Epsilon Twilight
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63. Soul Reading
🕑 Added 2022-11-11 16:59:56 +0000 UTC“Try again.” I repeated to the duo before me.
“Oh, come on!” Adrian complained. “How are ya’ even doin’ that? We are gunning you down with multiple spells!”
“Magic.” I joked.
“No shit.” He responded. “Who would’ve thought that ya’ would use magic in a magic duel on a magical academy, duh!”
“You are just angry that only my spells got close to him~” Marissa taunted him at his side. “But I would lie if I said I wasn’t interested in whatever you did to our spells.”
“It’s an interesting spell synergy I’ve found out recently~” I explained with the same melodious tone as Marissa, though the harmonious voice ended up being more creepy than cute when I did it.
Even after enrolling in the academy, spell synergy was a subject greatly uncharted by mages. There were multiple reasons behind such negligence, mainly that ellari had a limited elemental affinity pool, with the grand majority only having access to the Force and Arcane elements. And even then, dual wielding was pretty rare, so there wasn’t a great chance to find a combination between two elements.
And then, on top of all of that, spell synergies were random. Sure, they did make sense when they did happen, but not every combination of spells that made sense ended up in a spell synergy.
“Oh, a spell synergy, do tell.” The familiar concept captivated her.
“So, basically, you know of my Mystic’s Dominion spell? The ten-star one?”
“The one that makes you look like a lich from a children’s book?” Marissa said.
“What do you mean? Th-the spell doesn’t do that?” I was genuinely confused by her answer. Then after a brief pondering, I understood. “Ah, I see. You are confusing Mystic’s Dominion with the Phylactery Bonding spell. No, the lich one is eleven-star. The dominion is the creepy aura-type spell.”
I was currently maintaining my Mystic’s Dominion active because it was more of a passive spell than an active one. It could be toggled on and off but keeping it off a long time unwove the framework and required a very expensive recast to activate it again. The cost of maintaining it was minimal compared to the required to cast it, so there was no reason to turn it off.
“Mystic’s Dominion allows me to have a complete analysis of the souls of my surroundings and upgrades slightly my ability to interact with the spiritual plane.” I summarized greatly the uses of the nefarious spell. “Good so far?”
“Ye.” Adrian nodded, clearly not being good so far.
“And you know that casting and spellcasting are done mainly with the mind, right?” Both of them nodded in unison. Unlike them, I had the special ability to conjure through my soul thanks to my training, but it was severely lacking as I never actually developed it. “And you know that the soul, the mind, and the body are strictly interconnected.”
This time, Marissa nodded instantly, though it took a brief second for Adrian to follow it.
“So, in a very abridged way, I’m using the information of your mind that leaks through your soul to interrupt the spellcasting with my arcane mana-weaving.”
Both now had weirded-out faces, neither been able to process what I had said.
“Let me be clearer then.” I went over it again. “The soul and mind are connected, and information travels between them, and you do spellcast with your mind, so I’m using my backdoor to your soul to ‘read’ your mind to have a better understanding of your spell, so then with my mana-weaving abilities it’s easier to dispel.”
“Alright, now I got it,” Marissa spoke. “And by the way, that’s unsettling and creepy.”
“I mean, it’s not actual mind-reading, it’s more like an instinctual observation.” It was complicated to put into words. “I get the idea behind things, not the context or the words. It’s more like being an empath than a mind-reader.”
Maybe it wasn’t the best comparison because empaths weren’t a well-known type of Mind mages, and it was just a cool trivia fact I had learned from Kirielle.
“So now besides hijacking our spells, ya’ are now hijacking our souls?” Adrian asked with a condescending look in his eyes.
“It’s not a hijack.” Though it was totally possible with the raw power of the Mystic’s Dominion and the fact that Possession was one of the keystones of the spell. “It’s enhanced sighting abilities. Instead of using my eyes, I use my soul.”
“Is this even practical?” Marissa brought some pragmatism to the table.
“If I had Mystic’s Dominion activated beforehand, yes. Otherwise, is a rotund no.” I responded to her. “I could spellcast a Mana Oasis, a Mana Nullness, and an Astral Self before even being close to finishing Mystic’s Dominion casting.”
As someone who had sparred with me for a lot of time in the nine-star, Marissa knew that those weren’t spells suited for combat thanks to their long conjuration time. While a Mana Reservoir and Vacuum were doable when I was a six-star mage, Mana Oasis and Nullness were impossible in a fast-paced scenario as the required time augmented exponentially, no matter my increased mastery of the spells.
Even after achieving the ungodly milestone that was ten-star magic, I was unable to conjure nine-star spells in a matter of seconds. Most high-star battlemages actually used eight-star spells or below because such complex spells weren’t needed in a combat scenario. Only raw power.
