Extra Chapter 3 - Diaries

Diaries’ pages lay in multiple glass cases.

“Those Diaries are believed to come from an early era, written directly by the prominent figures of that time. The pages displayed here are the only ones left from the damaged diaries.” is written on a tiny plate at the start of the exhibition.

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The following is put on paper in neat handwriting, sharp and efficient.

First Cycle.

There are no day and night here, nothing to help us keep track of time, so Nate uses what she calls ‘Cycles’, basically one full cycle of work and the sleep that goes with it. I’m pretty sure that cycles can wildly vary in length, but I need something to count, and it’s the best thing we’ve got since ‘days’ would not cut it.

Anyway. All of that to explain that this is my first entry in this diary. I don’t know for who I write it, someone in the future or only myself, but you never know, so now that it’s been cleared, let’s get to the next idea.

Right now I’m writing just after our first magic lesson. It was exciting, I guess, but also frustrating. I won’t ever admit it, but I’ve got a hard time with that ‘feel your emotions, be in synch with mana’ crap that Nate told us. Mom and Dad never spoke of that, it was always about how mana was to be used carefully, how you had to build proper runic circles before ever attempting to channel it.

Magic is wild and dangerous, and it’s a fool’s errand to try to use it without the proper rigor.

The pen seems to get more frantic on the paper.

I’m not criticizing Nathaelle, though. She’s clearly a greater mage than our parents by such a long shot, you probably couldn’t even see it landing from the top of the tallest mountain.

I never saw her use any rune circles, she doesn’t even use any incantation, she just barely waves her hands, if even, and poof! Magic! She makes it look like it’s so easy, and now she wants us to ‘feel’ the mana inside of us, putting a hand on our chest and pouring mana in us or whatnot, ‘let it go’ and ‘empty your mind to attune yourself to the song of magic’!

I didn’t feel anything, not really, but of course Lana did! Just like that, mumbling, her eyes closed, she suddenly burst into laughter while Nathaelle nodded at her with pride!

And then, to add insult to injury, she conjured a tiny flame above her palm! No runic circle, no incantation, nothing! She was helped by Nathaelle, yes, but still!

She did burn herself, though, which clearly underlines how foolish and dangerous such a method is, and why my studies of runes were so important, but it turns out Nathaelle can’t teach us how to build runic circles and incantation at all! I was stuck to closing my eyes and trying to feel mana for gods know how long while Lana was already playing with a magical ball of fire, as tiny as it was!

It seems that the writer has taken a small break before writing again.

She’s already a better fighter than I am. I had runes, I was sure I could be useful as a caster, but I’m not so confident anymore. This runeless magic is hard.

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The hand that wrote the following lines was shaky and inexperienced, but full of enthusiasm.

Cycle 1

Today we’ve started to learn magic!!!

It’s so cool!!!

Also, Nathaelle asked us to write a diary. She said that ‘we should train our writing’ and whatnot, and gave Kael and me books to write in!

Real books, with paper, and leather and all!

So now I’m writing, but back to magic!

The magic from Nate is so cool! I thought magic was dusty runes and boring work, but Nate just brushed that way! She said that she can’t even cast with runes anymore, she can only teach us Instinctive magic. You could hear the capital letter in her voice when she said that.

Intuitive magic is not dusty or boring! You just close your eyes and let Nate shake your mana a bit, and then boom! You can feel it!

I didn’t even know I had it in me this whole time, but as soon as Nate touched me, I felt like waking up!

It was like bursting, like I had it in me since my birth, I felt like it was a part of me that I discovered late, I

The writer stopped for a while here, seemingly at a loss for words to describe her feelings.

I guess that’s how flowers feel when blooming or something. You open yourself and, suddenly, nothing is the same.

Then Nate asked me to move my mana by myself, and it just felt soooo natural! I moved it left, and right, and up, and down, it was dancing like I do during the spring festival!

Nate then said I had a natural affinity for Fire, so she showed me how she made fire. She talked about ambers, about fire eating at wood and air to grow, of light and heat, and other things I didn’t understand like combustion something and tiny balls moving slow or fast, but I got the gist of it!

I had to tell my mana to be hot! To be luminous! To be like a tiny sun!

I burned myself. It hurt. Nobody said anything, Nate didn’t berate me like our old trainer would do, back at the training camp, she just healed me so I could keep going.

Kael pouted a lot through it all. He’s the one that’s interested in magic, so I guess it’s very uncool to see your sister do it before you, but I’m sure he’ll get it! He loves dusty runes, but you just cannot go against that feeling in your chest when mana wakes up!

The next sentences are seemingly hastily scribbled.

Crap! I want to write more but we’ve hand-to-hand training with Nate! I’m too slow at writing, but it’s fun so I’ll do my best!

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Second Cycle.

Gods, what did we accept to do? I can still feel it. The burns on my body. The heat seeping into me.

It’s mostly the echo of a dream, but it’s still there, in my head.

Tonight we slept on burning ambers. It was just slightly mana-dense wood, but it still burned like hell

I’m surprised we got any sleep tonight, but I guess Nate’s sleeping spell helped, a lot. I’m actually not that tired for someone who slept on a bonfire.

This day would have been disastrous if not for a revelation.

Mana.

I can feel Mana.

It’s beating in my chest, swirling and crackling, it’s nothing like I imagined it would be. It’s wild and free. I don’t know. It’s extraordinary.

I could even feel Nate’s mana for some time, as she helped me grasp that feeling, keeping my mana in motion until I had felt it enough to mimic her actions.

Nathaelle’s mana feels old and deep, like a small pond that hides an ocean, dark depth filled with strange things, but it’s gentle and welcome.

It feels like home.

It smells like Mom and Dad.

