Book 3. Chapter 25.
“Four Weeks.”
It had been four weeks since Kalysto had regained her saintess skills thanks to Darla, four weeks in which she had dedicated herself to leveling up those skills, reawakening Dispel Ezhil and Blessing Ezhil.
It was extremely difficult to awaken a new skill without the help of a system, except for the fact that she had had one and already knew the whole process and order of leveling up skills as a saintess, she would never have realized when she acquired the Ezhil versions of Dispel and Blessing. Plus without a system that gave her a numerical indication of the value of the levels of each skill it was difficult to predict the timing of the change. That and she had lost, thanks to Mhiralla, the skills of sense, control and mana manipulation.
But thanks to the continuous training she had been doing with Aegir, even when she was alone, that she had regained the skill to sense her own mana and sense that of others around her, and could now control the mana inside her body and that which came out of it. The problem was that the sensation for all three skills, especially for the last two, was practically the same and without a system it was impossible to be able to develop one of them separately.
Kalysto closed her eyes and concentrated, allowing the image of a video game like bar to come to her mind. When Aegir had explained how to do it he had told her to use a large box as a mental reference. But even though Kalysto was not a big video game player, she had seen Natasha play them countless times, so it was much more familiar to her to use the bar that indicated a character’s health or life level to do so.
The image came to her mind and then the shadows formed by the branches of the trees in the forest she was in merged under her feet, rising up to her shoulder and then down her right arm to her hand, and there sliding back down to the ground drawing on the ground the bar and the small portion of it that represented how far Kalysto had advanced in leveling up the ‘Blessing’ skill.
Damn, I’m still halfway through the bar! She thought with annoyance as she looked at the drawing.
Blessing Ezhil there was no need to raise it, not when her allies were demons and were more likely to die if she used it in their presence, rather than giving them a power boost and making them temporarily stronger as would have happened with any of the other races.
After taking several deep breaths, Kalysto closed her eyes again. Concentrating this time on ‘Jhil’s’ ability and then repeated the same process.
Almost two minutes later, the shadow tentacle whose tip had crystallized drew a second bar, then traced small oblique lines that went a little further to the middle of the entire width of the bar, but not more than two-thirds.
“I still have a long way to go!” She groaned, feeling frustrated that even though she had spent the last four weeks living on revitalizing potions and had even reduced the number of hours,concentrated, she was taking potions lessons each week with a light elf named Rozheinlo, the best potionist on the entire continent, she hadn’t made as much progress as she wanted to.
The 570-year-old elf, with long white hair and green eyes, had been surprised by the sudden lack of enthusiasm in his classes, but after she insisted that it was only a temporary issue, he had let it go.
It also meant four weeks since she had last slept, since she had regained her skills she had been using 'Sleep Well' with Alice, thus avoiding hearing her friend's continuous screams as she had nightmares where she lost them all again, or where she witnessed their deaths and screamed Kalysto's name as she begged her not to die and then woke up with her hands shaking, crying inconsolably and clinging to her more violently than a desperate koala would cling to a branch to keep from falling into a raging river.
To the complete annoyance of her plans to go back to sleeping alone instead of being trapped every night in a strange sandwich between Alice and Tsuki, who seemed to have trouble staying apart from her.
A pounding headache, something that had become habitual in the last few weeks, spread throughout her skull and immediately, Kalysto stretched her left hand against her forehead and whispered:
“Jhil! Jhil!” a golden light shot out of her palm and all traces of pain disappeared in a matter of seconds.
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A small smile tugged at her lips, feeling relieved again and somewhat vindicated that she could finally heal herself.
As she should have been from the beginning.
“Blessing!” she murmured, touching herself, and after letting out a long sigh she began to bless the collection of leaves Tsuki had brought with his tail as if it were a broom. “Thank you, you did a good job,” congratulated him and Tsuki puffed out his chest, proud of himself and then lay down next to his mistress and waited for the training to end. “Blessing! Jhil!” She conjured, and although the second spell didn't work as well with the leaf that was taken from the pile clumped on the floor of the lush forest outside Desmond's kingdom and almost reaching the fairy domain, the first one was a complete success.
