Chapter 4308: Talos (Part 2)
"By the way, Mirror Magic is the name of the branch of magic that employs the unstable Cursed Runes." Baba Yaga said. "You can only conjure them in pairs, as if each spell came with its own twisted reflection.
"The stable runes, instead, allow us to conjure a single Cursed Element in relative safety. We need to find a suitable name for it."
"I don’t know." Lith pondered. "A name would make it recognizable and this is the second branch of magic I discover. To make matters worse, only I and a few other people on the entire Mogar can use it.
"If someone so much as hears about it, it will stir up a lot of trouble."
"We’ll think about the name on another occasion." Solus chimed in. "Now focus, please. We have only so much time in the Lodestar, and once we begin, there is no stopping the clock."
They had to walk to the underground floor due to the lack of world energy for the Warp Mirror.
"Before we start, make sure the Hobby R-, I mean, Veil is deactivated as well, Lith." Baba Yaga said. "If you hide the runes you discover from me, there is no point in my presence."
Lith nodded and deactivated the cloaking field.
"I also have one thing to do before we start." Solus said. "Don’t worry, it will just take a minute."
She shapeshifted into her Indech form and activated the Lodestar.
The enormous amount of world energy stored inside the runes that covered the floor, walls, and ceiling of the Lodestar was released at once, flooding the circular room and its occupants.
Solus had only a feeble grasp on how to control her wings, yet with such a thick world energy, she only needed to create a tiny opening to bring down the dam of her atrophied mana organs.
Solus’ pristine wings absorbed but a fraction of the energy of the Lodestar, yet it was enough to make them flare up with the radiance of a small sun. She gritted her teeth, feeling the power of the elements coursing through invisible, obstructed channels.
The silver and gold veins across her body lit up, and then her wings split into six. Flesh and bones turned into energy, and each wing became an elemental jet of fire of a different color.
"Stop immediately!" Lith said as the metal veins on Solus’ Indech form shone even brighter, revealing a complex network running parallel to her blood circulatory system. "Your body can’t withstand that much energy yet!"
The light went out as fast as it appeared as Solus reverted to her human form.
"I know, silly, but thanks for your concern." She said. "I only meant to see if the Lodestar could help us master our Indech form as well. I was supposed to revert immediately, but I didn’t expect the process to be so painful.
"The answer is no. The Lodestar can indeed help us activate our atrophied mana organs and stimulate our wings, but the concentration of world energy in here is too high. Atrophied organs are akin to impurities.
"They aren’t something that just limits our potential. They also protect us from a power we can’t handle at our current level."
"I’m glad you carefully planned this, Solus, but you gave us a huge scare, and your minute is over." The Maiden glared at her friend. "Let’s get to work, Lith."
"About that, how are we supposed to start?" He asked. "I had no better luck with my experiments. I’m still stuck with a few Zero spells and the chore magic runes for four stable Cursed Elements."
"Then we’ll start from that." Baba Yaga nodded. "Since we already made some progress with Zero, we’ll keep it for last. Pick another Cursed Element and speak its magic word."
Lith nodded, tracing a circle in the air and then crossing it vertically with his index and middle finger.
"Ekrasu!" A small bullet of Chaos energy erupted from the rune, and it would have damaged the wall if not for the Firing Range neutralizing it.
"I didn’t feel anything. No new runes. Nothing." Lith said. "What about you, Ely?"
The baby girl clapped at her father’s awesome performance, but when asked the same question again with Dragon Scales, she had no idea what he was talking about.
"This is no different from when we practiced the stable Cursed runes in the Desert." Lith shook his head. "Is the Lodestar broken, or am I doing something wrong?"
"The Lodestar is at full capacity and working at optimal levels." Menadion said after checking the tower interface. "The tower isn’t the problem."
"Ripha is right, silly child." Baba Yaga shapeshifted into her Mother form, tired of getting a stiff neck from looking up to him. "You are the problem. You have fallen into the trap that powerful mages like you always fail to notice when they tackle a new branch of magic.
"You are entangled in the web of your rich knowledge and experience."
"What do you mean?" Lith raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"I know that answering a question with another is rude, but this is how I teach, child, so please humor me. How old were you when you Awakened?" The Mother asked.
"I was four." Explaining how he had Awakened in the crib and why he was capable of reasoning from such an early age would have been complicated, so Lith stuck to his official biography.
"And you had yet to meet Solus, correct?" Baba Yaga asked, and Lith replied with a nod. "You were four and alone, yet I bet you had already started to work on your personal spells without any guidance.
"How many did you create before Solus woke up from her slumber?"
"A few." It was actually dozens of them, but the truth would have sounded like bragging, and that would have been beyond the point.
"Let me make another educated guess." The Mother looked at him straight in the eyes. "You only knew the six first magic runes for the elements, and used them to expand your abilities in what you only later learned to be spells from tiers one to three. How am I doing?"
"Very well. So much so that you seem to be reading my mind." Lith easily followed her logic, yet he couldn’t see her point.
"No, child. That’s Salaark’s thing." Baba Yaga chuckled. "I know what you did as a young Awakened because I followed that same path millennia before you were born. Now, time for my final question. Did you worry about runes back then?"
"No, I didn’t." Lith’s eyes went wide in understanding. "I just conjured the basic rune for an element, and then manipulated my mana flow to obtain a particular effect or give my spell a specific shape."
"Yet what you were actually doing was waving runes, you just didn’t know it." Baba Yaga nodded. "Magic in all of its forms and manifestations is comprised of runes. Fusion Magic and Spirit Magic are no exception, yet you developed them as well, correct?"
"Yes." Lith nodded. "Are you saying that-"
"I’m not saying anything that you already haven’t yourself, child." The Mother cut him short." You’ve written it in your own book. The roots of magic are imagination and willpower. That’s all you had as a child, yet it was enough because it’s also all you needed."
