Things were changing, and fast.

I was barely able to see Fynn and Amira, but I knew they were doing something. Since I interrogated that “Shadow”, Fynn put me on the side, not telling me anything. I knew I should pry further, and discover what the heroes of war were doing, but I truly needed the rest.

Well, rest was kind of a strong word.

These last days I was switching from place to place, sparring with Sheel in the mornings and then training with Alatea in the evenings. My mentor found my lack of healing spells quite insulting considering I was a healer’s apprentice, so I was pushed (more like thrashed) to learn new ones.

In other words, I trained my soul offensive capabilities with Sheel, and my healing ones with Alatea.

The ex-nurse also healed me at the end of each day because I was far from my prime. I still had the colossal burn on my left arm and my soul had some tears as the rupture of my soul hadn’t just magically healed off once I glued together the two parts with the Phylactery Bonding spell.

I also learned how to contain my soul from showing. It was problematic that my soul crossed through planes on its own volition. People would freak out with my soul-tendrils and would ask a lot of questions I didn’t have the time or energy to bother with. Though I was more concerned about the fact that the tendrils could hurt other people’s souls if they touched their bodies. I certainly wouldn’t like to make civilians not used to soul manipulation, not even magic, go catatonic because my soul grazed them.

It took a lot of concentration, but I could hold my soul and ‘stretch it out’ on the spiritual plane, reducing the density and therefore impeding a singularity from forming. This meant that my soul had begun growing larger. It was Alatea who had thought of this method.

And talking about Alatea, this evening I was free of my healing training as she had to go somewhere to heal people. Yeah, it was weird even processing that one of the most powerful healers in the country was healing other people besides me. I kind of hoarded her.

Anyways.

With my free evening, I went to a place I hadn’t stepped foot on since the whole phylactery situation. The draconid imperial palace.

I didn’t go physically there as I had done when Eygaz shifted my body to the spiritual plane, I just did a simple Astral Self using my phylactery as a proxy, because I had left it there.

Normally, it would be quite stupid to leave a phylactery at the hands of the (potential) enemy, especially if said enemies were experienced with soul manipulation, but it wasn’t a normal phylactery, but a really bad one!

Yes, I was proud of it.

Thanks to my botched magic, it meant I could sever the connection whenever I wanted. So, no “trapping people on their phylactery” type of shenanigans that populated stories about liches.

For me, it was just a glorified teleportation platform.

I remembered Emperor Amyr telling me I was allowed to take a look at the dynastic library, and though I doubted it could offer me more knowledge than the overly complete book that Eygaz wrote, it still was a mage’s duty to utterly and thoroughly rape a library for that sweet, sweet knowledge. Even forbidden ones.

Especially forbidden ones.

As I manifested my Astral Self in the palace’s basement, I was surprised by the lack of a welcoming entourage. Normally one of the family members would come to receive me.

I didn’t want to stay here all day, so I walked outside the dimly lit basement into the luxurious palace. I nearly gave a heart attack to a passerby maid, but with a slight bow and a non-intrusive cast of Charm, she went her merrily way, albeit a bit confused to see the ghost of an ellari on the heart of the draconid civilization.

They should think about having mages as servants instead of normal people. I didn’t even try with that illusion.

I boosted my Astral Self with a Concealment spell, so normal servants didn’t even acknowledge my presence as I walked right beside them. It took me a long time to find the library, basically because I asked for no instructions, but the fact that my avatar could walk through walls sped up the job incredibly.

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I first found a library. But that was a normal one. With normal and boring books like politics, history, and geography. What you would expect of a royal family.

But then hidden away, there was a small room, with only a bookshelf worth of books that contained the hot stuff: curses, forbidden knowledge, and high-tiered spells. What you would want to find in a royal family’s library.

I grabbed a random book from the shelf, the only trait I used in my choice was that the cover had a nice violet color.

I am a simple man.

I had some minimal difficulties picking up the book as Astral Self wasn’t thought to handle things, but as a corporeal construct, it could interact with matter.

The contents were quite boring, not really interesting, and certainly not forbidden knowledge. Just some notes on mysticism by a long-gone member of the imperial family.

Closed in the hidden library, I couldn’t tell how much time had happened. My real body was meditating at my dormitory on Lan’el, but no one had come to tell me anything, so it was either still evening or it was deep in the night.

