Interlude V (Mallory)
The girl is amazing, probably one of the most talented natural magic users to have ever played the game. Even the great sages that Mallory visited couldn’t hold a candle to the radiance she exhibits by just being her. Honestly, Mallory has been feeling this for a long time, but she has felt that this once in a generational talent is being held back by her. The way she solves problems, to the way she works out an entirely new spell from nothing, it is to put it mildly impressive.
Of course, with someone so talented, there is also the concern that they might push the boundaries of reality too far, one such example of this is her near insistence on improving the Valkyrie flight spell that has been a part of her whole persona since she basically began the game. Flight, the ability to fly for even short periods of time has been a blessing and one that clearly set her above other players for so long. Yes, the spell consumed mana like her first ever car, the one that had that unexpected hole from hitting a curb too hard, the one that could never quite be patched properly and as such drained gasoline everywhere.
Before now the spell, or the inefficiency in how the spell worked was never a problem. When you are low in level, being able to fly for a hundred seconds is a lifetime. Then when she got older, as a player, she made it so the spell lasted up to five hundred seconds which she thought was more than enough time to do anything. Yet, here comes Cass and going from never having flown before, to creating a floating spell, to then rather than creating a new flight spell she chose to create a metamorphosis spell that made her look like she was a pixie, particularly when she was forced to transfer back into her original form.
Then came the burning tar incident, at least that is what Mallory mentally called the whole ordeal, where Cass asked her to set the Blight on fire. Well, it wasn’t true fire, but Holy Purification, which was essentially holy fire, particularly with her Tier level of the spell.
When the burning tar, or Blight, fell on Cass, Mallory couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle, particularly when Cass survived the whole experience and looked perfectly fine, with just a hint of indignancy due to her beautiful features being covered in ash and the burning tar like substance.
There was a moment of fear, when Cass lowered her head to avoid having the soot and ash fall in her face. That moment sent a slight tremble down Mallory’s spine, for she realized she had seen this before, in that movie Carrie, where the beautiful magic girl is coated in pig’s blood. Same thing, well sort of, here we had arguably the best magic user in the world, one who was creative enough to formulate spells on the fly for any situation, and she was coated in burning Blight tar.
Then the next thing that came to me was the smell, the all-consuming stink that covered Cass. That was when, Mallory, who was so used to just speaking her mind blurted out, “oh my Gods, you stink!”
At the same time Mallory took a step back while covering her nose, and trying to keep her thousand points in Perception from taking in all the details of the burning tire pit that was Cass.
Cass of course just turned her dead eyes up and glared. Once again, Mallory felt a twinge of self-preservation come up in her, as she added, “you know, maybe that was me.”
There was a moment, then suddenly the building tension that had been building up dissipated as Cass let out the breath she had been holding and let herself relax slightly. “No, it was me…”
Phew.
Mallory let out a breath of relief at that and didn’t hear anything else she said. The crisis had been averted, Cass had avoided a complete melt down and going full on supervillain. Then she graded herself as a ‘C.’ The whole thing seemed so random that Mallory had to double check that she had heard correctly.
“A ‘C,’ as in the letter grade?”
“Yes…” Cass began.
Once again, Mallory realized just how tough this girl was on herself. Now, she knew the woman was far older, old enough to be her granddaughter’s age, which wasn’t saying a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, but still it was worth noting that this person who held themselves to such high standards never expected less from herself. Then when plans didn’t go as planned, she stopped, evaluated and figured out ways to improve, that was the thing about Cass, she was always able to find ways to improve for the better… Holy Gods, she set herself on fire!
Mallory watched with confusion and amazement as the girl took out a flask of water and poured it on herself to cleanse the ash that coated her body and ended up setting herself on fire. Her natural reaction, even after all this time was to flinch back at the sight of the raging inferno that was before her. Then before she could do anything the fire quickly ended, and what lay beneath was an even more beautiful version of Cass.
Silence.
