Reaching the age of six for the nth time is an exercise in cosmic patience. The body finally reaches a point of functionality where the mind no longer feels like a deity imprisoned in a noisy, leak-prone potato. The fingers obey with some precision, the legs can run without the imminent threat of gravitational betrayal, and the vocabulary expands beyond grunts and monosyllabic demands.
It is the golden age of childhood, where curiosity is encouraged and difficult questions about the nature of reality are still considered cute. For me, it was the start of phase two: reclaiming control over my own existence, which until then had consisted of being cute in exchange for food and not being left for the wolves. A fair deal, I suppose, but with dreadful renewal terms.
Morgana had taught me the grammar of this world's magic, the syntax of runes. But I could feel the river of power within me, my Qi, flowing without a proper riverbed. It was like having a reservoir of pure, crystalline water, but only cracked, porous earthen channels to transport it. Too much was lost, too much evaporated to no effect. It was time to reinforce the banks, stone by stone. It was time to begin my true work: Cultivation.
That morning, while the dew still clung to the leaves like tiny jewels and the air smelt of clean, damp earth, I sat in the centre of the clearing. Legs crossed in a half-lotus, spine straight as a spear, hands cupped over my newly awakened Dantian. I ignored the morning bleating of the goats, who seemed to be in a heated debate about the quality of the hay, and the smug clucking of the chickens, who acted as if they had just invented the very concept of an egg. The outside world faded away. I began the foundational breathing cycle, the first lesson I learned ten thousand lifetimes ago in a frozen monastery atop a mountain in Shénvara.
[Reminder: in life 7,834, you skipped this stage to attempt mastery of the 'Void Blade' prematurely. The result was an international incident involving the accidental disintegration of a small moon and a very embarrassing apology to the sentient slug civilization that inhabited it.]
I was so immersed in the slow process of guiding the first threads of Qi through my childish meridians that I didn't hear her approach. I only felt a shift in the clearing's atmosphere, her calm, heavy presence settling near me like a comforting shadow. I continued my meditation, completing three more full breathing cycles. When I finally opened my eyes, Morgana was sitting cross-legged in front of me, a few feet away, watching not with suspicion, but with a deep, quiet curiosity. Her hands rested on her knees, and she looked less like a guardian and more like a scholar.
"You do this every morning," she said, her voice low so as not to break the stillness. It wasn't an accusation; it was a precise observation. "With the same discipline as a soldier honing his blade before a battle. What are you doing, little star?"
I chose my words with the care of an architect. The truth, but not the whole truth. "I had an idea," I began, looking down at my small hands. "You taught me that magic is a river that runs through the world. And that we borrow it, divert it when we need to. But... it feels inefficient."
She raised an eyebrow. "Inefficient?"
"Yes. It's like going to the well with a bucket every time you're thirsty. It's a waste of energy. What if, instead of just diverting the water when we need it, we taught our bodies to be like the earth itself? To absorb the rain, to have its own underground streams, to maintain an internal reservoir. So that magic becomes part of us, like blood and bone. So that body and power are a single thing, not a master and its reluctant servant."
[Analogy: adequate. Probability of conceptual acceptance: 92%. Would increase to 95% if you were to add a thoughtful hand gesture and gaze enigmatically at the horizon.]
Morgana was silent for a long moment, her gaze distant, as if she were searching through a library of old memories and knowledge. "What you describe… this philosophy of unity, of internalising power… it is not unknown in this world."
She leaned forward. "Far from here, on the archipelago of Ionia. There, spiritual practitioners 'dance' with magic. There are monks who channel the spirit of the dragon into their fists. There are blade-dancers who move with the will of the wind. And there are the Vastaya, beings who are the fusion of magic and flesh. For them, there is no separation." Every word she spoke was a balm, a confirmation. An entire place. An entire civilization that didn't need to apologise for existing as I did.
[Destination 'Ionia' logged. Shall I begin compiling data on travel routes, dialects, and etiquette protocols to avoid diplomatic incidents such as the 'Silver Fork Misunderstanding' in the court of Glarth-7?]
"It is a dangerous idea," Morgana added, bringing me back to the present. "To merge with wild magic can make you forget where you end and the world begins. I have seen souls dissolve that way. But your… idea… it seems more structured, more controlled."
"I need a stronger body for it," I said, with complete honesty. "The vessel must be strong and tempered to hold the water, otherwise it cracks."
And so began our hybrid training. Every morning, the clearing became our private dojo. I would guide her through my breathing and meditation exercises to feel the Qi. It was fascinating and a little comical to watch an entity of her power and age struggling with concepts that were the bedrock of my existence, trying not to hold her breath for too long or get distracted by the buzzing of a bee.
"It's like… wiping dust from an internal mirror I didn't even know was dirty," she confessed once after a long session, her violet eyes clearer than usual. "I can feel my own magic more… purely. Less clouded by pain and anger."
In exchange for my teachings on the 'inner river', she became my alchemist for the outer body. I would describe the properties of the body-strengthening herbs I knew, and she, with her near-infinite botanical knowledge, would find their Runeterran equivalents, often improving the recipe with local ingredients. We spent entire afternoons crushing Demacian Iron-root and mixing it with Silver-birch sap, creating a dark, pungent paste that stained the hands.
"Are you absolutely certain about this?" she asked the first time she saw me apply the sticky paste to my skin before stepping into the icy mountain stream.
"Pain is a sign that it's working," I explained, shivering involuntarily at the shock of the cold water.
[Pain also serves as a crucial warning mechanism against tissue damage. A design flaw that has kept you alive on 4,312 separate, documented occasions.]
She stayed by my side through the whole process, sitting on a rock, a silent sentinel with a thick woollen towel in her hands. Her presence, her quiet trust in my bizarre methods, was a weight both heavier and warmer than any blanket.
The months passed in a routine of shared discipline. My childish body began to change, gaining a subtle but noticeable density. Morgana, for her part, seemed more… present. The melancholy in her eyes didn't vanish, it was too deep a part of her, but it was as if the fog were lifting, allowing more light to pass through.
One afternoon, while we were practising energy circulation sitting back-to-back to feel each other's subtle vibrations, I made a small, novice's mistake. Impatient, I forced the flow of Qi a little too hard through a still-developing meridian, and a thread of energy escaped my control, buzzing in the air like an irritated, silver bee. Before I could recapture it with a correction cycle, I felt Morgana's magic move. Not to attack or block, but to… envelop. Her dark magic, which had always felt so heavy and sad, acted like velvet, calming my rogue Qi and guiding it gently, persuasively, back to me.
I gasped, breaking my meditation. "How did you do that?"
I felt her shoulders move as she shrugged. "Your breathing technique. It doesn't just clean the mirror, it also teaches the hand to be gentler with what it reflects. I felt your energy stray, and I… just guided it back home."
It was a level of control and magical empathy I had rarely seen. In Shénvara, a mistake like that would have been met with brute force, a wall of energy to block and dissipate it. Her approach was different. It was restorative. It was like mending a loose thread instead of cutting the whole cloth.
[Record: synergy observed between cultivation techniques and Runeterran runic magic. Potential for hybrid technique development: extremely high.]
"Let's try again," she said, her voice calm and steady behind me. "But slower, this time. Don't force the river. Just gently show it the path."
I closed my eyes and began again, feeling her constant, reassuring presence at my back. The energy flowed more smoothly this time, as if it had learned from the previous mistake. Our training was no longer just about power. It was about trust. I trusted her to catch me if I fell, and she trusted me not to blow up our home.
It was a good start.