"Who would've imagined the academy laboratories had a swimming pool in its basement?" Cythrel exclaimed as she dove into the water feature.
In the lowest level of the academy laboratories, a flight of stairs led to a hidden room. In that room, besides a dry platform, there was a swimming pool a meter and a half deep, ten meters wide and thirty meters long in a room, illuminated by torches on sconces. The swimming pool was currently occupied by Aidan and Dawn with the recent addition of their nosy elf mate. Sora was outside, acting as a kind of lifeguard. She declined to enter the pool because her fur takes forever to dry and magic drying makes it fuzzy.
"It didn't. I dug this level out and created the pool a few days ago," Aidan replied. "It is safer to train Dawn to move in water because it cushions everything."
The elf swam next to the young man and nudged him with an elbow, "Confess, you just wanted an excuse to look at her naked."
He didn't give in to her teasing, opting instead for moving along with it with no small amount of sarcasm, "Wow, you figured me out. Because using a mirror is too bothersome, I needed to dig out a room and fill it with water so I could take a good look at myself. Using torchlight. Underwater."
It didn't convince the elf. "Can I ask why the lack of clothes?"
"Practicality. Who else is here that can't see us naked? I have confidence in my wards. Why get clothes wet if you can do the same thing without them. I didn't tell you to not wear your swimsuit."
She didn't answer. Instead of her smug smirk just widened.
Aidan ignored her and kept going through the motions with Dawn. Re-training her movements and core strengthening. The water would lower the impacts and add the drag to the exercise. Swimsuits were a bother. The fabric had to be thick otherwise it would be transparent. They are heavy, uncomfortable, unwieldy, would get all wet, soggy, and clingy, and take forever to dry. In the privacy of the basement where only their immediate family was allowed, it was way easier to do it naked. There was no convenient fabric that would make a good swimsuit.
Early morning weapons training with Jameson. Morning aerobic workout and core strengthening in the swimming pool, followed by weightlifting, stretching, and agility training. The afternoon had spellcraft and wizardry training. That was their routine for the following days until two weeks after gaining a new body, Dawn no longer felt any headache or discomfort. Her strength and agility were lower than before, but she had at least one new advantage to compensate that. She was learning things quicker.
The ongoing theory was that her brain was brand new and a blank slate, eager to assimilate new concepts. It really helped their study sessions.
And regarding academic achievements, they finally finished the spell to let Lumina take over Aidan's body so they could talk.
Right now they were presenting the new spell to the Headmaster.
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> [Twin Soul's Advent] - 4th circle spell.
>
> Element: Underworld.
>
> Type: Soul.
>
> Classification: Support. Instantaneous. Curse.
>
> Target: Self.
>
> Calls forth the fragment of the caster's twin soul to come forth and take over the caster's body until the caster dismisses the spell. The caster whose body was taken over remains unconscious while the spell is in effect. The spell has no effect on bodies that host only a single soul. If there is more than one soul fragment inhabiting the body, a random one is selected to take over. The twin soul cannot hurt the caster or use magic.
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"I had faith in you. Of all the spellcraft students that passed through these hallowed halls of learning, you were among the best. Therefore, it is with a heavy heart that I must ask," Astromelicus paused to take a deep breath. "What travesty of a magic spell is this thing? I'm deeply disappointed in you as your mentor and tutor. I cannot believe your answer is this forsaken sequence of runes that are akin to suicide. There is no control. No safeguards. I can see the elementary etheric overflow controls inscribed in the third circle but where are the firmpoints for the remaining circles of the spell? Are you insane? No mage would use this thing and willingly give themselves up forever to whatever other souls inhabit their bodies. And without those firmpoints, these cancellation clauses cannot be written in the spell because the very etheric controls are optimized for only a 4th circle spell!"
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Aidan had to agree with Astromelicus' appraisal of his original spell. If any other mage were to successfully use the spell they would be just giving up control of their bodies forever to a foreign entity.
"The spell should work as intended, headmaster. We tried to specify several of these controls, but they would bump the circle of the spell to a sixth or seventh at least, because of all these added glyphs. However, we tailored a spell to work on our specific case without all the extra complexity required to tailor a spell to work on our specific case. The magic should work as intended."