I cried a bit and Lana hugged me. She asked me what was happening and, I don’t know.

I reached to her, tugged her mana along mine, toward Nathaelle, and she just froze for a second.

I think I saw a trace of a smile on Nate’s face when she was looking at us crying in each other’s arms.

Anyway. I can feel magic. I can even do magic.

I’ve got a natural affinity for Lighting, at least, and maybe some other things too but Nate wasn’t clear, so I stuck to lighting.

She spoke of lighting as a wave, a motion, a way to equalize unbalances and, just like that, by mixing her words with my feelings, I created lighting.

A single strike, at first, that burned both my hands, but like usual Nathaelle didn’t care and simply healed me. Lana was looking at me with stars in her eyes.

It felt great.

I never knew that doing magic was so easy. Who would want to stick with runes when you can just feel mana and make it do what you want with a thought?

I always thought that magic was like a machine, but right now it feels more like an extension of my own body.

Now I want to try more things!

Apart from that, which is already a lot, and the seemingly constant buzz I’ve got in my head because of lack of proper sleep, we’ve also started our weapon training.

It’s going well. I think. Maybe.

It always feels right to have Azurfall in my hands, at least. The bow weighs nothing, it seems, nor do the daggers, but none are weapons I thought I would ever use.

Using a bow is not that difficult on paper. Using a bow during a high-speed combat where you also need to switch to daggers form, just to suck enough blood to create the arrows you need to actually fire said bow, not quite as much.

When I fight Nathaelle, she creates opportunities for me to strike at her with my daggers, so I can replenish my bow, but if I miss, I need to use my own blood, which doesn’t feel good to say the least. I’m really not used to either form of Azurfall for now, so Nate mostly makes me train the form swap and simple archery, while she focuses on Lana.

She also let me drain a ton of her blood, because we’re both curious about Azurfall’s ability tree. So far the options are pretty straightforward. Bonus to Blood Bank capacity, attack bonus for each form, a higher conversion ratio for the daggers’ vampirism ability or better efficiency in creating the arrows, thanks to Nate I’m steadily getting all of those, which I hope will give me an easier time during battle.

---

The handwriting is a bit firmer than last time, but it is still very much from the hand of a beginner, and still full of energy.

Cycle 2

Kael can do lighting! I tried, but I don’t understand anything that Nate said, and when I imagined lighting in my hands, my mana just made a tiny noise like a mouse fart.

Maybe it’s because I’m so fucking tired.

I’m dead.

I’m beaten.

Why did we say yes to Nate’s training? I slept on wood that was on fire!!! Argh!!!!!!

I know why we said yes, it’s because we’re fucking weak. Being weak sucks, the training sucks, and I want a good night of sleep, not one where I feel like a roasting pig during a feast. It’s not fun.

Hand-to-hand combat is a lot of fun, though! Nate is super agile and very good with her spells, so it’s super frustrating to try to hit her, but I like moving my body like that, punches and grabs and rolls and all, it’s like the games we played when we were little, only now we’re all super fast and Nate can use magic!

That’s when Kael realized how fast he really is. He always thinks about himself as the weak one just because I can run for a longer time or lift more than him, but he always forgets that even if I’m fast he’s faster than me.

Nate made us fight against each other. I think she wanted to show our strengths and weaknesses to each other? At least Kael seems to feel better after that. I punched him hard but he got back to me too!

I don’t know why, but fighting against him feels good. We’re, like, connected? It’s exhilarating to know what we can do, and to share something like that!

Also! Yesterday(if you can call it that), after hand-to-hand combat, we started learning to use our weapons! I mean, I already used mine, but I simply used it as a big hunk of iron, swinging it at the enemy without thinking at all, hehehe.

Terrenacht is hard. The thing is big and heavy, it’s so fucking slow to move! What’s worse, each time I strike with it, it uses up my mana to coat itself with the black thingie that I saw during my fight against the Hobs, and when I get to zero I pass out!

URGH. Basically.

Since Kael needs a lot of training to simply use his bow, Nate gave me a lot of attention and tried to teach me to be more careful, but it’s really hard. Once you start an attack, you can’t really stop. My sides are still sore from all the wind bullets Nate fired at my open flank.

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Cycle 5

Our new rooms are ready! But I don’t like to sleep without Kael, so Nate ended up modifying our rooms so we could sleep together.

She never sleeps.

Although, right now, sleep is not that cool honestly. We’ve been burning while resting with fire stronger each time. I’m not even sure what fuel she is using now to train our fire resistance, but it looks unholy, like a black, oily thing that never stops burning and that is very hot.

We’ve also got toilets now! And that’s good, because I really need to rush there each time we wake up. I guess drinking and eating a lot before being forced to sleep is related.

But that got us something cool, a Skill called Overeating or something like that? It lets us go above our maximum stamina and hp max based on how much more we eat after we’re not hungry anymore. It’s not that strong right now, Nate said, but it can be powerful later on, I guess?

Also, our Mana Poisoning Resistance got to level 3. It’s starting to go slower to level it up, but Nate warned us it was a hard skill to level, so I guess it’s still pretty good?

Since I’m talking skills, we also both gained Mana Manipulation and Instinctive Cast at level 1! Magic was cool before, but now it’s super cool! Mana Manipulation really helps us use our mana, the difference was so big after we got it! And that’s not all!

After we trained a bit more with it, Nate took out strange, gem-like stones bigger than my two fists together and, instead of doing the magic training that cycle, we did some kind of strange ritual.

How to explain.

Before Mana Manipulation, mana was hard to move, it was in me but it was like a reluctant dog, tugging and moving without me asking it, or staying put when I want to move it.

After that, it felt like a trained dog, it gave its paw, obeyed orders and all.

Then we did the ritual, and it just… changed.

