Born From A Divine Gamble

Since the mage was so determined to kill him then fine, he would play that game too.

"My armor, quick."

Sophus wasn"t a war mage like the ex illusion teacher, he was just a magician living in a village. Emp had to be able to defeat him. If not, Marcy would end up a slave, Calla would end up his and Emp would die.

While the girls strapped every pieces of his armor on him, he went through his knowledge of Sophus, thought about strategies and reviewed all the equipment he could possibly use against him.

Sophus said it took him a week to make the trap that got Marcy, but when he delivered flowers for Calla over two weeks ago, he was already snickering. This meant that he had already prepared his plans then and so, probably had at least two more traps in place.

Sophus knew about his double so he knew he"d be back soon if the fire didn"t kill him. He also knew that he would reappear at the same place he left which meant he would stand ready for his next attack the moment he came back.

He also knew about his s.p.a.ce steps and used the knowledge to score a solid hit right away so it would be hard to surprise him with this too. However, he should not know about the elixir and his practice in magic.

This gave him some advantage over Sophus as he could surprise him with some spells, his increased speed and strength. Finally, his armor should be able to protect him from a few spells, most of the weakest would be useless against him.

His problem was that he knew almost nothing about Sophus in return. All he knew was that he liked to use fire.

Emp didn"t posses a wand with a water spell attached to it and wasn"t good enough with water magic himself to rely on it.

"May you tell us what is happening over there this time?" Heinrich asked while he was making plans.

"A mage dies today."

This was the only logical way to end this. The only way he desired it to end it too.

The moment he would get there, the mage would attack with the spell he prepared while he was gone. He also had the advantage that Emp had no idea where he would be standing. In that case, he"d start with a flicker. He would bring back the other him only to recall him an instant later. The mage would fire a spell into an empty s.p.a.ce and Emp would reappear again. That time he"d know where the mage was.

To exploit this, he would first go with Ray the sword, the mage would see the sword and think he was about to charge but the second time, he would be back with a drawn bow.

He would be unable to move towards Sophus since there was probably a trap set up in between them and the same was true for the obvious path of retreat. Once he was there and his arrow left the bow, he"d jump to either the left or right, and follow the fight from then on with extreme attention.

He had four wands but he felt that the vine prison would serve no purpose here as there were no plants nearby and as a fire mage, he"d get rid of it immediately. The pit wand could be a great surprise, the wind might be able to ward off one of the spells and the lightning bolt should be able to deal some serious damage if Sophus wasn"t prepared for it.

He also had five firebomb talismans but it was dangerous to use those right in the middle of the village, he might injure someone else. The same was true for his other weapons if he missed so he would need to be careful. Hopefully, the others would move out of the way.

As a fire mage, he would only have a few defensive spells as it was an unsuitable element for it. A wall of fire was pointless if he threw a sword trough it. If it wasn"t hot enough, he might even be able to simply walk through it.

Instead, he"d focus on escape and offence, hoping to burn Emp into ash before he could do any serious damage. All he had to do was launch an attack that could not miss and the victory would belong to Emp.

If he stroke through s.p.a.ce, Sophus would not see it coming and might not even attempt to dodge. Or, if he managed to make him fall into the pit made by the wand, he would be at his mercy.

With those few clear ideas in mind, Emp removed Ray form the bag and sent himself back there.

On his front left, Sophus stood with his arms extended on each side of him, there was some sort of whirlwind of fire twisting violently at the tip of his fingers on each side. When he saw Emp, he clasped his two hands together in front of him and the two whirlwinds smashed against each other, multiplying their violence and the chaos that made them as they charged towards him with great speed.

The flames rose in sparks and made the air hiss as they charred black the dust it gathered on its way. Emp vanished again and the whirlwind went through nothing. The villagers standing on the other side cried in alarm and ran off while the soldiers wondered if they were supposed to try to stop it or get out of the way too.

Luckily for the soldiers, Sophus released the spell since Emp had dodged it and the flames vanished before anything important was touched.

As he tsked, Bor called for everyone to move away as he had seen the same as everyone else. Emp was wearing the armor of a knight, he was clearly intending to fight and things would get messy.

Sophus put a hand in one of his pockets to get himself another ingredient while Emp reappeared with his monstrous bow fully drawn in his direction. The instant his figure showed up, the arrow was released, the sound of string taking back its rightful place was quickly eclipsed by the ripping sound the arrow made through the air.

