A Clearing in the Forest

(Vanessa Swordarm)

Spoiler :

Happy Easter and or Spring

Here is a chapter...I planed to post it earlier...but sadly life got in the way...RIP dreams...

I found myself in a small clearing in the middle of a forest.

The trees that enfenced the clearing cast shadows that dimmed as they cooled the majority of the area, except a small circle of exposed to light in the most center area.

Beaming warm sunlight that, made me squint my eyes as I stood if not the middle then at least near to it.

I cupped my brow to shade my face and turned in a circle slowly…and quickly calmed from the brief excitement I had felt at finding myself someplace else, through magic.

After waiting a few minutes for something to happen, I picked a random direction and walked.

And walked.

And then…walked some more…

Shamefully, it took me longer than half an hour to realize, that I had been walking for quite some time yet I hadn’t seem to have gotten anywhere…I studied my surroundings. I hadn’t really paid attention to what was before then and after only a glance I started to think that they looked quite similar to what I had seen when I first started.

Another thirty minutes and I then figured out peevishly that they looked the same because they were the same and just to make sure of my conclusion, I walked over to a large tree and channeling my ki used a finger to scratch a mark into its bark. I then I walked in the opposite direction.

A half a minute later, I found myself looking at the mark I had drawn not long ago except I was now facing the other direction then when I started.

Not being able to quite believe it, I searched the ground for a stone and set it beside the tree also. And began walking again…once more I found myself facing the tree, but this time my friend the stone was now there to greet me. I picked it up, and briefly entertained the madness, that it wasn’t that the place remained the same but that my stone had grown legs, ran ahead of me and sat itself next to a similar look tree.

Yes, briefly I somehow managed to full heartedly convince myself that the theory made perfect sense.

Then another few seconds passed… yup, daydream over. Anyway even if that impossibility were somehow true, because of the scratch mark appearing, I would have to add to the stone growing legs, a tree that could uproot itself and then walk without disturbing the ground. Sometimes I am glad to be a mostly logical human being, and sadly this time isn’t one of them.

Frustrated I took my stone and threw it as hard as I could in a random direction, and luckily by coincidence it landed near the circle of light I had first started in. Luckily, for when I went to pick it up I I squinted through the light and saw that beside it on the ground, was a small rolled up sheet of parchment. Sheepishly…I went to pick it up.

My Dear Vice-Master,

Reading this message means that the first test is over, and that you are quite a stubborn or ‘determined’ type of person, for if you had found and read a similar scroll a bit earlier or much later you would have found a different message.

I imagine you are feeling a bit at least peeved at yourself and most probably myself as well, and I am almost sure that you are currently having many questions, so let me explain things a bit.

First of all what I mean by test, is mainly just how it sounds. I enspelled this clearing that you are currently standing in with various, enchantments, charms and even a harmless hex or two, it is now basically a pocket dimension, or if you do not know exactly what that is, just think of it as a mini world that is looped around itself.

You may be surprised or unsurprsied to know that I did all of this for the purpose of testing you.

No, not on your affinity to magic. Though it would be a lie to say that the test is unaffiliated with your relationship to magic. This test is not a test on talent, nor is it a test on detecting the likelihood that you will have certain skills.

This test is one of character and personality.

Before you begin to get upset, no it is not because I do not trust you. Even if I hadn’t gotten to know you during my time as one of the decimals at the dojo, I still would not accuse you of dishonesty.

Please my clumsiness in explaining, and in return let me share something about myself. It is my habit to trust, and trust deeply for as long as someone has not done any actions that would challenge that trust, and even then I usually give them at least three chances of my own special ‘benefit of a doubt’.

So far in this short time that I have known you, I have seen nothing that would shake my opinion of your morality. However, in my opinion it would be the gravest of errors to not acknowledge that has indeed been quite a short amount of time since we had first made our acquaintance.

