Aether Beasts

It took us longer than expected to find a suitable place to train since the area Zirani and I had trained in before was too small, however thanks to the minimal amount of twin horn activity and the grouping they were now doing there were more areas we could use and we could move further away from the camp as there was far less of a chance of running into any twin horn disciples..

We eventually settled on a very nice-looking open area with a small waterfall and pond on one side and a nice large patch of open land on the other. I would have spent some time admiring the beauty of the palace if not for the fact we'd come to train and not to take in the beauty of nature.

I wondered what Zirani had in store for Sandra and Misty, but I didn't get to see anything because she started with me first.

"All right so I'll be quick with this so I can get to the others," Zirani said. "I want to teach you three techniques and an improvement to your bark armor so it can act as actual armor of some sort that covers more than just your hands and feet. I also want you to have all your current techniques as refined as we can currently make them."

I frowned. "I think I can already do that with my bark armor though, covering myself that is."

"You could, but it would cost a lot of aether," She replied. "There are better ways and methods. Your foundation is strong, but still far from complete and I doubt we will get time to complete it until after this war. I originally wanted to teach you the early techniques and methods that would later evolve into full wood manipulation, but we'll have to postpone that until this war is over. I'll simply teach you the pattern and method to create bark armor around yourself without using a ton of aether."

"And the three techniques?" I asked in an eager voice. I was definitely excited to learn more techniques as with just the two I knew I'd been able to accomplish a lot and adding more to my arsenal would give me more variety and make me all the more versatile.

"We'll start with the first, which is a long-range attack." She raised one of her hands and extended it forwards with the fingertips all facing outwards. "You have bark armor for close range, and your lashing vines for mid-range, now it's time you learn a long-range attack. Watch closely."

I focused on her hand and watched as aether moved up to it and began forming into a pattern I'd never seen before. It reminded me of Sandra darts but different in a way. The pattern was done in a matter of seconds and I watched as the aether was pushed out and formed into tiny seeds which at first didn't look like much but the moment they were fully formed they shot from her fingertips faster than any arrow I'd seen. There was a whooshing sound as they flew and I turned just in time to see them hit a tree. The moment they did there were three consecutive pop sounds and the tree splintered into bits. A moment later it fell over onto one side.

"Impact seeds," Zirani explained. "The seed moves fast enough to pierce normal flesh and its size makes it hard to see and it makes little noise so it's also quite hard to detect and predict. Together these factors make it hard for any low-level arcanist to dodge."

"And the impact?"

She smiled. "That's the best bit. When they hit something they release a small but deadly shockwave. It's a simple technique and costs a fair bit of aether, but you can form them with the shockwave or without."

"How does the shockwave work?" I asked. "I didn't expect nature to be able to produce that"

She sighed and shook her head. "Once again your view of nature proves to be narrow. Herbs, plants, and greenery are an essential part of alchemy and the construction of many explosive substances, and what are these many things a part of? Nature. this isn't something you'll be learning anytime soon, at least not the technique and manipulation side of things, but when you get stronger, generating powders, herbs, materials, and substances that naturally occur in nature will be possible as will mixing and changing them."

"Oh…" My words trailed off as I took in the possibilities of her words. If what she said was true then the number of things that could be done was insane. From healing to infusion elixirs, poisons, explosives, and more. For these things, herbs and other plant life were essential most of the time. I'd heard stories of abilities and powers like this and how higher-level arcanists could do miraculous things, but that was the first time hearing about one of them.

"From the look in your eyes, I can see that you understand what I'm trying to say," Zirani said.

I nodded. "You're going to teach me that at some point?"

"If all goes well I won't need to," Zirani said. "But that discussion is for a later time. I'll do the technique a few more times and I want you to try and mimic me."

It was hard to get my mind away from what she'd said, but eventually, I managed to focus back on her and after a few tries I was able to get a successful impact seed formed and Zirani left me to practice it while she went to work on Sandra and Misty.

The impact seed technique was a different sort of challenge than the bark armor of lashing vine had been. The actual forming of the seed while difficult wasn't impossible and I knew that as long as I practiced diligently I would get it. The difficulty came when trying to form more than one at a time. Two was hard to do but I managed to get it most of the time, but when trying more than two I failed almost every time. My level of focus and ability to manipulate my aether just wasn't up to snuff it seemed. Even so, I still continued as without practice and trying I'd never get better at it, although Ziraini did come an hour later to let me know that she didn't expect me to be able to do five or more as she could and that she would be happy with two.

So I went for three. It was painful work especially since if I got it wrong in a certain way the technique could go wrong and I could be hit with backlash in the form of a shockwave which sent to my back every time and I knew I was going to have a ton of bruises by the end of the day, but I continued on. It must have taken two hours before I finally managed to get three to form. Instead of trying to form them all at the same time, I'd formed the patterns for two together then the third by itself. For a moment I'd thought I could do it with four, but there was only a certain amount of time I had before the first two seeds dispersed or worse, hit with backlash, and I wasn't keen to test it since I imagined a shockwave inside my hand would not be pretty in any way.

After that, it was only a matter of practice and when Zirani next came over, I proudly showed her the fruits of my labor. I raised my right hand and focused. I was nowhere near as quick as Zirani, but after a few moments, three seeds formed at the tip of three of my fingers and shot out. They moved in a blur and once they hit the waterfall there were three large splashes as the shockwaves went off.

"Very good," Zirani praised. "With enough practice, you should be able to do that in a few seconds, but unfortunately until we get your foundation complete that's all you'll be able to do, but let's not talk about that anymore. Onto the next technique."

I was very tempted to look over and see what Sandra and Misty were doing, but I knew that would probably annoy Zirani who wanted me to stay focused so I pushed down the urge to investigate what the others were doing and focused on Zirani as she raised her right hand, palm up. "This next technique is going to be difficult for you to train and practice with at first since it comes with a few inherent difficulties and its effects will still affect you since you're still only at the first level of infusion and your body is still fairly normal."

"Effects of what?" I asked cautiously. "This isn't going to kill me is it?'

"Not if we're careful?'

"What!" I took a step back. "What exactly are you going to teach me?"

She smiled. "Tell me, What do you know of poisons?"