CHAPTER 115.

When she slept the sun hadn’t even set, and while she could have always gone back to sleep to see for how long she could continue sleeping, she didn’t. She was way past that point in life, and the answer was probably for weeks on end. So instead, she slowly woke up yawning, and turned to see Frei staring out of the window.

The sun had yet to rise, there was only moonlight coming in, and the elf seemed to have a complicated expression, one that quickly changed as she blinked and turned.

“Hm? Did I wake ya?”

Amber shook her head. “You didn’t. What are you doing?”

“I’ve been thinking,” Frei said, turning back to the window, before placing a hand on it. “About what I want…”

Amber raised her brow and Frei continued.

“Ya asked me if going to the world of stars is truly everything I want or if there’s more,” she said, only for her to hear. “And well, I’m still pondering on it.”

She blinked hearing that, before nodding. “I don’t think it matters too much, won’t you figure out something once you get to that world?”

Frei glanced back and chuckled. “Perhaps, or perhaps I may not.” She turned back to the window. “Dunno, hard to tell.”

“Does it worry you?”

“A bit.”

At that there was a shared silence between the two of them. Amber didn’t really know what to say, and maybe there was nothing to say. Frei herself was still staring outside, more specifically at the moon. Her silver eyes reflected it with deep emotions.

“Y’know, I kinda envy ya in a way,” Frei said. “And I don’t mean the obvious shit like ya weren’t discriminated by the spirits from the get-go, but rather, I envy you.”

She raised her brow. “What does that even mean?”

“Like, ya seem so carefree to me, dunno I envy that. Well except when I had to calm ya down, but overall, you’re rather well-adjusted save for your death wish in battles.”

Amber frowned and Frei chuckled.

“Ya know how many people at your level are insane in some way? Almost all of them I’ve met.” She tapped a finger on her chin. “I mean, even I ain’t that sane.”

“Uh, I know that.”

The elf simply smiled. “Yet, you’re different. After spending so much time with ya, I can conclude that you aren’t the type of person to not take disrespect, or let things that bother her go unresolved. So I guess, thinking about it logically, I wanna be more like ya.”

“Right, thank you.”

Frei nodded, before smiling deeply.

“Which is why I’ll be leaving ya for sometime, to take care of things with the Lasrens. I can’t even be around for the operation against the Arcane Council anyway, so good luck, Amber.”

Amber blinked.

“Wait, you’re leaving now?”

The elf grinned, her eyes closing following her curled smile as if she was enjoying Amber’s shock.

“Yep, no better time to have a family confrontation than before the sun rises.” She waved. “I’ll miss ya for a bit, ta ta.”

And with those words, Frei disappeared, leaving her alone in the room, all while she was still struggling to process her words.

She really left just like that, huh? No hesitation at all.

Amber raised her head and looked at the window, and finally, she spoke what she had in mind. The now hypocritical statement that Frei had made numerous times in different ways.

“What happened to being my lapdog, and servant and whatever else?!”

She didn’t care all that much about it, she just found it hypocritical to not even apologize for that; that part irritated her. Words ought to have value after all. Though in the end, at the very least Frei had been true to her word at the end, and indeed had left.

* * *

Amber ended up sleeping more, and she awoke in the early morning and to a knock on her door.

“Miss Amber?” It wasn’t a voice she recognized. “Are you awake yet?”

“Yeah,” she answered, loud enough for the person outside to hear. “What is it?”

“We’ve had some discussions overnight, and I wish to speak to you about them. May I come in?”

Amber blinked, and looked down, she was in a simple white shirt so she supposed that was fine.

“So long as you don’t intend to attack me, sure.”

A chuckle came and the door opened.

“I wouldn’t dare.” She immediately recognized the man to be Latvar.

From what she had been able to gather he was the leader of the Dazdril house ⁠— at least the one in the Sacred Forest. So, this was most definitely an important topic.

The elven man closed the door behind him and spoke simply.

“The entirety of the Dazdril house has decided to help you with anything you may need.”

“Right…”

That was quite the strong statement right off the bat. But also, Amber didn’t really have much to ask about.

She scratched her cheek, “I don’t have much to ask for help with, so it’s fine.”

The man coughed. “Please, this is imperative to the Dazdril family, the disrespect we’ve shown you isn’t how we want to treat an esteemed guest⁠—”

“Fine, I got it,” Amber interrupted.

She didn’t know what had happened overnight, but judging the man’s troubled expression this was probably incredibly important to him. And while she could ask for something inconsequential, she decided to try to make use of this opportunity. Plus, she already had plans on seeking assistance from the Dazdril family in various forms.

“I got a question then.”

The man’s eyes widened for a moment before he nodded. “Anything.”

“If I wanted to break a vow, how would I go about it? More specifically in another person,” Amber said.

The man paused, “Is this related to the Arcane Council girl?”

