>> CHAPTER 07: Telekinesis <<
The sun was still low in the sky, tinting the snow with orange and golden tones. Radan got up early, put on the thick coats he had bought to withstand the intense cold, and headed to the table. With a piece of paper and a quill, he quickly wrote a note for Nightingale:
> "Dear... I'm going to the forest to hunt. Stay safe, I'll be away for a few days. – Radan"
Placing the note on the table and breathing deeply, thinking about what he was going to do and feeling the adrenaline mixed with anxiety. Because the idea of spending a few days alone in the forest, far from the village and any interference, made him excited — but also cautious.
He quickly left the inn, closing the door behind him. The cold air cut his face, but the layer of clothes kept him warm. The wind blew strong, carrying the smell of burned wood and freshly fallen snow. Each step on the fresh snow made a low crunch, breaking the morning silence.
A few minutes later, Radan left the village completely behind. He walked along a narrow trail between snow-covered trees until the view of the roofs and torches of the Frontier Village disappeared. At that point, he stopped for an instant, breathing deeply the icy air of the forest, and said in a low voice to himself:
"Time to see how far I can go today."
With a subtle gesture of the mind, he felt the lightness run through his body. Gradually, his feet lifted off the ground, and he began to glide above the snow. Surprisingly, this time he didn't need to concentrate as much; controlling the flight seemed more natural than the first time.
"Huh… this is getting easier," he murmured, feeling the wind hit against his face. "Maybe my body is starting to understand what my mind wants to do."
While gaining height, he looked at the forest stretching below, covered in white, and then turned his gaze to the distant village, a small spot of light and life in the immensity.
"Far enough not to attract attention… perfect."
He adjusted his posture and began to accelerate, feeling the air slide under his feet and mold to his command.
"Ok, now let's test limits… how far I can go without tiring too much," he murmured, smiling lightly. "And, who knows, discover if there's something more I can do in the air."
The flight made him feel a mixture of freedom and power, and he took advantage of every second to observe how the body responded, mentally analyzing the flow of the wind and his own magical power while cutting through the sky of the forest.
Radan tilted his body forward and increased speed, feeling the air roar around him. The cold wind whipped his face, but, unlike the first attempts, he didn't feel as much effort nor the burning of magical energy as intense.
"It seems that this time it's not sucking so much mana… good sign." He murmured, frowning while feeling every movement of the body in the air. "I think my power depends a lot on my mental state. The first time I flew I was afraid of falling and tense… Now I'm more confident and focused. I'm realizing that the more control and motivation I put into it, the less magical energy I need to spend… at least that's what it seems."
After some analyses. He began to play with the flight itself, executing tight curves between trees, rising in spirals and descending in shallow dives over the snow. A laugh escaped his lips when he spun abruptly in the air, feeling the adrenaline and the sensation of freedom that came with it.
"This… is incredible," he said, letting out a light shout of excitement. "It's like piloting a plane but without a machine… being totally guided only by thought."
While playing in the air, he also analyzed the movements: how the change of direction required less mental effort when he anticipated the physics of the movement, how small corrections were almost automatic, and how the energy floated more smoothly through the body.
"If it continues like this, I can spend hours in the air without feeling as overloaded... Or at least much less than I felt before" He reflected, landing momentarily on a snow-covered trunk to catch his breath.
"I need to explore this more, discover my limits… and how far I can challenge myself without spending everything at once."
Radan smiled to himself, feeling the excitement and freedom that only flying could bring, and then pushed again with mental force, gaining height and speed, ready for a few more acrobatics in the silent forest.
After a few hours of flight.
The cold air began to weigh on his lungs, and the sun was already higher in the sky, tinting the snow with golden and orange tones. Radan slowed down gradually, feeling the wind lose force against his body as he approached the ground.
With a last mental impulse, he touched the soft ground of the forest, letting out a light sigh of relief. The silence around was deep, broken only by the cracking of branches under his boots and the occasional rustling of the trees.
He looked around, assessing the terrain. The forest stretched dense in front of him, perfect for exploring, hunting and, of course, training his powers more without interruptions.
Radan smiled lightly, feeling his body warmed by the adrenaline and the cold at the same time.
"Good… now it's time to set up a shelter. I can't spend the night exposed to the snow," he murmured, examining some dry branches scattered on the ground.
He bent down and picked up a branch, twirling it between his fingers while thinking aloud:
"If I can organize this right, I can create something resistant… an igloo that withstands wind and cold. Not bad to start."
Picking up another branch, he continued: "And meanwhile, I can use it to test my telekinetic control. The more precise I am, the less energy I spend… That's what I want to discover."
He breathed deeply, looking at the sky between the trees. "Let's see if I can turn this forest into my own training field… at least for a few days."
