Chương 26: Sensorial Death

Ch 26: Sensorial Death It felt incredibly satisfying to finally turn the last page of Magica Principia and close the giant tome that every student was expected to finish by their third year at magic school. I smiled at the thought. Only three months had passed since my arrival on Navar, and about a month since the Mimic crisis had ended with me destroying all but one of the privacy-invasive orbs, yet I had already finished the book. And Eric Nevermore had done it the hard way. No shortcuts. No cheating.

No half-assing it.

All it had cost me was skipping every single class and sacrificing some of the time I could have spent with Sahirah instead. But, well... I couldn't complain. She understood. Right now, we were sitting in the library, a place Sahirah had insisted I use more often instead of spending so much time locked in my room. Or rather, our room, since she hadn't slept in her own place a single night since the Mimic infestation ended.

Sahirah noticed how happy I was about finally finishing the enormous book, and she smiled at me, her mismatched eyes meeting mine.

"Congratulations," she said.

"A girl was already getting tired of waiting for that translation spell you've promised so many times." There was a lot of truth behind those words. For reasons I still didn't understand, Sahirah didn't want to attempt advancing to the third stage of dual cultivation until we could properly talk about it first. I found her reasoning challenging because judging by the contents of the Fire Moon book, that third stage seemed to be the least intimate of them all.

The illustration of the Grey couple didn't even show them touching each other during meditation. What confused me even more was that she had no problem repeating the first and second stages every now and then, allowing us to increase our mana a little despite never pushing any further.

"I'm going to skip lunch today to visit the archmage," I said.

"Goodbye kiss?" Instead of replying, she looked around. The library was full, with Driari, Zufi, and even a few Granar returning this place now that the Mimic crisis was over. Still, despite the crowded library, Sahirah stood and leaned across the table, stopping so close that I could feel her breath.

"I'm only doing this in public because this table is special," she said, her lips meeting mine for a brief moment as we closed our eyes.

"Special?" I asked when the kiss ended. I didn't understand what she meant. I looked around, and I found that absolutely nobody was staring at us, the novelty of the rare-species duo who got along a little too well having already worn off.

"Don't tell me you don't remember."

"Remember what?" I kept looking around the room, inspecting the bookshelves and the window, but it was only when my gaze landed on a section of the floor that was slightly different from the rest that something clicked in my mind. This was the same table I'd shared with Sahirah on my very first day at Navar. The place where I had first read the opening pages of Magica Principia. And now it was where I had finished it.

This was also where I'd asked to borrow her mana-conductive ink, and she had somehow had some with her and given me enough to use.

"Of course I remember," I said.

"How could I forget the first time I got you in trouble with Principal Dickhead and you forgave me like you always do?"

"One of these days, I might not forgive you," she said teasingly.

"Of course you will," I said.

"All it takes is a plate full of raw meat and a few improvised lines of my most sincere words, and you can't resist forgiving me." She rolled her eyes but couldn't hide her smirk. Without saying another word, she grabbed her purse and left for lunch, while I prepared myself mentally to meet Elitha.

Because whether I got that spell from her or not would determine both the future of my company and the future of my relationship with this cute mismatched-eyed girl whom I knew so little about, and who was mysteriously refusing to advance to the third stage of dual cultivation.

Elitha's tower stood outside the school's perimeter, and judging by the terrain around it alone, it didn't seem like something that had originally been constructed here, and, instead, was teleported. The tower was tall enough to rival the school, with dark stone walls that were slightly crooked, as though the entire structure had been dropped onto the ground and simply decided to stay there.

Thin lines of mana were visible in places, and I noticed a faint distortion around its edges, making the tower strangely difficult to focus on. More concerning was the feeling in the air. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't hear anything. But every instinct I had was telling me that something was wrong. It was the kind of primal warning that every living creature should recognize without needing to understand it. Danger. Ignoring that feeling since I'd been invited, I made my way toward the door.

