Guide Souls: Chronicles

Over the next year, Xing acted as if he were possessed. Besides doing what needed to be done to keep his body functioning: eat, sleep, expel waste; he spent every minute of every day doing one of three things.

Firstly, he continued his Warrior training with his mother and cousin. Xing was determined not to become like those detestable Shamans, lazying around within the tribe, he wanted to be in the thick of things, 'what use is a new life if you don't make the most of it?' he thought.

Training his body seemed important to him, even if he was a Mage. The stronger your body was, the more Mana you could absorb per day would be- at least he assumed that it would be the case. It made sense to Xing if a body was well trained and maintained it would be tougher and would be less stressed when storing Mana.

The weapons training was also useful, knowing how to wield each weapon as if it were an extension of your own arm was helpful and it would be in the long run. Even though the weapons were crude stone age equivalents, being able to know about them would still filter down into other weapons of the future.

Taking the opportunity to spar against his mother also increased his battle sense, and knowing what to do and when to do it in each given situation during a fight.

The second thing Xing was doing during the year was broadening his understanding of both the Light and Dark Element, as-well-as the abilities they bestowed.

Light's ability was easy to understand as it only gave him passive self-healing, affectedly speeding up his bodies natural healing process. Something that came of a surprise was that this self-healing was indeed constant and it affected everything, including his muscles. So Xing found that he could last even longer doing just about anything, he could train longer, he could fight longer, and found that he required less sleep which gave him more time during the day.

What gave him trouble was the Dark Element's ability. While walking into shadows to mask his presence sounded easy, Xing just did not seem to have the patience to skulk about silently within the shadows. It felt as if his very being denied and disdained the notion of stealth in general as if it were beneath him to do as such.

Xing told his family that he was not cut out to be sneaky which got him a laughing fit from Lei who practically rolled around the floor laughing, "Hahahahahaha, the star is realizing that it can't be sneaky! Hahahaha! That is just too funny! Hey Star, if you want to be sneaky you have to become a Blackstar! Pfft." She was, of course, just ignored.

Xing started feeling that the Dreams from his previous world were the cause for this presence of mind, 'Those Dreams are starting to affect my personality, from the ones I remember the people within seemed to all be head-strong, they were focused, commanded respect in whatever position they were in. It is likely that my soul itself has an overreaching personality that bleeds down into each life, but because I can remember former lives I'm able to notice it affecting me and fight against the effect."

Xing started realizing that he would have a choice to make soon in regards to what to do about the mixing personality. Either give in and allow it to change him or continue fighting against it and keep his- average student from the 21st Century personality.

The ability to shift through shadows was welcomed, however. Being able to practically teleport around the battlefield was intoxicating not to mention incredibly useful. The only thing that took some getting used to was that the ability required you to 'fall' into the shadows, the feeling of falling was incredibly discomforting for Xing.

The third thing Xing did over the year and the one he spent the most time on was learning all there was to know about Spell-Models, more specifically researching how to make them through trial and error.

He went all over the tribe visiting Shamans, as-well-as discussing with his father; anyone who had experience with creating Spell-Models or at least knew some of the language used, even if only fragments, were visited multiple times.

There was so much to learn, it was times like these where he wished that there was easy access to writing material. Beast-skins were only used for the most important of tribal knowledge, they weren't for personal use since the majority of required skin was used to make leather items.

Xing had quickly learned how to cast Magic Missile from the Spell-Model he received from his father, repeating it over and over until he could cast it in less than a second. He went further than that though; by using the information gathered from different Shaman he took apart the Model figuring out which each letter, rune, shape, and symbol did.

His previous assumption proved to be correct in his thinking that it was similar to computer programming, where the Mana was just performing a set of actions based on what you gave it. The simple Magic Missile when broken down roughly translated into; Mana pack together, coalesce into an arrow-shaped projectile, and then accelerate forward. With a few adjustments you could have the Mana formed into a spear which travels backward, useless, but it gets the point across. There were also many variables that could be changed: size, shape, acceleration, max velocity, and many others; of course changing these also increased or decreased Mana cost and cast-time.

With some fiddling around Xing eventually formed his own version of the Magic Missile Spell-Model. This new version was able to be drawn faster, resulting in a shorter cast-time, and his crowning achievement: the ability to incorporate either his Light or Dark Element into the spell, becoming a sort-of Light Missile or Dark Missile. Besides changing the color to a bright white or dull black, they both had new effects.

The Dark Missile had the least change, it was a basic Magic Missile colored black. The only difference was that it was silent and more opaque; it was perfect for sneak attacks as one would not be able to see or hear it coming unless one saw the caster beforehand.

On the other hand, the Light Missile turned weird. While it looked the same as a Magic Missile, just colored white, it no longer did any damage. When Xing excitedly tried it on a target dummy the result was nothing, literally nothing at all.

'Why did nothing happen? It worked for the Dark Element, so why not Light?' Xing thought long and hard about this dilemma over a few weeks until he had an epiphany one night while he was training how to stick to the shadows and silently cast Dark Missile.

'My Dark Missile follows along with what I already know about the Dark Element and imitates the ability it gave me: to hide. Following that logic shouldn't that Light Missile follow the same principle? What do I know currently know about Light?'

The following day he figured out just what his Light Missile did; while nothing happened when it hit a non-living target, hitting a living target infused it with Light and healed any minor damage done, scratches and bruises mainly.

When his father saw the spell he was over-the-moon with jubilation. Shouting, "Our tribe finally has a healing spell! How long have I wanted one of these!" Thanking his son for the achievement and exhorting him to continue working hard, Zheng ran out to teach the most trustworthy the Spell-Model and to set up a healing unit both within the tribe, and the army.

After his successful tinkering with a preexisting spell he finally got down to the real deal and started designing his own spells, and he started with something simple and useful.

What he achieved after a few months of designing and testing was a very simple Flash spell, which as one might imagine caused a bright flash. This spell was incredibly useful for Xing, and it had been one of the first he thought of when he knew of his control over shadows. If this spell was well placed he would be able to make artificial shadows to make quick escapes, of course, the spell could also just be used to blind enemies as-well.

He also tried developing a spell to incorporate his extensive Warrior training and put it to good use by using Mana and the Elements to make weapons, but he still didn't have much success. The most he could do was create a tiny blade of energy which ate through his Mana reserves so it was quite useless, and would only see use it the direst of situation. He aptly named the Spell-Model: Mana Dagger.

It was also during this time that he accidentally infused Light and Dark together resulting in a clash which left him devoid of all Mana and in complete agony for a week; it was as if he were being punished for breaking the laws of the world. He did notice, however, that the combining of the two gave off a powerful aura so he noted that it was an avenue of future research.

Apart from these three things he also made sure to keep a close eye on Lei's improvement. He had enough of her thrashing ever since she turned 10 and acquired her Element, especially when it used to be him thrashing her when they were younger. Now that he had an Element they were on the same playing field, and Xing believed it would only be a matter of time before it was him beating her down once again, paying her back for everything she has done.

And it was getting close to the time where he would challenge her…