Chapter 38

  Aura?

  I left Rel and Kaelis to their planning. There’d been something on my mind recently, and I figured I knew just the guy who might be able to help.

  I wandered across the Guild Hall and knocked on the door of the ‘classroom’.

  “Enter.”

  The last time I’d visited the Guild Hall, Kaelis had given me a tour. We’d walked in on a rather impressive-looking creature delivering a lecture on magic to a room full of guild members. That very same creature now sat behind his desk, looking appropriately majestic as he studied the scrolls spread out before him. The way he stroked his magnificent beard only added to the effect.

  I stood there for a few moments, feeling like a naughty child who’d been sent to the headmaster’s office.

  Apparently satisfied, he stacked the scrolls into a neat pile, then leaned back in his chair and turned his attention to me. With his purple robes and pointed hat, and his long white hair and beard, he looked every inch the wise and knowledgeable wizard.

  I cleared my throat.

  “Hi,” I said, feeling oddly self-conscious under his steady gaze.

  “You are the ‘Master Pete’ I hear so many of the students talking about,” he said, his voice surprisingly deep. “You’re smaller than I expected.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure how to take that, considering that even standing on his tiptoes, he would barely reach my belly button.

  “Erm, yes,” I said. “That’s me. I was wondering if you might be able to help me with something.”

  “Well,” he said, steepling his fingers. “That depends on what you require assistance with. If it’s a question related to magic, I’d be happy to oblige. If you’d like me to do your laundry, you can fuck right off.”

  My jaw dropped. Of all the things I’d expected to come from the old creature’s mouth, the words ‘you can fuck right off’ did not appear on the list. He stared at me flatly for a few more moments, then his face split into a grin and he slapped a little palm against his desk.

  “Ha! You should see your face! I’m only teasing, Pete. Take a seat and I’ll help if I can. My name is Professor Indagore, but there’s no need for formality – just Indagore is fine.”

  He gestured to the empty seat opposite him.

  “I must say,” he said after I’d sat down. “I’ve been rather looking forward to meeting you. You and Rel are a most unusual pair. I’ve worked for Galactic Entertainment Corporation for many years, and it’s a rare thing indeed to encounter two prodigies who are not only in the same Division, but are also close friends and working together.”

  “You work for GEC?” I asked.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Who did you think I was? A local? A Trialist? No. One of the more underappreciated benefits of running a guild is being able to hire experts to tutor its members.”

  “I can see how that’d be a benefit for people like me who knew nothing about Galaxy Showdown before arriving,” I said. “But surely the people who chose to take part spent years preparing? Don’t they already know all this stuff?”

  “Ahh, so you’re one of the Salvaged,” he said, nodding. He raised a hand to forestall my question, and gave me a shrewd smile. “Do you know one of the key skills of an effective teacher, Pete? Anticipating the questions your pupils may ask. The Salvaged are the Trialists who were pulled from Infant Planets in the moments before their death.”

  He chuckled as I raised a hand.

  “An Infant Planet,” he continued. “Is one that has not yet advanced – whether it be through technology or the arcane – to the point where its inhabitants can travel beyond the bounds of their own world and make contact with other civilisations. I’ve always felt the Salvaged get a raw deal in the Trials. Yes, limitations are imposed to prevent anyone from having too great an advantage, but you and those like you are essentially coming in blind.”

  I retreated into my thoughts for a moment, considering his words. I wasn’t sure how to feel about being referred to as ‘Salvaged’. It made me think of a car being stripped for parts before it was crushed.

  Then again… I supposed by yanking me from Earth when they did, they’d salvaged me from becoming a red smear on the front of a truck.

  “What limitations are imposed on Trialists?” I asked. “I’ll be honest, I’m a bit surprised I’m doing this well. The others must’ve planned everything before they signed up, right?”

  “That’s a good question,” he said, and I found myself sitting up a little straighter.

  Damn, the guy’s teacher energy was off the charts. I was half tempted to ask for paper and start taking notes. I was mildly concerned he’d assign an essay at the end and make me explain everything I’d learnt.

  “For a competition like Galaxy Showdown to be entertaining, it relies on the Trialists starting off on a somewhat even footing. Imagine how boring the whole thing would be if the most powerful warrior in the galaxy chose to take part and then just annihilated everybody on the first day. That’s why a number of measures are put in place to level the playing field. When Trialists are first teleported to their Trial Zones, certain knowledge is purged from their memories.”

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  I nodded. What he’d said made me think of the video games I used to play when I was younger – the MMOs where every little thing was min-maxed to death, until any sense of discovery or excitement was sucked out of it.

  “What limitations are put in place?” I asked.

  “It’s not my area of expertise, and I’m sure there are many I’m unaware of,” he said. “But there are several well-known ones. The most important, in my opinion, is that any prior knowledge Trialists have about how to gain stats is purged. It forces them to learn as they go, rely on common sense, and seek opportunities to grow.”

  He paused and cleared his throat. He looked around the room, rather conspiratorially, then opened one of his desk drawers, retrieving a bottle of amber liquid and two glasses.

  “It’s been a long day, and all this talking is thirsty work,” he said. “Fancy a drink?”

  After my experiences with the goblins, I knew that it was no longer possible for me to get drunk. I didn’t have the heart to tell him though, so I nodded. He poured two glasses, and with a lazy flick of his hand, one of them slid across the surface of the desk and stopped in front of me.

  “Thanks,” I said, lifting the glass to take a sip. My eyes widened and I started coughing. It was like drinking liquid fire.

  He gave a smug little chuckle.

  “One of the great challenges of growing stronger,” he said, “is finding alcohol that can actually affect you.”

