The haze shifted once more, this time solidifying in the form of a painfully beautifully man. Features so perfect that screamed about his unnaturalness to everyone who would dare to look at him. His mouth moved, but no sound came out, instead, his thoughts directly reached Neven.

There was a clear mirth on the tone of those thoughts.

“Ha! Enna, seeing you lying so blatantly was certainly unexpected. So… what is that?”

“Forgive me my Lord, not even I can fully understand. Mistress contacted me some years ago, telling me that he would be born, and asking me to care for him until he awakens. He looks like a human, but there’s something in his core that I can’t even perceive. I only know it exists because to my eyes that place seem completely vacant of… anything. But mana keeps leaking out from there, and the boy seems to have memories from another world.”

“I see.”

“Lord?”

“What is it?”

“Can I please ask you to stop using your truespeech? This body can’t withstand it any longer.”

Huge wounds, like cracks in arid land, had already appeared all over her body, blood gushing out of them and dying everything red. From her nose, ears, and eyes, similar streaks of blood freely flowed out as the man looked at her surprised, almost like seeing her for the first time.

A smooth, barely audible voice came out of his mouth.

“Ah! Forgive me Enna. I forget that you like spending time in those brittle bodies instead of your normal form. Can you heal it? Or do you want me to find you another?”

“Thank you my Lord, I’ll be fine” Enna nodded as she started chanting a spell, her wounds rapidly closing and the blood disappearing from her clothes as she did so.

“Good, good. Now, you…” And he turned towards the boy “Show me what you are.”

A few seconds later, the man brought his hands up to his head and started rubbing his face exasperated.

For a second Enna felt the air around the room freeze, but as soon as it began it stopped. The gaze of the man lingered a little longer on the boy before he turned towards her.

“She should have known that either me, or brother, would find him. Did she wish for his death? Or does she want us to let him live? Enna… did she really say nothing else about him?”

“I wouldn’t dare to lie my Lord. I’ve lived next to her for a long time, maybe if I knew what he is, I could help you decide?”

“If it’s you, there’s no harm knowing, but keep it a secret from the others for now. Actually… did you plan on teaching this… boy?”

“Yes, until at least he could make his own medicines. I think that if he managed a fourth or fifth job with focus on mana control he could even fully control the surging mana.”

“Good, you should teach him. But don’t expect that he’ll be in control with just that. By the way, do you have any pure crystal on hand?”

“Pure crystal? Sure, I have some, but why…”

And with that, she took out from her pocket two clear, small, glass-like, crystals. One as small as a fingertip, the other slightly bigger, about the length of her pinky.

The smaller one started levitating, and flew directly on the palm of the man, and a moment later it flew right back at her hand.

“Give that to him, and if you see my brother, ask him to make you some more pure crystal as recompense.”

Her eyes shined white as she peered into the small crystal fragment, only to look at him again and ask.

“Lord? Can I ask what you did to it? Its capacity seems filled with something, but I can’t tell what.”

“Of course you can’t. One would need truesight to read it. As for what the gift is, since you said that you’ll train him as a magical artisan, I went and made him a dictionary of sorts. It should contain the common properties of most things. It also serves a secondary purpose, it should be easier to train his eyes on that without frying his brain again.”

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“I don’t understand my Lord. If it needs truesight to be read, how can it be of use to a human?”

“Your human body nearly collapsed when you just heard a bit of truespeech. Your human eyes would melt if you would use truesight to see through them. Now, imagine what the boy’s body went through when he commanded everything around him to die.”

“The disappearance of the three goblin souls a while ago! How?!”

“And yet, he’s still alive.”

“My Lord… What did Mistress create?”

“She somehow implanted, or duplicated, a part of her true power and stuffed it into a human body. Don’t ask me how it doesn’t just melt away. If that wasn’t enough to call her insane, she decided to mess up more, so she merged that with the memories of someone from another world.”

“She gave him her powers?”

“Yes.”

“…”

“I want to trust that she knows what she’s doing. But I need to at least consult my brother about him. Best case, he can take over her duties that she has abandoned all this time… maybe this is even the reason she created him and sent him here. Worst case, we erase him... if we can even do that. That said, I have a task for you Enna.”

“Your words are my commands my Lord.”

