Chapter 64 : Lucian Beltaine
Chapter 64. Lucian Beltaine
A small undersea cave.
With too many eyes watching, they had moved locations. This cave, at least, remained unchanged.
As Yul looked at Lucian, Lucian was also looking at Yul.
Lucian, now grown into a gallant young man, examined the enormous Seaborn standing before Skilg Brig Island.
A head resembling an orca, six eyes, a body as large as a house, and long, beautiful fins.
“So Seaborn can get this big!? That gem on your forehead, is it a moonstone?”
After the world’s [rules] changed, all sea creatures came to be called Seaborn.
And Lucian had never seen a Seaborn that looked like this. Perhaps no one in the world had ever seen such a creature before.
His mother shook her head.
“Lucian, do you remember Yul?”
“Yes.”
Lucian remembered the enormous creature he had seen when he was very young.
That gigantic whale with a small tattoo on its forehead—his father had said it was a guest from a mysterious sea.
Unlike his father, a great mage, Lucian could not manifest most formulas.
He had been born with the duty of inheriting the family vision conceived by his late father, yet due to a physical defect, he could not use it.
However, he could use something similar, and that was Lucian's specialty.
He opened the glove on his right hand, exposing part of the skin on the back of his hand, and activated the installed artifact module. The formula input into that module was [Transmission of Thoughts].
-Hello?
-It’s been a long time. I saw you when you were little.
Yul looked down with vast, tranquil eyes. After obtaining divinity, Yul could see through things and, to some extent, even grasp the inner selves of people.
Lucian had grown into a confident and upright young man.
Within him was a deep yearning for magic born from his physical defect, and it seemed to be reflected in the strange tools he possessed.
-What is that tool you’re using? It feels like magic.
Across the entire device, something physically laid out much like magic circuits was embedded.
-This is a magitech tool. We call it an artifact. More importantly, how did you become a Seaborn? When I saw you as a child, you were definitely an orca.
-Seaborn?
-It refers to unusual creatures born in the sea, ones we’ve never seen before. These beings have gems embedded in their foreheads and possess the ability to commune with people.
-Hmm?
Yul realized that for those who lived on land, the new world brought about by the Heaven and Earth Resonance was being understood in their own way.
-It’s a long story.
-I can listen all day if I have to. I’ve got quite a lot of magic.
-Lucian, you’re bothering Yul.
Celestia glared at him.
-No. It’s fine. I wanted to listen quite a bit myself. But could you do me a favor and lend me Lucian for about a day? Like I used to do with Ian, just talking.
-All day? Hmm. All right. I have some matters to attend to, so I should be going now.
Celestia gave a light bow and left with the mage beside her.
-Hasn’t your mother’s personality changed a bit?
-She had good reason to. After Father vanished into the light, she had to bear countless upheavals that followed.
-I see.
Lucian described Ian’s death as “vanishing into the light.” Their expressions were subtly different.
According to Lucian, after Ian’s death, Celestia devoted all her time to stabilizing the people of the school he had left behind and preserving and classifying its materials.
The wave that could have overturned the world had been witnessed by all the people of Britain, and Ian was the mage who had stepped forward to stop it.
Even the king had taken an interest, so it was hard to imagine just how tremendous the aftermath must have been.
-After Father saved the nation from the Great Catastrophe, the state began reinterpreting the magic of the Great Balance school at a national level. And countless mages wanted to enter the school or study its interpretation.
-It sounds chaotic just hearing about it.
-Mother wasn’t a mage, but she was good at managing organizations and things like that.
-Is that so?
Yul had not had much of a relationship with Celestia, so he knew nothing about her abilities.
-And support also began coming in from Father’s side, the Beltaine Family, and from Mother’s side, the Drake Family.
-That’s fortunate.
Unlike Yul, who had fallen alone, they had families as organizations. Having relatives to rely on was a blessing.
-So the Great Balance school isn’t like other schools with a single unrivaled leader. Instead, it’s run by a council modeled after an assembly.
-I see. And you couldn’t learn that magic?
-I had the authority to learn it or view the materials. I’m Father’s son, after all. But as you can see, my hand is like this.
He pointed to his hand. The Krelsite gloves stood out, with what looked like mechanical components attached atop it.
-Is that the Krelsite I gave you back then?
-Ah? You were the one who sent it? Father told me one day to keep wearing it! Thank you. Krelsite is incredibly expensive and hard to obtain.
-What? It’s still expensive?
-Of course. Yul’s trade, which had led the supply of Krelsite, was cut off for ten whole years.
-So I really was asleep for a long time.
The stock Yul had released back then had sold out instantly even at the time, and afterward, prices had skyrocketed again.
-Anyway, back to the topic. I’m curious about how so many sea creatures became Seaborn. You seem to know something!
In Lucian’s golden eyes, scholarly passion churned like a storm.
‘He’s just like his father.’
His disposition closely resembled Ian’s. Especially those eyes, they were the same.
-That’s because of a massive event called the Heaven and Earth Resonance. A colossal incident known only to sea creatures.
-You mean the Great Catastrophe.
-So that’s how it’s known among humans.
Yul explained what the Heaven and Earth Resonance was.