And it was totally possible to cast a one-star spell with enough power to decimate a city block if you had enough mana to sustain it. Magic theory confirmed it. Though it was rather inefficient.
“What if someone has soul resistance?” Marissa asked.
At first, I thought it was a stupid question. Almost no one in this country had soul resistance, but then I noticed she was asking for herself.
“For this exact application? Not much.” I told. “As I said, I’m only looking at the soul, so someone having soul tolerance would only obfuscate my viewing, but not block it. I would still get information about the spell, just not as much as an unprotected soul.”
“Should I get better soul protection?” Adrian asked in wariness.
“Hmm, not really. Soul magic isn’t that popular, and a Fireball at point-blank range will hurt you more.” I told to the swordsman. “Even then, mind magic is more common, and the end results are similar. Choose your poison, I suppose?”
“Let me try spellcasting one spell.” Adrian proposed. “I want to see if you can dispel it.”
“I will probably do it, but alright, bring it on.” I welcomed him with open arms.
Wind began gathering around him, considerable amounts of mana being drained from the surroundings. Oh, it was one of those spells. Adrian was ignoring the limits of his eight-star magic by overloading his magic with insane amounts of mana. This was the same thing the pyromancer had tried almost a decade ago.
I could hijack the spell mid-spellcasting as I had done in the duel, but I decided against it. Not only I had two stars of advantage from Adrian, but I had also more ways of dispelling now.
The mana spiraled around Adrian with power, as more gathered, more speed followed. It reached a point I was sure this was impossible to dispel as there was too much mana present. The only possibility was hijacking it.
He was ready to unleash it, and I concentrated my power in my dominion. I wasn’t sure if this was going to work. The amount of mana present was ten times that of the Mystic’s Dominion cost. And that was a ten-star spell. But thankfully most of the mana had come from the atmosphere rather than Adrian.
“Marissa,” I called her out. “This may fail, so be ready to protect me with a barrier.” No words were needed on her part and she just nodded.
A damned, full-blown tornado formed around Adrian. I was struggling to keep my feet on the ground as the air was trying to send me away. Adrian stood calmly inside, refuging himself at the eye of the storm.
I infiltrated his soul and the framework of his spell. I was assaulting him relentlessly with all my soul and arcane abilities. While I was in the area of effect of his tornado, he was also inside of my dominion.
Attacking his soul would make him lose concentration and therefore canceling the spell. And while that would work, I wanted to do it the complicated way. And even then, if I did make him lose his concentration, the mana would run rampant on the field, exploding around Adrian. I didn’t have the need to explain that was a really bad thing.
I no longer needed tendrils of mana as I had perfect control of my mana on my Mystic’s Dominion, the whole extension of the aura working as my own soul, so I wirelessly plugged him with my mana in order to take control of his spell.
The information from his soul gave me insights into the spell, allowing me an easier takeover. A normal spell would be difficult to control, but a channeled one that relied on outside mana had a porous structure.
The wind got more violent as Adrian began to lose control and got transferred to me. I disabled the absorption of mana from the spell, so the tornado wouldn’t get bigger.
“What are you doing?” Adrian’s voice was difficult to catch as it was distorted by the rapid currents of wind.
“Succeeding you.” It sounded vaguely familiar for an improvised line.
Now that no more new mana entered the spell, I began pouring it outside slowly. The tornado lost power by seconds as it lost more and more energy. In a few minutes, the relentless storm had become nothing but a breeze.
A lot of things could be improved with my hijacking skill and my mana manipulation, but it was a solid first attempt. That time needed to unleash the mana, though? It needed more work.
“What do you think?” I acted smug even when I wholeheartedly believed I was going to fail the hijack at the beginning.
“Man, dispelling is broken.” Adrian said with a scoff and a giggle.
**********
A pair of weeks passed by since Adrian’s surprising display of power. I may have nullified that Tornado, but I mean, he’s the eight-star mage that managed to pull out such a potent spell. We were currently at Combat Application class making some spars as Sylvia strolled around the field giving tips to the students.
Yes, eight years later and we still had the same class and teacher. My problem wasn’t with Sylvia, she was a great teacher, one of the finest I had seen. And it was difficult to find people as cheerful as her.
What triggered me was the fact that the academy promoted combat tactics and military power as it did. This was one of the reasons why I hated the ellari government, it had become far too militaristic. Especially in the latter years as I had been told that starting in eighth-year combat classes were no longer mandatory and the academy let the students specialize in their preferred field. We were in the ninth year.
Everything was the High Arcanist's fault, of course.
