Chương 128: Book 3 Chapter 6 - Victor's A Friend

Back at the estate, just north of Portish, Dustin had the cooks prepare a meal and some snacks for the group. They had learned last time that this process could take quite a while. They commandeered one of the guest houses, which were all vacant at present. The large group gathered in the living room of the house, while Victor prepared one of the bedrooms for the ritual. Kiara was surprised at the slight differences in how Victor prepared the room.

Rather than painting runes on the floor, he simply stood in the center of the room, and the runes just… appeared – carved into the wood of the floor as if they had always been there.

"Don't worry," he said as she looked at the floor in surprise.

"I can put it back the way it was after we're done."

"Ah, sounds good," she said in relief. Not that the runes were ugly or anything, they were actually quite beautiful, but they felt out of place for a bedroom in a house. They brought the new guards in one by one, and Victor performed the ritual for each soul oath. It was much the same as the first time they'd done it, only this time his eyes glowed much more brightly, and the entire room seemed to fill with his presence.

Like the room was his, and everything inside it belonged to him, including Kiara and the other participant. After that first soul oath, Kiara began to suspect that Victor had undergone some kind of qualitative improvement. She wondered if maybe he had advanced to tier 6 since she last saw him, but [Magical Sense 4] still showed him as a tier 5. Perhaps he had developed a concept around soul oaths? That might explain it. Another difference was that Victor didn't take as long to recover in between each ritual.

In fact, he took no breaks at all, simply going from one ritual to the next with a smile. She realized that his mana capacity must have also improved, since last time he'd needed time to recover some mana in between each ritual. After the rituals were all finished, when it was just her and Victor in the room, she once again analyzed him with [Magical Sense 4], at which point he glanced over at her and smiled.

"You are being less reserved about things than normal today, Lady Yountal. I will admit that I'm not always able to guess your true intentions, for which I must apologize. I do, however, think that I understand your intentions here, and will happily oblige while I am in your home. I'm sure you understand my reasons for masking my true tier in public, though."

She furrowed her eyebrows at his statement, unsure of what he meant until she reached out with [Magical Sense 4] again, this time to discover that he showed up as a tier 6 instead of a tier 5. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"Oh, congratulations! That's really great, Victor, I'm so happy for you." He smiled shyly at the compliment.

"Would you by chance be so kind as to ask your employees not to spread rumors about my advancement? Things like this tend to get blown out of proportion once they reach the right ears." That made sense. Kiara was sure that the royals would be highly interested to find out they had a new tier 6 in the kingdom. She wouldn't want that kind of scrutiny herself, and respected his desires to remain incognito on the subject. She nodded readily.

"Yes, of course. Only Zoey and Yeager are capable of gauging your tier, I'll make sure that neither of them says anything to anyone about it." He bowed his head appreciatively.

"My deepest gratitude, Lady Yountal, I knew you would understand." Kiara made her way to the living room to where the others were all seated, snacking on the food the cooks had brought over from the main house. She motioned to both Zoey and Yeager, and they stood and made their way over.

"Come into the room for a second with me and Victor, I have a favor to ask of both of you." They followed her in, and she shut the door behind them.

"Go ahead and use your magic sense to see Victor's true tier," she instructed.

"He has generously offered to let us see it while he's here." They both looked at her in confusion for a moment until they reached out to see what she meant. Their eyes widened in shock at what they saw. The blood drained from Yeager's face and he fell to his knees in a deep bow, pressing his forehead to the ground.

"Lord Mage, I had no idea." Victor snorted out a laugh, glancing at Kiara for some strange reason. She wasn't sure why.

"Get up," he said softly to Yeager. Yeager hastily complied.

"Relax, Yeager," Kiara said.

"Victor's a friend." The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Victor's face brightened at that statement, and he turned to look at Kiara. Maybe it was too bold to claim friendship when they really didn't know each other all that well, but that was how she saw him. He had only ever been nice to her, had helped her out more than once, and had even given her an incredible enchanted sword.

She nodded to him and smiled, confirming her assessment of their relationship. He beamed in response.

"You honor me, Lady Yountal." She turned back to Zoey and Yeager.

"Victor's advancement is a wonderful personal achievement, of course, but it could garner a lot of unwanted attention. He wishes it to remain a secret for the time being, and has only allowed us to see his true tier as a personal favor since he is here in our home. Would you both please keep it a secret?" They both nodded hastily. Yeager bowed to Victor again.

"I would never dream of revealing it, your lordship." Victor glanced at Kiara again, a bit uncomfortably. He must not want Yeager bowing to him like that. Kiara agreed, it made her uncomfortable when people bowed and scraped around her. She reached over and nudged Yeager's arm.

