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76. Breathe
🕑 Added 2024-02-09 16:00:03 +0000 UTCOz looked over his shoulder. A solid wall of fog closed in on them, still far off, but growing closer. He paused, frowning.
“What is it?” Aisling asked.
“I… don’t know. The fog…” He pointed behind them. “The fog is giving me… bad vibes?”
Aisling frowned, mimicking his expression. She closed her eyes for a moment. A rush of power pulsed from her body, momentarily sending Oz’s clothes into a flurry. When her eyes opened, her brows furrowed deeper. She licked her lips, staring at the fog.
“What?” Oz asked.
Aisling shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“Oh, well, phew. Sorry about that,” Oz said, embarrassed.
“No—I mean, I can’t sense anything. My qi hits that fog and vanishes.”
Oz flicked his eyes at her. “That’s not good.” Fog that eats qi? Searching, searching, come on. Anything? Any entries?
His repository search came up empty. Nothing floated to the top of his head.
Aisling shook her head. “No. It’s not good. If that fog swallows qi, who knows what it does to people?”
“Right. Shit.” Oz looked at the qi. He snapped his fingers. “The town! People had to live there. I bet it has some kind of barrier.”
Aisling shook her head. “It’s already been swallowed by the fog.”
Oz gritted his teeth. “Loup!”
“What?” she asked, jogging over.
“That fog. What happens when it comes?”
She lifted her head, staring at the wall of white. “Bad. Bad things.”
Great, yeah. We figured that out. “I mean, what do you do? You and your pack,” Oz tried.
“Run into town…” Loup stood, lifting her head to peer further, then came to the same conclusion Aisling had. She nodded. “We run to the next town.”
“How far is that?”
“Far. If we run, we can make it.”
Oz rolled out his shoulders and cracked his neck. “Let’s get moving.”
“You’re too slow. It’ll be close. You might be able to make it, if you’re lucky,” Loup said, grinning.
“You haven’t seen me go all out yet,” Oz challenged her with a grin far more confident than he felt. Not that I think I can beat the wolf-girl, but I don’t want her to hold back on my account. I’d rather almost kill myself from exhaustion than die in the fog.
Loup scoffed. “Let’s see it.”
Without another word, she took off, bolting sure-footed through the forest at a four-legged gallop. Oz chased after her, Aisling close by his side. Running at his full speed, he barely kept the gray blur of Loup in sight.
Aisling pulled ahead of him. Frustrated, Oz glared at their backs. What am I doing wrong? I have a light body technique, a movement technique that I’m borrowing from Fflyn, a breathing technique…
But do I have the right techniques? It’s true that martial techniques require lots of practice, but what is this but a chance to get a lot of practice in? Plus, I need to figure out the Universal Theory of Magic or whatever. I could sit still and do nothing but read, but then I’ll fall behind on all my other goals. Why not read while I run, and attempt to comprehend a better breathing, moving, and light body technique? Something that matches the Universal Theory of Magic’s foundational thought process of synthesizing all the techniques I have in the library!
Putting his body on autopilot, or rather, handing over the physical processes to Fflyn, Oz immersed himself into the books he’d scanned. From the start. Breathing techniques!
As I noted before, there’s different breathing techniques suited for different styles of mages. Depending on your style, you should use different breathing techniques, such as martial mages focusing on remaining calm and breathing efficiently rather than panicking and panting in a fight, and scholarly mages focusing on slow, deep breathing well suited to quiet contemplation.
But what about me? I’m a scholar, but I also need to run around and fight. I’m also trying to learn magic attack techniques, which makes me a mage as well. What I need is a breathing technique suited to all three, but such a thing doesn’t exist. Even if I combined all the different techniques into one medium technique, I would end up with a technique that was mediocre at all three specialties, as opposed to a technique hyper specialized into one.
Oz put a hand to his chin, adopting a sitting pose in his mind. An image appeared in his head: a car’s motor, with gears. Shifting up for speed, or down for torque. A breathing technique with options. A breathing technique that can shift gears! What if I create a breathing technique that’s neutral at everything, until I change its gears into a breathing technique that’s good at whatever I need at the moment?
There isn’t an adaptable breathing technique like this among the breathing techniques I have. Is that because it’s a bad idea, not possible… or is it because mages tend to specialize, rather than trying to do everything?
One way or another, it’s typically better to specialize than be an all-rounder. But I’m reading every book in the library and synthesizing the ultimate technique from all of them. I can’t afford to not be an all-rounder, without giving up on a third or more of the techniques available to me. Therefore, for me, for the person who’s trying to learn the Universal Theory of Magic and learn all the techniques the library has to offer, it’s better to have an all-rounder breathing technique, that I can swap into its specialized form whenever I need to! That way, I don’t have the downsides of having a compromise okay-at-everything great-at-nothing breathing technique, nor the downsides of a specialized technique, where I toss two-thirds of the techniques I can learn out the window.
Alright. The first step of creating a shift technique… is to read up, so I know what the existing compromise breathing techniques look like—after all, a compromise all-rounder technique will be my base technique—then read all the specialized techniques, so I can make three specialized techniques with the best specialized techni que meta available today!
It does mean studying four times as many techniques, but, well, I’m supposed to read all the books in the library anyways, so…
Fflyn’s voice cut into Oz’s thoughts. Hey! You’re trying to figure out something to help us right now so we don’t get swallowed by that dangerous fog, remember? Now isn’t the time to read all the books!