The mage was caught off guard and with a hand in his pocket, the best he could do was turn his upper body in hopes that the arrow would pa.s.s him by.

The projectile was much faster than he was and went right through his arm, pa.s.sing it completely and ended up stuck in the wall behind him.

The mage grunted and picked up a talisman from one of his pockets, quickly crus.h.i.+ng it between his fingers while Emp jumped to one side and prepared a new arrow. He wasn"t good with that sort of weapon so it took him a long time to draw a second one.

By the time he was ready to release a second one, the wound on the mage"s arm had been closed with fire and a s.h.i.+eld of flame was raised in front of his palm.

Everyone else had left to hide elsewhere, the bravest just peeking from the corner of a house while most left far away. Only Marcy remained as she was still hung upside down further on his right.

The next arrow went through the s.h.i.+eld but was burnt to nothing in the process as it was a simple wooden arrows.

Emp discarded the bow and threw a sword directly instead.

"Hu!" Sophus dodged it despite his surprise and the blade dug deeper in the wall behind him than the arrow.

Emp followed with a second and then a third sword throw as the mage started chanting fast. Now that he knew what was coming, he stepped out of the way more easily but Emp surprised him again by getting the lightning bolt wand instead of a fourth sword and yelled "Daze!" as he pointed it his way.

The bolt crackled and buzzed as it instantly connected the tip of the wand and the extended palm of the mage holding up the s.h.i.+eld of fire. There was no way to dodge something that could hit instantly and the s.h.i.+eld did nothing to protect him. The mage became rigid and the sole of his shoes burst apart, the chant of his spell was stopped and instead of whatever he was attempting to do, his clothes caught on fire. Apparently, all his spells had been released.

Emp wasn"t certain he was still alive but chose to make sure it wasn"t the case with his sword. He got ray out of the bag once more and dashed forward with a s.p.a.ce step but the next moment, a loud sound deafened him and made him feel weightless. He saw the world around him spin out of control as the armor pushed heavily against his legs and chest.

Only once he was high up in the air did he finally understand that he had stepped into some sort of trap. His brain could not make sense of where was up or down and the only thing he could hear was an overlong ringing noise. He plummeted back down and fell unto his side, knocking his armor against the hardened dirt of the road.

Emp didn"t feel good at all but still much better compared to ramming at full speed into a wall. It seemed the armor was enough to protect him from the explosion but did not save him from all the pressure of the blast.

"s.h.i.+tty leech! You won"t get me twice with it!"

Emp looked up to see Sophus ripping off his half burnt overcoat revealing dozens and dozens of wands tied to his unders.h.i.+rt. The coat was cast off to the ground, spilling out all the precious magic ingredients without a care.

He needed to get back up now!

Emp jumped to his feet and drew the wind wand at the same time as Sophus"s own wand.

The mage created a fireball the size of an ox and lobbed it towards Emp who used the strong gust to have it land off its mark. When the thing hit the ground, Emp felt the scorching heat even through the protection of his armor. How many of those did he have?

Emp started running towards the mage in a half circle to escape whatever other traps might be there and Sophus used the time to create a huge snake of fire under his feet. The creature darted away with Sophus standing on its back and Emp had to run after it.

Those that were peeking from corners cursed and ran off further as the giant snake of fire rushed through the streets with Emp on it"s tail.

The mage took wands after wands, throwing all sorts of fire his way; Dozens of fire arrows that pierced through the wooden walls of nearby houses, whirlwinds like the one he started with, a long rope acting like a whip of green flames, a rain of liquid fire that burned holes into roofs and everything else in its path.

Emp used s.p.a.ce steps to keep up with the snake and dodge all the spell coming at him. He would step from one side of the road to another, get on a roof and pa.s.s to the next street from there. The mage was tireless and very willing to spend all his wands on Emp if he had to in order to kill him.

Everyone else hid inside their homes and hoped that nothing they owned would burn down under the relentless fire spells raining down in the streets. The bravest would run to the river with buckets and attempt to douse the flames running amok.

The snake was as fast as what Penny managed to achieve in his duel with her but had some more advantages. Sophus didn"t seem to need to give it any direct orders or pay any attention to it in order for it to weave itself in-between the houses. On top of that, because it was moving like a snake, Sophus kept swerving left and right in front of him. Hitting him from a distance would be difficult in those conditions.

Emp did his best to keep up or even cut in front of it but couldn"t corner the seemingly living flames. With all his attention on the mage, he noticed a few strange things he started to worry about.

