"Master, you said there were a few more sorceries that you didn't teach me.  What are they?"

"Mm.  Soul and time."

"That's it?  Huh.  Well, when will you teach them to me?"

"I won't."

"Wait, what?  Why?"

"Hmm.  Maybe it would be more appropriate to say that I can't?  Time sorcery is, well, lost.  We know it exists but the only person we know of who was able to use it never passed it on.  I can't teach you what I don't know myself.  As for soul sorcery, well, that's a bit more complicated."

"It's why you're called a Souleater by most people and part of how you see, isn't it?"

"You're insights are as keen as always, aren't they, boy?  I suppose I did not hide it at as well as I should have.  Very well.  Yes, you're right.  It's also a part of how we can make binding pacts.  When a Mystic Master makes a pact, it becomes etched in the souls of both parties and binds them.  There are other aspects in soul sorcery as well.  It's part of why we are so careful with names, though I intended to teach you of that part at a later date.  One pact we must make upon becoming a Mystic Master is to not teach any other how to use soul sorcery.  Therefore I cannot teach you either of the last two sorceries."

"I see.  Are there really only two, though?  I feel like there are more that I don't know."

"I won't say it's impossible for there to be more, but if there are then they have not been discovered yet."

"Maybe if I work at it for a while I can figure out that they are, then.  What happens when someone discovers a new sorcery?  I mean, how does everyone find out of whatever?"

"Hmm.  Although I have never heard of it actually happening, there are rules that say the new sorcery must be shown in front of the Council and then documented in the archives so that it does not become lost."

"Right.  So if I want to stay under the radar I should be careful about figuring them out.  It's not like I can use sorcery anymore anyways."

"Under the radar?"

"Ah.  It's a saying from the other world.  It means, like, below notice.  As for what radar is...actually I think I could write it up as a theoretical spell.  How would you like to make a new spell with me, Master?  I feel like most of the things we do together lately are more for my benefit so this could be a good side project that can help you more since I can't use magic."

"Oh?  You certainly know how to make an old man excited, boy!"

"Master.  That wording is..."

---

After his yearly birthday visit, Marik stayed busy for the next two months.  He knew he was hitting his growth spurt because he could feel the growing pains, so even when his master brought home his beast clothes he decided not to bother with them other than trying them on once to make sure they worked in transforming and see how they looked.  Two things surprised him at that time.  The first thing was that a bipedal wolf creature looked absolutely ridiculous with fur in the shape of a shirt and pants growing from those areas but nowhere else.  Both he and his master almost fell over from laughter after he had transformed in front of the mirror his master set up outside.

The other thing Marik became surprised at was that all this time he had not really taken a good look at his own reflection.  He had seen parts of himself vaguely in the occasional reflective surface such as a puddle or shop mirror, which those were made of bronze or something and made the refection hazy.  He had almost thought that other than some magic spell he hadn't bothered to even find out about, there was no way to see himself clearly and gave no thought to try.  How or why his master had a mirror more like what he knew of from the other world he didn't know and could only assume that some summoned person had taught someone and that it became either expensive or secret.

He knew his hair and fur were a raven black but seeing it in the reflection felt a little different than he imagined.  His hair was cut somewhat short but was left long enough to be thick and cover the sides of his head down to where human ears would be.  The fur on the tips and insides of his ears were more of a dark silver color and reminded him of faded stars in the night sky with how they matched the rest of his fur and hair.  His eyes were a bright golden color that could only be called 'beast eyes' and seemed so surreal that he was sure he would have thought them falsely colored in his past life's world.  His face held traces of both youth and manliness and he thought it could be called a pretty good looking face that by the time he was an adult would definitely be handsome.  His body was muscled well enough from all the exercise and training he constantly did but looked a bit gangly and stretched since he was starting to grow more rapidly.  All in all he concluded that he looked like a young and active boy who was growing into a moderately attractive man.

