Aethernea : Soulbound [Book 1]

Episode 14 - Homeschooled

Once the phenomena forms, the pattern and the form become fixed. The spell becomes linked to the mage as if it was an extra limb and the caster can innately control it as a whole. This control over the spell is exactly what was known as "spell control". It is an entirely different concept from mana control.

The spell Elaru cast wasn't a solid-state spell, which meant that the distortion of reality would be detected as an anomaly and reality itself would reject it, continuously attempting to revert back to its previous state.

To keep the new color of her markings from reverting back to black, the spell would need to keep distorting the reality. And that continuous distortion would use up mana. The moment that the spell ran out of mana, it would attempt to feed on mana it is made out of, which would cause it to deteriorate until it fell apart and dissolved into nothingness.

Since this was a mage-sustained spell (as opposed to self-sustained spells), that meant Elaru had to constantly feed it mana to prevent it from breaking. This process was like breathing, she could consciously control it, but it usually came effortlessly and didn't require her to dedicate her attention to it.

Kiel grabbed Elaru's arm and looked at it closely. The place where the mark used to be, turned into flawless skin. Her spell control was so fine she managed to make her markings the exact color shade of her skin.

In his amazement, he involuntarily touched the place where the markings were supposed to be. The skin was smooth to the touch and revealed no sign that it was black a second ago.

Well, the skin didn't reveal any sign, Elaru however, did. She gasped softly and pulled her wrist out of his grasp.

Kiel looked up at her face, surprised by her sudden motion. A beautiful reddish tint covered her cheeks.

He stared at her in wonder. It was the first time he saw her flustered about something. That reckless, headstrong Elaru that was unperturbed by the world, was blushing like a little girl. He couldn't believe his own thoughts, but this flushing Elaru had an irresistible charm to her.

At that moment, she looked pure, even vulnerable. That color suited her, made her look compellingly adorable.

Seeing her like this brought incredible satisfaction to Kiel.

Elaru was a rare specimen. Seeing her blush was even rarer. It was rare squared!

"What's wrong?" He asked her. He had to know what could make her blush. He felt like he was close to discovering a weapon of mass destruction. It was imperative that he learned about it!

"Don't touch my markings." She responded in a soft tone. Her voice sounded so pleasant to the ear. Kiel was sure that if he were an elibu, his ears would have perked up.

"Why?" Was it an elibu thing? Were they sensitive about their markings?

"It feels weird when you touch it." She responded.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kiel frowned. "Who is afraid of cooties here?" He smirked. This was good, he finally had something on her. Something he could use in the future. This was an excellent day!

"I'll need to engrave the details of that pattern into my memory before I am able to cast it."

Elaru nodded. "You can work on that after dinner." The color of her face returned to normal quickly.

Before going down to dinner, she moved towards the desk where they left their equipment. She reached into one of the pouches on the desk and took out something wrapped in thin metallic paper.

It was a fist-sized metal object with numerous engravings on it, shaped in a form of an egg. The egg was sliced into multiple rotatable rings. This egg was a puzzle that had many possible configurations. It was near impossible to find the right position of all rings.