With all the wands he had on him, Emp expected him to pick one at random or for them to all have similar activation words but neither of those were true. Sophus took the wands in a very specific order dictated by their position on his clothes and every words was different and strange sounding.

It was when he used the word "burn" in the magic tongue that Emp really felt that something was wrong. All the activation words he had used up to now were in the magic tongue, that was why they sounded weird. Emp finally understood what he was doing in a flash or recognition. The mage was casting a spell using the wands as a chant! That spell was freakishly long but since every moment mattered in a fight, Sophus found a way to use the wands at the same time he cast it. This was ingenious, each wand was a word in his spell as well as a potent attack.

If that was really a spell though, what was the sacrifice? It couldn"t be the wands themselves, could it? They should be the sacrifice of their own spells already, they couldn"t be used for both, right?

In any case, that chant needed to be stopped before the spell activated because Emp didn"t want to discover what sort of magic required such a long string of words.

He jumped over a flaming spear that pierced the road he was standing on just earlier and stepped up to the snake to deliver a slash of his sword. The sensation was unsatisfying, Ray pa.s.sed through it like air and the flames just came back together in its wake. This one handed sword wasn"t long enough to go through its entire body so it was ineffective.

The snake slithered away unharmed and Emp had to dodge to the side to escape a swirling ma.s.s of fire falling towards him. The thing exploded behind him into many jets of blood red flames that homed in towards him.

Emp sidestepped a few, slashed two away and blocked one with his forearm but five jets still hit his chest with heavy clanks and had him stagger back. His armor gave him a hiss of complain from the heat and the places where it rested on his body hurt him with the chock but he did not have the time to worry about that.

Before he could regain his balance from the hit, the ground rumbled and burst into flames at an angle from him. Large chunks of dirt where thrown by the strength of the explosion and blasted into him with the strength of one of his own hammer strike. He had brought his arms in front of him to protect himself from the projectile but it did not help all that much.

A piece of the road as large as his chest sent him careening back into the wall of the nearest house. He broke down the wooden walls, pa.s.sing through like paper, destroyed the table inside by pus.h.i.+ng it against the cupboard on the opposite wall and exited the house from that same wall. Emp didn"t pay attention to the shocked face of Willow he briefly saw as he went by her main room and rolled onto the street on the other side.

He ended up on his back close to the river with pieces of broken wood and dirt scattered everywhere around him. The next instant, a beam of brilliant light feel from the sky and scorched the heart around him. He felt all his exposed front side burn even thought the enchantment of his armor desperately tried to negate the heat. The light was blinding and the pain akin to placing a hand directly into the fire.

He rolled to the side to leave the burning zone and instantly felt some relief from the pain. He climbed up to his feet and saw the snake rus.h.i.+ng along the river towards the bridge. On top of the snake, Sophus stood with yet another wand in hand, over his head, seven giant spears of light had gathered.

This was the same spell Penny had used against him, except Sophus had seven spears instead of two and his own had a deep golden color and were much brighter, enough to light a good half of the village through the night if it had been dark.

All seven rushed towards him together with the speed of an arrow and the obnoxious scream of the air itself burning in their path. Too dangerous! His instinct told him that his armor would not survive this.

With a s.h.i.+ver of fright, He fetched the digging wand from his bag and pointed it at his own feet.

"Fall!" He shouted in panic.

The road opened under him to swallow him whole and he fell ten feet deep as the spears of light hissed just over his head and made a second large hole into the ground at his side with a deafening boom. Emp almost got buried alive by all the debris that fell into his hiding hole but at least he survived that strong attack.

He got back out of the hole with a jump to see the villagers still getting water jump into the river to get out of the snake"s path.

Emp rushed after it again, feeling a bit sorry for all the damage Sophus and he were causing. All of this still needed to be done though, at this point, neither of the two could accept living in the same village as the other.

The snake of fire pa.s.sed over the riverbed and slid over the bridge to keep following the river. Sophus raised both oh his arm over his head and flames rushed from the snake to engulf him, bathed in the scorching heat, he seemed confident and elated. Apparently, his long spell was done, this meant that Emp had failed to interrupt him.

As the snake pa.s.sed over the bridge and Sophus took his victorious pose, a huge sword emerged from the shadows of the structure and cleaved the elemental creature in half.

The snake turned into smoke and Sophus fell straight towards Marcy"s extended sword, ready to impale him. She must have woken up sometime after Emp shocked Sophus. The spell keeping her prisoner must have collapsed then.

