food.

“Yes it was. For the most part I have been making soups with the occasional sandwich or other bread related meal. This time I decided I wanted to try something different and make a salad, but because I didn’t have any recipes for one I had to come up with something on my own. And this as you can see was the result.”

“Well I think you did well, I might just have to drop by more often for dinner so I can eat some more of what you make. What about you Gaelin, what do you think of the food?”

Gaelin flinched slightly as Calavia called him out, he was hoping that he would be left alone for the majority of the meal but was instead forced to give his opinion of the food. “I like it.” Gaelin tried to keep his forced opinion short and silently thanked the gods as Calavia didn’t ask him any more questions.

“Is there anything else you can make Arthur? I would love to try out just about anything you can make if it is just as good as this.” Calavia disguised her begging for free food as a complement for Arthur’s cooking skills, since the job change she hadn't the time to make anything complex for breakfast, lunch or dinner. If she could squeeze out a meal or two a week like this she would be very lucky.

“There are a few things I know how to make, but I can also try making a few other things. I’ll invite you for dinner the next time I want to try something new out. I was thinking you could help me with what I could cook next, so if you have any ideas don’t forget to share them with me. I will see if I can find a recipe somewhere and let you know.”

**********

Several more weeks passed as Arthur took part in a few more raids against criminals acting as a sort of support with his magic as his main weapon. He would aim for no vital parts of the body to take them alive whenever was possible, but if the criminal in question was a really bad person or was making capture very very difficult he had no issue with just killing them outright in particularly brutal ways. His favorite was to pelt them with twenty or so earth bolts in the face and chest area all at once while their allies could see.

On the other front of his cooking skills he managed to find a few new recipes that sounded quite good along with a few meals that would be a nice dinner. Most only required simple ingredients which was good because most of the complex stuff was either already bought when winter arrived or more expensive than before winter.

The one meal in question that Arthur really wanted to try out was all things considered quite simple, the paper the recipe was written down on was quite old and the name was smudged but that didn’t matter as it was both cheap to buy and simple while very appealing. The meal consisted of two sausages, one and a half hard boiled eggs that were done for around ten or so minutes, toasted bread that has melted cheese of your own choice on top, and a few pieces of lettuce on the side. This meal wasn’t really that complex, but everything put together made it better than if they were each apart.

Arthur had even scheduled for a dinner with Calavia and Gaelin on the fourteenth of moonstone where they had this unnamed meal together. Calavia absolutely loved it while Gaelin begrudgingly gave his opinion of the meal as “alright”. Regardless it was one of the meals that Arthur started to make more and more often due to both its ease and taste.

Arthur also began teaching Gaelin the basics of geomancy with the intent that by the time that he registers to join the mages guild and takes the test he will be able to conjure as well as control both water and earth. “So how exactly am I supposed to do this?” Gaelin asked as he looked at the clump of cold dirt that Arthur collected from his backyard minutes before.

“The same way you control water, you need to let your mana flow into the earth and take control of a small part. From there you can extend your control to more and more earth as you feel you are ready to. The key is to not push yourself at this point of learning.” Arthur said while trying to keep things as simple as possible like how he learned within the guild itself. “Actually taking the first step tends to be the hardest part of learning.”

“Well… Alright, I can try.” Gaelin nervously said as he placed his right hand on the top of the piece of earth and closed his eyes. Apparently he found it easier to control water when he closed his eyes, it was probably just something in his own mind but if it helped then it helped so Arthur said nothing and just watched.

It took quite some time before anything even happened, nearly the whole day for even a small amount of the earth to move according to what Gaelin wanted. Arthur in the meantime went into his alchemy room to create more spark powder with the intent to sell it at a later date, eventually he used up the ingredients he allocated for the day and was forced back into the kitchen/living room where Gaelin was still trying.

‘Wow, this is taking a long time. I know I learned geomancy from consuming a demon soul but this is taking a long time. I should probably give him a demonstration or something along with a few tips or something to speed this along.’