No screaming out in pain, no cries of agony. It was just Cass, a far better-looking version of Cass. Before she had the light purple skin that denoted her as being Royalty of the dark elves, something so potent that all elves would naturally be attracted to her innate power that was on display. Now, her skin and body had changed once more. Her eyes were still the same glowing green hue that spoke of gentleness, and her innate kindness. While her skin and hair had both changed. Her hair which had been all ashen white was now multicolored, the ashen white was the base and it seemed that everywhere major chunks of burning Blight fell on her and burned caused her hair to change. She had streaks of purple, light vibrant green, deep forest green, and most dazzling of all blazing gold in her hair. Each streak all but seemed to radiate with power. Then her skin too had changed, moving away from the purples and seeming to shift further into the shades of blue, causing her to have a more mystical appearance. There were still shades of purple, parts that were used to accentuate the change to the gorgeous blue. Even her freckles had changed, and she had plenty of freckles, being a former dark elf who never hid underground had a drastic change on her, causing her to have freckles everywhere. Now those same freckles all but glowed with violet power, denoting her as being a being of immense power.
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That was the other thing, she had an aura, a radiance of calm and love that covered her. Normally such a change was only made manifest in the 250s, and even then, not everyone could manifest a true aura, but here she had an aura that was unmistakable, one that was so powerful that it forced you to recognize the lurking threat, and then just as quickly dismiss it, as this was a being of the purest light that came down to spread her joy and happiness everywhere, at least that is what Mallory felt radiating from her.
Finally, after forcing a deep breath, Mallory being able to overcome the deep aura that would be suffocating to most asked, “you good?”
Cass nodded, and then Mallory saw something that caused her entire world to change, as there was a scar, something so small that Mallory almost thought it was ash that had not washed away as part of the transformation, but she was wrong. While just standing there, Cass standing perfectly still had part of her forehead slide impossibly open and reveal a glowing green ovular gem that was in the exact center of her forehead.
Seeing that, Mallory’s instincts kicked in, seeing the pure power that radiated from this new glowing object and asked in as calm as a voice as she could muster, “what the fuck is that on your head!”
Granted, it was not as calm as she would have liked it to be, but for the time, it was the best she could do.
Then reaching up to where Mallory was pointing, Cass placed her finger by the glowing thing, and answered in an almost emotionless voice, “oh yeah, that thing…”
That was it, that was all the answer Mallory had received. Pausing for a moment, she collected herself, only to realize that she had apparently taken a full step and a half backwards, apparently as a way to avoid being eaten by Cass’s odd powerful component. Seeing the rapid power change, the change in skin and eye color, and the new existence of an aura, Mallory guessed that there had been a massive power increase.
“You reach a new class threshold?” Mallory asked, trying to understand what had happened.
Head shake, apparently no, not a class upgrade. Pausing Mallory waited for an answer, but then she saw the new title that hung from Cass’s figure.
Legendary Esoteric Arcanist Bloodline (Progenitor): As a Legendary member of the Esoteric Arcanist Bloodline you have unlocked the following bonuses: +25 Skill Levels and +50% comprehension speed towards the following skills: Spell Theory, Magical Theory, Magical Manipulation, Quick Casting, Dual Casting, Mana Circulation, Danger Sense, Master Enchanting, Gear Infusion, and Energy Resonance Alteration. Note: As the Progenitor, all bonuses are further increased by an additional 50%.
This was one of her True Sight powers she had gained from being a Valkyrie, she could see the titles of people around her.
Seeing the title, a shiver ran down Mallory’s back, as she felt her jaw open wide at the sudden realization of the change that her best friend had gone through. “You are a Legendary Bloodline Progenitor?”
Hearing that, Cass just nodded, before adding, “yep, and it came with this third eye.”
Realizing this, Mallory felt, well she didn’t know how she felt. She felt fear, elation, and joy all at once.
“That is…” Mallory began, trying to find the right words, but most common words of joy were lost to her, as she tried to recognize what would happen next.
