Chapter 6 "Rocky" Start

My alarm went off bright and early at 5 a.m. This was going to suck but it would be worth it. I was finally going to learn how to use my soul to do magic. I knew it could be done because I saw what Lilly was able to do with my miniscule soul power alone earlier and now my soul had apparently evolved even stronger. I got out of bed and got into some comfortable training gear.

A black pair of gym shorts, a black t-shirt, black sneakers, and if you haven't guessed my socks were of course white. It almost seemed like we would be working out instead of studying magic. I was beginning to get a little worried as I had not kept myself in good condition. What point was there to treat your body kindly if you hate it anyways?

Lilly finally spoke to me once I was ready to go. She said, "We will be toning your body, as well as giving you experience and knowledge with magic and working on evolving your soul over the next several weeks.

"While I know I need to get into shape, isn't it more important to evolve my soul and work on my magic?" I asked.

"Not exactly. There are three parts to using your soul magic. And these three parts directly affect how quickly I can heal and get my power back as well. I can only tell you how things work up until I will be leaving you. I don't wish to teach you more than that but the basics of the program you will be working through under me will be as follows."

"Consider the circle of magic you are in is the size of your soul. The bigger and more powerful the soul, the more intense spells you can cast as well as the more magic energy you can store. Experience and learning will teach you the different spells to cast and when to use them and coming to powerful understandings of yourself will allow your soul to evolve. However, strength of the body is nothing to ignore. While experience and learning spells as well as practicing casting them will greatly help you out and slowly build up your ability to cast more spells at a time as well as more powerful spells, to fully utilize some spells and to fully fill your soul up to the top with energy, your body must also be strong as well."

"Imagine now that your soul is a cup. Every time you evolve the cup gets bigger. Then the liquid in the cup would be the magic you can do. When your soul evolves, the liquid in the cup does not evolve with it. You have to train it. That liquid is what you would use to cast spells. Humans have had multiple names for it but in recent times it would be thought of as mana."

"Now in order to fill the cup you need to learn new spells and gain experience. Basically three quarters of your soul vessel will be filled through experience and practice using your powers. That being said there is always a consistent amount that will require strength from the body. A quarter of the liquid in the cup will always come from your bodies strength."

"Here is why this is important. Every time your cup or soul gets bigger the liquid in it does not change. that is except for the portion of the liquid that comes from your physical strength. Each time the soul evolves it is the equivalent of gaining 100% of what the original size of it once was. Therefore you can look at it in terms of numbers. As your soul evolves the liquid in your soul cup from your body strength will evolve proportionally to it. What this means is that the closer you are to realizing your bodies potential, the more power you will have with each evolution."

Lilly finally finished explaining. This was far more complex than we were ever taught in the school system. They had taught us that it came down to training and using the powers exactly as the school had taught. In my depression I had made life even harder on myself now and I was going to pay for it by getting back in shape as quickly as possible.

"All right Lilly," I said, "What do you have for me. What do I do."

"Well first we are going to start you off slow and create a routine. As of right now you have almost no manna from your strength at all. Since you are at a magic circle level 2 you could consider yourself as having 20 manna points. When you get to level 3 that will double to 40. At level 4 you will be at 80, and at level 5 you will have 160. The problem is when you initially level up, you do not instantly get access to all those points without training. Right now because of your lack of experience and lack of physical fitness, you only have use to approximately 5 of your 20 total manna points."

"This means that while 10 of those points will come from training and practice of magic, 5 of those will come from getting you into better shape. That being said you will have a daily fitness goal. We will start out easy doing ten squats, ten push ups, ten sit ups, and then jogging one km. You will do this twice a day. Once at the beginning before we begin other training, and once after lunch. By the time you gain 1 manna point from training like this you will then be ready to move onto the next level."

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I was truly a fat bastard. While the squats were easy enough to take care of, I couldn't even finish the push ups without having to stop for a small period of time between each bit. Sit ups weren't even harder. By putting my feet under the side of the desk I was able to get better leverage and get myself up but it was going to be a lot of work before I was anywhere near competent. The running was just as bad. Most of it was walking and anytime I wanted to sit Lilly made sure to keep telling me to go if I really wanted to get stronger. I had the drive today but I don't know how well I will do in the afternoon session.

The place we were staying had a small indoor track for those who were part of this underground satanic church to take part of. It was kind of funny honestly. Join the Devil's cult, get free gym access. Right now it was what I needed though.

There were about 30 other members going through training here. What I heard from Lilly was that some were from the cities and others were rescued from the Wasteland outside and given refuge if they pledged their allegiance here. It pissed Lilly off that they would use her name to force others to join them and would have gotten rid of them fifty years ago if they weren't one of the only groups going against the Prophet.

Despite the fact they disagreed with the Prophet, they still had a misogynistic view on women. Lilly was one of the rare few who was able to rise the ranks here. The other 8 women in training were all trained in health and in support magic. This cult taught that women were weaker and subservient ot men just as the outside world did. Thinking about how women were treated were one of the only reasons I was glad I wasn't born a woman.

Based off what Lilly had spoken with me about women had just as much potential, but because of the Prophet, they were not trained correctly. The Almighty only trained souls similar to his which were the male based soul.

After showering and eating a healthy breakfast of oatmeal and fruit I was ready to be reeducated. Most of the people in class with me were around my age in their early 20's. There were a few who were in their teens and one who was over forty. My class had ten people including me. Three of which were women and then the rest of us. This was a beginners class for those newly initiated into the cult and would teach their version of learning magic.

Lilly told me to listen and learn what I could from them but at the end of the day to follow her advice if I wanted to achieve things more efficiently. That being said having someone to demonstrate certainly helped.

The first lesson today discussed about the different levels of magic. How each circle had a drastically different amount of power from the next. Once you reached the peak manna capability of the circle you were in, no matter how much experience or how much stronger you got, you could never fill your soul cup up any further until it evolved to be bigger.

Our teacher Octavius told us that most people never get past soul level two and that most of us in the class would not get much further. However, those who were truly enlightened by the master of the cult would receive Satan's blessing and grow to be third level. What Octavius didn't realize is this was just because those who found a strong identity with the cult tended to evolve their soul in that way. It actually had nothing to do with Lilly. I kept my mouth shut though, now was not the time to piss these people off especially when I was still so weak I didn't even have the full potential of a magic circle level one soul.

We were finally getting into practical magic and we were each told to practice a basic light spell. For the men they had to use the focus word of "Elt" and for the women they had to use the focus word "Els."

I had never been able to do magic before but maybe now that I had evolved I could finally do it. One by one each of us were called up to the front of the lecture space to demonstrate our capability. Most were able to create a small orb of light. Some who were more powerful created a bigger, brighter orb. I went up and prepared myself.

Lilly said it would probably be best to say the word in my head but I didn't see why that would matter at all. I stated the word "Elt" and nothing happened.

There was a massive panic in my mind. It was going to happen again and I was going to be considered nothing but a Wretch again.

The other students in the room started to laugh and the instructor began getting angry.

I thought to myself, "Lilly what do I do?"

She said, "I thought you already knew, you need to use the other spell. I just did it the other day. It probably isn't the best idea to say it out loud as they will not understand someone with an irregular soul. In order to insure your training and keep you from being kicked out and possibly killed say the other word in your mind right after you say the male souls word. This way it will just look like your magic is slow. While that won't be true, it should keep you from being found out."

I continued to stand up there in silent panic listening to Lilly. The instructor interrupted my surprise over how I would be using my magic by demanding I try again or quit wasting their time. Here goes nothing.

Chapter Title Based off the theme song for the "Rocky" movies