The wooden sphere came easy enough. Cole lifted it with the same mental grip he'd been using on rocks, and it responded predictably – center of mass right where it should be, weight distributed evenly. After all the movies and shows they’d consumed over the years, lifting random objects felt almost anticlimactic. As fun as it was, Luke struggling with his X-wing had set expectations that reality wasn’t meeting.

  “Like riding a bike,” Miles muttered, floating his own sphere in lazy circles. “Kept expectin’ this to be harder.”

  Verna addressed him with a smug smile. “The cubes, I think, will not be so forgiving.”

  And she was right. Or rather, she wasn’t wrong.

  The metal cubes were another story. They weren’t heavy, exactly – maybe five pounds each – but dense in a way that made them slippery to grip mentally.

  Cole found himself thinking about those plate pinches he used to do in the gym. It was pretty easy to lift a forty-five-pound plate normally, but try holding it by the rim with just your fingers and it became a whole different exercise. Same weight, different leverage, way more effort. This felt similar – the mental grip had to work harder when the mass was compressed.

  “What you confront,” Verna remarked, watching Miles wrestle with the cube, “is the difference between mere force and true command. Any dullard may stir the air; few indeed can lay hold of iron.”

  She pulled out progressively larger, but equally dense, cubes. The scaling problem hit immediately – classic square-cube law. Double the size meant eight times the weight but only four times the surface area to grip. No wonder telekinetic mages hit hard ceilings.

  “There exists a natural boundary,” Verna explained, lifting a cube the size of a small box fan. She set it down with a thump, a big ‘100’ imprinted on the top. “Not of mana, but of the mind’s endurance to compel order upon matter. Most meet that limit and resign themselves. A rarer few find means to alter the frame of their working, and so press further.”

  She paused, hunting for the right words. “It is, perhaps, as the difference between rope and chain. Both may bear a burden, yet chain sustains the greater weight by virtue of its fashion – the material with which it is made. The force is the same; it is the arrangement that grants strength.”

  Not the worst analogy, actually. Cole could see what she was getting at – some mental structures could handle more load than others. Much like how steel could bear a hell of a lot more load than timber, even for columns that were the same size.

  They gave the crate a shot.

  Cole managed to rock it slightly, felt his mental grip sliding off like trying to palm a basketball with sweaty hands. Miles got it about an inch up before dropping it with a grunt. Ethan didn’t even manage that.

  Mack got it maybe six inches before setting it down, but Cole noticed he was the only one who lowered it with control instead of dropping it.

  Verna gave a small laugh, apparently satisfied with their failure. “Well concluded. Let us turn to precision.”

  She produced a needle and thread.

  “Oh, fuck me,” Miles complained immediately.

  And for good reason. Threading a needle with one’s mind was exactly as irritating as it sounded. Cole could bench press two-fifty and put rounds through a dime at fifty yards, but trying to push a piece of thread through a hole barely bigger than the thread itself? Different beast entirely.

  The thread buckled immediately, which, yeah, obvious in hindsight. Trying to push rope with his mind wasn’t exactly a winning strategy. He tried gripping closer to the tip for rigidity, but that just turned the rest into an unruly garden hose, whipping around like it wanted to resist the whole process.

  Man, this was entering grandma territory. How many thousand hours had his grandmother spent threading needles without even looking, fingers working by pure feel while she watched her soaps? And here he was, tactical operator extraordinaire, bested by a piece of string.

  He watched Mack work – three distinct pressure points creating a rigid line without overstressing any point. Right, same principle as guide wires in surgery.

  But Cole didn’t have that experience. To him, this was more like using a dead blow hammer for precision mechanical work, where he needed controlled force at specific points without any rebound fucking up his alignment. Where the tolerance was only a few thousandths of an inch at most.

  Cole applied the technique and missed the eye by a millimeter, then caught the edge and slipped off, then finally pushed through with a satisfying mental click. Took him six tries. Not his proudest moment, but whatever.

  “Years of suturing,” Mack explained, offering nothing else.

