Corvis Eralith
Before my eyes, suspended just above my head, a golden thread of Fate coiled into a luminous double helix.
It stretched taut from the fingertips of my left hand to the malachite digits of my right Servo-Hand, the glowing strands bound securely around each finger while I gazed upon it in contemplation.
"Great Lord, may I know why you are blessing us with your presence?" Avier asked me.
The wyvern was perched on one of the many trestles scattered across Cynthia's office while I lay on a sofa near the entrance, the light coming from the large balcony behind the Director's desk illuminating the room.
"I want to check on Cynthia," I told the green owl. "And ask her about a few things."
I was intended to work on my own artificial mechanism to make people awaken as mages and while thanks to Fatima I had a new step made—the Quadra-Elemental Greatrune giving a framework to work with—I still lacked a proper basis.
I tried asking Cylrit about Alacrya's bestowment ritual secrets, but the former Retainer was an exception. He had been raised and grown personally by the Instillers of a Sovereign: Kiros Vritra, the Basilisk who ruled over the Dominion of Vechor.
However, that was not the reason why I was seeking for the Director of Xyrus Academy. With her curse vanquished, and Solleandro spying on House Wykes I needed to work alongside Cynthia to remove Draneeve, Kai and all other Alacryans from Dicathen before the Interdicathian.
It didn't take a genius to realise that an event like this, where representatives from every Dicathian race gathered in Xyrus City, was an irresistible target for terrorists like Draneeve.
Killing him before that day, the start of the next year (my eleventh in this world) was paramount.
The door of the office opened and Cynthia entered her office, noticing me immediately.
"Leòn," she greeted, her tone the perfect balance between casual (as suited the caretaker of Leòn Leurenzian) and formal (as suited a vassal of Nabyun Asclepius).
"Director, sorry for showing up without alerting you," I said. "I hope the curse hasn't shown up again."
"It hasn't," Cynthia denied my doubts. "I am free to speak of Alacrya; Lady Soleil has healed me."
"Perfect," I sighed in relief. "Now. I inform you that I will play the part of the Alacryan spy myself and try to infiltrate Draneeve's network by befriending Kai Crestless."
In canon, Kai had suspected Arthur was an Alacryan spy at first. Maybe, I could play that to my advantage. I knew of Alacrya, and now I had a spellform on my spine that perfectly mimicked Alacryan ones.
Moreover, the only use I had of Kai Crestless now was that of bringing me closer to Draneeve as I had squeezed every information out of him already; in another loop. The next time Kai was going to die, he would remain dead.
"You have a plan about House Wykes?" The Director asked.
"I am working on it, but I would be grateful if you could too," I replied. "There is a chance I might raid wherever House Wykes is hiding Draneeve in the next weeks."
I was still unsure on what to do exactly. I could ask Cylrit, his Vritra heritage would certainly shock Alacryans, or I could send Chul and call it a day.
"Consider it done, Great Lord," Avier said for both himself and Cynthia.
"I still got one more request," I said. "Could you gather a group of ten young humans within the awakening age, but hat haven't awakened yet?"
More subjects for my awakening project were fundamental. What if my product ended up with being particularly effective only on Lilia Helstea?
"W-why?" Cynthia asked, a flash of fear glossing her eyes. Hearing someone she considered an Asura speaking of gathering people must have been quite traumatic for an Alacryan, whose entire continent was used to cruel Vritra experimentation.
"You are more influential in Sapin than I," I said. "No one is going to doubt the words of Xyrus Academy's Director. I need them to develop an awakening method. Fast and safe."
"I... understand," Cynthia said.
I couldn't tell if she agreed with me, but she knew the importance of increasing the number of mages in Dicathen.
I left Xyrus Academy.
—
I travelled via REtrocurrent, and the Portal Frog within the courtyard behind my Awareroom spat me back into Azellio, where the looming silhouettes of my laboratory and the Hallowed Bountiful cast their long shadows.
I gave a quick pet to the malachite-horned frog croaking at my feet, took it under my arm and headed inside.
Portal Frogs were strange, strange creatures. So strange, in fact, I didn't even know if creature was the correct term to use for them.
They were not able to reproduce on their own. They didn't eat. They didn't produce waste. They didn't need to sleep or any other function associated with an animal.
Seeing as I lacked the necessary Insight on REmould the only thing I could control about Portal Frogs were the spellform they were made by—their genome if you will—the teleportation spellform Avicenna taught me and I inscribed on their string of Fate.
