Luna's Training Facility
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It wasn't long before they arrived at the destination, throughout the journey Twilight quietly thought over her new position, letting questions rise to the surface of her mind, Why does she want me to be the Nemesis, I cant be qualified to be it, I don't know anything about a battle and I am not that great at magic, even my Rune has not appeared yet, she didn't have to think long though as she walked straight into the back of the Queen and fell over, "Upgh, Ow, sorry Guess I wasn't paying attention," Luna looked at her for a second and then extended a hoof for her.
"It's quite alright I know that after that and the thought of the ascension ceremony will be occupying your mind for a while but I think that we need to push forward with your Mana stability training, so, did Nightlight teach you how to enter into your inner state," Luna moved into the middle of the room where cushions littered the floor, "Sit here we are going to train by spiritual shifting today"
"He did, it took me a while but I can now enter it easily, why?"
"Well there is a way to see your Mana pool by entering this state, in this state I am going to teach you to control how much your 'Faucet' will be turned on, so to only let the amount of magic you need through, after doing this exercise for a few months you should be able to do this without entering the spiritual state," Luna closed her eyes, slowly the wind picked up around her, "imagine that there is a ball of liquid where your stomach is, concentrate on that ball of energy and then enter the inner state, once you have achieved inner state you must concentrate your mind solely on this point in your stomach, if you have done this right you will enter to where your energies lie, after you achieve this I will instruct you on your next task," Luna opened her eyes and the wind stopped, she got up leaving Twilight on the cushions, "I will be in my quarter for a few minutes as I have paper work to attend to, I shall be back in two hours, begin your training"
Twilight had begone her training, she tried and tried again to enter her pool but every time she was blocked by some unknown force, time was quickly passing and the Queen would be back soon, she was running out of time, Dammit, she expects me to just get this, it proves the point I shouldn't be the Nemesis, I cant even do this small thing, then Luna came striding back into the room with Serra in tow, Serra moved over to the far desked and almost dropped everything she was carrying.
Luna moved over to where she was sat before, "So do we have any luck in entering your energy pool or are we stuck?"
Twilight humphed, "This is why I don't get you wanting me to be Nemesis, I really cant do this at all, I really try but every time I feel something stopping me, why do you want me to be the Nemesis, I'm useless," Twilights ears drooped down and she sighed, "I don't even know what you see in me"
Luna moved over and lifted Twilights chin, looking straight into her eyes she pulled her into a hug, "you're not useless Twilight, you questioning your worth shows this, you're thinking too hard about this, just remember a capitol was never built in a day, so is true to a soldiers worth," Luna released the hug but kept ahold of her arms, "I chose you for your ability to adapt and since you have so much ability to learn, my best unicorn at the moment only has mastered five paths of magic and she took around six years to attain the rank she has now, can I ask how long you have been learning to exceed that amount?"
"Nearly four years"
"See that, you have an amazing ability to adapt to magic, its not amazing its rather near impossible and now you have the magic reserves to use them at will, give it another two years under my tutelage you will learn all paths of magic and I will teach you to command an army, power will be at the tips of your hooves and you wont know what to do with it, so believe in yourself, that is the reason you cannot attain your center, the force that is stopping you is you yourself, have faith in your abilities and reach for your Pool again"
Twilight readied herself again, breathing deeply she began, the air in the room thickened with Mana, swirling energy began to trace the contours of Twilights body as she concetrated, "Feel where your energy lies Twilight, center your mind solely on that point, clear all other thoughts and enter that place," Twilight suddenly opened her eyes as they glowed pure white, then she breathes out as the light dissapeared and she closed her eyes.
Riverside
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Twilight awoke in a place unexplained by words, stair cases shot off in all directions, the roof, walls, everywhere and lead to different places, then she could feel magic pulling at her mind as she heard a voice, it was quiet at first but as she listened it became clearer but retained an echo to it, "I see it worked, now you should be within your own mind, this is the doorway to ones soul, this is also where Dark magic that manipulates the mind begins, but that is for another day. Twilight, I want you to now imagine memories in the form of threads," Twilight did as she was told, somehow long threads began to shoot off following the stair cases, she tried to speak to tell Luna she had done this but found she could not.
"While you are in here you will not be able to speak," Twilight turned as she saw Luna in an ephemeral form drift from her left, "you must speak through the mind, not through your body, remember this is not the real world, this is your body"
It took Twilight a few minutes to be able to get the hang of speaking within this space, "I have done as asked, how can you be here?"
"All in due time Twilight, now I want you to concentrate on the threads, find the most magical memory you have, the one most enriched with Mana, once you have it and are certain you have the right one, follow it, it will lead you down the right path to your pool"
Twilight followed her Queens orders again, she sifted through her mind, one by one the threads dissipated until only one remained, she grabbed it within her grasp and began following it, Luna followed behind her, she went up a staircase and then through a walk way, a few minutes later they found themselves in front of a door.
