Chapter 19 : THE MIDNIGHT TRAINING
The training chamber waited in darkness.
Loki lit the lamps with a match—still not trusting his unreliable magic for something so mundane—and settled into the meditation position that had become familiar over the past days. Stone floor beneath him. Warded walls around him. Silence pressing in from every direction.
Hours. Maybe a full day before Thor proves worthy. Time to use.
He closed his eyes and reached inward.
The mana core pulsed at his center—that cold sphere of potential that had been nearly dormant when he'd first woken in Loki's body six days ago. Six days. It felt like a lifetime. It felt like nothing at all.
First circulation took five minutes before collapse. Now I can sustain for eight. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
He began the circulation exercise Frigga had taught him. Draw energy from the core. Push it through the circuits. Let it flow outward toward the extremities. Pull it back before it dissipates. Repeat.
The ice attunement helped. Cold mana moved through his channels like water finding its natural course—less resistance, less waste, less effort required to maintain the flow. His Frost Giant heritage wasn't a curse to be hidden. It was an advantage to be cultivated.
Ten minutes.
His circuits hummed with energy. The sensation was strange—not quite physical, not quite emotional. Something in between. Like being aware of a body part that shouldn't exist but definitely did.
Fifteen minutes.
Sweat beaded on his forehead despite the cold energy moving through him. The effort of maintaining concentration, of keeping the flow steady and controlled, demanded everything he had. His thoughts kept trying to wander—to Thor on Midgard, to the council meeting tomorrow, to the cosmic threats lurking in the archives.
Focus. Just the circulation. Nothing else matters right now.
Twenty minutes.
The milestone hit like a small victory. He'd doubled his previous record. The circuits that had been bleeding fifty percent of his energy now only wasted... he estimated... maybe forty percent. Still inefficient. Still amateur. But better.
He held the circulation for another minute, then carefully released it. The energy flowed back into his core, settling into dormancy. His hands trembled slightly—the physical manifestation of magical exertion.
Progress. Slow, painful progress. But progress.
The second exercise was harder.
Frigga had warned him about multitasking—the ability to maintain one magical technique while performing another. Most Asgardian sorcerers spent decades mastering the fundamentals before attempting to combine them. Loki didn't have decades.
He started the circulation again. Waited until the flow stabilized. Then reached for the illusion ability that Loki's body remembered but couldn't quite access.
A simple image. Nothing complex. Just... light.
The attempt shattered both techniques simultaneously.
His concentration fractured as his mind tried to hold two incompatible patterns at once. The circulation collapsed into turbulence. The illusion never formed. He sat in the darkness, breathing hard, feeling the mana settle back into stillness.
Again.
The second attempt failed faster than the first. The third lasted maybe two seconds before imploding. The fourth was worse—he felt the beginning of what Frigga had called "mana burn," a warning pain that meant he was pushing too hard.
He stopped, let everything settle, then tried again.
On the fifth attempt, something clicked.
The circulation wasn't a separate process from the illusion—they drew from the same source, used the same channels. He'd been treating them as competitors for his attention when they should have been collaborators.
Don't split focus. Expand it.
A shimmer appeared in the air before him. Weak, barely visible, but present. An illusion—just a vague shape of light—while he simultaneously maintained the circulation of mana through his core.
Ten seconds. The illusion flickered and died. But it had existed. He'd done it.
Small steps. Every day.
The temptation to push further was overwhelming. He'd made progress—real progress—and his body wanted to keep going. To find out how far he could take this. To compress months of development into hours through sheer force of will.
His core disagreed.
The turbulence returned without warning—mana spiking in chaotic patterns, circuits protesting the sustained abuse. He recognized the sensation from the archives: the beginning of mana burn. If he pushed through it, he'd damage pathways that might never fully heal. Circuit scarring. Permanent limitations.
Stop. Stop now.
He forced himself to release everything. The circulation ended. The proto-illusion dissolved. He sat in the training chamber, shaking, sweat soaking through his training robes, every instinct screaming at him to continue.
Patience. The development documents were clear. Rushing causes permanent damage. I have years to build strength—if I don't destroy myself in days.
The horned helmet caught his eye.
He'd stashed it in the corner of the training chamber, tucked behind a weapons rack, hoping to forget it existed. The damned thing kept finding its way back to him—servants retrieving it, guards returning it, the universe apparently determined to ensure the God of Mischief never escaped his ridiculous headwear.
For a moment, he seriously considered using it for target practice. See if his throwing skills had improved enough to put a knife through one of those impractical horns.
Property destruction is not a coping mechanism. Probably.
He left the helmet where it was and dragged himself toward the door.
The walk to his chambers took twice as long as it should have. His legs felt disconnected from his body, responding to commands with a delay that spoke to complete exhaustion. Every muscle ached. His core throbbed like a bruised organ.
But I'm stronger than yesterday.
In a universe full of gods and titans, that's the only math that matters.
He collapsed into bed without bothering to change clothes. Sleep took him before he could arrange the blankets.
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