Velra did not train people gently.

  Audree learned that within the first hour.

  The first “lesson” started with him standing in a damp clearing behind the abandoned mill, the air heavy with rain-soaked soot. Velra stood across from him with her staff planted in the ground, arms crossed like a bored instructor waiting for a student to stop being stupid on his own.

  “Alright,” she said. “Show me what you think combat magic is.”

  Audree hesitated. “Like… throwing spells?”

  Velra sighed like he’d just insulted her.

  “No,” she said flatly. “Combat magic is control. Spells come after.”

  Audree frowned. “Then what am I supposed to do?”

  Velra lifted her staff slightly. The red liquid in the orb swirled, slow and deliberate.

  “Breathe,” she said. “And don’t lie to me about whether you’re focusing.”

  Audree blinked. “What does breathing have to do with…”

  Velra flicked her wrist.

  A thin, sharp rush of pressure hit Audree like a slap. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make him stumble back a step and catch himself.

  “Everything,” Velra said. “If you lose focus, you’re done.”

  Audree steadied his feet, annoyance rising. “I didn’t even get to…”

  “Again,” Velra interrupted.

  He clenched his jaw, then forced his shoulders down. He inhaled, slow and controlled, like Haldo’s notes had demanded. The air felt cold and dry in his lungs.

  He exhaled.

  And tried to feel it.

  That subtle presence. That wrong-but-real current that wasn’t his and yet moved through him when his arm drank too deeply. It sparked under his skin like a faint burn.

  Velra watched him closely. “Don’t fight the flow. Shape it.”

  “I don’t have a mana pool,” Audree muttered.

  Velra’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t have a normal one. You’ve already proven you can move mana, yours or otherwise. You’re just terrible at not panicking when it starts.”

  Audree tried to reply, but the mana surged and his body flinched instinctively. The burn sharpened, crawling along his nerves.

  Velra’s voice snapped. “Breathe through it.”

  Audree swallowed, then inhaled again, deeper this time. He held the breath for a heartbeat, then released it slowly.

  The burning didn’t vanish.

  But it stopped feeling like it was eating him alive.

  “There,” Velra said. “That. That’s your starting line.”

  Over the next days, she built from there like she was assembling a weapon.

  Not with kindness.

  With repetition.

  She taught him that when mana flowed correctly, it wasn’t just fuel. It was structure.

  “Barrier first,” she said on the second day, pacing in a slow circle around him. “You don’t win a fight if you’re dead. You survive long enough to learn.”

  Audree squinted. “A barrier is… like a shield?”

  “Not a shield,” Velra corrected. “A pressure layer. A refusal. Mana pressed outward so impact doesn’t reach your bones.”

  She demonstrated once, without warning, by launching a small, hard flick of force at his shoulder. Audree tried to raise his arms to block.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  “Wrong.”

  The hit stung, and he lost balance.

  Velra grabbed the back of his collar before he fully fell. “Stop blocking with meat. Use mana.”

  Audree glared at her. “That’s easy for someone with a pool.”

  Velra’s smile was cruel. “Then you’d better learn to steal politely and hold it without exploding.”

  She made him practice while moving. Not standing still like a scholar, but stepping, shifting, adjusting weight.

  “Mages die because they plant their feet like idiots,” she said. “You don’t fight from a single spot unless you want to be surrounded.”

  Audree learned spacing. Angles. How to keep distance from blades. How to avoid letting an enemy dictate the range.

  And she drilled one rule into his skull until he heard it in his sleep.

  If you lose focus, you’re done.

  Because every time he wavered, every time his thoughts jumped to fear, or pain, or frustration, the mana stuttered.

  The barrier thinned.

  His body slowed.

  And Velra punished it immediately, striking with blunt force and letting him feel how fast a mistake turned fatal.

  By the seventh day, she introduced enhancement.

  She didn’t call it that. She called it “not being pathetic.”

  “You want speed,” she said, tapping his shin with her staff. “You want strength. You want to not fold when someone hits you. Mana can do that, if you keep it flowing correctly.”

  Audree tried it.

  The first time it worked, it felt like his body became lighter. Like his muscles understood themselves better. His footwork tightened, his reflexes sharpened, and for one brief moment he moved the way he always imagined a mage moved in stories, clean and quick.

  Then he got excited.

  His breathing broke.

  The flow snapped.

