I had absolutely no words to describe the thrill I felt when I began to move.
Up until today, I was pretty sure I never had any sort of training, yet here I was, moving around like someone who had done nothing but train their entire life. It was an insane feeling, absolutely breathtaking, powerful enough that I almost worried that I might become addicted to it.
That said, I also quickly realised something rather interesting. The more I moved, the more I began to more consciously understand what I was doing as well. The initial knowledge came mostly in the form of instinct and muscle memory, so alien to the conscious mind at first, but that changed rapidly. It was as if I was going through all the training Vuthe had gone through over the millennia in rapid succession.
Or rather, it was more accurate to say that it felt like the more I moved, the more I remembered things that I had once known and then forgotten.
This had to be a cheat of some kind. There was no way this was fair. Yes, I inhabited Vuthe’s body, and she has had that knowledge in the past, but she was gone, replaced by me. Just why was it okay for me to absorb all that lifelong training within minutes?!
Okay, it wasn’t as if I suddenly knew all there was to know about the kusarigama. I knew only those aspects that were relevant to the training motions I was going through right now. That meant that, if I wanted to get the full breadth of her knowledge and training, I would have to spend months, maybe years going through all the weapons one by one. Which was far less of a cheat, yet still entirely too overpowered. To the point I wondered if that was a sort of temporary benefit Abyss had granted me.
It wasn’t impossible, especially since she had given me a time frame of a month before something would happen that she found relevant. Knowing her, that could just be an implicit explanation of this phenomena and an invitation to abuse it as much as I could.
I snaked forward, low to the ground, my body moving in graceful harmony with the weapons in my hands. Coming out of the lunge, I slashed forwards, the tips of the blades piercing the exact point in space I had targeted, before I used the rest of the momentum to dodge to the side, evading an imagined counterattack.
Before I had even finished the movement, I was already moving into the next attack, using the momentum again to quickly spin–something I instinctively knew I could only do without threats of a counterattack aimed at my back thanks to the blade on my tail, which I could use for defence–before I slashed at the same imagined enemy once again.
The dance continued, and I stepped back, now going onto the defensive, using my tail and my weapons to block or parry where I couldn’t evade, and weaving left and right throughout the rest of the strikes.
What I was doing was little more than going through the motions, yet it was exhilarating in a way I hadn’t ever experienced before. It was addicting. I didn’t ever want to stop.
Of course, I knew I had to eventually. For now, though, I could indulge myself a little more.
Letting myself fall into the next set of motions, I returned my attention to my earlier train of thoughts, before I got distracted with yet another useless tangent again.
Having experienced this new ability to absorb Vuthe’s knowledge a bit more properly now, I decided that I would try to abuse it as much as I could for the next month. And past that if I could. I would also have to see if it worked the same for Vuthe’s other talents. After all, while weapons training made up most of her past, she was more than just a fighter. And, given how little issues I had with the basic magic that Vuthe used the most–comparitively, anyway–I doubted that magic was going to be much trouble for me.
“More complex magicks could prove troublesome, though,” I muttered through slightly accelerated breaths.
Then I giggled to myself as I realised how silly the differentiation between magic and magick sounded when spoken aloud. Especially how important it actually was, which made the silliness of saying it stand out even more.
Magic, with a c, was classified as simple magics. From Fire Ball to Sanctuary, and other such effects. In DnD terms, magic was everything up until around eighth level spells, while everything past ninth level was considered magick, with a ck, as it was far more complex.
Of course, there was a ton of nuance there, which muddied the waters, but the general theme held true. And it didn’t help that many used the two terms interchangeably, not knowing the true meaning behind the differentiation. Which… Now that I thought about it, was made even worse by the fact that magick in general, the very concept of it, was often written with ck, despite the fact that most people only ever came into contact with magic written with a c. Again, with many exceptions to that rule existing as well.
In retrospect, I probably could’ve come up with a better way to differentiate the two, but that train had long since left the station. Oh well… Could be worse, I supposed.
I stepped to the side, falling into a more erratic stance, one that would make it hard for my opponent to read my next moves. I quickly realised that this stance sacrificed quite a bit of impact force in favour of being harder to predict, but even despite that, I could immediately tell how much of a benefit it could be under the right circumstances.
