Web of Aeons - Chapter 29: Battle Revelations

Akari blinked. Was this actually happening? She’d commandeered a flashback, and her father was just going along with it?

Focus, she told herself. Don’t mess this up.

Mazren leaned forward and met her eyes. “What do you know about revelations?”

“You need them to advance through the Master realms,” Akari said. “You focus on something bigger than yourself, and that breaks down the restrictions in your soul.” Her voice sounded more like herself as she spoke. She’d also switched to her adult body, but her father didn’t seem to notice or care.

“That’s the common understanding,” he said with a nod. “The Apprentice and Artisan realms are physical, while the Master realms are more mental. But thoughts always have power. Not just in high-level advancement, but in your daily practice.”

Her doubts closed in like a storm of Missiles. Her father’s tone was just too casual. How could he ignore this apparent mental time travel? Was this all just a bunch of wishy-washy bullshit that her own subconscious had cooked up?

No. Akari raised a mental shield and redirected those thoughts. She’d come here to learn personal displacement. Doubts could come later.

“I gave you the first hint with Master Calorys,” her father said. “See, a part of him did understand atoms and kinetic energy. He saw the process happen in his mind’s eye, even if he lacked the words or scientific training to explain it. This was another form of revelation.” He paused. “You know how in battle you can push yourself harder. You can squeeze more mana from your soul?”

“Yeah,” Akari said. “The soul protects itself from damage, but battle can change that. Your life’s in danger, so you can draw more of your total mana.” Was he saying personal displacement would work in battle? But no . . . that wasn’t good enough. Besides, the feeling would fade, then she would go back to normal. That wasn’t a real technique.

“There’s more to it than that,” Mazren said growing excited. “Healers are more efficient when they study biology. Everyone knows this—schools are even set up around it. It’s the same reason we had you study physics before you got your aspect.”

Akari nodded along and resisted the urge to fidget. So far, this was nothing new.

“But your mother and I had a theory. These battle revelations can be harnessed and quantified. The right insight could increase your technique’s efficiency by a magnitude of ten.”

“How?” Akari asked.

“I’ve already had the necessary insights for spatial mana,” he said. “And I’ve already passed them onto you. ”

“What? What?”

“The day Last Haven was attacked.”

She strained to remember that day, with the black sky over the town, and her enemy floating above. Yes . . . her parents had predicted the memory loss that day, so this might be plausible. Neither of her parents were knowledge artists, but there were half a dozen loopholes to that restriction. They could have hired help, or used a piece of sigilcraft tech. Not to mention the fact that all mana had a knowledge component.

“How do I use the insight?” Akari asked.

“You’ll have it when you wake up,” Mazren said. “But the feeling won’t last for long. You’ll need Kalden’s help to preserve it.”

“Wait, Kalden? How do you know about him?” The dream reacted to her doubts, and the room grew dark and transparent. Half of her senses remained in the dream, while the other half was lying in bed.

Her father spoke faster. “Give Kalden the insight when you wake up. Use the telepathy technique you’ve been practicing, then have him store it in his Second Brain. Do that, and you can call on the insight whenever you want.”

“Wait,” Akari said. “How—”

But she was too late. The dream broke apart like shattered mana, but she found herself lying in bed next to Kalden.

Holy shit in Talek’s beard. What was that?

Waves of thought struck her like a tidal wave—Ideas she couldn’t explain or comprehend. It all touched on the nature of spacetime, and its connection with her mana.

Before, she’d wondered how a Master could understand atoms, but couldn’t explain them. Now, it made perfect sense; these thoughts were pure intuition. It was the same way she could block a Missile with no data about its aspect or velocity. Elend would have called this ‘unconscious competence.’ Her body and mind knew what to do, but she could never explain it to another person. Even her father couldn’t put this feeling into words. It might be decades before anyone could.

Akari sat up, and the feeling rose to a crescendo within her. Mana flowed through her channels, demanding to be used. In that moment, she felt like she could teleport the entire house. Maybe even Storm’s Eye itself.

Talek. Irina was right. She’d been too focused on her daily training, and grinding out more mana than the day before. Her eyes had been too focused on climbing the next step, and she’d never looked up at the stars where true power called her name.

She had to test this. She had to go outside, and—

No. Her father’s words came back to her, and she flicked on the lamp. This feeling would soon fade, just like the dream itself.

“Kalden!” she said. “Wake up!”

Kalden immediately sprang up in the bed beside her. His channels shone with red and blue mana beneath his shirtless torso, and his half-lidded eyes scanned the room. She’d always appreciated his instincts, and today was no exception.

She gestured quickly between their heads. “Make a link, now.”

Kalden stretched out his right hand, forming the link with surprising speed. Akari didn’t bother explaining—words were too slow, and she’d already wasted enough time. Instead, she dumped everything into the link. All the images, the ideas, and sensations. Finally, she made her instructions loud and clear.

‘Put this in your Second Brain before it fades. Keep it safe at all costs.’

Once again, Kalden didn’t hesitate. He might be slow to act sometimes, but only when he struggled with a hard choice. Once he had a clear goal, nothing stood in his way. Crimson mana flowed out from his left hand, forming an array of small compartments. This had evolved far beyond the single box he’d had several weeks before. Now, he had space for over two dozen unique thoughts. He also trusted the technique, thanks to all his training with Akari.

She relaxed when Kalden was done, and the revelations unraveled in her mind. The sense of invincibility faded, leaving a hollow emptiness in its place.

“What was that?” Kalden asked, sounded breathless.

“I don’t know yet.” Akari slipped out from the covers and stepped into her jeans. “Did you store it all?”

Kalden nodded. “I’ve never felt anything like that before.” He looked as overwhelmed as she felt, but that was actually a good sign. If Akari had imagined all of this, then she doubted it would have the same effect on him.

They finished getting dressed, then Akari pushed open the door to the pool house, stepping out into the cool night air. The first day of spring had come and gone, and most of the snow had melted from the Darklight’s backyard. Short brown grass remained, well lit beneath a pair of pale moons.

Akari stepped past the pool into a wide open clearing. There, she fell into a combat stance and turned back to Kalden. “Can you send me a copy of the thought I just sent you? I want to see if it worked.”

Kalden cycled battle mana and extended both his hands. The first hand conjured his Second Brain, while the other formed a link between their minds.

Akari closed her eyes, and the rush of knowledge returned to her, along with the sense of invincibility. She extended her own hands and formed a pair of wide portals—one in front of her and one behind. If she was right, then this revelation wouldn’t just work for displacement. It should work for all spacetime techniques.

The portals snapped open, quicker than any she’d made before. They even looked crisper around the edges, as if her old portals had been leaking mana this whole time.

Akari pivoted on her heel, extended her hands, and shot a second pair. After that, she formed a third pair of portals, then a fourth. This should have drained her spacetime mana, but something had changed.

Before, she’d been like that heat artist with no knowledge of atoms or thermodynamics. She’d pulled open her portals with brute force, wasting hundreds of mana points in the process. Now, Mazren’s revelation had thrown her decades into the future.

Hard work breeds Artisans, and insight breeds Masters. Irina had beaten that phase into her head, but Akari had never understood it until this moment.

She unleashed more techniques, one after the other in rapid succession. Finally, she sank to her knees when her mana was drained, and a dome of two-dozen portals surrounded her.