“Hey, Gaelin. Open your eyes for a moment, I'm going to give you a few tips and a demonstration of what you need to be doing.” Gaelin slowly opened his eyes like he just woke up after being woken up in the middle of the night, he slowly stood up from his seated position and stretched. He did sit there for several hours by this point.

“So what you need to do is feel the individual pieces of earth and slowly slip your mana inside and across its surface like you are giving it a hug. Then you need to use this connection with your mana to push it around like an extra hand that can change its shape at will. Your skill in mana manipulation will help you, but it will mostly be its own skill, like training a brand new mussel you just found you had.”

Arthur picked up one small piece of earth to show Gaelin what he should be striving towards, it was no larger than three pees combined, yet it was moving around with great speed and precision and Arthur even decided to levitate it and have it orbit around Gaelin’s head before having it recombine with the larger piece of earth on the ground.

“Just keep things as simple as possible and you will be doing it in no time. The worst thing you can do is have doubts about yourself, you aren't a failure, just a little disadvantaged compared to most of your peers. That just means you will need to work harder than them to keep up.”

********

Arthur kept Gaelin practicing while giving tips and lessons when it came to geomancy as it was the magic type that he by default specialized in due to his limited access to arcane magical secrets. Though since the guild was heavily funded by the Rathen kingdom itself it would make sense they wouldn’t want just anyone learning the most dangerous spells and magical knowledge, stuff like necromancy and other dangerous magics that the public don’t know of.

Gaelin’s progress in both hydromancy and geomancy were quite different, though he had the wood elf advantage for learning hydromancy Arthur knew a lot more about geomancy and by extension how to better teach it than anything aside from aeromancy which he learned from Henry. Just a week after starting he was already controlling two cubic centimeters of earth which was quite good given his race and natural attunements.

Arthur also continued with his magical learning furthering his knowledge within hydromancy and mana manipulation specifically with a few new exercises that were just simple variations of what he was already doing with Henry.

/- - - - - -\

+ Mana Manipulation Level 24

+ Hydromancy Level 19

\- - - - - -/

Arthur could feel his skill within hydromancy was close to that wall that separated level twenty from twenty one, it was like a mountain was between them that he didn’t know how to surpass. Thankfully the mages guild had the resources and the knowledge to help him pass that mountain range, but he would like to reach level twenty in all four of the evocations before he tried to become an evoker. That way he would be able to learn just about everything that he was now authorized to learn.

*********

Another week later on the twenty eighth of Moonstone Gaelin finally had his entrance test for the mages guild, within this week Arthur managed to teach him how to conjure water but unfortunately not earth. But he did spend a lot of time minimizing the mana and time that was required to conjure water. The reason why this wait was so short was because most people didn’t like going out during winter and preferred to take their tests when it warmed up.

Because he was already a member of the guild Arthur was allowed to watch the test happening and even guided Gaelin through the process of signing the form and listing his magical skills. His hydromancy skill was at the low apprentice level while his geomancy was at the mid novice level.

Gaelin didn’t need to wait for long before it was his turn to take the test, he nervously walked towards the section that was designated for himself and stepped inside of the white circle drawn into the floor while his instructor stood in her own. The instructor in question was a high elven woman that stood an inch or two above Gaelin in height.

“Good morning mr… Gaelin.” The instructor said as she looked to the sheet for the name of the young mage before her. ‘Huh, I could have sworn that I was testing a woman.’

“I assume you understand the rules of the test, you must remain inside as long as you can while trying to force me out of mine with your own spells.”

“I understand ma’am,.” Gaelin forced himself to speak up while quickly changing to a combat stance and preparing his magic. The instructor smiled and with a wave of her hand sent an above average gust of wind with the intent of knocking him off his feet. Quickly reacting, Gaelin raised a thin wall of water to block most of the wind before it reached him.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself Gaelin quickly reformed the water into a few small projectiles that he sent towards the instructor as a quick distraction to fire off some more water projectiles. The instructor quickly raised her own water wall to block the projectiles and absorbed them into her wall before repeating what Gaelin did right back at him. This forced Gaelin to hastily turn his projectiles into a wall to block the hail of water projectiles.