Now it feels like an arm or a leg, you know? A part of my body. It is mine, and it’s also me. It’s just super easy to move it or to keep it inside!

Nate explained that those stones upgraded our Mana Manipulation skill straight into one of its highest forms, Mana Dominion, and added things about side effects like being sensitive to mana, but I didn’t really get that part.

All I know is, things smell different now, taste different, feel different, like, there’s a layer atop everything, and now I can finally see it.

Honestly, at first, Kael and I, we didn’t fair very well. We were overwhelmed. The world was just too much. My head hurt, I think I pucked at one point, I was blinded by that new layer.

It got better, but we didn’t even train after that, Nate pushed us straight to bed. Since my sleep was good, and I woke up not smelling like a burned cat, I guess she didn’t even train our resistance that night, if night is a good term for a place where day and night don’t exist.

Kael was surprised. He thought you had to get Runic Cast to turn magic into spells, but we got Instinctive cast instead.

The cycle after we woke up from our normal sleep was used to train our new skills.

Gods above, I didn’t know magic could be so much fun!

Instinctive Cast lets us imagine our spells on the fly, so instead of learning dusty old runic circles, I can just picture fire in my mind and, boom! Fire!

Other elements are harder, though. Fire is easy because I’ve got an affinity for it, that’s what Nate said, but I haven’t used any other element until now.

Just like when I tried to do lightning after Kael showed it to me, all my attempts ended up as miserable farts and, when I was really successful, a sad spark too.

Nate said she would give us more affinity when we’ve trained more. We’re still too weak, so it would hurt us now, she explained.

Kael was surprised, because he thought affinities were innate, you were born with them or you weren’t, but Nate seems to have a shit-ton of things in her storage, like my armor and my buff items, but better!

She’s literally a walking treasure chest!

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Seventh Cycle.

I thought our training was hell, but since the last cycle, Nathaelle finished a new room.

She calls it an ‘obstacle course’.

At first, we would directly go to sleep after our hand-to-hand combat training, but now, instead, we’ve got another phase of training.

This obstacle course is a long cave that contains many things. Varied traps, pitfalls and strange, uncanny terrain fill it and, naked, we have to complete a lap as fast as we can.

Once a lap is complete, we drink some mana water, eat something Nate calls an energy bar, then do another lap.

All the way, she heals us. Some rocks are sharps, some parts are perilous, and you’re often hurt, but your wounds close as soon as they open, and you’re never tired, or at least your body never is.

And we do laps, and laps, and laps, muscles aching, lungs burning, phantom pains all over the body from wounds already closed.

It never really stops. At one point, we just pass out, and we woke up the next cycle with a need to go to the toilet and the smell of our own burned body, like usual after sleep.

From now on, we’ll never really stop, we’ll just pass out and begin anew.

I think I would have stopped right away, if not for Lana’s determination, and the fact that it seems to work.

I feel stronger and faster, already the second time I could run for longer, and pain didn’t bother me as much.

Also, I think I’m getting used to the lack of sleep.

This is all very strange. Our peaceful life with our parents feels so far away. This is like a new life, a new reality, disconnected from what we did so far.

You grow up thinking that you know what will happen. You’ll get stronger, becomes an adventurer like your parents, a mage. Maybe you’ll finally kiss that wolf girl you like.

You’ll get money, your own house. You’ll be an adult and do what you want. Life will be sweat.

I would have never thought that I would end up doing this kind of training.

Feeling this kind of pain.

But it works. And it’s not all bad.

After magic practice, now that we have unlocked skills related to magic and spellcasting, Nathaelle give us some times to experiment on our own.

She just sits there, on a side, looking at us with her empty eyes, and we can try whatever we want with our magic. We can ask her questions, and she always answers truthfully.

Some questions nobody wanted to answer me, Nathaelle answered without batting an eye. I guess it’s because that knowledge is dangerous, but Nate doesn’t care. There’s nothing taboo for her it seems, nothing too dangerous or too vile.

I asked her, once, why she acted like that, and she just said that magic was a tool like another, and that tools are used to reach goals, whatever those are. Nathaelle doesn’t believe in good or bad magic, she can do necromancy, demonic and chthonian magics, dark things that would get you killed back at home, but it’s nothing special for her. Just another tool.

Honestly, it’s exhilarating. I like being around her. She doesn’t care when we’re naked, she doesn’t judge anything about us, not our body, not our ideas, she’s just omnipresent, taking care of us and accepting our choices.

Anyway. I lost myself there.

Lana and I came up with a training routine together. It’s a bit like a game of tag, but we use our magic. Also, we ended up doing it naked, since we always singe, burn or tear our clothes when we do it. I’m starting to see why Nathaelle said we would end up naked on the battlefield, one way or another.

We use our magic as best as we can to try and touch the other. Lana use her fire to stop me, creating shields of flame to burn my hands when I try to get close.

She also came up with a way to move faster with her fire.

On my side, I let lightning roam around me. I picture a cloak of storm clouds and coat myself. When I saw Lana moving so fast with fire, I tried it myself, but instead of moving fast all the time, lightning wrapped around me and moved me extremely fast from one point to another.

I won that game, but afterward she adapted, and we got back to our stalemate. I just recovered the points I lost to her when she devised her fire movement buff.

From time to time, Nathaelle comments, give us advice. During this cycle, the game of tag was even faster than before. We’re getting better at imagining our magic and casting it.

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Lana seems more dynamic, too. I think she got used to her buff items a bit too much, and when we started doing laps without them, she felt bad. Now she’s getting better, though.

Aside from that, Azurfall is growing nicely.

I tested drawing blood from me, Lana and Nathaelle, and I discovered that Lana’s blood was stored just like mine, but Nate’s blood was titled differently.

