"Friends" of the Forest

Seeing Haalfrin daydreaming in the middle of one of their first lesson together, Kalastros slams his chalk back down and says, "So, little pupil… Summarize everything I taught you just now before we move on!"

"The soul has 7 Names, and each Name describes a part of yourself," Haalfrin recites. "You can also train these parts of yourself in order to enhance your magic in certain ways. If you train your mind, your spells can be more complicated and still bend to your will. If you train your spirit, then your spells will be able to last longer and endure greater stress. If you train your body, then your fireballs will be hotter, and your body-strengthening spells will be stronger, and you'll be able to move heavier things with your magic."

"Yes... and that's PRECISELY why I won't be allowing you to go out and fight for the time being!" Kalastros does sound like he can't be questioned when he lays down the law.

"W-what!?" Haalfrin stutters out. "Why nooot?" As soon as his voice slips out, he clasps his hands over his mouth in embarrassment.

In confusion, he cocks his head to the side and wonders aloud, "I just sounded like a whiney little boy!" Whiney little boys are the most irritating!

His master smiles at this, "Ha! Yes. When your body regains youth… There can be some side effects if you get your Names too early and you return to your developmental age. Your brain recedes back its growth… And yes, you'll become a lot more like you were when you were a child, though not quite."

"So," Haalfrin exclaims in alarm, "I'll be a whiney, rebellious, prideful snot that everyone needs to beat up?"

"Were you that bad?"

"…Sorta," Haalfrin replies, "My mamma always said I'd be the death of her… before she actually died. I also frequently bullied the other children and beat them up. I also ran away from home on multiple occasions before my parents passed away early. When I ran away the last time, the other villagers kindly asked me to not bother coming back."

Kalastros takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes, "...Indeed. You've gotten your 2nd Name far too early! AND you've regained so much youth that your body has shrunk down and grown weak like a child's too. Your body is so weak that your spells won't be able to protect you very well." He puts his glasses back on and says, "So… You'll have to wait until you're grown up again. That gives me plenty of time to teach you…"

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It doesn't take Haalfrin very long into his training to discover a major problem… Most of his training is boring!

Haalfrin walks down a small stream in Kalastros's garden, and he kicks a rock angrily into the water. On his back is a bag full of notebooks and textbooks – all filled out with his notes and reminders. The notebooks are filled with mathematical equations and scientific definitions too.

Just thinking about his bad experience with these books is semi-traumatic! 'In order to use magic properly, I have to become a scholar??? How stupid!!!'

Seriously, though… there is a lot of learning about the 4 forces of nature - gravity, magnetism, and the 2 particle forces (as the locals like to call them). He is taught exactly how forces interact with each other, and he's then taught how to manually alter the variables of his spells.

For example, in order to properly use a fireball, you have to know how fire works at a molecular level, as well as being intimately familiar with the relationship between Pressure, Volume, Heat, and Density... Ugh...

'Why is he even teaching me about chemical reactions?' Haalfrin wonders. 'I don't have my Fel Name yet, so I can't make fire!'

After 3 whole years of this hellishly boring training, Haalfrin's pestering finally gets to his master, and the archmage promises, "You can go outside again when you turn 130 years old! With how slow a 2nd gate mage ages, you'd be in the body of a 15-year-old by then – a BARELY acceptable age for outside ventures."

Haalfrin hears this and feels like throwing up. That's nearly 50 more years!

Of course, Haalfrin knows very well that he's far too restless to last 50 years studying textbooks and writing down math equations. 'If I can at least spice up my life with a few outside jaunts… I can keep my sanity while I train with Master…'

And so, Haalfrin spends most of his free time studying the security enchantments instead of doing his homework. Of course, as he gets older and learns more, his confidence in escaping grows a bit stronger….

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One morning, Haalfrin is quietly putting on some adventuring gear and packing a backpack full of camping supplies and miniaturized traps – shrunk with the power of his master's enchanting technology.

The boy looks both ways and carefully removes a panel on the wall. He then reaches in and pulls out a small metal plate with some glowing runes on it. This is the node to a simple security enchantment to alert the archmage when somebody enters or exits the tower.

The archmage still hasn't figured out how his student has managed to escape these last couple of times, but it's only a matter of time until the old man learns what's up and changes the lock.

'Heh, heh... Until then, I'm free to go!' Haalfrin then looks towards the woods just outside the tower. This place is full of magical beasts - plenty of material to battle with. Even more importantly, he can perhaps whittle his Yiir down a little through these dangerous encounters.