I have had no official disciple or apprentice before, but this does not mean I have never put any thought into how I would teach my apprentice when I did have one. I decided after said consideration that compared to how I would teach my regular students, my relationship with a true apprentice must be special and unique to all my relationships I have had before.

Chiefly my relationship would be one in which I found what my apprentice was lacking and then find and give them ways to lessen, or at least make up for or protect the vulnerabilities caused by that possible lack. To predispose this into happening and in order to achieve this and other goals I came up with a plan.

A way to understand and know my apprentice better, learning at least the basics of what I need to know while still respecting their probable need for privacy, and their inherent right to keep things from me that they do not want me to know.

I would give them a test, a test about their personality and character.

And what you just experienced was the first part of that test.

I won’t go into too much detail, for if I did I would be hard pressed not to let myself bog you down with many times more information than you would ever want to know. Suffice to say, this test was as I mentioned about determining the amount determination that one possesses. Another, though too many less kind way to say it would be stubbornness.

In other words, how much time would you spend trying to get out of the clearing before you either realized that your method wasn’t getting you anywhere, or wasted so much energy that you collapsed or even fainted.

So as you can see, while the results show that you are quite ‘determined’, you are far from reaching the limits of the test’s capability in measuring stubbornness.

But don’t feel disheartened or pleased about it, none of the qualities the tests judge are inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’, rather they are just traits, and their potential uses are just tools. How they affect you comes down to ‘choice’ and ‘luck’.

With the information I gather from the tests, I plan to attempt you to learn how to make better choices, as well as whether more easily the fickle weather that is luck.

If you find that you don’t like this test and what it implies, and wish not to take it, you can try to stop taking the test by not participating in the activities I will request of you, and talk to me when I come to you, or complain. However something to keep in mind, is that attempting to avoid participation will have no great effect on the outcome of the test.

This is because I designed the test with such a possibly as well as many others in mind, so it is a fact that I will get results no matter what happens.

If however you do decide to give your cooperation and full participation, know that you will not end up uncompensated, and I mean this in a way that goes far beyond such broad terms as improved ‘lesson plans’ being its own reward.

Here is the second part of this test: Meditation. I want you now to please sit and try and meditate, however there are certain caveats I wish to see you impose on yourself.

First of all, you must try your best to avoid using any ki. You can try to control your breathing, and it is actually preferred that you attempt to clear or at least control your thoughts, but you must try to not let yourself circulate or touch your ki.

This is much more difficult than it sounds, for judging by my eye you are already at a level where circulating your ki is instinctive. Before you object on the grounds of myself barely starting on the path of martial arts, let me point out that you can have knowledge even if you don’t have experience, and you can’t deny that I possess much knowledge.

I have also talked to many different martial path cultivars and listened to them talk about their experiences, so believe that most of the time I can say that I know what I am talking about even if I really don’t know what I am talking about.

Back to the subject at hand, once more. There is a possibility that if you succeed in meditating and solely meditating, that you start feeling your magic, rather than your ki. As you have said you have experienced magic before, and since minimal success is still considered success you should have at least some of idea of what your magic feels like. So I will request as part of the test that if you sense you’re magic, to immediately stop what you are doing and look at this scroll for further instructions.

I won’t give you any more information for if I were to do so it may invalidate at least some of the results, and I will not tell you the purposes any other tests besides this first one. However after you complete or try to skip the rest of the test, I will be happy to discuss the reasons and whys for each of the parts of the tests if you still desire to know.

Sincerely,

Your instructor and Master in magic,

Will.

Pocket Dimension: A magic where a small part of reality is taken and made to be 'disconnected' with the rest of the world world, because of this separation the piece of world can be made 'bigger' or 'smaller' then it was originally. A common tricked used in Pocket Dimensions is to have the edges of the space be 'connected' so that once inside you can not get out, and end up going endlessly in a loop. Particularly nasty or nice Dimension Crafters, sometimes add elaborate illusions so that the imprisoned don't even know they are imprisoned, or no without a doubt they are imprisoned (for torture purposes).