  And he nearly vomited on the spot.

  Velra watched him gag with mild irritation. “You’re going to have to stop reacting so dramatically when you succeed.”

  Audree wiped his mouth, eyes watering. “It’s not my fault my body hates mana.”

  Velra crouched beside him, expression more thoughtful than mocking for once. “It’s because you’re forcing it through pathways you don’t have.”

  Audree frowned. “So what am I supposed to do about that?”

  “Practice until your body stops treating it like poison,” she said. “Or die before it gets the chance.”

  Audree glared at her.

  Velra smirked. “Motivational, isn’t it?”

  On the ninth day, she did something worse than hitting him.

  She told him not to discharge the mana his arm collected.

  “Hold it,” she said.

  Audree stiffened immediately. “That’s a terrible idea.”

  Velra shrugged. “Maybe. But you need to learn what it feels like before it builds too much. If you always dump it, you never learn control.”

  Audree’s arm tingled under the bandages.

  He hated how tempted he felt.

  He held it.

  The mana gathered slowly, prickling in his skin. His breath tightened, his focus narrowing. He felt the urge to shake it off, to feed it to Bubbles, to dump it into the ground.

  Velra snapped her fingers. “Don’t. Stay with it.”

  Audree gritted his teeth.

  And then his eyes changed.

  It started as a faint flicker at the edge of his vision, like the world had gained sharper lines. He blinked hard, thinking it was nothing.

  Then the shift hit fully.

  His perception snapped open.

  He could see the flaws in his own barrier. The uneven pressure. The thin points where force would slip through. He could see the way mana gathered around Velra’s staff, the way her posture subtly adjusted to match her flow.

  It was horrifying.

  It was incredible.

  Velra’s lips curved in approval. “There. That’s your other keyword waking up.”

  Audree stared. “My eyes…”

  “Alchemy,” Velra said. “It’s not just potions. It’s systems. Patterns. Structure. You see the recipe of reality for a moment.”

  Audree’s breath caught as he looked down at his hands and suddenly understood a dozen tiny corrections he could make to every potion formula he’d ever brewed.

  The knowledge came so fast it made him dizzy.

  His stomach lurched.

  He turned and dry-heaved violently into the dirt.

  Velra watched with the calm of someone who’d expected it.

  “Too much perception,” she said. “Your mind can’t process it all yet.”

  Audree coughed, wiping his mouth with shaking fingers. “So it’s useless.”

  “It’s dangerous,” Velra corrected. “But not useless. In combat, it’s a gift. You can spot mistakes faster than your enemy can hide them.”

  Audree’s head spun. He could still feel the echo of those glowing eyes, that awful clarity.

  It scared him.

  But it also thrilled him.

  Over the next days, Velra taught him how to space himself like a mage, how to fight alone and how to fight with a team. She drilled him on positioning, on not blocking line-of-sight for allies, on not standing where a spellcaster’s blast would turn him into collateral.

  “Treat your allies like weapons,” she said. “And treat yourself like one too. If you’re in the wrong place, you ruin the whole field.”

  Audree absorbed every word, biting down frustration when he failed, breathing through the burn when mana surged wrong.

  He wasn’t good.

  But he was learning.

  And Velra, irritating as she was, noticed.

  On the last day of that stretch, she leaned against the doorway of her mobile construct, watching him finish the breathing cycle without shaking.

  “Hm,” she said. “You’re improving.”

  Audree wiped sweat from his brow. “That’s your way of saying I’m not hopeless?”

  Velra snorted. “Don’t push it.”

  He hesitated, then asked, quieter, “Is this enough?”

  Velra’s expression sharpened. “Enough to not die instantly? Maybe.”

  Audree sighed.

  Velra’s gaze drifted to his wrapped arm. Then she looked back at him.

  “If you want more training,” she said, “you really should ask Ina.”

  Audree stiffened.

  Velra continued before he could complain, voice practical. “You’re similar to her. More than you realize. If you mix survival combat with mage discipline, your potions, your weird arm, your perception, you could build something uniquely yours.”

  Audree swallowed, the idea settling into his chest like a stone.

  Velra gave him a small, almost amused smile. “I can teach you how to move mana and not die. Ina can teach you how to move your body and not die.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly. “Together? You might actually become a problem.”

  Audree didn’t know whether to feel proud or terrified.

  Probably both.