CHAPTER 70
Azra'il - POV
The following weeks had nothing worthy of record, which, considering the twelve days of cultivation and the few hours of administrative chaos that had preceded them, was exactly the kind of tedium I'd finally learned to appreciate without reservation.
The core's formation had been the noise. The consolidation was the silence after it, repetitive, precise, and utterly devoid of anything deserving applause or a witness. The small silver sphere, day after day, stopped being an event and became an organ. The surface, once irregular enough to resemble a newly formed pearl, smoothed itself out until it was perfectly spherical.
The small internal stars, which at first spun with the chaotic enthusiasm of children let loose in a playground, gradually organised themselves into harmonic orbits, each one finding its own place without shoving its neighbours any more. The rotation stopped causing any residual turbulence in the meridians around it. And, little by little, the core stopped being a recently installed lodger in the dantian and became part of the house's own structure.
Rudimentary. Initial. Intermediate. Advanced. Perfect.
Each stage demanded less conscious effort than the one before, not because the process was easier, but because my own body was, bit by bit, no longer needing to be convinced to cooperate.
There was no explosion when the Perfect stage finally arrived.
No thunder crossed that cavern's underground sky. No ancestral beast appeared to roar my name in celebration, which I considered, in particular, a serious production failure after so much invested effort.
The core simply stopped seeming like something I'd created.
It started seeming like something I should always have been born with.
[Current realm: Spirit Core.]
[Stage: Perfect.]
[Bodily and spiritual integration completed, without complications.]
〈Without complications. How anticlimactic.〉
[The absence of complications is generally considered positive, in most known evaluation systems.]
〈I know, Eos. I just feel I deserve, at minimum, a soundtrack.〉
I ended the technique.
I unwound the lotus posture with almost ceremonial care, my limbs responding with a fluidity that weeks of immobility ought never to have permitted, and swam slowly up to the surface of the lake, breaking it with my head for the first time in weeks.
The air hit my face before I remembered, with an almost comical start, that I actually needed to draw it into my lungs.
I breathed.
It was, without exaggeration, one of the strangest acts I'd ever performed in any of my countless lives, my body recalling, with an almost offended hesitation, a habit it had spent whole weeks considering dispensable.
It was then that I felt something brush my back.
Then my shoulder.
Then my arm.
I grabbed what I imagined, for one perfectly reasonable second of panic, to be some particularly invasive aquatic plant that had decided to take advantage of my prolonged stillness.
It was hair.
My hair.
In a quantity sufficient to justify, at the very least, a formal administrative inquiry into exactly what had happened to my head while I'd been busy compressing entire oceans of mana.
I emerged completely, and the wet weight fell across my back with a generosity I definitely didn't recall authorising. It reached roughly to the middle of my back, a growth no reasonable span of time should produce without some satisfactory technical explanation.
〈Eos, any justification for this capillary novelty?〉
[Significantly accelerated metabolism during the cultivation period. Excessive vitality combined with constant regeneration. Cellular growth was likely stimulated by the continuous presence of the Heavenly Spring Essence in the water around you, combined with entire weeks without any maintenance trim.]
〈Someone should have informed me of this during the process.〉
[The phenomenon posed no risk whatsoever to your physical or spiritual integrity.]
〈Not everything needs to threaten catastrophic explosion to deserve advance notice, Eos.〉
[Your personal history has created rather particular priority criteria over the cycles. Hair growing beyond expectations has not historically tended to feature among your genuine concerns.]
〈Fair. But a notification would still have been polite.〉
It was only on walking to the bank, dripping water evenly from my entire body, that I noticed the rest.
The lake's still-bright surface served as an improvised mirror, and the reflection that looked back at me wasn't exactly strange, it remained recognisable, undeniably me, but everything seemed more harmonious, as though someone had taken the original draft and refined every individual line without altering the base design.
My skin had turned paler, more even, without the small blemishes and imperfections that eight years of physical life ought, by basic logic, to have left behind. Almost translucent under the cavern's weak crystal light, smooth in a way no ordinary biology should produce without considerable outside help. There was a discreet luminosity to it, hard to distinguish from simple good health until one looked for too long and realised that ordinary human skin shouldn't reflect light that way.
Small scars I didn't even remember still carrying, training marks, calluses built up over months of fencing, all gone, as though they'd never existed.
