Mythshaper

Chapter 58: A Way

Like most skills, the secret to playing the violin becomes heavily evident once I get my groove on it. It was the oldest trick of all. Practice. Master Kaius, with whom I had a couple of musical sessions, said the same thing. There was no alternative to practice in the way of mastery.

Even when it came to music or playing a musical instrument, talent might have its place, but even the most talented soul couldn't find their way without practice. I could play a few songs with no mistakes after putting in some good practice in my off time. As for singing, I lacked the necessary talent, to say the least.

“That was some song,” Eran muttered, clearing a line of sweat from his face. “So erratic towards the end.”

“Vengeful Spirit by Master Therin,” I said with a grin, particularly proud of this piece. Unlike most musicians, Master Therin seemed to have taken it upon himself to compose songs that always reached for the very boundary of what was possible with an instrument. When I first heard it, blood seemed to sear through my veins with an overwhelming raw emotion taking over me, something that shouldn’t be possible with mere sounds.

But music usually did what was impossible, breathe life into the driest heart, invent emotions where there were none.

While I was practising 'Vengeful Spirit' on one side, Eran went through resistance training with the help of Diana.

Eran had advanced into his Augmenter path a couple of weeks ago, though there was hardly any improvement in his mysterious weave. Not only that, it seemed to be creating even more problems for him. If before, the patches of swelling skin had been a mere physical ailment, they seemed to be forming lingering scalding now. It took a good talking-to from both his and my parents for him to stop his excessive stubborn practice.

Diana, on the other hand, hadn't had any success in forming another aether root. She was likely very close to it. It took her a season and some more weeks to be natural at essence unification, and finally, she was picking up her pace. Although Diana did have similar capabilities to an Augmentor with enhancement-type essence, she needed more mastery over her essence than her body to advance, and she was particularly good at the former and rather reluctant to push herself in the latter.

With merely eight threads of essence, she wouldn’t have been effective in training arcane resistance to Eran or even me, with the way of arcane resistance reaching the 4th layer. Thankfully, that was a small problem.

Months ago, I had crafted a gauntlet that let her utilise kinetic waves far stronger than what her eight threads would allow her. With the help of the gauntlet, she could utilise kinetic force twice or thrice her initial power.

The only issue that remained was the essence supply. Even with her essence reserve improving, Diana's essence seed would not even let her utilise the shaping for more than 5 minutes. That was where the essence cell came in.