Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"Come on! Tired already? You need to enhance your stamina using mana, it isn't complicated, just think really hard about it!" a somewhat peculiar, yet common scene was playing out in the middle of a gorgeous plain of green grass, wind sweeping across it, making the few trees scattered across its surface sing a hymn of nature.

"L-Lizi… It isn't as simple as you say! And shouldn't you go easier on me? This is training, not the daily beating session!"

"What's the difference?" Lizi laughed at her own joke, tapping the wooden sword against the palm of her hand.

"I assure it is necessary, and perfectly conducive to your success that I hit you repeatedly with this wooden sword, you said it yourself! That other realm is fraught with danger, if you want to have a chance to princess carry that girl you like, you'll have to fight and, probably, get beaten up in the process as well! This is for your own good, and if you don't want to get it, then dodge!" she swung her wooden sword again, hitting the unsuspecting Griar right in the thigh, causing him to fall over and roll down into the grass, down a small slope.

Lizi scratched her nose.

"I do that everyday and you still fall for it, can you imagine if I wasn't holding a wooden sword?"

"Well… That's because you're my sister! Am I supposed to be on guard around you?!"

"Obviously, I hit you by surprise in the same exact spot everyday! Stop being so damned trusting! I learned this lesson on the first try with Auntie Antieeld- Maybe I should ask Auntie Antieeld to give you a few lessons?" the eldest child of the family rubbed her chin in thought as Griar suddenly rose up despite the pain still coursing through him for the sneak attack.

"Wait! I… I think I would prefer it if you did not do that!" spoke Griar with a wry smile, the only boy of the family was still sixteen, six years younger than his eldest sister, still, he was already a whole head taller than her and had absurdly wide shoulders, if not his eyes that were mired with softness of youth, he would look like a fully grown man.

A grown man that can't grow a proper beard or moustache, but a grown man nonetheless.

They are rather good genes in the family in general, all of the children had grown up to be good-looking and to be taller than the average, which was only to be expected considering that both of their parents were goliaths, tall masses of muscle.

Though, despite the herculean physiques of their parents, only Griar seemed to be striving to achieve such a body, Lizi was instead trying to be like Antieeld, with a slicker build built for speed more-so than power, whilst the other sisters were more focused on being mages overall, and thus ended up much less brawny than their mother.

Although no one would like getting into a fist fight with any of them, they were all abnormally strong still.

"Why not? Sure, Auntie Antieeld is a bit harsh in her training, but it's tough love, I mean look at me, I can decapitate a giant bear in a single swing now! She is very effective as a teacher"

"Perhaps, but…"

"Alright, alright! Listen closely then…"

"...Although you fall for my tricks every single time, it's true that you have pretty combat instincts overall, and your strength is certainly higher than main, but you are seriously lagging behind in the finer aspects of energy manipulation, you know a few spells, sure, but those are spells from someone else, energy manipulation isn't a rigid way of power, imagination and reflexion are at its core, you aren't supposed to emulate how others cast spells, that's only for beginners, you need to freely wield it in your own way" Lizi began explaining.

"You have an affinity for wind magic, it's a pretty strong element, you know? It can do all sorts of things without requiring the user to be a grandmaster, the wind being gentle or fierce are both inherent to its nature, so dosing the amount of strength is also surprisingly easy with it, that's unlike fire magic for example, fire spreads and consumes things, it isn't known to ever go easy on things… Do you see what I mean?"

"Wind will bend to your will with greater ease than most other elements, check this out" Lizi pointed at a random rock protruding from the ground, and unsheathed her sword, her real sword.

And after a few seconds of maintaining the same position, she launched a blade of wind that sliced the rock in half cleanly.

"See? I don't even have any affinity for it, but I was still able to manifest a wind spell without much problem, for you, this should be even easier- An affinity might not mean much, but when you only have one, and it is a rather strong affinity at a that, you should focus on becoming closer with that one particular element!"

"Tell me, how do you circulate your inner energies? What do you visualise?"

Griar blinked a few times, actually not expected that Lizi could just dish out a wind slash like this.

"I make the mana circulate by following my blood…"

Lizi lightly hit him over the head with the flat side of her sword.

"That's the basic method, it's fine to do this if you are a purely close-range fighter, I suppose, but you want to use your wind magic more like mom does, right?"

"Yes…"

"Then you shouldn't circulate your energy like this, close your eyes…"

"..."

"Why aren't you closing your eyes-? I won't hit you by surprise, trust me, just close them!"

"Alright, now visualise the inside of your body like it's a… A maze would be good, instead of following the travel of blood, the inside of your body is actually mostly hollow and filled with paths leading to all of its corners- Do you visualise that? Now, imagine that your inner mana isn't actually inner mana, but wind, it is wind and it is travelling through the paths, wind is free and untethered, it will go wherever it pleases normally, but it isn't normal wind, it is your wind, so you decide where it goes…"

Lizi channelled some mana into her eyes to peer what Griar's inner energy.

"Hey nice, you're pretty good at following instructions, aren't you? Keep going like that! Make sure that your mental image has paths leading to every part of your body, and remember, exits can open up into that maze wherever you want- Want to fire a wind blast from your back? Open an exit in the path that goes through there, want to fully focus on physical augmentation? Imagine that walls are completely sealed and unbreakable, make the paths tighter to condense the winds…"

"Now we're getting somewhere!"