Supreme Magus

Chapter 4350: Prodigal Daughter (Part 2)

At first, Taresia envied Tezka for succeeding so easily in the subjects in which she kept failing. Then, she resented him for achieving so much in the field of dimensional magic that there was little left she could add to her bloodline legacy.

Lastly, being constantly compared to Tezka and found wanting led Taresia to hate his very name.

It was at that point that she made proposals that brought the rest of the elders to furrow their brows at first and then earned her their distrust. Taresia lay claims to the contents of Tezka’s omni pocket, Heaven’s Vault.

She asked the clan council to allow her to break the vessel of Mogar’s first omni pocket and give her everything it held. Taresia believed that doing so would have provided her with Tezka’s secret notes, his unused weapons, and treasures.

She refused to consider the possibility that her ancestor might have been more talented than she was and claimed that the only reason for her failures was Tezka keeping the key aspects of his research about dimensional magic to himself.

That the Suneater had assumed that, upon his death, his heir would imprint Heaven’s Vault and be entrusted with a knowledge that Tezka believed too dangerous to fall into the wrong hands.

Taresia was the most talented member of her family, and she believed herself to be that rightful heir.

The elders rejected all her claims, reminding her that Tezka had died of old age and had made no mention of such instructions even on his deathbed. They told Taresia that Tezka the Hero had spent his final days going over his teachings, ensuring that no aspect of dimensional magic remained unclear.

The elders had all bent the knee and bowed their heads in front of the clan members, declaring that if anything of Tezka’s knowledge had been lost, it had to be considered their fault.

Even Taresia’s family elder agreed with them, swearing upon his blood that Tezka the Hero had hidden nothing from his clan, let alone from his bloodline.

The young Fylgja took their words as a personal attack and changed tactics. She insisted on breaking Heaven’s Vault anyway and studying the artifacts it contained to strengthen the Summoner Clan arsenal.

Once again, the elders denied her, pointing out that without Heaven’s Vault, no more pocket dimensions could be crafted. Heaven’s Vault was Tezka’s opus, the embodiment of his mastery over dimensional magic.

Destroying it would mean to lose a precious blueprint, a dimensional magic manual, and the only clues they had to understand Infinity Magic as Tezka had envisioned it.

Moreover, during his final months, Tezka had already taken the most important pieces of his legacy out of Heaven’s Vault and entrusted them to the members of his clan or family who he deemed the most worthy.

The pocket dimension was unlikely to contain more than Tezka’s personal equipment, his belongings, and the few treasures from which he couldn’t bear parting due to their sentimental value.

Even if a few powerful weapons were still left inside Heaven’s Vault, none of them would exceed Endless Night, and they weren’t worth losing such a priceless treasure of knowledge.

After being denied twice, Taresia had accepted the elders’ judgment, but only because she had found herself isolated in the clan council, and she couldn’t afford to lose the trust of the elders who backed her as new clan head.

Decades later, tired of waiting for her moment and of her repeated failures, the not-so-young-anymore Fylgja came forward with another proposal. Taresia claimed that the Summoner Clan’s time was running out.

Most Awakened bloodlines had already mastered the basics of dimensional magic, and soon they would be able to Warp, Blink, and craft dimensional amulets. When that happened, the Summoner Clan would lose the only advantage it had over bigger and stronger Emperor Beasts.

Taresia declared that to ensure the survival of the clan, they needed a second Tezka. Someone who could match the former clan leader’s prowess and teach the Fylgjas the secrets of Infinity Magic.

Since such talent had yet to be born, they could only craft it with Forbidden Magic. Taresia launched herself into a passionate, honest, and completely deranged speech, claiming that Mogar owed the Summoner Clan that much.

All the members of the six races had exploited Tezka’s return as a mad Abomination to extort the secrets of dimensional magic from the Summoner Clan. They had taken away the secret of the Fylgjas’ strength, and it was only right that they paid for it.

Taresia’s plan was to Forgemaster an artificial Tezka with Forbidden Magic, sacrificing the members of the other races to bridge what the Summoner Clan failed to comprehend about Tezka’s legacy.

It would give the Fylgjas an invincible protector, an eternal leader, and a wise mentor.

Taresia’s proposal was unanimously rejected, her candidacy as clan leader was withdrawn, and she was harshly reprimanded by the entire clan council and her own family.

That was the final straw. Seeing how blind and foolish the rest of the Summoner Clan was, Taresia took it upon herself to work for the greater good, expecting everyone to understand how wrong they had been once they saw the fruits of her labor.

She started to work on the project alone in the secrecy of her personal lab, experimenting on the people she kidnapped from the remotest villages she could reach.

It didn’t take long for the rumors of the sudden disappearances to spread, and the distrust that Taresia’s previous requests had sown brought everyone’s attention to her.

Before the clan elders could find anything compromising, she detonated her lab and left on a self-imposed exile. She even left the corpse of a Fylgja she had unearthed to make her family think she had died in the explosion.

With no one looking for her, with no longer the need to hide from the eyes of the clan, her research progressed at astounding speed, and the number of her victims grew exponentially.

Despite what the Summoner Clan thought, despite what Taresia herself thought, her talent was the real deal. It took her only a few hundred years to complete the Forbidden Ritual that gave life to Salanoth.

Such was her skill and preparations that Taresia succeeded in creating a cursed object with the enchantments she had envisioned without losing her life. All that was left was to find a decent host for the Ring of Space and send her traveling Mogar in search of her mark.

While Salanoth hunted for Tezka, Taresia stalked the Summoner Clan. Her goal was to imprint Heaven’s Vault as soon as Salanoth killed Tezka, claiming his equipment and the position of clan leader with it.

Taresia spent almost 2,500 years waiting for her moment, yet it never came.

Salanoth’s enchantments were indeed perfect, but her personality had nothing of the blind loyalty and selfless dedication that Taresia expected from her. Salanoth had no intention to die just to follow the dreams of a madwoman, so she exploited the loopholes of her programming.

Taresia’s orders were to collect all the possible information about the Suneater before confronting and killing him. The ”all possible information” part and the lack of a deadline were all Salanoth needed to escape her fate.