1.29 Manaclay 2
"Back for more, stud?" Master Zert said. "How goes your manaclay training? Hopefully you didn't poke anyone's eye out while practicing."
"Nothing of the sort Master," Vicktor replied, trying not to redden. "Take a look!"
Almost instantly the oblong ball of clay reformed into a fairly accurate depiction of his penis.
"A young strapped man such as yourself, doesn't usually study their own body so much without a reason aye? But that's magic for you, all work, and no fun until after hours of practice."
He nodded. This was a different form of studying than he was used to.
"Now of course, we technically have a Master-Mage relationship and gods tend to frown on 'escalating' such things. So until you advance to Rector, you'll have to do back breaking training before you can break my back."
The molekin winked, and Vicktor visibly shuttered despite his best efforts.
"Enough teasing, I have two harder things to show you, actually enough teasing though." Master Zert said.
It produced a lump of clay similar to Vicktor's existing manaclay except less grey and more golden-brown.
"Instead of just zinc, this version is made with brass. Someone would say that brass is just copper and zinc so one might think that it conducts magic better because copper is a better magical conductor. This is partially true. Do you know why?"
Vicktor understood at a moderate level the magical properties of each metal and metaloids, but he had focused much more on soils than on the intricacies of engravings or inscriptions. Maybe that would have to change. He did need to keep himself alive in a fight after all.
"No Master Zert."
"Brass is actually a marginally better conductor of magic, but there really isn't that much of a difference, but copper –like silver, gold, and platinum– all get stronger and more resilient when mana flows through them."
"Ahhh, right. Okay. So you want me to do the same exercises but with more resistance"
"We'll make an Arbiter of you yet lad. Yes. You'll probably advance–" it paused "Well, I'll let Master Tosk discuss it with you, It's not my place."
"All of you really love teasing us about advancement. It's absolutely mind-bogglingly frustrating."
"It'll make sense when you get here, not perfect sense. It's a tradition for a reason though. Back to the brass manaclay"
He nodded.
"For this in particular and all future manaclay iterations we work with together. Please refrain from just ripping the clay part out of the manaclay. The point of the exercise is for strength as well as control for Mages, not just people with earth magics. It might not explode too badly, but everything after this might maim or kill something." The mole-kin juggled a lump of the manaclay in the air, changing it into a new shape the moment it touched its hand.
"How hard is this to make? This could be an excellent weapon if it can be made to explode from a distance" Vicktor asked, eyeing the golden lump.
"There's a reason it's not taught to everyone who can make a magic sandcastle. It's dangerous and there's a trick to it. If you try it on your own, you will blow yourself up. Not maybe, it's a will, do not attempt this."
He nodded.
The molekin chided him, "Say it, you are promising Mage, but I was the poor thing that had to scrap off another promising Mage's brain and viscera out of a broom closet fifty years back"
"You're over 70?!?" He said with incredulity.
"You flatter me. I don't really need your promise, it is your brain and viscera after all... Now for the second hard thing." It paused, eyeing him up and down.
"We're going to work on expanding your mana capacity, it's barely improved at all since we last met, and I know you've been practicing. You're quite strong for your age, but you should've grown some more. Sit Boy!"
He obliged.
"This will be intimate, but not that intimate"
It sat on his lap. He reddened.
"Close your eyes, follow my mana as it flows through you and don't resist."
It reached out, snaked its hand under his robe and touched the skin of the side of his chest. Instantly it felt an overwhelming force invade his being.
It was slow, methodical and almost gentle, but it was unpleasant. It did not physically hurt him though. It was as if a magical probe was inspecting him. He had felt something similar before when treated by healers. This felt more powerful and more invasive, like it was digging into him.
"Right here next to your heart, your Ruakh, your –"
It looked up at him. Its face went suddenly plain and without emotion.
"That report on you was wrong, I'm going to kick that old crone's ass later. She must have just noticed it because you looked pregnant. Stars be burned, even Princep Talia didn't notice. Even if Master Tosk bothered to look in the hours he's been back, he probably just wanted to test me..."
"I look pregnant?" Vicktor said, confused, but temporarily wondering what it would be like.
'Pleasant maybe?', he thought. 'Is what women generally think of it? Minus the whole delivery pain thing...'
"No this isn't some weird smut novella, you don't have ovaries. Granite-muncher. You have two Ruakh's, so you probably didn't notice. Even if you had checked, you probably wouldn't have noticed where your mana was actually coming from. You've been drawing on your divine ruakh this whole time and barely touched your own. How did..."
Master Zert trailed off for a few moments. The mana tentacle withdrew from his body.
"The Blue Hills, they don't have a city lord. The Academy can't have a city lord. Nobody else would have been able to look deeper before now. Shit."
"What does that mean? Does that mean I've been both Chosen and Mage the whole time? Not just an incident with teleportation?! How's that possible? I've never spoken with J, shouldn't someone have noticed?" The words came tumbling out, he didn't know what this meant, had he done something wrong?
"You were noticed, you were a Mage and could do things only Mages could. Mages show latent abilities before Chosen anyhow. There's no pillar of light or some other way to know someone is Chosen. J is one of the stranger chaos gods, the big 4 would have made themselves well and apparent before you got to the Academy."
It paused again then, their stoic face gained a crooked smile.
"Congrats kid, you are gunna be even stronger than we thought. Let's teach you how to actually be a Mage."
The mana intrusion returned, starting at the pad of its hand on his side.
"Allow me to seal off your divine Ruakh, keep shaping the zinc manaclay the entire time. We need to drain you of mana."
He did so, he allowed the intrusion to seal off his power away. He felt so much weaker than he normally did. Any passive mana floating around through his blood and muscle vanished in a flash as he turned the manaclay from a ball to a sphere.
He was exhausted and sucked dry, definitely not in a fun way. He hasn't realized how much passive mana he was using to enhance himself in little ways, like coming out of a flu. Nothing was left in his body, except–
There, right next to where he usually condensed his mana, next to his heart, a small pinprick of energy. His second Ruakh?! It was hard to tell against the backdrop of his much larger Ruakh, but this small organ glowed brightly.
He aligned the interior pathways of his body so the small speck of power into his Mage sight.
No dizziness, complete clarity. He saw the solid yellow hue emitting gently from the face and hands of Master Zert. Its eyes glowed black and then it was over, the small reservoir ran dry and the inscription faded from his own eyes.
"Good, you're dry. As mana trickles back into you, try and focus absolutely everything into it. We want to gently stress it like a muscle. It will grow and expand with time, but it should never hurt. If it does, immediately release all the excess mana into something, preferably the manaclay. You don't want it to pop."
Vicktor nodded, utterly exhausted. He did as it instructed, he was slightly embarrassed when his pool recovered entirely in less than a minute. It really was the size of a newborn’s.
It pushed and strained but never hurt, he cycled it from filled to drained in and out entirely in five minute cycles. After an hour of careful repetition, he felt it reach some kind of internal limit and he instantly voided the organ with a thought before it could hurt.
"Good, good. Your control is admirable for your age. Keep this up twice a day, once as you wake up and right before bed. You could in theory do it during your daily meditation, but be careful. We don't want you popping like a delicious fire ant larva now do we."
It smiled hungrily.
"One last bit of education, mostly non-magical. Are you into restraints?"
It smiled hungrily. Again.