Instead of walking to the Church alone with Emi, Max teleported directly to the hallway that contained Head Priestess Burk’s office. The few times he had been there, Max had explicitly noted that the hallway seemed to be empty except for Burk’s room. Which was convenient in situations such as this. Still, he thought it was a bit rude not to enter through the normal channels and would find a better jumping stop, but with Red Mask on the loose he couldn’t be too careful.

He knocked and waited. And waited. And waited. He knocked again, this time louder. Maybe he should back track and meet with Wop. But, as he turned to leave a flicker of power directed his mind, telling him it was okay to enter. He remembered this power quite well, Ofes. With a deep breath Max pushed the door open and entered the familiar office.

You have entered a place of the Divine.

Burk had her legs propped up on her desk fast asleep. That explains I, Max thought. He turned to the small pristine shrine in the center of the room and bowed.

“Burk, its Max! I’m here for my lessons…”

Burk twitched in surprise but quickly oriented herself and patted down her ratty robes. A faint sound of laughter sounded impossibly far away.

“Miserable old woman…” Burk muttered. “Where’s Wop? Normally he gives me time to… Present myself.”

“I teleported myself here, there is an [Assassin] out for me.”

Burk let out a load sigh, moving to the coach. “First [Assassin] out for you?”

“Second, technically, but the first was an opportunistic attack not a contract.”

“Hmm… Shameful… Have you been practicing?” Burk asked.

“I have.” Max meekly nodded. “But not as much as I could be. My time has been lacking as of late if I’m being honest.”

“Have you at least thought about the concepts I presented last week?”

“I have and I had some questions.” Max said. “I recently had the chance to see a [Lancer] fight. He could bend his aura around his weapon and increase its trusting attack range.”

Burk nodded. “A form of practical aura manipulation. While defensive in nature, auras can still be sharpened or formed in such a way that it has a point.”

“Right… Well, how did he do that?”

Burk sighed. “Yes, we will get there. Are you truly that impatient?”

“I don’t really care if I learn how to do it, but what I really want is to learn to defend from it. You see… This [Lancer] is the one who made the contract for my death.”

“Ah. I see.” Burk thought for a moment. “I guess it would be wise of me to change up my planed training schedule to help you if you are attacked. Let’s start with an exchange warmup. Prepare yourself.”

A few minutes later, Max was breathing heavily as his eyes burned with the start of a headache. Some reason he felt as if Burk went harder than usual as a form of payback.

“Remember, perceived aura control is supposed to be used in wide scale rather than individually like practical control. But that does not mean it cannot defend against it.” Burk said. “Create an Ice Spear and try and stab me with it.”

Water poured from Max’s summoned gourd, solidified into ice, and was promptly thrust at the old woman. He had come to learn that Burk, like Vel, was much spryer than they let on. He had no worries that he would kill the devout leader. In fact, he completely thought his attack would fail. And it did. His blade was simply stopped in mid-air. It felt as if he was trying to shove the spear through layers of dirt and sand.

“Get it?” Burk asked.

“No?”

Burk sighed. “I enveloped the spear in my aura, thus stopping it.”

“I can still push it slightly.” Max said.

“Indeed. One of the few counters. Slow movements can penetrate auras when they are spread this way. But I can always do this.” A surge of power erupted from Burk, and the spear was kicked back along with its creator. Paintings and objects rumbled from the resulting shockwave, threating to fall, or become crooked.

“That was uncalled for.” Max muttered.

“Now, you may ask, what’s the best way to train in such wonderful magics?” Burk said in a mocking tone. “Well, my dear apprentice, let me tell you! Mana misting.”

Max waited for her to continue but when she didn’t spoke. “What?”

“What do you mean ‘what?’”

“What is mana misting?”

“You don’t know what mana misting is?”

“Should I?”

“Is Veline not your teacher?” Burk asked with a raised eyebrow.

“She is. But we became rather busy, and teaching fell too more practical.”

Burk sighed in an exaggerated way. “Mana misting is controlling mana outside your body in a way that it creates a thin shell of mana around you. Like mist.”

“I’m not very good at controlling mana outside my appendages. Vel and I did work on that for a bit, but...” A vivid image of the devastating effect of explosions in a populated city flooded his mind.

“I take it you are referring to shielding spells?” Burk asked and Max nodded. “Similar but different. Each will help with the other, but different techniques are used. For mana misting, it’s about controlling mana outside your body in a retroactive way. For shields or other spells, the caster has to focus on their mana a lot more to achieve the desired effects. Follow my lead.”

