Virion Eralith POV
The last two weeks were a complete mess. Tessia got in an argument with her parents, and as usual she ran away. They let her, normally she would calm down somewhere in the forest and come back some hours later and they would talk it out.
But this time she hasn't come back. First we thought, that she would just need a bit longer than usual, then, that she maybe found something delicious to eat and was still sitting in a sweets shop somewhere and get herself a sugar-shock. But when it got dark, my daughter in law and my son were starting to get extremely worried. I tried to calm them down, saying that she probably just fell asleep somewhere, or asked one of the other noble kids to sleep at their place. She may not like them, but if she needed them they couldn't really deny her.
But even when I said it, I didn't believe it myself. I had already sent out guards, who were turning around every rock in the area. And I contacted the heads of the noble families, who all said she wasn't with them. Even if Tessia wanted to stay hidden, there's no way they would lie to me, with such a pressing matter. Not only because I was the king once, no, most of them are fathers as well. They understood that there was no kidding, when the theme was the wellbeing of our children.
Something must have happened.
Did she run in a mana beast? Maybe a tree golem? Forest hounds? Or maybe even a rare mana bear? This shouldn't have happened, the area around the cities and the teleportation gates are surveyed for beast movements.
I also went to our security room in our palace, and ordered them to track the mana signature of the ring I had gifted her. This ring has some protective properties, like it could shield the user from a single not too strong spell and always sends out a high pitched tone, to keep mana beasts away. Unfortunately the signature was too small, to be traceable.
"Father!"
My son, the current King of Elenoir, barged in the room.
"The search troup found something!" he exclaimed.
We rushed to the nearest teleportation gate and were teleported in the forest. This spot was one of Tessias favorite spots and one of mine too. We had started the search for her on the spots she visited most often. A guard was already waiting at the gate, which was tarned as a big tree.
"Follow me please" He said formally.
He led us for around 10 minutes to a group of guards, the rest of the search party. They showed us what they had found. Before they even started, I had already pieced together what I saw. The ring in the dirt was Tessias, which meant she was here. And the footprints in the moist dirt told the rest. The shallow and small footprints, Tessias obviously, were surrounded by the footprints of multiple big and deep footprints. The spacing between them indicated that Tessia tried to run away, but was eventually reached by the grown ups. They lead to a trail, which probably belongs to a cart, and a lot of paw prints in the dirt. The paws belong to forest hounds, which were probably tied to the cart instead of horses or other mana beasts.
But why would one use forest dogs? They were slow, ate a lot and were quite expensive. They had no advantage over other, cheaper alternatives. But then I realized their one advantage. They found their way through the mist of the forest, which could only mean one thing.
Their Owners couldn't.
"Humans" Alduir realized a few seconds after me.
Arthur Leywin POV
I woke up in a bed. The room I woke up in reminded me of a hospital room in my previous room. I was lying in a bed in the middle of the room, on both of my sides a lot of space for people or devices. To my right was an open door, showing a bathroom. On the left was another door, probably leading to the hallway, and a closet. The wall in front of me was a glass facade. The curtains were opened, which allowed me to enjoy the view. I noticed that it was a different view from Agronas office, so I guessed it was in a different direction.
There was a forest to the left side of the view, and a desert to the right. They were separated by a mountain range in the middle, which this mountain also seemed to be a part of.
I tried to remember how I got here. Right, Agronas office. He explained the history of this world and then..
An emitter had entered, and Agrona had dashed to Sylvia.
The last moments before my unconscious came back.The pressure I experienced could only mean one thing.
Sylvia is dead.
Tears started to roll down my face. I only knew her for a few months, but that was enough. She was so nice and helped me a lot in these few months. I already miss her.
I was disrupted in my grief, when a person entered the room I was in. It was the woman with the small horns that Cadell ordered to take care of Sylvia.
"Hey you. you're finally awake."
She greeted me and noticed my tears.
"I'm sorry I couldn't heal her," she added.
"It's not your fault, the wound was pretty bad" I said, which was my honest opinion. Even though I said to Sylvia that my mother could fix it, in retrospect it was already too late back then.
