By the time I woke from my strange dream, I felt a headache creeping up on me. It was one thing to get some information in regards to childcare, something I was incredibly grateful for, and getting information on Luna’s class, possible future path and what to look out for was valuable, too. All that was great but sadly, Lady Hecate had apparently decided to either test or push me, I wasn’t sure which. Or maybe she simply didn’t care, either way, the sensation was fairly similar to that of the capsule going into a floating time compression and pushing my brain to keep up. For hours.

Judging by the light filtering through drawn curtains, my dream had lasted about four hours and in those four hours, I had roughly forty hours of lessons, though it was hard to judge without any sort of external comparison. In the eerie space I had been pulled in, a space I had come to realise might just symbolise the moon, there was nothing to keep track of. It was perfectly drab as if frozen in time, with nothing but the voice of Lady Hecate to keep me company. Even the sensation of my body had soon faded away, forcing me to use my magic to create a shell for my mind, or I might have been driven insane. The space was similar enough to the Astral River to make me wonder about the connection but, so far, I had no idea what it might mean or how I might be able to make use of it. Luckily, the Lady Hecate didn’t seem to be a deity to begrudge me my efforts, if I managed to use what she had shown me, even if that something was part of Her domain. No, She was more likely to congratulate me, especially if I managed to surprise Her in some way, She seemed to thrive on novelty and interesting fresh concepts.

Simply looking at the amount of information I had been given, forty hours sounded roughly right. There were lessons on motivation, lessons on punishments, lessons on bonding and guidance when it came to childcare, while I now, amusingly, knew more about Luna’s Acolyte Class than I knew about my own. When I had asked Lady Hecate about the progression for a Sorceress, or more precisely a Draconic Sorceress, the only answer I had received was amused laughter in three distinct tones. It seemed like the Mother guided the Maiden but had to make her own path, possibly with some guidance from the Crone, or Grandmother. Or maybe my efforts during her lessons simply hadn’t been worth an answer and I needed to do better next time if there was another lesson.

I really needed to find some way to contact her, or maybe get in contact with Lenore. Both might have interesting things they could tell me, or be able to help me out some. Just knowing I had access to the vastly superior magical knowledge of Mundus would be a terrifying boon. Though, judging by Lady Hecate’s words, creating my own path and finding my own solutions for the myriad of problems out there would be beneficial in the long run.

And I could see that. Magic was, at its core, an intensely personal force. Even runes, as objective as magic could get in my opinion, had nuances to them, subtle changes in their structure and expression depending on the person casting them, to say nothing about the even more obscure patterns to connect those runes. Sure, there was a general form to each rune but just how exactly the rune was cast was as personally distinctive as handwriting. Everyone used the same set of letters, but the subtle nuances changed greatly depending on the person and a myriad of other factors.

And that was just for runes, when it came to the purely magical disciplines, the differences between two people were even greater. Hel, if I looked at the way I used my Mind Magic now and the way I had used it on Mundus, there was a huge divergence. Part of that was deliberate on my part, I wanted to steer clear of the change to my Mind Magic that had turned it into a pure weapon, but even without that, I used it in different ways. Ice- and Darkness Magic hadn’t changed all that much, simply because I had come across ways to efficiently wield them and didn’t want to mess with what worked. Otherwise, I might have pushed myself deeper into a combination of Water and Ice Magic, now aht I had access to both, using Cold as a weapon instead of the sharp Icicles or multi-elemental attacks I favoured now. Generally, Ice was the medium, but I could just as well go into using Water as a medium and Cold as the blade. I had done so in the nearby Dungeon, gaining a few skill points for it, so maybe I should test things and see how far I could push that idea.

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Maybe I could try a few things out during the next rain, using the natural water in the air as an amplifying medium to spread my attack further than I could naturally, that sounded like something I could work with.

But later, for now, I had to prepare some food for myself and the munchkin, before starting the little one on her lessons. Taking care of a child was truly a full-time job, especially in the situation we were in now. And for that, I had to get away from the munchkin who tried to impersonate an octopus. Or I could wake her, but that would leave me with a likely grumpy and hungry munchkin, an unfortunate combination that would make the work more difficult.

Luckily, preparing breakfast was a simple thing, just some dried raisins and nuts, some oatmeal with water and honey, supplies that would last for a long, long time, even without refrigeration. It was what we ate most of the time, not the most savoury food, but filling and nutritious, so we made do. After clearing out the park, and checking the danger level of the area, we’d head back to the farm and get some fresh meat on the way.

I almost felt myself drooling at the thought, hunting down one of the stupendously large boars or maybe a cow, sounded like a delicious idea. Somehow, the change had altered their physique, making them more adapted to combat, but it hadn’t negatively impacted their taste. Even the best meat I had eaten before the change, dining at a fancy restaurant with my parents, wasn’t as good as a simple, grilled cut of beef from one of the altered cows.

It made me wonder how smoked bacon from the boars would taste, it might be something we could trade at the farm for. There were a few things stashed away at the lair that we might be able to trade, or we could go out and find something worth their while. Hel, we’d likely get something simply by asking, if only because people were too afraid of me to refuse.

Not something I wanted to make a habit of, but if I was smart about it, I’d likely be able to leverage my aura quite a bit.

Or I could simply offer to dole out destruction in a direction of their choosing. If there was one thing I was confident of, it was that nobody in a fairly wide area was as magically powerful as I. It would take a large community, united in the worship of a more martial god to gather enough faith to have them empower one of their own to match me, if that was even possible. It likely was, simply because I doubted the Divine wanted to play by anybody’s rules but their own, but even Gods needed something to work with.

Which likely was the reason why Hecate had guided Silva to find Luna, so that She had something to work with, maybe even to form a more direct link between Herself and me. It might be an idea born of hubris, but I considered it more one born of self-awareness. There might be hundreds, if not thousands, of children with a similar base as Luna, but I highly doubted that anybody had a trait as stupendously powerful as Dragon Touched. It was, after all, the gift of a Titan for freeing them from a prison that was about to extinguish their essence and help them on the path to fulfil their Destiny.

Focusing on the present, I moved to wake up Luna. We had quite a bit to discuss, mainly about the Acolyte class she was saddled with. One, surprisingly large, aspect of her power was to interact with others, to push them on the ‘right’ path. Amusingly, where that ‘right’ path for most deities meant a path that included worship of that deity, that wasn’t the case for Hecate.

No, instead, Luna’s power revolved around helping others on the Arcane path, giving them guidance and furthering their powers. Logical, in a way, if one considered that Hecate wasn’t after worshipers but wanted more arcane magic in the world.

Which neatly fit with the role of teacher I had started, guiding people on that very path. There was a part of me that felt manipulated, as if I had simply been dancing on somebody’s strings but at the same time, I doubted that it was manipulation. It was the other way around, my actions and power were likely the reason why Luna had been chosen.

At least I hoped so, I hated being manipulated. Allies, mutually beneficial relationships, those I could happily do, but being played the fool was anathema to me.