  Ethan was about as impressive; Lord knew just how delicate EOD work was. And it apparently translated really well to this exercise.

  Miles, though… He’d figured out the physics just as the rest of them had, but kept slamming his thread into everything except the target. “This some bullshit,” he muttered.

  Verna stepped in. “Crude power may set a stone in motion. But to guide a thread, you must forsake the figurative hammer. Fix your will upon the smallest part, and the rest will follow. And… do be patient. Haste shall avail you little.”

  He kept at it, finally threading the needle after about ten tries.

  Miles sighed, letting the needle drop as soon as it was through. “Fuckin’ hell.”

  Verna had them practice a bit more, just until they could replicate success within three tries. Then, she shifted.

  “Now then,” Verna said, something in her tone grabbing Cole’s attention. “Let us consider what force may achieve, apart from mere motion.”

  She held up a ball of clay. Without touching it, the ball compressed into a cube, stretched into a rope, twisted into a spiral. “These are the disciplines of force – to compress, to stretch, to twist. Beyond directional motion, this is where mastery begins.”

  She handed them each a clay ball. “Begin with compression. Squeeze from all sides evenly.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  This was harder than it looked. Cole’s first attempt compressed one side more than the others, creating a lopsided mess. The problem was obvious once he thought about it – applying equal force from multiple vectors simultaneously. He ended up with something that looked more like a lightbulb than a sphere.

  “Think of it as you would a barrier-sphere – you have cast them oft enough, particularly for your fireballs,” Verna suggested.

  That helped. Cole managed to compress his clay into something roughly spherical. Not perfect – looked more like a tumor had tried to become a ball and given up halfway – but better than his initial attempt.

  Stretching came easier – just pull from opposite ends like he would a rubber band. Though keeping it from snapping required finesse. Too much force too fast and the clay would tear. He had to ease into it, like taffy pulling.

  Torsion was straightforward – hold one end, rotate the other. Same motion as wringing water from a cloth or applying torque to a stuck bolt. The clay twisted into a neat spiral on the first try. Miles muttered something about it being ‘fucky’ but Cole didn’t see the issue. He just visualized the twist and applied it.

  “Such refinements are not without their uses,” Verna remarked as they practiced. “A well-placed pressure may unseat a mechanism, guide a delicate spell at distance, or unravel a trap that brute force would only inflame. Yet I confess… Those who master such finesse are more often found in the workshop than upon the field.

  As if she recognized their doubt, she added, “As King Alexander was accustomed to say, ‘It is ever wiser to hold a skill one may never employ, than to be found without it in the hour of demand.’”

  She let that sink in before continuing. “Now, with regards to living beings.”

  She gestured to herself. “Attempt to lift me.”

  Cole tried. It was like trying to grab water – his mental grip found no purchase whatsoever. The force just… slid off.

  “A living being may resist – but only when it perceives the attempt. Perception gives leverage; with it, one may drive the force away. Without it, resistance is no more than flailing.”

  That tracked with yesterday – Elina had yanked them around like ragdolls, no resistance at all. They hadn't known to resist, hadn't even known resistance was possible. But now…

  “Observe.” She lifted her hand, and Cole felt pressure against his chest. Gentle, but insistent. Like someone pressing their palm against him, except the hand was invisible and coming from ten feet away.

  This time, knowing what to look for, he could feel the shape of it – a disk of force about the size of a dinner plate. He pushed back mentally, not even sure how he was doing it, and the pressure vanished. It didn’t fade or weaken; it was just gone, like turning off a switch.

  “Awareness is everything,” Verna continued. “When Lady Gracer set her will upon you yesterday, you were as helpless as stone. Yet once the pressure is felt – once you know it for what it is – casting it off becomes the simplest of tasks.”

  “So it’s useless against anyone who knows it’s coming, anyone who can react well enough,” Ethan said.

  “Against any person who knows, aye. Beasts are another matter, for they lack the faculty for deliberate resistance. They may, however, thrash about. And that commotion presents its own trials.”

  Miles raised a hand. “Say you skip pushin’ and pullin’ junk around. Couldn’t you just… grab the inside parts instead? Y’know, maybe uh… crush a heart?”

