Chatper 7: Improving enhancement training
After multiple days of organizing, Leonore finally managed to schedule additional time for my enhancements “class” later today. I appreciated that someone else was the organizer for a change. Though, before I would depart for the practice, I was training a different kind of enhancement in my hidden room.
Do I remember this better? I stared at a complex magic circle, while slightly concentrating mana in the middle of my head.
That part of my brain seemed to work the best for memorizing. And it did actually work, quite well even. With a slight catch: the moment I retracted my mana, I ended up exactly where I had started, with my plain old regular memory.
“But I think I remember this circle now,” I muttered, tapping with my fingers on top of my head. “Then again, I stared at it so much I would have remembered its composition even the normal way.” I sighed.
There was no one to answer me.
When I used mana, I could close my eyes and retain the picture of a circle with no problem, but that wasn’t the same as just remembering something. Well, it still seemed useful. I merely needed to look at some schematics once, and it would stick in my mind for as long as I could focus on supplying mana to that particular part of my brain.
But does it do something for long-term memory? I pressed my lips in deep thought. I need a control group.
I put the circle away, and pulled out two new circles.
With this second round of testing, I stimulated my memory when my eyes focused only on the left circle, and then I merely stared at the right circle. Tomorrow, I can compare how much I actually remember from each. I nodded to myself.
Memorizing is so boring! I sighed again. I want Estelle’s memory! I kept whining.
Well, at least, it wasn’t two hundred pages of boring theoretical summary from school. With magic circles, the information was primarily visual. I likened many sigils to various objects like a comb, a spaceship or a smiling buffalo. It was easier to separate them in my head, when they were all intertwined as part of the overall design.
I guess there’s still a lot of time. My eyes wandered around the room. With so many ingredients, brewing utensils, and a newly constructed storage for exploding shells, it was now only half empty. Still plenty of room for a highbeast.
The storage for the shells in the corner reminded me of an hourglass—it was basically a cone standing on its tip, with the stabilizers at the bottom making a second cone. Though, I wasn’t in the mood for brewing more shell parts.
Hmm… what did I put into this box? I paused at a box beside my table.
It felt kind of ironic to not even remember the content of one box during “enhanced memory training.” Especially since there were only three boxes total in the room, but here we were. I stared at the box, even pushed mana to help my memory, and still nothing. Eventually, I just gave up and looked inside.
I left the hidden room. It seemed I was running late for the practice with the knights. Thankfully, feystone armor could be produced instantly, so I was ready as I was. With my fast flying highbeast on top, I managed to arrive on time.
“Welcome, everyone, to our advanced enhancement training,” I declared with a smile after a near-crash-landing in front of the attendees.
By the looks of it, few apprentice knights seemed interested. From archknights, only Leonore was present. Probably because she was the one organizing it.
To be fair, the archnobles didn’t really struggle with mana for enhancements, so the disadvantages of this specialization might have outweighed the advantages. After all, it was a lot of focus that could have been used elsewhere in the battle.
The laynobles were also missing. They might benefit the most from this. I pressed my lips.
Naturally, I didn’t want to force anyone, but I had thought they would be the most interested in combat training relying on the minimized mana usage.
On second thought, if they had to ration their mana even for regular magic attacks, it was kind of pointless to train something they would rarely use. A laynoble needed to be able to fly a highbeast and produce a mana attack with their weapon, not running around and punching enemies. Maybe when Rozemyne’s compression method spreads among them? With more mana, they might be more keen to try it. I just needed to show improvements with the current participants, and maybe by next year we would get more volunteers.
As such, we were mostly a mednoble group. Though, some were missing too. Estelle and Adeus didn’t participate. They had trained a lot under Henrietta, and they already knew my small improvements to her training regimen, so there was nothing left I could teach them.
On the other hand, both Henrietta and Angelica were present. The former must have wanted to look inconspicuous by still showing up for this practice like her peers, even though I had mostly learned from her. The latter probably showed up because there was training to be had.
“We can start with a simple exercise. Push as much mana as you can into your left hand.” I waited for everyone to follow the instruction. “OK, and now, move all that mana to your right hand.”
