----Holy City of Solis-------------
In front of Avior stood the massive floating fortress of Solis. Known as the Holy City, it acts as the center for the Radiant Religion, serving as a seat of power for its Nine Pillars to rule from. The city could move if it wanted, but the cost of doing so required the mana of eight of the Pillars working together or one of the two Ninths. And like any powerful Mage they preferred saving their mana to attempt breakthroughs. A sad smile played across Avior's face as he remembered just how unlikely any of the Pillars reaching the next level was. Their oh-so-illustrious position which granted them their great power the very definition of a double-edged sword.
Avior had taken his time getting here. During the five days of travel, he'd been focused mostly on his training, determined to avoid falling behind his projections anymore than he already had.
Now that he'd reached the Holy City; however, he began to regret his decision of assuming a leisurely pace as before him was a massive line of people waiting to enter the city.
After asking a father accompanying his daughter in front of him Avior found out that the Tournament of the Hero was going to start in a few days. The man had asked Avior if he planned to participate to which Avior gave a non-committal response before allowing the conversation to go cold.
Avior frowned at the new information. The Hero's Tournament didn't usually happen for another five or six years. Had the Hervalle war triggered the change or something else?
Putting his worries aside he reviewed how he planned to enter the city undetected to search for Prim.
Against Mages of the Eighth Avior could maintain his invisibility easily. It would require him to control his mana signature to eliminate any leakage. A technically demanding task but easily doable with his level of control.
Unfortunately, Solis had two Mages of the 9th. Even with his knowledge Avior only had one method he could use to avoid detection before becoming a Ninth himself. The same method he'd been using constantly since he started this life, exhausting his mana reserves constantly through forcing his body to absorb mana as quickly as it replenished.
He would do it a little differently in Solis keeping his mana low but similar to the mana of a Mage at the 3rd rank which would still allow him to access basic spells while still blending in with the rest of the tournament participants.
Despite having more mana than normal Avior would still be vulnerable to the Ninths. If Satrim or the Radiance ended up discovering his presence for whatever reason he would be severely outmatched.
With this in mind, he'd prepared some contingencies.
His first plan, if discovered, was to stall until he managed to recover enough mana to launch a successful escape. Even though Avior was currently a Mage of the Eighth he wouldn't stand a chance against two Mages of the Ninth in a direct fight. The gap between the 8th and 9th ranks was just too large.
As for how he'd manage to stall for that long, well that was the main reason he'd ended up borrowing the Scepter of Numina from Adinacus after finding out Prim wasn't in the Warports. The legendary artifact's plain appearance was easy to conceal and wouldn't be revealed for what it was unless a Mage tried running mana through it. At the same time, the scepter had an extremely low mana cost to use its basic features. This meant Avior's natural mana regeneration, that of a powerful Mage of the 8th, would allow him to continue gaining mana during its use of basic functions.
The scepter abilities should be enough for holding off the Ninths until Avior had enough time to escape, but if an unforeseen factor came into play which delayed his ability to retreat he had the option of dipping into his mana and using the item's more strenuous abilities to launch an attack on the floating city itself.
It wouldn't do much damage to the city, which was initially built as a flying fortress for continent-rending wars between Mages of the Ninth, but it would present a deadly crisis for the city's residents. Knowing the Radiance and Satrim's personalities, they would prioritize protecting their people over stopping him from escaping.
Of course, if even all that wasn't enough, Avior had a few other ways to stall that he knew worked from past battles with the two. Everything from changing his appearance to that of a long-dead Pillar, to using a code phrase only the two of them knew, Avior had no doubts he'd be able to leave Solis in one piece even if the fallout of doing so might end up being a little inconvenient.
With his backup plans in place, Avior spent his time in the slow-moving line training inconspicuously. Or at least, he tried to.
After two hours of waiting in line, Avior found himself jostled away from his work by someone shouting next to his ear.
"Make way! Make way! Part for the Maelstrom Tower's candidate for the Hero's Party!"
