The Forsaken Hero

Following the appearance of the sixth-circle spell, a gleaming dome materialized around the grove of flowers, shimmering like a translucent mirror. It caught the blinding light of the flowers, refracting it outward in a dazzling display of rainbow colors.

Less than a heartbeat later, the seed pods ruptured, releasing all their gathered mana at once. The ensuing explosion of glittering pollen filled the entire sphere, obscuring the sky and snow behind a dense, shimmering curtain. The explosions slammed into the Mirror Lock one after another, ricocheting back and forth, steadily growing in power with each bounce.

R’lissea unconsciously slowed to a stop, her mouth agape. Elise, too, seemed stunned, her grip on my waist tightening.

”It’s not stopping?” she asked, her voice filled with apprehension.

I frowned slightly, activating the Oracle of Eternity to analyze the full weave of my spell and its interaction with the steadily increasing power of Elise’s array. After a tense moment, I shook my head, letting my tail relax. ”Even if it’s an array, your spell is technically only fifth-level,” I explained. ”Even if it grows exponentially, which it shouldn’t, it won’t gather enough power to break through the Mirror Lock.”

”Then what’s going to happen?” Elise asked, her voice laced with concern.

I shrugged. ”Eventually, the Mirror Lock will fade, and whatever’s left of your spell will be released.”

”Are you sure it won’t keep growing? It seems to be getting brighter,” R’lissea mumbled, squinting against the rising glare within the dome.

”It will for a bit,” I confirmed, ”but the spell can only be amplified to a certain point. Once it reaches its peak, the magic will slowly lose strength.”

”I see,” Elise said, touching her chest and releasing a relieved sigh. Her eyes quickly found mine, however, her brow furrowed with curiosity. ”But why did you do that?”

”You mean the Mirror Lock?” I asked, tilting my head, unsure why she was asking. ”Your spell was too powerful, of course. If I let it go like that, the explosion might have reached us. That concentration of Sun magic would vaporize every demon between here and there.”

Her eyes widened as she gazed at the hundreds of trembling scions around us, and an uneasy breath escaped her lips. ”But it... it was only a fifth-circle spell,” she stammered. ”There’s no way it could be that strong.”

I glanced at her, my eyes falling to her soul. A small smile played on my lips. ”You should be feeling it any second now.”

She frowned and opened her mouth to ask what I meant, but froze as a tremor raced through her soul. Most of her mana had been expended casting the array, but that changed as a torrent of mana rose from deep inside her. Elise’s fingers tightened into fists, clutching at my dress, as shudders wracked her body. She was breaking through to the sixth level.

It was my first time witnessing someone of such a high-level breakthrough in real-time, and I watched curiously as the process unfolded. The stars of Fate gathered around her, supporting her soul as it trembled under the weight of her newfound power. Mana poured into Elise, seemingly from nowhere and everywhere at once.

This phenomenon was often attributed to the realm itself rewarding a soul for its hard work, providing a boost of mana to reach the next level. During my time in the Divine Throne, I had spent days scouring the library for information on the topic, but even with Thron’s help, I had found nothing. It was poorly documented due to the lack of an ability to actually view the soul. The Eyes of Fate, and hence Oracle of Eternity were almost unique in that aspect, as most similar abilities could see mana, but not the actual soul.

Gradually, the torrent of mana subsided, and Elise relaxed, slumping against me in exhaustion. Her grip loosened, and she rested her head against my back, panting heavily.

”Is it over?” R’lissea asked curiously.

”Seems like it,” I said with a shrug. ”I imagine she’ll want to sleep for a bit.”

”Definitely,” Elise mumbled.

”About time she broke through,” R’lissea said, ”I could feel she was close, but it was still taking too long.”

I nodded, and we shared a smile. There was nothing derogatory about R’lissea’s remark; Elise had been feeling a little lonely and left behind, her soul being much weaker than ours. Sixth level wasn’t significantly different from fifth compared to us, but considering how the gap between levels widened as you grew stronger, her progress was encouraging. It gave her new power and a growing sense of security, knowing someone like Alveron would never be able to take advantage of her again.

”I’m still here,” Elise mumbled, her words muffled against my back.

”You shouldn’t be,” I said gently. ”Your body needs rest.” I reached back and helped her sit before me, where I could hold her steady.