With a quick motion I jabbed my weapon forward, hitting my imagined foe with the back of the blade, a blunt strike meant to disorient for a moment. Immediately I made use of the kusarigama’s chains to aim for one of their limbs. Of course, with nothing to actually latch onto I couldn’t properly go through with the follow up, but even the implication of the motion helped me figure out where exactly my balance should be for that maneuver.
Most magicians only ever really learned magic, at least among most humanoid species. Few of the more talented mages might eventually learn magick, something far more common among the longer lived races, such as elves or dwarves.
Generally speaking, magick was the realm of the immortal races, or those that left ordinary far behind, often since birth, such as draconic beings. Of course, magick took longer to learn and to master, but those that did were allowed to call themselves Archmages, Arch-Sorcerers, Arch-Witches, or whatever else their preferred method of spellcasting may be.
Even Archwarlocks were a thing, although they were quite different from basically every other form of spellcasting.
Of course, the title that they may assume was also dependent on what race they belonged to, what country they were from, and what cultures they had grown up with. As an example, for Vuthe, an Arch-Sorceress and Arch-Umbramancer, this achievement came with the prefix of ‘Shade Dragon’. In some ways that prefix was similar to the doctoral titles people obtain once they finished their doctor thesis. Just with magic.
Anyway, apart from those different types of casters, there was also divine magick, which technically wasn’t magick at all. Magick, in principle, was pure chaos; raw, uncontrollable power that not only fueled spells, but also formed the basis of life. No mage, no matter how powerful, could ever truly control the raw, organic magick that suffused the world. The best they could do was make requests of the magick around them. That was why Intent was so important, it was a person's ability to impress their will onto the chaos that was magick. The more intent you had, the more likely it was for the magick to obey.
In other words, magic was chaos. And divine authority was order.
Because of this, magick cast through the belief in another–which was commonly referred to as Divine magick, even if that was slightly misleading–also often ignored some of the more common rules, even if far less than a deity who drew upon their divine authority to work miracles. It was why, even in this world of magick and sorcery, the clergy of the various churches were held in higher regard than most common mages.
Of course, while the fundamental differentiation might be known, the details were far less widespread. There might be some who had some idea that that was how the world worked, such as Vuthe, but it wasn’t like anyone would go around telling fresh godlings that the power they now possessed could basically ignore the limitations that magick usually suffered under.
In fact, some beings, such as Abyss in her various roles and identities, made sure that that knowledge wasn’t spread too far, since it was the sort of knowledge that could quickly become dangerous. A rogue god, even a minor and weak one, could be a danger on a multiversal level.
Regardless, magic and magick were quite the complex topics, and something I definitely wanted to get a hang of quickly. Just in case this weird sensation of learning things was a temporary one.
After going back and forth a few more times, I finally stopped moving, taking a soft breath, mildly surprised that I wasn’t even remotely exhausted. But only mildly. I was inhabiting the body of a dragon. That much should have been expected.
Looking down at my hands still holding the glistening kusarigama, and smiling widely at the thrill I had just experienced, I eventually dismissed the weapons back into the shadow storage.
Using them was cathartic, but I wanted to try other weapons as well. So, I drew upon my magic once again, and pulled out the next item, a greatsword this time. This was the sort of weapon you’d only see in video games and comic books, the sort of thing that defied any useful design to the point of being utterly ridiculous.
To me, it only felt moderately heavy. I marvelled at that, because I knew that this blade, named and modelled after Schattenstolz, weighed in excess of ten metric tons. And I held it. In one hand.
Pushing the insanity of it all to the side, I settled into another stance, preparing for yet another set of training motions.
The kusarigama had been fun. I loved the weapon design and the sheer speed and agility with which I was able to use it. I could also feel the sheer confidence Vuthe had with them, the long time she had put into training with the weapon, which just made it feel even more amazing to move around like a dervish.
With Schattenstolz things were different. Greatswords hadn’t been one of Vuthe’s preferred weapons, despite the commonality with which dragons typically used them. Unlike most of her kin, she preferred fast and agile, mainly because that was what I had preferred and she was based on me. That said, moving around a slab of metal weighing ten metric tons as if it was a rapier was cathartic in a way I just couldn’t put into words.
To the point I kind of got a bit lost in the motion.
This wasn’t some video game where you had to hold your charges for maximum damage. This was real life, and that meant that even with a weapon this heavy, I was moving quickly and decisively, utilising as much of the momentum as I could. A part of me felt a bit bad about the massive rends I left in the ground, but given that it had already been quite destroyed, I couldn’t find myself to care too much.