My face was still mine. It just seemed to have been remade by some excessively perfectionist spiritual craftsman, incapable of accepting any small asymmetry as a legitimate part of human anatomy. The features had become slightly finer, chin and jaw delicately more defined, nose and lips rearranged into an almost mathematically balanced proportion. It was still, unmistakably, the face of an eight-year-old child. Only now it carried that look of "immortal child found atop a forbidden mountain by a monk too confused to question its origin."
The blue of my eyes had deepened, and small silver sparks now spun behind the iris, discreet enough to escape a casual glance, but impossible to ignore up close, like stars reflected at the bottom of a lake too deep to exist in that face.
〈Eos, probable cause of this ocular change.〉
[The direct integration between the newly consolidated Spirit Core and the nervous system, including the already-existing spiritual perception channels. The gaze essentially reflects the new sensory processing capacity.]
〈My gaze has grown older than my face.〉
[A technically imprecise but emotionally understandable description.]
And the hair was whiter than before, glossier, extremely soft to the touch, heavy now that it was wet, almost silky. I ran my fingers through a lock and didn't find a single damaged tip along its whole length, as though every single strand had been polished, one by one, by some entity with far too much free time and rather questionable priorities.
The problem wasn't being pretty. I'd already been pretty in enough lives to have long since lost any particular interest in the subject.
The problem was looking like the kind of child who sparked entire religious rumours whenever she passed through an unsuspecting village.
I stood on the bank for a moment, considering the practical implications of that with the kind of weariness of someone who already knew, in advance, how much social labour it was going to generate.
〈Eos, assessment of height and bone structure, since we're taking full inventory.〉
[Approximate growth of four centimetres. Redistribution of muscle and bone mass, resulting in greater density despite a slenderer appearance. Legs and arms slightly longer. Naturally more upright posture. Hands and feet discreetly larger.]
〈I've gained weight, then, despite looking slim.〉
[Correct. Superior bone and muscle density compensates for the visual impression of slenderness.]
It was only on trying to gather my own clothes, still folded on the stone where I'd left them more than a month before, that the problem became physically evident.
The shirt pulled tight at the shoulders and arms the moment I tried to put it on. The sleeves ended well above my wrist. The trousers stopped several centimetres above my ankles, exposing an amount of leg no decent garment should expose. The sash that used to fasten comfortably at my waist categorically refused to finish its own knot.
The clothes went on, technically, with the same generous definition of "went on" that someone might, with considerable goodwill, apply to an adult bear forced into an empty wine barrel.
I tried a simple test movement, any old shoulder roll, and the seam complained with a crack that promised nothing good.
[Fabric integrity reduced to worrying levels.]
〈Is that a polite way of saying I'm about to rip these trousers?〉
[Yes.]
I stood completely still, weighing my own options with the seriousness the situation, ridiculously, demanded.
I opened the inventory.
The interface unfolded before my usual sight, and I spent a fair amount of time discarding options: ceremonial garments far too noble for a journey back through the forest, armour that would communicate far more threat than I intended to project, a cloak I vaguely recalled having stolen from some temple in some life I'd rather not detail right now.
I found, at last, the oriental-style training set: white inner tunic, pale-blue overlay, crossed collar, darker blue sash, loose sleeves fastened at the wrists, dark trousers, light boots, discreet silver embroidery along the hems.
〈Eos, any aesthetic opinion on this wardrobe choice?〉
[The style has relevant similarities to oriental martial garments. According to the data I have access to, the pattern closely resembles what is usually associated with the Dragon King's Realm.]
〈Dragon King's Realm?〉
[It is the most probable regional interpretation, considering the cut and the embroidery.]
〈Excellent. I'd rather look like a young foreign martial artist of exotic origin than an entity freshly emerged from a forbidden lake after a month of suspicious seclusion.〉
[The visual difference between the two interpretations is considerably smaller than you imagine.]
I tied part of my hair back with a red ribbon I found at the bottom of my inventory, considering the possibility of simply cutting it right there.
The arguments in favour were practical enough: that length drew too much attention, could get in the way in real combat, and I, honestly, had no desire whatsoever to deal with the extra upkeep it now demanded. Combined with the rest of my new appearance, it only reinforced that supernatural air I'd been trying, without much success, to minimise.
But I decided not to cut it myself, there, in the unstable reflection of a lake inside a half-dark cavern.
For years, it had been Lilia who cut my hair with that patient precision of someone who'd dealt, over a lifetime, with sharp blades, restless children, and Paul Greyrat, not necessarily in that order of relative difficulty.
