Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King

Wolfe looked over the witches for a while, then back at the Sprite.

"I'm about 99 percent sure that they are awakened Witches. I'm looking at their mana systems, and it all looks fine to me." He remarked.

"Just do it. Cleanse the curse and awaken them. I swear they'll be like forty percent less creepy."

Priya laughed. "Only forty percent less creepy?"

The Sprite nodded very seriously. "Well, they've got all that icky contamination on their aura, so they're going to be creepy no matter what, but if they weren't unnaturally awakened, then they would be less creepy."

It was no secret that they were awakened forcefully by the Mana Beast, so the Fae's comments matched what the Witches had already admitted themselves. There was only one major problem.

"If I want to awaken them, I have to take the wristbands off." Wolfe reminded the Sprite.

"No worries, Mister Wolfe. I'm super fast. I can kill them before they even finish their first curse." The Sprite responded immediately.

"Well, when you put it that way, I suppose there isn't much to worry about. Who wants to go first?" Wolfe asked.

The Sergeant gave him a confused look, far from her usual glare.

"What is the Fae on about? I didn't follow any of that conversation." She asked.

"The Sprite says that the Fae find your forced awakening really creepy, and the aura of the Mana Beast that builds up on you because you're casting spells through the curse that it placed on you is only making it worse. She wants me to break the Bloodline Curse on you and let your bodies awaken naturally, so that the Fae in the village don't pick on you when we arrive." Wolfe explained.

"Will there be side effects?" She asked.

The Sprite shook her head. "It won't change your aura, it will just break the curses on you and let some of the excess evil energy begin to fade. Seriously, don't you lot even talk to the Fae?" 

Wolfe patted the small sprite on the head. "There are no Fae where they come from, remember? All the Fae Forests were destroyed, so they haven't seen one in a century."

"Ew, who would want to live like that? Plus, they smell like they've been starving. Their bodies have been burning mana to live. Maybe we should throw them in the river once you cleanse the curse from them, so they don't smell when you get them home?"

Now Priya was unable to hold back her laughter. The Fae rarely ever had a filter, but this one was especially funny.

"There are showers in the village with scented soaps and scrub brushes, that should work much better than a quick dunk in the river, and the village's water filtration system will purify the waste water." Priya chuckled.

"Oh, good point. The Kelpies would probably get mad at me if we threw them in the river. Nice save." The Sprite cheered, making her long ears wiggle in excitement.

"I know that we're on a different continent, but I swear that you're actually all a bit weird." The crouching witch snickered as the Sprite managed to get herself entangled in the netting of Wolfe's camouflage outfit.

"I won't deny that, but you're up first. Prepare yourself because I'm going to remove the bloodline curse from you. As a small bonus, your children won't bear the curse unless the father carries it." Wolfe explained, then began his work.

With the Curse locked in stasis, it had never matured and dried, and thick black sludge poured from the palms of her hands as Wolfe worked to force it out of her system.

Then, something truly unexpected happened. A massive surge of mana erupted from her body as the Bloodline Curse broke, and Wolfe felt an intense mental pressure for a split second before the spell, which the Fae had named as a curse by the Mana Beast, broke as well, no longer having the base on which it was cast.

Then Wolfe reached down and popped the wristband off her, and flooded her with mana, causing her to moan and collapse across the seat in front of her with a series of shudders.

Her Rank Two aura burst back to full life as Wolfe finished, but the Fae was right, it felt different now. Before, they had a bit of a foreign feeling to him, which he assumed was just due to the way that they practised magic, or something in their genetics, but now her aura just felt earthy and herbal, distinct from the local Witches who also used Elemental Magic.

Wolfe hadn't realized that there was a distinction, but now that he had a Rank Two witch in front of him who had never used an Elemental Spell in her life, he could immediately feel the difference.

"There we go. How do you feel?" Wolfe asked.

The witch blushed and covered her face, but didn't say anything.

"Oh yeah. Other than that, how does your aura feel? I can tell that you're back up to full power, so it should be fine I think, but since you've always had the forced awakening curse in place, I wanted to make sure that you weren't going to have to relearn how to use magic now that you were doing it like a normal witch." Wolfe explained.

The other prisoners looked at him in confusion, not understanding what had gone on, but the 'volunteer' gave a shaky thumbs up as she cast a spell to create a black rose in her hand, and Wolfe turned to the angry Sergeant.

"Now, you're at Rank Three, so this could be more difficult. That means you're up next. Don't worry, there is no risk of permanent harm. I understand how it works now, and the spell on you put the curse and your progression into stasis, so you never advanced past childhood in the conventional sense. 

That actually makes it easier on me, and prevents the curse from doing permanent damage to you, so you'll be just fine. Now, grit your teeth so that you don't accidentally bite your tongue."