Minerva must've been more flustered than she let on I thought as I stared at my bruised hand. Even though she tried to remain calm and collected, she clearly wasn’t, otherwise, she would’ve remembered to heal my hand before leaving. 

The cuts on my face had closed up, but my hand was still badly injured. I was also out of it, so I'd forgotten about my injuries. I sat for a while, trying to compose myself. I tried to organize the things I needed to do. 

First, the recruits. Even though Aurel was with them, I still needed to be there as they trained. 

Second, I needed to check the progress of the enchanted weapons production. There was absolutely no chance they were ready, but I still needed to check how far along the production was. 

Third, I needed to confirm the changes to my body. I'd noticed the boost to my physical abilities, but it was clear now that my magical capabilities had also been boosted. I needed to confirm that, and check what else was different. 

The first two were easy enough to accomplish, but the last one was going to require some ingenuity. My sister had promised to help, but I still needed to do what I could. 

Indeed, if what I'd felt earlier was accurate, I should have enough mana to cast some attribute magic I thought. I knew a lot about healing magic, so I decided to try healing my hand. 

I took a deep breath to calm myself. I needed to be cautious. I couldn’t afford to make the same mistake I’d made earlier, I need to keep control of my mana, or else I risked falling into a coma induced by mana loss. 

The way my mana rushed out of me earlier, it didn’t feel like a limit for how much mana I could release existed. I theorized that there were two possibilities for why I felt that way. 

My mana sensitivity had increased, so there was a chance my mana capacity had also increased, and that was why I felt the way I felt. Either that or, the limit for mana usage had been removed, in which case I could totally exhaust my mana and fall into a coma. 

I felt that it would be arrogant of me to assume my mana capacity had increased without confirming it, so I decided to proceed assuming that my mana limit had been removed. It was also possible that my mana limit had been removed and my mana capacity had increased. 

I took another deep breath and slowly released my mana. This time, I was completely focused, releasing only a little at a time. I could tell immediately that not only had my mana capacity increased, but the quantity of mana at my disposal had also increased. 

I couldn’t help but smile. Focus, focus, focus I chanted in my head like a mantra as the excitement I was feeling in that moment threatened to disrupt my concentration. 

I concentrated on my hand and started to visualize the effect I wanted to achieve. At the same time, I started to direct my mana to my hand. Soon enough the bruises on my hand vanished. 

It took all I had to not jump up and start screaming like a lunatic, but I still couldn’t stop grinning. I looked around to check if anyone saw me grinning alone like a fool, thankfully everyone was preoccupied with their tasks. No one at the lake was looking in my direction. 

I looked up at the sky, felt the cool breeze blowing around, and I sighed. The sky was clear, the sun shining brilliantly down at me. It was indeed a beautiful day. I stood up, patted the sand off my clothes, and made my way back to the training ground. 

Aurel was sitting on the ground in front of the recruits. At a quick glance, I could tell most of them were failing the task given to them. Other than the four ladies, and the archer boy, the rest of them still held pitch-black mana crystals in their hands. 

I'd expected the four ladies to complete the task with ease, after all, they had trained to be mages before. I didn't expect them to have trouble channeling mana. However, I was surprised the archer boy had completed the task this quickly. 

"How far along are they?" I asked Aurel as I sat beside him. 

"At this rate, we could go a whole year with no progress," Aurel replied to me. 

I wasn't surprised. For people who didn't know what mana was until today it didn't shock me that they were having difficulty with the task. For mages, we were trained to be sensitive to mana very early. Due to that, we had little problems sensing and channeling mana, it just came naturally. 

I looked over at the archer boy, is he a genius I wondered. I didn’t know his story well, but from the questions he'd asked Minerva earlier, it was clear he'd never studied magic. It was strange that he'd learned to channel mana this quickly. 

I tried to recall his name. It was a strange name. I remembered he called himself Atif. His strange name wasn’t out of the ordinary, after all, he was one of the refugees that had come to our settlement seeking shelter. 

“Atif, have you been taught magic before?” I asked him. 

“No sir,” he answered me. 

“Why do you ask?” Aurel who was sitting next to me asked. I turned to look at Aurel. He sat there, yawning. He couldn’t have looked more disinterested in what was happening if he tried. 

“You do not find it odd that someone who has learned about mana for the first time today had little trouble channeling mana?” I asked Aurel instead of answering his question. 

“You also succeeded channeling mana the first time you tried,” he said to me. The look of utter confusion on his face was so hilarious, I barely succeeded in containing my laughter. 

“I'd been studying magic for longer, before I got to mana channeling I'd learned a lot about magic and how it worked. My situation was very different from his,” I said to Aurel. 

Aurel turned to look at Atif. A slovenly grin appearing on his face, “So what you’re saying is that boy might be better at magic than you?” 

“Atif, can you explain to the group how you were able to quickly grasp the concept of mana channeling?” I asked of Atif, ignoring Aurel. 

I wanted the recruits to progress fast, but I knew I was the worst person that could explain to them how mana channeling worked. It would be akin to asking a fully grown man to explain to a child how to walk. Mana channeling was as easy as breathing to me, it took no conscious thought. 

