Azuraâs muscles ached at him, and he was grateful to finally have a chance to rest. The monsters did not in fact follow them into the valley, which he was infinitely grateful for. Thanks to the lack of pursuer the hour or 2 spent searching for a good resting spot were fairly peaceful. He had set up camp, and he sorely missed Rorenâs assistance with the task. Most of what they had done he could do on his own, but it was much harder, and even more time consuming. His exhaustion certainly wasnât helping. Using so much mana to get through the bone cage around the core left him already near exhaustion, and then the herculean effort of adapting the core to stun the other monsters on top of that meant he was in very bad condition. Thanks to his stored mana he had managed to keep up a strong front, but he was definitely no longer in fighting condition.
Jackson whistled as he looked over the camp he had prepared.âJeez, nice work on the camp kid, but donât you think all this is a little unnecessary.â He did not in fact think it was unnecessary. He would not be sleeping in the dirt. He didnât care how tired he was.
âIf you would rather sleep in the dirt I wonât stop you.â Did he get even more snarky when he was tired? No, that was probably just his normal level of snark. Heâd think about it later, or probably not. At least not until he was once again in a state of near delirium.
âI mean if itâs there Iâll use it, but I wouldnât have put forth the extra effort to make it right now.â Most probably wouldnât, but some parts of his noble upbringing were a bit harder to shake off than others, and for him the whole staying clean and presentable bit was among them. Also he just hated being dirty.
âHalf an hour of extra work guarantees a much more restful time, itâs an investment into how rested Iâll be tomorrow.â Thatâs not really what heâd been thinking when he did it, but now that he thought about it, he found himself agreeing with the reason he had just made up to make it sound important. There is no way sleeping on the ground would be as restful as sleeping on his nice soft rock beds.
âIf you say so. You know I hadnât really asked because itâs none of my business, still isnât, but I find myself curious. Just what is a powerful young mage like you doing trying to go to Worldâs End? Itâs not exactly the kind of place bright eyed rookies tend to gravitate towards, itâs mostly sought by the old and the desperate.â He fit one of those characteristics, so he supposed the rule held true.
âSometimes there are just things you have to do. Whether you want to or not.â It was a non-answer, but it should answer his question all the same. Part of him considered giving a more indepth answer, it wasnât often that he had an adult that he could ask for advice without any repercussions. Jackson wasnât really in a position to use anything that was said against him, but he found old habits dies\d hard, and he was still hesitant to talk about it.
âFair enough. Just be warned, Iâve seen someone die to the pool of rebirth before. The legends make it sound like only bad people are turned into husks, but the man I knew then wasnât. He wasnât perfect Iâll admit, but I never thought heâd be turned into an empty husk. Itâs a hard thing watching as the body slowly starts to realize itâs already dead.â He got the feeling Jackson was closer to this person than the man was letting on.
âIâve taken some precautions around the pool. Iâm fairly confident that they will at least stop the worst from happening, but only time will tell.â He hadnât really meant to share that bit, but he supposed that as long as he didnât go into specifics he wouldnât be giving away too much. Spirit magic was fairly rare these days, so the number of people who could take precautions against the pool of rebirth probably numbered in the hundreds, and that was across the entire planet. Most of those people had absolutely no need for the pool of rebirth though, most of them went through one of the others, or none at all.
âPrecautions huh? You do sure use an interesting branch of magic. Iâve never seen someone use a monster core like that before. I mean of course Iâve seen people use them as enhancers to increase the effect of their magic, but that wasnât what you did. If anything you put your mana into the core rather than taking its energy out.â Well Jackson was right about being smarter than he looked, but unfortunately for the guide his magic wasnât exactly something you could just figure out. Enchantment worked by different rules than regular magic. It wasnât inherently better, but he preferred its versatility.
âIâd be surprised if youâve seen anyone use magic like I do. Honestly even if you had you probably wouldnât be able to connect the dots anyway.â Artificers used the same branch of magic he did, but it was used so differently it would be hard to make that connection unless he made a showing of it. Like say using the enchantments on his body. Glowing arcane symbols were pretty hard to miss unfortunately.
