[The Stone Garden] A Moment of Zen

by **Michael Kyber** on January 15th, 2017, 11:42 pm

49th Winter, 516AV

As soon as he'd found them Michael had come to like the stone garden. The place a a feeling of somber power to it, and the complete silence of other visitors gave it a peaceful, quiet atmosphere broken only by the small sounds of nature nearby. It was the perfect place to clear you mind and calm your emotions.

Not only that, but Michael found his inner motivation soar by standing in this place. All of the stones around him represented the brave men and women who'd given their lives for a greater cause over the years, people who deserved better than to rot away into nothing like that. They deserved the chance to live forever more than anyone, and one day he would make it so that no more names had to be added to this garden ever again.

This serene yet driven feeling was the exact reason why Michael had chosen this place to practice his magic. Working with djed was all about the mind, and so clearly ridding oneself of stray thoughts and using resolve to enhance your focus would make one a better mage. At least that was his theory. Rahn had done little as a teacher except induct him into the branches of magic he knew now and give him the bare bones of what magic was before sending him off. His gift to him, he claimed, was just to open the way to the path of magic to him. If Michael walked to walk it then he'd have to find a way across it on his own.

Of the branches of magic that'd been opened to him, Flux seemed the one that was the most useful for its complexity. The idea of djed flowing around the body, and being susceptible to manipulation by the mind, was a fairly simple concept to grasp but could create devastating results in combat. Though he intended to explore all the branches open to him, Flux was the one that seemed like the best to start with. Increased physical abilities would surely come in handy for his squire training pretty quickly.

Michael found a small corner of the stone garden, tucked away from most prying eyes by a bunch of trees, and sat down in a meditative pose. He purposefully began to take deep breaths and soaked up the atmosphere to the place, putting as many stray thoughts out of his head as he could. It took a while, as not thinking about things what a lot harder than people seemed to think, but eventually reached just about the most relaxed state he could manage.

He then looked inward, turning his focus onto the feeling of the insides of his own body and the djed flowing within it. Though he didn't yet know where exactly the nerves of the body that flowed with djed where, something he intended to familiarize himself with when he had access to books on the subject, the vague feeling of the energy flowing within was enough for what he had in mind here.

Slowly Michael stood up again and began to move, as if underwater, though a series of stretches. Though to anyone watching he would have looked like he was doing some kind of yoga, in truth each stretch was designed to focus on one particular part of his body as Michael gently redirected the flow of djed inside him to pool over to that part a little bit. Magic was supposedly easier to cast in stressful situations, such as fights, by associating words of physical movements with that spell during training so that by repeating it later one's subconscious would recognize the association and help you to focus on it. The plan was to train using he flux along with some form of martial art in order to use it at its most effective, and associate certain moves with certain concentrations of djed, but as he didn't have a form of martial arts to study right now stretches would have to do.

by **Michael Kyber** on January 20th, 2017, 11:08 pm

If Michael had to describe the feeling of using Flux, it was like being a ball filled with water. Normally the water in the ball was spaced out evenly, and so the pressure of it was spread out nice and evenly across the balls surface. However if the water in the ball was focused more heavily on to one side then that part of the ball had to deal with more pressure.

And that pressure wasn't comfortable. Michael moved into a low crouch and slowly stretched forwards with his arms, shifting the flow of djed to focus just a little bit more on them. At this level he was barely moving any djed at all, indeed if he was to punch with his arms right now no normal human eye would be able to notice even a little difference in strength between it and one of his normal punches, but even so he could feel the pressure of the flux within him. It was not unlike the feeling of having light bandages wrapped around his arms, except instead of the pressure coming from outside and pressing down on him it was coming from inside of him, like his arms had been slightly puffed up with air.

It wasn't exactly a painful feeling though. Uncomfortable yes, but not because it hurt. It was just an alien sensation to him, a state of body he hadn't felt before which set of warning bells in his head. He supposed then that as he practiced more and became more used to the feeling he'd be able to shift around more djed, leading to more power. But what would that mean for him? Though his manipulations were only slight the muscles in his arms did feel just a twinge more powerful ,like an extra spark of energy was dancing around in them, and while it was overshadowed right now by the uncomfortable pressure Michael reckoned he could come to like this particular feeling.

He shifted into a crouched position, then lowered himself down so he was sitting on the ground and spread his legs as far apart as he could. He then reached over with both arms to his left foot, stretching as best he could to get his fingers as close to his toes as possible, and focused his djed flow a little bit towards that leg. Slowly he brought his hands back along his leg, moving the djed inside him to focus on the part of him his hands were over, and shifted over to the other leg and all the way up to the toes on that one. He held it for a few seconds, then slowly brought it all the way back again.

Finally he got to his feet and slowly raised his arms up along his sides towards the sky, focusing the djed from his feet up his body with them until they were back at his arms again. Then he brought his arms back down together in a prayer sign, bringing the djed back with them and slowly relaxing the focus until by the time he was done the flow of his djed was nicely equaled out again. He lightly stretched out and shook off his body again, relaxing any muscles that'd be worked out by his training, and once again did his best to empty his mind of any lingering thoughts on the training he'd been doing.

This, he decided, would be enough for today. He still didn't know where his limits were, and while Rahn had warned him never to cross his limits with magic or face terrible consequences he hadn't said why. Until he found a master who could help him Michael was determined not to let himself go to far.

Brushing himself off Michael walked out of his secluded area and headed for the exit of the gardens. As usual in Syliras there were still a ton of things he needed to get done today, and not enough time for them all.