Supreme Magus

"She really doesn't know!" Bodya blurted out.

"Well, she's just a child, after all." Olua caressed Tista's head as if she was a small child, irking her to no end.

"Excuse me, I'm right here. What is that I'm not aware of?"

"Mana geysers are the reason why the Council awards its most outstanding members with a territory. Other creatures can only find them by chance, whereas Awakened can see them." Olua explained.

"Mana geysers are great places to build your lab or home, providing you with an endless supply of world energy for your arrays. On top of that, mana geysers can be used to identify the location of both crystal mines and enchanted metal's veins."

"Enchanted metals?" Tista echoed.

"Yes. Why do you think Reghia was built there?" Bodya nodded. "Over time, a powerful stream of world energy can turn any lesser metal into silver, silver into Orichalc.u.m, Orichalc.u.m into Adamant, and even Adamant into Davross.

"Silver forms close to the surface whereas the deeper you go, the stronger the geyser becomes, making it possible to find Adamant veins. Davross takes so much time to form that it's not worth the wait, not even for Awakened.

"Adamant is always mined as it is unless it has already started to gain both black and white shades that mark the turning point into Davross."

"Can all mana geysers do that?" Tista thought about the mana geyser where Solus usually took her tower form near Lutia and wondered why Faluel didn't pick such a spot to build her lair.

"I wish." Olua sighed. "You can't just dump silver or crystals inside a mana geyser and wait for them to grow. Either the process is natural or it doesn't happen."

Tista inwardly grinned at those words, thinking about Solus's ability to grow her own crystals and wondering if she could do the same for metals.

"Yet by mining the area around a mana geyser, Awakened can check the presence of magical resources and take them away before anyone else notices. The Council scouts each area before assigning them and divides the mining operations between the Lords of each region.

"After the Council takes its share, the rest is equally divided among the Lords who can choose if to hoard the resources for themselves or sell them to found their research."

"Then how can you explain that my Awakened mentor, a Hydra, lives near a mana geyser yet she didn't use it to build her lair?" Tista asked to make sense of Faluel's odd choice.

"There can be two possible explanations." Bodya said.

"If the Council has located a potential crystal mine or Adamant vein, if not both like it happens in Reghia, then no one would build anything over the geyser. Mining operations require countless people working together and no one likes to have strangers coming and going from your house at all hours.

"On top of that, it would force the Lord of the region to give the passwords for their arrays to all those involved, putting their treasures at risk. The second possibility is that your master uses her lair not only as a lab but also as a house.

"Raising children over a mana geyser is dangerous. The reason why Awakened at birth are just a myth, is that even if the geyser helps the baby to Awaken, their body can't resist such a massive flow of world energy, killing them the moment they develop a mana flow."

"The mana geyser is small and Faluel had many children so it should be option number two." Tista pondered. "Well, enough chit-chat. Time to get back to work. Who's our next target?" She took a longsword out of her dimensional item.

"A small tribe of Balors. Before attacking them, we're going to try reasoning with them. They are not mindless brutes and their strength might actually help us secure the area." Olua said.

***

Blood Desert Fringe.

After Nalrond completely recovered his strength, he performed the ritual to commune with Mogar for what he hoped was the last time. Thanks to Quylla's magic circles, forming the mind link put a much lesser strain on his mind compared with his previous attempt.

He could still hear countless voices echoing through his head, but it wasn't much different from the noise of Lutia's bustling market during the Spring festival. Mogar's flow of consciousness didn't feel like a raging river that would sweep him away at the slightest mistake anymore.

It felt akin to a gentle stream of water coursing around his body.

"Well, well, well. It looks like someone didn't learn anything from his last visit." Mogar still looked identical to Nalrond and its voice oozed contempt for it. "Why are you here?"

"For the same reason that brought me to the Fringe in the first place. To receive your wisdom." Nalrond replied.

"Are your questions the same as the last time?" A snap of Mogar's fingers materialized the three shades. Menadion, Arthan, and the Rezar that Nalrond suspected was his own beast side all stared at him in hatred.

"No. I have no questions. I have realized that I can't demand anything from you. I'm here to listen to whatever you are willing to share with me, no matter how insignificant." He said.

Based on both Morok's experience inside the Mindscape and his own, Nalrond had come to the conclusion that his people had never truly understood what communing with Mogar really meant.

During his first visit, the planet had shared with him many details about Dawn's attempts to learn from Mogar how to conquer the weakness typical of the undead. Despite her almost limitless power and nigh-indestructible body, even the Bright Day had come out of the Mindscape empty-handed.

'Dawn must have survived thanks to her nature of Living Legacy while I would have died like my clansmen before me if not for Quylla's magic circle protecting my mind and the combined efforts of my companions to heal my body.

'Dawn's failure means that raw power is pointless in here. Mogar's strength is too big to challenge even a shred of its consciousness. Morok's failure means that the trial isn't about accepting yourself or having a strong will.

'Despite all of our differences, the only thing all three of us have in common is that we came here making demands and yet we didn't listen to what Mogar attempted to say.' Nalrond thought.

"Then let me ask you a few questions." Mogar nodded, confirming his suspicions.

"Do you really think that your friend Lith is the first person to have their life force cracked? That no one else before you, be they Awakened or not didn't attempt everything they could to find a solution?" Mogar pointed at Arthan who even in death had a smug grin on his face.

"Just because you don't like an answer it doesn't mean that there is a better one. You can't bring back the dead just like you can't turn rotten food into delicacies because life doesn't come from nothing."

The Mad King's face twisted into a grimace of wrath as his body slowly faded away and Mogar absorbed him.

"A parent surviving their child brings terrible grief that sometimes turns into madness. The same grief and madness that brought Menadion to take away her own daughter's humanity to create an artificial unliving being.