Oz nodded. Right, right. Which means I need to create two techniques right now: the base breathing technique, and the martial breathing technique. What we need most isn’t the calm, collected breathing of a scholar or the qi-focused breathing of the mage, but the attack- and body-boosting breathing of the martial mage!
I’m close on the base breathing technique. After all, my current breathing technique is synthesized from the base breathing techniques in the library, and it doesn’t have any particular specialization. In fact, for now, let’s call it good enough, and focus on two parts: the swap, and the martial breathing technique.
The swap is the part I need to figure out from scratch. There’s no swap breathing techniques in the library. As far as I know, I might be making the first swap breathing technique ever… or at least the first one that this region has seen. But that means it might take more time. So first, let’s figure out the martial technique. After all, it’ll be easier to figure out what a swap looks like when I can compare the differences between a base breathing technique and a martial breathing technique.
Colors filtered through the darkness of his mental realm. Dimly, Oz could see the same view his body did, the interior of the library with its dusty shelves and musky air, while at the same time dimly aware of the world Fflyn saw flashing by, all trees and earth and sky. Leaving some of his attention on Fflyn and the mental world, he transferred the majority of his attention into the library. With some effort, he managed to stand, though his body stood automatically, eyes dull and shoulders slumped, shambling like a zombie.
Interesting. I can control both bodies, as long as I don’t fully focus on either. I wonder if this is something you can do with the spell, or it’s something I’m capable of, due to my soul not being fully bonded to any body?
Well, either way, it works out for me.
I’ve already organized most of the martial manuals, which means I’ve scanned them. I’ll have my body go search for new ones, while I read in my mental landscape.
Moving jerkily, Oz’s body set off through the library toward the disorganized shelves. On autopilot, he picked up the books and began scanning the titles for martial manual keywords.
The majority of his attention focused on the mental plane. Oz sat cross-legged on the void, his eyes closed. Words streamed by his eyes as he read book after book, chugging through martial manual after martial manual. When you use qi in close combat battle, what do you do? What do martial manuals say?
Pages flipped by. Oz’s eyes blurred. Words passed before him, written in ink, in pencil, painted, even the large, almost page-filling title letters with illustrations hidden in their beams. As he read, his body scanned new books and sent them into his collection, adding more to Oz’s mental library even as he dug through the pile he already had. Compared to the books he’d already read, his body only added a few, but it was enough to give him a nearly complete comprehension of basic martial mage techniques.
Remain calm. Deep, slow breaths. Time should slow. Circulate it into your core, then out again. Constant circulation through your entire body, not neglecting the arms, legs, abdomen, or back. Storing qi in the core should be secondary to strengthening the body. What little you store should be used to surge the qi when you need a particular strength.
He nodded. Vigorous, but calm breaths! Circulation, not storage! Surge when needed!
A note penciled into the margin of one book caught his eye. Written in a spidery hand, there was something familiar about the letters. Qi stored throughout body?
Oz raised his brows. Is that one of Madame Saoirse’s notes? Interesting. He read through the manual again. Indeed, this manual calls for storing qi into one’s muscles, instead of merely in the dantian. I wonder if it’s easier to surge qi into the body that way? It’s closer to the place you’d surge it to, as a martial mage who has to battle, and the qi serves as a permanent enhancement to one’s body, too… I’ll try it.
Deep breaths, circulate the qi throughout the body, save it in the body as well as the core. Alright! Let’s try that!
As for the switch state… In his mental state, Oz ran through the breathing pattern for the technique he’d been using until now, then took a deep breath, resetting his mental state and retracting all his qi to his core for a beat. With his next breath, he switched into the martial mage state. Even breaths drew qi into his body, and he poured it into his muscles and body as well as sending it into his core. His mental state’s body grew stronger, though the qi he stored in his core became smaller.
As expected, martial mages exchange being able to cast many spells, as a mage can, or slow, powerful spells, as a scholarly mage can, in return for strong bodies and powerful close-range fighting techniques. This breathing technique is good for when I need strength in my body, but when I need to cast lots of spells, or big spells, I’ll need to swap to the mage or scholarly technique, so I have enough qi in my dantian to handle that.
Oz looked at his hands. He flexed his fingers into fists, feeling the power in his grasp. Strong. It feels good.
A grin crept over his face. He tried to hold it in for a moment, then punched the air, excited. Yes! It succeeded in my mental realm. Next, I’ll try it in the real world!
Fflyn looked up. You figured something out? Just in time. I can barely see the girls anymore.
I did! I’m coming back. Oz turned enough attention to take over from Fflyn. For a few beats, he continued the base breathing pattern, adjusting to it, then took his deep switch breath and changed to the martial breathing style. Qi circulated powerfully around his body, rushing into his muscles. His strength surged up. Oz darted forward, instantly gaining speed on the girls and closing the distance between them.
Whoa! What the hell is that? Fflyn asked.
The product of research! Oz replied proudly.
No way. You don’t sit there and read books and grow physically stronger. Scholarly mages can learn better spells, but martial mages have to go outside and kick things, not just sit inside and read. That’s now how that works, Fflyn retorted.
Oz clicked his tongue. Oh, but it is. If only I could’ve synthesized a new light body technique and movement technique too… but I guess I should focus on consolidating all my breathing techniques, first.
Fflyn shook his head. You’re insane.
Comments
Prometheus
Magic is a lot like being a Pirate. Both have a lot of rules that every mage/pirate must know to function at first, but the better you get the more you realize those "rules" are more like "guidelines".
