Tantalus and Rhea looked at him like they had seen a ghost.

"Lysander was injured in an altercation with Tantalus. I was told that you were there. I want to know what happened." Ajax commanded, pushing through the group as the towering figure quickly parted them.

Everyone was watching him now, waiting to hear what he had to say. He spotted the couple who had left him for dead, observing with worried expressions, and part of him wanted to grin at seeing their unease.

"I was out for a walk and came across Lysander and Tantalus fighting over Rhea. Tantalus drew his sword, and Lysander, who was unarmed, got badly hurt. I intervened to stop the fight before he could land a finishing blow and had Lysander taken to the healer."

"Tantalus then sneak attacked me as I walked away, so I had no choice but to fight back. We exchanged blows, and I realised the fight was getting dangerous when Rhea joined in against me. I then used my illusion skill to fake an injury, and they left." He finished, leaving out a few details.

Staring at the pair, he saw the wheels turning in their heads as they processed what he said. Their expressions went from worry to relief and then to anger. They had obviously taken him appearing here uninjured and his explanation as the truth, their fury rising at the perceived trick.

"Bastard, you're lying. I never sneak attacked anyone," Tantalus shouted with clenched fists after coming to his senses moments later.

"Watch your mouth, boy," Ajax warned, glaring at the outburst along with everyone else but Rhea, who had her head down and the two boys, who looked like they wanted to be anywhere but here.

"His story partly matches what these two have told me, and as such, it's on me as the village head to determine the punishment for seriously injuring another villager. For you, Tantalus, your weapon will be taken away until you can show restraint, and ten lashings to be administered by me. As for you, little girl, two days in the cage for instigating a fight and attacking fellow villagers." Ajax stated, sounding like a judge delivering a verdict.

"I won't stand for this. He's lying. Rhea, tell them!" Tantalus shouted as he stepped away from the group, pointing at him, spittle flying from his mouth.

Rhea just remained between her parents with her head hung low and refused to look up.

"This isn't the city. You don't get to do whatever you like here. Hand over your weapon now, or I'll take it from you." Ajax said, raising his voice as he held his hand for the expectant sword to be passed over.

"You can't do this; this is my sword. My father won't let anyone take it away from me! Tantalus yelled as he retreated further back, his hand holding the sword's hilt tucked in his belt.

Ajax moved like a blur at the defiance, and within a moment, the boy was disarmed and subdued, held bent over by the neck. Ajax's hands were so large that they looked a little comical, nearly wrapping around his head.

"Get off me. I'll tell my father." Tantalus screamed, but the grip didn't lessen.

"I've known your father a long time, and he'd be ashamed to see how his son is acting today. Be quiet before I add more lashings to your tally and have you crawl the entire way back to the city. Let's go." Ajax said, raising his voice and silencing the youth.

Ajax didn't let go and marched the boy back towards the village, still holding him by the scruff of the neck. Tantalus wisely kept quiet this time. Everyone else who had been watching left with them, apart from his parents. Rhea glanced at him as she passed, and he could see nothing but hatred, but didn't care.

She would have to spend two days in the cage without food or water in the middle of the village, in full view of everyone. It wasn't as heavy a punishment as Tantalus, but it wasn't pleasant.

Until now, the large metal cage was hardly ever used apart from a place to throw one of the drunken villagers until they slept it off. This might be the first time he recalled someone had been placed there like this.

It would disgrace her family, and it wasn't something to be taken lightly. In this world, a person's reputation was something that people thought very highly of, which would leave her and maybe her family by extension with a black mark in the village.

After watching the group walk into the distance, he turned to walk towards the door before his father pulled him back.

"Want to tell me why there's blood on you?" Marcus said, turning him and looking into his eyes.

He had thought that no one would notice, but his father appeared more observant than he had expected.

"Lysander was hurt pretty badly." He replied, refusing to drop his gaze.

Having lived in a boarding school full of other boys, he had learned a couple of tricks about deception. There were two ways to tell a lie that sounded believable.

The first was to use a half-truth and let the other person fill in the blanks themselves. The other was to use a statement that led them in a direction of thought so they arrived at the destination themselves. He preferred the second one because he wasn't technically lying that way, and it made him feel better.

Marcus looked at him briefly before letting him carry on into the house. Sometimes, he thought about letting his parents know about his core, but he always decided against it.

Doing so would open up too many questions, and he'd have to explain about Earth about Turok and everything that had happened, and he felt some things were best left alone. Sometimes Ignorance truly is bliss.

He walked to his room and stripped off, piling his dirty clothes in the corner. His mother would have to clean and repair them, and he felt a little bad about that, but in truth, this was all because of those two and not his fault.

