Lone: The Wanderer [Rewrite]

Sparks flew, singeing and scoring everything in sight while magic swirled through the air. At least six different schools of magic were being employed simultaneously as Lone worked on Sofia's Mana Concealer.

Monsieur Librarian was, in a word, brilliant. In another word, terrifying. He knew much more about him than Lone would like. The godly being was almost certainly aware of how paranoid he was about his identity.

Monsieur Librarian had spent the time to describe four different methods to create Lone's desired mana concealer, but only one was actually possible for the current him.

This method would give him a new skill once successful, and while it involved some smithing and even steamforging, it was mostly a method that utilised the combination of magic schools in their freeform state.

Lone had never really experienced combined magic beyond Rosanna Daybringer's blood and explosion magic skills, so it hadn't even crossed his mind to try to combine magics in the crafting process instead of doing them sequentially, especially not outside of a skill.

He had also previously dismissed most magics for this device beyond enchantment magic. As it turns out, the core concepts of many of the magic schools provided benefits that allowed him to theoretically create the device that he was trying to make right now.

So far, Lone had only used Creation Magic for the base materials and nothing else. The rest of his MP was being poured into the carefully explained magical formulae that Monsieur Librarian had described.

The physical crafting of the object wasn't hard now that he knew exactly what he needed to do. it had only taken him three attempts to get it done right, but this was his eighth attempt at the magical infusion that would grant the device the properties he desired for it.

He was honestly starting to believe that Monsieur Librarian's knowledge on him was misguided. Sure, he could use the freeform magic for the illusion, earth, spirit, body fortification, compulsion, and scripture magic schools, but some of those magical affinities he hadn't touched beyond seeing what they looked like when wielded raw.

In particular, he was really struggling to get the spirit and scripture magic to meld and work with the other four magic types. Still, doubts he may have, progress was being made.

It was only three attempts ago that he had managed to properly add the freeform compulsion magic to the melding pot that was the mana concealer's forging process.

The critical point where he would need to infuse the spirit magic in this attempt was coming up. He was subconsciously dreading it.

A part of Lone wanted to just give up for now. He hadn't slept in about a fortnight. A good night's rest would likely make any further attempts significantly more likely to succeed. After all, his mind had been strained on this project almost nonstop during this.

Did going to the Conclave of Seekers give him a chance to rest? Not really. Physically, sure, but his mind was still active during all of that. Only actual sleep would help him relax in that regard. Basic Regeneration and meditation were doing their best, but he could feel the strain on his mind.

Thankfully, a much larger part of him knew that this was the perfect place for him to be in mentally speaking to potentially do something truly incredible. He was under so much mental stress right now that, even if less likely than when fully rested, a successful forging here would more than likely result in so many more gains for him, both skill-wise and with his ability to interact with and control freeform magic.

He focused. He held the glowing liquid ball of metal that was infused with four types of magic in his left hand as he looked within himself and called up the freeform spirit magic that lay within his magical affinities.

A shimmering transparent cloth that looked like an animal but not one that Lone recognised materialised and danced around his open palm. Slowly and carefully, he brought the magical apparition towards the liquid sphere.

Just as they were about the fuse, he stopped. 'This is no different from the last couple of attempts. Let's... yeah, fuck it. Let's do them both together. Maybe they're reliant on one another here.'

He pulled his right hand away. The cloth animal looked sad at this, though it didn't actually have any emotions. This was just the nature of spirit magic, or so Lone assumed.

Closing his eyes but still concentrating on preventing the magical liquid sphere from exploding in his left hand... again, he drew upon the scripture magic within himself. Runic words of an unknown origin spiralled out of his right hand and he controlled them to encircle the cloth animal. He opened his eyes and it almost looked like they were dancing in harmony.

"They complement each other," he muttered as he began bringing the two magical elements towards his creation.

It was like the carefree nature of the spirit magic was giving life to the otherwise lifeless and lawful runes. Their purpose was to enforce things to the letter, with no room for deviations, but the spirit magic, well, it was forcing them to be less restrictive and more fluid. At the same time, the unbreakable order of the runes was removing all sense of the ethereal from the cloth animal, as if they were bringing the thing to life just as it was doing to them.