I could cut it right there. I could also cut it badly, leave one side a good three fingers shorter than the other, and spend the next few months pretending, with whatever dignity remained, that it had been an entirely deliberate aesthetic choice.
I preferred to delegate the task to someone with access to a decent mirror and scissors that weren't blunt.
I tied the rest into a high ponytail, functional enough for the journey, and turned my attention to what actually mattered: finding out exactly how much power I'd just gained without noticing, and avoiding, as far as possible, destroying something important in the process of finding out.
The first sign came entirely without intention on my part.
I rested my hand on a stone ledge to lift myself from the bank, a gesture so automatic it didn't even deserve conscious notice.
The stone's edge gave way under my fingers.
It didn't crack. It didn't creak. It gave way, whole, like dry clay pretending to have been solid granite for centuries.
I stared at my own hand for a second, then at the crushed stone, with an expression that probably conveyed more genuine surprise than I usually allowed to show.
〈Eos, exact quantification, please.〉
[Physical strength increased by a significant proportion, consistent with the complete integration between the Adamantine Body and the Spirit Core. I recommend controlled testing before any activity requiring precision.]
I followed the recommendation, for the first time in a long while without arguing first.
I chose a larger block of stone, isolated in a corner of the cavern, and applied what I honestly considered a minimal, carefully restrained fraction of my own strength.
The resulting punch created a perfectly clean dent in the rock wall, the contours so precise they looked as though they'd been carved by a tool, not a fist.
[Force employed: two point eight per cent of current estimated capacity.]
I stared at the crater for a moment longer than it deserved.
〈I don't like that number one bit.〉
[The wall appears to share that same opinion, judging by its state.]
I tested speed next, as it seemed the next logical item on a list that was already, in any case, catastrophically compromised.
I took a single step, using what I also considered, in good faith, a restrained fraction of my own momentum.
The world blurred past me in a smeared streak of stone and diffuse light, and I only stopped before colliding with the opposite wall because my dignity, apparently, had far better reflexes than any conscious planning I'd done before taking that step.
〈Eos, was that humiliating or impressive?〉
[Both classifications apply with equal accuracy.]
〈Unsatisfying answer, but an honest one.〉
I repeated the movement a few times, adjusting the ratio between applied strength and actual control, until I managed to cross the entire cavern at a speed that, while still considerably above normal, no longer left me looking like a misfired child projectile.
The final test involved properly conducting mana through my freshly recalibrated body, wind through my feet for propulsion, water running along my arms, earth in the soles of my feet, a thin thread of electricity at my fingertips, and a general layer of mana spread across my whole skin, all flows simultaneous, with not the slightest hesitation between them.
The Spirit Core responded immediately, with no perceptible delay, each channel receiving exactly what it needed at the exact instant it needed it, as though my entire body had finally learned to communicate with itself without intermediaries.
Faster casting. Reduced consumption for each individual technique. Fine enough control to maintain several simultaneous currents without one compromising another. Automatic circulation even under the hypothesis of real combat.
I'd be able to teach Rudeus with far greater precision than I'd originally planned, which, considering the agreement we'd made before my departure, was a rather convenient coincidence.
One problem remained, however, before any journey back: the lake.
Even after a whole month of intense cultivation, the mana concentration in there was still too dangerous to simply abandon. Any unsuspecting adventurer who found that place might drink the water out of curiosity, try to cultivate with no preparation at all, or worse, try to sell the spot to some suspicious buyer. The risk of attracting monsters, triggering uncontrolled mutations, or simply exploding internally with great dignity and absolutely no planning was too high for me to leave open out of sheer laziness.
I collected a small amount in containers from the inventory, enough for future study should the need arise, before deciding to drain the rest.
I used spiritual perception to locate a cavity deep enough beneath the cavern itself, confirming, with redoubled care, that there were no important underground rivers, aquifers vital to the region, or any inhabited structure directly below that might suffer the consequences.
I opened a narrow channel at the bottom of the lake with earth magic, and the water began to be sucked down into the underground, the process gradually widened to avoid any uncontrolled collapse.
The lake began to spin in on itself, forming an ever-faster whirlpool of blue and silver light. The surface sank slowly, revealing walls that hadn't seen open air in centuries, until all that liquid energy vanished entirely into the depths of the earth.