A collection of old men in white robes with different colored spirals at their center strode past him in line. The old men surrounded a smug-looking young girl wearing similar robes, Avior would bet she was the "candidate" in question. The girl had on a white robe with a blue spiral at its center. If he remembered correctly in the Maelstrom Tower the blue spiral marked her as a Mage of the Fourth. A massive accomplishment for someone with her apparent age of sixteen or seventeen.
Avior heard a chuckle overhead drawing his sight upwards where he found two young adults and a young boy floating in the sky. The two adults were wearing brightly colored robes, one pink and one purple while the other was a boy around the age of sixteen who, judging from the dark bags under his eyes, was utterly exhausted.
Unlike the Maelstrom Tower girl, Avior recognized the three immediately. Markus, Fiolla, and Jiordone. The first two were Pillars of the Church while Jiordone was someone Avior had called a friend in the past. It was odd seeing his friend who was second in line to the throne of Numina visiting Solis with the Pillars, but from his current state of exhaustion, Avior surmised the Pillars had likely "recruited" him for the tournament. Such willful behavior was pretty common for Fiolla.
"Make way! Make way!" Fiolla spoke with a playfully mocking tone as she stopped to hover above the Malestrom Tower representatives now visibly sweating at the sudden appearance of such powerful figures. "Little Jior finally gets back to Solis after a few small delays for some sightseeing and this is the first thing he sees? People using their status to intimidate others to cut in line! And right before the Hero's tournament no less!" The girl's playful facade was paper thin as her barely concealed anger was evident for all to see.
"Oh great Pillar thi-" The now shaking Maelstrom Tower representatives were forced to their knees as the air grew heavy around them.
"Silence." Markus's voice cut through the cowering man's excuse before they could finish it. A light rain drizzle began from clouds that appeared just above them blocking out the otherwise sunny sky.
Not a fan of getting wet Avior spun a small amount of the air element to create a makeshift umbrella above his head. A few around him including the young girl with the man he'd spoken to earlier did similar things creating coverings with their mana be it out of earth, light, or even water.
Seeing all the young Mages revealing themselves by doing such a mundane task Fiolla was immediately distracted as a full smile appeared on her face.
"Wow! Look at all the promising youngsters coming for the tournament Markus!" Not waiting for his reply she floated downwards towards the crowd.
"Hello everyone! I'm Fiolla the Pink Pillar! It's so nice to see you all here and I can't wait to see you all compete in the tournament!" A glint appeared in her eye, "And make sure to wave to me in the stands with your thumb tucked in like this, so I know who to root for," The young woman demonstrated the wave by rolling her right thumb into her palm before waving with four fingers spread.
Finished saying her piece she began to fly away before suddenly stopping and turning back down to the Maelstrom Tower Mages. "Oh yeah, before I forget you guys go to the back of the line, and no more cutting!"
The men in white robes nodded limply and turned around to begin making their way to the back of the line. Although, Avior could see a few flashes of anger among the dumber members of the group, but even they had the wherewithal to quickly conceal them. Well, almost all of them did. The young girl who had been touted as the "Maelstrom's Candidate" currently had a face contorted in silent anger at her treatment. She would be up for a rude awakening if she tried to complain about this to anyone. Everyone in Solis who had half a brain knew not to mess with the Pillars. Unfortunately, some learned that lesson at the cost of half their brain being displaced. Not a particularly fun way to go.
Fiolla flew off right after the Maelstrom Tower members began moving to the back, followed shortly after by Markus with Jiordone in tow.
The rest of Avior's time in line was relatively uneventful besides the increased levels of excitement and an oddly disturbing amount of Mages practicing Fiolla's odd wave, including both the girl and her father in front of him. He spent far more attention than he would of liked wondering why the father would be practicing the wave when he was far to old to be participating in the tournament in the first place.
After four more hours in line, Avior came to the gate before the floating pillar of light. A dozen guards were visible, wearing armor decorated by depictions of thunderbolts and clouds. Such markings made it clear they were members of the proud Skyshatter Legion. The Church's most elite Legion and the force that received the honor of guarding Solis most of the time.
The guards there let him by without much hassle after seeing his apparent age and Mage level. They knew as much as any person in the Church just how many promising talents the Church gained whenever tournaments happened. Avior, with the appearance as a relatively young Mage of the Third wasn't enough for more than a brief eyebrow raise from the guards.
