Supreme Magus

Lith’s report left out almost everything that had happened to him, there was no time for storytelling. He emphasized the strength of the array surrounding the outpost before explaining how to bypass it and mentioning their enemy’s name.

"Never heard of her." Jirni checked her Royal Constable communication amulet and came out empty handed.

"I’ll update the Crown and let you know their decision. In the meantime, give Lith a Tonic and some food. We’ll be out of here in five minutes tops."

Tonics were among the highest grade potions. They temporarily enhanced their user’s metabolism, induced a state of relaxation, and provided most of the nutrients required for a hasty recovery.

Their effect allowed a body to digest and assimilate a meal in a matter of minutes instead of hours and relieved mental stress. A tonic couldn’t replenish mana reserves, but at least it removed the side effects of mana depletion, like headache, lack of focus, and blurred vision.

Lith’s physical condition shocked both Tista and Solus. All of his muscles were almost torn due to mana abuse, his life force was flickering from exhaustion, and his mana flow was at less than half capacity.

Tista had him sit on a couch while she used tier four light magic to heal his body and supply him with life force at the same time. It would make him hungry but keep his strength intact. Solus preferred to save her energy for the incoming dangers.

She reviewed all of his experiences with the Night and Dawn Courts. Solus studied his opponents, trying to find out their weak points and collect enough data to understand how powerful an undead was based on their blood core.

The desk clerk, a blonde girl so young Lith suspected she had just finished her academic studies, brought him a purple colored potion and a tray full of his favorite foods. Lith ate everything and took a deep breath before sharing his experience with the undead.

Or at least that was the idea. The combination of the tonic’s relaxing effect, the accumulated fatigue, and the comfy couch with Solus keeping watch, made him fall asleep until Jirni’s return fifteen minutes later.

"How do you feel?" Once again Jirni didn’t like her orders, yet she carried them out nonetheless.

"Like someone who could sleep for a week." Lith replied with a groan.

"I have bad news. The situation is even worse than we thought and you are the only one who knows how to operate the array in the old temple. Go get changed, we’re leaving as soon as you’re done. I’ll explain everything along the way."

"What about us?" Tista asked. Her experience in Othre had made her realize just how helpless she was. How waiting behind the lines was worse than fighting. She felt as if nothing had changed since the days when she was a sick girl.

Tista was tired of depending on others, yet neither graduating from the academy nor Awakening had allowed her to make any difference.

"You are staying here along with the others. Sorry, kid. This is a Spellbreaker only mission. Don’t worry about your brother, we’ll have plenty of back up."

"I’m Manohar’s assistant! I’m supposed to go where he goes." The excuse was weak, but it was the only one she could think of.

"I like you Tista. You remind me of my daughter, Quylla." Jirni patted her arm, speaking with a soft, motherly tone.

"So I’ll tell you the same thing I did to her when she asked to join me in my work. In this world, no matter the age, there are two kinds of people. Those born for peace, like you, Linjos, and Quylla. Good people who make this Country a place worth fighting for.

"To make it thrive and grow. Peace comes at a price, though. The same magic that allows you to perform wonders also breeds monsters like the one we are going to face. To keep the peace in here there’s a war to fight out there.

"In war, you don’t need good people. You only need killers who will make peace last one more day. Why do you think your brother, I, and even Manohar got picked for this mission?"

At those words, Tista turned toward Dorian, who lowered his gaze and said nothing.

"Because we belong to the second kind of people. We are the killers this Country needs." Jirni noticed that Kamila had turned pale at those words. She moved in front of the Lieutenant who was staring at her in fear.

"We are still humans, though." Jirni didn’t like giving a pep talk to a business rival, but respected Lith too much to purposefully mess with his personal life.

"If you cut us, we still bleed. We love and experience pain like anyone else. We’re not monsters and we need a family." Lith’s return made the conversation end abruptly.

When their gazes met, Lith gave Kamila a warm smile and she found herself returning it from her heart.

Kamila had a hard time making the image of the stingy Ranger, who played a song for her and made the camellia match with that of the person who she had seen fight monsters with inhuman ferocity.

Lith could feel that the mood in the room was wrong, but since no one was speaking, he described to Dorian the kind of magic crystal which was needed to activate the array. They had to go to the armory to get the right one.

Lith pretended to recognize it while Solus extracted from his memories its energy signature and used her mana sense to identify a matching one among dozens of similarly shaped magic stones.

"Are you sure?" Dorian was no longer surprised that he hadn’t recognized what Lith had been talking about.

"That antique is merely for display. It belongs to the age when Forgemasters had yet to discover how to fuse magic crystals with their creations."

The Warping array Thrud and the Courts used was an antique as well. Unlike modern Warp Gates, the magic circle had to be carved rather than built. Their design had been long forgotten because anyone with a proper magic stone could activate them.

Ancient Warp Gates couldn’t be imprinted with mana, making them a security nightmare. They had many advantages in present times, though. Without a power source, they couldn’t be detected with spells nor with Life Vision.

Also, they could bypass modern dimensional magic blocking arrays because they worked according to different principles than those currently in use. Ancient Warp Gates would permanently fuse two points in space, whereas modern ones could connect to multiple locations via dimensional corridors.

It made them more versatile, but also susceptible to being jammed by preventing them from locking on to their exit point’s coordinates. Ancient Warp Steps had no such problem. There was no corridor to create, just a door to open.

Lith and Jirni left the Mage Association, reaching the old temple by flight.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news first?" Jirni asked as soon as they took off.

"The bad news."

"This Thrud Griffon is the daughter of Arthan Griffon, the Mad King."

"He was publicly executed centuries ago for his experiments with forbidden magic. Which means that..." Lith couldn’t wait for this horrible day to end.

"That we are about to face one of the oldest and more powerful mages in the Griffon Kingdom’s history, who had plenty of time to prepare for our arrival." Jirni finished the phrase for him.

"I’m starting to think they are right." Lith groaned.

"They who?"

"The ones who say I’m bad luck."