Goan. The Transferred Power. Vol 1.

Chapter 8. The Beginning of a New Phase.

In the camp of the forest patrollers.

With sadness in his countenance, Seip concluded his story to Leiza about how the great rebel group gradually dissolved after Fyrod's betrayal.

-We could not overcome the death of our leader, the lack of cohesion within the group ended up weakening us too much. Small subgroups were formed, some of which rushed to organize an immediate offensive towards the kingdom, getting easily crushed. Many others, who remained still active, began to be persecuted relentlessly by the royal guards. That manhunt did not end until the King felt satisfied and declared the rebellion dead. Some of us only survived because we gave up the cause; we considered more important to devote our existence to attainable goals, rather than to die participating in such an unequal and futile war. Without Rioya, the alliance with the stone men ended, they returned to the forest to protect the order and harmony in it. I built this camp after I tried to do something of value and, together with my companion Dartio, formed the project I always wanted to create to prove to myself that I could be more than just a lucky person who had a potion.

-Did you drink a potion like Mity and Luespo?

-Yes, only that mine contained the power of the incandescent arms, and not the ability to become gigantic.

-Did you know beforehand the power you would get by taking that potion?

-I did. I was able to choose the one I liked the most from several options, something that I never imagined would be a possible scenario a long time ago. Potions are very expensive items and my family didn't have a lot of resources. Thanks to the fact that my father was the soldier responsible for saving a member of the royalty in an attempted assassination raid, he was offered a potion as a reward, which he preferred to give to his teenage son in order for him to become a much better warrior than his father could ever be. I consumed the liquid from the bottle that allowed me to sprout incandescent arms from my back. With that I went from being a mediocre fighter to becoming the most feared of my entire training group. Very quickly, the level of respect and opportunities given to me was very different. That potion changed my life, but it also made me feel guilty about it.

-Are you crazy? What fault could you have had in that?

-That' s a good question. I was never the most outstanding student at the academy. There were fellow classmates with remarkable innate abilities who dedicated their entire existence to training. They were far superior to me, but the potion made me jump in line and surpass them. Not because of my effort or talent, but because I was lucky enough to take it. I was the only one who could leave the group, all those people I met at that time ended up stuck in the lower levels of the militia, as new recruits with Goan in them were always coming up to surpass them quickly. I realized that remaining stagnant would have been my fate had I not had that stroke of luck. Nevertheless, I was soon surprised when I moved up the ranks in the military to find that having taken a potion was a minor thing for some people. Those of us who did not receive a direct transfer from Goan were seen as inferior fighters, never comparable to them. I felt I didn't belong in either world. Thanks to the power of a potion, I surpassed the group of students I grew up with, but I couldn't match up to a different group of people who had access to something even better. The key to economic, social or physical power was always linked to the Goan.

-What do you mean by a direct transfer of Goan? -Leiza asked intrigued.

-In the beginning, the original heirs of Goan, Adorisse and Bopo, transferred it by placing their hand on the person's body. This allowed the power to arrive in a more abundant state, although with greater difficulty to control it. When Bopo switched to the model of transmission by potions, the amount contained was diminished. The Goan is a resource capable of being shaped on three levels: destruction, regeneration and creation. The potential in it grows as you advance in level. In essence it is not very different from the most important element on this planet: water. The easiest thing you can do with both resources is to destroy; the destruction level does not require much skill, just a large volume of the element. A tide can wipe out everything in its path, but that's not even close to the best that water has to offer. The second level is regeneration, where both Goan and water manage to preserve life. This level does not require as much volume of the element, but a better knowledge of how and where to use it. Finally, the ultimate expression is found in its capacity to create; this is the third level of Goan. Only water has the virtue of creating life, and whoever completely masters the Goan is capable of generating things with a minimum depletion of its power. The greatest exponents can create variations in size, produce fire, wind, ice or earth at will, and if they wish, cause four incandescent arms to sprout from their back. But don't be fooled, just because I can do the latter doesn't mean I've mastered the third level. It means that Bopo, the original heir, ended up discovering that the only way to transfer a smaller amount of Goan into a potion was by isolating a specific ability from the creation phase. Therefore, those of us who drink it, deplete our Goan at a slower rate, although the downside is that we cannot use techniques unrelated to our ability, because our Goan reserves are very low. Releasing power at a destructive or regenerative level would soon deplete them.