Obligatory Training Montage

After Haalfrin is left alone, he almost gives into despair and stops trying to escape… but remembering the past couple days, he knows better now. He knows that it's better to channel his difficult emotions into anger, for anger gives him focus.

After spending a bit adjusting his mindset, he thinks to himself, 'Advancing a Name was useful… I'll just do so for my other Names!'

He doesn't quite know how to do this… so he spent a lot of time experimenting. With the assumption that he gets fed once a day, Haalfrin is left to also assume that he spends several years off and on, trying to advance his Name powers.

Sometimes, when he gives up on advancing his Names, he looks into his soul and takes a look at his Wills. He tries communicating with them, and they seem to understand his commands… though he has no idea how to hear them talk back as he sadly doesn't have any access to magical spell manuals, and can't learn more advanced spirit magic.

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One day, Haalfrin looks up at the sky of his soul realm, which is filled with thick streams of dark mist, where his death aura floats above like ominous clouds.

Looking at the black clouds, Haalfrin sits down on the barren ground, and he enjoys the sensation of being able to move his limbs, though this isn't his physical body he's feeling; it's his soul body instead, which arguably isn't even real.

Leaning back in boredom, Haalfrin's mind flits through old memories… and he sits up startled, remembering something which is obscure, but could be important.

'Wait a second…,' Haalfrin mutters, 'I noticed it a long time ago… that Kaalhyme's Will would get stronger when exposed to death; I noticed it way back when King Kanus tried assassinating me that one time.'

His eyes focus on the black clouds of death with a bit of purpose in his heart now. He glances over at the thousands of Wills and gives a soft smile.

The next moment, Haalfrin starts instructing the Wills to go up into the clouds of Aura. Only the bravest of them are willing to go up, including Kaalhyme, Kalastros, the 2 Brancotte officers, and 10 others Haalfrin doesn't remember killing. The rest of the Wills just shake in fear and actually disobey Haalfrin – remaining on the ground instead, where they feel they're safe.

The 14 Wills go up into the clouds, and Haalfrin watches as they start absorbing the Aura contained within.

Over what Haalfrin assumes is months, he checks on the Wills every now and then, and he notes the changes.

While the 14 Wills are growing fatter, brighter, and presumably stronger, Haalfrin store of Death Aura is shrinking – evident by the thinner clouds.

'Not really a buff,' Haalfrin thinks as he looks at the shrinking clouds, 'but more of a tradeoff - a reallocation of resources.'

Haalfrin watches as Kaalhyme's Wills actually finishes his breakthrough into a 3rd Gate soul, while the 3 3rd gaters (Kalastros and the 2 Brancottes) are slowly opening up their 4th gates. The rest of the 10 brave Wills are breaking through faster than the others, but that's just because they're already lower leveled than the others – one of the Wills not even having magic at all in the beginning.

…More time passes, and the black death clouds have only shrunk by about a 4th… and all 14 of those Wills are past their 3rd gate. Kaalhyme and the 3 other strongest Wills have all reached their 4th Gates.

Seeing their progress, Haalfrin gives a satisfied smile, and he looks up in glee, thinking about the prospect of having 14 people stronger than the archmage of Kalastros stored conveniently in his soul. On top of that, Wills have some serious advantages compared to living people – mainly not having vulnerable fleshy bodies to attack, and being more nimble, light, and unpredictable.

However, his next thought cools his elation back down. 'That's pretty cool, I guess…,' he thinks, 'But it won't be enough to break out. Of course, my prison keepers are careful about depriving my Wills of bodies… and the Wills are pretty useless without bodies.'

Sadly, the rest of the Wills are too cowardly to go up into the black clouds, despite seeing their brethren's success up there. How awesome would it be for them all to go up there and train themselves, like his few "chosen ones" are doing?

Haalfrin tries and forces one of the weaker bandit wills up into the cloud of aura, and it's destroyed by the ferocious killing intent… Being a bandit Will, Haalfrin doesn't feel guilty at all about sacrificing it though.

