26 - Gradual Training

Since Mila had only three children, and no Drei, she was free today to teach Zwei.

"From the day after tomorrow we will go back into training together." Our teacher said to us. "I already gave some tips to Einer and I'll be teaching Zwei today, but after this I'll teach you together again" Tomorrow is Vier's turn to receive the second bloom, then she can train too, but not right now.

"Sorry Einer, I'll have to ask you to not go to the training room while I'm there with Zwei, but that's only for today"

Zwei and Mila went to the training room. I only saw this room on the first day, when Adel was showing around the entire house and explaining how it worked. Well… she did not really explain anything, she was terrible at anything involving "explanations", but the important thing is, I have not been in this room ever since.

"From now on you can use this room, we will practice here everyday with the others. This room was off limits before because the mana concentration here is a bit special, it could harm you without the support of the three-way-system. Even now it is not completely safe, since you do not know how to coordinate them yet."

"I'm going to teach you the very basics of coordination today. It is an important lesson for you to have better control over your new mana. I mean.. You still don't have any new mana, but you will, and when you do, this training will make things a lot easier"

"Ok! I'll be sure to master it!"

Zwei was overjoyed to be having a private lesson even before Einer. She felt a little special, that was a rare feeling for her. Yet in the back of her mind there was still a doubt, "was she so bad that she needed extra lessons?"

Regardless of the real reason for the exclusive lessons, Zwei was happy for the opportunity.

"Since it's only the two of us today, sit in the middle. Yes, right there is good. Now, sit cross legged like you prefer. Now concentrate..."

What followed was a not so detailed explanation on how the systems supported each other. Covering the others weakness and strengthening the overall result. The inner natural mana, the one that we were born with could not be materialized outside the body, but the mana from the new cores could. Yet the new core's mana was not able to naturally circulate and strengthen our bodies while the natural one could.

"While you generate your inner mana naturally over time, and we take care and help replenish it with the help of Seontto, the new cores need to be filled by you directly."

The new cores were basically a bit cache for ambient mana. We could gather ambient mana and store it in the new cores, we were able to collect, manipulate and use it as if it were our own thanks to the roots system. With the previously mentioned limitation of not being able to use it to strengthen our bodies.

I didn't even know we would be able to use mana to strengthen ourselves, not being able to use the ambient mana to do that did not come as a shock to neither me or Zwei, we only perceived the fact as a big bonus. It's funny how experience can change how you recognize things.

For Mila, who actually knows how to use mana for several different things, the fact that there are restrictions on the different mana systems is something to be bothered about, something that puts a limit on her potential. For me and Zwei, who knows nothing about mana usage, just the fact that we are able to collect and use ambient mana sounds amazing. Just thinking that we can use out inner mana to increase our strength is incredible.

The last of Mila's lessons today was how to gather mana in the new cores. It was a painfully slow process. Apparently it would become faster and easier with training and time, lots of time. It was expected of us to have them halfway full until the end of our Nest period.

It is a bit hard to keep track of time, but from my calculations I have been here for something like 4 months, a bit less maybe. Oh, yes, they have the concept of months and years, one month is precisely 28 days, always a set of 4 weeks of 7 days, while one year is 10 months. A total of 280 days every year. It has no exceptions, no months with different number of days, no years with an extra day. Just simple as that.

We were born on the first day of this year, which by no coincidence is year 866, that gives us our 'Generation' number. I learned this from Zwei's memory.

The new storage-core would expand and allow mana to be collected faster, but it took time. It also did not grow indefinitely, it has limits, though the limits are unique to each person. The limits are both in quantity and compression, some may be able to compress more, others may be able to store more, genius people may be able to compress and store to absurd quantities, there is no telling your future.

Mila told us stories of warriors that could not compress mana very well, but after some traumatic experience they suddenly could. Or some that started their lives with enormous quantities of storage and later transferred to small but very compressed ones. Mila of course is the genius type. She has good quantity and quality, AND is still growing according to her, but extremely slow, which is normal after some time.

After the entire morning of training to identify, feel and collect environment mana, Zwei was left with a minuscule amount stored. I say minuscule because that's what Mila said, neither me or Zwei can actually notice any difference, it's like there is nothing there.

The only true improvement I noticed today was her ability to feel the mana in the air, it did develop a bit, at least enough for me to notice. This skill is supposed to come naturally over time now that we have the roots and the cores. If we actively practice we will be faster to master it, but if not it will develop naturally, everyone gets to a similar point in the end. If no practice is involved it would take about 7 years to fully mature. If we do, then a minimum of 6 months depending on the intensity and frequency of the training.

Practice resumed the next day, but with only Einer and Zwei present. It was Vier's last day, today she was going to have the second seed bloom, and from tomorrow we would start training together, with Mila overseeing us. No more private training.

It was a bit sad that we would no longer have special practices, but it was not bad to train together with them. From Zwei's memories, I can tell that her sisters try to support her however they can, and they do get along pretty well. It's just Zwei that sometimes thinks that her presence is bothersome to the others, this damn inferiority complex that gets in the way. At least she does not blame Einer, Vier or Mila and still likes them.

Training with Einer was pretty chill, they both did their individual training without talking much and sat as far apart from each other as possible inside the training room, following Mila's advice to not be too close since it could interfere with the ambient mana, making it harder to collect mana and advance with the perception skills.

Our existence is based on this energy they call mana, and we naturally interact with the wild power, this interaction may cause small fluctuations, noticeable but absolutely insignificant to an experienced person. The only reason we should stay apart for this training is because we are definitely not an experienced individual, any change on the mana may delay our perception.

Today's training ended in the same manner as yesterday's: no noticeable improvement on our new mana battery and, arguably, some improvement on mana awareness.

Vier and Mila got home at the expected time, we had just finished the daily training. Vier went straight to bath, we decided to follow, mainly because we had already intended to bathe after practice, but also to make her company.

The rest of the day was pretty standard, just boring chess games and Dedication ritual. The next day however…

"Good morning girls! Today after morning training, which I'll give special attention to Vier… because she just got her bloom and still has no practice with it, we will start preparing for phase four, we have two days to do so." She turned to Vier, looked dead in her eyes and continues "You do not have to worry, it won't be unfair just because you got your blooming latter than them"

"OK" Vier did not look a bit worried, she was confident in her abilities and talent.

"The phase four training is specially focused on the mental aspect. I expect you to keep this morning training, to improve your perception, collection and storage of ambient mana, and during part of the afternoon we will study."

"We will have time to go out?"

"Yes, of course, that's also an important thing to do. The study in the afternoon will only take up a couple hours daily. You will finally learn how to read"