Radan began to work with concentration, molding blocks of snow with his telekinesis. Each piece moved smoothly through the air, fitting exactly where he wanted, as if he were both the sculptor and the invisible force that sustained the entire structure. He compacted and rounded the snow, reinforcing each wall while the shape of the igloo took form. In a few minutes, a perfect dome began to emerge, firm and resistant, capable of protecting from the cutting wind and the snow that still fell incessantly outside.
He took a few steps inside, examining the space. Smiling lightly, he murmured: "Perfect… enough to spend the night without turning into a popsicle."
Next, he picked up some nearby dry branches, holding them in alternate hands. He closed his eyes and concentrated, moving the air around the branches at high speed with his telekinesis. Small sparks appeared, and quickly a flame began to form, growing until the branches caught fire completely.
The heat spread through the igloo, making the environment cozy and comfortable. Radan breathed deeply, feeling the contrast between the intense cold outside and the pleasant warmth inside the shelter.
"This… this is much more efficient than trying to light a fire with stone and twigs," he commented to himself, observing the flames dance. "And without spending almost any energy. It seems I'm starting to understand better how to control the power precisely."
He adjusted the position of the flaming branches, creating an improvised circle so that the heat spread evenly, taking advantage of every small detail to make his shelter more comfortable and safe.
"Great, now I won't worry about spending the night anymore," murmured Radan, a light satisfied smile appearing on his face while observing the heat spread through the igloo.
"But now I can finally do what I came here for… test my limits," he added, leaving the improvised shelter and looking at the silent forest around him.
The cold wind made the snowflakes dance through the air, but he barely felt the temperature, concentrated on what was to come.
Closing his eyes, Radan inhaled deeply and rose a few meters above the ground. Feeling the magical power pulsing in his body, and flowing like a river of force ready to be released. With a mental gesture, he began to concentrate his telekinesis in all directions around him, visualizing the space, the trunks, the snow, any nearby object.
"Let's see how far I can go…," he murmured, and then opened his eyes and shouted:
"— Shinra Tensei!"
An overwhelming impulse of energy erupted from his body. The nearby trees were uprooted from the ground and thrown far away as if they were mere twigs. The snow exploded in white clouds that danced in chaotic whirlwinds, and branches and stones were hurled in all directions. The ground shook violently, opening small cracks in the earth, while a destructive wind swept everything around. The forest seemed to have been devastated by a sudden cataclysm, and even the sky seemed to resonate with the impact of the telekinetic force.
Radan arched his eyebrows, feeling his body tremble under the force of his own power. The igloo, his improvised shelter, resisted only because he had concentrated the minimum energy necessary to protect that area. For a few instants, he stayed suspended in the air, looking at the destruction he had caused with a mixture of awe and adrenaline.
He breathed deeply, trying to recover control of his body. "Alright… this used about 70% of my energy. It's… more than anything I've tried before…" He murmured, his voice low, almost tense.
Suddenly, he felt his strength waver. The energy push had taken a higher toll than he imagined. His arms trembled, his legs failed, and he lost control of the altitude. For an anguishing instant, his body began to plummet towards the igloo, almost colliding with the roof of branches he had carefully assembled. With a desperate effort, he managed to use the last threads of telekinetic force to brake the fall, landing with a heavy thud beside the shelter's entrance.
Radan panted, his hands supported on his knees, his heart racing. The adrenaline still ran through his body, and his gaze, although determined, reflected the shock of having experienced such power for the first time.
"Wow… that was… too destructive," he murmured, still catching his breath. "If I use that much force again… I might end up with the entire forest… or worse… with myself."
Radan stayed a few seconds in the air, breathing deeply while observing the damage he had caused. Fallen trees, shallow craters in the snow-covered ground and fragments of branches scattered everywhere. A true field of destruction.
"Ok… now let's see the opposite of this." He raised his hand slowly, the palm facing down. A light tremor ran through the ground and, one by one, the fallen trunks began to move. The air around them rippled, and the pieces of wood were lifted as if floating in zero gravity.
Radan frowned, maintaining focus. "Let's see how far I can hold…"
Five trunks… ten… fifteen. The mental weight increased with each one that joined in the air. The veins in his neck began to bulge, but he maintained control. Twenty-three trunks floated now around him, spinning slowly.
"Twenty-three… not bad." He let out a tired smile. "But I can feel the limit coming."
"Let's go to the next test now." He says making the trunks spin at high speed, as if transforming them into an invisible lathe. Then he applied opposite forces at specific points: an effort that held and spun the trunk, another that impelled a controlled laterality. The result was directed friction — the bark and outer fibers scraped against the movement itself, coming out in thin chips.