It was incredibly hard to control, even with Lone's 100% affinity in both magical schools. It almost felt like he was creating a new type of magic, or maybe even two. His head felt like it was going to split apart in all four cardinal directions. Regardless, he didn't waver.

This felt right. It wasn't what Monsieur Librarian had told him to do with this method but something about it just felt better, more natural, and like it was meant to be.

Despite the pain he was in, Lone felt oddly at peace as he gently pressed the spirit and scripture magic into the sphere of liquid metal that already had illusion, enchantment, body fortification, and compulsion magic, all infused within it and radiating out of it.

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As soon as his new combination made contact with the device, his world went dark and all he could see was the liquid metal trying its best to explode and result in another failure. He would not allow that. This attempt felt special and perhaps even unreplicateable.

It was normally impossible to be aware of such, but Lone had a feeling that he was experiencing skill enlightenment right now and perhaps even something greater than that. Allowing this to fail would be the greatest regret of his life. He just knew it.

"Yes, yes, you are very cute," Sophie replied to Kyuubi who had just crawled over to her on all fours, got up, and then flopped down right on top of her lap the moment she had sat down to take a break from her physical training.

She was so big now that only her head could fit comfortably on Sophie's knees. "Kyuu..."

"What is that? Oh, yes. We agree. Your father is a horrible person. To get so absorbed in his work to the point he has not spoken to either of us in days? We know. Just terrible behaviour," Sophie said in a jesting tone.

Her expression then darkened before she sighed and rested her chin on Kyuubi's big soft fluffy head. "To go to such lengths for our sake... We truly do love him deeply..."

Kyuubi yawned and replied, "Kyu-"

The fox that was now as big as a small car bolted up with alarming speed before she stared at the screen that showing the outside world only for it to be presenting an unfamiliar sight.

Instead of Lone working on the mana concealer as it had been displaying for the last couple of days, it was instead showing six blinding colours trying and failing to meld into one another repeatedly.

Sophie got to her feet and focused on her Mana Sensing but got no response. Well, that wasn't quite right. Whatever these colours were, they were drowning out everything else to the point that her unique skill couldn't detect a single other thing.

"I need to see if he is okay. Stay here-"

Sophie was moving towards the door while she was speaking, obviously to leave as she had said but a loud growl interrupted her. Kyuubi swung her head to look at her with more intelligence than she had ever shown before.

"We... should stay?" Sophie asked, in an unsure manner.

Kyuubi nodded. "Kyuu."

Sophie frowned. She walked next to Kyuubi and looked at the colour-filled screen again. She stroked Kyuubi's side and asked, "He is okay? You are sure?"

"Kyuu," Kyuubi rumbled reassuringly.

"Okay. We trust you. It would be unbecoming of a mother to do anything less for her daughter," Sophie replied. "Can we contact him telepathically? Do you know? Would that be a risk right now?"

Kyuubi shook her head and uttered a 'kyuu' that sounded a lot like a 'no'.

"So this is his doing and is beneficial..." Sophie narrowed her eyes. "Six colours combining... So it is the mana concealer. Skill enlightenment, maybe? Or perhaps a magical enlightenment of some sort?"

Kyuubi didn't answer and just remained still as she watched the screen.

Sophie bit her bottom lip. "We hope this does not cause needless trouble."

A few minutes ago, in the only branch of The Adventurer's Guild within the territory of the Crimson Foxkin Clan, Gilbert was busy working away on his stacked up paperwork.

Gilbert's office had three windows. One to the right, one to the left, and one behind his desk. They had been perfectly placed to get more than enough sunlight to fill the room but also to never allow that very sunlight to get in his eyes while he was in his chair.

At this moment, however, a blinding light with two shades to it flooded into his office from his back. He jumped out of his seat in shock. "What in blazes is going on..."

He approached the window with a hand held up to shield his eyes. "Wait. That direction is..."