“Can you just answer the question?”

“O-Of course,” he spoke softly. “As far as I’m aware, you simply need to override the vow with another one.”

Amber hadn’t considered that, “Is it really that simple?”

“So long as your Essence is stronger than the one that made the vow, yes.”

At that, she immediately frowned. So my only chance to remove Frei’s vow is to get another primordial to make a vow with her? That idea was incredibly troublesome, and it wasn’t something she could easily achieve.

Val’leri was ⁠— even if both of them traveled at full speed ⁠— weeks away, and Sid’fril was months. Of course, the issue could just wait, but…

“Is there no other way?” she asked.

The man thought for a moment. “I’ll have to ask the ancestor of the family.”

“The High Elf?” Amber blinked.

“Yes, I’ll try to exhaust all of our resources to get an answer⁠—”

Amber pondered, “If you had to break Sid’s vow, do you think it’d be possible?”

The man blinked before sighing. “Unfortunately, the act of wanting to break the vow would be a violation of it: so no.”

“Right, figure out how to break a primordial’s vow,” Amber said.

The man nodded gravely. “Very well, the Dazdril family shall do their best.”

In truth, Amber did feel the need to prioritize breaking Frei’s vow. She didn’t know if the Arcane Council would learn of her betrayal upon it being broken or not, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was going to be all the knowledge and secrets Frei would be able to reveal after the fact.

It felt weird for her to chase after information that much, but it was what she needed the most. Amber had to figure out where the primordial spirits of the world were, the secrets of the world itself; and other things she didn’t have easy access to. She wished to learn of the exalted figures of history, unearth their treasures if there were any, and capitalize from the path they had carved.

Latvar nodded once more and walked away, but he stopped at the door. “By the way Miss Amber, is there anything you need of us aside from this?”

Amber thought, “I want to visit both associations in the citadel, so a guide would be nice.”

“Very well, I’ll send one shortly.”

With those words the man departed. And Amber was left alone with her thoughts. Mainly, she decided to think how she wanted to use her time until Remmel’s mission. Frei was gone so resistance training was out of the question ⁠— and it was slow anyway so that hadn’t been in her initial plans.

No, one of her plans was to learn how to properly use electricity or darkness magic with Essence. And her main plan was actually to train in her Essence, which she could probably do with the help of the Dazdril family. Aside from that…

Try food and learn of elven culture.

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She didn’t care a ton about that, but she wanted to experience it. Her main goal to be here was to gain mastery of her Essence, and also information. So, visiting the elven libraries was a must as well.

She thought some more, but it seemed that that was everything she wanted to consider. Remmel had already started the research on Ishtar and Eisheth, so she was going to wait to see what he came up with. And if he didn’t come up with anything then she’d leave the Obsidian Rose and maybe do her damn best to kill the man to save herself future trouble.

Though I don’t think it’ll come down to that⁠.

With a newfound plan of action Amber got dressed and prepared to leave. There had been some clothes over on the room’s desk which she used to get dressed. And then headed out.

* * *

When she was about to leave, she was approached by ‘Silvette’, Latvar’s daughter, and she seemed to be her guide. At first, the interaction had been a bit awkward, since she was still prejudiced, but as they headed into the city it changed.

“Still, I can’t believe that I was lied to that much, talk about being overdramatic,” she scoffed.

“Right, I guess.”

“Like, they were saying how you doomed our house and how we were all going to die. That’s why I panicked so much, they painted you as the worst evil, when in reality you’re kind of whatever.”

“Right.”

“Sorry, I just mean to say that you won’t destroy your house. I’m just angry…”

The elven girl had basically transitioned into ranting about the Dazdril family and the entire situation that had occurred. And it didn’t seem to have an end to it. Even as Amber tried different foods, Silvette seemed to still be going.

“Like, they seriously thought that telling me my entire existence is doomed was a good idea! Talk about emotional distress.”

Amber looked over at the girl eating some kind of fried plants. “How old are you, Silvette?”

The girl blinked. “What? I’m plenty old y’know! Don’t go treating me like a kid, I’m a grown up 34 year old adult, okay!”

Wasn’t Asil still learning to write at 20? Amber frowned. Elves matured at a much slower rate, didn’t this mean that Silvette was basically a teen? Of course, the rate of maturity most definitely wasn’t linear, but that was her guess.

“What’s with that look?”

And Amber smiled. “You’re just older than me, that’s all.”

At that, the girl froze. “Wait… what? That’s not possible, you’re so high level.”

“You’re a full thirteen years older in fact,” Amber pointed out, eating a skewer with some unknown meat.

It was good. She savored it with a smile, and Silvette, her tour guide was… staring at her with wide eyes and an agape mouth.

“You’re lying…”

“Nope.”