Radan thought like an engineer: instead of cutting, he was wearing down the wood by controlled friction, tapering the ends with millimetric precision. Pieces of sawdust and chips flew through the air with a dry, constant sound — shhh, shhh, shhh — until the tips narrowed into long, cutting points.
Radan was using the same principles of a lathe process, only moved by the mind, with telekinetic force using:
Rotation + lateral pressure + control of the contact point.
Finally he lowered his hand, and each trunk was driven deeply into the snow, forming a defensive circle around the igloo. A true ring of improvised stakes.
He landed softly, observing satisfied the work. "Perfect. This way no demonic beast will want to approach... At least not a small one."
The wind blew again, lifting snow around the newly created barrier. Radan crossed his arms, analyzing the result like an engineer in front of a fortification.
"Functional, resistant and efficient. I think I just invented the first telekinetic defense system in this world," he commented with a tired but satisfied smile.
He then continued to the next test.
Where he quickly chose a thick trunk, one of the largest that remained after the "Shinra Tensei". He rested his hand on the bark for a second and feeling the fiber and humidity. He thought quickly: he needed to test two very distinct things:
Controlled pressure and Localized vibration
He breathed deeply and spoke low, like someone setting up an experiment:
"First: Press."
He closed his eyes and concentrated. Instead of pushing outward like before, he imagined two converging forces — one at the tip of the trunk, another at the opposite tip. Mentally then he defined the contact point.
Because he didn't want to crush the wood by brute force anywhere, but rather compress uniformly until it gave way, like a hydraulic press.
The sensation this time different from the push — it wasn't a single wave that dragged, it was continuous pressure applied in opposite directions.
He immediately felt a "tension" in the air around the trunk, as if compressing the column of air between invisible hands. Gradually the trunk began to thin; the fibers, subjected to compression, approached and the diameter decreased.
The barks roared violently and internal sections creaked under continuous deformations.
Radan maintained the growing force in measured steps, monitoring the reaction. Internally he thought like an engineer:
Wood has resistance to compression and buckling. If the load was applied unevenly, the trunk would bend and break in flexion. And if applied uniformly, it would yield by crushing, compressing the fibers until they fragmented.
Then when the pressure reached the critical point, the trunk failed at once — dry snap and compressed fibers exploded in chips. Wood and sap jumped out, and part of the trunk crumbled into two pieces. Radan released the force slowly, letting the fragments float until they touched the ground.
He exhaled, feeling the expenditure. "This was mentally quite tiring and the consumption of magical power was also quite high." He murmured, still analyzing the chips on the ground.
"It seems that exerting continuous pressure consumes less at once, but requires much finer control."
Leaving that aside, next he took another larger piece and thought about the second test. This would be more... subtle — and more dangerous if misused.
"Second experiment: Vibration."
He positioned the trunk in the center of a small clearing. Instead of applying static force, he began to send short and rhythmic pulses of telekinesis — first slow, then faster and faster. The sensation was similar to creating waves in the air; with the difference that it didn't push away but made the material oscillate.
Radan remembered physics concepts that still made sense: every body has natural frequencies. If you apply oscillation at the right frequency, the vibrations add up — resonance — and the amplitude grows until the structure can't take it anymore.
He then began to test it in steps: low frequency — the trunk shook; medium frequency — micro-cracks appeared; and by increasing the rate, the creaks became strident.
Gradually, he noticed small cracks coming out of the bark. Where the wood already had imperfections, the vibrations concentrated in local tensions and the cracks opened. Increasing the intensity and deepening the frequency; the wood went from cracking to a kind of continuous moan.
At one moment, there was a sharp sound:
"BOOM!"
A muffled burst was heard, and the trunk disintegrated into thin chips and dust, as if it had been ground internally.
Radan felt his body vibrate along; the waves he sent returned in the form of pressure in his head and hands. The consumption of magical power was higher than he thought.
"Vibration seems to consume a lot of magical power to maintain the energy drop and the pulse coherence." He touched his forehead, with a buzzing in his ears.
But despite that Radan laughed softly, half exhausted and half excited. "Different tools for different problems. Pressure to crush structures, vibration to disintegrate without direct contact."
Carefully, he used the little energy left to pull close to the sharpened stakes the large trunks that remained, planning new defenses... And already noting mentally the energy costs and limitations like:
Fine control required calm; large effects cost a lot.
From his studies, telekinesis was similar to a machine — efficient when well adjusted, dangerous when forced.
He looked around, seeing the clearing marked by the tests. The instrument had responded to his demands, and he began to understand that, more than brute power, that was a set of tools.
Now he just needed to learn to use each one without paying too high a price in magical power.
"I think that's enough for today…" he murmured tired. "If I continue, I might faint before trying new experiments."
He then walked slowly to the igloo, while the snow fell in slow flakes, gradually covering the marks of destruction in the place.
...