“Oh… you can run now, can you? well, it's just been months and you are rapidly improving!” Jubaic clapped his hands as he saw Simon trying to run around. He was sitting on a rock watching the boy’s training, supervising if needed.

The boy then stopped and returned to his sitting position, the magic edge dispersed. He was getting the hang of it.

Continuously refining magic… purifying for easier use, solidifying it against the curse, and finally, maintaining the magic edge to move… Simon’s mind was slowly adapting. Diamelle advised him to turn everything into a system where he used his breath to mechanically activate all the aspects of the process in his body.

Breathe in to produce magic, store it and purify it, and breathe out to supply magic edge. It was really hard in the first few days but he was in this state now because of the struggles he had been through.

Still, he was feeling strange… rather than void.

“It's weird… it's been so long but I don’t feel hungry…” Simon sighed as he said this.

“Well, it’s a perk of being immortal! Who needs eating?” Jubaic said. He conjured a large earthen wall and was writing some kind of formula on it.

Simon felt always tired but he was finally back in his bearings, the fog that had been in his head ever since he fell had already disappeared. For no reason, he stared at Jubaic. Although it was dim, there was a magic that was coiled in Jubaic’s neck. It was not visible to the naked eye and Simon only saw a glimpse of it. As his eyes blinked it disappeared.

“What’s on your neck?” Simon probed as he started to resume refining the magic that was inside the tumbler.

“... You can see it now?” Jubaic looked back at Simon but his hand never stopped writing “It's a sealing collar… it denies anyone to get out of here… maybe around a hundred meters up, it will start weighing tons effectively crushing one's neck upon fall… it’s a very effective magic tool for us immortals” Jubaic answered and he was a little bit pissed.

“I see…” as his body naturally recovers magic, Simon set aside a part of it to be refined… he started filling his body again with magic edge. He began touching his neck, unlike him, he didn’t have any collar but the boy was not really sure. “Does Diana have it too?”

“Yes… you don’t have it by the way,” Jubaic said hinting at Simon.

Simon understood something rather it was a realization of why the madman was training him and helping him. Jubaic has a plan to escape. The boy smiled, nothing to do now but to resume.

Using his breath as the timing…

breathing in refines magic…

holding it in purifies it…

breathing out he stores it…

Simon was making sure that these 3 actions became the same as he was breathing. He activated a magic enhancement to his body, a magic he learned from Jubaic.

He stood up, and began his first step “Ugh!” but the magic edge dispersed along with the enhancement he cast, pain was mixed in the sensation. Simon fell flat-faced. Simon was clearly trying something and Jubaic could tell even without looking.

“I’ll call this Refining Method,” Simon muttered.

“Magic Forging is much better!” the madman answered as he heard the boy’s naming sense.

The boy stared at the Jubaic, he was doing something on a lump of earth that he conjured earlier, he actually liked the sound of it.

“What happens if I use magic enhancements?” Simon asked Jubaic who was busy now writing down. He should have asked first.

“As I’ve told you before… enhancements only multiply… it means the base should be strong enough for it to be effective… it doesn’t fix the fact that you are half weakened and paralyzed…” Jubaic explained without stopping his actions.

“What happens if magic edge and enhancement are combined?” Another question from the boy.

“... Well you will probably break your body since you are in a weakened state” Jubaic answered back.

There was silence for a while, the boy flipped himself using his arms.

“Where is Diamelle?” Simon asked, she hadn’t seen the woman for days now.

“She is just around, fulfilling the deal that we made,” Jubaic said. He stepped back looking at the formula he wrote on the earthen board. “That’s it,-” Using his hands, he waved it and the earthen board went back into the ground “-Simon, I’m bored,” Jubaic suddenly said as he sat down.

“... You are always bored,” the boy answered back. The madman would only teach him things when he was bored.

“Hmm… how about I tell you some information outside of the walls? I’ve been with Explorers before, damn they were bad asses!” Jubaic then using magic began carving a shape on the ground, it was the map of the whole realm known to man. “-This is the Land of Mirriam,-” then he weaved north easterly of the map. “-This is where I have explored!”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

The boy silently stared at it, curiosity pulled him in and Jubaic could tell. Well, Simon didn’t had the choice in the first place.

…

The boy knew of the continents, the large bodies of waters that divided it, and the known places he has been on. What picked Simon’s interest was the lands that were outside the map, the last parts Jubaic conjured through the earth.

“The continent extends up to here-” he pointed north past the Northern Walls “This large icy mountains is where the immortal’s abyss is,” Jubaic then conjured more, it was a tower. “-I’ve reached this tower where Diamelle’s kin lives, his name is Rex Arcstone.”

Then from the north, he pointed to the east. “This large mountain range is called Mountain Labyrinth by the explorers, it’s a mountain range that is infested with flying monsters, pass this is the sea,” he then conjured earth laying more of the lands. “And I saw a port being built there.”

Then Simon’s mind wondered “How did you end up in the abyss?” Simon asked.

Jubaic laughed, it was more of a chuckle and a beat of madness coming from his belly.

“I was with the explorers, we were exploring to the eastern side-” he pointed to the wide mountain range, “-We were attacked by these flying monsters and we were scattered, for a year I was on my own there but I survived!” Jubaic smiled.

