Ares and I stood there, lost in thought, until Ares finally asked where we were heading now. I looked at him, a small smile on my lips.
"We will head over there, into the mountains. Behind them lies Valentina, a kingdom once known for its brave knights. Valentina is where we will go. But first we have to go to the Mountain town Caer Dour where we will find this world's protagonist. There we will join the knight recruits on their travels and hopefully become proper Battle Mages."
"So through the mountains it is. Do we know where to go exactly?"
"....No? This would be the first time I actually leave the forest in this world. So I really don't know."
A look of disappointment and confusion graced Ares face. "So we're just blindly going into the mountains, hoping to find a town somewhere inside the mountain range without either running into potential enemies or getting lost? Sounds like a plan." He sighted at the end there.
"Hey, at least we will be able to train some of our abilities before eventually finding it."
"What abilities?"
"Well, since we're here to learn willpower based magic, we should be able to do so on our own, for a while at least. Maybe incorporate some original concepts, too. And we will be able to have some actual fun while we're at it."
" Fun? What fun can one have in the mountains?"
A grin spread over my face while a little giggle accumulated in my chest, pure goblin energy.
" Say, Ares, have you ever heard of Snowboarding?"
As it appeared, he did not. And since neither of us knew how to make a proper snowboard, we decided to try and use our own magic to make them. Of course, Ares being unaware and hopeful, asked why we couldn't use another ritual to make snowboards. At which I had to answer that not only would it be an inappropriate use of rituals. Rituals would use their meaning if used in that way and would eventually lose their power due to it. So instead we set out to try and use our magic to make them. Canonically, Battle Mages were able to use telekinetic forces, reinforcement, elemental magic and even shield magic. How ever, most of those magics were, as the name suggests, use only for offense and not really defense. So the both of us began trying to manipulate the telekinetic spectrum of our power. With some success after practicing for three days while climbing up mountains looking for settlements in the distance.
"Come on! I know this worked before! WHY ISN'T IT WORKING!" (Ares)
"Maybe because your focusing on the wrong thing?" I said, hoping he would have more success at levitating a small rock than me. When I had tried, I accidentally set my hand on fire. The flames were a sickly green and even after several hours my hand still smelled like rot.
"OH YEAH! AND WHAT SHOULD I BE FOCUSING ON, HUH FLAME HANDS?" So as it would seem, Ares still gets frustrated easily.....
"Okay, how about this.... What were you thinking when you tried?!" "Oh you know, just the damned rock moving?"
.....
"Well, this magic is will-powered....and the users tend to be called battle mages. So maybe we should think more like commanders/generals instead of.....well, mages?" I said.
This made both of us think. Then Ares picked up another rock and just...chucked it at a distant tree. "So what was that supposed to do?" While I was staring at him in confusion and wonder, Ares stayed focused on the tree and the place the rock hit. A small smile crept on his lips.
"You know, I think you were right." he said, pointing at the tree and just as I looked at it, both of us watched as the tree slowly but inevitably broke in half.
"I just threw that rock casually....and told it to break that tree. I didn't even aim."
Oh? "Now I gotta try that. Lets see how ridiculous this magic can actually get." Excitement brimmed in my veins as I picked up another rock and just threw it up into the sky. It didn't go very high, but as it reached its peak, the stone suddenly changed direction and launched itself further down the path we were walking. A small tremor occurred, traveling at high speeds towards a boulder. Honestly the tremors movement was barely visible with only the shaking grass allowing us to track it. Then it slammed into the boulder and *Crack. The boulder split and began collapsing inward.
"So its literally just willpower and imagination? That's not how it was originally supposed to work." I said. No the way the magic in this world originally worked was a lot more straining, physically and psychologically demanding and fickle. But here the two of us stood, just telling random stones to do something and forcing our will onto it. Or were we?
"Ares, when you launched that rock, did you feel any kind of resistance or energy expenditure?"
He gave me his answer while playing with more rocks, making them travel and float between his palms. "Resistance? Not really. If there was any, I don't think it was enough to be noticeable and I do feel like I barely used anything to do so either. Could this have to do anything with the rituals we did?" "Could be. We essentially gave our bodies over to the fabric of this world, along with its magical elements and allowed them to reshape us as they saw fit. Its a lot similar to what Odin from the Norse Pantheon did when he hung himself from Yggdrasil."
"Huh....so what now?" Ares asked me, although the glint in his eyes betrayed just how ready he was to experiment and play with this new magic.
"Well.....I think we can experiment and train with this new magic. Lets not hold back as long as we're just among ourselves. But I believe letting others know about this would be risky. Agreed?"
"Huh.....Oh yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good Idea." Ares answered. But by then I saw him playing with more rocks, making them fly around his body and randomly launch in different directions with different effects.
So while he was playing around and getting some more experience, I was looking around, searching for a way to accelerate our search for Caer Dour. But by now the surroundings had gotten colder and the further we walked the more we came across snowy patches. I tried to summon a fire or at least something warm. Well, it would be more apropriate to say I was trying to command it into existence. Several times I accidentally summoned the green fire. Twice it was violet flames that clung to my skin. And then finally, after trying for an hour, a scarf made out of pale grey fire wrapped around my neck, delivering warmth to my entire body. And sure enough, Ares began to feel cold rather quickly after and tried to imitate me. It took him about as long as me to come up with something similar.