Their projections showed that to specify only Princess Lumina would bump the circle to a seventh due to all the glyphs necessary to represent Lumina and identify her among the entirety of Creation. The solution was to create a spell that would work in their situation as they wanted to without delving into specifics at the expense of usability in any other case.
The Archmage groaned. If this thing was submitted as an academic submission he'd consider expelling the students but that was not the case. He decided to put some faith in their students.
"Please walk me through what you think will happen when you cast this spell, cadet Aidan."
The two students nodded and Aidan started to draw on the board as Dawn explained, "First thing, Headmaster, Aidan won't be the one casting the spell, I'll be it."
"But you don't have a soul fragment in you, Dawn."
"Indeed. This way control of this body won't be surrendered, making me, the caster, able to dismiss the spell anytime."
He glimpsed some of their intent, "You are using the soul resonance effect to put Aidan under the spell's effects without him being the caster."
"All soul magic used on one of us affects both as we are one single person. However, this spell's effects anchors on the body."
At hearing this phrase, both of them had a moment of clarity. A previously unseen complication on their plan to restore Lumina came up. Astromelicus and Dawn made extensive eye contact before one of them decided to speak. The old Archmage was the first one to speak.
"If we cut Lumina out of Aidan's soul, the same cut will be made to Dawn's soul as well. And I'll have two crippled mages with nobody to fix their souls."
The academic and the pupil with two bodies froze at the realization of that truth. Soul magic replicates on both of them equally, for both good and bad. Actually, it would be twice as hard to affect them with harmful soul magic but the problem prevails. A force sufficiently strong to sever Lumina away from Aidan would also sever the same portion on Dawn's side. So much for keeping one of the bodies stable for restoring the other.
Both students and their centuries-old master spent an entire day going back and forth reviewing the theories, digging through books of the restricted section of the library first for confirmation of their findings, and after getting said confirmation, for a solution to the problem. They had a resounding success in cementing their fears with the former, but no progress solving the latter.
"Not to mention the cut won't be made to specifications since the pain would be unbearable," Dawn shuddered at the thought. They were planning on rendering Aidan unconscious to lessen the effects of the Soul magic, but now it was inviable.
"This is a major setback," Pondered Astromelicus with a big book on spellcraft on his hand. "But I think we can thank this academic abomination you concocted for the solution to this setback, student Dawn. We need to reformulate the sections of your spell to only work on separating discrete soul entities and to have no effect on contiguous soul matter with the same mana signature. And now you have your next assignment."
The next assignment would have to wait. It was time to finally have a 1 on 1 with the hostage.
Dawn and Aidan locked themselves in Princess Lumina's bedchambers at the dormitories. Full wards activated both were facing each other.
"Ready? I'm casting Soul Sight." She asked, even though she knew the answer but it felt like ages ago since they talked to each other. A fractured mind. Myriad sensations flowing from both bodies, their coping mechanism was to create separate personalities for each body.
"Yeah, hit me with the spell." He replied rubbing his hands. "Time to get some answers from the princess."
"Five minutes and I'll cancel it so we can compare notes." Dawn traced the spell in the air and hit herself with it.
"Twin Soul's Advent!"
She felt a ripple cruising through herself as the spell searched for a twin soul inside herself. It found none as expected. The magic traveled through their soul tether into Aidan's body and Dawn could feel his consciousness fade while the golden part expanded and enveloped his entire soul. The body shivered and blinked, and Princess Lumina was finally given physical form after more than a year and a half.
Cut off from her other half, Dawn suddenly found herself alone. The constant feeling of being more than a single person was gone. She for the first time since waking up in that hospital was only a girl. Even back at the hospital, the feeling of having another body existed even though she did not recognize that as such. But not it was entirely gone, like a numb limb. The feeling was even more uncanny because Aidan was right in front of her just as before. She couldn't feel his heartbeat and as the body stirred into activity from its new controller, she fought back the urge to touch it. To make sure it was still real.
Fully conscious for the first time since the rhinorse stampede incident even though it was inside Aidan's body, Princess Lumina opened her eyes.