The light was coming from a massive pillar of strange looking animals made of a fabric of some sort and who were seemingly dancing with runic symbols. The pillar was a soft grey in colour and it reached to the very heavens. Gilbert couldn't even see its end. It was a thick pillar of light and was likely visible from every spot on the continent, the curvature of the planet permitting.

'This is bad. That's the direction of Lone's Spirit Pavilion. The boy was working on a device to hide magic, was he not?' Gilbert's worry skyrocketed.

He opened the window he was standing in front of and flew out of it using freeform gravity magic before he quickly cast a few spells to zoom through the clan to Lone as fast as he could.

When he was about halfway there, two things of concern happened. First, he had seen dozens upon dozens of Crimson Foxkin going in the same direction as him to investigate, and second, the runic symbols and fabric animals had been joined by four other things, all of different colours. The beam had also grown in size to be at least ten times larger.

'Son, what have you done? Please don't be him. Please be wrong, my stupid gut,' Gilbert preyed.

'I want to see her...' Lossa thought of her granddaughter.

She was wholly uninterested in the meeting she was forced to be a part of right now.

The elders were discussing the matter of the kidnapping victims once again, and in a circular and pointless manner, also once again. No progress was being made whatsoever. The true Elders would likely need to intervene again to see any actual progress.

Suddenly, the doors to the matriarchal hall burst open. The building's head guard bowed deeply as she entered and said, "Elders, I apologise for interrupting, but it is an emergency. A massive magical pillar of energy has appeared at the Golden Foxkin's Spirit Pavilion. Its end is impossible to see. Every faction within a few thousand miles can probably see it."

First Elder Lelgu narrowed her eyes in seriousness. Everyone could see the blinding light flooding into the hall from the now open doors, and that was despite Lone's pavilion being in the opposite direction from said doors.

"Everyone, go. Investigate. I will inform the Elders personally," First Elder Lelgu ordered.

"There is no need," a young but firm and emotionless voice said. The 78th seat of Council of Elder, Elcudia Redtail, had appeared next to the first elder's chair. "I will go personally. Continue as you were."

And just as fast as she had appeared, she disappeared.

Lossa was extremely worried now. 'Breena, Lone... What's happened to you both?'

Elcudia Redtail frowned. She had just arrived at the residence of the Void-touched only to be stopped in her tracks like the many others who had come to investigate.

In front of her stood two humans, even worse, it was two humans that she recognised.

One looked ready to fight if needed with a big old jolly grin on her lips, while the other wore the most terrifying casual and friendly smile she had ever seen.

"What an honour it is to have Divine Persistence and Divine Hourglass grace our clan with their presence," she said with no sincerity whatsoever. "May I ask why the Grand Guildmaster herself and The Academy's headmaster have decided to intervene in this occurrence that is happening within the territory of the Council of Elders?"

Divine Hourglass adjusted his round glasses and replied, "Personal curiosity."

"What he said," Divine Persistence answered.

Elcudia Redtail's frown deepened. She silently cast a spell and upon doing so, Divine Hourglass's smile deepened.

"Yes, very wise. I have been meaning to talk to the leaders of that council of yours. I do hope more than a handful show up," he said casually.

Elcudia's stomach dropped. 'He sensed that? That should be impossible, even for him. Divine Witherroot assured me...'

Divine Hourglass coughed into his hand gently to gather everyone's attention. "I would suggest everyone either leave or get comfortable. No one shall be interrupting what is going on behind my friend and I. We are also extending our protection to the man responsible. I hope you all decide to stay and watch. History itself is being altered as we speak."

The annoying White Dragonkin that she had seen over a week ago stepped forward and asked, "Grand Guildmaster... what's happening?"

"Hey Gil," Divine Persistence greeted him with a casual wave of her incredibly muscled hand. "I've got no idea. Magic mumbo-jumbo. Glasses grabbed me and told me to come, so here I am."

Divine Hourglass turned around and stared into the massive magical beam of six elements. "The impossible is happening. And that, Young Elksworth, is monumentous."