When I raised my hand to knock, the door opened by itself, moving at exactly the same speed as my hand as if it were mocking me. I didn't even feel insulted. I was just glad that no security system had accidentally flagged me as an intruder and unleashed something I couldn't even understand against me.

"Hello?" I said as I stepped inside. Only the echo of my own voice answered. Before I could look around properly, my attention was captured by an enormous white crystal. It was roughly the size of my body, hovering in the exact center of the room, halfway between the floor and ceiling. Several distinct mana currents flowed above and below it, feeding into magic circles attached to circular stone platforms. As the door closed behind me, I moved forward, noticing the runes inscribed across the crystal's surface.

They were tiny. Ridiculously tiny. And after just finishing Magica Principia, I couldn't help being fascinated by them. A voice suddenly came from everywhere at once.

"Don't get distracted, little lamb," she said through some means I couldn't understand.

"I'm waiting for you on the upper floor." Suddenly, a path of glowing orbs materialized out of nowhere, as if the ambient mana itself had gathered under the command of some higher force. I followed them with my gaze and discovered a circular staircase leading to the floor above. Two questions immediately emerged. Why the flashy display of power? And more importantly, couldn't she have just teleported me like always instead of forcing me to climb stairs? I sighed and followed the orbs.

After all, I wasn't about to question an archmage's methods just because I didn't feel like walking. I climbed the floors slowly. The second floor was filled with so many beautiful plants bathed in crystal light that it felt like a botanical garden. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. The third floor was a library, and I had to actively resist the urge to stop and check the titles. The fourth floor was the most tempting of all.

Several floating runes hovered suspended in the air, kept in place by some kind of mana field. If I hadn't been absolutely certain Elitha was watching me, I would have stopped to investigate what she was doing there. After that came several floors that looked like recreational spaces, followed by laboratories containing equipment I didn't understand well enough to be interested in. By the time I reached the tenth floor, I was breathing slightly faster from all the climbing. Then I stopped abruptly.

"Welcome to my main lab, little lamb." Elitha Hearthstrong sat cross-legged on a simple towel, most of her body exposed and that same bandana covering her eyes. But the impressive part wasn't her. It was what floated above her. A perfect sphere of water. It was enormous, containing enough water to fill a swimming pool. There was no glass, container, or visible support holding it together.

The surface of the sphere remained perfectly smooth, the water somehow maintaining its shape despite having nothing to contain it. Surface tension alone couldn't possibly explain it. Something else was keeping it from collapsing under gravity. A gravity nullifying spell, most certainly. But what was the purpose of keeping that much water suspended above her? Some kind of insanely difficult gravity-control training? Knowing Elitha's standards, I wouldn't have been surprised.

"I've finished Magica Principia." I glanced around the rest of the room. Items covered the walls: rings, swords, daggers, and all sorts of other objects, each engraved with runes in the same distinctive style that covered Elitha's own body. Was she some kind of item crafter? The rune style really did seem to belong to her.

"Sit down." She pointed toward a spot near her, and I frowned immediately. Ignoring the fact that just being in Elitha's presence was difficult enough, there was also the matter of the enormous ball of water hanging over us. If she lost control of it, this wasn't an amount that would simply give me an unwanted shower. No. With that much water, we were talking about something closer to a swimming pool dropping directly on top of me. The kind of accident that could end me instantly. Elitha read me like an open book.

"What? You think I can't handle a little water, the translation spell, and the connection with this tower all at once without losing control? Are you looking down on me?" My frown deepened. Yeah. Controlling the water wasn't the only thing she was doing at once. Still, had I ever seen even a trace of weakness from Elitha? No. If she said she could handle it, then she could. And I would trust her. I had to crouch to get near her, and even then, sitting cross-legged was pretty uncomfortable.

Yeah, my meditation sessions with Sahirah had made me somewhat more accustomed to it, but I was still very much a fan of chairs and tables. Once I was as comfortable as I could get, I asked,"So, what exactly do you want from me?" I knew Earth's knowledge was her main goal, but what exactly did she want to know, and what did she intend to do with it? Elitha smiled, staring at me through her bandana with some sense that clearly wasn't sight.