Once she was settled, I held her firmly, gently stroking her hair as she had done for me so many times before. It was soft and silky, gleaming gold in the sunlight. Within seconds, she relaxed, breathing evening out as she drifted off to sleep.

”Let’s hope that doesn’t cause too big a stir,” R’lissea muttered, nodding towards the gleaming dome. It had fallen well behind us by now, but the demons following in the march gave it a wide berth. More than a few shot us dirty looks, though, thankfully, we were too far away to hear any muttered curses.

”It’ll be fine,” I said confidently. ”Even if something does happen, it’s a small price to pay for this discovery.”

She glanced at me, raising a skeptical eyebrow. ”Discovery?” she questioned. ”What do you mean?”

Clutching Elise to me with one arm, I raised my other hand and soulcast two first-circle spells. R’lissea watched, her confusion evident, as I slowly wove the spells together, forming an array from the Light spell and Gust of Wind.

When it was complete, I gently pushed my palm forward, and a small blast of wind shot outward. Tiny particles of raw sun magic danced in the breeze like fireflies, settling on the ground and continuing to glow wherever they landed.

”What level of spell was that?” I asked, my voice brimming with excitement.

She shrugged. ”First? I mean, you used two first-circle spells which had less mana total than any second-circle spell.”

I smiled faintly, shaking my head, as excitement bubbled within me. ”No,” I corrected, ”it’s actually a second-circle spell. Now how about this one?”

I cast a second-circle Sound Ward, as much to keep our conversation from reaching the nearby demons as for the demonstration. Instead of casting it normally, however, I created each magic circle separately and bound them together.

”Definitely second,” she confirmed, her eyes widening with surprise.

My grin widened. ”Exactly. I used two first-level magic circles and combined them together. But you were wrong about the first one, probably because you never managed to get the hang of arrays. Using an array to combine magic circles, whether fusing two spells or casting one disjointedly, uses more mana than any regular spell. It’s also a lot harder to do.”

She rubbed the back of her neck, giving me a playful glare. ”Alright, alright, I get it. I don’t know anything about arrays. But what’s the point?”

”Why did Elise break through?” I asked, my voice filled with anticipation.

She tilted her head, thinking. ”Because she cast a... wait a second!” she exclaimed, her eyes widening. ”She reached the sixth level without casting a sixth-circle spell? That’s not supposed to be possible!”

I giggled, clapping my hands softly at her surprise, careful not to wake Elise. ”Exactly! That’s why this is so exciting!”

”But how could that have happened?” she asked, her voice filled with wonder.

”I’m not exactly certain, but it has something to do with the strange nature of arrays. If two first-circle arrays count as a second-circle spell, what would two fifth-circle spells do when combined? I can tell you from experience it’s actually harder than just casting a sixth-circle spell.”

”So you think the difficulty gave her soul the final push it needed to break through, and the realm somehow recognized an array as a sixth-circle spell?”

”Yeah, though it will take a lot more study to find out exactly what happened. I had my suspicions you might be able to do something like this, but Elise finally proved it for us.”

”How come? What ever made you think of exploring this idea?” she asked.

I shrugged. ”When I was enslaved by the soul binder, my soul was limited to the fourth level. I had to invent arrays to access higher-circle spells than that, as my soul couldn’t handle channeling such powerful magic at once. In the Ice Demon Gate, where I first met the Last Light Company, I could access the infernal mana in the gate to cast sixth-circle spells.”

She gasped. ”You used infernal mana? How did you not get–ah, I see.”

”Yep, that’s how I figured out how to purge souls of corruption. Coincidentally, that same event led to the anomaly, and forming Haven.”

She nodded along, her ears twitching as my excitement took hold. ”So you cast a sixth-circle spell while being only fourth level. You’d already advanced to seventh, so there was no way to know if it would trigger a breakthrough.”

”But now we know,” I said. ”But it’s not necessarily practical. It takes an extraordinary amount of mana to upcast to that degree. Elise was well past the point of being able to cast a sixth-circle spell, we just didn’t have the right spellbook for her.”

”Oh.” her ears drooped a bit, ”That’s true, I guess.”

”It’s not all bad, I said quickly, ”I think the inheritance she gained was much stronger than normal. We can’t know for sure until her soul finishes consolidating her power, but it seemed like she had the soul of someone in the middle stages of the sixth level.”