When buying new abilities, using Nate’s blood is more efficient, it cost less blood and, also, new abilities have started to appear.

I can’t buy them yet because they require an ungodly amount of Nate’s blood, but it seems that her blood will let me buy special abilities, linked to the fact that she’s a Demi-human, things about Azurfall’s form.

I can’t get a lot of details for now since they’re so far away up the tree, and I don’t have the blood to buy them, but things like ‘whip’ and the like seem pretty obvious.

I’ve written a lot today. Let’s go back to training. Who knows, maybe it’ll stop hurting.

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Cycle 15.

I think we’re getting used to the training. I wasn’t lacking, but now I really start to get some muscle. It’s kinda cool, I like it.

Kael is becoming more toned too, it’s fun to imagine him as a crybaby that disliked physical work before. Now he got pretty good at the obstacle courses.

Our tag session gets more intense as we get used to our magic. Nate said that Mana Dominion let us use mana really freely, with a lot less backlash and a lot more easily.

I never saw Mom or Dad use mana as fluidly, so I guess it’s true.

Kael is really fast with his Lightning magic, I must stay vigilant all the time since he can get close surprisingly fast. My instincts haven’t adapted yet. It’s pretty hard when your body tells you you’re safe, but your mind knows you’re in fact wide open to the enemy, since he has a power that makes him move really fast.

The cycles are getting longer, since we’ve built a lot of constitution, and we also got an interesting new skill called Sleep Resistance.

Basically, we can stay awake longer without needing to sleep and without feeling exhausted.

Since I’ve built quite a lot of Strength too, using Terrenacht is getting easier by the day. I still have to mind its mass, if I swing it too hard I’m just carried away with it, so that’s a new problem, but at least I don’t struggle to hold it anymore.

The training is getting more difficult, too. The obstacle course is more dangerous and longer, Nate seems to make it longer each time we sleep, and she drives us harder when training us directly, using more and more magic, and strange abilities, to push us more.

Both me and Kael got new classes from it, though!

We both got Sorcerer Prodigy, a kind of magic class geared toward using Instinctive magic. Nate told us it was a class generated just for us, most likely because of Mana Dominion, which is already a high-end Instinctive mana Skill.

We also got Pugilist Apprentice. This one is a lot less impressive. It’s just an introductory class to hand-to-hand combat, but Nate said that it wasn’t a problem. It was a purely supplemental class, after all, useful from time to time, and helpful to blend with our primary weapon usage.

I didn’t realize it until now, but fighting with a weapon doesn’t mean you can’t use the rest of your body, so even when using Terrenacht, that class’ skills could still help me a lot, to keep my balance or use leg strikes, for example. It’s a very dynamic way of fighting, far from the mindless slashes I used against the Hobs. It feels really super good to move my body like that, it’s really nice!

All in all, I leveled Instinctive cast to level 3, and 5 for Kael. He’s still better at magic than I am, it seems, but in counterpart, I leveled my Sword and my Fist Mastery higher than he did his Bow, Dagger and his own Fist Mastery. He’s still not that good with his body, the clumsy cat.

Or maybe he’s good, and it’s just that I got a lot better too.

It’s hard to track my own progress. It’s like my little cousin. When we visited her every day, it was like she wasn’t growing, but once we left for a week and, when we got back, I felt like she grew so fast! But she didn’t grow more than usual, it’s just that I wasn’t there all the time to see it.

Well, it’s the same with us. Nate is a beast, she just keeps going faster and stronger at us, so it looks like we’re not progressing, but when I stop and think about it, I’m pretty sure we do.

I’m not helped by the fact that we can’t know what time it is. I know I can run longer on the obstacle course, but I’m not sure how much.

What I know is that we’re a lot faster and hardier than before though, and that feels great.

It’s all a lot less painful, too. We both got Pain Resistance at level 7 right now. Nate said it’s great for twelve-years-olds, and for once I could see a tiny spark of emotion in her eyes. A smile and some pride, I think.

She doesn’t show any emotions usually, but by now I’m pretty sure she really cares about us.

Each time we bathe, she still turns into her twelve-year-old self, even though we’ve been training naked with her in her adult form for a long time. I think it’s because she wants to not stress us, but she seems to enjoy it too.

Maybe I’ll ask her to play tag with us, she could enjoy it?

I don’t know. She’s not like other adults. She’s strange. She seems to enjoy everything, tiny or big. Sometimes she stops and looks at a strange shape in the cavern wall, or takes a long time to recreate natural surfaces, and she always looks at us when we play or train, as if she just liked to see us train and play. It’s kinda neat.

All the new classes and skills are nice, but I really want to know what my class abilities will be. Since we don’t level up down here we haven’t accessed them yet, that’s a bummer.

Nate always says we’re going to kill her at one point, but she doesn’t want us to level up too soon, she wants to make our classes mutate and evolve before giving us levels.

I can understand her, and I’m kinda excited about the idea of having super strong classes even at a low level, but I’m still curious about my classes, I can’t help it!

I hope we get some levels soon.

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Twenty-first cycle.

We finally started to learn spells, and in all honesty it’s a really interesting subject. You could even tell that my only reason to wake up in the morning lately is for Nathaelle’s magic lessons.

My Instinctive Cast reached Level seven, and Lana was able to level it to level five, based on what Nate told us. I’m surprised that my sister is able to keep up like that, but I’m happy for her. Magic is so much fun, I am grateful she can enjoy it alongside me.

I’m still happy to be first, though. She’s already better than me in melee, I can’t let her be above me in every domain.

Back to learning spells.

Since both our spellcasting Skills got high enough, Nate decided that it was time to teach us actual spells, instead of the improvised magical construct we’ve been using so far.

