APR 8 Wednesday.

I hit the floor once again as Stone landed a solid hit to my left back leg, I dash to the side trying to recover only to have a pebble hit the side of my head while I was moving. I try to recover again but a second blow to another leg brings me down with a wooden sword pointed at my throat.

It's pulled away a second later and I roll right side up before drawing out a spell I've come to rely on, the basic muscle healing spell. After recovering for a while I stand up and keep the spell active to help me heal. "Not bad Colt, but you probably should have blocked with the dagger instead."

I nod and pick up both of my weapons before getting ready for another round of getting my ass kicked. After several more rounds of this, we spent some more time going over what could improve my combat style and a few general things to keep in mind.

Fighting with blades is different for ponies and involves more dodging than tanking hits. Heavy full armor does exist but isn't common, most prefer lighter armor that covers their back and head, like the guard. I asked Stone and he said that full plate has a main weakness.

It's good protection but there are gaps. For humans that was a weakness that could be exploited but it was hard to exploit it as knights were taught to protect those gaps, for humans it was hard to hit those gaps because it's hard to angle a weapon right to hit those weak spots.

But ponies can levitate things to hit those gaps much easier and this makes full plate less effective. So most prefer top and chest armor with a helmet, this helps with arrows and bolts while leaving their legs free to dodge and maneuver out of the way. So most ponies develop a very mobile and fast form of combat.

There are exceptions to all of this but the guard mostly follows this doctrine and has for hundreds of years now. And it makes sense for what they normally deal with, most guards only deal with thieves and common criminals. And when things do devolve into a fight it's normally against untrained, relatively badly equipped opponents.

Like I said there are exceptions and differences. There are guard regiments for different tasks like search and rescue, tracking criminals, and pretty much any other role the police and military would do in my old world. Honestly, the only reason the guard hasn't gotten corrupt and weak over time with how little they fight or change is Celestia's oversight.

I rapidly form a Firebolt spell and launch it at a target Stone is moving while I trot around. I miss but cast the spell again half a second later and hit the target before it's dropped and another is lifted in the corner of my eye.

Another thing about pony combat is the fact that it requires a higher degree of situational awareness, an attack could come from any direction so you need to learn to keep not just your eyes but also your ears alert, and for a pony that is different.

Humans have ok hearing but it's weak compared to ponies, you know the saying, you could hear a pin drop? Well, I can. But I haven't used that hearing much in this life so over the past year we've been training, has it been a year already? I try to think about it but cut the thought short as he throws another target at me.

Over the last year, Stone's been training my hearing by giving small clues about when and where he's going to throw something, and sometimes he doesn't but throws something anyway just to keep me on my hooves. He switches from throwing things around me to throwing things at me as I try my best to dodge, block, and hit what I can.

I hear a small noise behind me and move out of the way a second before a small pebble flies past me, but inevitably something gets through and hits me on my side. I stop when that happens and stumble on my tired legs a little before recovering.

Stone stops and walks over to me, "Well that's it for today, you've improved a lot from that Colt I met a year ago. But you still have a lot to learn, get some rest and remember what I said." His deep and dry voice says with a slight chuckle at the end. He doesn't say much but we already covered anything important earlier.

I nod to him and slowly walk to the exit with him. "I won't forget. Have a good day Stone." I've come to see Stone as a good mentor, and a decent acquaintance. He's not a friend but is still relatively close to me and somepony I hold respect for. And while I do pay him to kick the shit out of me, he did warn me so it's not his fault.

And I've found this exercise to be a good way to work through the emotions I've been dealing with. In the past, I would just enjoy the improvement and practice, and I still do but I've also taken Celestia's advice to heart and used that time to work through my negative emotions and uncertainty.

I've also been doing this while I exercise on my one and while drawing and writing. Celestia sent a book to me the day after our last meeting, it's about how to properly express and process emotions in ways that won't just make you wallow in those negative emotions.

The book isn't a perfect solution by any means and it's not intended to be, so I'll keep talking about how I'm doing with Celestia, although I am a little guilty that I'm unloading all of this on her. But she did volunteer and has continued to do so. I walk out of the building and put on my cloak after seeing the slight rainfall.

It's a cloudy day and the streets will be dark soon so I hurry home. I enter my apartment and like normal tend to my plants and Entropy, after that, I make some tea and lay down in the main room before I start my runic casting practice. After a while, I drain my magic and spend the time it takes to regenerate my magic to study.

