Farrah had given Jason his original training, which he had supplemented with his own practise and occasional help from others. Danielle Geller, especially, had given him some useful guidance around the time she recruited him to teach aura control himself. She helped him come to grips with his enhanced soul power after his encounter with the Builder’s star seed. It had reached the point where his aura strength was outstripping his ability to control it with precision, a situation he found himself in once again.
After discussing it with Farrah, they had decided that Jason needed a new aura control paradigm, stripping his old habits to the bone and retraining from scratch. The key to their approach would be him learning to wield his aura on normal humans with art and finesse. If he could control fine applications of his aura with precision, his gross applications would become all the more refined.
For this reason, they had recruited Craig Vermillion. Jason had been impressed from the beginning with Vermillion’s nuanced aura control and wished to learn from him. Vermillion, in turn, was interested in applying techniques from the other world. As Jason was impressed with his fine control, Vermillion wished to learn Jason and Farrah’s methods of weaponising auras.
The first meeting between Farrah and Craig had not gone well, but Farrah had arrested her sword-swing when Jason interposed himself. It took some time to convince Farrah that Craig wasn’t an irredeemable predator. Her feelings were so strong that Jason was left wondering about vampires in the other world.
He had not met any vampires before Craig other than the controlled minions of a blood weaver monster. Was there something about the higher magic of Pallimustus that affected vampire behaviour, or was it a matter of prejudice? He wondered if the troubles with essence-born vampires and monsters like the blood weaver had tainted public opinion on vampirism.
It was possible that the differences were societal in nature. In a world of forensic science and erotic vampire novels, had the vampires of Earth simply adapted to a more effective lifestyle?
Vermillion’s new lifestyle of lazy days and his secluded mansion had grown on him quickly. He showed no signs of missing the stern agent of the Cabal Jason had first met and his laconic attitude had won Farrah over.
“Once we’ve done Mum and Dad’s essences, I’d like to pull back from the family stuff,” Jason said. “From time to time, I’ve found myself getting caught up in events and I’ve found it beneficial in those times to get back to basics. Put aside everything else for a while and focus on the fundamentals. I loved those early days, training with you and Rufus and Gary.”
“I thought you’d crack immediately,” Farrah said. “You were weirdly driven, though.”
“Erika’s going to be like that too,” Jason said. “You’ve seen what her daughter is like. Erika won’t like using cores.”
“Emi is oddly intense, even in the early training we’ve given her,” Farrah said. “Right now, I see her as the only one who should forgo cores, and that’s only because we have the time to train her properly. We don’t have skill books to cover, the way we did for you.”
“We’ll give them some training, though,” Jason said.
“Of course,” Farrah agreed. “Erika will realise that she has enough to learn just mastering the utility uses of her powers. We’ll help them with the combat aspects, but only enough to get by. Unless they’re fighting monsters on a regular basis, it isn’t worth the training time. Despite what Rufus will tell you, sometimes core advancement is the best choice.”
“I still need to teach them all about the most basic stuff,” Jason said. “They can sense auras now, which is going to weird them out. I don’t think we told them they don’t poop anymore.”
“Didn’t the Network offer to take all that off your hands?” Farrah asked.
“Hey, you’re right,” Jason said, brightening up. “I forgot after Erika dragged her feet, but they wanted to do a big ‘welcome to magic’ seminar.”
He took out his phone and called Ketevan. Anna’s former deputy had filled her spot as Director of Operations smoothly as Anna moved up into the Steering Committee.
“How bad is it?” Ketevan said by way of greeting. “Please tell me you didn’t sink your town into the ocean like Atlantis or something.”
“Nothing like that,” Jason said. “Does that offer to run my family through the Network family induction program still stand?”
“As in, we tell them how to navigate the magic world instead of you?” Ketevan asked.
He heard her sitting up straighter in her chair, just from the change in her tone.
“I’ll set it up immediately,” she said. “When can they come in? We could send a bus. Or a helicopter. Actually, I’ll send a team to you. What’s the time? Right, I’ll have them come in overnight and we can do it first thing. You won’t be there, right?”
“I will not,” Jason said.
“Great! I mean, that’s fine. We’ll rent a space. I’ll send you all the details.”
“Actually, can you just run it all through my sister?” Jason asked.
“No problem whatsoever. We have all her contact details.”
“Alright, then,” Jason said. “Just to let you know, I’m in the process of shoving a bunch of essences up in them. I’m mostly done now.”
“We really would have liked you to consult with us on that.”
“Well, we can do that for anyone else,” Jason said. “I’ll tell Erika to expect your people to get in contact.”
After ending the call, Jason leaned back into the seat. The shadow-stuff seat Shade produced was akin to cloud furniture in comfort and he felt the tension melt out of him.
“Once we give Dad his essences,” he said, “we can do Mum last and we’re done.”
“Do you want to go over your father’s essences again?” Farrah asked.
“Not after what you were like with Uncle Hiro,” Jason said. “Every time we finalised the essences to give him, you started swapping them around.”
“I’ve always wanted to have an apprentice with the right essences for array magic,” Farrah said. “I didn’t expect it to be an old man, but your uncle’s a dedicated learner. I just want to make sure we had the best combination for him.”
“Do you realise what I had to trade away to get another renewal essence?”
“I’m guessing a pile of stuff you didn’t want anyway.”
“A big pile,” Jason said. “A really big pile.”
“Anyway, it left you the vast essence to give to your father.”
“What was the final combination we gave Hiro again? At this point, I don't even remember, and I conducted the ritual.”
“The final combination was renewal, rune, and balance to make the prosperity confluence.”
“Why did we pick balance over magic again?”
“It will help with getting formations to adapt to their environment. Since we now know that the magical density of your world is in flux, you’re going to want stability and flexibility in your permanent magical emplacements.”
“Okay,” Jason said wearily. “I know I should care. Uncle Hiro deserves that, but the tank is empty. I’ll care tomorrow. Next week at the outside.”
“Leave Hiro to me,” Farrah said.
“Okay.”
“We still have to do your parents, though. Are you sure about your mother’s combination?”
“Yeah,” Jason said. “She’s such a Japanophile that she’ll take a lotus confluence over anything, even if it’s a terrible fit. Sword and water are cheap essences, and even after trading so many away, I’m still thick with plant essences.”
“What’s a Japanophile?”