Our army crossed the river, we left a small contingent to erect a barricade and man it. It wasn't anything special but it was assembled in decent time with a help of a Gifted engineers, our men put up wood spikes at our side of the crossing and the Gifted erected a crude sand and earth rampart with godstones behind them. I observed the one closest to me, he used a second godstone and a bronze plate to pack the earth and shape it into its final shape.

  I rarely had the chance to see Gifted back in my Village and they always had some copper or bronze on them. Even when one visited it the villagers would often avoid them like a plague, there are a lot of bad tales associated with these sorcerers, they associate themselves with demons and perform blood rituals.

  A village two days walk from mine once had a Gifted visit them because the town head sought him out to burn a patch of forest inhabited by a colony of spiders half a man tall. The Gifted monster hunter did his job and then killed the village head and burned two houses and an inn! When the local noble came the monster hunter slept under an oak tree! He claimed the head refused to pay him extra because a spider bit him and he had to use an expensive antidote and that he needs to find a better employer. Instead of executing the bastard on the spot, the noble invited him to dinner!

  This is the first time I got to see a Gifted up close. He was holding a shining grey stone in his left hand and with his right, he moved a bronze plate over unpacked earth, the earth would audibly compress as he was doing so. Etheral grey mist hugged the plate and his right hand. When he turned his head a bit I could see his eyes had a grey spark.

  Seeing my curiosity the older women that was talking to the engineer before he started working chipped in.

  "I love it when bystanders look at us like we are performing a miracle but kid you don't look like a country bumpkin"

  I looked down confused and saw the scales of my armour. Even tho I am from a village I forgot that I don't look like someone who is. Being seen talking to the Knez certainly doesn't reinforce the image.

  Weary and a bit embarrassed I reply.

  "Well I don't know a whole lot about you Gifted but that does look like a miracle to me, I know that to do what you do you need the godstones and your kind are always carrying bronze or copper, sometimes silver".

  The women came closer and gave me a smile, I blushed a little.

  " "Your kind"? I see you don't have a high opinion of us. I assure you we don't sacrifice children. And I definitely didn't bed a demon"

  For that last sentence, her smile shifted to a smirk before it turned to a serious expression.

  "The godstones contain parts of earth's essence, some scholars believe that the earth's core contains an unfathomable amount of godstones that are cycling their essence through the world making reality what it is, going further they say the gods are beings that were born in the earth's core and are attuned to different parts of the cycle and thus able to change it, thereby altering reality. The Gifted can extract godstones essence and manifest it to alter the laws of nature and under very specific conditions they can even duplicate them using their own blood, we are not borrowing the power of some dark god but of the earth itself".

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  While I'm hesitant to buy into that explanation the curiosity gets the better of me.

  "Why silver and bronze then? Isn't iron and steel stronger?"

  She seems to enjoy my attention.

  "Steel may be strong but it channels essence as well as a rock. Using bronze we can channel the power and have more finesse in its usage. The essence is hard to control in the air and loses its strength quickly if not manifested. Look at Nenad, he is using his plate to focus and cover an area on which he pressures the earth, it would be a lot harder if he used his hands and almost impossible if he used only his mind. Let me ask you have you ever tested for the Gift?"

  It never crossed my mind to sign a pact with the devil! But with her expectant eyes, I have no choice but to come up with a tamer response. For some reason, I cant associate her with the "Gift" ".

  "My village doesn't have a mine and Godstone traders know they wouldn't get a dime if they came."

  She got excited, not in a way you would expect of someone who had to has passed 35 summers!

  "If you would indulge me I have a godstone you could use for the test! Just imagine it contains water and try to flex that water like a muscle, it follows the same principle, the more you repeat a movement the easier and more precise it becomes, if you ever use them keep in mind that the godstones deplete rather quickly and while you could probably find similar ones unless you duplicate the one you used they will need some getting used to as godstones essence will manifest a bit differently. Every essence has a shape they are inclined to possess."

  She hands me a pale blue stone size of a small egg.

