Chương 68: The Day Before Severance

There was only one problem with a sudden and illegal retirement. The boredom that accompanied it. Vittoria had tried to deny it for several decades and told herself that she had plenty to keep herself occupied. For example, several creatures often emerged to greet her, some native to the land, others here as a result of a rift. She caught them and kept them as pets for a while, or if they weren't of a pet temperament, she would occasionally run some experiments and let them go.

Or bury them if they were dead from trying to attack her. Then there were the occasional sand pirates who absolutely hated that she had cut off one of their major routes, which sat smack dab in her territory. They hadn't been back for a while, since the last skirmish left several grievously injured. However, she sensed they now returned in larger numbers than before. For them to make this attempt, they likely had a plan for her. The pirates weren't stupid, but they also had no choice but to get past her.

This was the only way they could access the Kush bridge, which led to a dungeon where a multidimensional rift sometimes occurred to allow them into a realm where they could hunt for gems. The last few times they had tried to get to it, she had plagued them with mirages and then with outright attacks until they had fled for their lives. But now, she sensed they brought a seer with them and also a Phasewalker.

They had tried to shield their presence when they entered the desert, but she had monitored them anyway, and since her domain disabled unauthorized teleportation, she forced them to traverse the desert the long way. Eventually, she would go out to meet them, but she wanted to see if it was worth her time, if they would make it at least halfway first, or if they would encounter any of her pets on the way. She was also curious about that other presence she sensed accompanying them.

Whoever it was, they were able to shield their power from her, so they were at least a master-tier threat. But also, there was something about them that felt... special. However, even now, she wasn't looking forward to engaging in battle with the pirates. Unless they had a major surprise up their sleeve, she already knew how the fight was going to go. Everything was boringly predictable when one was as powerful as she. Even things that used to entertain her no longer did.

She heaved a sigh, rocking back in her porch seat as she observed the vast expanse of the sand and nothingness. She understood now why most Archmages would rather die than retire and confine themselves to a lifetime of doing nothing. Well, there was also the fact that retiring meant suppression of their cores, which meant a lifetime of unbearable pain. But this part too. She didn't know how the legendaries dealt with the boredom. Actually, she did.

Her mother buried herself in politics as much as possible, attempting to rebuild relations between the elves and the humans. Elric's father had likely lost his mind and taken to years-long meditation. And the last legendary was somewhere on Pyronis and only appeared every once in a while. None of that appealed to her. What she needed was a new project. Something she could dedicate herself to and obtain exciting results from. For so long, the rifts had occupied her mind.

She had chosen to live in an HRA for a reason, because she figured thatwould give her frequent excitement. But dealing with monsters now and then had gotten boring, even though some of them were intelligent enough to evolve and adjust their attacks specifically for her. She appreciated the effort, and it made her wins entertaining at least, but now she wanted something more. Something with a bit more meaning. It appeared she suffered from exactly what her mother had warned her would happen if she left the fold.

But she would never go back. It didn't make sense for her to sit there and be dictated to by malicious idiots. People who had never been in the thick of battle and did not know what it was like to lose an entire squadron and outlive everyone she cared about and not be able to destroy the person responsible because the damn High Ascendant said so. Never again. She didn't need them. She no longer believed in their vision for the world, in their plan for a just and peaceful society. So she'd left.

Her mother had called her childish. Vittoria had called her a coward. And things had basically devolved from there. She felt a presence coming and was immediately on alert. But she relaxed when she realized it was Elric. The real Elric? She hoped so. There was a race of shape-shifting sand djinns that had played tricks on her in the past. But they were gone now. She always wondered if they would ever come back or if she'd scared them off permanently. She hoped not.

She enjoyed their games sometimes, which was why she'd not hunted them all down yet. Speaking of hunting someone down... Elric's pretend cousin. The one who was a talented mage with an abnormally fast casting speed and powers that deviated from the system norm. There was something more to the story. For example, why was Elric sticking out his neck for her when they weren't even related?