The opposite of suspicion, there were even a few friendly smiles poking out from under their helmets. More than a few of them were likely foreigners who'd been recruited into the Legion after visiting the Church in a way similar to how Avior was doing now. No doubt a few looked at the young and talented Avior and saw a reflection of their past selves.
Entering the flying city Avior immediately set out looking for Prim. Unlike with the Numinian Warports, Avior wouldn't be able to use a mana scan to search the entire city in one fell swoop. Such a move would be similar to lighting a bonfire and screaming for Satrim to come and kill him. Besides the anti-scanning wards in the city would take a large amount of mana to brute force. Previous mana which he did not have at the moment.
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Because of all this Avior decided on a far less invasive method to search for Prim.
Avior sent a collection of mana to his eyes, creating a lens through which he received the mana around him passively. This meant he could see mana without being as invasive as sending out an active scan. It was a spell known as Mana Sight that Avior often employed when attempting to operate under the radar. The spell at one point had been far more popular but had fallen out of favor since the beginning of the era due to schools refusing to teach it over safer methods like Mana Scan. To be fair there was a pretty high risk of permanently damaging your eyes if performed poorly. Avior had his own poor experience with those very same consequences while learning the spell that he didn't feel like recollecting at the current moment.
Luckily the spell's lack of popularity as well as a general lack of passive spells in general meant there were fewer people around who could successfully counter it. Making his life a lot easier.
Passive and reactive ward types, which made up the vast majority of wards in the world would never succeed in detecting a spell that never left his own body. Only active wards had any chance to and they were far more obvious to spot with their larger mana signatures, while at the same time requiring a greater amount of mana to maintain.
Avior only knew of a few locations with active wards currently set up in Solis and all of those places were highly secure areas such as the Towers of the Nine Pillars. Besides, even then he could simply dispel the vision spell before recasting it subtly once he had a chance to do so on the other side of the ward. The far greater issue was getting past the physical security of the Towers to search for Prim without attracting the attention of a powerful figure if she was indeed being held in one of them.
But that could all wait until after Avior confirmed Prim wasn't currently somewhere more accessible and this Mana Sight of his was just perfect for doing so.
With the spell active Avior's normal vision was overlayed with a colorful collection of mana. Concentrated pools of mana overlapped with individuals with larger pools of mana while those with little visible mana were likely beginner Mages or non-Mages. More importantly, with this Mana Sight Avior was able to see individual's mana circuit layouts by watching the path mana flowed in them. This extremely unique pattern was extremely painful to modify and impossible to change permanently except for natural growth. Only beings like elementals could mask their circuit layouts by creating artificial mana circuits to fit the forms they take. Elemental bodies had their true mana circuits generally formed in a ball around their elemental heart from which they could mold the form of whatever being they took to have artificial pathways that could act like mana circuits extending out from the true mana circuits. Luckily Avior wasn't looking for an elemental or else the task ahead of him would be far more challenging.
Prim's mana circuits were well known to him especially so after he'd saved her life by clearing them when he first found her with Tyrant back in Hervalle and unlike an elemental's hers couldn't be masked by fake circuits unless she began destroying her own body to create fake circuits something Avior didn't think anyone with even the slightest flicker of sanity remaining would do.
This mana circuit identification was potentially less useful than searching for her using her mana signature, but that would require a mana scan or for him to be the recipient of a spell created by her. With the latter being unlikely and the former being a poor idea to attempt to do the wards, searching with this method was what Avior believed to be the most efficient and safest route to accomplish his current goal of finding the lost leader of his secret organization.
Avior walked around for a small amount of time before coming across a few buildings he was unable to see through. Raising the amount of mana in his eyes to the peak amount he could use while acting like a Mage of the Third, Avior managed to see past a few of the buildings but not all.
It was reminiscent of the anti-scanning materials he'd encountered in the first Tyrant lair when rescuing Prim so many years ago. Somehow the strange material had made their way to Solis. His search might end up being more challenging than he'd initially surmised.