I've been learning about healing magic for almost two years now and I've made a lot of progress. In this time I've mostly focused on the practical knowledge and not spells, mostly because the spells require that knowledge and also because I've never had much of a need to learn the spells.

But with my training going even further and the work I'm doing on new healing spells I think it's time to learn more healing spells and get some experience with them. I can't test them on injuries but I can at least learn them and memorize them for later.

I spend the rest of the night practicing and reading before heading to bed after a shower.

time skip

APR 9 Thursday.

I walk back home from another day at the library and I'm in a pretty good mood all things considered. I still have a lot on my mind but I am feeling much better than two weeks ago. I enter my apartment and once again feed the small gremlin I live with before getting to work.

I walk into my workroom and find the large amethyst before placing it on the floor. It's been a little over seven months since I last scanned how much magic I have and I'm curious about how much it's grown in that time. The scan takes just as long as last time and I spend that time meditating on my feelings.

This is one of the things the book Celestia gave me recommended I try. It's simple, you meditate on what you're feeling and why you're feeling it while asking questions about both. Basically, just a mental exercise to make you better understand what you're feeling and help you accept and deal with it.

But it's a delicate balance, you want to better understand what you're feeling, not get stuck in those feelings. I open my eyes as I notice the gem stop.

I hold out a piece of paper and watch a number appear on it after a moment. The first scan was on SEP 1 and had a result of 246. This scan had a result of 297, a significant improvement in the total amount considering it's been around half a year, but that's not completely unexpected.

During a pony's teen years and early adulthood, they are known to have their magic grow faster. I'm not sure if that's because they start using their magic more at that age, or if there is a biological and magical reason for this happening. But regardless it does happen around that time for most unicorns and I presume other ponies as well.

That brings my mind to a different topic, ponies age up faster than humans. As a good comparison, most humans consider eighteen to be physically mature and twenty-one to be mentally mature, this is just a general rule and has many exceptions. For ponies, they consider fifteen to be physically mature and eighteen to be mentally mature, also with many exceptions.

This isn't a cultural difference but more so a fact of pony biology. But this means that a thirteen-year-old I'm considered to be in the middle of my teens, so it would make sense for my magic to be growing so much with my age and constant training.

I find the right notebook and write down the new information before grabbing my notebook on runes along with a small ruby. I had an idea earlier today and it's stuck with me, the floating enchantment that lets me suspend things in the air, I want to modify that spell and try something.

I slowly modify the spell over the next few hours so it can handle more magic and a more powerful effect. The spell is a little complicated but I'm just improving on what's already there and even then only in a few key areas. When I'm done I enchant the small ruby to hold and gather magic before adding the modified floating spell and starting work on the other pieces.

I need a way to turn off the enchantments from a distance, I've done just that before so after looking through a few notes I copy what I did with the shield around my apartment, using a small piece of scrap wood as the switch, when I flip it the enchantments will turn off or on.

And now that last piece, I make a very simple spell using a rune of seeing and a rune of understanding to make them work properly. The result is a very simple spell that activates a link connected to it when something is moving within a certain radius of itself.

It's set to a single-foot radius around in, which is the same area that the beefed-up floating spell will affect when activated. I enchant all these spells into the small ruby and then link them together properly. The very basic detection spell links into the floating spell.

The simple switch links to both the detection and floating spells to turn them off and on when I need to. Once everything is ready I place the ruby in the middle of my desk and flip the small piece of wood, there is no visual difference. I grab another piece of scrap wood and throw it above the ruby.

Once it passes the threshold it moves a little further before abruptly stopping in mid-air. All the ruby's extra magical capacity is being used in the float spell so I expect it to be pretty strong and hold things very stable. I reach out to try and grab the piece of wood but have to push against the spell.

It's like pushing my hoof through honey, possible but difficult. With enough effort I'm able to push in half way, the more of my foreleg I push in the harder it becomes to move. But the spell isn't strong enough to overpower me and I pull my hoof back out after reaching the center.

If I make it stronger than I could trap myself inside, it would work like a glue trap in a three-dimensional area. But it also gives me a different idea. I've basically made the perfect stabilizer, with the downside being that it also traps things. I can think of a few uses for this but that will take more work and it's late.

Guess I'll test this more in the morning.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading.

Also I ended up Choosing the name for the full illusion database. Illusionary books for a single one, and illusionary library for multiple. Maybe a little boring, but I feel like it's the type of name Shade would come up with.