  Cole had been wondering the same thing. If they could apply force anywhere, why bother with the outside? The act itself wasn’t entirely foreign to him; he’d seen it in an anime once, and he’d be willing to bet Mack was just as familiar. All they’d need to do is just reach in and pinch a blood vessel, compress a nerve, stop the heart directly.

  Verna’s expression suggested she’d heard this question a thousand times already. “And pray tell, do you see within the body? Do you know, without error, where the heart lies this instant – how it rises with the breath, alters with posture, or is jostled by every motion? The body is no fixed statue; its organs stir and wander, yielding nothing certain to your grasp. To say nothing of the inconstant anatomies of demons.”

  So much for the easy solution. He’d been imagining reaching past armor, past defenses, and just switching a demon off from the inside. Quick, clean, no chance for response. But of course it couldn’t be that simple.

  Granted, the way she put things meant it was technically possible, if there existed such a thing as X-ray vision. A man could dream.

  “And besides, the task itself. To press upon a heart whilst in the midst of battle – weaving spells, avoiding death – who has the leisure for such precision? Most can hardly thread a needle at peace. In battle, the mind collapses under half the strain.”

  “So no instant kills,” Miles summarized, disappointment leaking from his every pore.

  “No instant kills,” Verna confirmed. “Unless your foe were bound, insensible, and you an anatomist with leisure to spare. But by then, why not simply use a blade?”

  “Force choking,” Cole muttered, mostly to himself.

  That got a blank look from Verna but knowing chuckles from the others.

  “Hm? External pressure upon the throat?” Verna interpreted. “I suppose it serves well enough upon the witless – a good tool to cow the feeble. Against demons or any equivalent adversary, it is but a child’s trick.”

  Saddening. Every avenue kept leading back to the same conclusion: telekinesis was useful for moving objects, not for direct combat against aware opponents. Just another tool in the box, with all the limitations that implied.

  “Alright, so it sucks in actual combat, but how about defense?” Ethan asked.

  Verna paused, considering. “Telekinetic barriers do exist – some mages swear by them. But you know the mana demanded. Why endure when standard barriers already hold, or a wall of stone may serve better? Or, if all else fails, why not step aside?”

  “So it’s inefficient,” Cole said.

  Verna nodded. “Grossly so. Save in the rarest of uses – pushing aside acids, or perhaps to trigger traps from afar.”

  Cole hammered it in. Telekinesis was pretty useful for specific tasks, but in no way was it a replacement for everything else they’d learned.

  Nobody else had any questions or comments, so Verna ended their session.

  “Right then,” Verna said, checking a pocket watch. “We have done enough for one morning. Attend to your practice, but with moderation. Should you require me, I shall be in my office.”

  Cole shook her hand. “Sounds good. Thanks for the lesson.”

  Verna waved them off. “You should go and eat. The mind consumes more of a body’s strength than men credit, and you’ll be gnawing at the table by the hour’s end.”

  She wasn’t wrong. Cole could already feel that specific hollowness that came after intense mental work – different from physical hunger, more like his brain had been burning glucose or whatever at triple rate.

  They headed for the exit, but once they hit the courtyard, Miles stretched his arms overhead. “So… what’re we doin’ the rest of today? And tomorrow?”

  “Well,” Ethan said, rubbing his temples, “we’ve got the afternoon free, right? No obligations?”

  Cole nodded. “Yeah, nothing scheduled. Should probably get some practice in tomorrow, though. But other than that, nothing.”

  “Good,” Mack said quietly. “I need…” He paused, then shrugged. “Some time.”

  They all got that. Yesterday was still fresh, still raw. Having the afternoon to decompress, each in their own way, might be exactly what they needed.

  “We could meet back up for dinner,” Cole suggested. “Seven, like usual?”

  “Works for me,” Miles said. The others nodded.

  “Right then.” Cole glanced at Mack, then back to the others. “See you at seven.”

  Want more content? Check out my other book,

  Patreon:

  Discord: