Looping Hearts

Chapter 27 - Seeing the end of it

 The latter immediately lost all his enthusiasm.

« - It's... it's not really a forbidden spell but it can have repercussions so generally it's best to avoid it. But hey, I'd rather teach you just in case you understand? You never know. »

Jimin nodded.

« - And in the end I'll teach you a bit of defense, we haven't really done any... There are counter-spells for some things, but we will focus on the death one, that's the most important by far. »

This spell made Jimin uncomfortable. If although forbidden, giving life was possible, why would taking it back not be?! He had just never thought about it and felt a little nauseous now. He did not say a word, however, and the two men eventually fell asleep that night after talking for long minutes.

When they resumed training, Jimin realized that Taehyung had not lied to him. The spells he learned were really a lot more complicated, and he had a harder time executing them. Using wind was ultimately the ability that required the least effort. There was plenty of wind on Lyka, and the more wind there was, the easier it was to use it. Soon he was able to cut twigs in two, then leaves, young sprouts, branches and eventually trunks. When he managed to make a consequent scratch in stone, Taehyung stopped this training to switch to another. There was no need to bother wasting time learning how to cut a stone when he could just smash it against the ground to make several weapons or projectiles of quality.

Then came the turn of earth and water. Taehyung made him start with water for practical reasons, mainly because water was less heavy than earth and because it was much easier to extract than earth that encountered strong resistance on its way. Taking out a significant amount of water from the river and levitating it was not really a problem for Jimin, but rather how to give enough strength and speed to this liquid mass to inflict damage when projected against something. He lost consciousness once, scaring Taehyung who had cried a little that day, but did not let himself get down and trained even harder to make his body gain strength. If it took him three weeks to do something rather decent, it took him almost two months to start doing anything with earth. Losing patience, unable to get large blocks of soil out of the ground, he eventually abandoned this idea and focused on his speed of extraction of smaller masses instead. No need for huge blocks to hurt, a small amount well-used could be just as fatal.

After that, Taehyung forced him to a semi-break during which Jimin hardly used his energy but still learned a few techniques of defense and camouflage. The latter asked a lot from his body, he had to spare it and let it recover before starting anything else. Especially since what came next was going to be anything but pleasant.

To both men's surprise, invisibility did not pose a problem to Jimin at first. It only took him a few weeks to master the art and be able to evaporate a few quick seconds. Taehyung could disappear six seconds at most, and often had to wait three minutes to do it again. This was Jimin's model, the goal he tried to reach. But it was when he had reached three seconds and had to wait about two minutes to start again that he hit a wall. He made no further progress from that moment, no matter how many days he spent trying to improve. After many vain attempts, the two men decided to give up and move on. After all, three seconds were still an asset.

« - How are you going to teach me how to kill? There's only the two of us here... »

Taehyung winced, he definitely did not like to hear such words come out of Jimin's mouth. He ignored it, however, and offered him his best smile.

« - We'll do this on me. »

« - WHAT? » Jimin exclaimed, his eyes almost coming out of their sockets. « I hope you're joking right now! »