Kelsey woke slowly to mid-morning sun streaming directly into her closed eyes. The first thing Kelsey noticed as she regained consciousness was the excruciating pain she was feeling behind her eyes. Thankfully, as she opened her eyes and looked around the master bedroom inside her mountain cabin, the pain in her head began fading slowly.
She felt like her mind was filled with a thick fog that was blocking her ability to think clearly. It was as though she had a hangover from a night of drinking nothing but moonshine.
Creating some water and splashing it on her face started to make her feel better as it woke her up and cleared some of the fog. Despite not needing water or food anymore, she also summoned some water to drink, and just the act of doing so helped immensely as she felt much of the pain and haziness melt away.
Sitting up slowly Kelsey blinked her eyes and looked around the room once again.
Everything looked normal and no one else was in the room with her, so she stood up slowly and checked herself for any abnormalities. Everything seemed healthy, so she looked inward. She could feel that all six– Six?
She quickly opened her notifications.
*ding* Parallel Thoughts has reached lvl 5 -> 6
Guess the last few moments of the Warp were difficult enough to warrant another level up. That warp definitely wouldn't have been possible without Parallel Thoughts.
*ding* Warp has reached lvl 2 -> 5
That makes a ton of sense… I’m surprised it didn’t level even more, honestly.
After checking her notifications, she went back to looking inward, inspecting her mental state how she generally felt. She was a bit sore, which was to be expected from such extreme mana overuse, but other than that, she felt fine. Her parallel minds were all sitting idle, so she activated her domain and set five of them to watch it with the intention for it to only inform her of threats. The last one focused on her Senses of the Magus skill. She didn’t have enough information on how her sense worked, and maybe her new skill would be able to help in that regard.
After putting on some clothes, Kelsey opened the door from the master bedroom and made her way outside. On the way to the door, she spotted Bud gently sleeping on his bed that had been moved into the living room.
I am pretty sure I didn’t place that bed there… must have been Abby?
After passing Bud and giving him a quick scratch behind the ear-vines, Kelsey opened the door to her balcony and gaped at what she saw. Down near the riverbank, about two kilometers from her cabin was what she assumed the new Librarian’s guild headquarters with dozens of large wooden buildings, stone paths, and even a small park in the middle of the compound.
How long was I asleep? They’ve made so much progress… Shit, I am going to be so late… she thought as she checked her domain and quickly found Gwen, who was sitting behind a large desk on the top floor of the largest building on the compound.
Kelsey activated her Warp, appearing right outside the door leading into Gwen’s office, and knocked earnestly.
“Come in!” Gwen shouted through the door.
Kelsey quickly opened the door, a giant smile on her face. “The new headquarters looks great! Congratulations.” Kelsey said excitedly.
“Kel! You’re finally awake!” Gwen shouted as she burst out of her chair and wrapped Kelsey in a forceful hug.
“Speaking of that, how long was I out? You guys have made a ton of progress…” Kelsey asked, worried to hear the answer.
Gwen sighed. “Only three weeks, thankfully. We have a few wood and stone mages that were able to build all of this relatively quickly, so you weren’t out as long as it may seem.” she said gently as she released Kelsey from the hug. “Abby helped with the park and decorations too.”
“That’s not so bad… I’m a little late for my meeting with the rest of the party, but I’m sure they’ll understand.”
Gwen nodded. “Yeah, I bet they won't give you any shit for being over a week late." She said sarcastically. "Are you going to be leaving today?” she added, clearly a bit disappointed at the idea.
“Yeah, I can’t keep them waiting any longer. But don’t worry, I plan on being back today. I’m going to bring them right back here, assuming nothing interrupts us.” Kelsey answered gently. “I’m going to stay here for at 'least' a few days after I’m back though, I’d like to take a short break before I go see The Winter Saint.”
Gwen smiled. “Good. Things here are running smoothly now, I should be able to take a few days off myself. I can tell you everything I’ve learned about the Mageblood body too. Every single one of my guild members have now gone through the ritual, so I do have news to share.” she finished excitedly.
Kelsey’s eyes went wide. With everything that happened with the teleportation, she had completely forgotten about giving Gwen the potions. “Awesome! I can’t wait.” Kelsey said honestly. “Alright, I’ll be back in a few hours!”
Stepping out of Gwen’s office, Kelsey immediately activated Warp and set her location to the tent inside The Burrow. Thirty seconds later, she appeared in the tent.
“Holy shit! What the hell, Kel!” Lisa screamed as Kelsey appeared in the middle of the tent.
Kelsey quickly glanced around the tent and saw that all three of her friends had been huddled in a small circle, books open and practicing some minor creation skills.
Gregory was standing, cutlass drawn in a defensive stance. "Ye couldn't have found a better way to make an entrance?" he growled.
Owen seemed to be the least surprised, having not reacted to her sudden appearance with anything other than calm acknowledgement.
“Hey guys! Sorry I’m late. I was briefly in a coma.” Kelsey said as she sat down on the bed next to the group, ignoring Gregory's drawn weapon.
