The greatest strength of ancient mages was also their greatest weakness. Magic tools like staves and wands, foci for casting spells were ubiquitous and every mage depended on those tools. They greatly increased their casting speed and reduced the mana consumption, but these advantages came with a price. They lost the ability to cast spells without these tools. Like a muscle without use, their wizardry whithered. Without their tools, they were just ordinary people. Mundane. Modern wizardry skills were born twelve centuries ago to solve these problems. Mages today only use magic tools when going to war or when adventuring and even so sparingly. A high enough proficiency in wizardry can do the same thing the tools can without crippling the mage.
Excerpt from A Comprehensive History of Magic, vol 2
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Aidan stretched out his arms and addressed the crowd.
"My fellow travelers, please help me clear the area around the crossing. Those strong-armed and willing to help, move these wagons away."
For half an hour it was a shuffling of carts and wagons away to make room for Aidan. He took his time to think and check the river and the crossing.
He felt different. Disinhibited. The shy, quiet boy he was before the accident was slowly melting away. His newfound confidence born of his trials was cementing these changes. How much of that was due to Lumina's influence in himself, he didn't know. He also cared little about the reasons. He had a support net that would remain with him. Sora, Cythrel. Maybe Dawn too. He would have to fulfill his oath of restoring Lumina but he didn't want to let go of Dawn.
He closed his eyes and watched the fuss the girls were doing about the presents Lumina gained from the merchants. It was not a bad deal for them. They gave up a few to several gold coins worth of merchandise, but they could brag about it and earn better deals elsewhere. Merchants were not dumb, especially old merchants. They only gave the princess gifts they knew they could recover and profit from using the connection those same gifts created.
Barren and turbulent water from the defrosting ran ahead of him, thirty meters of water until the next margin. On the other side more wagons southbound and a lot of curious eyes. It was almost impossible to talk across the river. The water was so high that the ends of the former bridge were barely visible a few paces from the current margin. The mid-section was missing, carried away downriver.
Aidan wished he was in Gohar. That place had so much rock lying around, it would make his work so easier.
"I need stone." He mumbled to himself. "Deep. Delve. Earth, reveal your secrets to me."
He had no spell for the task, but his willpower and affinity would do. He sent a pulse of mana downwards probing the ground. Earth, clay, and limestone. Too soft. Deeper. Deeper. The bones of a great beast buried for centuries. He could animate it, but an undead would only cause a riot.
The amount of useable stone nearby was not enough and it would take all him mana just to bring it up to the surface. He could try to raise the earth and clay and make a dam, but it would flood the lower plains and just cause all the water to go elsewhere. Maybe taking the water elsewhere was the answer, at least until they crossed. He walked to a higher position, a mound with some trees on top of it. The first thing he noticed was that the river should be very shallow where the bridge was. It was narrower elsewhere. Surveying the land, he found a place less than a kilometer away that could be what he wanted.
A lake. If he could make a hole big enough he could channel part of the water there. The earth would soak a lot of water and the river level would go down for a few hours while the lake fills. The earth would also soak the water away until it was saturated. The limestone below would also soak a lot of water.
He took a horse and went there, a depression in the plains next to the river. It was about the same level as the water right now but an elevated section separated them. At the center of the depression, he poured his mana down until it saturated the dirt around him and then he willed it to move. A wave of dirt and gravel went in all directions and lifted Aidan. He surfed it to the edge of the depression. He kept the effect going, a heavy strain on his mana pool. Waves of clay and earth moved to the sides of the depression like a calm pond disturbed by a falling stone. The debris piled up on the edges forming a dry lagoon.
One hour later Aidan was sweating buckets. His mana was almost depleted. All he needed now was to open a channel connecting his artificial lake to the river.
Water rushed through the channel roaring like a pack of starving lions, crashing into the big hole. Aidan widened the channel even more, and the flow of the river downstream began to calm down.
