Kara is a bit surprised by your answer. She clicks her tongue. “Interesting. You're pretty serious about this whole, becoming stronger and saving the world thing, huh?”

“I guess.” You shrug, not sure how to respond other than that.

She smiles widely, leans down and tussles your hair. “Makes me think I made a good choice coming to find you.” Her ears twitch briefly and she looks up at the window overlooking the field.

“What?”

She considers something briefly, then shakes her head. “It's nothing. Let's get back to training, hero.”

“Right.” You get right back into concentrating on 'breathing.'

After that day you settle into a routine of waking up, eating a relatively hearty breakfast, then going to the field with Kara to train your ability to feel and use magic. After a long day of that you both retire back to the inn and most often just crash out right away. You do bed her a few additional times. Sometimes Kara stays up later than you, other times she pesters you for some attention, but for the most part you are together most of the day doing something.

After a month you have already gained several points on your status screen. You know from your training and from simply growing up learning about heroes and knights and mages that a status screen contains numbers and words that are an approximate translation of your skill, strength, intelligence, mana and various other things. These numbers are used in various circumstances to grade a person's ability, or to measure training progress. With that in mind, when Kara observes your progress through the status screen she is not disappointed.

“Promising Talent doesn't mess around. It takes people of my tribe at least a year to master this part. I think you're actually ready to start the fun stuff.”

“Really?” You become excited at the thought of learning how to do something other than breath mana into your body. It has become so commonplace that it is boring to you at that point, but you guess that that is a good thing.

“Yeah. Your cap is up. You can start learning how to actually use that mana without keeling over and dying.”

You cringe at that. Trying to perform tasks that use mana without an appropriate amount is universally seen as being the mundane equivalent of bending with your back and not your legs while lifting.

“How do I do that?”

“You exercise it like a muscle.” She looks up in thought.

“Start with small weights and keep going up and up.”

You look around at the vibrant field. From your training it has almost become something like an enchanted forest with vines and plants and bushes well over your head. You were worried what your sister would think, but she actually seemed quite excited and grateful for it. You have seen her most days over the month with her coming to carefully pick various herbs and flowers. You know she sometimes goes in to visit your mother, but other than that you are not sure where she goes or what she does.

“What about all this? Seems like I've been lifting weights quite a bit to do this? Is this an ability?”

“Pfft.” She covers her mouth to stifle a laugh.

“No.” Motioning around, she adds.

“This is like doing half a push-up.” She tries to measure the harshness of her words and continues more gently.

“This is kinda important. It's what most of the mundane people and kids of my tribe do to keep the forest extra healthy, but it doesn't take effort to pull mana from the ground into yourself and let it seep out uncontrolled.”

“Okay... So what can I do?”

“How about a scouting and hunting ability?” She offers.

“Sure.” You shrug.

“What do I do?”

“Same thing you've been doing. Start breathing mana into yourself.” You concentrate on doing just that. “Good, you're basically a natural at that.” She compliments, lifting your spirits.

“Now, instead of releasing, you're gonna try to push it back out with an idea in your head of what you wanna find. In this case, just focus on life.”

“Finding life?” You comment.

“I'm surrounded by life...”

“No offense to plants, but life is defined by two things. Concentrations of natural mana, which everyone has way more of, and a soul. Which I hope most humans have.” You open your eyes to see her staring down at you with mock suspicion.

“We do...” You say flatly to answer her fake concern.

“Good.” Kara smiles.

“So, try to push the mana outward while keeping a hold of it. Like rolling a ball of string away from you. Trust me, it'll move through plants and other things without being absorbed if you're controlling it. That much is too easy for me to even explain further.”

“Got it.” You concentrate and try to release your mana while keeping a hold of it like she said. Then, after a few feet you lose it and you notice when you open your eyes that the plants around you have grown a few more inches.

“Dammit.”

“Relax. Once you get it, it'll be just like breathing.” She winks.

“What's the end result of this going to be, again?”

“You'll be able to track something even if you can't see it from as much as a mile away, depending on how far you extend your reach. “

“Wow, okay.” To you, that sounds fairly impressive. The town has quite a few trackers and what she explained far exceeds their limits. Though, you know that that is what magic does, in general. It breaks many necessary activities, which is why the class is so sought after.

“After you master finding something, we can work on letting you see things through their eyes and read their thoughts.”

You blink. She says that so matter-of-factly, as though it is a simple thing to do. “You're able to do that? Is that... Easy?”

“Once you inject your mana into something in order to track it, doing other things to that person is just about leaning the different moves.”

“The different moves?”

“It's like learning how to swing a sword. Once you're strong enough to pick it up, you can start learning to swing it vertical or diagonal. Magic's like that. Though, I guess mages complicate it a lot.”

“I interpreted you magic as being more support oriented and passive... But with what you're telling me, isn't there a lot of offensive implications to this?”

Rather than respond directly, Kara gives you a knowing smile and walks around you in a circle. “Think about who you wanna spy on once you got all this down, because that's the real fun part.”

“Who I want to spy on?” Your mind races. There is obviously one candidate that sticks out. Though you have shed your obsession with him, you have not shed your suspicion and apprehension. You have talked with sam a few more times over the past month as he has been leaving to travel, or move around town. Each time, your skill of reading people has not been able to detect any particularly evil intent.

“Yeah, think about it. You can basically see things the way someone else sees them and know how or what they think. It can give you a lot of empathy for something, or maybe even an advantage if you wanna think of it like that.”

“An advantage...” You ponder the implications of using it on someone, moral and otherwise. You look up.

“Wait, have you used this on me?”

“No.” Kara says flatly.

Furrowing your brow, you add. “Have you used it on anyone in town?”

Kara looks up awkwardly. “Well...”

“Well?”

“There was a point over the past few weeks when I was worried that your obsession with that gross guy was justified.”

“And?”

“After looking in on them, and him, at a few points, I can at least say that they're happy. I don't like the guy, but to me him and his intentions are pretty human. Something you shouldn't have a problem with.”

You stand up quickly. “Can you tell me what you saw? What have I missed? Oh god, I've been training for so long. I mean... I've been seeing them and it didn't look like things have changed much, but...” You look at her desperately.

“I don't think it's a problem. What I was saying was, if I thought it was a problem I would've just killed him and hid the body where no one can find it. So...” She sees that the worry in your face has not left after that explanation. She shrugs.

“Look, are you fully devoted to your training at this point?”

“I'm not going to stop halfway after I've already given it so much time.”

“Okay, so me telling you doesn't do anything for you. Let it motivate you and be a part of your training. You'll see once you learn how, if you're still interested. Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Then trust me when I say nothing particularly bad is happening.”

You breath a sigh of relief. “Okay.”

Kara blushes. “I don't think you'll like it, but-”

“Dammit, Kara!” She flicks your forehead roughly.

“Ow!”

“No Sass. Who do you wanna see once you master this? Focus on that and let it help you're training. We're done talking about it.” She berates you sternly. All you can do is consider the question.