Irwin's Journey 495: Hard lessons

Irwin focused on the tiny bit of soulforce in his hand, compressing it together like Umbral had done. It felt faint, as if he barely had anything to squeeze on. If he had to compare it to anything, it was almost like squeezing water. First, most would escape from between his fingers, and eventually, he would have so little in his palm that he couldn't even feel what he was squeezing.

"Less soulforce, more control!" Umbral snapped from the side.

Irwin felt a jab of annoyance but ignored it, removing half of the soulforce and trying to compress it with his will. The resonance was like a fluctuating whisper, but Umbral had told him not to try anything but compression and control for now. No changing the resonance or recreating any pattern.

Minutes flowed by, but he didn't feel like the soulforce was changing, let alone compressing into a solid like Umbral had told him the eventual goal was. As his soulforce control tried and failed to 'squeeze' his own soulforce, his anger began bubbling up slightly. For decades, he had increased his smithing abilities, his fighting abilities, and many other things that he'd focused on without much issue.

Why is this so difficult?!

"This is going nowhere," Umbral snapped, seeming to sense his emotions. 

Irwin grunted, dropping his hand and almost hurling the tiny bits of his soulforce away in disgust. It was like throwing a handful of steam, and if he had managed anything, it was gone within a split second.

Umbral sat a few steps away on a boulder, staring at him emotionlessly. The only thing that showed he was annoyed was a slight flicker in his eyes. 

"You are far too used to having ridiculous amounts of soulforce to work with," Umbral said. "It's like you've always lived in a place with too much… Let's take your own preference, and say sound. Too much sound. A constant cacophony of noise, and you have never had to focus on a single pattern."

If it were sound, this would be far easier, Irwin thought, but he held his opinions to himself. 

Technically, Umbral had only promised information which he'd already shared with them, and more than Irwin had expected. If he got the feeling his teachings weren't appreciated or useful, he might decide to leave. Not that Irwin thought he could step out of his soulscape, but if he refused to teach, that was about as bad.

"Sound might be the wrong example," Umbral said, the man's annoying ability to pick up things apparently still triggered. "Let's say it's like light. You are in a place where there has always been too much, as you have now. Because of it, you can't see the interplay between it and the shadows."

Irwin looked back, trying hard to keep from snorting. Umbral was clearly trying to explain something to him, but the metaphors didn't make much sense to him.

Umbral held his gaze for a moment and finally sighed.

"Show me how you reforge."

Irwin blinked, wondering what that had to do with anything. Then he quickly nodded, turning to Ambraz. They had been practicing for days, and he'd made no progress. He could do with something else to do for a moment.

"My people see soulforce differently than you do," Umbral said, as Irwin pulled a card to his hand and summoned his hammer. "To us, it feels like grains of sand of different colors. We can focus on one color and move only that, compressing it into clumps to shape things. I need to understand what the difference is beyond what you explained to me."

Irwin just nodded as Ambraz appeared in front of him.

'Did you manage anything?' he asked his friend, who'd been practicing the same thing independently.

'No. It's annoying, and I agree with your previous analogy. Even without a hand, I think it feels like squeezing water. What do you even need such a tiny amount of soulforce for? You would need millions of times more to create even the weakest soulcard seed.'

Somehow, Ambraz's agreement and similar annoyance made Irwin feel just slightly better. 

'Fine, let's just reforge this,' he said, putting the tiny card on top of Ambraz. 

The Quartz card showed a faint outline of what Irwin knew had to be some kind of flower. He didn't know for sure where it wanted to be reforged into yet, but his many years of experience made him assume it was either one of the useless cards that summoned one or more flowers, or, in the best case, a nature control card focused on flowers.

'Let's see if this has any secondary types, or can gain,' he said. 'Then we just move it as far that way as we can. I can do with a challenge we can actually accomplish.'

A sense of agreement flowed from Ambraz, and Irwin took a deep breath before slamming his hammer down on the card.

--

Umbral watched in quiet wonder as the lumbering man struck the Anvil, soulforce weaving around them and the card in ways he'd never seen before. He knew about cards, and he'd heard about what the Galladin had eventually managed, but he'd never actually seen the process. 

Or heard it.

The song started easily enough, a simple melody and rhythm which seemed to dictate the flow of the card. It was also a lot like everything else he'd seen Irwin do in the last few weeks. Take a large amount of soulforce and pummel it into submission. 