Moreover, which now served useful to me, Portal Frogs were unable to use mana in any form. This, I needed to resolve and then applying the same principle on people.
But how? First thing first I sat down behind a worktable in the water-dedicated floor of the Awareroom and, after placing the Portal Frog under my arm down, I conjured a golden string.
Retrieving Mordain's plume from my storage ring I started copying the Quadra-Elemental Greatrune on my back upon the double helix that made up the string.
Arthur had been able to make Lilia and his sister awaken also because he was a quadra-elemental mage, but my approach was going to be different even if it would share some core principles.
Mana was present in all its elemental particles in the atmosphere: earth, fire, water and air. Normally a mage absorbed the elements he was attuned to and refined them in his mana core, turning thay elemental mana into pure one.
The reason Arthur's breathing exercises had worked in the original timeline was simple: by drawing mana continuously into his infant body, he had acclimatised his developing anatomy to the magical essence, forcibly jump-starting the formation of a mana core.
It was a process that naturally took years (which explained why humans rarely awakened before their teenage years, whereas elves and dwarves did so far earlier).
In truth, it was quite similar to neuroplasticity, only that instead of simply strengthening neural pathways it formed a whole new organ completely. The wonders of magic.
Which meant... I had to engineer a sort of Servo-Core.
Avicenna had once explained to me that the reason even the folk of the calm currents, the most advanced civilisation known, had failed to create an artificial mana core was because only a genuine biological organ could ever function as one, regardless of the materials used.
So, was there a way to circumvent this limitation? Yes, I realised, and Earthen biology offered the perfect blueprint: mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell, and the endosymbiotic theory explaining their origin.
That theory posited that mitochondria originated from free-living bacteria capable of utilising oxygen.
When engulfed by larger host cells unable to metabolise that gas on their own, they formed a symbiotic relationship, eventually evolving into the permanent organelles we know today.
Simply put, I merely had to replicate that evolutionary leap, but for mana: cultivating an organelle capable of harnessing magical essence and assisting the host's physiology in processing it.
Much like gut microflora aids digestion, this new REbelf—this magic-refining bacteria—would instead help the body metabolise mana.
"Manacites!" I exclaimed as Insight filled my mind and Fate itself guided my hands as I finished inscribing the Quadra-Elemental Greatrune in the DNA-looking string of Fate.
I immediately noticed a fundamental difference compared to the teleportation spellforms used by the Portal Frogs, however. I was unable to inscribe it entirely, managing only its foundational line of the Alphabet.
REtrocurrent granted me the answer through a sudden surge of Insight from the river, crashing on the shores of my mind.
Greatrunes functioned much like Beast Wills: the vast majority of the Quadra-Elemental Greatrune's script comprised layers of code appended by past wielders as they attuned to the rune over generations.
Those lines of the Alphabet could neither be translated into the threads of Fate nor deciphered by anyone save the wielder of the Quadra-Elemental Greatrune... and the Justiciar.
Fortunately, I was both.
Not that all of this posed an issue. I only needed the Manacites to channel and process every mana element, not function as miniature weapons of mass destruction.
Carrying something like that within one's own body would hardly be conducive to good health.
I started to work on my second REbelf.
—
After a couple of loops that took little more than a week in total, I had a first prototype of cellular being.
On a Petri dish I commissioned Burim's glassworkers, I put a drop of the solution I knew contained the one single Manacite I had been able to create.
Describing how REbelf came to life was like describing how start came to be: they ignited to life, only that REbelves did so by coming to life from a simple string of Fate.
I had no true control over them, at least not conscious as they came to be exactly as I imagined.
Did that mean I had so much control over REmould and REstringify I didn't need to put active thought to it? I didn't know.
Setting the thought aside, I placed the Petri dish containing the solution under a microscope—another device commissioned from Burim's artificers after I had spent precious time drafting the blueprints for it during a previous loop.
The fluid served as the growth medium for the Manacite to ensure its survival: a nutrient-rich broth composed of purified water, a single drop of teal Trucewater, pulverised water mana crystals, and sugar to provide an essential source of glucose.
With my eyes covered by the green lenses of Leòn Leurenzian I studied the Manacite and how it interacted with mana.
It was only an optical microscope, so I wouldn't have been able to see the details of the Manacite, but for what I needed it would be enough.