Burk raised her palm up, an orb of pure mana slowly broke the barrier of her skin. It floated slightly away from her hand but stayed stationary. She motioned for Max to do the same, and he did. This was similar to the first time he had tried casting magic. All the way back to sleeping in trees and fighting wolves. Burk’s mana orb flattened and raised above her head. Max did the same but found his mana twitching and rumbling. It was hard to keep this fine of control for him. Burk’s flattened mana broke apart into millions of tiny sparkles. They fluttered down and hovered in place around her body. Max tired, but his mana broke into jagged shards and promptly dissipated into the air.

“Oh, boy. You have your work cut out for you.” Burk said. “No matter. Try again.”

And Max did. Again, and again. By the sixth attempt, Max could cause his mana to flatten and raise above his head without wobbling. But it would still break incorrectly and shatter. By the eighth try, he made a realization.

“Why am I doing with my mana and not trying with my aura?” He asked.

“Mana is easier to experiment with, and if you get it wrong then you won’t be in pain. You can try with your aura if you want, but I highly recommend you don’t.”

Max grumbled something incoherent but continued with mana. Even though he thought Burk wouldn’t be above something like making his training harder, he chose to believe her because of something his teacher Gene said about mana systems. Mana systems work in such a way that they don’t harm their host. Max had no idea if that was also true for auras, and he didn’t really want to test it.

“Until you get that down, we can’t proceed. If it wasn’t obvious, your out of body mana control is awful. I think I may have a book with exercises you can do in your own time.” Burk stood and scrounged around piles of trash and random nick-nacks through her office, eventually returning with a small book.

“Don’t lose that.” Burk offered while handing the book to Max. “I expect you to become proficient enough at mana manipulation that we can proceed next week. Practice while eating, bathing, practicing other spells. Make it second nature, trust me.”

“I take it we are done then?” Max asked.

“Indeed. Come on, I’ll walk you to the atrium.” Burk left, and Max and Emi followed.

“Alright, I’m ready to start if everyone else is!” Max shouted using a voice augmenting spell. “Good, then if anyone has any questions let’s start with that.” The crowd before him began shouting. Each had questions and each was trying to have their questions answered.

Max and Emi were standing before the Healers in the atrium of the Church of Lesterwood. Manus and Vel sat off to the side along with Lesterwood’s head Healer, Fen. Subuntu was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t watching. It seemed as though last week’s meeting had left an impression on the crowd. Before they were timid and hesitant about Max’s words, but as each went to their respective inn’s and thought through what he was telling them, things started to make sense. They tested and confirmed some of the more unusual ideas, and now they were left with more questions than before. except for the less gullible, they on the other hand, didn’t trust Max and his new concepts.

“Okay! Okay!” Max shouted gathering the crowd’s attention. “You all shouting things at the same time does nothing. One at a time please, and let’s keep it to one question at a time also. Alright, you start.” Max nodded towards a small man in the front row, a Dwarf.

“Aye, thank you lad. Can you explain… ‘cells’, again?” A resounding positive grumble sounded from the others. Max sighed; it was going to be a long night.

The questions flowed for a little bit but diminished once it became apparent that Max was answering the same questions again. Cells seemed to be the hardest thing for the folks of Nava to understand. Some though he was playing a joke on them, others thought it blasphemous.

“Look.” Max finally said. “Have the Church commission a powerful microscope. I’ve seen telescopes in Lesterwood, just have the [Artificer] reverse one. They’ll have to work out the focus point and proper lengths and stuff, but it should be very doable. From there grab a leaf, slice it in half and look at it. Then do the same for a fleck of skin or spit or something, you’ll see cells.” He knew that it may take a few years before a working prototype was created, but from the thoughtful look Manus was giving him, he knew somewhere an [Artificer] was going to get a job.

“Let’s move on to the topic I planned for today. The function of blood. I’m not sure if there are [Blood Mages], but-“

“It’s a banned class.” Vel shouted from the side.

“Ah, well. Maybe don’t let them know this then…” Max proceeded to explain oxygen and how it is a fuel source for the body. How it is transferred into cells through capillaries and then pumped throughout the body. During the presentation, he used memory globes to help visualize concepts and talking points. After a round of questions Max moved on to taking about the brain and how it functions. Neurons and how a very small electrical charge is fired when they communicate.

“Electricity in the brain? Preposterous!” Someone shouted from a few rows up.

“Not very much electricity.” Max sighed when he saw no one believed him. “Again, I don’t know of a way to prove this, but please trust me. Your God does, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”

“No! We are here to learn CPR or whatever you called it! Resurrection!” Someone else shouted from the top row.

“And for that you need to know the how the brain and respiratory system works. I planned on covering CPR next week, but I think it is crucial to know this before we start. Otherwise, nothing will progress. You will simply know that you can revive recently ‘dead’ people.” Max said with caused an outraged cry. He looked to Manus for help.