Gregory grunted and put away his sword. “A coma? What have ye been doin lassie?”
Kelsey waved her hand in a dismissive motion. “Ahh, just teleported The Librarian’s to the Mageblood forest. The mana overuse hit me pretty hard. They had a lot more members than I was expecting.” she answered casually.
“And why didn’t you just take multiple trips?” Owen asked exasperatedly.
“I wanted to see if I could do it. Turns out, I absolutely can, I just needed like four of me to do it.” Kelsey answered happily. “But that’s not important right now. What’s important is you guys. Did you all get to the brink of Gold rank?”
“Yeah… over two weeks ago. Since then, we’ve just been learning more minor creation and manipulation skills.” Lisa answered with more than a little frustration in her voice.
Kelsey nodded. “Good, so here's what we're going to do; I’m going to need you all to step into my dimension.” she said as she waved her hand and opened a portal to her Dimension of the Magus.
The trio looked confused, and Lisa was the first to voice what she was sure the rest were thinking. "Uhh... Kel. Is it safe?"
"Perfectly safe, I swear. Trust me. It'll be worth it." Kelsey answered as she gestured for her friends to enter the portal.
One by one they entered nervously, Kelsey following closely after. Once everyone was in, Kelsey dismissed the portal and gestured to the dimension itself.
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“Welcome to a recreation of the Mageblood forest. Time moves much slower here, so we can take as long as we need for me to answer any and all questions you have. A lot has happened since I’ve seen you, so I’ll need to get you up to speed.” Kelsey said as she led them towards the riverbank.
“A lot has happened? Kelsey, have you gotten yourself into more trouble?” Owen asked seriously.
Kelsey looked back at him with a cheeky smile. "All good stuff this time, I promise.”
As they arrived at the riverbank, Kelsey created a large blanket with some pillows and motioned for them to all sit down.
Once they were seated, Kelsey began her explanation. “Alright. Let me get through my entire explanation, and then I will answer any and all questions you have.” she said before waiting for them to all acknowledge they understood.
The group nodded, so she continued. “When I was in isolation last year, I got a hold of a book written by an Otherworlder that arrived here a few thousand years before the rest of us. He came from my time, so I’m not sure why he arrived so much earlier. It’s probably the biggest question mark about him. He was called, The Sage, also known as The Winter Magus.”
Kelsey could tell that they all wanted to say something, but she put up her hands, indicating for them to wait. “So, I read his notes and found out a few things. The first was that, like me, he acquired a Mageblood body. Secondly, he figured out how to perfect the ritual.” she said as she summoned three of the Mageblood potions from her storage area.
All of their eyes widened as they identified the potions in Kelsey’s hand. “Since I left, over one hundred people have received a Mageblood body from one of my potions. They work. I did my first test on Gwen with a testing method that The Sage had discovered.”
“Remember when I said I had something to give your advancement a bit of extra power? This is what I meant… When you drink these, it will be incredibly painful, and you will fall unconscious for a minimum of eight or so hours.” Kelsey explained.
Kelsey looked Gregory and Owen in the eyes. “The person that took the longest to recover from the potion was your mother, the Queen. I met her a few weeks ago and she was the third person to take part in the ritual.”
With that sentence, the brother’s exploded into a chorus of excited shouts and yelling before quickly being silenced by the stern voice of Lisa. “Quiet. She said we need to wait until she’s finished. Listen first.”
The two brothers begrudgingly quieted down and waited patiently for Kelsey to continue.
Kelsey nodded towards Lisa in thanks. “Once you’ve ingested the potion and everyone has woken up, we will go down into the dungeon below and you three will pass into gold. Once you pass into gold, you can either advance here, or wait until we get back to the Mageblood forest, it’s up to you. I need to have a conversation with Leon Garley before I leave, but I can send you back early if you want.”
“Okay, now I’m finished, any questions?” She asked casually.
Gregory was the first to speak. “How and why did you speak with our mother? What possible events transpired to bring about that meeting?”
“After Gwen and I successfully performed the Mageblood ritual on her, we took a quick trip to Neim to perform the ritual on Abby. I was curious if the ritual would cure her poisoning. When we arrived, Abby told us that she was expecting an important visitor. That visitor happened to be the Queen. She was there because she had found the cure for Abby’s condition and wanted to see it administered properly.” Kelsey answered simply.
Owen and Gregory nodded in understanding.
“Did it work? The ritual I mean. Did it cure her poisoning?” Gregory asked, hesitant excitement buried deep in his voice.
Kelsey grinned. “Yes. I think you’re going to have two eyes again my friend.”
Gregory immediately began tearing up in his good eye, becoming emotional at the thought of getting his eyesight back.
Owen and Lisa both leaned in an put their arms around the ex-guild master in quiet celebration.
