Triiffic-Soul: Can I Be In Control?

Chapter 14 – Mystery of Manipulation

“Yawn, have fun you two!” Anna yelled out, as Jen and George slowly walked away from the house. It was a new day and Anna was very happy to be alone to experiment further.

Jen replied, “We will, but rest a bit if you're still tired.”

George yelled back as well, “Exactly, you are still growing, you need all the rest that is required!” 

“What… your father said, now bye, we love you. See you later.” Jen waved goodbye and Anna was left home alone.

Many kids went with their parents to help on the farms. They didn’t do much besides carry a few things and maybe dig a hole or two, but Jen and George decided to wait a bit before forcing Anna to help. They wanted her to explore and play more before having to start to do any work.

[Well, they’re gone.] (Red)

[Let’s continue from where we left off last night.] (White)

[Soul Space… or Body?] (Lilly)

[Soul Space is better for decision, we can switch to the body when we are actually testing.] (White)

The conversation continued from last night and started from exactly where they left off. Debating what attributes to hide and what to show.

Lilly started, “I don’t mind what we chose… but it is probably best if it was one White’s attributes… Being controlled by her… basically what I’m saying is multitasking would be useful in combat if Fire is the other attribute.”

Thanks to previous testing that they did after they had awakened and their mana finally calmed down, the three of them had learned they could use their own attributes simultaneously while in control of the body. 

This possibly made Red very excited, especially for combat uses. But she wasn’t going to push for all in on that lifestyle.

Besides Fire, which was guaranteed at this point. The rest of the options had their strengths and weaknesses for why they should be picked as number two. Some of these reasons were physical or knowledge-based, while others had more to do with the potential political and social landscape of the country they lived in. For the latter reasons, they would have to wait until they learned about this country 

The discussion didn’t progress much more, as they decided to experiment at a later point with White’s attributes to see what was better to use.

Finally, they hopped into the body for some training. They could multitask the training to some extent, as Red stayed standing and focused on her Blood control while White decided to work on dimming the effects of her Moonlight. A large part of her wanted to try training Space, but it was a mana sink when not used properly, so it would require its own training time.

[White what about storing mana in my-our Blood?] Red asked midway through the second hour of training. 

[I would recommend doing that when we are grown up, I’ve only heard about people who stored mana in parts of their body doing the task during their late teens or adulthood. Blood might be an exception, but I’m not sure about risking it. Stress testing our limits may work though but I am worried that, with us having roughly three times the amount of mana already, it might cause some issues.] (White)

[Understood, same logic about making a core? Need to wait until we have grown.] (Red)

[Yes, but I’m not sure if we can do that and store mana in the blood. We need to talk to some professionals or find some quality reading material.] (White)

[Do you know any places?] (Red)

[Know of? Yes. Would we have access? No.] (White)

[Fair enough.] (Red)

After another hour of training their mana supplies were still high.

“Yo, Lilly,” Red called out, deciding to hop back into the Soul Space to speak to the quiet Lilly directly.

“Yes…?” 

“Are you really not going to at least try to use your attribute?” 

Lilly looked down distraught, hiding her face from view.

Only once had she tried during the initial period after their mana had calmed down. White and Red weren’t paying much attention as they were focused on their own regained attributes, but they did notice the sadness leaking off Lilly that day… and now.

[Lilly you know… hiding your emotions doesn’t really work…] Said White, and then she jumped back into the Soul Space herself.

In response, Lilly tried to remove her emotions and clear her mind, which had the opposite effect and just led to her amplifying those feelings instead.

The emotion-feeling ability that the three shared had grown in strength, slowly over the first few months before finally stopping at its current level.

At the current level, they had a passive understanding if one of the other two was happy, sad, etc. Stronger emotions caused this to have a stronger effect, and as well for extreme emotions caused gusts in their Soul Space. 

The only way to hide their feelings was to empty their mind, which was easier said than done. White was good at doing this when she wasn’t already feeling emotional distress. Red could do it to a certain extent, while Lilly was completely awful. 

Manipulation, one of the abstract attributes. There were two main boons it was known to be used for, greater mana control, and the manipulation and reinforcement of physical objects. 

Most objects made for combat could have mana pumped into them, even when not made by a specialist. But Manipulation could make the process more efficient and worthwhile even for non-mana engraved artefacts. 

The combative capabilities of Manipulation involved, Controlling swords, metal wire, spears, etc.

But in the end, the best part of Manipulation for most was the greater mana control. This allowed many people to do far more advanced techniques than what was normally possible, and for most, this led them to a quick lucrative position in the crafting industry. 

Lilly tried to convince them, “There… is no point. It makes… no sense… on a practical level. If we can only use two… it only makes sense to use one of the… usable attributes. And… it should only be… the… people who are skilled at using them… they should have access to the… main two.”

“Look Lilly…” White spoke, hesitant to ask Lilly, “...While Manipulation would be one of the easier ones to hide… it is also one of the most useful… if we had that and Fire as our main attributes… there would be a lot of high paying jobs… possible for us…”

Lilly's eyes shot up and glared at White and she couldn’t do anything but accept it.

“You mean potion making?” Lilly asked, with a dark glint in her eyes.

“That… is one of them… Crafting and engraving could also be options.”

Red added to lighten the mood, “Crafting sounds fun, would be great to not have to pay for repairs on my own gear constantly.”

“Fine.” Lilly angrily stood up and walked into the pool, “Let’s get this over with.”

The blunt anger could be felt by both Red and White. But within the anger was a large amount of hopelessness, distress, and despair.