“I continued going easterly finally passing the whole mountain range, that’s where I met the humans that were building the port town, I was so surprised that there were humans outside of the Land of Mirriam,-” Then on the eastern coast he conjured a town as how he remembered it. “-But they were in constant threat of large humanoid monsters they called Orcs, I’ve helped them establish the base but then I decided to leave, I wanted to explore more.”

Jubaic knelt down, then he conjured the northern part from the eastern coast “There is a small kingdom there up north, they are miners, they mine special minerals there,-” Then he raised his hands conjuring how the mineral looked, it was conjured out of earth but what surprised the boy was that it changed colors “This minerals are akin to a dungeon core,” he said passing the conjured mineral to Simon.

Simon received it but it scattered, the madman was teasing him.

“But they don’t give their trust that easily so I decided to come home by taking the northern route, you know, I wanted to explore more,-” Jubaic continued conjuring northerly “-As I went up north, it became much colder, I spent time there mastering the elements of fire to survive, water and air to deny cold then earth so that I could climb up the frigid mountains.”

Then he pointed to the tower on the north. Simon knew of the Desolated Lands, the Kern Valley, that large mountain range. What Jubaic was pointing was somewhere he had never known before.

“For some reason, there was a tower there, a man lived there, his name was Rex-” Then Jubaic conjured a figure of a human, it was how he looked, his height and face all vivid to the madman “His name is Rex, he is also a Juma like Diamelle,”

Rex's hair was long, bearded, and he wore thick clothes. His arms looked like a patch of metal works and he had an eye patch on his right side.

“Rex Arcstone was probably the same as me, he is a genius, a prodigy, and also was cast off by his kind… he is probably still there waiting for Diamelle,” Jubaic smiled and then he yawned. “-Ooh! I haven’t talked for that long! I’m feeling sleepy now!” using the figures he conjured he turned it into bed and lay down.

“You didn’t answer my question, how did you end up here?” Simon asked again.

The madman nodded “After spending some time navigating the frigid mountain-” Jubaic pointed upwards “-I stumbled upon an underground path, I think it was inside the body of this mountain,-” then he rubbed his ears like he was annoyed, “-That’s when I met them, I tried to talk to them but they thought I was an outsider, my mistake was that I let them trick me when I was being friendly,” then he pointed his neck.

“Or probably because I tried to open the Gate of Inferno, out of my curiosity, you know, you can’t blame me can you!” Jubaic smiled like the madman that he was. “Then I’ve been here… for a very long time!”

Simon knew that there was something wrong with the man but if what he was saying to him was the truth then Jubaic should be a very old man, but how did he become immortal?

“How did you become an immortal?” he was infected by Jubaic’s curiosity he just wanted to know.

Jubaic’s eyes widened, it was rare for the boy to ask something that wasn’t about magic or the lesson they were talking about, “I attained it while I was mastering the 4 basic elements. It's something that has to do with the Eye of Truth?” the question was in the last part of the sentence asking if the boy could still remember it.

“That thing you did to me… the first time we met,” Simon remembered, how could he not? His head was breaking apart at that time.

“That is correct, so you remembered, it's the same reason that you could barely see the magic collar that’s in my neck, maybe next time, we should try activating it again? How about it?” Jubaic said prodding.

“Does it make me stronger?” Simon didn’t care if it was painful, what he wanted was to gain more power to fix himself, and pull him out of the curse.

“Probably yes or probably no, depends on how you use it!” Jubaic playful said, “But there’s a lot of harm trying and we are immortal aren’t we?”

Spending time with Jubaic gave Simon deeper insight into the madman’s true nature. He shared many of the old man's traits, but one difference stood out—Jubaic had the ability to discard anything that didn’t matter to him, detached yet all-knowing, kind and harsh at once.

“I want to try,” Simon said, the words tinged with a hint of regret. Then something clicked—a memory of something he should have when he fell. “Jubaic… can you show me exactly where I fell?”

“Why?” It was the first time Simon had asked anything of him.

“There’s a seed in my pocket… I want to plant it,” the boy replied.

Jubaic’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Plant it?”

<--->

Jubaic’s request to Diamelle was simple, she just had to go around the immortal abyss. Jubaic wanted to know the measurement of the abyss, from the bottom of the abyss to the limit of the ceiling.

And Diamelle, the queen of the Jumas was the embodiment of earth magic. She could easily escape if it wasn’t for the collar that was on her neck.

The idea of measuring the abyss was something she never thought of. Not only did the madman have a plan to escape, but she was also having a good time listening to the boy’s stories that was two birds in one stone.

She was now looking for the highest ground where she could create a large pillar to measure the abyss.

She immediately felt someone or something approaching her as she was walking in the darkness of the abyss.

“You can’t hide I could feel you,” she said without stopping her walk.

“I want to talk to the madman,” it was a grunting voice.

Diamelle who was familiar with the denizens of the abyss instantly knew who it was. She stopped and looked in a direction. The voice revealed itself, it was a werewolf that was one of the denizens of the immortal abyss.

Kaibot was his name, a half-wolf that fought the holy beast in the hope of becoming one too but what he had become was something he didn’t want to be. Now he was also trapped in the abyss of the immortals.