Today’s partner was Monica. As of lately, I had only fought against Marissa and Adrian, basically because they were the only ones who could go toe to toe against me. Marissa used her advanced air magic, while Adrian complemented himself with his swordsmanship. And myself being an anti-mage, I wasn’t used to fighting melee attackers. One was a hyper-mobile and nimble assassin, the other a hybrid who didn’t rely on magical means.
To equilibrate the scale of power, I decided to put myself in a handicap.
“Are you really going to fight me with your fists?” Monica asked. “I know I’m not the best fighter, not by a longshot, but isn’t that a bit insulting?”
“Oh, come on. You know I won’t be using exclusively my fists.” I told her.
“That’s kinda the problem. You are going to use soul magic, aren’t you?” She didn’t hide her nervousness.
“That’s a given.” I scoffed at her.
“Oh, High Arcanist, save me from my stupidity.” Monica’s gaze focused on the almighty tower at the center of the city. “I’m ready.” Contrary to her words, her tone expressed exhaustion.
Monica waved her hands as a force shield materialized around her. Without any hesitation, I rushed towards her. She was a defense specialist, so the most time I gave her, the more defenses would be laid out.
Unsurprisingly, I was no melee master, but I didn’t really need it. My current objective was to become more used to Mystic’s Dominion. The control of the spell wasn’t the problem, but the secondary effects. But mastery was still appreciated, nonetheless.
For the time being, I punched the barrier.
“Wait, are you really going to punch the barrier?” Monica asked in stupefaction as I punched the shield again. “Why are you doing this?”
I couldn’t hold my laugh in her surprise.
“Sure.” I said between giggles as I continued punching the construct. I rejoiced at the stupidity of the situation.
Unbeknownst to her, I analyzed the spell while I banged it. Contrary to the pair of aeromancers in the group, Monica had prepared her defenses, especially against me.
Normally, spells are akin to woven cloth, there will be loose ends everywhere. Loose ends that I could exploit to unweave the construct and dispel the magic. But Monica had perfected her defenses, not only at the visual level but in the framework as well.
There were no loose ends. Monica had tied up the weave, leaving no points to be exploited. This didn’t mean it was impossible to hijack the spell now, only that it was needed to brute force the way through to do so.
Not that I wanted, not that I needed. Through my punches, I began infiltrating my soul mana inside the barrier. Not a polite nor elegant way, but it worked.
“Could you stop punching my barrier?” Monica shouted in distress.
“No, I don’t think I will.” I continued beating the crap out of the force spell.
“Why are you doing this?” Monica would have probably noticed I was sipping my mana inside her defenses if I weren’t doing it in such stupid ways.
“Larai-laira-la~” I sang without stopping my onslaught.
“Stop!” Monica finally cracked, and I swiftly stepped away.
Maintaining herself on her turtle shell, she shot out some force lances. Her aim was nefarious thanks to her unstable mental state. And while she managed to break my low-potency arcane barrier, I had already filled her shell with my soul mana.
I didn’t get a chance to activate a spell of my own as I was focusing on dodging her non-stop volley.
“And now you run away!” She laughed uncontrollably.
Oh no, I appear to have broken her.
Maybe it was time to put this to an end. I activated the latent soul mana around her while I was on the move. I had Mystic’s Dominion on all this time, so I got a good lecture on her soul by now.
“W-what?” Monica swayed from side to side in his shell. “E-everything’s… dizzy.” Her legs faltered and she fell to the ground.
I had controlled my spiritual assault so I wouldn’t hurt her. The disorientation was completely inoffensive except for the mild headache that would follow. But I knew for a fact Monica had had way worse. Mystic’s Dominion’s soul-analyzing features allowed me to affect the soul in a more controlled manner.
Monica’s barrier was deactivated as she was no longer capable of sustaining her concentration. I followed by stopping my assault so she wouldn’t pass out.
“Are you alright?” I offered her my hand.
“Yes, I guess so.” Her gaze was unfocused. I may have overstepped my boundaries. “Ahh, I hate soul magic.”
“You are on your right to do so.” I said as I heaved her up.
Because our duel had been short-lived, Monica and I spent the rest of the time looking at the back and forth between Marissa and Adrian. The two aeromancers exchanging currents of wind as if it were a dance.
It wasn’t long until Sylvia announced the end of the class and told everyone to gather.
“And remember, we will be visiting the Lan’el training grounds next week, so don’t get sick!” The ever-cheerful Sylvia reminded me at the end of her combat class.
The academy had organized an excursion to the coastal district affected by the Wyrmm’s Landing before its twentieth anniversary. It was just a coincidence, as every year we have had an outing. Some were sooner, others later in the year.
I recalled the speech from the spokesperson of the Offensive Coalition at the opera house from some weeks prior and, for some reason, as I recalled the weird tinge souls had around him, I expected the worse.