âPretty confident in that theory huh? Well itâs not really any of my business, so Iâll leave it be. Not like I want you prying into my magic in retaliation.â Now he felt a little guilty. He had, after all, already been doing that. Normally he would just act like he hadnât been and move on, butâ¦
âBecause it's curse based?â There was no way he would miss something like that after seeing it in action so many times. The specifics were beyond him, but the retaliation part of Jacksonâs magic at least seemed to be caused by a curse that was afflicted when Jackson is injured.
âCaught that did you?â The man sighed, but didnât seem as on edge as he had expected. âWell itâs no big secret really. I dabbled in some magic that I shouldnât have. I got some useful magic out of it, but the consequences were far worse than the boon it granted. Still, I use the magic as often as possible to make up at least a little for the damage I caused by using the curse for good.â
âIâm assuming the regeneration ability is a unique magic? Pretty convenient synergy.â In some ways he was even a little jealous. Not that he had any room to complain about someone having a useful unique magic.
Jackson smirked at him. âHey I let the curse bit go, because it was natural to be wary of a curse user, but donât you think youâre pushing it now?â That was too bad. He had hoped Jackson would continue to casually share information if he tried to keep the train rolling.
He shrugged. âIt was worth a shot. Iâve never seen healing magic that fast before. You were healing faster than you were taking damage despite the overwhelming odds, itâs just rather curious is all.â
âSure the guy carrying around a bunch of familiars and cloning himself thinks my magic is curious.â That was a fair point. His copies were usually pegged as unique magic pretty quickly. Mostly because it was obvious. Magic could be used to make golems that looked like you, but usually there were several obvious differences. The inability to talk being chief among them. Even if his copies kept quiet though it wouldnât matter. Golems like that couldnât exactly be formed in an instant like his copies could.
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âWell the familiars at least arenât as special a thing as it may seem. I just have some really good friends looking out for me.â He wondered how everything was going on their end. It was probably a little rough for them without their familiars, and his copies would be scrambling to catch all the classes, and still have time to help the others study. At least Roran would manage fine on his own. He wondered if Lunaâs familiar had hatched yet. He was very much looking forward to meeting the phoenix.
Jacksonâs eyes widened in surprise. âI feel like knowing 4 people that trust you enough to lend their familiar to you is even more out of the ordinary than just having 5 familiars.â He just chuckled. Technically there were 6 people who trusted him that much, but Lily and Luna had special circumstances given their familiars. Either way Jackson had a point, perhaps as a trade for his unbelievably bad luck with most things, he was quite lucky when it came to the people he had met recently. He really couldnât hope for better friends.
âTrue enough, it probably helps that most of my friends are a little naive⦠or perhaps idealistic might be a more appropriate term.â In all honesty it was probably a mix of both. He enjoyed that about them though, it was people like them that made the world a place worth being. If everyone was like his father and the other nobles it would be a much darker place.
âYou sound quite fond of them.â He knew Jackson was fishing for more info, but he couldnât really say he minded. As long as no names were given out to trace back to him he didnât mind talking about them. Besides it was nice to have something other than his sore muscles to focus on.
âI owe them a lot, and even if I didnât I quite enjoy their company⦠Well most of the time.â Sparring with Lily tended to get a bit dicey, but even that had become something he looked forward to. Challenging strong opponents was one of the best ways to improve after all.
Jackson laughed. âMost of the time eh? That should be the motto for friendship among mages. Most of the time itâs nice and friendly, until you realize youâre competing for something. After that itâs a mad scramble where anything goes.â Huh, so that wasnât just a noble thing after all. Perhaps he was a bit biased given a lack of experience dealing with non-noble mages. Aside from his friends anyway, but it didnât surprise him to find out they werenât the norm.
âIs that so? I canât claim to have much experience with that.â Hopefully he never would, that sounded exhausting. He was already working overtime to try and let himself actually let down his guard a little among friends. He didnât need to add extra work 2nd guessing that. âOn an unrelated note, the base is all done. Itâs only a few hours after noon, but given the lack of sleep we got yesterday I think Iâm going to bed.â He loved how even out in the middle of the wilds when he said go to bed he meant a bed.