After the fun with the mirror his master moved it inside right near the door in case they ever needed it again while Marik put away his new tunic/smock/shirt, pants, and and underwear, only to be retrieved after his growth spurt was over so they could be adjusted better for his adult self.  The mirror and work on a radar spell reminded him about his voice.  It might change because of puberty or it might not because of damage.  Either way, he should probably start putting more time into some voice training.  He started to go far away from the house to train his higher voice so that he didn't hurt his master's ears or break any glass like he hoped he would gain the ability to do and started to train to see if he could use it as a personal sonar.  After only a couple days he determined that only a person who was a mutant or was bitten by a superpowered bat would be able to do such a thing naturally and that wasn't him, so he gave up on the sonar voice idea.  He continued working on his voice in other ways, however, and while he learned that singing was yet another talent he didn't have, he did feel like he was getting better at using his voices in various ways.

Another thing the mirror made him realize was that even when he could control his expressions and body movements, which he felt probably also needed a little work, his ears and tail would always betray his thoughts and emotions.  It was kind of cute in a strange narcissistic way but he didn't want to be so obvious with his intentions at all times so he thought to start working on controlling himself better with the help of their new mirror.

Throughout the time where he started all these new projects, he also continued to go on trips and training with D and Mer, and worked on improving and mastering his current arcanistries.  He was tempted to try and find more new arcanistries to create but had to rebuke himself each time as he told himself that right now there was already so much to do and it was better to work on less things more than more things less.  If he could get enough things he was working on to a point where he could feel confident or satisfied in their current state, then he would allow himself to start working on something new.  He still took a little time to write down some ideas for when that time came, though.

Then, on a morning where he was using the mirror to work on trying to control his ears and tail, he heard a small yet strangely familiar sound coming from outside and saw his ear closest to the door flick in that direction.  It was good to know that that kind of thing happened and was another thing he would need to work on.  He sighed as he approached the door to open it.  That sound was most definitely the sound of one of those sparking silver portals being opened outside, which likely meant Granny Fox had arrived.

"Master!  We have a visitor!"

Upon opening the door he saw Granny fox appearing from the portal a little ways off in front of him.  Shortly after that two beautiful twins also stepped out of the portal behind her. Kiara had apparently cut her hair again to keep it at shoulder length compared to Sai who was freely letting her hair grow longer.  Both of them were waring simple short-sleeve shirts and knee-length pants, showing that they had dressed for outdoors, but the obviously well groomed tails and freshly washed hair said something a little different.  Even though their attire was plain and simple, it still somehow showed off their budding beauty and made him forget to breathe for a split second.  He really hoped his ears and tail were behaving right now.  He was able to start thinking again when they began to approach and he tilted his head slightly in curiosity about the reason for their arrival.

"Hello, boy.  The girls both said they wanted to have some training with you for their birthday.  I heard your master was working on something interesting anyways."

"You know you don't really have to make excuses, Granny Fox.  Whether you want to come visit or spoil your family, you won't hear me complaining."

"You're actually trying to anger me these days, aren't you, boy?  No matter.  Go play with them and let me bother your master for a while."

Marik smiled mischievously at her and quickly darted away to the side while waving at the twins to follow him to the river.  After a short distance into the forest, when the house was out of sight, Sai finally opened her mouth behind him.

"So where do you usually train at?  I wanna see the trees you use for training you talked about.  I tried to explain it to Master but since I didn't understand it that much it was too hard."

"Huh?  Oh, it's that way.  I guess we can go over there instead, if you want."

He shifted direction slightly and started moving to where the trees got thicker and closer together.  He actually had several preferred training spots but he figured this one where he pretended the trees were enemies surrounded him would fit more with what Sai wanted to see.  As they got closer to the spot where he usually trained at in this direction, Kiara took her turn to talk.

"I heard you hurt yourself while training a lot of the time.  I can't wait!  I mean, I want to try and test some of what I've been learning about healing.  I've only been practicing on myself or Sai sometimes.  So today all three of us can get hurt as much as possible and it's okay!"

"No no, wait right there.  I can see how I or Sai might get injured a little while training with maybe some scratches or bruises or something, but it shouldn't be anything that bad.  And how would you end up hurt from any of that?  I thought you didn't do physical things like that?"

"Huh?  Well, you know.  Things might happen?"

"Things, huh?  I'm kind of scared of your imagination so I won't ask..."