Avior managed to make his way inside one of the protected buildings which turned out to be a library open to the public. An odd location for such unique protections. Once on the inside, Avior found his Mana Sight was able to fully penetrate the entire building. After confirming Prim's absence he left to continue his search much to the bewilderment of the purple-robed librarian who watched Avior take one step inside the library only to immediately turn away and leave.
Avior continued walking around Solis searching for Prim. He took the opportunity to refresh himself on the layout of the city while occasionally entering a "shielded" building to confirm Prim's absence. All buildings equipped with the material that could block his sight seemed to be of an academic or political nature much to his surprise. Libraries, research labs, and debate halls were the most common with all of them being staffed by young individuals wearing violet clothing. Avior decided he would look into the Purple Pillar's possible activities once he recovered Prim. He found the new development easily rousing his interest, but it was far from his main priority so he determinedly filed it away for later.
Over the course of three hours, he didn't find any signs of Prim, but that fell in line with what he'd expected. She was most likely sealed away somewhere in one of the Pillars' Towers. Knowing the Church's interest in young and powerful Mages they wouldn't risk leaving her in a low-security area where she could easily escape or be rescued.
The most convenient way to search those places he could think of was with the support of someone on the inside. Avior could alter his appearance to impersonate someone, but there were plenty of failsafes the Church loved to implement to avoid that sort of thing. People admitted inside the Towers were required to present unique patterns of identification for certain time periods and scenarios. It would take a while for him to gather all that data without being obvious.
So that left him with finding a sponsor to let him in as a potential recruit all while thinking it was their own idea. It was a plan that took full advantage of the Hero's Tournament being in full swing as he was well aware of how eager the Pillars were to snatch up any and all young talent that qualified for such a tournament. Even if participants weren't able to make it far enough in the tournament to qualify for the Hero's party, they would have no lack of invites from the Church's various organizations looking to bolster their ranks with promising recruits.
The recruitment efforts would be in full swing once the tournament started, but there would definitely be agents of the Church already scouting in an attempt to get ahead of their peers. Lucky for him, Avior knew the number one spot the eager recruiters would look first.
The one Inn the Church secretly sent everyone they suspected had the highest of chance of making it into the Hero's Party in a barely masked attempt to build early camaraderie and strengthen their connections. The inn named after the first Green Pillar to ever hold the post: the Ghajavelon Inn.
Coming up on the Ghajavelon Inn, Avior wasted no time opening the door and stepping through with all the confidence an up-and-coming Mage was expected to have. That was of course until he saw an older-looking blue-haired Fluma sitting at a table with a haggard man, a woman, and someone whose figure was obscured by a robe.
Double-checking to be sure Avior dipped into some mana to overlay his vision with Mana Sight before sending a discrete pulse of mana to scan the girl. Avior used this particular scanning method to circumvent the many anti-scanning wards in the city while still allowing for a more intense scan. Getting caught by a passive ward before accomplishing any of his goals would be rather embarrassing indeed.
With his Mana Sight, Avior watched the pulse reach the blue-haired girl before filtering through her colorful array of mana circuits blooming across her body. Her mana circuits and reservoir mimicked that of a human. Nothing looked wrong. The girl was giving all the right visual indicators a normal human Mage at the fifth level would.
Still, Avior couldn't help it as a smirk slid onto his face as he spotted the very minute signs of mana absorption occurring, her mana disappearing into minute whirlpools across her body as soon as it was replenished to prevent her true Mage Rank from showing. She was using the very same method he'd designed. A method only his five creations knew of in the entire world.
There was no longer any doubt that this girl was Fluma. But why was she acting like a normal girl and why was she in Solis of all places?
Before Avior could better analyze the situation the girl's head turned towards him. It seemed like she'd detected his attempt at a covert mana scan.
He didn't remember implanting her with that knowledge. Despite being almost five years older than when he'd last seen her there was no hesitation as her eyes filled with recognition when they landed on him. She had recognized him just by his mana pulse? He had definitely not given her that.
"Daddy!"
A confused Avior allowed the teenage-looking Fluma to wrap her arms around him while she began to burst into tears.