He watched quietly until the end seemed to approach, and held back a weary sigh. The soulforce pattern was slightly more complicated now, but nowhere near what could help him find a way to teach Irwin.

Perhaps this is why nobody knows about soulforce constructs anymore, he thought. It wasn't that they had forgotten, but they were just not capable of the detail and nuance needed to create them. If that was true, he might have been too hopeful. Perhaps Irwin showed a deeper issue with the species that currently lived. They had somehow lost the ability for the resolution of soulforce needed to create a construct. 

As he felt a fluctuation from the card, he watched it change color. Instantly, there was a qualitative change to the soulforce, which had been weak and simple before. 

So, that's how they reforge something from quartz to amethyst, he thought.

He crossed his arms, realizing he still had no idea how to teach Irwin. As he pondered it, he was stunned when the smith struck down on the reforged card.

Wait… wasn't he done?

Irwin's deep rumbling hum returned as a second song slowly began, similar to the last one but also different, and far more complex. Where the previous had been like a simple children's song, this was like something wordless that might be sung in the schools or bars he'd frequented long ago.

The song continued, and with it the soulforce patterns. It still felt like far too much soulforce, but as Umbral focused, he began to realize something. The amount of soulforce the card had initially held had grown a great deal, more than tripling. Now even more was flowing in, and as he continued watching and listening, he began to anticipate the growth that would follow.

A dozen minutes later, as the card began condensing and finishing again, his eyes widened at the massive amount of soulforce that flowed in. It lasted for a few moments, then it stabilized, and the color changed from purple to a golden yellow.

That's why he uses so much soulforce all the time… It's required for reforging even the weakest card!

Umbral watched on, this time not surprised when Irwin started again. The giant struck the golden yellow card so hard that Umbral wondered why it didn't break, while he began humming. He was about to lean back to watch what the next stage would bring when he froze in surprise. Two aura clones appeared to the sides of the smith, both barely reaching his ankle, and each with a peculiar instrument. One that Umbral hadn't seen in ages.

A soulstrum guitar?!

As if to answer his silent question, a familiar, beautiful melody flowed from the two instruments.

That's not possible! How can he use that with so little control?' he thought, his hands squeezing tight.

He focused on one of the instruments' snares, and his eyes widened even more. The sheer amount of soulforce locked within one was mind-boggling. 

How can he have such issues with a small amount of soulforce, but he can use that much with ease!?

Umbral quietly watched and listened, noticing the much greater complexity of the song this time. He also sensed something else… stress was building within the card, as if the pattern Irwin was creating with his song didn't match it.

He's forcing it to change? Umbral thought, leaning forward again, his interest growing.

This time, the song lasted longer, and he could hear and see that Irwin was having more difficulty than before. Still, as the card finished and the soulforce within it again changed rapidly, Umbral finally realized something. The card's pattern had been simple at first, but as Irwin reforged it, its complexity grew exponentially. 

He couldn't help but hope Irwin would continue, and when he saw the smith slam down on the emerald card, a seed of an idea came to Umbral.

Halfway through the reforge, he was stunned when Irwin's hum was intermingled with the occasional singing. The words were either in a language he didn't know or had no meaning, but as the card neared its end, nearly all of the humming had changed to it while the pattern was of a level he knew he could only hope to create on his best days.

Each step multiplies the pattern's complexity by itself…? 

The mere thought made him shiver as he went through the previous ones and knew he was right.

Umbral stared intently at the greenish card, and as it began building up and drawing in more soulforce, he couldn't help but feel a sense of jealousy. His own soulskill was ranked at ruby, and as the card crystalized and changed, its border turning red, he realized something. 

No wonder the Galladin were able to eventually hold them back, he thought. They learned how to change a weakborn into a strongborn… 

He glanced at the smith's hands, covered in tattoos, knowing that they would eventually vanish and be replaced by cardslots allowing him to slot cards like the one he was creating now.

If only we could have gained that soulskill…

Umbral was about to rise when a deep thud made him freeze. His gaze shot back to the card, which was shivering from the heavy strike. A deep voice began singing a wordless song of struggle and survival, while the two soulstrum guitars joined in, creating a complementary melody.

Time seemed to lose its meaning as Umbral listened to the song and watched the soulforce pattern unfold before him. He had been able to follow the patterns up to emerald with little difficulty, though he knew he could never provide them with the sheer amount of soulforce… Up to Ruby had been something he'd been impressed by, but now? As he watched the tiny, minute changes that were created where the different forces intersected, he could barely believe what he was watching.