The mage was surprised by the sudden disappearance of his mount but did not panic and smiled at Marcy as the blade went through him with too much ease. Flames gushed out of his body instead of blood and the sword went thought him completely, even splitting his skull in two. He fell on his back right on top of the bridge and got back up unharmed.

"What the!?" Marcy complained as Emp stepped up to stand with her.

"In case that wasn"t clear already, you cannot kill me. Marcellia, stand back, I don"t want to hurt you while I slay that vagabond sticking to you like a leech."

Neither Marcy nor Emp bothered to ask how the other felt for now, They had more pressing matters than the condition of either of them.

"It"s impossible!" Marcy shouted in frustration.

She was right, what Sophus was doing should be impossible. Magic let a mage change things around him to his will but should be unable to change himself.

The closest thing he had seen of this was that lightning spell Penny used. It wasn"t exactly alike however, hers affected the outside which affected her in turn. It was close to soul magic in function but a true soul magic would ask the outside to affect her directly instead of changing the outside to then affect her. This benign sounding difference made it much more unwieldy than true soul magic and left her body largely unaffected. (1)

What he had now in front of his eyes was completely different. Sophus had well and truly turned his body into fire. He looked exactly like he always did aside from the aura of flames sprouting from him but Marcy"s sword pa.s.sed through him like Emp"s sword pa.s.sed through the snake earlier.

The question was, was it self-magic or soul-magic? If it was self-magic, the cost to himself would be tremendous as he would be using his own strength as sacrifice to obtain this power. If it was soul-magic, it would truly be disastrous for Emp because who knew how long Sophus would be able to hold onto the spell.

Emp only knew one way to find out, he stepped forward and sent a wide slash towards Sophus. The mage stepped out of the way with a carefree air and a confident smile. A grin sprouted on Emp"s face none the less.

"That"s just a fancy self-magic. If it had been some Soul-magic, you would have taken it without moving however you chose to dodge because the cost is too great for you to take. I wonder how much you lost already when Marcy split you in two, I wonder how much more you can take."

The mage"s smile stiffened and that was all Marcy needed. Her sword whooshed over Emp"s head and removed the mage"s neck in a burst of flame. It reformed instantly but the two smiths were far from done.

Sophus tried to back off in a hurry but Marcy and Emp were just as relentless as he had been earlier with his wands. Their swords kept slicing his body apart at such a speed that he was never once in a single piece after that.

He picked up some more wands that all ended up destroyed in his hands as he tried to activate their spells. They were just as intangible as he was but they needed to actually be there and in one piece to free the spell they were holding making it easy for them to interrupt him.

He next attempted to go through Emp like a malevolent spirit but the magu protected armor and the cooling enchantment on it was like a true wall of thorns for him and Sophus had to painfully back off after part of his hand vanished in a hiss.

He started chanting a new spell as he was slowly pushed back to the side of the bridge. He might have been able to escape easily against only one of the two but with the both of them upon him, every dodge sent him into the blade of the other. The two had a great teamwork, beating him up like a piece of metal in their forge.

Emp felt like Marcy and him currently held the advantage but Sophus was radiating a great deal of heat and if Marcy wasn"t carefully, she might burn herself badly as she attacked him. Emp was less affected by it as he was protected by his armor but the magic steel still complained with screeches in front of the scalding heat and his already burnt chest felt worse and worse as time went on.

Sophus fetched a wide capped mushroom with a pale red color from one of his pants pockets and squeezed it in his hand. A thick cloud of spores burst out of it towards Emp and Marcy before catching fire with a sudden burst.

Marcy protected her face with her arm and backed away in time to escape but Emp was much closer because of the shorter length of his sword.

Emp was so close that he felt the spores rush through the openings of his helm into his eyes and all the way down into his lungs as he breathed some of it by accident. The sensation was unlike anything he had ever felt before and his whole body shook with violent fits of cough. The burn in his eyes forced him to back off from the mage and close them with pain while the magic burned through his throat violently. It was a bit like having a frog in one"s throat, only that frog was on fire, was very angry and had sharp fangs. (2)

He heard the rushed steps of Sophus using the opportunity to distance himself from them but Emp refused to let him go. He swung his sword, cutting through s.p.a.ce towards the mage. Knowing this would not stop him, he forced his eyes open despite the pain and added a kick to the slash.