The prisoner then starts working on controlling his aura to see if he can weaken it, condense it, or even direct it with more skill. Making a little death hand was nice, but he has other plans for his ability that requires more dexterity.

Finally, with some direction on his training, Haalfrin gets himself motivated again, and he makes himself busy over the coming years.

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Haalfrin assumes that many MANY decades pass – possibly even hundreds of years… since he feels his frame growing. He looked like a 10 year old before, but he feels his bones aching and his limbs elongating gradually.

In fact, his prison keepers have to come in every now and then, put him to sleep, and place him spirit resistant chains to protect against fleeing Wills… All so that they can take him out of his cell and re-carve the boulder to make it larger – providing room for his growing frame.

A 3rd gate mage ages 16 times slower than a magicless person… so if Haalfrin became a 16 year old from a 10 year old… that would take… about 100 years.

Haalfrin is now old enough that his beard has grown in full on his face. He knows from his past experience growing up that he only starts growing thick facial hair when he's around 17 or 18…

With his beard now touching the floor, he now knows for certain he's been in prison for well over 100 years now.

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Being trapped in the dark for so long, Haalfrin feels himself growing a little more mad with each day spent into the blank darkness of his cell, or the lonely, lifeless rock of his soul realm.

On top of that, now that he's put to sleep even when he's being fed, he no longer gets to see any living people anymore.

Arguably, it's the loneliness that chips away at a man's sanity more than darkness. It's the gloomy silence and the sense of solitude that comes with the cold, empty dark that scars the soul and robs you of any sense of purpose.

… A lack of blood will kill a man's body… but a lack of purpose will kill a man's spirit. You could say that purpose and meaning is your spirit's lifeblood.

All his life, Haalfrin had fought hard in order to please his Kareen Clan, to please his fellow soldiers, to please his Teacher... Being so alone for so long… who's he supposed to please now?

Now? Haalfrin's only companion is the dark; the dark never answers back when you talk to it, and it doesn't care if you succeed or fail.

Much to Haalfrin's horror, he's spent so long in perpetual darkness that he wakes up one day and realizes he doesn't even remember what another voice sounds like; he finds himself chatting aloud to himself more often with the vain hope that he doesn't forget how to even speak!

The only reason Haalfrin doesn't go completely mad in the darkness is because he's able to send his mind to his soul realm, which grew to feel more and more comfortable by the day.

On top of that, he finds himself caressing the Wills more often and talking to them like normal people. Since he can't directly speak to them, he treats them more like pet cats; most of them avoid his touch like a shy kitten, while a few will occasionally act like cute little kids and allow him to stroke their heads.

It's only the warm, furnace-like feeling he gets in his hands when his fingers pass through a Will that makes him feel like he's not completely alone in the dark. In reality, he has thousands of companions with him!

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Between Haalfrin's training sessions, he would stare up into the sky of his soul realm and gaze upon the Names he's unlocked. As he continues to read them more and more, he feels his understanding of them grow greater and greater.

Haalfrin has never gone into secluded training before.

After all, the previous advancement in his Name being more of an accident, and himself being far too petulant to study obediently under his master.

The young mage is used to having a life - making merry with friends and killing enemies! This new experience of training, training, and more training is hard to get used to!

The more Haalfrin trains, the more he feels his "Fel" Name stir.

Over Haalfrin's entire life, he's noticed that whenever he does something that aligns with an undiscovered Name, he feels the Name light up briefly, as if it were a game of "hotter" and "colder", where one receives a signal telling them they were getting closer or further away from their objective, but nothing more.

The stirring comes and goes for various Names, and discovering another Name always seems to be a matter of luck... as he never knows whether he can chase that feeling far enough.

Even still, Haalfrin decides that staring at his Names and hoping for a stroke of enlightenment is at least worth the cost of time… for time is all he has, apparently. It may be the most inefficient way of gaining a Name, but Haalfrin doesn't care.