“She asked of you to watch him over till he awakens, so I can only assume that she doesn’t want you to hover over his head forever for some reason. So, teach him the basics, like the first job or the second or whatever you feel is appropriate, and let him free afterwards. But, before anything, teach him the core of the history of this world. He needs to understand what he represents, what the power within him means.”

“As you wish my Lord.”

“Now, listen to what exactly I saw in the space that’s hidden from you, so that you know what you’re dealing with and what you need to do…”

About a minute after she had sat down, Olein watched Neven exit the room and silently closing the door behind her. She sat on a chair next to her and gently grabbed her trembling hands.

“Don’t worry. The immediate danger is over. But… I need to talk to both of you now.”

Goran finally found what he was rummaging for in the drawers, and as he sat he threw a small pouch on the table in front of Neven.

“There should be about seven or so gold pieces there. I know they aren’t enough, but I promise you I’ll pay you more when the harvest is over.”

“Don’t be foolish boy. Do you think you can afford both an aptitude reading and a baptism on your residence? If it was that easy, every villager would follow the nobles and have readings on birth and every few years, and specialized trainers from the moment the children could talk.”

Goran’s head hang down as he persisted. “I know it’s not enough, but it’s all we have, even if not immediately, I will repay you in a few years’ time.”

“I have more important things to talk about than gold. As I said, the immediate danger is over, but that doesn’t mean the cause is fixed.”

“”What?!”” Two heads instantly popped up and yelled.

“I told you there was a chance, unfortunately, we missed the gamble.”

“Then… my baby…”

“He’s out of danger for now. He just has to keep outrunning it now.”

“What do you mean Neven, be frank with us.”

“The thing that causes his mana to run wild is rooted deep within him. Even if he changes jobs again, it probably won’t fix it. In a few years, as his condition worsens, he’ll again be in the same position as he was before. Unless… by that time, he has moved on to a higher job that helps with his mana capacity and control. And then his condition will keep worsening, and he will have to go to an even higher job. And so on until his mana control is precise enough to constantly regulate his problem himself.”

“So…”

“Basically, he needs to keep outrunning his condition by going for higher magical jobs faster than his condition worsens.”

“But his mana and control aptitudes are weak! His progress will be painfully slow!”

“I didn’t say it will be easy. And that brings me to me second point.”

Goran sighed “It gets worse?”

“No… actually it gets better. Give me the boy as a live-in apprentice. Let alone that I’m the only magical artisan around, if I have him live with me I can drill him hard enough to outpace his condition for at least a while. Plus, with him living with me, I can constantly keep an eye out for him and treat him. You can even consider the baptism as a master’s gift to his apprentice.”

“No! He’s too young. I still haven’t even made him his baptism clothes. I need to teach him about our family. I need to…”

“What you need to do Olein is letting him go. My house isn’t even twenty minutes from here. He can still visit after his chores are done, or on weekends.”

“Then, if it’s so easy, and you are so close, then why can’t he simply come to you every morning?”

“Because there will be days that we would need to gather herbs at night. There will be days that we will be concocting for over a few days straight. There will be days that I will be woken up in the middle of the night to treat someone or to make an urgent medicine. There will be days that I would need him to train on mana control every second of the day. There will be days that I will take him with me on trips. And ultimately, living in an environment that from the moment he opens his eyes till the moment he closes them he’s surrounded by magic, can only be beneficial for him.”

Goran hugged his wife as he spoke. “Don’t worry my love, our child is strong. He made it this far already. What’s living a few minutes away compared to him having the best education that we can give him?”

“…Ok. But the weekends he comes here.”

“As long as we aren’t on a trip, or there isn’t an emergency, his weekends are his to do whatever he wants. Now, Goran, be a dear and carry the boy to my house.”

“Already?! He hasn’t even waked up yet!”

“Don’t worry; you’ll have plenty of time for goodbyes, if it can even be called that. The boy’s, no, Andarius’, mana did a number on his body this time. Even if the immediate danger is over, I prefer to be able to watch over him constantly until he wakes up, just in case. You’re free to come visit any time you want for as long as you want till then. I think it’ll just be a few days. And after he’s up, I’ll give you a week until his apprenticeship officially begins.”