The door was rather big, it was around the size of how tall Luna was and as big as two royal guards across, it looked like cracked black marble and had tanzenite gems littered across it, shapes formed across the door, the shapes would move as Twilight looked at them, one second she could see a book, the next it was a bird flying over the moon, it kept changing, morphing in a way, then she turned back to Luna, "What is this door, what do the symbols mean?"
"That my dear student is for you to decide, many will never see this door but the meaning will naturally come to them, they find what it means in other forms but this door is the walkway to your Mana pool and I am afraid that this is as far as I can go without affecting your magic, you will still hear me, trust me, enter and we will begin your training," Luna pointed at the door as she disappeared from sight.
Twilight turned to the door once again, the image upon the door was still moving, she found something strange though, as she stepped forward the gems on the door began to glow lavender light, closer and closer they began to shine, she started to move her hoof to the surface of the door, just before it touched she held back due to hesitating, she gulped her last bit of resolve as she pressed upon the door, the light encased everything as she had to cover from the light, as she opened them again she breathed sharply at what she saw, going wide eyed.
Bright blue skies in a full three sixty view around her, she stood upon a surface that felt solid but moved like water, it emanated energy, a few clouds drifted through the sky as she took in where she was, "Are you surprised Twilight, this is your center, this is what we wanted to achieve, every unicorn has internal Mana that pools all together, you should be able to see it now"
"I think I see it but I don't believe it, if........ if this is my Mana I really don't think it should look like this," Twilight lifted her leg as she felt Mana rise up from the surface and into her leg, the surface of the "water" began to tremble slightly as it did, "This place that holds my Mana, I think its growing"
"I know, now we need to stop it before it becomes too much for a unicorn body, now we don't have to filter through all the bull shit, I am sure you know some magic manipulation training, this will be much like that, I want you to bend down and place a hoof on the serface of the Mana, draw as much Mana into a ball away from the surface you think you would need per cast," Twilight did as she was told, like running water it drifted upwards into a ball that rippled slightly, "Once you have done this we have to make a funnel for you magic, it sounds confusing but it isn't, once we have it in place you will naturally burn Mana constantly so that you will have only as much as you want at once, now imagine that the place you are in now is something else much more controllable, have it as a river or a stream, once it has been done, dam the river so that it stills the Mana and only lets it through as you need it"
Once again she did as told, beads of sweat formed upon her forehead as she concentrated, the seeming ocean of Mana rippled and began to shift, it started to shrink as the scenery changed, stones formed to control where the Mana flowed, trees began to sprout on either side of its banks, the Mana rushed through very fast like it was rapids, Twilight imagined damming the river as a large piece of Lavender magic slowed the river as it began filtering the Mana to but a trickle, "I did it, now what?"
"Good, that wasn't so bad, it will be shaky at first and we might have to constantly check this for a while to see if it holds, now I want you to retrieve the orb of Mana you took from the original pool, this serves as the origin point, what we have done is mold the original pool to work how you want it to but doing so means you could not pull that from your center, you needed some of the origin to do that, now place the orb at the far end of the river so that the Mana that trickled through the dam gets soaked into it and we are done with this training once you have one that," Twilight quickly fitted the last order, moving with precision as she implemented the last part, once she did so she released her control on her spell and awoke back in Luna's Training room.
"Well that's it for today Twilight, but before we go I want you to try casting something, not too harsh just to test your control and get to know what we really did today,"
"Okay but what spell, there a few I could use"
"Nothing too fancy, erm....... how about casting a light ball, simple and not too strenuous," Luna offered, Twilight nodded and began the spell, usually it was really easy to cast but she was finding it difficult but after a moment she found her magic and a ball of light pink floated above her.
"That's weird, I struggled for a moment, then all of a sudden I got a serge of Mana rush when I wanted to cast," Twilight was looking over her hooves to see if there was any difference, to Twilight it felt like before she went o mount bail how she had to exert a large effort to cast but then when she concentrated it reverted to when she had an abundance of Mana at her disposal, "Its........ Its like I had barely anything and then a massive amount of controlled magic flooded out of me"
"This is what we achieved today, when we changed the origin of your pool to that of a controlled form it bend more freely to your will, it will lie dormant and burn excess when it isn't needed and when you want to cast your subconscious mind will release the spell barrier to let Mana through, its relatively simple on the surface but for the next week atleast I want you to check on your pool like we did today for any changes, also I have noticed something, you need to go and get your horn checked it seems it is growing to much and has cracked meaning the outer layer has pushed apart, if you eave it, it could hinder your training at a later date, so you understand Twilight," Like reciting a list she finalized in a matter-of-factually-tone.
Twilight reached up to her forehead, what was just a little nub before had seemed to grow a lot longer since she got to Canterlot, by the base of the horn was a cracked broken outer layer of the original outer parts of her horn and then for another six or seven center meters a new horn had grown out, "Thats new, guess I haven't looked in a mirror for a while, hehe, I'll go get it checked out now, I'll be back at lunch," Twilight waved to her mentor who returned the gesture and went over to talk to Serra who started some menial tasks, then she set off for the palaces infirmary.