"First, I want you to pay what you owe me," she said.

"And you'll pay it by answering one question. The same question you never answered that girl with mismatched eyes in the food court." She paused.

"Who is stronger, your people or mine?" The question itself wasn't something I wanted to answer. But the implications were even more concerning. Elitha had been paying close attention to what Sahirah and I talked about between ourselves. I knew she could do it, and both Sahirah and I had been extra careful, but now that I'd heard confirmation from Elitha's own mouth that she'd been watching us from close by, I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to feel completely at ease again when Sahirah and I were alone in our room.

"I'm sorry," I said to Elitha.

"Can you ask something else? I just don't want to give that kind of information to people who plan to open a portal to Earth. You understand, right? I'm sure you wouldn't want to help another species invade Navar if our roles were reversed." Yeah. I had just said no to an archmage while staring directly into her... bandana. And I wasn't doing it because I was some hero willing to protect humanity at the cost of my life. It was much simpler than that. My parents were still alive on Earth.

I had a few good friends there. And, most importantly, coffee plants grew there. Who would want to ruin all that with a planetary war? Elitha's smile grew wider, as if she were enjoying my resistance.

"I could extract everything I wanted from your head if I were willing to ruin your little brain, human." I smiled back at her.

"You wouldn't do that," I said.

"You're not evil. Your own people might think you are, but I know you're not. You've always been fair enough with me." She let out an amused huff.

"How can you be so sure? You barely know me, little lamb."

"Well," I said, "Principal Dickhead is still alive for once. If you haven't killed someone that insufferable for demanding things from you, then I believe I'll be fine with my polite refusal." This time, I got genuine laughter from her. The sphere of water above us became slightly unstable, and a few drops fell from it, sending a chill down my spine. Could that be my fate? Dying because I made an archmage laugh at the wrong time?

To my relief, her laughter was short-lived, and the sphere of water soon stabilized again.

"Let me tell you a story, little lamb," she said.

"Then I will ask you the same question again, and I hope, for your own good, that I won't hear a second refusal." I nodded, a little concerned by the way she had worded her offer of a story.

"How much do you know about the royal family and the imperial army?"

"Well," I said, "I know they were the sponsors of that gate you showed me." Elitha Hearthstrong didn't judge me for my lack of knowledge like everyone else seemed to, and simply continued.

"I was once a general in that army, one of ten, and the strongest general of my time, though not the most politically influential. What I had in power, I lacked in subservience, and the royals were never particularly fond of me." That wasn't particularly surprising. Lathara had already told me that Elitha wasn't exactly a role model to be followed and had likely been banished to this school, so hearing that she had a troubled relationship with the royals wasn't unexpected. I simply nodded.

"One day, a few years ago, before your arrival in this world, every single general was summoned to a royal audience," she said.

"It was about the construction of the gates."

"The gates?" I failed to hide my interest when I heard the word gate. She clearly enjoyed my reaction, letting my question linger unanswered for several heartbeats.

"I was against it," she said.

"We didn't understand the risks humanity, or even the other species, could pose." She crossed her arms, and her expression became so sharp that I nearly had a heart attack.

"But did they listen to me?" She was talking faster now.

"No. All they talked about was conquest. About making the Riftstorm species pay for their own education, and of course, about that agenda. They said they wanted to help the poor humans who lived without mana, but everyone in that room knew it was really about getting knowledge from Earth. No one would pay for those gates without expecting something in return." She continued, speaking even faster.

"I managed to get some of the nobles to listen to me. We stopped the funding for the gates. But then..." All of her momentum died. The sphere of water above us churned, suddenly resembling an open sea caught in the middle of a storm.

"I woke up one day with the news I was labeled a traitor to the empire, and I was sentenced to sensorial death." She stopped. The water stopped. My heart nearly stopped.

"Sensorial death?" I repeated. Instead of explaining, she slowly reached up and grabbed her bandana, undoing the knot behind her head. She let it fall into her lap, finally allowing me to see her face for the first time. My eyes widened, almost wishing she hadn't shown me. Her eyes had been gouged out. The scars were among the most brutal things I'd ever seen on someone's face. She finally explained.