The song lasted far longer this time, and its complexity grew from something he could still comprehend to something he knew would require one of the soulforce construct masters of old to truly appreciate. His gaze drifted to the smith.

Irwin's eyes were glowing brightly and focused on the card, while a faint smile drew the corners of his lips up. 

He is able to create complex things, but only when there's enough pressure…

Umbral slowly stopped focusing on the pattern and instead listened to the song, sensing more than understanding the pattern within it. Images of a world filled with plants played through his mind. Some were carnivorous while others lived from ambient soulforce, yet below it all was a connection… something…

Umbral couldn't put his finger on it, but as the song condensed into its eventual ending, he was staring in disbelief at the giant before him. How such brute force was capable of creating such complexity was beyond him, but he had understood something. 

We will need to create a new method…

Thinking about what he was seeing and how it matched with what he knew, a set of exercises began forming in Umbral's mind.

By the time the song ended and the soulforce resonance died down, he was feeling almost excited to start.

"You can't use the techniques my people use to create soulforce constructs," he said, causing the smith's eyes to widen with a glint of worry. "But that does not mean I can't help you."

Irwin grabbed the card, made it disappear, and sat down. A moment later, one of the blue aura clones appeared beside Umbral.

"I know only very little about cardsmithing," Umbral said. "But I do know that not all use music. Can you explain how that works? I have some ideas."

--

Irwin frowned as he pondered Umbral's question. Were there different ways to create soulforce constructs? If so, why hadn't he said so earlier? 

"There are many different styles," he began. "The one I employ uses music to control how the resonance of the soulforce is manipulated. There are many more, some used by only a few people, others by many. The most used ones are those that use heat and fire, force, and diagrams. Less used, but still not uncommon, is Sound, which has music as the main substyle. There is also Graphical Representation, with painting and sculpting as the most used subtypes, and finally, those based on density."

Umbral seemed to ponder the response for a while before nodding. "Do they all have the same end result?"

"End result? The cards you mean?"

"Yes. Are there differences between the cards they create, or are any styles better suited for certain end results?"

Irwin was surprised by the question as much as by the fact that he wasn't sure about the answer. He knew that a smith's soulcard types influenced which types they could best craft, but he had no idea if there were big differences between which card types the smithing styles preferred. He knew for a fact that he was able to create fire and heat cards just as well as someone who used the fire reforging style, so probably not?

'Ambraz?'

'I have no idea… I would assume yes, but I can't come up with a single example,' the Ganvil said quietly.

Irwin thought about it for a short while longer before shaking his head.

"I don't know. I think not, but I can't be sure."

"That's fine. It means that if there is a difference, it's not so earthshaking that it could cause differences," Umbral said. "Alright, then let me explain something. My people had no need for cards because we don't have the cardslots your soulskill grants you. However, if we had, I think we would have preferred a smithing style that focused on details and minutiae. You, currently, use a form of soulforce pressure manipulation."

"Pressure is another type," Irwin said, with a quick shake of his head.

"I understand why you would say that, but that's not the type of pressure I mean," Umbral said. "When you were reforging just now, you were using music to create patterns along which you forced the card's own resonance. As the amount of soulforce and the complexity increased, the manipulations you did weren't based on a single point on the card… You used the music to push against the soulforce and deformed it. This caused the patterns to change on the spot you pressed and from there outward, but also in other places. To compensate, you pushed on those spots. It's like having thousands of fingers that are pushing into a bag to create a shape you want."

Irwin opened his mouth to disagree, then closed it as he thought more of what Umbral had said. Was he right? He always thought of his reforging as creating a song and using each part of it, each note, melody, and beat to shape the whole of the card… but it was true. He was doing that to the soulforce already in the card. 

Wait, the soulforce in that card isn't just stable… 

He caused a card to appear in his hand and stared at it stupidly. He had held tens of thousands of cards for a hundred years… perhaps more, and he only now realized something. The cards weren't just crystalized soulskills. They were soulforce made manifest, just like the constructs he'd seen in Umbral's world. Just… different.

Not just different, the goal is different, he thought as his mind began swirling rapidly, ideas and experiences he'd had over the years slotting together with the concept of a soulforce construct. 

Cards are like incredibly complex conduits through which soulforce is pushed… the amount of soulforce and the complexity of the result is what determines the rank!