That said, I did try my best to refrain from damaging the city even more after the first few impacts.
I had absolutely no idea how long I spent dancing around with the greatsword in hand, but even after I was done I wasn’t exhausted. Winded, perhaps, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a minute's rest.
Given that, I decided to finally turn my attention towards my magick, dismissing the weapon back into the shadow storage. I marvelled at the sight of the shadow swallowing up the massive greatsword, and the ease with which the magick was already coming to me.
Then I concentrated, trying to think about what kind of magick I might be able to invoke. I wanted to experiment, not demolish half the countryside. As silly as that might be to say, that was a rather real danger, given whose body I now inhabited. The one thing that made Vuthe stand out amongst other mages was her truly absurd mana pool. If I wasn’t careful with what I was doing, I could easily funnel too much power into any given spell and turn it into a nuke.
As it quickly turned out, however, despite my instinctive knowledge on how to work magick, my current attempt wasn’t quite as easy as I initially thought. Mainly due to a design choice I had made early on in my time building Satien and its magick system.
Most beings that used inherent magick–such as beastkin, monsters, or draconic beings, to name a few–didn’t have spells in the same way a wizard in DnD might have. Sure, most normal magicians, no matter their way of casting, typically stuck to mostly pre-made spells that were taught, and then perfected over the course of their use. But even those spells could be adapted and changed, depending on what the caster required at any given time.
But beings with inherent magick didn’t have traditional spells at all, simply forming their magick to whatever result they wanted. Of course, Vuthe had learned some pre-made spells over the time of her studies, but I had never actually decided which spells those were, nor had I bothered to name any of them, except one. And that one was certainly not something I wanted to cast without being very sure about what I could and couldn’t do and had at least a few hundred miles between me and the next population center.
That meant that I couldn’t just think of some spell and learn how to cast it from the instincts that popped up then. I had to go about things a different way. And so I decided to do what Vuthe typically had others do when first learning magick. A simple energy bolt and a simple energy shield, the two most basic spells there were.
Thankfully, those spells came to me almost too naturally.
With barely a thought I had sent a bolt of shadow magick at a piece of rubble not far from the edge of the plaza. It zipped across the distance at incredible speed, then detonated. It was less of an explosion, and more of a magical shock wave–no flames or fire, but a whole lot of force.
Splinters were sent everywhere and I raised my eyebrow. I hadn’t even deliberately tried to make it overly powerful. Another reminder that I had to be careful.
Next up was the energy shield. It was just as easy as the energy bolt, and before I could even blink, I was surrounded by a shield of shadow magick that protected me from all sides. I had the feeling anyone would find it quite hard to see through the barrier, or even properly sense me inside, although I, myself, had absolutely no issues in that regard. To me the barrier seemed to be more clear than glass, which was weird, because I could still see it being there.
I blinked a few times, trying to get used to the feeling. Then I realised where that dichotomy came from.
Among the many ideas I read about while following the tale of the aforementioned interdimensional ninja warlock of mystery, one that I found absolutely fascinating was the idea of auras. And so I had shamelessly stolen that particular aspect of world building, and had adapted it for my own use.
The end result was quite similar to the original, and, given that draconic beings were quite long lived and powerful, it should come to no surprise that Vuthe had to learn proper aura control. To the point it was so smooth that I hadn’t even noticed I had been using her, or rather, my aura, to perceive things around me while my senses were otherwise indisposed.
Okay, I say smooth, but the moment after I had noticed the aura, I also realised that this, too, would be something I’d have to learn how to use properly. While to me it may appear smooth at first glance, Vuthe’s instincts were rather insistent on begging to differ.
In their eyes I was nothing more than a cheap charlatan trying to copy the work of a master at their craft. And I couldn’t disagree with that assessment, even if I wanted to.
Well, whatever. Nothing a bit of training couldn’t fix. Really, I was mostly surprised that I had forgotten that particular aspect of magick so easily. Especially given that I had thought about auras not that long ago.
With a shake of my head, I refocused my thoughts. If I wanted to learn how to properly use my capabilities, I had no time to waste. It didn’t seem like I was in any hurry, outside the one month time frame I had been given, so without further ado, I returned my attention back to learning, or maybe relearning, magick.
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