“That…” She frowned. “I know you’re human and there’s differences between us, but… that still makes no sense. Doesn’t that mean that I should be at least level 100 if I want to match your pace?”

Amber waved her hand dismissively with her skewer. “When I was a teen I was level 1, so no.”

“That…” the white-haired girl’s eyes went wide. “...the fuck?”

Amber smirked at her reaction, and continued to enjoy her food.

After that, they finally focused on going to the citadel, which was via an elevator at the very center of the inner city. There had to be over a hundred people along with her, and surprisingly to her, there was not a single human in her sight.

“Why are there no humans?” she asked Silvette.

The girl paused. “You don’t know?” Amber shook her head. “Well, because outsiders aren’t allowed in the main city at all. In fact, they aren’t allowed in most of the districts.”

“Uh huh… so if I had entered through wagon…”

“You would’ve been given a magical bracelet to prevent you from wandering around and basically been treated as not part of our society.” She nodded, her face beaming with pride.

“Right…”

That sounded more brutal than what she had expected. No wonder Frei had called it trouble.

“Last question, why did you call me here⁠—”

“Stop, stop, stop!” Silvette immediately shut her up.

But people were already looking at her dubiously, making Amber blink. The elven girl grabbed her and pulled her ear, for a faint whisper, which surprised Amber.

“I’ll tell you later, just don’t use that word loosely.”

Amber nodded at that. So far, elven society had been a lot more interested that she had expected. The architecture was fantastical and gravity defying; the food was familiar somewhat, but the ways of doing things… it almost felt like a mix of calculating and being connected with nature.

She found it all interesting.

Then, an announcement came, as if it was talking through a speaker.

“The afternoon lift is taking off now, no more passengers allowed.”

Following that, a barrier of blue magic surrounded the elevator platform, and it began to ascend a moment after. Amber observed it and noted one thing and one thing only, she could sense a faint curse on it.

“Interesting.”

“What is?” Silvette asked.

Amber subtly pointed at it. “There is a curse in the barrier.”

“Oh huh.”

“Impressive,” an elf near them said, he was just two meters away from them. “Surprised you can sense that.”

Amber turned and saw an elf in robes. He looked young, his hair was golden and combed back, his green eyes seemed tired and weary however, and he had a staff. His level.

[Water Mage. Lvl. 189]

Was relatively high.

He stopped next to her with a smile, staring at the barrier. “Do you know what curse it is?”

Amber turned towards it, and focused for a moment. But ultimately she didn’t have the abilities to tell that yet, sso she told him as much.

“Nope.”

The man chuckled. “The fact that you can even sense it is incredible, you are a warrior after all. But to answer my own question: the curse present is the Curse of Tracking, it will allow you to predict where your target is and their moves at the cost of forcing you to mimic them.”

“Huh… interesting.”

Maybe I should try to expand my curse arsenal too.

He grinned. “The drawback doesn’t matter too much, it’s basically just meant for law enforcement. If the barrier gets shattered the perpetrator will be found. Isn’t it impressive?”

“Indeed,” Amber agreed with that, the ingenuity of using a curse to catch criminals wasn’t something she had even considered possible.

Silvette frowned. “Is it really that impressive?”

“Of course.” The elf nodded. “It is all possible because of the advancements of the Magic Association. We are one of the leading forces in sorcery aside from the association in Lathyzia and the continent of Arveil.”

“And is the Magic Association better than the ones in Arveil and Lathyzia?” Amber asked, curiously.

“Nah, we aren’t.” He said grinning. “But, we’re working on it. Why are you two going to the citadel? There isn’t that much for a warrior to do, or a child.”

“I’m not a child,” Silvette scoffed.

“We were going to the Magic Association, so given you’re from there, it’d be great if you could tour us around,” Amber suggested smiling.

The man blinked before nodding. “Absolutely, we take anyone interested in magical research, warrior, secretary, even merchants.”

He extended his hand, which Amber shook and he smiled.

“Maxwell.”

“Amber.”

He seemed pleased with that introduction until Silvette piped up.

“Hey, what about me!”

The man paused for a moment before offering his hand to her. “Ah, forgive me.”

* * *

Maxwell seemed incredibly eager to offer random tidbits of knowledge that Amber wasn’t aware of. Such as spells could be constructed and made via knowledge and magic circles, versus having to go by feeling. In short: they had reduced magic to a sort of science. Which to Amber was kind of lame, they could make fire and cast lightning and they still applied math to all of that? It bothered her because it, ironically enough, took the magic part out of magic.

Either way, she didn’t voice her thoughts, instead listened to the elf and his various explanations. Though upon being prompted on how to create the base magic of the elements he seemed a bit stunned.

“Unfortunately, the world as a whole is yet to figure out how to create them, how the mana into the initial conversion is made. All we know is certain runes, certain patterns will react to the elements better,” he said awkwardly.