He barely realized that his aura clone faded away, or that his giant self was now sitting cross-legged in the air, staring at a few cards hovering before him. Instead, his mind was slowly working around the idea of a clump of soulforce that needed to be created into a solid construct through which the soulforce could move.

But what happens when we slot it? 

Irwin stared at the card, then at the back of his hand, and he almost began filling his soullake with the soulforce flowing around his soulscape so he could empty them and experiment. Still, the suddenness of that desire was enough to snap him out of it, and he focused on the tiny form of Umbral on the hilly ground below him.

"Can you create a soulforce construct in here?" he asked.

"No. I need my own soulforce for that, and in here there is far too much interference," the Shaidin said, staring at him calmly. "Did you have an epiphany?"

Irwin hesitated, then shrugged. "I guess I did… of a kind. Can we move into your soulscape again? I need to see you create another soulforce construct."

"Before you go and experiment, I would suggest you do something else first," Umbral said, surprising Irwin with his dismissal. "When you were reforging, I saw you do some things that you could use to learn how to wield less soulforce with far more finesse. No matter what you would do, I believe it will be highly useful for you to learn that first."

Irwin wanted to disagree, but as he recalled how easily Umbral had hidden from him and moved through his soulscape, he hesitantly agreed. "Alright. What do you have in mind?"

"At a certain point when you reforged the card from emerald to ruby, your melody shifted minutely. Do you recall?"

Irwin began humming softly, replaying the moment he thought the other meant. It had been a tiny inconsistency he'd found at the time, and he had needed to shift a few notes around and up to compensate.

"Exactly," Umbral said. "Now, can you resonate soulforce with that song and then implement that change?"

Irwin had never attempted what he was saying, at least not without having either a card already present or while he was working with highly compressed soulforce to create a soulseed. Still, he didn't see why he couldn't do as asked. He pulled some soulforce towards him and found that resonating it without the pressure of the card was more difficult than he had expected. He summoned one of his aura clones with a soulstrum guitar to assist, but it felt like he was trying to sculpt a cloud. There was no purchase, nothing to push against. The resonance of one part caused other parts to resonate against his will. 

It took him a long time to get a rudimentary form of the resonance hovering before him, hollow and empty. Then, when he attempted to make the tiny change he'd performed so easily while reforging, the entire soulforce resonance collapsed.

Irwin groaned as he shook his head, feeling a dull throbbing. 

How can this be so difficult? he thought.

Looking to the side, he saw Umbral staring at him, his face emotionless but with eyes filled with confusion.

"What?" Irwin asked.

"I think your first practice goal should be to resonate the entire structure of the soulforce song you just attempted," Umbral said. "It's interesting how you struggled there… It's clearly not the amount of soulforce, as it was far more than you used before. It's clear that you need more soulforce to somehow feel how it pushes back. If I hadn't seen you do all these other things, I would say it's your soulforce sensitivity, but that can't be."

Irwin wanted to say something, but Umbral got up and walked back to the house.

"I need to contemplate what I have seen and prepare a more specific exercise. For now, practice what you just did until you can form that resonance in minutes instead of hours. The next step is to manipulate it as you did before, changing something inherent in the structure, without causing it to collapse."

Irwin watched the Shaidin walk away before sitting back down, barely holding in a groan. It had been annoying to work with only soulforce and his resonance.

'Kid, I've been thinking about what you just did, and it's not as crazy as he says. The exercise you just did is something I've heard about before. There are some less-used reforging styles that use this after metal purifying before they allow proper reforging. I never really thought about it as useful, but now that I saw your control, or lack thereof…'

Irwin frowned. 'I've never heard of this before!'

'Because it is generally considered only useful for the Shaving and Cutting styles.'

It took Irwin a moment to recall which ones they were, and when he did, he frowned. 'The ones that remove excess soulforce instead of manipulating it into different forms?'

'Exactly. I've never seen it, but that annoying old rustbucket made me learn about them long ago.'

'Do you remember any details?' Irwin asked.

'Nothing more than what you just did. Manipulate your own soulforce in such a way as you would while reforging a card. I always thought it was useless because you can't do this with real soulforce, and until you came along, I never even heard of someone being able to manipulate soulforce in the way you can. Now? I think if you do this, you might see a lot of progress with your cardseed crafting!'

Irwin shook his head as he moved some of his soulforce around his fingers. Then he let out a weary sigh as he moved back into his giantself. 

Great, well, let's get started then.