"My name is Arthur, I think we haven't been introduced." I said.
"Mine is Anela, I'm here because of your collapse. Our Sovereign assigned me personally to look only after you" She stated. If she wondered why Agrona had interest in a three year old child, she didn't show it.
"How do you feel?" she asked "You were so close to our high sovereign, when, well, you know. Just the fact that you survived at all is a miracle."
"I feel fine, my head is still a bit foggy, and I feel like my whole body is sore. But no real pain anywhere" Just as I said it, my core started to hurt like hell. It felt like my whole core was on fire, while being negative 200 degrees and freezing the area around it in no time at all.
I pressed my hands against the spot above the core, and tried to calm it down. "And my core hurts. I can't really describe it, but it hurts a lot. '' I managed to bring it out. And then, as fast as the pain had appeared, it dispersed too.
"What was that?" I asked her.
"The foggy head and the soreness is due to your exposure to the intent of our sovereign. As for your core, Scythe Cadell told me that Lady Sylvia gave you her will. Normally a body adjusts to a will, but her will is stronger than the average will and your body is weaker than the usual beast tamers. Additionally it seems like your body rejects it, what has never happened before. Normally a will is greatly appreciated by the core, because it strengthens him a lot, but youre body seems like he wants nothing to do with it."
I nodded. That all made sense and matched the pain I felt. But why would my body reject a will, and that of a dragon on top of that?
"That has never happened before?" I asked her. "In all the years, there has never been a single person whose core rejected a will?
"Well, there has never been a human with the will of an asura before either, so we don't know. It might just be the case that the asuran will is too strong for a human body to handle. But your body's reaction is similar to the rejection of the Vietra blood, some humans have. When our sovereign blessed us with magic and his blood, some humans rejected the blood. They described their blood as boiling and freezing at the same time. None of them made it, I'm afraid. But it seemed to have a genetic part. Do your parents ever advise you not to get Vietra blood, or do they have it themself?"
My parents. They're still on Dicathean, not knowing I am alive.
"Oh, I'm sorry I didn't know." Anela apologized, misunderstanding my suddenly saddened face for grief over lost parents.
"No, they aren't dead. They are fine, but they think that I am dead." I explained to her. Unsure how much of my past I'm allowed to tell, I just told her that my parents never got Vietra blood, but for other reasons. She seemed irritated with the answer, but did not ask any other questions regarding the topic.
"Normally when you get a beast will, you have to meditate and let mana from your core infuse your body, why don't you try that? I have seen that you have no runes, but you can use mana, right?" Her eyes told me that she wanted to ask how this was possible, but because she didn't, I guess she was forbidden from asking.
"I mean, if you couldn't use mana there would be no way you had received the will, right? Or wait, since Lady Sylvia was still alive, I guess she could have given you her will, without you being able to use mana? It's not like you absorbed it from a core, like a person usually gets his will" She rambled on, but when I cleared my throat, she stopped. "How would I be able to receive a will, if I had no mana core?" I asked her curious how that should be possible.
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean." she said confused "What do you mean, no core? Weren't you born with a core?"
Oh shit. Did I say something wrong? Were all Alacryans born with a core or what does her question mean? I had to ask someone about it later.
"Nevermind, yes I can use mana" I just said.
She nodded, still unsure what I meant with my question. "Could you start infusing your body, I would like to be present when you start, so that if anything happens, I am already here."
I nodded and closed my eyes. I reached out for my core, my access to mana. I let the mana from my core spill out of it, and into my body, while using mana rotation, to reduce the draining of my core. Like the woman had said, my body rejected the mana from my core, which was affected by the will. It was like mixing oil with water.
After some time I got the gist of it, and made slow progress. I had to put a lot of mana in one spot, and infuse a very small area with a lot of mana, so much mana my body couldn't reject it all. This was very mana consuming, but at least I could reabsorb the 'spilled' mana much quicker than the ambient mana. My progress was so slow, so I tried something else. Instead of infusing starting with the area around my core, I started to infuse my heart, or to be more precise: The blood in my heart. Since the blood was pumped throughout my whole body, I would just have to infuse the blood, and the infused blood would infuse all of my body. This way I would make a lot of progress and would only have to infuse my bones at the end.