He could see nothing but vague shapes through the slits in his helm and did not feel any of his attacks make contact with the mage but he had the impression that the shape of what he a.s.sumed to be the mage was pushed back towards the edge of the bridge by his kick.

Emp tried to clear his throat without much relief and saw the shape of Marcy rush back towards the mage. Since the armor seemed to be the only thing that could hinder Sophus. Emp estimated that simply punching him might be more effective than driving his sword through him. He joined the dark blurry spot that was Marcy and punched hard where he felt that the stomach of the bright blurry spot should be.

The hurtful heat on his knuckles told him he did get in contact with the mage. There was a retching sound and Sophus fell back over the bridge"s railing down into the water bellow.

The bridge wasn"t that high and the water wasn"t that deep but the mage was currently made of fire. There was a short cry of surprise and then a loud continuous hiss as the water around him boiled and turned to vapor.

Emp didn"t ask himself any question and after placing his sword back into the bag, jumped down to join him landing another kick as he fell directly on top of him.

The mage was struggling to get out of the water as fast as humanly possible, and the hissing sound was deafening around them. Emp was locked in a confusing world were he could see almost nothing and heard nothing but evaporating water.

He grabbed blindly until he caught something burning hot and started punching it repeatedly with his left fist. Water kept getting into his armor in waves and he chocked a few times on it, helping him rid himself of the burning sensation. Sometimes, the water was cool and the next instant, it was boiling hot, cooking him in his armor like a lobster. Emp didn"t care about the searing pain and kept beating the mage.

Eventually, their struggle led them to the riverside further up where the snake had originally come from. Sophus slammed a talisman onto Emp"s helm and the burst of flames that follow pushed him back into the water, finally freeing Sophus from his grip.

The mage struggled to get back up on the road, this short trip in the water had clearly exhausted most of his strength. The moment he set his unsteady foot on the road, he was once again split in half by Marcy"s sword and he stumbled back out of Emp"s view.

He felt the strong need to rub his eyes in an attempt to clear his vision but couldn"t since he would have to take off his helm or at least part of it. He chose to push on with his blurred vision and walked out of the water, dragging a lot of it with him thanks to his filled boots. He found that he wasn"t tired at all, he was hurting all over though. He must have been burn everywhere, each inch of skin felt like it had been held over a brazier for way too long.

"Marcy, enough! Stop!" Sophus was yelling in between heavy panting breaths.

Both Emp and Marcy ignored his plea and kept up their attack. Sophus was staggering and wobbling back towards what Emp believed to be the pit he had dug earlier. Marcy was skillfully leading him that way and Emp just provided some occasional supportive attacks as he really had a hard time seeing anything. His vision kept getting worse because tears flooded his eyes over the already present blur.

Finally, Sophus reached the side of the ten feet deep pit and Emp made a lunging strike at his ankle. Unlike all the previous strikes, he felt a resistance, he had hit something solid!

There was a grunt of pain, Sophus leaned to his side as he lost part of his balance and with a sharp upward slash from Marcy, his arm went flying. The mage fell into the hole, screaming from the loss of his arm.

Feeling it was appropriate, and mostly because he felt so much hatred towards him, Emp dropped all five explosive talismans he had into the hole to keep him company.

Sophus was a fire mage so he easily recognized what those were. Luckily for him, they didn"t explode just from the drop. His own fall must have hurt him because he had trouble moving. He couldn"t make any wrong gesture as it could set off one of the talismans, either one of those Emp dropped or one of his own.

Marcy crouched at the edge of the pit and picked up a pebble.

"Marcy don"t! I just wanted you to love me!"

She didn"t answer anything aside from raising her hand. She threw the pebble downward, Emp couldn"t see but she must have hit one of the talismans because a earthshaking boom immediately followed.

Fire, dirt and gore flew out of the hole and rained down in the street around them.

Emp wasn"t sure of what to think as all this rained down on his armor. He believed he should be very happy about being rid of him but he also felt guilt and regret.

It was true that he had tried to kill him, wanted to enslave Marcy and used Calla as bait but Sophus had done many other things too. He had known him for the largest part of his life, seen him every week, heard him complain all the time, saw him keep the soldiers alive in difficult situations. They hated each other but he was part of this village, well, "had" been part of this village. Emp felt that he might have gone too far.

Killing him already left a bad taste but blowing him up to pieces was clearly too much. How were they supposed to bury him with the ancestors now? Anger was truly a dangerous emotion.