Kelsey was ecstatic. Out of everything that the Mageblood potion provided, its ability to cure permanent injuries was perhaps Kelsey’s favorite. When she went to Abby to test her theory, it had all been in an effort to determine if the ritual would also fix Gregory’s eye. She was nearly one hundred percent certain now that it would, and she couldn’t be more thrilled. Plus, according to Alana, it had also fixed an issue she had, though Kelsey hadn't had the courage to ask the queen what her injury had been.
“Any other questions?” Kelsey asked as Owen patted his brother on the back in joy.
Lisa raised her hand a bit nervously. “How bad will it hurt, really?”
“It will be the worst physical pain you have ever or will ever experience. But it’s worth it.” Kelsey answered truthfully. “When I went through my ritual, the pain was so bad that I wanted to throw myself off a Mageblood tree. Thankfully, I wasn’t able to move, otherwise, I would have done it… I know I would have.”
Lisa gulped through a lump in her throat and nodded.
“Anyone else?” Kelsey asked.
No one moved, so she gave one potion to each of them.
“Drink it, and then immediately lay down. I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.” Kelsey said reassuringly.
They all looked at the potions in their hands hesitantly. Gregory was the first to tip his potion into his open mouth and drink. Owen and Lisa quickly followed, grimacing at the pain they knew was about to come.
Once they had all drank the potions, they laid down as Kelsey had recommended, and then the pain began. She could see all their faces grimace in pain and could hear groans welling up from deep within their chests.
This continued for several minutes. Thankfully, they didn’t have violent and bloody reactions like all of the Immortals had. Kelsey's only guess as to why was that they weren’t gaining enough attributes at one time for their bodies to tear themselves apart.
Eventually, they all stilled, falling into a restful slumber.
Once they were asleep, Kelsey sat down next to them and pulled out a book to read to help kill the time. She would have loved to go see Leon while they were unconscious, but she wasn’t entirely sure how the time dilation effect worked when she wasn’t inside her dimension and didn’t want to risk them starving to death while she was gone.
Over seven hours later, Lisa was the first of the party woke up.
“Damn Kel, you weren’t kidding.” Lisa said as she sat up slowly and rubbed her temples. “That was extremely unpleasant.”
Kelsey smiled. “Welcome back. Go ahead and read your notifications, once you have, go do some stretches, get used to the new attributes. It’ll be helpful to get used to them now rather than when you’re fighting a monster.”
As she said that, Kelsey waved her hand and willed a stone platform into existence in the same location it was in the real world. It was nice that her dimension intuitively worked like that, she didn’t even need to spend much mana to effect it. There was some small amount of mana used, but it wasn't nearly enough to cause her to suffer from a headache.
Lisa nodded as she opened her system, and her eyes grew distant. Once she finished reading, she stood up, did a few stretches and picked up her glaive from the ground, taking it with her to the stone platform.
As she got on to the platform, Kelsey watched as she went through several glaive forms, in the same way Alana, the Queen had. It was mesmerizing to watch as Lisa made perfectly controlled movements from one stance to the next for over fifteen minutes. As far as Kelsey’s inexperienced eye could tell, her stances were perfect.
Owen was the next to wake up, and he, like Lisa, sat up, groaning from the soreness in his body. “That was about as bad as you described. There is no way that was worth it.” He said through gritted teeth.
"Oh yeah? Say that again when a monster takes one of your arms and you get a new one in three seconds." Kelsey said jokingly.
Owen shook his head. "Nah, I'm too good for that. I'm not like you, I don't just let my enemies beat up on me."
Kelsey chuckled softly and rolled her eyes. “Isn't that like your entire job? Your whole schtick is letting monsters beat up on you."
"Yeah, but only when I want them to hit me, that's the difference between us." Owen said with a small grin.
Kelsey rolled her eyes again. "Go ahead and join Lisa, get warmed up. No mana usage inside the dimension though, it gives me a pretty back headache.” she said as she pointed to where Lisa was.
Owen nodded and stood up, grabbing his sword and shield from the ground before joining Lisa on the platform. He did a few stretches but was quickly ready to do some sparring with Lisa.
The moment they started their mock bout, Kelsey instantly realized why he was the tank of their party. It was like his shield had a mind of its own, always in the exact right place to block an attack by the thinnest margins. To block the vast majority of Lisa’s strikes, he moved his shield less than a centimeter, keeping it locked near his body. He was like an impenetrable fortress.
Their fight would clearly have no victor. They were perfectly matched against one another. Owen was too defensive and Lisa was too agile for either of them to have a chance at hitting one another. They danced around each other like ballerinas, neither of them making any progress for over twenty minutes.
Then, Gregory began to stir, and their fight stopped instantly as they watched Gregory intently. They, like Kelsey, were incredibly excited to see if his eye was going to be repaired.
Gregory sat up, groaning just like Owen and Lisa had. “Bloody hell Kel, that be one painful ritual.”
Kelsey didn’t respond, she, Owen, and Lisa were waiting with bated breath, waiting to see a flash of disappointment, or excitement from his face.
A few seconds later; after Gregory had gotten his bearings and was fully awake, he glanced around at the party, carefully schooled his expression, and slowly took off his eyepatch.