Chapter 39 39: magical potential

------------------------- If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know. Leave a comment; support is always appreciated. I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see. ------------------------------- Jahrdrung-32th-Pflugzeit 13th ,2488 IC Hard days followed once the symptoms began to show. I could smell every metal around me, and no matter how much water I drank or how much I ate, I couldn't get rid of the metallic taste in my mouth. Everything tasted like metal. Everything smelled like it. And the worst part? It only got worse. It wasn't just that I was deforming every metal I touched—now I was also oxidizing it on contact. I turned my chainmail, once a faithful protective layer, into useless junk just by brushing it with my fingers. That's when I started wearing gloves at all times. I tried to carry on as if nothing was happening. But it was useless. I began to feel the presence of nearby metal: a mix of scent and some kind of vibration on my skin told me exactly where every piece of metal was around me. At the military camp, I knew where all my men were because I could feel their pikes shifting, their armor clinking... Even with my eyes closed, I could see the metal floating in the air, like it no longer belonged to them. While jogging, I could feel the recruits drawing closer just from the daggers they had at their belts. When I went to handle my business, I felt a desperate urge to lick the nails the blacksmiths were forging... and for a few seconds, something inside me whispered that I should stick my hands into the forge. That the iron was calling to me. That I had to purify it. That only I could. I resisted, of course. As strong as those urges were. When the day ended, I locked myself in my laboratory, hoping silence and solitude would help... but everything just got worse. All my chemical compounds began calling to me more strongly. I wanted to touch the sulfuric acid, to stick my hands into the furnace. Every fiber of my being begged me to give in. I felt like I was going insane. And just when I thought it would all consume me... it stopped. The metallic smell vanished. The taste in my mouth was gone. I could no longer feel every piece of iron in the castle. I could finally think clearly, and I understood what was happening: the damned Wind of Chamon was wrapping around me... making me sensitive to magic. A potential mage—if trained. The danger I'd been exposed to all day was immense. At any moment, I could've drawn the attention of a daemon... and had it right in front of me, trying to kill me—or worse. Slowly, the sensation began to return. I could feel it creeping back in. There was always this constant tingling in my body, probably from the winds swirling around me. I calmed myself down and tried to stay focused, even as all the strange effects started to come back. But this time, they weren't so overwhelming. Because of that, I decided to isolate myself temporarily, so no one would discover what was happening. This was a serious problem. Being a mage in the Empire meant three options: either you become a wizard and leave everything behind to be locked away in Altdorf, only to be let out when needed... or a witch hunter or priest of Sigmar catches you, and you're forced into the first option—or the pyre, if they mistake your magical gift. And the third option: stay silent, try to suppress it with a charm... or something. But that might also attract a daemon. "Shit," I muttered, rising to my feet in frustration. "Shit... shit... I just started fighting political battles and now this... How the hell am I supposed to show up in court? If I get anywhere near the capital, they'll realize immediately that I have magical potential and force me to take on a regent so I can dedicate myself to study and controlling my magic... which is basically being under the Margrave's custody. But they could still hand over everything I've worked for to my good-for-nothing brother, who's probably at the university waiting for all the gold I've earned to fall into his lap," I said, staring out the window as the sensation surged again. When I finally calmed down and started thinking rationally again, the sensation decreased considerably. "Curious... tied to emotions," I murmured as I mentally analyzed the changes in my senses... noticing that when I switched to an investigative mindset, the effects diminished even further. I spent the next few days in total isolation, trying to figure out how to control, at the very least, my reactions to the Winds of Magic. And I was making progress. At least in keeping calm and containing my reactions... especially while working with pigments. That was when I felt the most focused. Although I kept issuing orders through my guards, the lie—that I was sick—didn't hold up for long. People began asking why I wasn't present during food distributions. Apparently, the peasants were starting to associate my face with free food... which, come to think of it, wasn't a bad thing. But now that I wasn't showing up, it was causing concern. An unexpected reaction. The Temple of Shallya was the first to move. They sent priests to try and heal me... or at least keep me stable through my "illness." They repeatedly asked to be let in, offering healing and care. So I had to change the excuse: now I claimed I'd been injured during training and was recovering. Just enough to get the bothersome Shallyan priests to go pester someone else. As the days passed, it was getting easier to control my abilities... or defects, if that's what they were. I could manage my perception of metals better, as long as I wasn't overwhelmed. I was cautious not to be surrounded