“Horrific…”
“Fantastic.” Mallory said, then immediately went to envelope her friend in a hug. There was a moment of resistance, but then finally Cass gave in and hugged Mallory back. At that, all three eyes closed at once and she noticed tears forming in them. Seeing the tears form, Mallory’s motherly instincts came out and she immediately went into soothing her friend, “shh.”
“It’s just that…” Cass began but couldn’t quite find the words.
“I know, it’s hard. But you still look amazing. Even more so now with that third eye.” Mallory stated, and she meant it too, now that she had time to process what she had seen, it was beautiful. The way the eyelid opened vertically and then seemingly disappeared was a bit shocking at first, but now that she had time to look at it, the eye was beautiful. While the other two eyes were horizontal, this one was vertical and placed directly in the exact middle of her forehead, giving her a perfectly symmetrical face. Also, with the bright green solid color, the eye looked like a gem of power rather than a traditional eye.
After a time, Cass opened up her eyes, and then just stared up at Mallory, a look of hope in her face. Seeing her beautiful face and the way she was clearly torn up by this decision, Mallory couldn’t help but hug her harder, while shifting her head back to look at the face of her friend.
“You are too cute. If I thought it would be hard to keep the boys off you before, then it will be doubly so now.” Mallory stated.
Hearing that Cass just smiled, it wasn’t her full glowing infectious smile, nor was it the smile she had when she was up to mischief, but it was a smile, it was her smile nonetheless and that meant a lot.
Finally, after a moment Mallory stated her thoughts. “You know I realized, you are one tragic backstory away from going complete and utter super villain.”
“Oh, I would be a good one too. People would never see me coming, then BAM!” Cass agreed in her exuberant way, breaking away from Mallory and smashing her fist into the palm of her other hand.
“Hey, that is not the answer you give. You are supposed to tell me that it would never happen, that you would find a way to stay true to yourself and your beliefs.” Mallory chastised, suddenly feeling less certain.
“Oh, come on, we both know that answer is only setting up a death flag that would challenge my morals. No, I say have at it, I will raise the anti-death flag, if that is a thing. You know, one where people are forced to be good, because the alternative is far too scary to imagine, me unleashed, MUWAHAHAH.” Cass says, her voice back to her normal infectious tone, even her malicious laugh is too cute to bear; all while her comments once again show that she would in fact make a great super villain.
Hearing that, and wanting to change the subject away from Cass, the most creative person she knew go completely off on a tangent of being evil, Mallory decided to ask, “so do you think you can heal this tree or what?”
Hearing that, Cass paused, took in a deep breath and suddenly was back to her normal analytical self. “I think so, I just got a new school of magic that I should be able to infuse into a spell easily, and I think I have a way to use it to completely cure the Blight.”
“Completely?”
“Okay, maybe that was a bit too strong of a word, but at least a way to create natural anti-bodies that will be able to counteract and destroy the Blight.” Cass states, and once again Mallory felt her head spin as she tried to keep up with the words that Cass spoke. She did speak English, all the words that were said were known to Mallory, but somehow Mallory, as usual, felt it hard to keep up with the crazy magician. The magician that had just gotten a whole lot stronger.
Also, looking back, there were a lot of rare skills in that title, skills that Mallory herself didn’t even know existed. Realizing that right now might not be the best of time to ask, she made a note to bring up just what some of those skills were, later, when the thought of her with those now boosted skills going wild wouldn’t send shivers down her back. Realizing it was her turn to talk, Mallory began with as basic of a question as she could think of.
“How?”
Fortunately, that was all the little pixy girl with glowing blue skin, multicolored hair and a pair of seraphim wings needed to go off into her own external monologue.
“Well, I just got the school of Holy magic unlocked, which I think I can use to infuse into the white blood cells, well the tree’s equivalent of white blood cells, maybe I will have to make them… No, I think they have something to combat diseases, I will just have to find it, and then modify…”
At the thought of trying to forcefully modify the cells of the great tree spirit Yggdraspirit, a tree that was sacred to thousands of orcs, elves, and dragons, Mallory decided to turn off her listening ears and just let Cass do her thing. The less she knew, the better it would likely be for everyone, hopefully.