"Hey, knock that off. Just treat him like a normal person." Yeager hurriedly bowed to her.

"Of course, my lady." She sighed.

"Treat me like a normal person too." She knew that request would take some time for Yeager to get comfortable with, Kiara was a bit unusual compared to most nobles and wealthy families in that regard. Even so, she wanted him to start getting familiar with the idea. She turned to Zoey.

"Zoey, while Victor is here, why don't you ask him a few questions about advancing to tier 4?" Zoey's eyes lit up and she turned to Victor.

"Really? Can I?" He nodded, a genuine smile forming on his lips.

"Go right ahead."

"Well," she began, "I have already developed three concepts." Yeager glanced at her jealously. As a newly minted tier 3, he likely hadn't had the chance yet. Victor simply nodded, stroking his chin.

"Fire, water, and wind, correct?" Zoey's eyes widened.

"How did you…" He waved his hand dismissively.

"Once you get to where I'm at, those kinds of things become readily apparent. Elemental concepts are common for your level, and usually a wise choice. I assume you chose your concepts based on your personal affinity for certain types of mana?" Zoey nodded.

"My primary attacks all center around those three elements."

"Mind showing me?" Victor queried. They made their way out into the yard, then moved a distance from the buildings. Zoey gave herself some space, then spun up her signature maelstrom of wind and fire, forming a water whip in each hand. Kiara's danger sense went wild, and she could tell that Zoey had improved in a number of ways since she'd last seen her do this. Her fight with Ugor had likely helped more than she realized in that regard.

Yeager's eyes went wide once again, this time with amazement, as he watched Zoey's display of power and control. His jaw fell open and he backed away instinctively. Victor, on the other hand, strode casually into the maelstrom, looking around and nodding to himself. Kiara did spot a thin mana shield that had formed around his person, but none of Zoey's magic seemed to even reach it. Anything that drew near Victor simply dissolved, reminding Kiara of her [Personal Spell Negation] ability.

She wondered how he was doing it. Did all high-tier mages have that ability? Victor signalled for Zoey that he'd seen enough, and the tempest died down. He smiled brightly at her.

"That is quite extraordinary, young lady. Very nice, indeed. Your control is exceptional, and the raw power you are packing into each of your spells is wonderful for your age and tier. I see that you've begun layering your techniques as well, which is great. I'm not an expert warrior by any means, but the ones that I know all use similar techniques." Zoey beamed at the praise.

"Continue practicing that," Victor continued, "but it's not a blocker to your advancement. From what I can see, your next steps will be to enlarge and strengthen your mana channels, which should help considerably with both your mana control and the compression of mana within your spells and constructs. After that, you'll work on strengthening the walls of your mana core in preparation for your breakthrough.

"The breakthrough itself consists of two steps. First, you'll compress the mana within your core by a factor of 3. You'll need to maintain a tight hold on that compression while you do the second step, which is to infuse all three of your concepts into your core. That will trigger the breakthrough to tier 4." Zoey nodded.

"They told me as much at the academy, but I don't quite understand that last step. What does it mean to infuse my concepts into my core?" Victor got a far-off look in his eye as he explained, pulling up memories from long ago.

"To answer that, I'll start with a brief foundational explanation on how magic works, or to be more precise, how we interact with it. The first thing to understand is the relationship between your spirit and your body.

"Your spirit exercises control over your body, giving you the ability to move, walk, and breathe. This is the first level of maturity that a spirit reaches, something that an infant practices once they are born. It takes the average person fourteen years or so to mature their spirit to the point of taking the next step, which is to begin sensing ambient mana and forming a mana core." Kiara listened intently.

This was more detail that Belliston had ever gone into, and with Victor having just progressed to tier 6, he had plenty of personal experience to back up what he was telling them. He continued, "Your mana core helps process the ambient mana, attuning it to your spirit, which allows your spirit to then form it, shape it, and control it as you cast spells. The ambient mana itself is too foreign for your spirit to control until after it has passed through your core.

For those that succeed in forming a core, they are able to use the mana that has passed through their core to fuel their spells." Zoey and Yeager both nodded along in understanding as he explained.

"So at this point, your spirit has the ability to control your body, and to control mana that has passed through your core. The next level of spiritual maturity is the ability to suppress others' spiritual abilities. This is commonly referred to as a personal aura. It is a spiritual pressure that you can exert on others, limiting their own ability to control their body or their mana." Victor's aura leaked out then as a demonstration.

Very lightly at first, then increasing in strength until it was far beyond what Kane's had ever felt like.