Chương 392: True Mages

"Mage Thresbane, I wonder if you have a moment?" Mage Teft asked the SS Rank mage after knocking on the open door to his office as the administrator of the Justiciar Order for Atlantis.

"Of course. What can I help you and Mage Wells with?" Mage Thresbane asked after noticing Damion standing behind Mage Teft.

"I was wondering what you could tell me about the Iblis and the Alfar?" Damion asked.

"Why would you want to know to about those creatures? You are well into B Rank now, but those creatures usually only appear in A Rank and higher Realm Breaches."

"I encountered an Iblis in an Unstable Breach when I was still a C Rank and I encountered an Alfar not too long ago in an A Rank Breach I was exploring."

"And you have remarkably survived both encounters," Mage Thresbane remarked.

"A feat not many others could boast."

"I'm curious about what these other races want. Like the goblins, I encountered them in a C Rank Breach, and they were using it to raise their young. It is quite odd."

"I'm afraid I do not know much about the workings of the minds of other races. They are from another world or worlds, for all we know. If we could perhaps speak with them, then we might learn a thing or two, but I don't believe anyone has ever tried to have a conversation and lived to tell the tale." While Damion had not yet become adept at reading auras, and he certainly did not know Mage Thresbane well enough to discern when he was lying, there was, however, something off in his magic aura.

With the mention of the Iblis and Alfar, the mage's aura pulled in more tightly around him, as if he was afraid it might betray him.

"That's just it," Damion said, deciding to reveal a little bit of information he had gleaned from the Iblis during his short encounter.

"The Iblis did not attack us at all. It even spoke to one of my team members, but I did not understand the language. I think they were speaking Tal." Mage Thresbane was suddenly alert. An Iblis making an effort to speak with humans? What could that mean? What did they talk about? Was this a sign that things were changing?

"Who was the one that spoke to it?" Mage Thresbane asked quickly.

"I would like to hear firsthand what was said."

"Thomas Sorin, but he is dead," Damion told him. He spared a quick look at Mage Teft, but her face remained frozen, not giving up any indications of what she was thinking.

"Did he die in a… wait you said Sorin?" Mage Thresbane asked and then turned to Mage Teft.

"He was one of the young mages you killed for going after Mage Wells, correct?"

"That is correct," Mage Teft replied.

"Aside from yourself, were there other witnesses to what was said?"

"There were two other common born mages with me, but I don't think they understood what was said. And then there was also Yuri Martes and Geoffrey Thorn. I can't say for certain, but if it was Tal the Iblis was speaking, it seems possible they understood what was said, even if they did not show signs of it."

"When did this happen?"

"Around two years ago, during my Wilderness Survival Exam."

"You were still at Silver Spire?" Mage Thresbane questioned before turning back to Mage Teft.

"Were you privy to any reports about this?"

"I was away doing the testing for the Green Zones. I only learned about it when I returned. Unfortunately, I do not have any firsthand knowledge." Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Surely you heard something. A rumor about what was spoken of perhaps. I find I it hard to believe you did not investigate an incident involving your student."

"Headmaster Sorin was very strict with the information regarding the event. All I was able to learn was that the Iblis seemed to question the boys about a 'True Mage.' Have you any idea what it was talking about?"

"It said that? It wanted to know about a True Mage, are you sure?"

"I'm afraid I have never seen a full report, so I don't know precisely what was said."

"I will have to travel to Argentum to speak with these two young nobles myself then."

"Is that really necessary?" Mage Teft asked. Their plan had been to probe Mage Thresbane for information regarding what a True Mage was. Was it a term that, as Damion suspected, applied to mages that kept their magic seal from being pushed into their core. Or was it something else. The Iblis had clearly indicated Damion when it spoke, but it also indicated that time was running out. But time for what?

"Yes, I think it is," Mage Thresbane said sternly.

"Then I hope you can explain to me what is so important about this Iblis and what a True Mage is."

"I don't know about the Iblis," Mage Threbane said, letting out a sigh.

"While Iblis do not tend to be as hostile to humans as goblins or Alfar, they are not known for simply letting human mages walk away. As for a True Mage, that is what you are hoping to create here. What I suspect Mage Wells already is." Damion swallowed hard when Mage Thresbane turned and looked into his eyes.

"You mean a mage that does not have their affinity glyph pushed into their core?" Mage Teft asked.

"Precisely."

"Does the Protectorate want to stop us, like the Mage Association?" Damion asked.

"We are eager to see what results your experiment yields. Which is why I brought all of the families that met your requirement to your new city of Atlantis. We have attempted what you are trying in the past, but we were never successful."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Mage Teft demanded.

"Because we did not want to risk tainting your efforts. Few among my people know of the past attempts, none of the families here are aware. If I were to tell you of our failures, would you give up on the endeavor?"

"No," Damion and Mage Teft answered immediately.

"But you would have wanted to know about how we failed. Why we failed. I thought it important that your effort proceed on its own, though I hoped that Mage Wells here is proof of your success."

"Would you be willing to share how you failed before, so that perhaps we can think of a solution? After all, we have quite a while before we will actually begin teaching the students magic."

"That is one key difference, so perhaps I will let you guess at what caused our efforts to fail."

"If you began teaching them at an early age, you must have realized that early spell casting can damage a person's core," Damion said.

"Correct. We theorized that the core was not yet fully formed and using spells too early placed strain on it. Too much strain and the core would deform, in the worst cases, collapse," Mage Thresbane said, pausing for a moment.

"For one generation, the Protectorate turned nearly all of our children into cripples. A few were able to become knights, but most were unable to accumulate magic at all."

"Most, but not all. There were a few that were not crippled then. That is when you ran into another problem. Once they were adults. It can't be that you could not determine their affinity, I'm sure the Protectorate can figure out how the testing crystals work, or at the very least, demand it from the Mage Association."

"You are right, Mage Wells. Determining their affinity was not an issue."

"Then it has to be memorizing spells."

"Yes. We could not solve the problem of how a mage was to memorize a spell without engraving it into their core. The few mages that came from the program could cast only the simplest of spells. The only advantage they had, was that they were not limited to casting spells of their affinity. With effort, they could cast a spell of almost any affinity, but again, were limited to the most basic of spells."

"That is why the Protectorate is still relying on the testing crystals. Because when a person's affinity glyph is pushed into their core, the…"

"Yes," Mage Thresbane interrupted Damion.

"When the affinity is in the core, it somehow attracts a magic seal as a mage memorizes it. And once they succeed, the magic seal is engraved in the core and the mage has learned the spell. What I would like to know, is how you have overcome this."

"I just remember them," Damion said. He was not about to reveal to Mage Thresbane or Mage Teft about the Magic System. However, they had stumbled onto an interesting bit of information. How were they going to overcome the limitations of memory. If mages could not remember complex spells it did not matter if they were true mages or not, they would be much weaker than their counterparts trained through the old method.

"Well, I suppose you have a few years to come up with a solution," Mage Thresbane said.

"If you don't, then you are going to end up with a generation of failures instead of prodigies."