âIâm right behind you, I can already feel my eyes trying to shut all on their own.â Jackson was visibly impressed as they walked into the base. He wasnât as skilled with earth magic as Roran who could even get all the textures to match what you would find in a high class house, but he could still keep things neat and organized. Even if it was all made of rock. He retreated to his room and set up his defensive enchantments. He was glad they were able to find somewhere out of the way. When they were camping out in the forest he couldnât afford to set up a whole base like this. They had to steal naps quickly and quietly since monsters were constantly ambushing them. They were halfway there, well geographically they were halfway there. The next half involved taking a lot of detours, and going over rough terrain, so was set to take a lot longer than the first half. Still being a little over a week into the journey they were still on schedule. At least they didnât run into that commander monster. Hopefully that held out on the trip back.
***
Azuraâs copy wasnât particularly happy with the situation. He hadnât expected to have to switch places with the other so quickly. Well technically their spirit echoes just traded bodies, but more or less the same effect. Moreover the others were more upset about whatever happened than heâd expected. Which unfortunately meant heâd have to give them the answers they wanted so theyâd calm down and he could get the answers he wanted.
âWhat exactly Is your unchained self?â Katy asked, making air quotes around his term for the transformation. He sighed. Heâd hoped to ease into it, not start with the biggest question. Especially given that he didnât think the answer would appease them very much. He certainly wasnât happy with it.
âI donât know. All I know is that once I reached a certain level in enchantment magic I noticed that an enchantment had already been applied to me, or more accurately a seal had been placed on me. I have no idea what it came from, or what exactly it seals away, but being who I am I decided to find out. So I made an enchantment that would nullify the seal for a few minutes. Just in case the seal ended up being really important. The first time I undid the seal nothing really happened. I mean I still went through the transformation and got a ton stronger, but I didnât really do anything. Even that was enough for me to know something was wrong though. When the seal reasserted itself. I felt dread like Iâve never felt before.â He took a deep breath. This wasnât an easy thing for him to give away. It came with some unsettling truths about himself after all.
Thankfully his friends didnât interrupt or ask questions, they simply waited for him to continue. âIâm still me when I transform, but also not. Itâs hard to explain, but itâs like I have all my memories and experiences, but my thought process is totally different. Not alien though, itâs still me just callous and even more arrogant. Tyrannical almost. Itâs like this strange instinct takes over. Suddenly a lot of things donât seem to matter to me as much, and I work towards accomplishing whatever goal I had in the easiest way for me. Regardless of the consequences. Unfortunately the goal isnât necessarily my conscious one, which is almost always not to hurt anyone.â Perhaps that was the part that hit the hardest. He still had those thoughts even normally. That his task would be easier if he just stopped trying so hard not to be his father, but he refused to turn into the same kind of monster he had spited his whole life.
âI find it hard to believe that itâs still you, when you were changed you werenât acting anything like yourself.â It must have been pretty bad if even Lily sounded that shaken. He supposed he should count his blessings that they at least werenât blaming him directly for whatever it was. He figured the transformation really wasnât all that different from being drunk, not that he had ever actually been drunk. Still the concept sounded similar enough, and it was for that very reason he tended to steer away from anything alcoholic.
âI get what youâre saying, but itâs not exactly like that. What I meant is that there is no one taking control of me, I donât black out and wake up after. Iâm making these decisions and doing these things, and at the time they make perfect sense to me, and even after I know why I did those things, and in some ways they were the best thing for me to do, but normally I would never do them. Iâm probably not explaining it very well.â He was trying to be clear, but it wasnât exactly something he could just show them, and he hadnât yet found anything similar to compare it to. He adamantly refused to drink alcohol or take any âmedicationsâ that altered his state of mind.
âDoes that mean the normal you is actually the seal rather than how youâd normally be.â Leave it to Cynthia to immediately pick up on his biggest concern about the whole thing. If he was being completely honest, he genuinely didnât know. He didnât think that was the case though. As far as he could tell the seal only suppressed something, it didnât make anything new. Still that led to his other concern. What exactly was being suppressed. Obviously a ton of magical power was part of it, but also some kind of odd instincts that didnât match his normal ones at all.
âI donât think so, or at least not entirely. Whatever the transformation is itâs part of me, but sealing it away still only leaves parts of me. I think the reason it goes all the way to the other extreme is the dissonance. My brain canât handle this other part of me suddenly coming to the fore, so my normal instincts kind of shut down. In theory if I stayed in the transformation long enough the instincts should stabilize, and Iâd be left in a more controlled middle ground. But I have no idea what that would look like, and I have so far chosen not to risk it.â Still heâd be lying if he said he wasnât hoping that the pool of rebirth might cleanse that part of him.