She left Ben to get himself checked out while going off to do what she needed to. While she had finally been able to breathe a sigh of relief now that her friend was awake and out of danger, there was a new weight to bring her down, and it was waiting for her at home.
She hesitated at the door for a minute, not wanting to go in when she could be relaxing instead after such a long few weeks. But Thera treated it like a bandage that needed to be torn off, taking a breath before she opened the door and walked in.
Lounging on the couch comfortably, flipping through the pages of a book her aunt Sonya had left on the table was a void of white mana in roughly the shape of a succubus. She wished it was her aunt Lux who she had a reasonable relationship with, but the one in her home didn’t radiate light around her, instead she simply existed, as if something had punched out a hole in space to find a white backdrop behind it.
“Hello Vividus,” She said, greeting her aunt, the great life spirit, with a voice filled with disdain.
“Hello child, I take it your pet mortal is awake?” She asked, indifferent to the emotions in her niece's tone.
She ground her teeth in frustration at having to deal with her. It was something she would never choose freely, even if her aunt didn’t feel anything about it, as far as Thera was concerned there was nothing but bad blood between them. But as much as Thera disliked her Vividus, she couldn’t be too rude. Not after getting her to save Ben’s life.
“He is, thank you for treating him. Now if you could tell me what you want I’ll send you on your way.”
“Hmm? What do you mean by that?” The spirit asked in genuine confusion, the first emotion Thera had seen from her since she arrived in the morning.
“What do you mean ‘what do I mean?’ You must have come here for a reason, I know you don’t like leaving the life valley where you can run your little experiments, so what do you want?”
“Child, I am here because you called me.”
She sounded genuinely confused, but Thera didn’t believe it. “Why would I call you? No offense, I’m grateful you saved Ben's life and all, but I still hate your guts,” The idea of calling her aunt of her own free will like that was unimaginable to her. She thought of Vividus so rarely it didn’t even cross her mind that she might be able to do something for Ben. Of course, those feelings didn’t stop her from asking for help when she showed up in the morning, but they weren’t the types to meet up over something like familial affection.
“If that’s the case then the air spirit misled me, I’ll be on my way after I check the boy's condition tonight.”
She was about to pick up her book to continue it when Thera stopped her. “Wait,” She said, head in hand. “If you heard it from an air spirit I know what you’re talking about, I just wasn’t expecting you.”
When she’d requested the help of an air spirit to send any life spirits her way, she’d never expected her aunt. In fact, the only reason it wasn’t the least desirable outcome was because of the timing. Her aunt seemed to want to know the reason she’d been asked to come here, and feeling awkward that she actually was the reason explained everything, albeit briefly. From learning that gaining other magics would help her improve her control as a whole to training with Funa and trying to come up with a solution to gain life magic as well, which ultimately led her to try to find a life spirit.
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“But none of that matters now, I managed to get level zero life magic not long ago. Honestly, I don’t know why the spirits would bother you when I asked for a regular life spirit or two to make their way to town.”
As Thera spoke Vividus began placing her undivided attention on her. “You really should try to know your place amongst the common spirits,” She lectured. “Even if they aren’t able to understand the nature of your relationship with Abrus, they can at least grasp its significance. Who amongst them would leave a matter concerning you to a regular spirit if they could avoid it?”
“I guess…” The nature of how typical spirits viewed her seemed as mysterious to her as it did to themselves, but she knew that even if they didn’t understand parent-child relations as creatures that didn’t have any themselves, they were capable of comprehending friendship and seemed to view her connection to her father as something similar to that, though much deeper.
“More importantly though, you say you actually managed to get life magic?” Her aunt asked, a hint of excitement tingeing her voice. “What are all of your current magic levels?”
“Earth is four, charm is one, and life is at zero, why?”
“You’ve made impressive progress to get earth so high so fast,” Vividus said in a way she’d never heard from her aunt before. Her voice held approval in it. “Alright, I’ve decided, no reason to waste a trip out here. There’s a training ground nearby, correct? Let’s go out there.”
She fired off a spell that Thera couldn’t understand, but she wasn’t going anywhere with her, at least not without an explanation. “Why, what do you want?”
“Obviously to improve your magic.”
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“Alright, so what were you going to teach me?”
They’d made their way to the training grounds and gotten plenty of strange looks along the way. Not many people in the world had the opportunity to see a great spirit, and since only a handful of people in Stonewall knew of her heritage, that meant the majority of residents they passed no clue what the mysterious white void they were looking at actually was, nor why it was with the town savior/outcast/menace depending on who was asked.
That was something she could ignore though. Thera was used to receiving looks when she was out, and that chance that she might get something useful from her aunt for the first time was interesting enough that she decided to give it a go. She was aware that life magic had a couple applications outside of healing, but it would be hard to find anyone outside of the great life spirit who was knowledgeable at them, let alone as proficient as Vividus was sure to be.
And yet, despite being willing to swallow her pride for a chance to learn more about the magic skill she’d gained, that wasn’t what her aunt had in mind.
“If you want to learn any advanced life magic then come find me once you’re at least level six and focus on the healing spells the average life mage is proficient in. As it stands you’re too much of a beginner for anything interesting.”
“What? Then why did you bring me out here?” She asked in a huff, annoyed she’d let herself get her hopes up that her aunt might be useful in training her for once.
“Simple really, Funa made a mistake in what she taught you, I’m simply going to correct it,” As she spoke three dark spirits flew out of the woods and floated between her and Vividus, which she politely greeted before focusing back on her aunt.
“I’m sorry, you’re telling me you have a better idea on how to train me in dark magic than the great dark spirit?” She asked skeptically.
“No, like I said, I’m simply correcting a mistake. You might have access to dark magic right now if you could feel dark mana, so hold out your hand and let these ones fill you with their mana. Hopefully, three is enough.”
She did as she was told in the small hope it would help, but it didn’t stop her from arguing. “I have an overwhelming amount of dark mana, since you clearly haven’t been paying attention since my birth that’s been my main problem.”
“True, but you aren’t feeling dark mana, you’re feeling charmed dark mana. The charm is applied to it before the mana leaves your soul, you’d never know what it feels like to use dark mana without it. Now stop arguing and focus, using an afternoon won’t be any great loss for you.”
As much as she hated to admit it Vividus was right, an afternoon was nothing if it got her access to the magic and one step closer to completing her god’s quest so she did as her aunt ask, she stopped arguing and devoted her full attention to the feeling of the mana the spirits were moving through her body.