-Once every several thousand years, something like a convergence of fate occurs. If I had to put it into words, I’d call it the ‘gravitational pull’ of fate. One sea creature I know called it ‘destined fortune.’ Through that, an object called the Regulator is activated.
-The Regulator?
-An artifact believed to have existed since the Age of the Gods, when the world was first created.
The giants of lava, mountain range, sea, and swamp each acted under the Creator’s command and took part in shaping the world.
-The Regulator is divided into four fragments. When a destined fortune capable of overturning the world gathers, the power of those four pieces merges. After that, the moon descends, and creatures ‘ascend’ to the moon. During the Ascension, everyone heads toward the moon through that enormous pillar of water.
-Ascension……? A pillar of water? N-no, wait. Just a moment, my head is spinning.
Upon glimpsing a portion of the world’s secrets, Lucian fell into thought, clearly unable to believe it.
-I’m ready. Please continue. Starting from the Ascension.
-Ascension means the body transforms into an entirely different species. That’s what happened to me, too. I was originally an octopus.
-Then that enormous pillar of water—
-Through that pillar, the sea of the moon and the sea of this planet become connected. On the moon, colossal powers are fighting for the Moon’s supremacy, and along that path, they recruit new beings.
-Good heavens.
-The moon observations your father witnessed were connected to things like that. He always drew inspiration from the moon, but as for why his memories vanished, even I still don’t know.
-I don’t know that either. Mother is the only one who manages Father’s observation records. Still, this is incredibly exciting. Among humans right now, am I the only one who knows this information?
-Probably.
There were no sea creatures closer to the Heaven and Earth Resonance than Yul, and those who had been in similar circumstances had all ascended, so the odds were high that Yul alone knew this secret.
‘Unless it’s the Sea God in the deep sea, perhaps.’
Sea God Kaidron had not ascended during this Heaven and Earth Resonance.
‘Only a small fraction of the deep sea’s powerhouses ascended.’
He did not know why, but most of them were likely still down in the deep sea.
-Afterward, when the Heaven and Earth Resonance ends, a transcendent being who dwells on the moon, an Aeon, descended. They’re probably the beings closest to gods. According to the Treaty Agreement they declared, the rules of the world change.
-……Then the sea creatures with gems embedded in their foreheads, the Seaborn, did they not even exist before?!
-Right. They came into being because the rules of the world changed.
Most likely, every sea creature Yul had yet to encounter now had a gem embedded in its forehead.
‘Tuania probably does as well, with high probability.’
It was certain that Tuania had not ascended; the only problem was that her whereabouts were still unknown.
-This is astonishing.
-I only learned it myself recently. If I had known that Ian would lose his life due to the aftermath of that event, I would have tried to minimize the damage or delay it as much as possible.
-Don’t regret it. From my perspective, that incident would have been difficult to stop with your power alone.
At Yul’s self-reproach, Lucian shook his head. Even after hearing the entire process, Lucian still regarded it as something akin to an overwhelming natural catastrophe.
-Come to think of it, Yul, you seem to have ascended as well. Then why didn’t you go to the moon?
-After activating the Regulator, I was offered a path to the moon, but I didn’t take it. I wasn’t particularly desperate to ascend.
Yul already possessed the ability to ascend on his own.
Simply having that ability, so fervently desired by countless sea creatures.
-After that, I did gain the title of a Mythic rank creature, but because of it, my main body can’t even move.
-What? Mythic rank?!
-Why? Right now, I’m not my main body, but a state downgraded by two stages, the『Unique』 rank. Are humans aware of this rank system, too?
-Of course. Since then, the Seaborn ranks have been engraved into everyone’s minds.
As if everyone had known it from the beginning, people were aware of the Seaborn ranking system.
Lucian said this was the same not only for humans, but also for other races such as dwarves and elves.
-And the fact that we can establish ‘Communion’ with those beings, too.
-Is that so?
Considering the transcendent abilities of the Aeons, that was not particularly strange.
-How is it done?
- You place your hand on the gem embedded in the target’s forehead and focus your mind to establish Communion. Once you do, the two souls become entwined, triggering the most powerful contract—or so I understand. Until one of them dies, Communion can be formed with only a single target.
-Oh. Shall we try it?
-What? Are you serious?
-Of course.
-This is extremely important. You can’t decide something like that so lightly.
-I’m not being light about it. If I’m going to be with someone, it would be someone from the Beltaine Family.
It sounded casual, but Yul had long felt a deep Communion with this family.
It wasn’t about compensating for Ian’s death.
Ian, then Lucian, and then even the next generation
Yul had a premonition that, as if bound by fate, he and the Beltaine Family would remain entwined.
【Establish ‘Communion’ with intelligent beings, share experiences with them, and reach the highest level of Communion.】
【Reduce your karma value through special means, or raise your [Communion] with the human race to its maximum and distribute your karma among them.】
And since he could clear two quests through Communion, this was practically mandatory.
-You really mean it. Understood. Communion with a Unique rank creature…….
Lucian stepped closer toward Yul and extended his hand toward the gem on Yul’s forehead.
Light flickered, and thoughts intertwined.
It was the first appearance in history of a human who had communed with a Mythic rank creature.
It was the emergence of the first human in history to establish Communion with a Mythic rank creature.