I didn’t really know what to expect, since she couldn’t teach us runic circles and incantations, for obvious reasons, but it seems that, much like with Runic Cast, you can actually learn constructed spells from someone else.

Instead of being a set of sentences to say out loud and runes to write with magic, though, it’s an array of feelings, natural reactions and intuitive knowledge. It’s all rather unacademic, but I’ve shed away any hope to do things in a more orderly fashion.

In this case, Nate ended up creating bridges between her mind and ours, and gave us memories to feel and live through.

We felt how to build the spell from mana, how Nate did it at least, what emotions she was mustering, what knowledge she was bringing forth, how she would weave it all together to create both a will and a goal strong enough for mana to take hold of it, and carry her bidding.

I’m still surprised by this way of doing magic, but it works, so I can’t complain.

The very first spell she taught us was Bind and, sure enough, I was successful in casting it, it did appear in my status window, or at least that’s what Nate said.

On my side, I did feel it was easy to use, to bring forth. Not unlike my lightning, now I can just think about it, wave my hand, and the spell would be cast.

Honestly, I’m not sure how I would have learned that spell, with that instinctive method, if not for Nate’s ability to literally share her feelings, emotions and memories. It’s a great help to learn spells entirely based on those concepts.

Nate did tell us that Instinctive magic wasn’t taught because Runic magic was so much easier to teach and learn, and now I can see why. Without very specific tools, I don’t know how you could learn it, at least at a decent pace.

One thing I realized after learning this new spell, a spell that isn’t using my affinity is that, even when ‘spamming’ it, as Nate says, even when I use it many times in a row, I don’t seem to run out of mana. Neither does Lana.

When I brought the question to Nathaelle, she shrugged and answered that the version she saw in our status was called ‘Bind - Perfect’ and that the description was going about how the user of this spell polished it until it was perfect, mixing experience, great magic mastery and strange, otherworldly knowledge to bring out all the potential of the spell.

So basically, as Lana summarized it so well: it’s super strong and super cheap! And I can’t really find a better way to describe it.

After that, seeing how successful this session of spell learning had been, Nate seemed to get quite pumped up. She didn’t show anything on her emotionless face, but I think she was excited to see us absorb and use her knowledge so quickly and easily.

She taught us some more spells, in particular a Healing Spell, and another one to get our own Inventory, just like the one she has.

Now that I write about it, I realize that she just taught us Space-Time Magic. Of course a spell to create a permanent stash for your items, one where time doesn’t move, would be Space-Time Magic!

The hand starts to push stronger on the paper, as if it was excited.

Space-Time Magic! I thought it was only found in myths and legends! And here we are, learning it! I’ll need to ask her more about that!

Besides those spells, she helped us turn the magic we built during our games of tag into spells, so they could be recognized by the system.

She took each of us one at a time and, by sharing our minds with her, make her feel and see what we felt and saw, she got a hang of what we were doing and, in the same breath, she gave us advice and emotions, strange knowledge and tips from her great magical experience, to help us build our own custom spells.

I always thought custom spells were for advanced mages, but I guess Nate doesn’t give a shit. It’s Nathaelle we’re talking about, after all.

We also learned Identify not long ago. At first, Nate tried to teach it to us the same way she did with her spells, but it didn’t work, so in the end she took out a magical book for me and an amulet for Lana, which literally bestowed the skill to us, before turning into dust and crumbling.

Item consumables that give you Skills are another thing you only hear in stories, but it’s Nate. At one point you need to stop being surprised.

I’ve been using it nonstop since then, and I think Lana is also doing that, because at a high enough level, you can simply Identify yourself, and you can see your own status, so we’re both working quite hard to get there. It’s a very exciting prospect.

Identify is also a must-have for dungeon-diving, since knowledge is power, so Nate is quite satisfied with our diligent training.

The other parts of the training are going well. I’m getting some muscles here and there, I never thought I would define my frame like that, ever, but I don’t dislike it. Lana, too, is getting a bit bulkier, with well-defined muscles. It suits her, and she enjoys it, so I’m happy for her.

She finally cut her hair, and so did I. They were getting pretty long by now, but I think we’ll both keep it short from now on, it’s easier for training, that way it doesn’t get in the way. Lana really looks like a tomboy without her long hair, it’s fun to see.

Sleep resistance is leveling up more and more. I think the cycles really are getting a lot longer, but I can’t tell how long.

I don’t really care anymore. Even the worst parts of training aren’t so bad lately. We did switch from fire to acid during our sleep, but our Pain Resistance is so high by now, it feels more like being tickled than anything else.

And the best parts of training are just too interesting and cool.

I’m asking myself when we’re gonna go out and hunt monsters, but training like that doesn’t bother me anymore.

Maybe it’ll keep going forever? That’s the feeling I have, at least. The repetition, the routine is strong and peaceful. It’s comforting.

---

Cycle 33

I finally leveled up Sword Mastery! But it took me so long, nearly 30 cycles to get it from level 2 to 3, aaaargh!

I guess it’s normal though. I asked Nate, and she said that it was her fault. She looked slightly aggravated as she explained that she didn’t have anything to actually teach me. She doesn’t know any sword technics or arts, and she has no real training with any weapons, so all we can do is spare and make me come up with my own ideas, my own style of fighting, without an instructor or any kind of external support.

For magic, on the other hand, she had no problem, she’s such a beast after all! Between our game of tag, our training session to master Mana Dominion, and her ability to literally share her feelings and memory with us, me and Kael really are progressing super fast!

I even got Pyrokinesis a while back, and that’s really something, even I can tell.

Pyrokinesis is the one Skill that boosts all spells that have fire components. At least that’s what I remember my Mom saying. She was a fire mage.

It’s another of those skills that are hard to get, because you need to be very in sync with the element you use. A lot of mages struggle to get their respective.