He rode back and sent Skippy ahead to give the signal to Sora. They were to move the princess' carriage to the beginning of the line while he built the bridge. Back at the crossing, the water was retreating fast. More than ten meters of a muddy bank was exposed to sunlight on each side, the normal course of the river visible in the middle but still drying down.
Aidan checked the debris of the bridge. It was made of wood but it was all soggy and unreliable. The whole thing was being pushed downstream by the current and was tilted on a side. He had to hurry. By his estimate, the river would be back where it was tomorrow morning.
"Move Stone."
Aidan focused and brought up all the stone around the river bed and margins near the crossing.
"Shape Earth."
"Incinerate."
He rose a wide wall of clay and gravel on each side and heated it. Normally the clay would crack from being heated too fast, but he was holding it in place with Earth magic. His mana was dangerously low. He willed Dawn to move next to him. He needed her mana pool to keep casting. With a bit of deceit, it could look like he was casting while supported by the Princess. He delegated the tiresome move stone spell to her and kept focusing on holding the rapid-drying clay in place.
Half an hour and the stone was very close to the surface. Aidan stopped the incinerate spell and kept only holding the clay in place while it cooled. Sora gave him a waterskin to drink.
"Shape Stone."
Another half-hour and Dawn began to move the stone in place. Dawn focused and the pieces of stone melded together like taffy, the veins mixing and stretching. It grew from one side of the river to the other, thickening as it went. The stone reached the other clay mound and spread over it, anchoring itself in place. Dawn moved more stone to thicken the slightly arched slab and to anchor it properly on both hardened clay mounds. The stone moved at a slug's pace. She also covered the muddy margins in a layer of stone. It could crack and break under the heavier rhinorse-drawn carts but it was not her problem.
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"It is done," Dawn sighed when she finished an hour later. Halfway there they just gave up on any subterfuge. Aidan was too tired on both bodies.
"Listen up," Aidan shouted to the merchants. "This bridge will only hold until nightfall. Warn other travelers that this crossing will probably be unavailable once the lake fills."
He had some confidence that the bridge would resist the rushing river, but not that much. He did place the arch above the previous, flooded water level but the water would claim the margins. Maybe light travelers will be able to cross if the bridge doesn't break.
Deb and Lola came to help her back in the carriage and Aidan just climbed into the driver's seat, returning the horse to Sora.
They crossed the bridge among the cheering of merchants, hunters, and bodyguards on both sides of the river.
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The road to the capital was almost empty. News of the bridge collapse traveled north faster than they did south and most took another route. Since the horse-drawn carriage was faster than other merchant wagons, they had the road ahead clear.
They stopped to camp for the night. The princesses and maids got down from the carriage in a frenzied chatter. They were excited about the gifts Lumina gained. Jewelry, perfumes, and cloth. One thing Aidan never realized, women like to get nice pieces of cloth to make dresses out of them. The silk Dawn got was stamped with flower patterns.
Aidan was going on with the conversation, practicing how to keep his mind focused on two things at the same time.
"I've never imagined you joining these girls in such an inane banter," Sora quipped as she got down of her horse next to Aidan.
"I need to train. Even now I am watching their body language, their way of speaking. I need to act the part once we reach the capital."
He looked at Sora and realized she was bothered with something. She was skittish and unfocused as if there were some danger lurking nearby.
"What is wrong, Sora?" He reached and gently touched her arm, feeling the soft auburn fur.
"What is going to happen once we reach the capital? About you and Lumina?"
Aidan paused to think. What he knew so far was that his soul was spread between both bodies.
The condition of the half inside Dawn's body was way better than the half in his own body. Although it was not entirely assimilated in the body, it was as good as if it was. Removing that half from Dawn's body would damage the soul and maybe make the body inviable for life as a sentient being. He needed to heal the soul there completely and it would take several sessions of the ritual for that. But executing the ritual was a problem in itself.