All three jump into the body.

[Okay… what would be the easiest way for you to use Manipulation.] (White)

[Moving objects.] Lilly replied bluntly.

[So can you move the book on the desk?] (Red)

They turned their head to the small desk by their table, which contained a leather book with pages and one pencil.

[Too big.] (Lilly)

[...]

[How about the pencil on the desk?] (White)

Lilly replied, [Too far away.] Then walked over to the small table to pick up the pen. [My mana control has always been awful. So unless I’m under certain conditions, I have to be basically near touching the object, which also does mean I can’t move it far from the body.]

Lilly used her mana to lift the pencil in her hand by a centimetre. She kept it like that for thirty seconds, to let White ‘observe' but occasionally the pencil violently shook.

Lilly then tried to raise the pencil higher by a couple more centimetres.

The pencil started to continually shake and Lilly lowered it back down to a centimetre above her hand, and stressed tears started to fall.

[This… is the best I can do. We are lucky the pencil hasn’t shattered yet.] Lilly wanted this to end.

However, White felt something was off. 

From years of using her own mana, and training it to the best she could with the limited resources she was allowed access to, she knew something was wrong.

[Lilly, do you always use Manipulation like this?] (White)

[Yes? This is the only way.] (Lilly)

White examined the flow and it felt old, the Manipulation-infused mana seemed perfect. Like they were one, very different from White’s, where you could see where mana became the attribute. But she figured that was because it was Manipulation.

[Has anyone looked at your mana?] (White)

[Yes…] Lilly’s blunt aggressive tone started to fade, she couldn’t keep it up anymore. 

White's previous job involved healing a lot of people, and sometimes that involved helping people with mana issues. From that and her own personal training, she was extremely experienced in this field.

[Due to my circumstances… this never happened to me, but Red, did your Blood and Fire ever clash and slow down the other?] (White)

[Once?] Red replied, initially unsure, [Yeah, I think once. Argh… A memory from long ago. It was when I hadn’t used Blood directly yet, and I had no idea how to. And then in a stressful moment, I tried to use Fire but Blood was also activated which caused both to fizzle out. Never had this issue afterwards though, I learned how to use Blood, and the body instinctively fixed the problem I guess.]

Lilly understood what White was suggesting but couldn’t believe it, [No, I only have Manipulation.]

[To be honest, Lilly, if I met you… Before all this happened… I doubt I would notice anything… but this is my mana as well.] (White)

Anna started to tear up uncontrollably.

White didn’t know the best way to say this, she wasn’t close to anyone before, but she knew this was going to hurt, [You have something mixed in which is causing a dissonance with your mana… and it’s likely another attribute… It’s very faint, but it is in the centre of it. Whenever you just use mana, it appears, so faint but at the same time due to its nature… It’s dragging the mana down…]

[…….Ha.Hu–] Lilly barely breathed.

[–Huh…….. A….. wait…. What… wait… what… why…. It… all…. Noo. why.. Wait what…. EVERYTHING!–ARGH!” Her internal dialogue broke out and she stood up and accidentally snapped the pencil. 

Anna stumbled around, Red took brief moments of control to balance the body but found it hard as Lilly's sudden outburst was making it difficult to control.

Lilly screamed, “EVERYTHING I HAD TO DEAL WITH…. The failures, the disappointment… the troubles… the risks…  ALL OF IT WAS BECAUSE OF ME. I mean? It was already because of me! But now it is just doubly because of me! I had a second attribute?! And I was too inept to find it! OF COURSE I WAS. ONCE AGAIN…I… I bloody well hell deserved my death! Now I get to act as a plague on life again! FUCKING HELL! Why HOW. EVERYTHING I DID WRONG!”

Red gave a suggestion while trying to make sure the body did fall, [Ergh! It… could be an Exotic attribute. From what I heard… in certain cases, they have a high likelihood of causing issues.]

Her suggestion got an unintentional response of disgust from White and a wave of confusion from Lilly.

“What… NO!” Lilly declared, “I CAN’T DEAL WITH THIS!”

Lilly vanished from the body.

White and Red jumped back into the Soul Space to chase after Lilly who kept running, “Lilly!”

Waves of confusion, distress, fear, sorrow, anxiety, worry, hatred, loathing, sadness, desolation and other negative feelings flooded the Soul Space like a tidal wave.

The two of them chased after Lilly together, they could’ve turned around and intercepted her but they chose to keep going after her. It was hard to move because of the storm of emotion, but they continued to brave through.

“Lilly stop please!” White cried, tears fully forming in her eyes.

“Yeah! We can work through this!” Red yelled. She stood behind White, to keep pushing her forward and keep her stable as the cloudy waves kept crashing into them.

Anna’s body shook uncontrollably, reflecting the pain felt by all three.

“Lilly!”

They cut forward moving ever closer until…

Lilly finally collapsed onto the ground… sobbing. 

White and Red walked beside her and sat down. They looked fine but they were more exhausted than they had ever felt.

Lilly continued to cry, before finally she begged, “Please… just please… Can we stop discussing this… I don’t know… EVERYTHING THAT I… was… I”

“Fine,” Red promised.

“Red…” White said, concerned.

“I… don’t know if this is for the best but I also don’t think we are close enough or even know how to give her the support she needs…”

…

White spoke, “Lilly…” 

She didn’t reply…

White continued, “Please talk to us… when… are ready…”

Lilly stayed there crying for a while longer. Before saying, “Thank you… Can you please leave me alone now…”