He changed and spent some time reverse cycling, ensuring his core had no issues. After that, he left his room and sat at the table once he had calmed down. It was time to craft his first inscription and he wasn't going to let his experience today affect his training or his ability to function.

He'd saved a few of the better pieces of paper for this and had the used ones recycled. Spending time with the twins, he'd found they knew of a way to reuse the older paper by cutting it up and soaking it in water, ending with a press. It wasn't a complex process, and it took longer to dry. That's what he used to practise on.

The ones he had now were much finer quality, not too far from some back on Earth, just thicker and more yellow than white. He grabbed all the necessary tools and ingredients and set them out ready, uncapping the glass pot.

His parents went into the village for something, so he had peace as he started by forming his pen and filling it with the clear liquid with tiny golden crystals floating in it, giving it a shake.

He made a few test lines on spare paper, ensuring the inscription ink flowed smoothly. Looking at the design splayed out next to him, he calmed his mind and started to copy it.

Putting pen to paper, he channelled time essence into the design. He'd chosen this as time was the most reliable of his three essences. Space and illusion should work, but as they were more unreliable in how they flowed as essence, he felt it best to avoid them for now. That's why he also didn't use all three combined. He would test them all in turn before doing that.

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Activating his soul aperture, he withdrew a stream of spirit essence. He merged this with the time essence just like he had practised before, steadily infusing it into the ink using his willpower.

The ink glowed white as he began copying the design, making sure to go slow and take his time. It was all going fine until near the end when he made a mistake, but he didn't stop. Even if this was ruined, it was still practice, and he carried on, completing the inscription without further issues.

He watched the ink set hardening into a shiny white design with golden inlays. He might get Marcus to test it anyway, but he didn't have much hope of getting it to function. The mistake was especially noticeable.

After drinking water, he reviewed what he did wrong in his mind before moving on to a blank piece of paper and starting again.

The crafting went smoother this time, and he completed the design per the illustration. He noticed the telltale glow of a complete inscription quickly fade away, letting him know he had successfully created his first one.

Part of him wanted to celebrate and run to find his father to get the design tested, but a more prominent part wanted to strike whilst the iron was hot and carry on.

Deciding on the latter, he moved on to using space essence and crafted another one that went okay. It was slightly lacking in quality, but it should work.

The design he crafted with illusion essence also went okay until he messed up near the end as a group of shouting children ran past the house, breaking his concentration.

He didn't let that get to him and finished the inscription and put it with the other failed one. The next attempt was without issue, and he added it next to the completed pair.

It was time to combine all three of his essences and see how that went. He didn't anticipate any issues, but he felt starting with one essence was more straightforward and allowed him to better grasp the flow of mixing energies.

Standing up, he stretched and moved around a little to loosen him up, taking on more water before sitting back down, ready.

The process was a little more involved, and the issue he had now was more in the form of control as he watched a section of the ink turn black instead of the shimmering white, denoting an application failure. Like always, he used it as practice and eventually got the hang of mixing these essences with spirit power into the ink.

His next attempt met with triumph, but a significant difference with the inscription baffled him.

It was far brighter and otherworldly looking on completion compared to the others he had crafted. Whilst the earlier ones were more a shimmering white, this was like a god had drawn it using the sun's rays as ink.

At first, he thought it might be a near-perfect quality, but when checking it against the other three, it was slightly worse than two.

Huh, the only real difference was the mixture of essences used.

Could that be it?

Taking his time, he repeated the process but failed as he rushed too much, letting anticipation get the better of him. Starting again after steadying his mind, he drew out his best inscription yet using all his essences, and he was shocked to find it had the same mystical-looking outline. The only real change was that it looked even brighter, and he attributed that to how well he'd drawn it out.

I wonder.

Standing up, he left the inscriptions on the table and left the house, walking around to the rear. Standing near the battered wooden target out the back, he used the Many Forms Mirage to conjure a knife.

This time, the skill took a long time to form, and that was because he was using his combined essence to form it and not illusion essence like he usually did.

He hadn't thought to do this before as the manual had explicitly stated that only illusion essence could be used.

It took him longer than expected as he had to test and adjust the amount of combined essence, spirit and will used before he got it right.

To him, the knife he created now looked the same as always, but it had an extra layer of realness. There wasn't a sense of it being like a hard balloon anymore.

Flipping it over, he gripped it and threw it at the target. The mirage knife flew true and struck the wood with a thud instead of dissipating into the air in a puff of essence. It sunk deep and sat there like the real deal would have had he used a metal one.

After some time, it winked out of existence, but that was just the energy running out.

It actually worked!

