"What!"
Shamans were supposed to be charlatans, and now they were talking about two-dimensional planes and three-dimensional space?
Where the hell had I ended up? Was this the Sorrow Mountains, where everyone had graduated from the womb-school?
Kas pondered for a long while. Baize's smile seemed to hold a deeper meaning, but with only 5 Intelligence, he didn't seem capable of figuring it out.
Still hesitant and unsure, he answered, "Planes and space?"
Baize suddenly slammed the table. With a bang, he smashed a corner of the round tabletop into splinters, looking utterly astonished.
"You're a fucking genius, Kas!"
The shaman coughed twice, reminding himself to calm down.
In the Sorrow Mountains, where everyone had graduated from the womb-school and some had even dropped out, it was truly moving to meet someone who understood the difference between a plane and space.
He set down the paper and the cubic ore, then poured two cups of malt ale with a sigh.
"Looks like Great Shaman Hadi has an outstanding apprentice."
What was he even talking about?
I knew about two and three dimensions. What did that have to do with the Great Shaman? Besides, I wasn't that old freak's apprentice.
Baize took a sip of ale, then grew more talkative. In an exceptionally clear voice, he explained the theory he had just mentioned.
"When Apes Came Down from the Trees. In the age of the Visma Empire, a remarkably talented wizard-scholar appeared among the southerners. He proposed an original theory about the origins of humanity, arguing that all humans had evolved from apes."
Kas raised an eyebrow, sensing something was wrong. Even a fool wouldn't say this in a world where gods and souls appeared before their eyes:
"You, your Ancestor, and countless generations of ancestors are all monkeys at heart."
This guy... was a little extreme.
"Of course, the priests of the Visma Empire executed him. But the shamanic elders of that time thought his theory was quite interesting. It seemed like it might help explain to apprentices how to accept a world filled with spirits."
"Uncomprehending apes climbed among the treetops. Their four nimble hands moved through the branches as they searched for food, sought mates, and raised their young. Their eyes could only perceive forward and backward, or up and down. Like ants crawling along a tree trunk that served as their central axis, apes were planes that moved in relation to space. Their nature prevented their perception from extending into a broader world.
"But when the apes left the treetops and straightened their spines, they suddenly discovered that their gaze could extend upward, downward, left, and right. Without warning, they were cast into a completely unfamiliar world, facing mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, stars, the sun, the moon, and the sky—all sacred things, outward manifestations of formless souls.
"Shamans are like apes falling from the treetops to the ground. The shackles that once confined our field of vision disappear, and we can sense the sacred things hidden beneath the outward forms of the land, spirits, and sky, and pray for them to manifest in the mortal world.
"You must learn to adapt to an entirely unfamiliar environment, listen to the faint echoes in your ears, find the spirits that resonate with you, decipher their calls, and guide your people along the path ahead."
Baize spoke in mystical terms, but Kas found it even more mystifying. He had always thought shamans were a tribal version of necromancers and druids, but Baize's explanation kept veering into what sounded like theology.
Couldn't someone write an Introduction to the Concept of Spirits? I just wanted to know what a "spirit" was. You'd said a whole lot without seeming to say anything at all.
Was my Intelligence really only 5?
Kas stared blankly, stammering, "Um, Shaman Baize, could you explain it a little more... clearly? Like a wizard's introductory course among the southerners. They chant a few words, make a gesture, and shoot out a giant fireball."
He still wanted to be a mage more than a warrior. A sorcerer would do, too.
Fighting as a warrior might set his blood on fire, but it always ended with him rolling around in the mud. And with his Barbarian identity, that made him seem even more lowly.
"I understand that you want to draw on spirits for power, but every shaman follows a different path. If you want to learn witchcraft..." As Kas looked at him eagerly, Baize shrugged. "According to the rules the shamans agreed upon, I can't teach another shaman's apprentice of my own accord."
"I'm not Shaman Hadi's apprentice. Why can't you teach me?"
"You already are..." Baize still didn't finish what he was saying. He picked up the cube of ore from the round table and demonstrated why that rule existed.
The shaman raised the ore in his broad palm. A glimmer of spirit-light suddenly burned in his eyes, and his lips moved faintly, as if he were communicating with the object in his hand.
The black iron ore turned red before Kas's eyes. Its heat made Kas's cheeks tingle.
In Baize's hand, the molten-hot iron quietly changed shape. One moment it became a cone, the next a brick. Finally, it formed into a smooth, round, egg-shaped ball of red-hot iron.
Baize held out his hand and let Kas touch it for himself.
Kas tentatively reached for the iron ball, whose heat warped the air, but it felt cold to the touch.
As if unable to believe it, Kas wrapped his hand around the ball and poured malt ale over its surface. The heat instantly evaporated the drink, and a sizzling sound burst out with a plume of white smoke.
The scalding liquid that slid into his hand reminded him that this iron ball, which defied common sense, wasn't an illusion.
"This isn't witchcraft. I prayed to the spirit hidden within the ore, asking it to become a hot iron ball that wouldn't hurt anyone.
"The shaman's path is different for everyone. I don't know what Elder Hadi has chosen, but I doubt he'd let you take a path that involves communicating with rocks and metal."
"This isn't witchcraft...?" Kas was speechless. It was like some cured meat sitting on a toilet, insisting he wasn't a god while being even more mystical than one.
His eyes rolled around. There was no exaggerating it: Baize's trick of turning iron into a ball would be useful anywhere.
"Um, Shaman Baize, even though I'm Elder Hadi's apprentice, the rule only says you can't teach me of your own accord. I'm the one asking you, so could you teach me a little?"
"No. I can't anger the Great Shaman."
Baize leaned back in his chair with his eyes closed, acting as if he wouldn't listen to reason. But Kas knew that if the shaman was willing to say this much, he must have some interest in him.
At times like this, a Barbarian's methods were the only way to solve a problem...
Kas abruptly stood, clamped a hand on Baize's shoulder, and spoke with grim determination and a fierce expression.
"No. You have to teach me, or I'll smash this whole room!"
Baize's ear twitched, and a tiny "hmph" escaped his throat.
A man had to do what a man had to do!
His mind made up, Kas tensed both arms and bent his knees.
With one hand pinning the shaman's shoulder and the other gripping the chair, he hoisted Baize up by force.
He lifted him over his head and flung him toward the precious instruments on the round table.
Baize smiled with approval. The steel chair melted into a lump of soft sludge. One end remained attached to the floor, pulling the airborne shaman right back into place.
He got up from the chair, which now looked like a mud monster, and spread his hands helplessly.
"Sigh. What can I do? You're Malik's son, after all. I can't beat you, so I guess I'll have to teach you something."
Baize tossed the chair aside, took a mortar from the wooden table, and poured some iron ore particles into it.
"Good. I'll teach you the wisdom passed down through the generations of shamans of the Black Ember Tribe—the mysteries of metals and ores."
"Fuck..." Kas was so frustrated he could've punched the shaman to death. I wanted to learn Fireball and Flame Explosion, and after all that, you're making me learn metalworking?
Baize gave an awkward smile. Gone was the mystical air Kas had expected from a shaman. He seemed much more straightforward now.
"I know what you want to ask: about that werewolf, and about spirits. But I've only been a shaman for ten years, and there's a lot I still don't understand.
"For questions this profound, you should ask the Great Shaman when you return to Ferode Canyon. Take the two-dimensional and three-dimensional concepts we discussed earlier. It took me a long time to barely understand the difference, but you got it as soon as you heard it.
"You really are a Great Wise One, Kas."
Before you continue