“I can’t believe you told the prince,” I said to Bella the moment I saw her the next morning. “I thought you weren’t going to do that.”

“What are you talking about?” she retorted.

“About Perceval …err Sir Belethier.”

I explained that he had a meeting and a strange change of mind. But also expressed my concern using her relationship with the prince in such a way. You don’t want to start owing favors.

“I didn’t,” she said. “I told you I wouldn’t and I didn’t. If the prince found out about the high mage’s treatment of you it wasn’t from me.”

She seemed almost insulted that I would even suggest it. Like I was the bad guy for trying to protect her.

“Besides,” she said. “It sounds like it all worked out in the end.”

“For now,” I sighed. “What about you?”

“Me?”

“How is your affinity training going?”

She looked a bit perplexed.

“I haven’t had any…I already have six affinities remember?”

Right, but you could always strengthen them. That’s what Fiena told me. That having affinities was like a sliding scale.

“But,” she continued. Hands clasped. “I have made progress on my void storage.”

A vortex appeared as she separated her hands. It seemed like a circular heat distortion at first. About the size of a basketball.

“Check it out,” she said sticking her hand into the flat disk of distorted space.

She proceeded to pull out a large two-pointed spear. “The high general gave it to me. It’s called a war fork. He says’ I’m a natural with polearms.”

So she received her own weapon already? I would have to work much harder to catch up.

Bella proceeded to move through several positions. It was impressive until she knocked the wooden breakfast bowl onto the floor. Luckily it was empty, but she got the hint and put the polearm away.

“How do you feel about this whole going to war thing?” I asked when she sat back down. “I mean training to fight and kill monsters.”

Bella’s face contorted as she frowned. “I’ve really been trying not to think about it too much,” she said. “Hoping that my war effort will be healing others. I really don’t want to actually fight.”

I could understand that. I too wasn’t looking forward to fighting monsters. Even with the fantasy races and residing in a palace, it all just seemed to surreal.

We discussed the different fighting methods of species on Altear and how modern weapons from Earth might alter the course of war on Praecantio.

“I haven’t even thought about modern weapons,” I admitted. “But I wonder how modern infrastructure might change things. You know engines, agriculture, and the like.”

“That’s a good point,” she praised. There are a lot of different factors which can go into military power.

Speaking of power.

“Have you had any kind of practice with your physical affinity?” I asked.

“Sure,” Bella replied. “Mostly just circulating mana and strengthening my arm and leg muscles. There are a series of exercises the high general taught me to practice with physical magic before I start learning actual skills.”

I would have had her show me the stances, but our time was once again up.

Next up for me was training with Adekin. I figured I could ask him about training my physical affinity. He would be sure to help me as it was bound to help me be a better fighter.

“You want to train your physical magic affinity?” he said perplexed. “I suppose you could spend a bit of time doing so. Do you see Watkin and Jordan over there?”

He pointed out two gambeson clad soldiers moving through a series of martial arts poses together.

Each had a slight glow to them. As if they were using magic of some kind. It wasn’t overly brilliant, but now that I was paying attention, it was definitely there. Perhaps those were the poses Bella had told me about.

“Is there something special about those movements?” I asked. “Or is it just circulating mana through your body like with magical tools?”

“You really don’t know anything about mana do you?” A now familiar voice rebuked.

“Princess,” Adekin said, saluting. “We missed you at the last practice.”

“Yes, I am sorry about that. But something came up. I should have sent word. That was my mistake.”

It was strange seeing her acting so apologetic. “And as for you,” she said, turning to me. “When you said you couldn’t help me you really meant it. Didn’t you.”

“That’s right,” I quickly replied. “My world has no magic. So I know nothing about mana or mana de– ”

“That’s alright,” Alea cut me off. “I understand. You don’t have to explain yourself, but why are you interested in simple physical magic training? Do you have an affinity for it?”

I looked to Adekin, uncertain what to say.

He gave me nothing.

“Well, no. But Sir Belethier told me that I could train affinities even if I didn’t have them so I was curious about the physical magic affinity.”

“I see, then I will be your partner,” she said suddenly. “As an apology for my recent behavior.”

Apology? Recent behavior? Was she saying that she forgave Bella and I for her perceived slight?

I must have had a perplexed look about me as she quickly followed up with. “I now know that you and your friend tried to save my sister’s life. While I still think you are responsible for … I don’t believe it was intentional.”

Was this a trick? A way to get closer to me to enact some kind of vengeance? Or was she planning to beat me up in training. One of those using practice as an excuse to do physical harm kind of situations.

“I…Um. Is that alright Ade… Sir Buckhold?”

“I have no problem with it. Alea is a fantastic student. She has worked hard and would undoubtedly be an excellent teacher.”

“Thank you, Sir Buckhold,” Alea formally responded. “Well? What do you say hero?”

I bowed my head in acceptance, “Please be my partner.”

Soon we were racing across the bailey. “You can train your physical magic affinity with any physical exertion,” she said. “Even running, but it can be difficult as you need to be in a fully concentrative state.”

She explained that physical magic was present in all things. Which I assumed to mean all matter. That it was essential to motion and that without at least some a person would be left completely motionless. She described a demon whose main method of killing was to drain the victim of their physical mana thereby rendering them temporarily motionless.

“Then can you run out of physical mana normally?” I asked slightly short of breath. I was after all low in my amount of mana.

“No. Not naturally. Your body won’t let you, it will get tired instead. Although now that I think about it how could you move in your world without physical magic?”

I explained energy and ATP as best as I could while we jogged. It wasn’t my best description, but I got the point across…I think.

But that brought up a few interesting points. Could a person survive without eating if they absorbed magic instead? Could a person really not move in this world without magic, or was there another mechanism in place? Why did I have to run so much every morning?

“A group sparring, B group muscle training, C group weapon training, …” Adekin gave the commands.

I assumed I was in A group again, so I moved to take a training sword. I wondered who I would be sparring with today.

“So you have been learning to use the sword?” Alea said. “I’m glad.”

She picked up a training sword of her own and pointed it at me. “Let’s see how much you’ve learned.”