Explorer of Edregon

Luckily for them, Leoture was more than happy to let the two of them study the unique manner in which his shell interacted with mana. Vin was pretty certain the turtoun already spent most of his time simply wandering around and pondering the secrets of the universe as he munched on wet moss, which meant he probably wouldn’t even notice the two of them were there.

“Are you really that close to finishing up your tier-5 spell?” Vin asked, watching Lumel as she sat with a hand on the turtoun’s shell and desperately tried to feel the way Sense Dimensions washed over it. “Still not going to tell me what it is?”

“Yes, I’m close, and no, I won’t,” she giggled, giving him a cheeky smile. “I thought you liked being surprised? Now stop asking and help me interpret this. How exactly is the mana parting when it strikes the shell?”

The rest of the day was spent in a similar manner, with Vin acting as a mana-interpreter for Lumel as she experimented with a few different spatial spells used against the turtoun’s shell. While he couldn’t tell her why mana did what it did, he was definitely able to see how it moved better than she could, and that was all she really needed. Vin got the sense she was trying to figure out how to move something better than her usual teleportation methods, and he watched curiously each time she slipped into Introspection to try shifting around the way she was crafting her spell. Being able to see the genuine runic formation being formed within her core was mind-boggling, as the tier-5 spell was so far beyond anything else he’d ever witnessed.

And that’s only tier 5… What in the world would a tier-9 spell look like?

The following day was filled with much of the same, with Lumel promising she was in fact making fantastic progress and reassuring him that she was only a hairsbreadth away from finishing the spell. Vin helped where he could, even going so far as to cast Neutral Skin on himself with various tweaks from Runic Recallibration and let her study how mana was blocked from his spell. While it wasn’t nearly as streamlined as the turtoun’s shell, it was still valuable data according to Lumel.

It wasn’t until the sun began to set on their second day of work, while Lumel was deep within Introspection, that Vin heard his tag-along choose to chime in.

“How is it that you seem to know the details of what she is doing? You act as though you can see the runic formation itself, but she hasn’t drawn it out for you.”

“Oh, look who’s up,” Vin teased, chuckling at the mental eye roll he could somehow feel. “You probably heard us talking about it, my class ability is called Beyond the Veil. I can see a lot of things most people can’t, including the actual runic formations being worked on within one’s core.”

“Fascinating. I once knew a Sorcerer with a similar ability, but she said it couldn’t be taught. She always used to mock all the effort I was forced to undertake to design new spells when she could use force to make the mana do roughly what she wanted.”

“Yeah, that’s sort of what ended up destroying the old System in the first place,” Vin admitted. “Turns out it takes a deft hand to convince mana to do anything without damaging the System as a whole. Brute strength is not the answer.”

“That was made abundantly clear when she unintentionally deconstructed herself while trying to learn how to shapeshift.”

Vin shuddered at the thought, easily recalling his own experience of his body being broken down by mana trying to break free from the runes giving it a stable form. Shapeshifting was very much not a form of magic he’d ever had any interest in before, and he certainly didn’t have a desire to try it now.

“I just thought you should know. If you ever decide you’re willing to allow me the use of your physical form, and that comes with sharing Beyond the Veil, I believe I should be able to reconnect your golem friend’s soul to the System at large. In theory.”

Vin was ripped out of his inner musings by the unexpected declaration, getting to experience the unique experience of trying to gape at himself as he stared down at his chest in utter shock.

“You what?! You can do that?!”

“I don’t see why not. Even as weakened as I am, I was once still an Arch Mage of the Soul. Your friend’s soul is clearly still here and as intact as ever, it was merely severed from the System when she died. While I was never much of a necromancer myself, my world had a particularly famous one known as the Emperor of Death who conquered an entire island nation at one point. He was most famous for his success in granting his undead commanders levels and access to the System, so there is precedence. With my skills and your ability to see Beyond the Veil, I believe I should be able to figure it out in time.”

Vin continued staring down at his chest, struggling and failing to figure out what to say. At this point, he and his fellow Earthers had been on Edregon for over six months. And seeing as all the other world fragments had a three-month head start over them, that meant Alka had been severed from the System for nearly ten months now. The fact that Ovord thought he could just reconnect her like he was plugging a forgotten cord back into the wall…

“You’re serious? You genuinely think you can do such a thing?”

“What benefit would I gain from lying? In my current situation it clearly benefits me to continue being of use to you. Even if you refused my soul bond, I want to work under your name as you continue searching for a way to grant me a new body.”

Taken from NovelPhoenix, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“What benefit would you gain from lying?” Vin scoffed, his shock slowly morphing into a frown as he glared at his own chest. “I don’t know, maybe trying some sort of underhanded trick like taking control of Alka’s body while ‘studying’ it. For someone as skilled as yourself, I bet it would be doable.”

“If I were at my old strength, yes, I could certainly do that. Though I’ll be the first to admit whoever conducted the binding magic to connect her wayward soul to the golem did an exceptional job. As I am now, I wouldn’t be able to kick out her soul even if I wanted to. Which I do not, if that was not obvious. I wish for a body capable of experiencing sensation, not some unfeeling golem.”