Interesting.

They had arrived at the citadel already, which to Amber looked the most normal out of the entirety of the Sacred Forest, in fact it reminded her of the capital of Cytel save for the occasional massive tree branch in-between buildings.

“By the way, do you have anything about Cursebearers?” Amber asked.

The man blinked. “I’ve known you were one the entire time, why?”

Amber shook her head, dismissing the topic.

“Anyway, my class allows me to mimic magic with my curses so I’m hoping to expand my horizons. Learn spells if you will.”

Maxwell’s eyes widened before he nodded eagerly. “It’d be an honor to guide you through that.”

So I got myself a mentor in magic, neat.

“Don’t worry, once you surpass my knowledge I’ll take it upon myself to find you a suitable teacher,” he reassured. “For now, I’m happy to help someone else explore magic, especially in such an interesting subject.”

Amber frowned. “I won’t let you research it.”

“Of course not.” He laughed. “At most I’ll be interested to see how the principles of magic interact with that.”

With that, she had secured herself a spot in the Magic Association, albeit with mere chance. And with it, she was going to advance her Essence. Not five minutes later they arrived at the association building, or more like buildings.

To her it looked like a complex of buildings, one where the main architectural style seemed to be gothic with large pillars jutting out of the various structures that were made out of wood, and the buildings themselves resembled cathedrals with rose windows. Some had grand spires connected to them with wood, others looked to have multiple floors. It was an awe inspiring sight that Amber couldn’t help but admire.

And it was the Magic Association.

Entering it had been rather straightforward with Maxwell’s presence, although Silvette’s family name was also more than enough to enter. And upon entering Amber saw a dazzling sight, one that was amazing. She saw bookshelves lining the hallways, she saw laboratories, and even she saw mana floating in the air. Even though it was called an association it was clearly an Institute, which essentially meant most people were just going about their research, not bothering anyone.

There seemed to be various departments, but in the end, she was simply guided towards Maxwell’s personal lab⁠— apparently every researcher had one, and getting one in the first place was a big deal.

Though on the way there, they passed by a hall with portraits of various elves. Some were handsome, some ugly, their hair colors varied and so did their expressions. Some looked tired, and some were beaming with pride, and under their portraits there were plates.

“Every single one of these people are considered great mages, people that changed the world of sorcery and they are universally acknowledged and lauded through all magical institutes,” Maxwell said, excitement in his voice. He pointed at a black haired elf. “He developed the modern rune system we use today two-thousand years ago.”

And he continued pointing at different elves.

“She discovered the crafting of spatial storage items.”

“He discovered the 5th tier of magic. Which is level 500 magic.”

“She made the self-regenerating barrier that wraps Lathyzia today…”

The explanations continued, but Amber paused, she paused over a portrait that had been skipped. But that wasn’t the reason she paused, it was because of the picture and the name of the plate. It was an elf with white hair that became orange towards the tips, eyes silver like the moon and she had a peace sign. Her name was…

“Frei Lasren

Advanced darkness magic to allow communication between shadows, granting a new form of long distance communication. First person to reach the 4th tier of darkness magic.”

“Ah, she is recent, only added to the wall about sixty years ago,” Maxwell said, a hint of sadness in her voice. “Yet she cast her promising future away, now she is shunned by all major magic institutes. Banned for her transgressions. Even her family wants to disown her…”

“That is…” Amber stared at the portrait. “She has a lot more things in the past that I know of…”

The elven researcher turned towards her. “What do you mean?”

Amber shook her head before turning to the thing that interested him.

“What did she do? To get kicked out I mean.”

Maxwell frowned. “Fifty years ago she joined some organization, and fifty years ago she sold out all the research in our institute to achieve that.”

“I see…”

While she was aware Frei was far from a good person, hearing she had betrayed what she had worked hard for was still surprising. Then again, that woman had only one single want in her life, so it made sense.

Maxwell smiled. “Well, let’s go, there’s still much to show you.”

And with that, their tour of the institution resumed. However, it didn’t take long before she got to practice actual magic.

“What is this…?” Amber blinked, staring at what was handed to her.

“A book.” Maxwell nodded. “Knowledge is power.”

“You do realize that none of the theory will apply to curses, right?”

“That is not a reason to skip learning the fundamentals of how magic works,” he said frowning. “You said it yourself didn’t you? The better you understand an element the easier it is to replicate, same goes for spells.”

Amber stared at the leatherbound book before her, it was thick. Easily thicker than dictionaries back on Earth.

“I meant getting hit by them and seeing them in action, not this…”

“One step at a time, our society wasn’t built in a day.”

And Amber sighed, having second-thoughts about her whole idea now. But after a moment, she made a decision. If she made a half-assed attempt she wouldn’t achieve anything if there was something to get out of it.

So, she opened the book to study for the first time since she arrived in Vir.