by too much metal, but I began getting used to interacting with small amounts. My main focus was not oxidizing anything while handling it without gloves, taking my time. Controlling the tingling in my hands just before touching metal became my top priority. Sometimes I oxidized it a little, sometimes completely... but with enough concentration, I could stop my hands from destroying it on contact. After many failed attempts, I began to improve. I could control the oxidation. I could choose to trigger it... or not. Once I mastered that, I improved in another area as well: I began to suppress my sharpened senses from seeking out metals. I practiced resisting the compulsion my body exerted on its own. Using my limited understanding of how the Winds functioned, I began to fully control the side effects... even suppress them completely. And just as I was trying not to lose control of the Winds of Chamon, another interruption came: something about my maternal grandfather and mother being in town and requesting an immediate audience with me. Honestly, I had no real idea who they even were exactly... but for now, I cared more about mastering my magic than being seen as a heretic. My priority was to disperse the Winds surrounding me, not to become an obvious target for a witch hunter or a Sigmarite priest. The trial-and-error process continued for several more days, until I decided to test whether I could use magic at will. I had already learned to shut the faucet of magic off... now I had to try to open it. Oxidizing something was one thing. Reversing that oxidation was something entirely different. "And I have several dozen kilograms of rusted metal I'd like to repair," I muttered, staring at daggers, swords, and chainmail that had been my test subjects. They had been destroyed by my touch, turned to rust or warped as if melted. But I had no success. Letting the magic pass through me and turn metal to rust was one thing... forcing it to restore that same metal was another. Frustration got the better of me. I lost part of the control I had over sealing the Winds, and the effects came rushing back: the scent of metal, the taste of copper, sensitivity to every metallic object around me. "Oxidation is the loss of electrons. Iron turns into ferric oxide by transferring its charge to oxygen. What has been oxidized can be reduced. I just need to return the electrons... by taking them from the oxygen. This should..." I murmured, placing my hands over the chainmail, focused on what I wanted to achieve. I tried to force the Winds tingling in my hands to obey my will. "It works... it worked," I said, standing up, surprised to see part of the chainmail had returned to its original state. "Excellent... excellent... this means I can... yes, yes, I can apply my knowledge of atoms here... let's go again," I said as I placed my hands on the rusted mail and forced the Wind through my fingers, trying to draw electrons from the oxygen. I could feel energy coursing through my arms, and as I watched, I saw the rust slowly vanish from the metal. Maintaining that sensation in my arms, I continued until the entire chainmail was no longer rusted—even shinier than the day I first used it. "Suck on that... I don't need some damn College of Magic to teach me anything," I said, jumping in excitement. Until the metal started melting in my hands. "No... no... no... I ruined it..." I muttered as I watched nearly the entire chainmail become a dark, dense liquid slipping between my fingers. I tried to gather it, but it was like holding hot, sticky paste that wouldn't stop dripping away. "Shit... lost control... months of a blacksmith's work gone in seconds," I muttered, watching the liquid iron escape my grip with no way to stop it. "Come on... I can do this... iron atoms arrange in a rigid lattice, held by metallic bonds. To liquefy it, I just need to add enough thermal energy to break that structure and allow the atoms to move freely... without losing cohesion... I need to rebuild the rigid structure," I whispered as I started to gather the liquid into an amorphous ball, trying to force the magical energy to restructure the metal. And slowly, I succeeded. ...but the iron was no longer liquid. It was now a solid mass, like metallic clay. As I continued manipulating that iron ball, I noticed it vibrated. It tilted slightly, pulsing in the direction of a piece of charcoal I had near the furnace. Intrigued, I kept the energy flowing through one arm. With the other hand, I picked up the charcoal, brought it closer to the iron, and allowed the energy to circulate between the two materials. "Malleable as clay, but lacking the necessary hardness... Carbon is the key. Its proportion defines the essence of steel: not too soft, not too brittle... two percent would be ideal," I murmured as I slowly merged the materials and began to mold them carefully, feeling something completely new begin to form under my hands. I kept molding until the iron smelled different. And felt different. Thanks to my altered sense of smell, I could distinguish a piece of iron from this new steel I held. The scent was darker, heavier. But just as my excitement began to grow, a brutal wave of exhaustion struck me without warning. I was forced to leave everything for the next day. I placed the steel ball to the side, on the stone table, and went straight to bed without even removing my clothes. I collapsed. Tomorrow, perhaps, I could continue... and keep perfecting my control. ------------------------- If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know. Leave a comment; support is always appreciated. I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see. -------------------------------