He could almost feel the fidgeting of Kiara behind him as he finally came to the patch of dirt surrounded by trees that he typically used for some of his hand to hand training.  He held his palm out to them to tell them to wait and strode forward into the patch by himself.  He took a stance and closed his eyes.  He didn't have his blindfold with him at the moment but he thought doing a demonstration of how he used the trees to train while getting some practice in himself was a good way to use the time.  He started imagining that there were people attacking him and did his shadow fighting while letting the twins fade out of his mind for the moment.  As he moved from his defensive moves to offense he started hitting the trees.  Sometimes he attacked with his claws, sometimes his arms, and sometimes he used his legs or feet.  After a couple of minutes he finally ended it with shoving his claws as deep into the trunk of one of the trees as hard as he could before pulling them back out and turning to the twins with his eyes opened again.

"So, ya.  Something like that.  I treat the trees as really sturdy enemies.  Then when I hit them, I know what it's like to hit something really hard and do almost nothing but not lose my balance or stop moving and stuff."

"Ohh, I think I kind of get it now," Sai said while holding her rope weapon up and starting to swing it.

"Let me get out of the way and you can come over here and try it."

Marik moved over to Kiara's side and watched as Sai started to try and fight the trees like he had.  As she started twirling the rope around her, the ball end suddenly flew out towards one of the trees.  After the weapon hit the tree it veered off in a direction she apparently wasn't expecting because it looked like she tried to follow a practiced movement of retrieving the rope and keeping it in action but completely missed and lost control instead, letting the ball end fall to the ground and stop moving.  She frowned and pulled it back to start the process all over while saying "this is hard" under her breath.

"Can I see your hands," Kiara asked him while he continued to watch Sai while standing next to her.

"Sure."

She held one of his hands on top of her palm and studied the scraped knuckles and light bruises that ran up his arm.  She started casting some spell or other that Marik couldn't recognize before lightly caressing his hand and arm.  With each pass of her caressing touch he could feel a little less pain and as she continued he even began to notice the cuts and bruises disappearing.  She continued to do that until his whole arm was completely free of injury before repeating the process for the other side.  He decided to go back to watching Sai for a while and saw that she was now having some trouble from having the knife end stuck in a tree.  He almost let out a small giggle but managed to keep it in so he could watch silently.  After a few minutes, Sai came back and said she wanted to watch him go at it again and the cycle restarted.

The cycle repeated a few times with him getting healed while Sai trained and then both watching as he trained.  Finally he came back after one of his turns to find both girls sitting down with a space for him between them.  He felt a little nervous about it but sat in that space anyways turned slightly towards Kiara so she could start healing his arms and legs again.  Sai suddenly moved and hugged him from behind with her chin resting on his shoulder as if to watch Kiara's work.

"Hey.  So, let's have sex, now, okay?"

Marik choked.

'Wait.  We're doing this now," Kiara asked while seeming to start trying to rush her work.  "Hold on.  I haven't even finished healing him yet and we agreed to do this at the same time!"

Marik was trying very hard to figure out what to say.  His mouth moved but no words were coming out.  Finally taking a deep breath he managed to get some of his thoughts in order.

"No no no.  Hold on, now.  There are some things that need to be addressed here."

"You don't want to have sex with me," Sai asked while pouting.

"No.  I mean, yes.  But no.  Argh.  Look here.  There are several issues.  We're too young for one.  You also shouldn't do that until you find the person you love!"

"But I love you," Kiara responded almost immediately.

"No no.  Umm.  I love both of you, too, but that's not what I mean.  I mean like someone you're in love with and not just love."

"That's strange," said Sai over his shoulder.  "Master said that since our chest was getting bigger and we could transform now that it meant our bodies were ready for sex and stuff.  As long as it's with someone we love it should be okay."

That damned old woman!  There are certain things you just should not do when raising children.  Giving adolescent teenagers going through puberty half-assed education about sex was definitely one of those things!  He needed to have a good talk with that old crone and he also needed to put some space between him and the girls for a bit, to clear his head if nothing else.  He abruptly stood up, shaking Sai off, and starting running towards the house with the girls staring blankly at him.

As soon as he reached the front door, he opened it quickly and practically bolted inside as if running from the most dangerous terror to exist.  The door slammed shut loudly when he tried to close it behind him but he ignored it and walked around the back of the old fox to the side of the table and slammed his hands down while glaring at her angrily.

"Oi, you crotchety old woman, let's have some words!"