Under the amplifying scope of the instrument the Manacite on the Petri dish was polygonal, rigid like the morphology of a plant cell; its shape was that of a box-like square—almost identical, actually, to the interlocked cubes of the Quadra-Elemental Greatrune on my lower spine.
The Manacite floated peacefully on the Petri dish, moving similarly to a speck of atmospheric mana across the growth medium.
I put two fingers to keep the Petri dish steady as I fed a tiny amount of mana of mana to the unicellular REbelf, bright mana coating my fingers as I did so.
The Petri dish glowed and through the microscope's optics I observed a peculiar phenomenon.
The Manacite swam across the fluid containing it, moving toward the nearest concentration of mana. When the Manacite bordered the speck of pure white mana it engulfed it, bagging on itself until it surrounded the mana before returning to its natural composition.
"Phagocytosis by the book," I commented seeing the phenomena happening right before my eyes.
The question now was... could this Manacite multiply? The amount of mana it currently ate was so little that a normal mage wouldn't even be able to produce; it was far less even the least powerful spell of the least powerful mage.
With a sigh, I resigned myself to the one inevitable reality of cell and bacterial culture: waiting.
I carefully poured the Petri dish's contents back into the original ampoule. Much like feeding sugar to yeast to encourage fermentation, I introduced a small measure of a mana-rich elixir I had purchased in Xyrus City to nourish the culture.
—
As Leòn Leurenzian, I was heading toward the Helstea Manor with an ampoule of blue liquid in my hand. Apparently in a day the Manacite was able to do mitosis enough times to saturate its growth medium.
Now it was only time to test it... on someone that wasn't me.
Obviously before doing anything with other people I drank the solution of Manacites myself and... nearly died if it wasn't for my integrated body, far more resistant than that of any weaker mage.
I had lowered the concentration of Manacites until I ended up with a concoction that had just enough Manacites to expedite and bolster the mana core formation in non-mages while not killing them.
Now, if I focused on my own body and meditated using Trucewater as a catalyst I could almost feel each Manacite in my body (millions, I have truly taken too many these last three days).
However it wasn't the Manacite itself I saw, but its string of Fate thanks to REstringify:
[B-BRSL BRSO BBLO BSLO BSRL BOLR BLRS BOBR]
As I walked, ambient mana naturally drifted into my body without requiring an ounce of conscious focus on my part.
The Manacites in my body immediately absorbed and processed the raw magic—primarily wind mana, given how high we were on the floating island of Xyrus—before expelling it back into my channels as pure, neutral mana, since the microscopic organisms lacked mana cores of their own to store it.
Essentially, it functioned as a simplified variant of mana rotation: that very technique Sylvia Indrath had taught to a young Arthur Leywin, enabling the reincarnated king to gather and purify mana continuously during movement and combat; a cornerstone of his future unprecedented growth as a mage.
Yet Sylvia's method carried a severe limitation that my unicellular REbelves bypassed entirely.
Mana rotation demanded a developing physique, restricting its mastery strictly to children. Manacites, on the other hand, were completely indifferent to the age of their host.
Reaching the front door of the Helstea Manor, I rapped my knuckles against the sturdy wood, weaving sound magic alongside the Article of Freedom just as I had done the previous time I visited.
The resulting knock resonated cleanly throughout the entire horseshoe-shaped estate and it didn't take long for the inhabitants of the villa to answer the door.
"We should get used to this," opening the door and making this lighthearted comment was a woman with black hair carefully tied in a bun with ivory hairpins—Tabitha Helstea: Vincent's wife and Lilia's mother. "Good morning, Leòn."
The woman wore high trousers that reached her waist alongside a casual white blouse. Tabitha also didn't look much surprised from seeing me.
"Hello... Mrs Helstea, right?" I asked.
"Exactly," the woman replied. "You are here to see my husband?"
"No. I would like to see Lilia, if possible," I replied with a polite shake of my head. "We agreed to meet once I had resolved some... personal matters. Well, those matters are settled, so is she at home?"
"Lilia is still at etiquette school," Tabitha replied. "Though if you care to wait inside, it would be my pleasure to host you."
"I am grateful for your hospitality, Mrs Helstea," I said, offering a courteous bow as I accepted the lady's invitation.
Lilia Helstea
The Sapinese Highcolts pulling the carriage that brought the students from their homes to the school I frequented stopped in front of my family's home.
I didn't like etiquette school, but Mom and Dad insisted I attend it... they said it would be necessary for my future. So, I suffered through the lessons.