But then something unexpected happened: The blood rejected the mana even more than the normal flesh did. The spillage of my mana was a lot more, but as it was rejecting the mana, at the same time I sucked all of my mana there. It drained my whole core in a few seconds, and the mana was only absorbed at a small percentage, but the rejected mana was so much that I couldn't reabsorb my already purified mana as fast as it was drained. My whole chest was filled with so much mana, it actually hurt. It felt like my whole torso was being stung by millions of microscopic bees, and electrocuted at the same time.
The healer reacted swiftly and tried to disperse the mana someway, but it didnt work. After that she pressed a button next to the door. Then she casted a spell, that immediately reduced the pain I had, and started to inbue some of her own mana, to try to control or guide my mana out of my body. Then she tried to reduce the resistance of my blood, so my mana would get absorbed, instead of rejected. Nothing worked, no it only made it worse. My mana took over her mana, so I had even more of this rejected mana in my body.
As soon as she realized what happened, she tried to stop her own mana flow, but like at my end, she couldn't. Then she just concentrated her mana on healing the wounds the abundance of mana caused me. The door burst open, and a man ran in.
"Get the sovereign, '' Anela asked him in a stressed tone.
"You want me to get the Sovereign here for a small kid?" he asked, not understanding.
"HE PERSONALLY REQUESTED TO BE INFORMED IF SOMETHING ABOUT HIM CHANGED. DO YOU WANT TO BE THE ONE TO TELL HIM HE DIED BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T GET HIM?" Anela screamed at him.
The man just went pale and started running.
The amount of mana Anela put out by now was so much, that I guess she had to be at least a yellow core, which was unimaginable for an emitter in Dicathen. My Mother was a black core, and even the most experienced emitter was only a light red stage. Because they couldn't use atmospheric mana their progress was very limited, yet Anela wasn't slowing down. No, the amount of mana she used only increased, partly because she had to put out a lot more, because my mana overwrote hers partly, and the overwritten mana of her also started to overwrite hers, partly because of the sheer amount of mana that was in my untrained body resulted in even worse injuries then the second before. It was clear what was going to happen without any help.
Either she ran out of mana, which meant she couldn't heal my wounds anymore and I would die from these injuries, or the amount of mana in my body would do some irreversible damage, like dissolving an organ, in which case I would also die. Both possibilities I wasn't fond of.
The door opened again and Agrona appeared next to me. He took a second to realize what was going on. His eyebrows were narrowed, as he tried to understand what was happening.
"My blood is rejecting the will" I managed to get out. He nodded and the atmosphere changed. He must use mana right now. But other than the pressure from yesterday, this was the complete opposite. I could feel the perfect control of his mana, as he used it with the precision of a surgeon. He used a bit of his mana to probe mine, and it was also turned. This left an expression on his face, I couldn't really categorize. But he was surprised and the fact that he couldn't even cut his small mana stream didn't make it better.
"How did it come to that?" He asked Anela. "He tried to infuse body with the will, so it wouldn't get rejected by his body anymore. I thought it worked, but then something changed. His mana got rejected faster than he could reabsorb it. He apparently could do that. This overcharge of mana started to cause damage so I tried to stop it, but couldn't, and the same thing that happens to you happens to me too. Im am treating his wounds, but I won't be able to do this forever. And please be careful, you can't reduce the amount of mana you imbue, I tired when I sent for you, but I can't."
Agrona nodded.
"I tried to imbue the area around my core first, but changed to infuse my blood, thinking it would go faster, but it has a much higher resistance. You see what happened. I also can't control the draining of my core, I am just trying to reabsorb what I can, everytime I do a small percentage is imbued." I complimented her explanation.