  “Fucking hell,” I said, shaking my head. I could already feel the effects, so I set the glass down. The conversation had been pretty damn interesting so far, and I still had several things I wanted to ask. I figured it’d be better to be conscious and largely sober.

  “What other limitations are there?” I asked.

  “Several relate to combat and magic. Any knowledge of spells beyond basic utility – creating light and things of that nature – is blocked. As for combat ability, it’s restricted to competency rather than mastery.”

  The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. What fun would Galaxy Showdown be if everyone came in as masters of everything, already knowing how it all worked? It’d be boring as fuck. At least this way, anyone who passed the Trial would do it on merit rather than because they did more homework than the next guy.

  “As much as I’ve enjoyed discussing the nature of the Trial,” said Indagore, “I assume that isn’t what you came here to ask.”

  “No,” I said. “There’s something that’s been on my mind for a while. A few weeks ago, I had… strong words with a few Trialists who were being assholes and threatening the locals.”

  Indagore snorted.

  “That may be putting it mildly, Pete,” he said. “I’ve heard all sorts of rumours from the students. One claims you threatened to rip out a man’s heart, cook it in a stew, and force-feed it to his mother.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. If those were the rumours going around, no wonder every Trialist I’d met recently looked ready to shit themselves at the sight of me.

  “No, that’s not true!” I said, then felt my face go a little red. “Well… most of it isn’t.”

  Indagore grinned and gestured for me to continue.

  “Well, yeah,” I said. “Derek – the tavernkeeper – spoke to me afterwards. He said that when I was threatening the Trialists, he could feel my anger, and it actually became harder to breathe.”

  “Aura,” he replied, and upon seeing my blank expression, snorted again. “I want you to imagine a half-full box. That was you when you first arrived – nothing more than an average example of your species. However, as you gained stat points, the box was quickly filled. Within days, I suspect you’d already surpassed the peak of your kind in strength and speed. But you didn’t stop there. The magic used to remove your limiter allowed you to keep growing. Indeed, Archmagus Zalandar’s genius is unrivalled across the galaxy. The work he did for Galaxy Showdown to make all this possible is–”

  I cleared my throat.

  “What? Oh. Yes, sorry. As I was saying, your limiter was removed. The box may be full, but you’ve kept cramming more inside. On the outside, the changes to your physical form aren’t dramatic. Spiritually, however? They’re enormous. You’re not bigger – you’re denser. Once that density reaches a certain threshold, it becomes possible to manifest it externally. This is what we call Aura.”

  When he’d first used the word, I’d had visions of broccoli-haired teenagers claiming someone had ‘aura’ because they had the balls to speak to a woman.

  This? This was way cooler.

  “Does that mean that everyone in the Trials has the potential to use Aura?” I asked.

  “The potential? Yes,” he replied. “However, it’s not something that can just be ‘used’. For most, learning to manifest Aura is an incredibly frustrating process that takes many years of practice – and that’s just to achieve the most basic level of competence. Indeed, many people consider it a waste of time, seeing magic as a far more accessible alternative. But for those who achieve mastery? Its potential is staggering. There are supposedly Masters out there who can level planets by unleashing the full weight of their Aura.”

  I sighed and slumped in my chair. Years to achieve even a basic level of competence? Galaxy Showdown would be over and done with long before then.

  “Why so glum all of a sudden, Pete?” Indagore asked, sounding far too pleased with himself. “I said for most. Based on what you’ve just told me, you do not fit into that category. In fact, you may be even more remarkable than I first thought. There are an infinitesimally small number of people out there who possess a natural affinity for manipulating Aura. The gift often reveals itself through involuntary manifestations during heightened emotional states. In the case of your example – anger. Now, I’m not suggesting that it’ll be easy for you to learn to control your Aura, but compared to most? It’ll be significantly quicker.”

  That sounded more like it. I immediately pictured myself obliterating hordes of rampaging enemies with little more than a squint.

  Rel was going to be so damn jealous.

  “Wait,” I said. “How do I learn to use it? Is there a book? Ideally something like Aura Mastery for Dummies.”

  “I’m afraid that I have very little knowledge in that domain,” replied Indagore. “I am a teacher of the arcane. However, I know that the first step involves learning to feel your Aura. I believe this to be a rather personal journey that varies from person to person, so I’m not sure textbooks will be particularly useful. My advice? You need to reflect on the instances where your Aura has manifested itself involuntarily. What did you feel? I’ve heard that meditation can be particularly useful for this. Or…”

  His words trailed off, and I leaned forward eagerly.

  “Or…?”

  “Well,” he said. “On rare occasion, a master of a discipline may decide they want to pass on their accumulated knowledge. To do this, they can create an Essence of Knowledge. Finding one would allow you to bypass the arduous initial stage of having to learn to ‘feel’ your Aura and start you on the path to mastery. Once you absorb it, you will not suddenly possess all of the master’s knowledge and ability, but it will provide you with a clear path to follow.”

  That sounded more like it. I just had to find one of these ‘Essences’ and I’d be–

  My thoughts were cut short when I noticed that Indagore had raised a little hand, almost as if he were trying to stop traffic. In this case, the traffic was my imagination running away from me.

  “I do not want to dash your hopes,” he said, “but I must warn you that Essences are incredibly rare, and even a company with the resources of GEC will struggle to get their hands on them. As I’m sure you can understand, they are very sought after.”

  I sighed and rose to my feet.

  “Well, shit,” I said. “I guess the dream of blowing things up with my mind is dead. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me anyway. It’s been very enlightening.”

  “You are most welcome,” replied Indagore. “After all, it’s what I’m paid for. Talking of which… I'm owed forty-five thousand gold for services rendered thus far. I enquired with Rel regarding my fee and he informed me that you are responsible for all guild-related expenses.”

  Of course he did.