  As I take the stone I'm starting to get nervous. I feel something more than its surface touching me, I try to reach out and it doesn't respond, I try a variety of ways the same way you would try to grab a slippery snail. After a few seconds, I feel as if my fingers found purchase on the snail. In the centre of the godstone I see a mote of light as if a small candle was lit in a dark room.

  The women beams and puts a huge grin on her face.

  At that moment the man I was for waiting to cross yelled devilishly behind me.

  "Yar could you keep your mind off of beautiful women for one day! We've got some Thebassians to kill !"

  I want the earth to swallow me.

  With the most awkward smile of my life, I handed the stone back to the women.

  "Thank you for your explanation, it was a wonderful conversation but I have to go find the Knez"

  That also came out awkward.

  The women smiled even more, surely pretending not to hear that.

  "I'm always eager to indulge a genuine curiosity. If you survive this day come find me, my name is Yelena".

  What a nice name...

  With that, she promptly turned around and walked toward the Gifted engineer.

  Who knows, maybe the pact with a devil isn't so bad.

  I turned to Premisyl, also pretending not to have heard that. With a stoic face, I spoke.

  "Let's go"

  He gave me a knowing smirk.

  What is there to know???

  "Whare to"

  I suppressed the urge to palm myself and climbed Yovan.

  "Follow me"

  Two of us and my other 98 men started riding out of the valley and then towards our position, we would be in the vanguard when we charge the imperial back.

  Spoiler :

  So when making the magic system I really wanted to avoid two things, mages being OP and ''Mana''. While you could argue that "essence" is mana there are significant differences, for one there is not "ambient mana" and there is no "personal mana". The essence does not come from the user but a stone, if a person has a "Gift" they can connect to it and flex its essence "like a muscle" but other people even if they have a "Gift" cannot see or alter the essence if they don't touch the stone, altho they can use silver to disrupt it To connect to the stone the mage commonly uses skin or copper/bronze but can get a better connection if they use their blood, they can also swallow it, swallowing it would give release the power of the stone in a short time and require greater control but in turn, would grant great power at the detriment to your own health The essence itself can not alter reality, it needs to "manifest". When it "manifests" it becomes visible in various forms, in this chapter that form was grey mist and compression of earth. The manifestation itself is not magical but a phenomenon made/sustained by magic, that's why the "Gifted" cant use "mana" itself to hurt someone like a blade made of darkness and whatnot. How do the mages function in this world? The "Gift" is not ultra-rare but most people with the gift don't have the talent or more importantly time and money to become a mage, mages are also not that popular with the common folk as there are various superstitions ( Yar presented some of them). The essence is like a muscle so if you want to get good at it you need to practice it, and the practice uses godstones which cost money especially the useful ones, different godstones are like different muscles, there are some similar ones but there are those that are completely different and if a mage mastered one he will still have trouble with the other, that's why mages would use one or two categories and buy similar godstones or duplicate existing ones. The mages in this world are akin to master craftsmen in a sense that each of them develops their own methods or is taught as an apprentice, thus there are no widespread uniform methods and every mage can only be broadly put into some categories as there are countless ways to use the essence. It will probably be explained but to duplicate them they need the original godstone, Gifted blood and specific conditions, due to the "specific conditions" it is not possible to mass-produce them, another obstacle for mass production is that the new godstone would have less capacity and that a person would faint if they lost too much blood, using other Gifteds blood is also troublesome as for some reason ( blood type ) it can disrupt the conditions and ruin the batch. While it's possible to produce them for above-mentioned reasons they are still mined. The natural godstones are oftentimes suboptimal due to size and essence, bad essence is like that weird muscle that can move your ears, its weird to flex it and its hard to do something useful with it, like a godstone that can change the temperature to 22 C. What are you gonna do with it? That's why a good godstone can fetch quite a price. The last thing I want to mention is the metals. Copper bronze and gold can be used to make tools which help channel the essence and perform with finesse, they basically do part of the movement, altho gold is rarely used because it's expensive even if its the best conductor. Silver can disrupt essence and is used against monsters and mages alike.