"Her parents are mundanes, like mine were." That was technically a truth. Knowing her lie detection ability, Elric had fed her a lot of partial truths, hoping she either wouldn't notice or wouldn't care even if she did notice. But the more Vittoria thought about it, the more curious she got about this girl who had defeated a slew of trolls on her own and then gone back to campus to do her homework. What was the point of her doing that if she was powerful enough already?

If she were truly that much of a genius, and if Elric hadn't exaggerated, then she was possibly wasting her potential there. She is wasting her talents playing by the system's rules. Although it depended on the type she was. Was she a rule follower like Elric, who thought they could do good and achieve a just world by working for the ministry? Or was she the Gio type of genius with a suitable disregard for the rules, but who was also uninterested in the well-being of humankind?

Because they didn't need another selfish, egomaniacal Archmage. It might sound hypocritical on her end, but Vittoria had done her time, had spent several lifetimes doing nothing but endeavoring to save as many people as possible, losing everything as a result. Vittoria's current aversion to heroism was out of sheer exhaustion, a protest against the system. Gio was simply a psychopath. Vittoria had to make sure this girl wasn't one as well.

Elric seemed to think that she wasn't, but Elric had an obvious bias and was always more charitable to people than they deserved. This Arielle Blacksoil… had she fought the trolls to save people, or simply out of arrogance, to prove that she could? Vittoria would know which one if she met her. And she would have to do it without Elric, so she could test the girl using her own special methods. What they needed was someone who could challenge the system without being unhinged like Gio.

Someone who flouted the rules for the right reasons and didn't constantly succumb to authority like Elric. Someone brave but not stupid, kind but not a pushover. A perfect hero. That was what she had to be. Veronica was too exhausted to do the job. Her time had passed. Perhaps this girl's time had come. Or she would be their worst nightmare. When Elric finally reached her, Vittoria could see the obvious strain on his face. She didn't have to ask this time if he was the real Elric or not.

Typically, the fake Elrics looked far more polished and less stressed.

"Do I need to kill someone for you?" Vittoria asked, only half joking. She'd grown a fondness for Elric over the years, and he was one of the only friends she could claim to have. Besides, if he needed someone dead, there was a good chance that person deserved to die.

"No," he said as he sank into the rocking chair beside her.

"I met with the Elders of the demonic sect."

"I see."

"Not only are they the most unhelpful people to have ever lived, but they are also infuriating. Especially Tali."

"Hmm." He was Archmage Yseult's father. Of course, he wouldn't defer to someone who ranked lower than his son, and Elric was too decent to truly assert his power as an Archmage and throw his weight around. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. That was always his problem. He attempted to hand Vittoria a stack of scrolls.

"Can you look into this for me? These are the reports on the demon-summoning cult you mentioned. The events surrounding it have been obscured by someone, and I've tried to evaluate them myself, but there's a blockade I can't go past." She didn't take it.

"I thought I made it clear that I was not willing to work for this administration. At least not to this extent."

"You said you would if you found it interesting."

"Consider me no longer interested then."

"This would be helping me more than the administration." She wasn't fooled by that. Elric sighed.

"Aren't you curious about how they summoned those demons? It could help us figure out the rifts, too, and why they seem to have increased every year."

"Mmm," she said noncommittally. The rifts were the least of their problems, though Elric couldn't see it now. But Elric was not one to buck against the status quo. She couldn't expect that from him. However, if she did help him and the council discovered it, they would know that she still had a vulnerability they could exploit. They would know how to get to her. So far, she had maintained the image that she no longer cared if the world burned, and she had halfway lost her mind. That had kept them away from her.

Helping with his investigation, beyond what she'd already done, would endanger her freedom. It would also prove her mother right.

"I'm more interested in other things. The girl Arielle. You said I would meet her soon."

"Yes, and speaking of Arielle, there's something else I need your help with."

"I'm not investigating anything."'"It's not an investigation. Lady Ishta Draco. She has soul sight, and she managed to catch a glimpse of Arielle at Khor. She claims that she can recognize her by her soul. Is it possible to bypass that?"

"I wonder," Victoria said with a kick of interest. Now this sounded like an interesting project.