Although just a few moments ago I had to seriously focus, it still happened naturally. I simply knew how to release and control my mana. Explaining how would be difficult since it wasn’t something I ever had to think about. 

My sister had shown the recruits how to channel mana, but clearly, her explanation was insufficient, as a lot of the recruits still couldn’t channel mana. It had been hours already and they weren’t showing any signs of progress. I was hoping Atif, being a novice like they were, would be able to shed some light on what they needed to do. 

“I don’t know. I simply practiced the breathing technique Miss Minerva taught us. Then, I started to feel a bit of warmth around the pit of my stomach, it was strange. I figured maybe that was mana and decided to circulate the warmth around. Next thing I knew, the crystal in my hand started to glow,” Atif said. 

I was again surprised. This boy's mana sensitivity was incredibly high for one that had never trained to be a mage. I was beginning to wonder if it was better for him to be a mage instead of a warrior. 

I observed the other recruits to see if any of them found a bit of inspiration from Atif's words, but it was clear none had. It was unreasonable to expect people who had never heard of mana to be able to channel mana on the first day of training, after all, many mages also failed this task many times before finally breaking through. 

“Alright, that's it for the magic training for today. You all keep the mana crystals with you and practice on your own time later. If you have any questions, you can ask either me, Aurel, or Minerva,” I said to the recruits as I stood up. Aurel also stood up. 

“We'll be moving on to physical training now. I need to gauge everyone's physical abilities, so it'll be a one on one spar session,” I continued. 

“Finally! I was getting bored,” Aurel exclaimed.  

“Your presence wasn’t required today, Aurel. You chose to come here yourself, so you should take charge of your own entertainment,” I said to Aurel. 

“You think so? Good. Alright, everyone, you all will be sparring one vs one with me,” he said, a smirk on his face. 

I turned to look at him, questioning again if he was a fool or just really good at playing the role of one. In combat, I trusted him with my life, but sometimes I questioned his intelligence. 

“I admire your confidence Aurel, but you're still hungover, are you sure you have the stamina to spar with thirty people?” I asked. 

He looked at me, a comical look of shock on his face. It was hard to guess why he was shocked. I wondered if he was surprised that I was questioning his abilities, or if he was surprised that there were thirty recruits. I honestly couldn’t tell. 

“Silas, you want me to spar with them all on my own?” he asked with mock disgust. 

I finally realized he was trying to get a rise out of me. I felt so stupid to have fallen for his cheap tricks. While I was regretting ever even paying Aurel any attention, he was laughing hysterically, some of the recruits were snickering too. 

“Everyone, get your weapon and pick a partner,” I said to the recruits quickly, trying to cover up my embarrassment. 

I turned to look at Aurel, and then I had a sinister thought. I needed a partner to spar with to confirm the changes in my physical abilities, and he was as good as any I could ask for. I had been a little hesitant to ask anyone to spar with me before confirming the limit of my strengths, but that hesitation had vanished. 

“Aurel, you'll be my partner,” I said to him as I walked over to pick a wooden sword from the weapons rack. I picked up a wooden sword, Aurel who wasn’t far behind me picked a wooden sword too. 

Aurel’s smirk hadn’t left his face, he looked very pleased with himself for making a fool out of me in front of the recruits. I wasn’t angry, but I steeled my resolve to embarrass him during our spar. 

We'd sparred with each other on numerous occasions before. I was faster than he was, but I always found it difficult to penetrate his defense, because while he wasn’t as fast as I was, he was just as skilled. His ability to read his opponent's movements even when he couldn’t follow them with his eyes had been honed to near perfection due to numerous fights with the Lycans. 

I was however very confident that I would win this time. Currently, we were tied. I'd won against him 17 times on previous occasions, but he'd also won against me 17 times. His confidence wasn’t unearned. However, I clearly was much faster and stronger now. He wouldn’t be prepared for that. 

“Do you all have a partner?” I asked the recruits. 

“Yes,” they answered in unison. 

“Okay, pair up. We'll draw lots to determine which order we go in,” I said to the recruits. 

I wanted to observe their fights, I couldn’t let my selfishness get in the way of what needed to be done. I was in no hurry to dole out punishment to Aurel. So, I decided to not participate in drawing lots, Aurel and I would go last. 

morhamza

Ah! Another week of writing on my phone. Honestly, it isn't ideal. The story doesn't flow too well, so I struggle a lot to meet the 2k threshold I set for myself. Thankfully I've managed to meet it.

I found a new tool in the Microsoft Office suite for android phones, it's called read aloud. It reads whatever is written in the word document aloud. I'm in love with it, and I'll be using it a lot from now on. It makes catching errors easier.

Also, I released a new book filled with poems I wrote. I have about seven unpublished poems I'll add to the five I already published on here. You can click on my profile and check it out if you're interested in that.

As always, thank you for coming to read my story. Your continued interest in what I write means more to me than I can possibly express in words. I'm having a rough time, so coming here and seeing your likes and comments brightens my day. Thank you.