At least Ellie is with me now, I sighed in my head, thankful to Mrs. Leywin to make her daughter attend my same school, as I helped Eleanor step down from the carriage.
"Lilia, did you like today's lesson?" Eleanor asked, clenching her tiny fists and looking up at me with those bright, earnest eyes that always made me feel like I needed to be better.
"Y-yeah," I replied, taking my friend by the hand and walking back home.
Truth to be told, I hadn't even paid attention to whatever social formality we had been taught. I was there only because that was what Mom and Dad wanted.
Inside, I was met by a way-too-energetic Mom:
"Lilia, welcome back! Your friend has come to visit you!" Mom said, her voice carrying that particular sing-song tone she reserved for guests. "I hope yours and Ellie's day has gone well!"
"My friend?" I echoed, my eyes widening. "I don't have any fri—"
"You have me!" Eleanor exclaimed by my side, her voice almost tearing with indignation.
I didn't mean to say it. I considered Eleanor more of a younger sister than a friend—a younger sister or a cousin, seeing how Mr. and Mrs. Leywin had been living with us since I had memory.
"I am sorry..." I said, flushing at my ineptitude.
"Leòn is waiting for you," Mom said, pinching my cheek to chastise me for having said I had no friends. "Don't make him wait."
Leòn? My heart did a strange little flutter at hearing that name. He said he was working on something to make mages; did he...
"The magic boy?!" Eleanor exclaimed, her large eyes glowing with wonder. "I want to meet him too!"
"Where have you brought him?" I asked, a mix of excitement and nervousness coloring my voice. "We have important things to do!"
—
Through the eternal teasing of my mother, I brought Leòn to my room. My heart was beating faster than I wanted to admit as I closed the door behind us, the soft click of the latch sounding far too loud in the sudden quiet of expectation.
"Here."
Before I could turn my back after closing the door, the black-haired boy already moved.
I stared at his long hair like curtains of raven feathers, grey eyes like the clouds cloaking Xyrus City during a stormy day, and at his usual uniform of Xyrus Academy alongside those geometrical lenses that made him look even more mysterious.
In his hand, he offered me a small glass vial filled with blue liquid. I took it, my fingers brushing against his for the briefest moment.
"What is this?" I asked, observing the object. "It looks like one of the elixirs Dad sells."
"I have used a mana elixir too, yes," Leòn said. "If you drink it and try to meditate, you should start to see progress toward becoming a mage. If you do so regularly that is."
I blinked.
"I just drink it and... focus?" I asked. "I have already drank elixirs and they never worked, apart from making me feel sick."
I shuddered at the thought. I had already stolen a couple of mana-rich concoctions from Dad's warehouse, and none had ever worked—only leaving me with a churning stomach and bitter disappointment.
"Exactly," Leòn said. "Maybe help it by drinking one or two elixirs every week, or just stand near magic artifacts—it should be the same."
"Should be..." I asked, opening the glass bottle and smelling the inside. "It doesn't have a smell."
"Elixirs usually don't have one," Leòn shrugged, a small smile playing at his lips that made my heart skip. "It tastes like apple juice, though. Don't ask me why."
I brought the ampoule's opening to my lips, pausing.
"Is it safe?" I asked, a flicker of doubt surfacing.
"As safe as it can be," Leòn reassured me with a warm smile and his melodic, almost enchanting, voice. "I have tested it on myself multiple times."
"That's not what I wanted to hear..." I replied, but I couldn't help an amused smirk.
His confidence was infectious, and despite my nerves, I found myself trusting him.
Be brave, Lilia, I thought. If things go wrong, you will just have a bit of stomach ache, but if things go right...
I could already imagine how proud Mom and Dad would be if I became a mage. Looking again at Leòn I gulped down the liquid, feeling it descend through my body.
It left an aftertaste of...
"It really does taste of apple!" I exclaimed.
"What did I say?" the boy mage asked before going for the door. "I will return in a week to check on you."
"What? Are you leaving already?" I exclaimed, surprised by his declaration.
"Yes, I am," Leòn replied. "I have places to be. Other people to meet."
Yeah, of course, he was the protégé of the Director of Xyrus Academy herself and a prodigy.
I have just been fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to have been in the warehouse of the auction house at the right time. I was lucky enough he was going to visit again.
"I'll look forward for it then," I forced myself to say. "Thanks for the elixir."
"Don't mind it," Leòn said. "You are helping me as much I am helping you. If not more."