A Soldier's Life
chapter-10

When we got to the bunk room, Mateo asked Renna, “Top or bottom, your mageness?”

The young woman did not appreciate his humor, ignored him, and took the free bunk above mine. She opened her satchel and pulled out two large tomes. Although I had gotten a lot of experience speaking the language, I only recognized some basic words. The alphabet was somewhat similar to what I was used to. Most of the letters were written strangely, but it was close enough for me to read, albeit extremely slowly.

On examining one title, it was a book about learning how to learn spells, and the other text focused on manifesting innate spell forms for your affinities. Renna was focused on the second, so I asked, “What affinity are you trying to develop an ability for?”

She looked at me with some surprise. “Earth. That is why I am traveling with master mage Dacian. I already tapped my air ability. Once I gain my earth affinity ability, I will be assigned to fire mage next.”

I asked, “Were you the young woman with all those elemental affinities over seventy for the four elements?”

Renna smiled shyly, “I can not believe I am famous enough for even a legionnaire to know who I am.”

“I did not know your name, just that there were a number of people excited about your potential.” I tried to keep the conversation going as Renna seemed to back away, “What ability do you have with your air affinity?”

She had a bright smile, “Flight!” My roommates were quickly interested in the conversation, asking her dozens of questions and overwhelming her. She admitted her ability gave her flight as fast as a horse, but her aether stores only allowed about 20 minutes of flight.

“That is still amazing. All I can do is store items in a dimensional space,” I responded.

“You are a porter? That is rare!” She looked dubious suddenly. “Show me. Make something appear out of thin air.”

I pulled a tray of coins out, watched her eyes bug out, and put them back. My roommates also had magic envy—or maybe the tray of large silver coins was a lot of money for them.

“How big is your space? Do you have any other abilities?” She asked, sitting next to me on the lower bunk, now interested in me. She was sitting really close to me, so that our hips touched.

My face felt hot, and I thought Mateo was going to say something, but I gave him a hard glare, and he kept quiet. I answered her, “A man never reveals his size on the first date. And I don’t have any way to learn a new ability. I had the help of a spell book for the dimensional space.”

“I was given a tuning stone,” she reached into her satchel. “Just channel your aether into it, and the stones will light up if you have an affinity over 15. That is considered the requirement to manifest an ability.” I remember that Damian had said the cut-off was 10 to learn an ability but did not challenge her knowledge. Renna reached into her bag and produced a circular disc. Three circles were inscribed on it, and each circle had seven gems. I wanted to use it but not in front of everyone.

I asked, “What do the gems represent? I mean affinity-wise.”

She pointed at each one as she explained, “The inner circle is the rare affinities, the middle circle is uncommon, and the outer circle is common. This book lists them all, and these are the associated stones.” She went through and identified all the stones.

Shaping Magic (Rare)

Space

Time

Displacement

Materialism

Worlds

Void

Convergence

Unaffiliated (Uncommon)

Charm (Mind)

Illusion

Clairvoyance

Protection (Guardian)

Necromancy

Celestial

Abyssal

Elemental Magic (Common)

Fire

Air

Water

Earth

Lightning (Energy)

Spirit (Healing)

Nature (Plant)

Renna smirked and took the device, and I felt the aether leave her into the device. It was the first time I had felt someone else’s aether, and I think that was because our bare arms were touching. The gems that lit up for her were Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and Nature. Five of the elemental magics. The air stone also pulsed over and over again, almost like it was blinking.

Renna pointed at it, “That pulsing means I have already developed an ability with my affinity. Flying around the woods does get you noticed,” She mussed. She handed me back the disc. My roommates also seemed extremely interested in my effort and craned their heads.

I made a sad face, “I am still learning how to channel my aether. I can not activate devices yet,” I lied.

Renna put the device on my pillow, “You can practice tonight. The disc is quite durable, so don’t worry about breaking it. Do not lose it; I have to bring it back to Master Dacien.”

A loud knock at the door came. Delmar, Castille’s other lieutenant, entered. “Now that the bulette crisis is past, we are back to the normal routine.” My roommates groaned, and I was not looking forward to the next. “Weapons training will be done two hours before dinner. Eryk, you are still raw; no weapon specialty was noted on your paperwork. What do you prefer to fight with?”

I hesitated momentarily, “Dual wielding short swords against humanoids and a spear against monsters.” Delmar’s brow creased, but he nodded as a smile formed. Felix slapped his forehead like I was an idiot.

Delmar said, “Not a dumb one then, eh? Fine. Three hours of practice for you, Eryk split time between the two. Firth can teach you the spear, and Konstantin can work with you on your dual wield.” Mateo winced like he had been punched.

After Delmar left, Mateo said, “Firth is an ok sort. Konstantin is a real piece of work. One of the best fighters in our platoon. He does not talk much and hates working with others. His last sparring partner died in the Cyclops campaign. He volunteers for solo scouting missions, and we are all grateful for it.”

A short while later, I geared up and went outside with two short swords and two spears. As I entered the training yard, the platoon was training with their weapons in an orderly fashion. I was surprised as everything we had done so far seemed to be done nonchalantly. This was serious practice. I was directed to a man matching my height and whose biceps matched his thighs.

“You are the raw recruit? Let’s see if you can learn enough not to get yourself killed then,” the gruff man intoned. He was not a bad teacher. He was extremely strict and did not like to repeat himself. I learned more in 90 minutes from him than I learned in three weeks at the training camp. I had bruises and shallow cuts to mark every time I did not follow his instruction in detail. I was told to see the company medic before my spear training.

We actually had two medics, Linus and Malcolm. Malcolm was more of an assistant. He gave me some of the horse salves for the bruises and large leaves for the cuts. They smelled like peppermint and acted like an antiseptic for infection, held in place by a wrap after they were soaked in hot water. Unfortunately, they would not prevent scarring. I really wished we had a healing mage in our company.

Firlth had me work my spear on a makeshift training dummy. He went over the common tactics for attacking beasts and defending myself. He was not as good an instructor as Konstantin, as he believed in repetition. My hands were already callused but still ached and bled slightly after a few hundred parries and thrusts.

I took a large bowl of mostly meat stew to my room to eat lying down as standing was painful. The room was empty, and I quickly used the tablet. I channeled my aether, and it glowed brightly. As expected, the inner circle had six gems glowing. The only one absent was materialism.

The middle circle had a single gem lit. It was the protection (guardian) rune. That meant I had over a 15 affinity in that magic sphere. The outer ring also had one gem glowing, and it was the most joyous sight I had ever seen. It was the spirit (healing). I could manifest an ability to heal. My eyes quickly returned to the center ring. The space gem was flashing, which was expected because I had manifested my dimensional storage space. A second gem was also flashing, indicating I had manifested another ability or spell-like effect.

It was the convergence gem that was flashing. Convergence was the magic affinity that dealt with drawing power from ley lines—at least, that is what I was told. I heard steps in the hallway and stopped channeling aether to the device. My convergence affinity was 74, so that meant I should have a powerful ability but what was it?