“Madam Trebella was quite skilled,” Vin muttered, wondering not for the first time what had actually happened to the old leader of the infernals. Even if she’d managed to make it back to her old world like she wanted, that didn’t mean she was living happily ever after. The old universe was growing worse by the day the way Shia’s master told it, which meant presumably, she’d left Edregon only to find herself up to her knees in monster swarms. “Okay. I’m not making any promises, but I’ll at least run the idea by Alka. Though I wouldn’t get your hopes up, she doesn’t seem to like soul mages very much.”

“If anything, that is simply a sign of intelligence. I would not trust a soul mage who was not bound either.”

With that, Ovord fell silent once more, and Vin was left to struggle over the decision of whether or not to give the former Arch Mage of the Soul the use of his physical form. Even if it were only for a minute, there was no telling what the mage might be capable of pulling off with access to his mana pool and physical attributes. While Vin felt fairly certain he’d be able to contain the man due to his significantly higher focus and Human Vessel title, he didn’t like to take unnecessary risks if he didn’t have to. At least not risks that could impact his own friends.

That night, after Ovord withdrew into the void of Vin’s mana, Vin ran everything the mage had told him past Lumel. To his surprise, Lumel was much more excited about the idea than he’d expected.

“That’s fantastic!” she said, all but jumping up and down in excitement as she held his hands. “Alka is going to be so happy!”

“I have to admit, I sort of expected you to share my cautious take on this,” Vin said, raising an eyebrow as she snorted. “You don’t think this is risky?”

“Not nearly as much as you. From everything you’ve told me, Ovord seems like a rather intelligent person. Not to mention he sort of has to be if he truly became an Arch Mage on his old world. What exactly would he gain from taking over Alka? A largely unkillable golem body incapable of casting magic? Who is then surrounded by practically a small army of high-level people who know better than anyone her weaknesses and how to take it down? If he tries anything like that, he dies, or ends up being trapped forever again. On the other hand, continuing to show you how beneficial he is to keep around will ensure you keep working to try and find him a new body that he actually wants. You rejected his soul bond, and for obvious reasons, so now he’s struggling to figure out how to please you and show subservience.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” Vin had to admit Lumel had a point. That didn’t mean going forward with Ovord’s idea was completely risk free, but it certainly sounded a lot better. “Alright. I’m feeling a lot more on board with this idea after hearing your thoughts. Thank you.”

“It’s what I’m here for,” Lumel smiled, leaning forward and giving him a tender kiss.

It took one more full day of intense study from the eternally patient turtoun, but eventually, Lumel pulled it off. Just as Vin was wondering if he should try to catch some of the local wildlife to supplement their meals of rations, Lumel snapped out of Introspection with a gasp, her eyes practically glowing purple as she stared at him.

“I did it… I finished the spell!”

“That’s amazing!” Vin exclaimed, jumping up and bracing himself as she threw her arms around him. “You might be the first person to learn a tier-5 spell across all of Edregon!”

“I highly doubt that,” Lumel giggled, positively beaming as she took a step back and tapped gently on Leoture’s shell. Slowly, the turtoun poked his head out, twisting his leathery neck to peer up at her.

“Yes?”

“Thank you again for all your help, Leoture, I couldn’t have finished this without you,” Lumel said, smiling down at their new acquaintance.

“Hmm? Oh, yes, I forgot about that,” the turtoun said, slowly getting to his feet as Lumel blinked in shock. “Well, I’m happy to have been able to help. If either of you ever wish to say hello, you’re welcome to come visit.”

With that, the turtoun turned and began to wander off, moving at about the speed of a regular turtle. Vin just watched him for a minute, waiting until he was a good few dozen feet away before glancing at his lifemate.

“...Was he sleeping that entire time?”

“I have no idea,” Lumel admitted, before shaking her head and beaming once more. “But that doesn’t matter! I can finally show you my spell!”

“I’ll admit, I’ve been pretty excited for this one,” Vin said, rubbing his hands together as he looked around. “Do I have to do anything different? Stand any special way?”

“Just stay within the glowing circle,” Lumel said. With an excited grin, she pressed her fingers together to make a large ring before closing her eyes and focusing.

Vin eagerly watched while Lumel crafted the large runic formation together within her core, the massive array coming together with incredible speed. As it did so, a glowing, purple ring of mana etched itself in a large circle about ten feet wide surrounding the two of them, and Vin blinked as mana rippled and swirled around them, slowly building the ring up higher and higher until there was a small dome over their head, fully blocking them from the outside world. As if it had taken on the characteristics of their new friend, the spell was anything but fast, the mana taking almost a full minute to finish forming the half-bubble. While there were definitely some similarities between this bubble and the one that formed from Mass Dimensional Shift, Vin could tell just at a glance that this wall of mana was somehow both far more durable, and yet also more sleek in some way, as though it had been designed to slip between the fabric of reality more easily.

Just as he was trying to figure out what Lumel was intending, the mana surrounding them began to spin, and he nearly lost his footing when the world jerked around them far more violently than ever before. Lumel was locked in place in the center of the circle, looking like a statue as her robes billowed out around her. Just as he was wondering if this might be perhaps a tiny bit dangerous, the spell completed. The purple bubble around them opened up and quickly withdrew back into the ground, revealing quite the unexpected surprise.

The two of them were back in their apartment.

Lumel had teleported them from three fragments away, straight back into the heart of Terra.