Hir

Hir looked at Ray's head carefully, concentrating as he conjured his mana. A confluence of mana appeared before him. A collection of red gas, meeting some sort of yellow powder, their confluence producing black glitter as Ray worked to detoxify the water.

A Fae of mixed heritage. Hir knew of them, they were rare but not unheard of. What did worry him was that he didn't recognize the mana type of the parents? Not any of the normal ones, that much he could tell.

But whatever, he didn't have time to wonder after Ray's ancestry, that could happen after. Perhaps the boy knew what house he belonged to. Hir targeted Ray's brain, sending a short, vibrating pulse of mana into it.

The mana would disturb his mind, reducing his consciousness and ability to think. Now for the next part, external stimulus. An army of tiny ants appeared in the water, ready to eat Ray up, as he looked around, trying to figure out why his head was hurting so much.

The first ant struck, biting Ray's foot as it was met with a cloud of shadow. The ant died in seconds. But the death of one did little to dissuade the other attackers, the opposite, in fact. The army moved forward, intent on killing Ray as Hir manipulated it from behind. Ray struck back randomly, panicking as his instincts took over.

The pulse was still reducing his thought process, but Hir could feel Ray's mind fighting back to regain thought, like a muscle that should be relaxing, but kept flexing instead. The illusion had to be convincing, Ray was already recovering thought, but his senses were still impaired. Hir could only sense a few basic thoughts from him, flashes of fear, anger, and confusion as he fought off the army of ants.

Yes, that was what he wanted. The three emotions could easily lead to Ray casting magic. Hir increased the army's size, making the threat appear bigger, and more threatening. Perhaps he should add a few flying ants too?

Yes, they would prove a good distraction. A few larger ants appeared in the air, flying towards Ray as he waved his wand at the army, just waving shadow at it. Had Ray been fully conscious, he’d have noticed that the army could have easily finished him off by now, but that was not what Hir wanted. The ant’s bark had more value than its bite.

Ray's fear increased as ants started biting his face, lashing out in any direction he could to attack, waving his wand around like it was mace. Hir made the ants start climbing Ray's feet, letting those little feet be pricking so that Ray would be aware of their presence.

As predicted, Ray panicked the second an ant leg touched his skin, he pointed his wand at it, shooting black glitter out at unreasonable rates. The wand began to heat up as he channeled as much mana as he could into the cast.

A massive explosion of mana followed as Ray panicked, flinging the ants away. Or at least that's how it looked to Ray. Hir had nullified the attack long ago, the Tier 13 spell stood no chance against his power. But the spell had an effect on the mana in Ray's brain. A shockwave ran through the gas and the powder, charging them as they once again produced black glitter. Hir giggled, it was working.

The ants started climbing on Ray again. A few ants settled all across Ray's body, irritating him and causing far too much stimulus for the poor kid. Hir had made sure to magnify the sensation across his body so that he could panic some more. As Hir had predicted, Ray channeled the rest of his mana in a reckless, and ill-advised attack.

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The length of his now crooked wand brightened as it oozed shadow glitter, fracturing at the cracks as it tried to handle the mana. Ray didn't even notice, Hir wouldn't let him. The wand burst apart, scattering mana out in an explosion.

Hir had to spend a second restructuring the illusion from the attack, but it had little effect. Ray collapsed onto the now dry ground, staring at his empty hands. Hir let the water seep in slowly, letting a chattering sound emerge, warning of the ants' advance.

A little mana was creeping back in, but the mana in Ray's brain was shuddering, recognizing that it could not safeguard Ray as it was. Yes, it was happening! But Hir was careful, millennia of life had told him to expect the unexpected. Not to mention the separate heritages, they were irritatingly random.

A Fae child inherited elements from their parents, High Fae more so. But it was different for a child of mixed heritage. The child could inherit the element of one parent, or some variation of their element. Or they could get a new one. Ray's seemed to be the latter. A worrisome thing, the magic was harder to awaken than Hir would have expected.

Why the heck wasn't Ray casting by now? The ants were already nearing him…oh no, no, no. The pulse was dying out! The two mana from Ray's parents were merging in a spiral, and that was having a dispersing effect on Hir's cast! The illusion was disappearing too! What the heck was this? How could some remnant mana just disperse his?

Hir concentrated on Ray's head, letting his consciousness invade the kid's brain. The Fae council would execute him if they knew, but it was needed. Hir felt danger the second he entered. A slight red tinge present in his surroundings. At first, he thought it was some effect from the pulse, but no, this was different.

Hir only recognized it because he'd been to space before, but he was standing in the middle of a nebula. A nebula Fae? No, it couldn't be…but it had to. Hir gulped as he looked around at the surroundings, the mana was just a remnant from when the nebula had given birth to Ray, but it still felt dangerous to him.

A nebula was technically just a cloud of dust and gas, barely denser than the space around it. But that changed when that nebula was Fae. A Fae was made of energy, and so was that nebula. So much energy that every such Fae was at least Tier 30. At birth.

Or at least that's what the legends said, Hir had only heard of them. But there was no doubt in his mind, this was mana from a nebula Fae. A cloud of red gas that had mana. Why hadn't he thought of it before?

Hir ventured deeper warily, the nebula wouldn't have consciousness, but who knew what such Fae left behind to protect their children. The fact that the Fae weren't from this planet was common knowledge in his time, but they hadn't encountered people from outside the planet. What they did have were records. A lot of them.

The nebula Fae had two types of children, other nebula Fae, which were the female versions, a star Fae, the male version.

A Fae rarely died of old age, a nebula Fae even less so. But the black hole was counted as the end of a nebula's life. A nebula would rather kill themselves than turn into a black hole.

Hir reached the confluence point, and encountered the other parent. The yellow powder. Hir touched the mana warily, shocked at the texture. A sand Fae? What the heck was a sand Fae doing in space?

Hir had met a few sand Fae in his life, they were barely even sentient. Just lounged about for the few days they lived, and then died. The only danger was, if they lived longer, they could terrorize children quite easily with their porous forms and tendency to get into their shoes and then not get out until an adult forced them out with mana.

But that rarely happened, they died too fast. A sand Fae just died a few days after it was born unless it was fed mana, but for one to get powerful enough to escape to space?

But Hir had other things to do, Ray was recovering consciousness, and he had to stop it. Or did he? Looking at the confluence, Hir wasn't so sure. The emotion was there, so was the tendency to call the mana out, what remained was the spark.

The thing that brought the magic out. But the kid simply didn't seem to have it in him to spark it. Perhaps it was better to enter the third trial at once. A little more pressure couldn't be that bad.