“God Subuntu has Max’s full trust. As do I. If you do not trust Max, then trust us. Trust your God.” Manus said. “Perhaps this is a fine place to stop for the evening.”

Max nodded. “Come with questions… See you all next week.”

The next few minutes was filled with distinct sounds of shuffling and opening and closing doors. The crowd was departed except for Max, Emi, Manus, Vel and Fen.

“I don’t get it.” Max plainly said. “At first I thought they were ready and willing to hear what I was going to say. But now?”

“It will take time. Progress doesn’t happen overnight. And believe me, Subuntu has already implemented your teachings from last week in a few places around the world. Your words are being tested and are coming back to be true. You are saving lives, Max, even if the people in this room do not want to believe it.”

Max nodded shyly, causing Emi to curl up around his ankle. Manus waved to the far end of the atrium, causing a man to slowly approach. The first thing about the man Max noticed was his ridiculously long beard. It reached well below his waist but didn’t seem heavy or uncomfortable. Next was that he was missing an arm.

“Max, I’d like to introduce you to Sabat. I wanted to introduce you two last week, but it didn’t seem like the right time.”

“An honor Lord Max.” Sabat said and bowed. Max bowed back. “Head Manus has asked me to talk to you about arms.”

“Arms?”

“Perhaps it would be best if I showed you.” Sabat removed his flopping long sleeve robe, allowing his scarred shoulder blade to show. Dust began to flow from a small pouch tied to his belt and slowly streamed around him. As if to put an end to the small show, the dust condensed and formed into an artificial arm. One with subtle muscles and slick skin. Sabat flexed his new fingers and the whole arm, showing off his dexterity with the spell.

“But how?” Max asked in wonder. “I’ve tried to do something similar with water, but my head started aching trying to move the fingers.”

“I take it you were trying to use pure water manipulation?” Sabat asked, and Max nodded.

“Well, this is a system spell. It is called Workman’s Right Hand. A spell originally designed for mana touched [Laborer’s]. The only problem is that a mage class is needed for the level of manipulation required. It’s possible that [Magical Smith] may be able to learn it, but not your average [Blacksmith].”

“Is it hard to learn?”

“Not any harder than any normal spell, just different.” Sabat’s dust began to flow away from his arm but resolidified on his opposite shoulder perpendicular to his real arm. “It does not necessarily have to work like a normal arm. In fact, it is quite flexible with what it can do.”

Vel, who had been watching the exchange rather intently, decided to speak. “I take it you create an anchor point outside your body, but how do you connect it to your brain. Like Max said, I just don’t see a way to manipulate it without causing headaches.”

“I started by creating a shell of dust around my real arm. I kept it up night and day, and eventually I learned the spell. The trick is, however, to feel how your muscles, fingers, and skin moves when you move. I like to think of the spell as creating a copy of my real arm, and simply mirroring it to the missing. The system takes care of the rest.”

“Huh.” Both Max and Vel said at the same time.

“Map out every movement and every twitch…” Max began to say something but trailed off.

“It also helps in creating stronger armor spells.” Sabat added. “Further down the line, you can do the same thing for your whole body.”

Vel snapped. “I get it now! Max, remember my Water Armor? It works on the same principle, but instead of mapping every twitch and spasm, it bends and contorts.”

“Indeed. There are many spells that are similar in nature. A good skill to have, but a tough one to master.” Sabat said.

“Thank you, Healer Sabat.” Max bowed. “If there is-“

“No payment required. It was a favor from my God, think nothing of it.”

“I-I see. Well thank you, regardless.”

Sabat bowed to once again and took his leave.

“[Dust Mage]?” Max asked Manus. “How is he a Healer.”

“Sabat handles lost appendages mainly. But he is quite proficient at our Divine Healing spells.”

“Well, thank you Manus.” Water began to flow around Max and fixated on his arm. A shell was created just like Sabat described. But when Max went to move his arm, it passed right though the water like a submarine breaching.

“Try again.” Vel urged.

“You sound like Burk.” Max said.

Vel snorted. “I take it your lessons with her didn’t go very well.”

“I need to practice mana misting. Badly.”

Vel snorted again. The group walked to the exit discussing various topics. Fen described the clinical structure of Lesterwood, and how healthcare has a set price depending on annually income. The poor pays what they can, and Lords pay enough to fund the entire clinic for a week. The main clientele is adventurers, however. They make up most of the injuries, since fighting monsters is a dangerous business. As they walked, Max continued to set a water shell around arm. By the time they were outside, he could very slowly move the water along with the water.

“Until next time, Max, Madam Vel, and Lady Emi.” Manus said, adding a small bow.