"If they had only taken my eyes, it could have been fixed by the right healer," she said.

"No. They killed the nerves that connected every single one of my senses to my brain. Sight was not all I lost. I'm unable to hear, smell, touch, or taste." With a smile I couldn't comprehend, she continued.

"My mana sense is all they left, because they needed someone capable of area translation stationed in this Rift School." I didn't know what to say. It was as if I were a warrior who had spent months preparing to meet a mighty dragon for a difficult negotiation, only to arrive and discover the beast was dying of cancer. No. Having all your senses taken away? That might very well be worse than death. It was a kind of punishment no one should ever be subjected to.

"You pity me," she said.

"I can't tolerate that."

"I'm sorry. It's just that..." I struggled to find the words to finish my sentence.

"It's too cruel," I finally said.

"Cruel?" She laughed.

"Cruel is the fact that, before taking my eyes, they made me watch the execution of my cultivation partner." She paused, letting that sink in before asking,"Can you imagine how you would feel if they took the girl with mismatched eyes from you?" No. I didn't want to. But now that she'd told me all of this, I realized I would have to be much more careful from now on.

The scaling of the system would need to be very carefully thought out, and perhaps I really would need to become more powerful than I could currently imagine if I wanted to safely deploy it on a worldwide scale and make the lives of all Riftstorm arrivals easier. While I remained quiet, thinking about those things, Elitha spoke again.

"Can you answer my question now, little lamb?" she asked.

"I won't use the information against your people, and I swear it will die with me." I swallowed hard. Right now, after everything she'd told me, I was more concerned about her using the information against her own people than against Earth. Perhaps that was why she'd never bothered to save the school from the Mimics, letting all the students and Grey staff die. Still, with the possibility that she wanted to use that information against Earth removed, I had no reason to refuse her a second time.

"I'm not exactly sure how strong archmages are, but if you people open that gate..." I said, "believe me, you're all fucked. Humanity doesn't have mana, but unless you have a thousand archmages, I don't see any conquering happening on your side." With a smirk, I added,"And if even a little mana leaks into Earth through the portal... well, I wish your people good luck, because you're going to need it." Elitha remained as still as a rock as she absorbed my words. Then she replied quietly,"A thousand archmages..."

I could see complicated emotions of vindication and disbelief crossing her features, and I said nothing, letting her have her moment. Time passed. Then she finally said, "If all three continents were to unite, we could gather five hundred archmages. But I don't see that happening." Three continents. In three months in this world, I'd only learned that just now. Before I could regret skipping all my classes, she continued.

"Now, for the trade. I heard you tell that girl that you expect to get the translation spell from me, but that won't be cheap, little lamb." She was covering her eyes with the bandana again, and somehow it was easier to look at her now.

"What do you want for it?" I asked. She smiled.

"I need two things." She finished tying the bandana.

"Your unique perspective on how to potentially solve my sensorial problem. And second, all the knowledge you possess that might help me fix that same problem." I felt a bit bad for an instant. I wasn't a doctor. And without the internet, I probably knew about as much about biology and possible treatments as any high-school student.

"I can't guarantee I know enough to help you," I said.

"All I can give you are ideas and fragments of knowledge based on what I remember. At best, I think I could inspire you to come up with a way to help yourself, if we're lucky." She smiled.

"A fair trade, because I don't believe you'll be able to gain much from the translation spell at your current level, unless you have a moment of inspiration and get lucky." Now I was speechless, staring at her in disbelief. She extended her hand.

"You visit my tower every afternoon from now on. Half of the time you're here, you can examine the translation spell. The other half, you spend helping me." I was quite surprised by the handshake. This archmage had really spent some time observing me, because I didn't recall ever seeing a Grey shake hands before. I thought for less than five seconds.

"Deal," I said, extending my hand to take hers.

"Let's both hope we get something good out of this."