Seeing the cadre that Fluma had been sitting with staring daggers at him Avior awkwardly patted Fluma on her head. Not enjoying this ongoing trend of sending women in his life crying he tried to mitigate some of the damage.
"There there Fluma, you shouldn't say such things around your friends they might get the wrong idea."
He heard a faint okay from Fluma where she'd buried her face in his shirt.
Looking down at Fluma's blue head of hair Avior covertly sent a message directly to her brain to speak. As he had back when she was first created.
[[Fluma why are you in Solis?]]
[[Brother Bastian sent me here]]
Avior reeled in surprise. Bastian had met Fluma and given her orders? He felt a wave of slight anger rising as he thought of how Bastian's actions were undermining not only his own mission but Fluma's as well.
This feeling however was quickly trumped by some pride in his most disappointing Servant. Avior hadn't met with any of his children other than Bastian since he created them and Bastian had come off as a massive letdown. But if he managed to not only find Fluma, but convince the being Avior had formed with a massive desire for free will to follow an order maybe he wasn't so useless after all.
In hindsight, Avior never gave any orders specifically telling Bastian to avoid using his siblings, so at the moment, all Avior could do was give kudos to his eldest for enlisting Fluma's aide to accomplish his mission of combating the church despite the unfortunate side effect it had by removing the catalyst meant for the Western Isles growth.
Deciding it would be best to find out more of what exactly Fluma had been sent to do before jumping to any more conclusions he directed another thought towards the girl still holding him tight.
[[What did Bastian send you here to do?]]
He could feel Fluma's face as it scrunched up against his chest as if straining to remember.
[[Collect information?]]
The unsure response came.
Thinking she might be a little confused by his question Avior decided to clarify.
[[How are you collecting information?]]
Avior felt the girl's unease disappear as she responded proudly.
[[Fluma will become the Hero!]]
Avior took a second before the words fully sunk in.
Fluma might be able to look like a human at first glance, but as her maker Avior knew she was nothing but an elemental wearing a form made solely of mana. She could fool mana scan, but if she lost a limb or took a cut she wouldn't bleed. Avior didn't doubt if she ended up as the Hero she'd be discovered. Additionally, Avior knew from his experience the Hero was usually inspected by the Gold Pillar Satrim quite thoroughly to ensure no one with a hidden agenda received the extremely influential position.
Looking down at the girl who was still holding him tightly with her head pressed firmly against his chest Avior couldn't bring himself to shatter the girl's dreams. Despite her being someone he created on a whim he couldn't suppress a feeling of guilt from welling up within him. It didn't help that her companions still looked like they wanted to kill him.
He had left her to her own devices four years ago after creating her with an extreme desire for attention and freedom. He hadn't expected that to manifest in a desire for attention from him rather hoping it turned into a desire to gain infamy through her actions in the Western Isles, but well it was a little too late for regrets now.
Avior hadn't built any of his Servants to forcibly obey him. Although he did give them knowledge and enough understanding for them to realize he made them, they could very well disobey him if they ended up desiring to. It was just very, very unlikely. Although Avior guessed Fluma counted as disobeying since she'd abandoned her assignment from her reaction to him alongside her explanation of Bastian being involved Avior could guess it was done with well-meaning intentions.
With all this in mind, Avior willingly walked right into a trap he saw from a mile away.
[[Fluma you can't be the Hero]]
Avior could feel Fluma's hold tighten as if bracing herself to take on his words.
[[Yes Lord]]
The deflated response came soon after.
[[But you can join the Hero's Party. It'll require you to put in a lot of work though, you need to learn how to make a more lifelike vessel]]
To Avior's pleasant surprise, the news seemed to immediately lift Fluma out of her disappointment at not being the Hero.
[[Okay!]]
[[Great I can teach you once I get a room here]]
[[Okay!]]
[[Can you let go of me please?]]
[[Okay!]]
After a significant pause, the girl finally let go of Avior and took her face away from his chest. Her starry eyes brimming with joy met Avior's own and Avior couldn't help but feel proud at his creation looking at him like he'd just promised her the world.
It might be a bit of a roundabout way to gain access to the Towers, but helping his youngest creation accomplish her new dream was a fine bonus objective to achieve.