Even Nate thought it was hard to get it, so she was really surprised when I got my Pyrokinesis, and even more when Kael got Keraunokinesis! His Skill is even rarer than mine!

The writing is less definite, as if the writer went too fast and didn’t put a lot of energy into the sharpness of the calligraphy, maybe because of excitement.

And I can tell you, the next game of tag was something else!

Even though our skills are still level 1, the custom spells of our affinity element simply packed a bigger punch than before. Kael’s Lightning Dash went farther and even faster, and my own Fire Speed lasted longer and was easier to use! I’m pretty sure I was also more agile when I had it active, it felt super cool!

And that wasn’t the end of the cool things! Today, instead of our normal physical training, the obstacle course, Nate said that we got really resistant thanks to our dedication, and that now she could give us new things!

I didn’t really get all of it, but the gist is, we can use consumables that can give us permanent buff!

I knew that elixirs like that existed, it’s one of the many dreams of an adventurer, and our parents would sometimes tell us about it, in stories about heroes and legendary people, but I never thought I would see it one day!

And now it’s not just seeing, we’re also getting to use it! I’m so excited about it, I can’t wait!

I can see that Kael is excited too. Let’s finish writing here for today, I’ve elixirs to try!

Cycle 34

I’m fucking cold all the time. Tonight we changed the kind of elemental resistance we’re training. Acid wasn’t a bother, it was just painful, I’ve got skills to alleviate the pain.

Cold is not the same. It’s another feeling entirely. You feel it creep inside of you, it makes you sluggish, sleepy, slow. I hate it, it’s horrible. It’s like I can feel it all the time.

It would have been worse without yesterday’s bath, though! That was cool!

I understood Nate wanted to try elixirs on us, but I was wrong! It’s not exactly elixirs that she wanted us to try, but something a little different.

We took our bath early last cycle. Nate had mixed something in it, and given us a pill to swallow before going in.

At first it wasn’t pleasant. In the water, I felt like shit, honestly, I shivered, I felt cold, I didn’t know what was happening, and Kael was the same beside me, but Nate was calm, so I didn’t panic.

Then some kind of black thing started oozing out of me and, the more it got away, the better I felt. I don’t know how long it took, but it really felt like I was getting lighter and lighter, like I was letting go of something weighing me down.

Once this ended, Nate checked our status window and she nodded. She looked satisfied, I could tell it, even if she was mostly inexpressive.

I think I’m getting used to all her small ways to show that she still feels emotions, even if she looks like a cold fish to people not used to her?

Anyway! After that, she just kept going.

We went out of the bath so she could change the water and, when we came back, it looked like metal!

Like, actual, silvery liquid metal!

I wasn’t really sure about that, but I felt so great from the first test that I didn’t really stop to think about it. Even Kael, normally a scaredy cat, just walked in without any fear!

And then we just played in the water. Nate said we had to immerse ourselves in it, to cover all of our skin and all, so we played diving and launching water at each other.

Nate even joined us in the bath that time, to play with us! She didn’t enter the first time because she feared she would waste the effect of whatever she mixed in the water, but this time it wasn’t a concern, I think.

It was fun to play in the water for once. Usually my twin and I are too tired from the training already, so we just take a break, but that cycle we had enough energy!

Maybe I could ask to take more than one bath by cycle?

We ended up playing for a long time, and I could feel all along the silvery thing covering my skin, soaking into it.

I don’t know how to say it. It’s like. I felt that I got slightly stronger, but most importantly, it was like the outside world and the inside world got sharper? More defined? I could feel my skin, like a barrier protecting me from the outside, but also taking what was useful.

It’s a super weird feeling but I like it! And our skin changed, too! Now it’s all glitter, like snow under the moonlight!

I don’t know if it’s permanent or not, but I don’t care. Kael seemed a bit more concerned about it for a while, but he stopped giving a shit really fast.

Anyway, the glittering faded a little since then, and we discovered that we can change how much we glitter! If we think about hiding it, it becomes nearly not visible, but at one point I want to shine, and I became a lot more glittery!

Nate’s surprises are the best!

---

Thirty-fifth Cycle.

Two cycles ago, Nathaelle started to use her special consumables to bolster our power. From what I gathered, they all come from this very dungeon.

Nate recovered them as she wandered and got killed, through her more than a century of isolation, finding chests and loots from dead adventurers, getting her hands on items even if she had to trigger traps that killed her.

I think she’s a bit of a hoarder. There was someone like that in our village, an adventurer who would gather anything he could and bring it back, but not use it, “just in case”.

Anyway. Last cycle, Nate kept going on with her consumable streak. The first two tests were great successes, after all, I can attest it myself, and I was pretty curious about what she would bring to us that cycle.

This time we started with some strange meat, that Nate said was Mermaid flesh, and that really gave us the stop.

We didn’t really want to eat the flesh of someone, but Nate said that it was like yesterday, when we bathed in Unicorn blood (which we were surprised to learn, too.)

She said that she had many things coming from pure, innocent and sapient creatures that she could use on us, but said creatures were already dead.

She found those as dungeon loot, after all, she didn’t get out of her way to kill those creatures, and she wouldn’t even if she could, but since she already has those items, it would be a waste not to use them.

More than one Unicorn was killed for the literal blood bath we took, but they were already dead. It’s better to use the items to give meaning to their death than let them rot away, in particular since it could save our lives. It wouldn’t diminish the tragedy of their death, but it would give it meaning, at least.

Lana and I reluctantly accepted, as we saw that Nate wasn’t that happy about it, either. I would have missed her displeasure if I hadn’t known her for some time already, but it was clearly written on her face.