"I can find out."

"Good," he said.

"In the meantime, I need to keep her away from Arielle, but they will likely come into contact for the interschool competition if it's held at Erynwall."

"You can make sure it isn't." He gave her a puzzled look.

"No, I can't." She sighed.

"That's the problem with you. You're so used to being the underdog, you have no idea how much power you wield. Power is effectively wasted on you." He looked taken aback, even though this wasn't the first time she'd told him something like this. When they'd first met, she'd liked him because he was different from the rest of the mages she typically met. He wasn't arrogant or power-hungry. He was genuine and kind, something even rarer. But he was also determined to keep the peace, even if it made him impotent.

That was not what the world needed. It needed someone with Elric's heart but far more boldness, the ability to act when they needed to and wield power with no shame. Perhaps it would be Arielle Blacksoil, but Vittoria didn't hold out any hope. Most likely, Arielle would be an arrogant psychopath or a kind-hearted coward.

"Leave the scrolls," Vittoria said.

"I'll think about it." Elric grinned and dropped the scrolls on a side table.

"What did you ask the Elders?"

"About the cult and also a man called Cornelius Draco," he said.

"First off, I asked one of the villagers about it. He ran from me, and then when I caught him and called him back, he told me that he would die if he revealed anything."

"And?"

"And what?" Vittoria raised an eyebrow.

"Are you serious?"

"He was telling the truth. Upon evaluation, he did have something on him, and even looking into his mind would have caused an immediate brain bleed by my estimation. And none of the Elders seemed to know who I was talking about, or at least they pretended well enough to bypass my truth spell." He pondered on it.

"He wasn't the only one with a barrier on his mind. My guess is that someone, possibly Yseult, took great care in removing Cornelius from the Elder's memories. But he didn't want to waste effort doing that to the rest of the villagers because he didn't think anyone would bother asking them, and it would take too much of his time. So he bound them with a curse or something of that sort."

"And you let it be?"

"I plan on reporting it to the council, but you know how they can be when it comes to the sect." Vittoria sighed her disappointment, then said, "Elric, no offense, but aren't there junior detectives with an actual specialization in detective work that you could assign?"

"For obvious reasons, I would prefer to handle it myself."

"You're not handling it. You're doing a terrible job."

"Which is why you should help me." She raised an eyebrow.

"Are you doing a bad job on purpose so I help you?"

"I wish I were that clever, but truly, detective work isn't my forte. Arcane rebalancing and peacekeeping is."

"You could have forced the Elders to say what they knew."

"I prefer to make as few enemies as possible in this life."

"Yes," she said, sighing again.

"I know."

Arielle had a very busy week and took as many naps as she could in that time. The first and foremost thing on her agenda was, of course, creating Vitae-only spells and ensuring that Lyra could use them without runes. It wasn't as easy as she'd thought it would be. With runes, it was very simple. The runes made Vitae agitated.

With that agitation, the mini-orbs could easily shift between rings, and when they shifted in favorable orientations, Arielle could force a bond that wasn't entirely stable but would remain for as long as she held it. However, the activation energy for such a spell was steep, and doing it without runes was difficult. But Arielle was determined to make Vitae work for her. She spent every spare moment in the meditation room, talking to Vitae, focusing on learning fine control of the mini-orbs.

In that time, she hadn't managed to learn how to touch the mini-orbs, but she had learned to focus on agitating just one of them at a time, using her cores as internal reactors while increasing her body heat. She had stumbled upon this by accident, by doing breathing exercises until her body temperature was raised and noting that, when focused on the miniorbs, it managed to make them jump. At least for simple spells. Then the second part was teaching Lyra how to do it, also.

This was especially difficult because Lyra could not actually see what she was doing and simply had to follow Arielle'sterrible instructions and try a few different things as best as she could. Luckily, Lyra was highly motivated. Sometimes they would sit in the meditation room for hours, raising their body temperature, going into deep meditation. Lyra even began talking to the orbs like Ari, and Vitae was very excited about that. Professor Llywyd would come in and watch them.

