The fog cleared up and answered his doubts—either his spell was faulty, or his affinity wasn’t high enough to trigger the mystic element’s actual memories of the past. In his current state, he could only watch the top layer of rumors that was dusted over the truth and hid it behind years of made-up stories.
The speculation made sense, it flawlessly fit the puzzle, but Ewan still needed hard proof to confirm it. He could get it only with the bones buried in his yard. The bones of Walyn’s family…
He died as a child and became a Wraith as a child, lacking the trait of compromise against terrible odds like adults. So, pushing him down with force would just give Ewan subpar results, and he would repeat this morning’s incident. Instead, a friendly convincing voice could sway him in his favor. If he added a few incentives on top, it should ease up the tension even more.
And so, Ewan bid farewell to Kiev, declined his invitation to join the bonfire, and rushed back to his villa.
The serenity of the pitch-black night in the mountain forest provided the stage for his thoughts to grow and fester. Once he verified the bones, Ewan could rule out two of the three scenarios he inferred before—Walyn hadn’t lied and there was no external influence. But this presented him with a new problem.
If his spell was faulty and couldn’t dig deep into the layers of rumors, then the solution was within his reach. It would only take more effort and time to fix the spell circuit. However, if the issue happened because his affinity level wasn’t high enough, then the problem would trip him up.
‘Favored’ level wasn’t enough, perhaps ‘Endued’ could tame the mystic element, or the ‘Consonance’. Beyond that was ‘Hallowed’ and ‘Fusion’, the former being the limit of material beings and the latter became the kings of Elementals. What level did he need to subdue the Mystic-Anima? There was no one who could answer him, he could only find it himself.
Luckily, his other mystic spells worked without any hiccup so far, only the past memories posed a problem. Thus, the element was still usable in combat and out of it, albeit with some caution.
The protective fog shield opened at his command when he activated the key, and he walked in to the sight of Kidd practicing weird and awkward movements.
“Boss,” he hollered, still in his grating voice. “See, we can walk now.” He inched forward with the right leg, and the left hand came in a beat slower. The combination balanced his body to take the next step. At least, he didn’t tumble over and planted his face in the mud. The ‘I’ in his sentence had also become ‘we’ after one day—he was beginning to accept his situation.
“Keep it up,” Ewan said, closing the protective fog behind him. “Let me talk to Walyn.” The Wraith’s half closed his eye and pursed his lips—in the end, it became a wink and half a pout for their whole.
“Oi, boss wants to talk to you,” Kidd whispered, poking his right side.
Ewan walked forward. “I still want to check the grave, it’s important to me,” he said. “In return, I’ll give your family a proper funeral.”
Walyn couldn’t stop him in his current condition. But both the knowledge of their weird phenomenon and Kidd were useful to him, so he relented and opted out of using force; unless absolutely necessary.
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“Drarith has the tradition of sea burial, right? I’ll do that for you and create their gravestones too,” Ewan said.
The Wraith finally opened his eyes and looked at him. “Wh-What is…sea burial?” he asked in the same voice as Kidd.
“It’s the rite of sending the dead into the arms of Morinfair.” Ewan quoted the book he read on the topic. “I can't do all the rituals and the ceremonies, but I can send them off properly. They’ll rest in peace there.”
“Da…da t-told me bury them c-close home,” Walyn said. “H-he said we always t-together that way.”
“Your father? He probably meant the part of the ocean that’s closest to this villa. Or if you don’t want that, I’ll create a proper grave for them in the yard,” he said. “We don’t need to send them off to Morinfair.”
“W-Will they happy t-there?” Walyn asked. “W-Will they n-not fight anymore?”
“Hopefully,” he said. Existence after death was a concept Ewan wanted to believe in, he wanted it to be true. Yet, he knew it to be false. His knowledge of souls, their birth and their end, deemed it untrue. Walyn, however, didn’t need to remove that illusion. For only despair awaited him on the other side.
“…O-Okay,” Walyn said after two breaths of silence.
“Okay what? Do you want me to send them off to Morinfair?” Ewan asked.
Walyn bobbed his head, clutching his t-shirt, his eyes tearing up.
“I’ll be careful, don’t worry,” Ewan said, and proceeded to dig their graves. Now that Kidd was out of commission, he had to do the manual labor himself.
…..
Their graves were shallow to begin with, and soon, Ewan uncovered their skeletons. Coarse, grimy, brittle, and buried together in a mess. Decades of decomposition had removed any and all organic mass, leaving behind a fragile mineral frame that gave off an earthy smell.
Their skulls became his starting point, and he separated them carefully on a large sheet into four stacks—putting the parts where they belonged to the best of his knowledge to create four people. He heaved a dry chuckle and shook his head when he looked at the result.
Just the number of the buried alone proved Walyn’s story against the mystic element’s deception. The mystic element showed him a family of five people, yet reality gave him four skeletons.
Nonetheless, he still examined the bones down to the smallest chink. Confirming the cause of their deaths could further verify Walyn’s claims and also give Ewan the benchmark for the past that mystic element would eventually show him once he tamed it.
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Status: Healthy
Step-0 [9th Awakening]
Name: Ewan Ayres
Species: Human
Vitality: 2.0
Spirit: 19.9
Anima: [Fire – 19.9 | Ice – 19.9 | Blood – 19.9]
Astylinds: 4 [Potential: 0]
Rolling Cat [Toast]: Step-0 [9th Awakening]
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Fire Monkey [Orange]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-B]
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Imp [Frost]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-B]
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Blood Lotus [Iris]: Step-0 [Level-9] [Grade-S]
Equipment: Common Clothes; Yurn [Neck Gaiter]; Moonkeeper [Crystal-Ball].
Storage: Journal; Elementalist—The Path of Anima [Subtype-Book]; Spellbook; Bloodlust [Spell]; Transmute [Spell]; Anima-Crystals [Novas Coins]; Obsidian Dagger; Hub-Connector; Ingredients.
Novas: 65,145
Crelith: 3,887