There was a big chunk of Lumina mixed with his male half but it didn't seem enough to sustain life in a body. Her soul and his were in the process of merging, but Lumina was resisting the merge. It was a matter of time, however. He could speed up the process using Soul Restoration on his male body but this would reduce the chances of successfully separating them later, so he stopped doing that. Tearing apart the souls would inflict grievous damage to his male half. Not unrecoverable, but still serious.
Swapping souls in Dawn's body was almost out of question, it was too risky and probably both would die. He could survive if one of the bodies remained mostly unharmed and then use the ritual or the spell to restore the other half or just fix the piece that remained intact. One huge problem remained. He was not giving his male body to Lumina, he was sure there would be a thousand problems with that and Lumina would surely have big issues with the swap. Where to put Lumina's soul?
His best bet was the headmaster. He was a quad-element Life mage. Maybe he could do the swap or find another solution.
"We need to talk to archmage Astromelicus as soon as possible. He is a close friend of my father and trustworthy. He might know how to solve our problem. I promised to try to bring Lumina back if it will not cripple me."
Without realizing, Aidan's eyes were tearing up. Sora hugged him.
"But losing Dawn is crippling you after all this time, isn't it?" She asked.
Aidan remained silent. He needed to focus or both him and Dawn would cry. He buried his head on Sora's shoulder and kept still until he calmed down. Then he explained to Sora his opinions.
"I won't tell you what to do, Aidan. But you should put yourself first." She warned.
"I am a dark mage. Of course, I'll always put me first." He joked.
They ate, Gurf and the driver set up some tents and they went to sleep with watch turns between the four combatants. Gurf had the first turn, then Aidan, Sora, and Dawn. During Aidan's turn, he delegated the job to Skippy and silently entered Dawn's tent.
He had to make sure of one thing he realized when fixing the bridge. It was a growing suspicion from some time now, but he never had a good opportunity to check.
Cythrel woke up with the rustling sound of the fabric tarp being moved aside. Her eyes reflected the faint light entering the tent and she asked.
"Aidan?"
"It is me. Don't worry."
Aidan focused on his affinities and found something that should not be there.
"Illuminate."
It was a spontaneous spell. Not one born of a diagram but one constructed on the fly by the mage's mind and expertise with spellcraft. It barely counted as a first circle spell anyway, so it was easy for anyone with affinity.
That was the problem. Cythrel looked at him and at the tiny ball of light floating. Elves had a bigger rate of mages among themselves, due to their fae ancestry. Cythrel was really unlucky to have none. But she did learn a lot about magic, more than a human her age.
"Light affinity," She whispered.
"Yes, this is what I want to see."
He tapped Dawn's solar plexus and drew the spell glyphs.
"Soul Reveal."
A small effigy of his soul appeared in front of both bodies. It was why he stopped doing the ritual. Any soul magic used on one body would have a reflex on the other. The usual brown figure with rotating orbs was there, but there was a significant change. The number of orbs grew from four to seven. White, purple, red and orange were the same. Big, strong, opaque. There were three others. Tiny Yellow, blue, and a green speck.
From the sizes, Mana, Fire, and Earth A, Darkness B, Light and Water F, and Wind G.
"Are you supposed to have that many? Can't you lend me some?" Cythrel joked.
"No, and I am sorry, no." He answered.
The reason for the overpowered shockwave from the fireball was this. His wind affinity awakened. A side effect from merging with Lumina. His element remained Underworld because affinities below D were not counted in classifying a mage. But he had them. Light and Water were obtained during the attack on the goblin nest.
"You are worried when you should be happy. There is no mage with six elements, it should be impossible."
"That is why I am worried. It shouldn't happen."
"But it did. Don't waste time fretting about what has passed. Think of what you can do with that. I am sure these tiny affinities change the entire playfield. You are too confused, Aidan. Things happen around you and you are reacting to them. You need to take in the reins of your path."
"Thanks, Cythrel. You are very wise."
"That much is expected. I have double your age, kid." She stuck her tongue out.