“Yes, see you next week. Lord Max.” Fen followed suit.

Max bowed back, “Bye everyone, thanks for all of th-“

A piercing shriek emanating from the courtyard along with animated shouting of bystanders caused many things to happen all at once. Manus reacted quickly, building a glowing white and gold barrier of pure magic around the group. Vel summoned her gourd and began to form offensive spells. The ground erupted into cracking rifts of flame and heat, radiating around the Burnt Healer Fen. But the most important reaction was Max and Emi’s. They simply didn’t move, trusting in the power of nearby allies.

Three of the exact same man ran through the crowded holy area, they wore a shattered red mask and tattered black robes. Bloody footprints trailed behind the middle [Assassin] as he ran directly for Max. He launched two quick and deadly throwing knifes at the barrier, which subsequently hit and rebounded lamely. Three bolas of water were launched, the first missing, the second wrapping the left clone causing it to turn into a puff of red smoke, and the third being slashed in half by the man. His sword shined with dark red energies as he gathered power his next attack.

The last clone went first, speeding up to inhuman speeds. It rushed the group as cracks and flames licked its cloak, catching it aflame. The clone seemed to melt as it ran, turning its attack into nothing more than a suicide mission. A quick Water Lance returned it back into red smoke. By now, Max could clearly see Red Mask. He was injured and favoring his left. His tattered robe looked as if it had defended him well against a plethora of bladed attacks.

Each step he took melted his boots and slowed his speed. But the massive blast of energy he launched was more than enough to remove the pressure Fen was creating. Multiple walls of flame kicked up in the projectiles path, hindering its potency as it passed through them. It dissipated with a powerful pang as it slammed into Manus’s Divine Agis. The would-be assassin’s eye widened as he realized he was outclassed. Suddenly he disappeared.

“Invisibility!” Manus shouted.

Max reached out with his affinity, searching the now desolate courtyard for movement, but he was gone.

“He’s gone.” Max said.

“You are sure?”

Max slowly nodded and set his sights on putting out the flaming grass. Fen turned sleek red as she realized just how much damage she had done. Soon other Church members exited the holy building, including Wop. All of them seemed to be ready for battle, sporting full armor and toting weapons. They took up defensive positions around the far edge of the courtyard, dismaying curious citizens and allowing the guard the privacy to investigate.

Max sat alone with Emi on the top step of the stairs leading into the Church. Something was bothering him. Why was Red Mask injured? Why attack in such a populated area? Why attack when his target was accompanied by several powerful Healers and mages? The only logical answer was that he was in a fight and chose now to strike, hoping he could end his contract and go into hiding. But that left the question of who? The obvious answer was Yel. She had promised to ‘take care of it’, whatever that meant. Max inwardly sighed, hoping that this was not another Nix situation. But then, he saw her. Standing causally in the center of the guard’s investigation perimeter, Yel was touching one of Red Mask’s bloody footprints.

“You fought him?” Max said after teleporting to her side. “Red Mask, I mean.”

Yel didn’t flinch at Max’s sudden appearance, rather she was fulling engrossed with the track before her. “Yes. As did you, it seems.”

“Not so much, I didn’t even cast anything.”

“Why didn’t you teleport yourself behind him and stab him in the spine?” Yel asked standing to face him.

“I’ve tried that before. Mallor Henbar, actually. It doesn’t work out the way you’d think. Then I tried it again with captain Shatterwind, and well… They always have some way to counter it.”

“You tried to stab the captain? That’s against the rules, fighting with city guard. I should kick you out of the guild.” Yel said unamused.

“It was in a friendly manner.”

“I see. Can you tell me what happened here?”

“Red Mask showed up in the crowd with two clones of himself. Someone screamed, I think because of the blood, and he attacked. First it was throwing knives, then a red energy slash from his sword. Fen’s fire limited his ability to get close while Manus’s Agis block his ranged attacks. All the while Vel attacked with ranged spells of her own.”

“And you did nothing?”

“Correct.”

“Smart.” Yel commended. “Three powerful individuals all guarding you. That was the correct choice of action. Even teleporting away would have been a poor choice, he may have had a way to track you.”

Max nodded. “I take it you are the one who injured him.”

“Yes, he slipped away using a clone as bait. Fucking clone users, always trouble.” Yel sighed. “I take it he thinks his time is limited. Especially now that I have this.” She gestured to the blood.

“Then what are you waiting for!” Vel yelled during her approach. “Go kill the [Assassin]. You already gave your word, and we both know your word is law.”

Yel’s eye twitched. “Until next time, Max.” And with that she crouched low and jumped on a nearby roof, leaving the Church district.

“Come on, boy. The on-duty guard captain wants a statement.”