Since the fight was over and he didn"t need to see anymore, Emp chose to close his eyes for a moment, he could hardly see anything anyway and they needed some rest.

The first one that came to see the final result of this madness was Willow since they were standing just beside the hole in her wall.

"Is it over?" He heard her ask.

"Yeah, Sophus is dead." Marcy told her.

"You three wrecked our house!" Winnie complained.

"I"d say it was worth it but don"t ya worry Winnie, we"ll help ya fix this. We"ll even pay for the repairs"

Marcy discussed this with Winnie and Willow for a short moment while footsteps arrived from both sides of the road. Obviously, everyone was curious to know how it ended. One of the sets of steps got closer to Emp and Marcy than the others and the voice of Bor surged.

"I can"t believe you"ve done this! You really killed Sophus! What in the b.l.o.o.d.y water am I supposed to do now?"

"Oh shut it Bor, he was an a.s.s, n.o.body liked him." Marcy shot back.

"That"s not a reason to murder someone! He was an a.s.s sure, but he was an a.s.s I needed to keep my men safe. And he was in the right this time too, you two are the ones who attacked him."
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He was obviously annoyed at what happened even though he disapproved of what Sophus pulled off. As the leader of this place and boss of the local law enforcement, even if he didn"t want to arrest them, his options were limited here. They murdered a man in broad daylight.

Emp felt like Sophus ran after his own problems and was truly the one in the wrong here but he would need more than that to escape this predicament.

Before Bor could say anything else, Emp raised his hand in front of him to stop his words.

"Bor-"

His voice sounded like gravel, it was sort-of painful to speak and annoying to hear. He tried to clear his throat again but he sounded just the same when he tried again.

"Bor, before you say anything else, look at the top of my hunting card, don"t tell anyone what you"ll read there and think carefully of your next words."

Emp made his hunting card appear in front of his palm and waited for Bor to see his name. It was impossible for him to not recognize it and Emp a.s.sumed that knowing he was a Muracier, he would refrain from sentencing them to something absurd like death by hanging.

He wished he could see what sort of face he was making right now but kept his eyes closed. After he felt that he had kept his card open for a long while already, he added a few more words.

"I"ll pay for all the repairs and help with them myself if I have to but Sophus messed with the wrong people."

There was another silence.

"Commander?" The soldiers asked.

"Sophus deserved his end. Marcy and Emp are free to go for now. They will both be sentenced to a fine for the damage they caused. All the a.s.sets of Sophus will be confiscated by the village administration to fund the repairs. And you two... You owe me an explanation."

"Sure, anything ya want Bor." Emp couldn"t see the reaction of everyone else, but from the jovial tone of Marcy, things must be going fine.

"My boy, yar voice is messed up, did ya breathe in too much smoke?"

Emp"s fingers fumbled around his helm to reach the clasps holding it in place and he removed it from his head. He heard a bunch of gasps right after he was done.

"Woo boy, he sure didn"t miss ya. Ya look roasted! We better not show that to Calla or she"s never gonna want to marry you!" She guffawed.

They had Clide the healer take a look at his burns and his eyes and he ended up getting prescribed a bunch of creams for his skin and time for his eyes. Clide said they"d be back to normal after a while but he had to keep them closed for now so he wrapped a length of bandages around his head. (3)

He asked what happened to Calla and was told that her family escorted her away while he was gone to the other side. Someone went to deliver the end result to them and Emp was told that he should continue to work on his confirmation as planned. Her feelings had not changed at all, even though she hated violence and wounds, all of this had been for her.

Emp was relieved but also, very inconvenienced.

Blindness was a great affliction to have when he had some precise work to do for the most important gift of his life. That and no tactile sensation at the tip of his fingers due to the burns. Everything he touched just felt ultra smooth and painful to him.

*-*-*-*

(1) Just in an attempt to be clearer. Soul-magic would simply ask the lightning to strengthen her and its magu will be added on to her own as fuel for a "self-magic" sort of effect. Mind-magic can"t to that, instead, the mages have to modify the lighting around them in a way that will make it receptive to their fine manipulation and will then use it as a coat. One is a direct buff while the other is a coat.

(2) In French, it"s a cat in the throat rather than a frog.

(3) He did place something over his eyes before putting on the bandages. Also, before people call me an idiot for the light treatments of the burns, those aren"t your grandma creams, those are made with magic properties and the healers in the school will give him some stronger stuff next chapter.