'Still... I can't get too far from my master without being discovered. I think he put some sort of spirit thread on me that snaps if I get too far from him. This means that I can't go too deeply into the woods.'

Since Haalfrin can't go too far away, that means if he kills the beasts he fights with, then he'll run out of fighting companions! 'I'd hate to have no more sparring partners…'

This is precisely the reason why he always fights them to knock them out. Haalfrin has such complete control of his body movements by now that he's strong enough to toss even big cats around.

(Well, normally, you can't throw something heavier than you are. For example, if you push against something, that something pushes back just as hard – basic physics. The heavier something is, the more resistant it is to being moved – hence, why pushing against a heavier object will always launch YOURSELF back instead of the object FORWARD.)

(However, we just mentioned that Haalfrin has the strength to throw big cats around – not that physics would actually let him do it... he could still stand under and lift it from the bottom without a problem, though.)

Shortly after Haalfrin enters the woods, he goes to his favorite pond to find his old crocodile friend. The beast had soaked in far too much mana for so long that it grew about 3 times the size of a normal terror lizard.

Seeing his "friend" waiting on the surface patiently, Haalfrin smiles as he runs up – not even trying to be subtle as he crashes his way through the undergrowth.

He pulls out some enchanted rope and whips it out. The rope grows longer and longer as it shoots over to the croc's mouth. The giant reptile is already well familiar with Haalfrin's antics, so it jerks its head to the side once it feels the fluctuation in magic… and the rope completely misses.

Haalfrin waves his hand again, which is still holding the other end of the rope. The giant rope whips back another direction and then wraps tightly around the reptile's mouth. To maximize the reptile's biting force, their bodies have dedicated most of their jaw muscles to snapping their maw closed, while only leaving a few muscles for opening them.

Thus, Haalfrin's tiny rope (tiny in comparison to the reptile) is able to seal its mouth closed.

The crocodile is already climbing out of the water and charging at Haalfrin. Though the creatures are deceptively fast on land, they have terrible stamina out of the water with those tiny legs positioned on the sides of their torso, rather than below like a land-dwelling animal.

Even still, this monstrosity in front of Haalfrin can't be directly beaten very easily by someone like him, so he turns around and flees the other direction. With his reinforced legs, he manages to keep just ahead of the crocodile.

Pretty soon, the giant beast tires out and stops running.

At that moment, Haalfrin plants his feet in the ground and halts his progress. He then invokes a quick spell with spirit threads. Since he's gotten his Reh Name, he's one of the few mages able to use spirit magic, after all.

A long, golden thread shoots out of Haalfrin's gut (the center of mass), and the thread invisibly flies over to the crocodile and connects with his eyes. The thing about spirit threads is that both ends always need to be connected to SOMETHING. Loose threads always dissipate in a matter of moments.

Haalfrin then delicately snaps off the spirit thread from his chest, then connects it to a pebble in his left hand. Things connected by golden threads always try to attract each other… So, when Haalfrin finally throws the pebble, its flight path is changed as it's pulled towards its final destination – the beast's eye.

Once the pebble hits its target, the crocodile reels back and gives a deep, throaty hiss. With a trickle of blood coming down its eye, the beast seems to lose all motivation to fight. It just turns around and walks slowly back to its home.

"Oi!" Haalfrin yells over to the retreating beast. "What about me!? Don't run away!" Haalfrin runs after the beast and hits its leg a few times..., but it just ignores him.

It knows very well that the puny human isn't strong enough to pierce its thick hide, and he's too small to be worth the effort of eating. It only bothered to chase him before because he's annoying.

The beast crawls back into the water dejectedly and floats on the top, inconspicuously blending in with the moss, lily pads, and leaves.

Just when the crocodile thinks it's free from this 2 legged pest, it feels an itch bouncing around on its back. The beast opens its eyes and sees the human standing on its head, jumping up and down and trying, unsuccessfully, to jam a dagger through one of its hard scales.

At this point, Haalfrin is just bored, and the only thing left for him to do is see if he can break through one of the creature's hard, mana-grown scales.

Without warning, the beast's head starts to sink underwater, and Haalfrin yells out, "F-fine! I'll see you next time, friend!" He jumps off the head and lands on the shore. He looks back, and the beast is already gone.

"Well, whatever," Haalfrin mutters as he pulls out a piece of freshly bakes bread and cheese. "It's only the beginning of the morning, so I got some time until master gets back from his trip."