"...My old mentor once told me that the song flows within everybody, but only few are ever able to truly resonate with its frequency."
Off white clouds rolled in the all encompassing blue of the sky, complemented by the tranquil waters of the Etrean luminant. Petite waves glided over its calm surface, splashing against the sides of the beautifully artisaned schooner, which was calmly bowing up and down. Its sails were filled with wind, the edges fluttering in the calming breeze. The sun's rays shone almost horizontally, casting picturesque shadows across the deck of the ship.
It was almost dusk.
By now, Quies had a rough idea of what the song was, the properties it held, and how it supposedly came to be. On a surface level, it was the source of everything magical, was in everyone, and could basically do anything. Obviously, that information wouldn't turn Quies from a frail man into someone who basically lives and breathes the song like Valerie, but it was definitely a start. The method of tuning one's soul to the song was different for everybody, but followed a couple basic principles, at least from what Quies had interpreted from Valerie.
First off, there are roughly six or seven different aspects of the song one can improve in, depending on how one interprets them, with some having sub aspects within them. These six aspects could be seen as: Strength, fortitude, agility, intelligence, willpower, and charisma. The seventh one would be one's progression towards their element affinity, or attunement, but that doesn't necessarily apply to those who do not pertain an attunement to a specific aspect of the song.
These six aspects are each refined in their own unique way. For example, if one wanted to train their mastery over two-handed heavy weapons, which falls under the category of strength, they would need to train and practice their swordsmanship both through sparring and developing a better mental understanding of combat. When Quies learned about this, his first idea was to repeat the same action over and over, growing unreasonably strong as a result.
However, an experienced sword fighter wouldn't gain anything from reading a beginner's manual to combat. As one progresses further in each of these aspects of the song, they must also increase the intensity at which they train and practice a specific aspect.
That's the first step.
The second step would be to put one's training and practice towards a practical use. One can only learn so much from training. Reading about the different techniques of fishing is different from actually going out to a body of water and catching something. There are small things one can pick up from practical use which theory can't fully cover. One will learn how and why a theory actually works, and how applying that theory on themselves leaves room for introspection and how one can manipulate that theory within its constraints to fit themselves better without it falling apart. Similar to the training step, intensity must scale along with the mastery of the aspect.
That's the second step.
There is another step that could be defined as a third step, but it doesn't necessarily follow the progression of the past few steps. However, some use cases of this step require certain mastery levels of certain aspects. The song, just like a melodic tune, has verses. Different parts of the song have different verses, which are classified into different attunements of the song. For example, verses that Valerie would incant lightning attunement spells, or mantras, would be different to verses Quies would incant to use blood related mantras.
From what Quies had experienced so far, he would probably have decent progression in his fortitude and willpower. It's not like getting holes punched through his body and getting flung into the air wouldn't do anything. Maybe that would be the case once he got stronger. However, his strange affinity to blood related aspects of the song would pose an obstacle in his progression of the song, namely because there was no public knowledge of blood users and verses of the song that are attuned towards blood.
However, this only posed as a minor inconvenience to Quies, since he seemed to have already completed the preliminary step of attunement progression, which was to awaken one's attunement. If he hadn't awakened his attunement during the battle with the megalodaunt, other than being dead, Quies would need to seek a trainer who had extensive knowledge about the element he was attuned to.
To his knowledge, there were no other blood users in this world. There could be a sliver of possibility that a blood user resided in the depths, but Quies hoped he wouldn't be descending there for a long, long time. Forever, if possible.
"How ya feeling? I might've overloaded your brain a bit…"
Valerie stood at her usual spot. The wind caught small strands of her hair, making them dance elegantly. Her sharp amber eyes grew sharper from the incoming sunlight.
"Not great, elated, optimistic, melancholic… I don't really know."
Valerie raised one eyebrow at Quies' response, prompting him to elaborate.
"I mean, I'm not exactly in the best physical state right now thanks to a special somebody."
Quies would've glared at Valerie if not for her suffocating gaze.
"Where the depths are you even taking me?"
That was a question that had reappeared in his mind. Where exactly was Valerie taking him? Was she just playing good cop bad cop... by herself... just to get more information out of him before giving him away to some authoritarian figure.
That was also an interesting fact that Quies had trouble wrapping his head around. Even in the Etrean sub luminant, which was quite small, there were more authoritarian figures that hold a presence here than he expected. He had mainly heard a lot about the central authority, who didn't have as strong of a hold as they did in other luminants, but still held a commanding presence. He knew a lot about other prominent figures of power, and the knowledge of some of those figures was taboo. But, it wasn't like there were any kinds of people who could read Quies' memories and mind, so he practically had nothing to worry about if he just kept his mouth shut.
"Oh, that. So... remember how I mentioned I was supposed to be somewhere two hours... no... four!"
Valerie's eyes widened at the realization of how much time had truly passed. However, after seemingly going through all the possible scenarios in her head, she calmed down a bit.
"I hope he doesn't mind. Really, a swordsman as coveted as him shouldn't be too mad that I'm running late, though he is sort of an overly vigilant man..."