"Wait, you said he was getting hurt from it?" Agrona asked. His glowing eyes taught me that he was onto something. "Your own mana can't hurt you, no matter how much it is. It's not this abundance of mana, that is causing this damage. No, it has to be something else. This reaction of his is similar to the reaction of some humans to Vritra blood."
He stood still. He had an idea.
"Arthur, I want to try something. It's high risk, high reward, but I'm sure you understand the situation we are in."
"Do it" I managed to get out. My pain was growing, as Anela was reaching her limit and had to concentrate on healing me and had to neglect the pain reducing spell.
Seeing my pain, Agrona shouted: "Every Sentry capable of any healing spell is here!" His voice boomed through the whole hallway. "And we need stuff for a blood transfusion"
The room filled with emitters, or Sentrys as Agrona had called them. As the first bowed down Agrona let out a "Ignore the formality, help him. Where's the transfusion Sentry?"
The Sentries all surrounded me, each of them starting to concentrate on a different part of my body. Anela went back to concentrate on the painkiller spell.
A tall man, who also had horns, which started at his forehead and bent back behind his ears, stepped in front of Agrona: "What should I do?"
"Hook me, I'm giving him my blood."
Hesitantly the Sentry asked: "Are you sure? His body is already rejecting something, this could only make it worse. If his body also starts to reject your blood, thich we have never tested on a human before, if I might add, there will be nothing we will be able to do."
"Do you have a better idea? He has a dragon will in his body, and you see what that is doing to him. The Basilisk blood should be able to keep it in check." Agrona said, already removing the sleeve from his arm. The Sentry just shook his head and started to cast a spell. Agrona took no time and cast a small blade of mana, and cut his lower arm. A lot of blood splashed out, with each pump of his heard a surge of blood pumped out of the cut. Carefully he also cut my arm, just a small cut at the other side of my elbow, only a few drops came out.
(AR: Normally you donate and receive blood from the vein at the inside of the elbow. This is what happens to art. Since Agrona is an asura with immense healing abilities he just cut his artery, which pumps out much more blood that also has more oxygen in it. Just so you know. DON'T CUT YOUR ARTERY IF YOU WANT TO DONATE (unless you're an asura). There are blood groups too, lets just say there's no such thing in this world)
I saw, as the spell of the Sentry caught all of Agronas blood in the air and created an orb of blood next to him. From this bloodball a small stream flowed to my cut, where it entered my body. Agrona made a second cut, on my lower arm, where the sucked around the same amount of blood out of my body.
"I think it works." I exclaimed. The mixture of my blood and Agronas did not reject the mana from my core like before. Slowly I was able to reduce the amount of additional mana in my body. At the same time, the toll on my body reduced as well. This meant I had more mana to imbue my body with, since the Sentries and Agrona still couldn't cut their mana supply. After five minutes or so, I noticed that the amount of mana I had was reduced.
"Are you able to cut your mana?" I asked the Senties. They all shook their heads "Some of us just ran out of mana so we can not send any more.
"Thank you very much. Everything whose core is emptied can leave. CalL in the next shift, they should take over now." Agrona said. He thanked each one of them for their support. Anela was also reaching her limit. She also excused herself, saying she will be back after her sleep. She had given me so much mana, that she must have a silver core. A silver core emitter. This continent has truly superior mages. Wait. This was a continent with humans with some degree of asuran blood. I couldn't imagine what Epheotus was like, where there were Asuras. I haven't even seen a small part of what Agrona could do.
"How much blood should I infuse in him?" the transfusion sentry asked. "So much as he can handle, right Arthur?" Agrona answered, giving me a smile. "We are nearing the 25% limit. You know that is the percentage a human could handle at most.The only exception is Scythe Cadell with around 30% asuran blood." The sentry said. "But he isn't even reacting at all negatively to the high percentage. His core must balance it out."
Agrona left out a chuckle. "I dont think it's his core. Don't you agree, Arthur? The ritual I talked about yesterday, it has strengthened you a lot as well."
I agreed. In the future I would have to bring up this topic again, but it's obvious Agrona doesn't want anyone to know about this.