Occasionally, she would help too, or she would watch Arielle with a glow in her eyes. Yet there was little improvement, even though every day, both girls showed up and gave it their all. But just like that, the day before the Severance trials was set to begin. Lyra finally did it. Arielle didn't know exactly how she got it, except for the fact that Vitae finally understood what Lyra was attempting to do and decided to cooperate with her.

Arielle watched it happen, and the spell worked, a version of [Spore Burst] that only used Vitae, making the spores spontaneously combust. After it happened, Lyra screamed loud enough to be heard across the forest. She jumped for joy, but she didn't know how she'd done it, and she didn't know if she could do it again. Truly, Arielle didn't know either. But if it didn't work, she decided she was willing to cheat for her friend. That same day, they put up a timetable for the duels in the dining hall.

Lyra's battle was on the first day. Arielle's was on the third. They didn't know who their opponents were yet, but for Lyra, it could be from a list of people, including Faulkey, Byron, and a few other people from Class A. Lyra was very nervous about it. So was Arielle. She planned on being there to observe and intervene if needed, but she truly wanted Lyra to get this on her own.

The day before severance, Arielle was in her cave, talking to the blue orb about how anxious she was for Lyra and also her personal feelings about helping Lyra cheat.

"I don't want to," Arielle said.

"But I don't want Lyra to leave even more. She's my best friend, and her aunt did something terrible to her. She doesn't deserve to suffer for it. You know?" The orb bobbed in understanding and then suddenly stopped. It stopped paying attention to Ari in general.

"What?" Arielle said.

"Do you sense something? It bobbed even more excitedly, and it rushed toward the entrance Arielle followed it and came outside, where she felt a presence. Something was there. She didn't know where it was at first. Perhaps in the grass. She looked down and noticed something moving. A giant snake. But it wasn't real. The scattering of Luxa orbs around it meant that it was an illusion. Arielle didn't react.

She followed the chain of essences towards the still air and stared at it for a few seconds before she held out her wand, ready to attack whatever was standing there. It wasn't the headmaster. Vitae, Luxa, and Vacu orbs clung to them, and the only other person she knew who came close to that combination was Gio Li.

"Gio?" she inquired, and the ghost made a sound of disgust.

"Don't insult me." The air shifted, and it appeared. She appeared. A very tall woman with long blonde hair and pointy ears. Ari gasped.

"An elf?:"A quarter of an elf," she said.

"Or something like that. And you are human…right?" She nodded.

"Interesting. How did you know I was there?' The orb warned me. Even now, it was swimming around the woman, probably because she was elven and felt familiar to it. Arielle was a little jealous. Though the orb usually welcomed her presence and often drifted closer to her of its own accord, it never swam around her like that. She tried to be understanding. The orb was likely more used to elves than humans. Maybe with time, she would come to like Ari more.

"Who are you?" Ari asked, still disgruntled about the orb's favoritism.

"I haven't been asked that question in a long time." Authority oozed from the woman's voice even though she was clearly restraining her divine blessing. Ari had never seen that many orbs around a single person before. She was likely someone important.

"I am Vittoria." Arielle recognized the name from Elric's last message a few days ago.

"Elric's friend, the commander."

"Yes." Elric had said the commander would be visiting her soon, but Ari had assumed they would be coming together.

"Where's Elric?"

"Busy," Ari said.

"You came alone."

"More like I snuck in." Ari cocked her head with a frown.

"How did you get here? The island is supposed to be secure, and that includes North Base." Vittoria snorted.

"Secure? Please. Now answer my question. How did you know I was there?" She shrugged.

"I just knew."

"That's not a good enough answer, child."

"It's the only answer I will give you."

"You're not scared of me." Vittoria gave her a considering look.

"You're very brave or very stupid."

"It depends on who you ask." She gave a surprised bark of laughter.

"We're about to have a lot of fun, Arielle Blacksoil. I can feel it. But first, the test."

"What test?"

"Well, Arielle, if I'm going to pretend to be you, you must do a good job of being me." She snapped her finger, opening a portal.

"Don your disguise. You're about to surprise some pirates."