Watching the weapon vanish, a hypothesis about what was going on formed in his head. The combination of his essences was what had obviously caused this change. There were sections in his mother's books relating to mixing essences, but none had ever mentioned something like what had happened with his final two inscriptions. At most, mixing essences was used to create more unique designs, but they didn't look as lifelike as the ones he had crafted.

All this made him think back to Turok when he mentioned illusion essence and how he asked whether illusion essence was created naturally or if it existed because a person had seen the illusion.

He felt that question hinted at something profound. He had always sensed that there was more than meets the eye with illusion essence, even without the obvious pun, and perhaps this was part of what was going on.

He felt it was similar to the old saying, 'If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it, does it make a noise?'.

If illusion essence and illusions only exist naturally when there is a form of consciousness around to see it, didn't that mean it was tied to existence? It was creation through thought, much like what he did with his skill.

Add to that profundity space and time essence, and who knows what could happen. These were two other concepts back on Earth that required a very in-depth knowledge. All three of his essences had such a vast chasm of understanding that he needed to fill, he came to realise.

None of this really made any sense to him, as it was more a collection of jumbled thoughts at the moment that hurt his head. He knew the answer lay somewhere in all that confusion, but he didn't have the knowledge to arrive at it yet.

Walking back inside, he was surprised to find both parents sitting at the table and waiting for him as they inspected his work.

"You did it, and more than one at that. Are these your failures?" Valeria excitedly said as he walked in, pointing at the stack.

"Yeah. I just need Father to test these ones out." He said with a nod and pointed at the collection of complete inscriptions.

"What's going on with these two?" Marcus said as he collected the inscriptions and pointed at the two that stood out.

He explained what he'd done to create them, his suspicions on how it happened, and told them about his improved skill, even going as far as creating a dagger to show them.

"That's... I've never heard of anything like this, have you?" Valeria said, sounding confused as she looked at Marcus.

"No," Marcus quietly replied as if lost in thought.

"Shall we test them?" He eagerly asked as he stared at them both, but more his father as he would be the one doing it.

"Yeah, let's see how you did. I'll start with the normal-looking ones first." Marcus replied, standing up and holding the small piece of paper.

He watched as his father channelled essence into the first inscription, causing the runes to light white like an LED torch that fired out a light cone, illuminating the room wherever it was pointed. The light it gave off was pretty substantial, and there would be no issues navigating the dark with this.

Marcus went through the others in turn, getting similar results from the one he had used moments ago before arriving at one of the strange-looking ones.

"Okay, now let's see what this one does," Marcus said, and he turned to point the runes towards an open dark bedroom as he repeated the process, but the result was far more drastic.

*Flash*

The entire room lit up a pure white, and he couldn't help but close his eyes at first. Opening them, it took him a couple of moments to realise he could still make out shapes, but everything was bathed in white. It reminded him of the effects of a flash-bang grenade he had seen in games but without the noise.

*Fizzle*

A noise came from where Marcus had been, and he turned towards it in time to see the blinding light fade, and the piece of paper Marcus was holding turned to ash.

It took them a couple of minutes for their eyes to adjust, his longer than his parents. No one said anything for a while as they stared at the remaining inscription before Marcus picked it up and tore it in half.

"You shouldn't let anyone else know about this. For now, just stick to using regular essence when crafting. There are people out there who would capture you if they found out you could increase the potency of a Talisman to such a degree. They would force you to do nothing but craft for them." Marcus said as he threw the remains of the one he had just torn into the fire.

He watched the paper burn and noted the name his father used. A Talisman was how cultivators referred to the designs drawn on paper or objects like wooden plates. These were ordinarily single-use or short-term use, depending on what was inscribed.

The carved crystals were called Sigil Crystals, or just Sigils for short, and these were the correct term for any of the essence crystals that housed an inscription. What the villagers called light stones was, in fact, a Sunlight Sigil, but lightstone was just easier.

As for what his father had warned him about, he didn't doubt the man. For now, he wouldn't mix all his essences into future inscriptions, but he couldn't help but wonder what would happen if he carved one on a light-attributed essence crystal.

They would only activate at night, so he could create one and leave it out in the day to see what happens when it goes off from a safe distance. Would it turn night to day? He speculated that it would just do what it usually did but much brighter, with the stored essence running out faster.

He really wanted to find out.

"Sit down, son. We have something to talk to you about." Marcus declared, causing him to return to the moment and away from his wild daydreams.

Looking at his parents, who had taken their seats, he spotted an emotion he didn't recognise, and this made him wonder if something serious was up, so he sat down, a knot of worry building.

"What's up?" He asked, looking between them.

His parents turned to look at each other as if communicating who should take the conversation before both turned to him and his mother spoke.

"I'm with child. You're going to be a big brother."