Saving Neba

𝐗𝐋𝐈𝐕: Personal Problems

The training with Tevessa was immensely informative and beneficial. Our relationship, however, went into a downward spiral.

I learned so much from Tevessa than I could have learned from Herald. Herald trained me using much more sophisticated training equipment but Tevessa's were much more practical. Practical was better, because the battle was very certainly not going to be royalty-like.

Tevessa had taught me something called Dunfabasi-de-nes, which, based on his explanation, was a foundation course on crystal powers. Naturally, the course, alongside all of the many necessary foundation courses, is learnt in Ki Dunfabas and requires six to eight years of training. There were many of those ‘secondary schools’ in Cirus. The most prominent were in Krah which was the home of many inter-world schools, thus having knowledge of and resources for the powers of all nations of Cirus.

Since they couldn't risk being seen, Tevessa and Tujan were homeschooled by their father who had managed to study at an inexpensive Dunfabas in Zhagma. He had chosen Zhagma because Neba and Zhagma were not very friendly countries and hence not many Nebans studied there. He could learn without having his identity questioned or suspected. However, the school he'd studied at was not as inter-world as those in Krah. Although they were good at teaching about Zhagma and their powers, they had very limited information about Neban powers. More so, because of the battle, there were even more limited resources for Asterions.

Anyhow, dunfabasi-de-nes were the basics that needed to be mastered by all Nebans when their powers were first discovered. It is as different for each person as their crystal, but the theory is generally the same.

The first ability was Mecnumica, the manipulative ability to understand people just by looking at their eyes when they speak, the kind Crypta and Herald were fond of using on me. You could also persuade people with that ability, although it was much more difficult and could only be achieved upon full mastery of one's crystal power.

The second was Recnidato, the ability to make the different parts of one's crystal powers work well together. It was understanding that my crystal power was more than just creating fireballs, and to be able to unleash my other powers. However, I had argued that I did not want to unleash any other powers, having already caused so much damage. Rather than his typical jokes or annoying phrases said with a smirk, Tevessa just went ahead to explain how the discovery of all potential powers was necessary for a fully-fledged development. He'd acted formally, the same way Crypta would do when he was mad at me. They had so much in common, Crypta and Tevessa, and so much not in common.

The last primary ability necessary for full control of my powers was Lortnoc. It was also the hardest to grasp and was something even the best students struggled with. It was the ability to know when and where to draw the line. One who had mastered Lortnoc had power over their powers, such that they can decide how they should use them, limit and manage them, and make them work in the way they want it to.

After all of those, and showing me how I could grasp and advance these skills, he had gone into details specific to my crystal. He had taught me what he had called Ki Yfti di Prinexha, the Fives of Pyrokinesis. They were: Vepnevito, Tecavosci, Tortempa, Peklormaq, and Wighflagmu, and he'd explained what each entailed and why it was necessary to harness them all. As much as I understood from his explanations, I anglicised the Fives respectively to Prevention, Detection, Protection, Containment, and Extinguishment.

As I sat up on my bed — my bedroom being my only companion at home — I opened my palms and willed them, mentally, to create fire. Two blue flames floated majestically on my palms. I smiled. I no longer needed to think about bad memories to create fire. Testing the waters, I mentally willed the flames to go away and they did, disappearing and not burning anything. I created another fire, elongated it, made a dragon shape, shaped it back to its original form, made a fireball, and then made it go away, again burning nothing. A triumphant smile crept up my lips at the realisation that I now had more control over my power than I may have possibly learned from Herald, who was only half-Asterion. Tevessa taught me six years of knowledge in a single day, and all he'd asked for was Mehjazgeu.