I was amazed I hadn’t exploited this use of the Astral Self before. Meditating and working at the same time felt like something I should have done before. My body was slowly increasing my mana pool as my mind and soul were reading hundreds of kilometers away.

I skimmed through nine books before someone decided to talk to me. But it wasn’t in Ferilyn, but in the hidden library.

“Stealing knowledge?” The black draconid asked as he lay his shoulder on the wall.

“Your father was the one who told me about this place,” I answered Eygaz.

The draconid prince scoffed, his sharp fangs faintly showing through his open lips. Then he grabbed one of the books I had looked at.

“Ictoryz’s Souls and their Effects on the Body, really?” His snarky attitude wasn’t appreciated, though at least he wasn’t trying to kill me right now, which I considered a victory in my book. “You won’t find anything here beyond what I already wrote in my book. I only focused on the better, most educative parts, you see.”

“I was aware of that before I began searching, but I am a disciple of a healer.” I closed the current book in my hands. “I should learn more about what it means to heal through the soul.”

“That Alatea woman, right?” Eygaz added dismissively.

“What did you do to her?” I looked right into his crimson eyes.

“Who knows?” The prince blinked, cutting the connection. He didn’t want to engage in a compulsion battle.

“Another question then.” I stopped looking at him directly. “Why did you leave your family for two whole decades and stayed in Ferilyn?”

“You feel powerful, ellari. Don’t you?” His posture shifted to a more aggressive one. “Just because I let you go free after you reunited me with my family, it doesn’t mean that you won. And it certainly doesn’t mean you are entitled to answers.”

There was a reason why he wasn’t willing to share that information. But the reaction I got from his soul wasn’t exactly clear. Was he actively suppressing my sight, or were his feelings just that complex?

“But how old is your sister, though? She is young, isn’t she? Thirty perhaps?” I taunted.

“Don’t dare finish that sentence,” Eygaz growled, his dragon blood showing off.

“What a poor soul, two-thirds of her life she spent without her brother and the man in question didn’t even care about h—”

The dragonborn lunged towards my Astral Self, though he harmlessly passed through it.

“I’m not physically here, remember?”

“And your phylactery is here, remember?” There wasn’t a playful tone in his voice like mine, it was full of hostility. Thought that didn’t mean mine was free from it. I was angry at the man, he tried to kill me and had clearly done something to Alatea.

“Go ahead, destroy it.” I nonchalantly told. “I no longer need it; it was just a tool to survive the encounter against you.”

The hidden meaning behind my words being that I had planned all of this. Which of course, I had done none of it. Yet his face wasn’t littered with frustration or anger, but calm understanding.

“You tell the truth. The phylactery truly doesn’t mean anything to you.”

Motherf-

He had read my soul! I mean, I always do that to other people, but they don’t notice, so it’s fair game. I felt assaulted.

Did I?

No, not really. I wasn’t a hypocrite. At least not a big one.

But Eygaz’s reading of my soul was flawed. I may not care about the properties of the phylactery, but I did care about the artifact. Especially this pseudo-transformer of mana that I had accidentally created.

We arrived at an impasse. I looked at the draconid prince, and he looked at me.

“So,” I broke the silence, “Did you want to tell me something, or are you just here to bother me?”

“You surely are cocky for someone who almost died in my grasp.” Eygaz snorted.

“Well, we are separated by a whole sea. That eases my mind.”

“Have you forgotten that my phylactery remains on Ferilyn?” As a matter of fact, yes, I had forgotten. “I could teleport back there as you did, and I could kill you.”

“Then you would have to fight your fair share of eleven-star mages.”

The draconid’s slanted pupils dilated as he pondered over my words. Then I felt his Soul Sight upon my avatar and soul.

“Oh.” The small sound escaped his mouth. “I guess it was a given that you would be a mage of the eleventh star after you managed to cast Phylactery Bonding.”

And that’s where he was wrong. I hadn’t managed to cast the eleven-star soul spell, not perfectly. My newly gained rank came from my healed soul, and a nudge from my superb-true affinity.

I had yet to achieve the eleventh star like the rest of the mages did, but my method of doing so wasn’t invalid by any means.

“Is that all?” I added. “I would like to go back to my lecture.”

The prince gazed at me scornfully and left the room without saying a single word. I knew it was stupid to make myself an enemy of an eleven-star mage, especially one who could teach me more about mysticism.

But I’d be damned if I said it didn’t feel nice going all out with my words for once.