Nearly half an hour later, when she was close to running out of mana again, Kalysto pulls a mana stone from her shadow, after absorbing it, the pretty semi-transparent and very light blue crystal turned to ashes. She then began to spread her mana, doing a light reconnaissance of the surroundings before retreating making sure once again that the lands bordering the kingdom were safe. And with the intention of then leaving to visit Forhemed, kingdom of Queen Whanda Donovhar, Aegir's younger sister. Whom she had been helping her lately by grouping wounded and sick to lead her to raise her 'Jhil' skill faster. She had been doing the same with Sakura on earth, and with Xhavier Donovhar, the other younger brother of Aegir, king of the kingdom of Solvenyhr.
But contrary to what Kalysto had expected during her usual reconnaissance scan, two mana footprints one larger than the other appeared on her radar, and behind them another twenty came chasing after them.
“Tsuki, get ready, looks like we've got company!” The Sacred beast immediately stood next to his mistress who absorbed him in her shadow before disappearing and reappearing right in front of the first two mana footprints she had sensed.
And huge was her surprise to find her potions teacher with torn and bloody clothes, running beside a little girl whom she carried in his arms while he limped.
“The kingdom of Farha has fallen!” shouted the elf as he ran towards her. “The entire north is now under the control of the priestess of Seth-Mainyu or contaminated with the black plague!” He announced, terror shining on his face as he clung tightly to the body of the girl he carried in his arms. As if she were his most precious treasure.
“Jhil Ezhil! Ezhil Purification! Jhil Ezhil!” Kalysto immediately conjured and golden light burst from her body starting the healing process on both elves at the same time Tsuki stepped out of the shadow of his mistress and began to growl, ready to fight the small group of monsters. “Dark rain!” Whispered Kalysto, extending her right hand causing a magic seal to be drawn a meter in front of her and from it sprouted stakes of black mana that pierced the bodies of the orcs that had been chasing the pair, at the same time that the elf and his granddaughter positioned themselves behind her, as if Kalysto was a human shield, while they were catching their breath.
Behind the first group of enemies she had sensed, came a second group.
“Tsuki, take care of them!” content that it was his turn again, a powerful group of lightning bolts were expelled from the furry Sacred Beast's body, easily electrocuting all of his enemies.
“Mana detection!” she muttered, checking them both and noticing on the little girl's body traces of the black plague. “Jhil Ezhil! Ezhil Purification! Jhil Ezhil!” Kalysto continued to conjure, until they were completely healed. Then she took an invitation out of her shadow and extended it to the potions professor. “I suppose you ran out of one of these for you to have run all this way.”
“I'm afraid I lost it on the way and someone else may have it,” he replied, the fear in his voice showing that he dreaded the possibility of being denied entry after making such a mistake during these times.
“Report the situation to Aegir as soon as you arrive,” the strict function teacher nodded his head, and as soon as he ripped the invitation while holding his granddaughter so as not to lose her, they both disappeared in front of Kalysto, who spent another 20 minutes searching the forest for more enemies but found no one else.
After spending a couple of hours in the kingdom of Aegir's younger sister healing the sick after informing her of what had happened with the potions teacher, Kalysto returned for a few hours to Earth and met her friend.
“Don't you think you are trying too hard? You also need to rest, you know?” Sakura worried as they both left the hospital that she had coordinated to help Kalysto to level up her healing skill faster.
But Kalysto did not answer her immediately. It was only after she had teleported them both to her own apartment that she felt it was safe to continue the conversation.
“If I can get his remains I might be able to regenerate and revive him,” she murmured, referring to her father.
“I don't mean to sound rude or pessimistic,” she replied carefully, too surprised at the insanity she was hearing from her best friend's lips, ”.... but that sounds disgusting and rather implausible.”
“... “ Kalysto let out a long sigh before answering. “And if a few years ago I had told you that interdimensional portals would open everywhere in the world making monsters from other dimensions come to our planet to destroy it and that some people would gain a system that would give them magical powers or superhuman strength, would you have believed me then?”
“...” Sakura pursed her lips before answering. “I honestly would have thought you were crazy,” the black-haired girl admitted calmly.
But unlike her friend, Kalysto was certain that the fairy queen could not have retired so easily, not without having found some way to recover the body of her daughter and niece.
She just had the strong hope that with any luck, the queen would also have taken her father's remains with her.