After half an hour all the sentries were exhausted, and there were only the sentry for the blood infusion, who never used any mana directly on me and so never got his core drained, and Agrona left. His limitless mana pool kept supplying me with as much mana as I needed. And the best thing is, that he was resupplying his mana even faster than he spent it. With the increasingly higher concentration of my blood the resistance dropped and finally disappeared completely, while the amount of mana Agrona supplied to me grew, since I could handle higher quantities.
Two hours later, the Sentry stopped his spell. The blood orb that had left my body was huge, if I had to guess, it had a diameter of around 1 meter. Agrona looked at him confused. "The boy has 100% Vritra blood by now. Because of the change of his blood, his bones had also changed and his bones are producing your blood by now. There's no need for this spell anymore."
"Well, in that case thank you for your services once more." Agrona said, giving me a side look. The sentry bowed before Agrona and left the room, but not before giving me a curious last look.
"Wait." Agrona said. The sentry came back to the door. "I don't have to tell you, that this fact is secret and you can't tell anyone, right?" The sentry just nodded his head. "Of course High Sovereign. As you wish. But, if you might allow me to do some tests on him later, I could figure out how this was possible, so we could recreate this miracle."
Agrona gave me a look, asking me if I was okay with it. I nodded and Agrona agreed.
When the sentry had left and the door had fallen in its lock, Agrona gave me a smile. "Well then, let's see how much mana you can handle, shall we?"
My eyes must have told him that I totally agree. Let's test this new blood. Agrona continued to increase the amount of mana he gave me, while I reabsorbed his mana and imbued my blood with it. As I had originally planned the blood traveled throughout the smallest blood vessels and infused every cell, from my toe to my head. I didn't even have to infuse my bones separately, since, as the sentry said, it produced the Vritra blood now. Just by my blood traveling next to it the amount of mana infused them on their own.
After what felt like an eternity I felt a spark. The spark started in my core, and like a shockwave of electricity traveled throughout my body. Agrona reacted in the split of a second and casted a barrier of mana around us. The shockwave left my body and dispersed against his barrier.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but I can't have you destroy my home, can I?"
"What was that?" I asked
"Well, I would say you have finished assimilating. I guess to assimilate a will in a single day, and a powerful one like that, is a new record, don't you think?" He let out a chuckle, and cut his mana supply.
He was right. I could feel it. My body was so much stronger now, so much more durable, so much more powerful in general.
"You're right.'' I feel so different."
Agrona gave me a smile. "You must be exhausted. With the amount of progress you made. I'll let you sleep. I'm coming by tomorrow, then you can continue to surprise me."
As he said that, I felt how right he was. Now, that my adrenaline output drops back to a normal level, a wave of exhaustion hits me. I fell back to bed, and couldn't use a single muscle. And I thought I was sore this morning.
As Agrona saw my reaction, he let out a laugh. "Guess I was right. Oh, before you fall asleep, look at your body once more. It's not only the will and the blood that changed."
With that cryptic statement he left the room and closed the door.
What else could have changed? Passively I started to use mana rotation again. I Had stopped using it, as soon as Agrona had started to give me mana, so I could completely focus on the infusion of my body.
And then I realized.The amount of mana I was absorbing was gigantic compared to before. I checked my mana veins, and sure enough they have multiplied in size. They were bigger than my mana channels now! Or where they? Sure I absorbed a lot of mana, but I had used that mana to infuse my body, which could also be seen as a kind of fortification with mana. As I checked, I realized that because of my tendency of being an augmenter my channels have grown even more than my veins. I tried to fortify my right hand, which happened in an instant and with such an amount of mana, that I still had to miss something. Where was this much mana coming from? Was it the asuran blood flowing through my body? Yes, but that couldn't be the only case.
And then I realized. My core. I checked, and what I felt, surpassed my expectations. How was that possible?
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And again I will have a dirty cliffhanger. What do you guys think his core should be?
>4500 words, don't get used to that xD
next chapter probably tomorrow, and a bit earlier than today.
Thanks again for the support, I'm glad you like it.
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