She had the items, fruit of suffering and death, and she would use them, but she wouldn’t seek to make more of them, she said, and it really sounded like a promise. That convinced us.

We ended up eating the flesh of the Mermaid, and I felt something change inside of me, but I couldn’t pinpoint it, so I asked Nathaelle what the Mermaid flesh did to us.

She said that, for starters, it would give us the ability to breathe underwater, but that needed some getting used to, from what she remembered of other people gaining equivalent abilities.

Aside from that, we would be able to swim really well and, last but not least, it considerably upped our Water Affinity.

The last point was what made me really excited, and I asked if we could take a break to test it before going to the next consumable item.

Lana didn’t say anything but I could see her eyes and skin glittering strongly, and I mean that literally, because of the unicorn blood. My sister was just as excited as I was to test a new elemental affinity. After all, if it was so natural for me to use lightning and her fire, because of our affinity, it meant that water could be just as instinctive and flexible!

Well, it wasn’t as much fun as Lightning, because I just love to move fast and in a showy way, although I’ll never confess that in front of Lana, but Water was still a lot of fun, and interesting opportunities.

Unlike Fire and Lightning, Water is slow, but it’s also physical. During our game of tag, we rag-dolled each other into walls and such, creating surging waves or launching balls of water at each other, or creating walls of it to absorb each other’s attack.

It felt a bit less natural than Lightning, I guess because it’s an affinity we gained, instead of one we were born with it, and maybe because we were now accustomed to our own affinity, while we only started to use Water, but it was still instinctive, fast-paced, easy to use. We didn’t have to learn a specific Water spell, because we could use mana to manipulate the raw element.

Affinities give us the ability to free-cast with a specific element. Bind is a Force Spell, and we can use it fine, but we can’t use Force to free-cast as I do with Lightning and Water.

Getting a new Affinity is really strong.

---

Cycle 41

I’m getting used to the cold, thanks to Ice Resistance! Nights aren’t as difficult anymore, that’s really great, Ice was starting to get on my nerves. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The writer stopped for a time. The last words had nearly torn the paper. After that, the writing lightens a little.

After the Mermaid Flesh, Nate stopped giving us new things for a few cycles, so we could get used to all our new powers.

I’m sad that a lot of Unicorns were killed so we could use their blood, but it’s not our fault, and I really like how shiny I can get! Shine shine shine! Like crystals on my skin, and stars in my eyes! Even my hair slightly changed colors, glowing and twinkling!

Kael is a bit shyer about it, but I can see he likes it too!

Also, since we didn’t take any new consumables, we resumed our normal training and it was really, really different.

We’re simply faster, stronger, and a heck more resistant. I remember getting my naked feet wounded on some of those horrible rocks, and now I barely even feel them!

And Nate added an underwater part, just so we could test the Mermaid’s buff. I couldn’t even swim before, and now I love being underwater!

Though getting used to breathing water took more than one try. Nate had to force us to stay underwater until we nearly suffocated, just so we had to take deep breaths of water, and realize it didn’t hurt but felt much like air does.

After that, it was awesome! Kael and I played underwater so much, that Nate ended up deeply expanding the bath so we had a whole underwater section to play in! She embedded more light crystals everywhere, and shaped the walls so we could hide and have tunnels to race.

We also play tag underwater in the bath, but we only use Water magic because fire doesn’t work and lighting works badly. I still feel the sting from the time Kael tried to Lightning Dash in the bath, followed by an explanation from a desponded Nate that water could conduct lightning.

Since we employed all those consumables that she gave us, I also feel less thirsty all the time, but I’m not sure if it’s linked. I should ask her.

Then, yestercycle (Kael is proud of that word), we had our next round of power-ups!

Nate doesn’t have enough doses of the consumable to give us both the same treatment anymore, so she started prioritizing.

Kael got a Demonic Tear, a stone refined from the soul of 77 demons, and it gave him an extremely high Demonic Magic affinity.

I’m not exactly sure what Demonic Magic is, but I got that it was about pacts, emotions and souls, or something. I don’t really care, that’s the kind of shit for Kael.

Me? I received something even better! Nate called it an Aspect of Behemot, it’s a kind of red-black liquid refined from the blood of a Behemot, whatever that is, but what’s super cool about it is that now I’m ultra super duper strong!

Nate explained that this buff multiplied my final Strength by 3, so now I’m three times stronger than I was before!

Terrenacht is a breeze to use, I even need to pay attention not to swing it too hard, or it just slips away from my hand. I nearly impaled Kael like that.

Lesson learned.

Another thing that happened is that my Mana Poisoning Resistance leveled up to level 9, it’s nearly maxed out now, and Nate said she would stop training it for now.

The jump from level 9 to 10 is super hard to do, somehow, even Nate took a long time to do it, that much she remembers, so now only Kael will train by gorging himself on mana-rich food, but he’s at level 8 already so I guess it won’t be long before we’re even.

Tomorcycle (I’m not sure about that one but Kael really likes it too, and he helped me a lot with writing, so I use it because I like making my brother happy) or the cycle after that we’ll try something else, I can’t wait!

---

Forty-second cycle.

I think that Nathaelle disregarded to tell about some of the other effects of the Demonic Tear she gave me.

I did receive Demonic Affinity, I think, because I feel that I can manipulate something new, but that’s not the only thing I sense.

I was watching Lana and Nathaelle fight while training my affinities on the side, as usual, when I perceived something different, like an unspoken conversation between the two of them.

Lana was frustrated and excited, she wanted to prove herself to Nate, I could feel her project that idea toward the demi-mimic, while I sensed a current of interest and approbation from Nathaelle, mixed with many under-feelings like tastes mixing under your tongue, subtitles but present.

From that moment onward I started paying more attention to that new sense of mine and, for sure, I could read what I’ll call currents of emotions and feelings, for a lack of better words.