[Underground cavity confirmed as final destination. Isolated rock structure, with no connection to watercourses, groundwater, sensitive ecosystems, or accessible cave networks. The residual mana will be gradually absorbed by the surrounding mineral layers.]
[Drainage completed safely.]
What remained were only bright stones, residual spiritual sediment, a few plants that had grown in a rather unnatural and overly ambitious manner, and a handful of smaller crystals. I removed or destroyed what represented a real risk, leaving behind only mana residue insufficient to cause any trouble to whoever might, by chance, find that space in the future.
The goal had never been to hide a treasure for no one to find.
It was to make sure no one found one and decided, out of pure curiosity, to take a sip.
I sealed the floor with earth magic, fusing the rock layers until no visible sign remained of the hole that had been there. I checked the whole cavern one last time, gathering any leftover material, cleaning away obvious traces, reinforcing cracks in the walls that my own cultivation had, unintentionally, widened over the weeks.
Only a faint residual glow remained in the crystals, discreet enough to pass for an unusual geological phenomenon, nothing to attract excessive curiosity.
I undid the seal on the entrance.
Sunlight touched my face for the first time in more than a month, making my white hair shine with a new intensity, my eyes reflect a shade of silver that definitely hadn't existed before, my skin look even paler under direct light, the blue tunic contrasting almost artistically against the dense green of the surrounding forest.
Under natural light, I understood, with an uncomfortable certainty, that the lake's reflection had been generous.
Or perhaps, more precisely, insufficiently cruel.
I really was going to draw attention, wherever I decided to set foot.
I'd definitely ask one of the mansion's maids to see to that hair as soon as I arrived. Lilia had always made it look simple. She also made a great many other things look simple, because she possessed the rare ability to be competent without needing to announce her own talent every five minutes, a virtue I appreciated more and more the longer I spent around people far too loud to practise that same discretion.
〈Eos, total time elapsed since leaving Roa.〉
[Around thirty-four days, seven hours and nineteen minutes.]
I'd said three or four weeks, before leaving. I'd gone, therefore, a little beyond what I'd promised, not enough to justify real panic, but enough to guarantee an emotionally charged welcome the moment I set foot back in the mansion.
I thought of Rudeus, probably exhausted from covering my absence alone for so long. Of Ghislaine, keeping everything running with that same quiet efficiency as ever. Of Philip, Hilda, and Sauros, all demanding, each in their own characteristic way, a satisfactory explanation. Of the shampoo production, which certainly needed attention. And of Eris, who, considering the delay, had probably already decided, with that particular logic of hers, that the best way to express her own worry would be through moderate violence.
I turned my face towards Roa.
With my new body, the journey that had taken three whole days on the way out could now be completed in a few hours. But I didn't set off at full speed immediately, not after the recent episode with the cavern wall. I tested my stride first, recalibrating my own body with a care that recent experience had, suddenly, made quite advisable.
I adjusted the dark-blue sash around my waist, and took my first step among the trees, calculating the force with a deliberate care I normally dispensed with.
The ground didn't explode.
Notable progress, considering recent history.
I adjusted my own pace until I found a speed that balanced efficiency with reasonable discretion, and finally began the journey home, short in distance and probably long in explanations.
-----------------
Author's Note
-----------------
I’m currently writing the post-Mana Calamity arc, and I have a LOT of plans for what comes next. This is really the point where the story starts diverging much more heavily from canon because of Azra’il’s existence.
One thing I want to do is give more focus to characters who died in canon but may not have met the same fate in my story. And no, I’m not telling you who survived kkkkk.
I also want to give Ghislaine much more time in the spotlight. I’ve always thought it was a shame how she gets somewhat forgotten in canon. After a certain point, she takes a long time to appear again, comes back when the characters are already older, and then eventually fades into the background once more.
So I want to use this new timeline to develop her life more as well. I’m even seriously considering giving Ghislaine a romance of her own.
The question is: with whom?
I’ve already crossed Azra’il off the list. Considering Ghislaine’s personality, I really can’t imagine her looking romantically at someone she watched grow up alongside Eris. She definitely doesn’t have Elinalise’s complete lack of brakes when it comes to looking at Paul’s daughter and thinking, “Hmm, interesting.” 😂
I already have a few female characters in mind, but before deciding anything, I wanted to hear your opinions: would you like to see Ghislaine have a romance in this story? And if so, who do you think she would have good chemistry with?
Feel free to throw suggestions at me. You might end up giving me a dangerous idea 👀