CHAPTER 58: THE NEXT STEPS

Soren walked behind Sienna as she led him through the garden. He glanced back at the now somewhat distant stone canopy filled to the brim with books and scrolls. The more he looked at it, the more he yearned to stay—it was just that beautiful. There was an air of calmness and tranquility that imbued itself across the entire garden that he just couldn’t understand. It felt as if all his worries were nothing but dust sprinkled across his raincoat—ones that he could simply blow away.

“Are you sure we should leave Cassia there?” He asked. She was still sleeping in the canopy. He glanced back in front of him, the cyan robed woman’s silky white hair draped down to her bare feet, fluttering with the wind as she took step after step. She giggled faintly,

“Leave her, she will wake up on her own. She has homework to do in that canopy anyway.”

Soren nodded. They continued to walk in silence for a while longer. His thoughts were churning, thinking about everything that has led to this moment. Everything that he must do from now on. What he was attempting was outright suicidal. And this wasn’t something only he believed—even Sienna herself had made the choice seem fairly bleak.

And there was also the matter regarding his ‘Fate’. For whatever reason, his arrival in this world was purposefully planned—he had some sort of role to play in Yarian. He had no idea what this supposedly meant for him, but it did make him afraid a little. The notion that he was nothing but a pawn in some celestial game that he had no understanding of only added to his worries. He had thought that maybe he could take comfort in that fact, since it might mean that his survival was guaranteed if he had a role to accomplish, but the same couldn’t be said if his failure to control his Soul Chain’s instability a year from now was a part of this grandeur plan.

The words Mr Unknown had told him rang faintly in his mind, Explore, Dream, Discover. That was the goal of his journey.

Does it have anything to do with that question? He pondered. It was the question that led him on this transmigratory trip to begin with. A question not even the ritual he performed had an answer for.

Soren sighed as he kept his pace with Mistress Sienna. Whatever fate had in store for him, he needed to prepare for it. And that question as well… He needed to look more into it.

“Say,” he spoke faintly. “Since you are offering me an accord, does this mean you are willing to accept me as a student?”

Her feet glided across the cyan grass, flickers of starlight flashing faintly beneath them with every step. She chuckled, “Nay.”

“Nay?” Soren frowned.

“How can I accept students when I myself am a student?” She retorted.

Soren couldn’t help wanting to gasp. “You? A student?” It felt like a lie.

She giggled, “My teacher, Archmage Solyara, had not yet given me permission to accept students.”

“B-but…”

“Myrin and Cassia? They aren’t formal students. I am nothing more than a tutor for them. They are talented enough to reach the 3rd Circle on their own.” She glanced back at him and smiled, “And you too, have the skills to reach their level without my help. In fact, you’re probably the most likely to not need my help.”

Soren couldn’t help but blush a little—he scratched his hair. “Still, more than once, they called you their teacher.”

She sighed, “I guess I did teach them a lot when I first invited them to my guild. Especially Myrin.” Her lips curved into a smile, “He was such a fool when I first met him. Continued trying to learn artfully useless magecraft, even when it didn’t match his affinity. Watching him felt like seeing a fish that was hoping to fly. Maybe it's this same obsession with music that eventually led him to obtaining that abstract rune…

“But I digress. They may call me teacher, but I do not think I deserve such a role.”

Soren nodded. More blackmail on Myrin, he thought.

“But even so,” she followed. “That doesn’t mean I won’t tutor you. Whenever you feel stumped, feel free to come to me for assistance. And I will still be assigning you books to read—you have a lot to catch up with, unlike other aspiring magi your age.”

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“That doesn’t sound too bad,” he replied with a smile. “My abilities are practically made for reading.”

She glanced back at him, her star-filled eyes were a lot sharper this time. “Are you sure about that?”

“Huh?”

“From what I understand of your [Eyes of the Fairy] ability, as well as [Record] which acts as a bridge between you and your Soul Weapon, they are not omniscient. And I don’t mean that in regards to information reliability—I am not sure whether it has the ability to filter through lies—if it did, that would be absolutely spectacular. I mean it in the sense of information assimilation.”

“Assimilation?” His head tilted sideways.

Mistress Sienna nodded. “Hearing and memorizing information does not equate to mastering it. Aren’t you speaking Vinuan right now? You most likely learned it using your abilities. Are you completely fluent now?”

Soren frowned. “Nay,” he answered. His language skills had definitely improved from where he was a week ago, but it was still somewhat unnatural. Even now, there was a clear and distinct accent in the way he talked. Some words were harder to roll off the tongue then others. To fix this, he had tried using [Eyes of the Fairy] a few more times to listen in on conversations from Myrin or Tina, but that proved to be ineffective—nothing new could be [Record]ed.

“No matter how fast you can acquire knowledge, there will always be a limitation. Your mind may know the words to speak, but your tongue is still not used to saying said words. Your hands are not used to writing Vinuan script. That is an obstacle that can only be overcome through practice.

“The same applies to concepts in magecraft. Even if you are able to [Record] entire codexes of knowledge, none of it will matter if you aren’t able to apply said knowledge correctly.”

“I see,” he murmured. “Then I will take things slow.”

She nodded, “Good, good.”

By now, they had walked to the edge of the underground forest. A stone corridor leading into the cliffside of the cave was only fifteen or so away from them. It was different from the one Cassia had led him through—they were heading in a different direction entirely.

“Say, you didn’t tell me where we are heading? Does it have to do with the accord?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “Before we conduct the accord between us, I will first be casting a magecraft spell on you.”

“Directly on me?”

“Indeed. It will be one that will give you an edge a year from now when you begin to fight against your instability once more.”

She’s adding guardrails, he thought. It should have been obvious to him. The moment the freeze on his Soul Chain’s fate ceases, his instability will return to him at full force. Any form of protection, even if it was just enough to stall for time, would be helpful.

“The pain you will be experiencing will be immense, Mr. Traveler. This magecraft spell will have a mechanism that activates it automatically the moment your Soul Chain unfreezes. It should give you a bit of protection, but how long that lasts…” She stayed silent for a few more seconds.

“... I estimate it will only give you another minute at most. Maybe even less if the instability had grown drastically more than what I could predict.”

Soren smiled, “That will be more than enough, thank you.” Even though he said that, he couldn’t help but want to bury his head under a pillow. His prospects were truly bleak.

“During this year, your biggest challenge will most likely be finding an Abstract Rune to merge with. Your second node demands one. Just one insight fragment is enough.”

He had heard about this from Myrin. A Soul Chain’s stability relies heavily on the Abstract Rune it binds. While a Soul Chain exerts force on an Abstract Rune, the Abstract Rune exerts force on the Soul Chain. It was through this balance that stability could be found. But that stability could only last for so long—another Abstract Rune must be added as a new counterweight.

Still, he had no idea why this process was even as hard as Myrin described it as.

“Abstract Runes have distinct personalities,” she said. “They hold influence over certain concepts and ideas, and these ideas may not mesh well with others. Sometimes, two different Abstract Runes can hold contradictory beliefs that make them inherently opposed to one another. And then there’s also the matter of Soul Chain compatibility.

“The point is, simply finding an Abstract Rune isn't enough. You need to find one that already meshes with your Soul Weapon and the current set of runes that govern its existence. This get’s more and more difficult as you unlock more of your nodes—you will be subject to the criteria of multiple runes, all of which have a say in what new rune you merge with.”

Soren couldn’t help but despair. This is going to be a tough year, he thought to himself.

She giggled faintly at his silent reaction. “Which brings me to my next point. Before I cast that magecraft spell, I think it's best we conduct a Soul Dive test.”