Their heads turned slowly as they were following the flow of mana through their chest towards the second hand.
“Nice. You can repeat the process, back and forth, increasing the speed at your leisure. Do not push too hard,” I prompted them with a relaxed tone.
“What speed should we reach?” Matthias wondered.
I pulled out two tiny feystones and held one of them in each hand. As the others focused on me, I began flipping mana between them. Their colors flicked rapidly like defective lightbulbs.
“Oh.” Matthias produced a weak smile.
“Again, progress at a speed that is comfortable for you. We have no deadline. I didn’t manage to do this in a day or a week.”
My response seemed to have the desired effect as everyone’s face relaxed a bit. They focused on the task with confident expressions… until Angelica reached the same speed of movement a few minutes later, crushing everyone’s spirit in the process.
“Very good, Lady Angelica. You can start working on your legs. This time, synchronize the movement of mana with your running speed. For now, without actual enhancement,” I sent her running with a big smile on my face.
When she was far enough away, I turned to the others. “Everyone agrees that Lady Angelica doesn’t count?”
They all nodded with defeated smiles. I mean, she is already the best apprentice knight in general enhancements. It wasn’t weird that this kind of additional training was easy for her.
Still, now I had to work harder on my pupils’ motivation. They all began trying with greater fervor, which wasn’t bad, but I was worried that they would get worn down and then give up. The whole point of exercising was to make steady progress with repetition. Not breaking records once, feeling miserable afterwards, and then abandoning the routine for good.
To avoid such an outcome, I cut this exercise short against my initial plan, and circled them through various workouts. That way, they didn’t have time to think too deeply about their progress.
With a more rapid rotation of exercises, we ran out of them way sooner than expected, so I just made us play a simple throwing game.
We stood in a circle. A person with a feystone shouted someone else’s name, adding “left” or “right” to signal which hand was to be used, and threw the feystone. The recipient was supposed to fill and enhance that hand with mana, catch the feystone and make it glow.
“I think you did quite well for a first day,” I praised everyone.
“Lord Rudolf, left!” Judithe shouted.
“It is important to practice on your own, but again, don’t fret it too much.”
“Lady Leonore, right!”
“You get stronger with reliable repetition, rather than trying to catch up fast.”
“Lord Matthias, right!”
“Next time, we…”
“Lady Mila, left!”
Nice try. I smirked, catching the feystone.
“Lady Ernesta, left!
“Next time, we will introduce more advanced techniques.”
Compared to the way Henrietta had taught us, I was actually slowing it down quite a bit. I wanted to avoid injuries. Erenit landing on her face when she had rushed to copy a move without properly enhancing her arm was still at the back of my mind.
“It is interesting how you decoupled the physical exercise from mana movement,” Leonore mused. “Only to introduce it later, for us to try synchronizing both of them.”
The shouts of names slowly faded into a background noise.
“Yeah, it might sound a bit counter-intuitive.” I smiled.
“At the start, yes.” Leonore smiled as well. “Normally, I would just exercise and use mana to help me out. But I can see how this makes you more aware of both your mana and muscle movement.”
“Correct.” I nodded. “We are too used to pushing mana through our hands–whether with rings or schtappes–or just building it inside our whole body. I bet a simple mana push against one’s chest might collapse even a seasoned knight’s composure.”
Might. I smirked on the inside.
“From where did you learn this technique?” Leonore wondered.
“A knight from Joisontak taught me.” I suppressed the urge to glance knowingly at Henrietta, as that would have been as subtle as getting hit by a brick.
Unlike me, she was doing a fine job matching everyone else without sticking out.
“Ah!” Laurenz exclaimed. It seemed that he had used the wrong hand.
The game was simplistic, but being taxed on our focus shouldn’t be underestimated. Even following a simple conversation could disrupt it. Failing in this manner should teach everyone that this wasn’t just about some kind of cheat technique which guaranteed expending less mana; the drawbacks couldn’t be ignored.
Without focus, everything fell apart in an instant. If this were a battlefield, such a mistake could have caused Laurenz to lose his hand. As such, one really had to train this method rigorously.
Though, most of the faces around me seemed quite determined to make this path work.