I can sense what people feel in general, and what feeling they harbor or project toward others.

Most of the time it’s subdued, but Lana can be quite explosive in her feelings, and now that I can feel it beyond just experiencing it, I understand how much that’s true. I literally lost my train of thoughts multiple times as we reminisced about our parents, while in the bath, overwhelmed by her emotions, her anguish, her grief and longing.

We ended up hugging again, we both needed it, but it also helped me recover from the true onslaught of emotions my sister imposed on my mind, unbeknown to her.

I haven’t gotten the hang of Demonic Magic yet, but I had only one cycle, so that’s not surprising.

It’s harder than Water Magic, more alien in a way, different from what I’m used to. Nathaelle started explaining it to me, but I haven’t yet created any successful spell with it, even when I used it in a free-form way. With Water you just think of launching a ball toward something, and you do launch that ball, but Demonic isn’t physical, it’s mostly a bundle of concepts.

Then, right the next cycle after I got this new, strange affinity, Nathaelle was back to it with more consumables.

First she gave yet another bottle to Lana. Unlike the Behemot one, though, this bottle felt ominous. It was heavy, as if sculpted out of glass, the liquid inside of it bright red and sticky. If you looked at it under the right light, you could even think it moved on its own.

Under our inquisitive gazes, Nathaell quickly explained that this was one of the few items she really disliked but that, like the Unicorn blood, since it was already refined, it was better to use it instead of letting it go to waste.

No point crying over spilled milk.

The bottle contained the refined essence, blood and body of a thousand virgin young boys and girls, all in their prime, all alive when they were refined and turned into this horrible liquid.

Nate’s face, always so impassible, even showed a small scowl. I felt disgust coming from her, repulsion, sadness, and a will to hunt.

She added that, if this wasn’t a Dungeon Item, she may have wanted to track down and kill whoever had created this, but the Dungeon most likely simply duplicated something by Divine Decree instead of actually refining people, so she couldn’t do anything about it.

A dungeon mostly duplicated items that were sacrificed to it, so once upon a time someone must have brought that kind of elixir here, losing it or giving it willingly to the dungeon, but this was likely not the original items.

Lana was a bit reluctant to drink it, and Nate didn’t force her. It was our choice, as always, the length to which we were ready to go to grow stronger.

Lana drank it, in the end. It’s hard to resist power dangled in front of you, and arguments pilled up in favor of using it. Not drinking it because it was ‘evil’ seemed pure nonsense. Neither of us would put our survival above the potentiality of already-lost lives of unknown people.

Before taking it, Lana asked what the elixir would do, and Nathaelle explained that it would greatly boost Lana’s stamina pool as well as her regeneration abilities.

Since she was a frontliner, Lana needed as much health and stamina as possible to augment her chances of survival, so this was the perfect item for her, as ominous and horrible as it was.

I’m not sure what other things it would do to Lana, but at least my sister seemed in good shape after drinking and absorbing it, so I don’t worry much.

I think that Nathaelle doesn’t explain things about her consumables that she doesn’t think are useful, like how we started glittering after our Unicorn Blood bath, or how I feel currents of emotions now, but I’m certain that she would never do anything to us that could be hurtful.

I, this time, received a crystal that, upon contact, exploded in a strange, slow way. Shards went through me harmlessly and started orbiting me at different speeds. Some hardly moved, while others were like shooting stars that soon turned into powder, before they started aggregating, creating clouds that turned into tiny flames.

Some others seemed to go backward, reforming the crystal before exploding again, caught in an endless loop.

All of it was very strange, and I could feel a sort of warping of the world around me. Light didn’t flow properly, and Nate and Lana moved strangely.

Nathaelle told me to sit and close my eyes, to let it all soak into me.

I did as she said and darkness fell on my eyes. If I had to guess how Eternity feels, it would be like that.

I stayed there forever, feeling, sensing, soaking the strange warp around my mind, my body, my magic until, suddenly, eternity stopped, and all feelings disappeared.

That was for Space-Time Magic Affinity, and I don’t have a fucking idea about what happened.

---

Another plaque, another explanation.

“The following pages are torn and damaged. It is difficult to exactly know when they have been written, even if the two styles differ enough to tell who wrote it.

The fragments have been arranged in the most likely chronological timeline, but some errors could subsist, as this museum lacks the information to piece it all together with certainty.

Nonetheless, they have been provided to public view to give an even deeper look into the lives of those two children that would become legends.”

…New class! I’m not sure about the details, but it’s called Earthly Cultivator, and it sounds super cool! Nate said it absorbed other classes…

...archer class. It will help with the bow form, just like Assassin does for the daggers form, but I'm still not sure about getting so many classes...

…is really hard. Nathaelle has many ways and means to detect me, and she uses them one at a time, randomly changing every minute. I have to guess what kind of detection skill she’s using and adapt quickly…

…really fun! yestercycle we ate some poisonous mushroom and I only felt tipsy, it’s as if poison turned into a spice, like a strong pepper or something!

…ate a strange hallucinogenic mushroom and, because of our Poison Resistance, we could control how much of the effect we felt. As soon as something felt bad, we could cut it of. It was interesting, and enjoyable, but I’m not sure I would see the appeal if I had to go through normal withdrawal…

…harder and harder. She seems on edge, as if something was bothering her. She’s more distracted than usual, if that’s possible. Nathaelle often already looks like she’s holding a conference alone in her head, but it’s even worse now. Lana feels it, too, even without my sixth sense for emotions, and…

---

From here on, what remains of the diaries is unreadable, and only exposed for curiosity. The exposition room ends on those last notes, and the visitor is invited to walk to the next room, where other artifacts of historical importance are displayed…