The Undying Magician - Book 3 - Chapter 23 - Shared Experiences (Patreon)

                        Nathan
Year 2850 | Month 5 | Day 21

So, as it turns out, the black flame phoenix was also turned into an experiment by a death magician a long time ago. And by long time ago, I mean eons ago. Long before the Republic or this Kingdom were even established. Long before the bag of bones was even alive.

Back in a time when mythical creatures were more common, she was exiled from the phoenix clan after they gained a new leader. One with a deep seated grudge against her.

She then ended up captured by over a dozen Class S magicians working together as soon as word reached them that a mythical creature was exiled from her clan.

Then they conducted experiments on her for years, trying one thing after another in an attempt to determine the source of a phoenix’s immortality. And when nothing worked, they decided to try and see if they could steal or even destroy said immortality.

Which resulted in her being infected with death mana, making her some sort of hybrid phoenix with death and fire mana instead of just death mana.

A lot of the exact details of what happened to her went over my head though as I’m pretty sure they are too advanced for modern day magicians to even come close to understanding. Something that implies a sharp decline in magic’s advancement since the mythical period.

Silence fills the… whatever we’re in after she finishes telling her story.

Both of us have experienced the same hardships, and we’re both immortal.

I never actually expected to find another immortal, much less a mythical creature. So I’m not entirely sure how I feel.

Although…

“I wonder, do you know if the death magician watching over this forest knows you’re here?” I can’t help but ask after the silence stretches on for a while.

Incendia looks vaguely surprised as she asks, “A death magician watches over these lands? What is his name?”

“Adalwolf Giese,” I answer while crossing my arms and glancing at the darkness around us.

“Sounds like he is a descendant of the death mage who locked me away in this cage after realizing he couldn’t kill me or take my immortality…” she mutters while looking down at the ground. But then she raises her head and looks me in the eye as she says, “It’s unlikely that he knows I’m here. At best he might have heard tales of my existence passed down his family or something along those lines, but no one should be able to sense this location.”

I point at myself as I comment, “I did.”

It’s hard to tell, but I think she smiles at that. But once again, hard to tell with a phoenix who doesn’t have lips.

“That’s because our mana is resonating with each other,” she answers, confusing me slightly. “Which brings me to the only way for the two of us to get out of here.”

I frown at that, focusing on her words.

“This place was made as a trap for anyone who is willing to save me, mostly other mythical creatures,” she continues, not really surprising me all that much with her words. “It is made of two separate barriers. An interior barrier that is the cage around me that doesn’t let any sort of mythical creature pass through, nor anything without the death element. And an exterior barrier that is blocking you from leaving and only allows the creator and the source of the barrier to pass through.”

Source of the barrier…

“Then you’re the source of the exterior barrier?” I ask, quickly arriving at the simple conclusion.

She nods her head, “Correct. So there is only one way for the both of us to leave this place. And if you were anyone else, then I would never even consider this as an option.”

My frown grows deeper at that.

“Explain,” I state, wondering what this method is.

“Have you ever heard of a contract between a mythical creature and a human?” she asks, but I just shake my head. “Well they used to be a commonly sought after thing for rulers to have back in the mythical era. A mythical creature and a human forming a contract with each other, binding each other’s lives together along with their mana. Making it so that the mythical creature can use the human’s mana and vice versa.”

Oh.

Interesting.

“But as you can guess, most mythical creatures would never form a contract with a human,” she says. “Mythical creatures are born with far superior lifespans than humans, and humans tend to be far greedier than we are as well. So not only would a contract only weaken us and shorten our lifespans, but it would bind us to a greedy being in the process.”

Humans do tend to be terrible creatures.

“Far more than that, however, is that the mythical creature and human must share a special bond with each other,” she finishes. “And we have that bond already in our shared experience.”

Ah. That’s where she was going with this. Not all that surprising considering her bringing it up in the first place.

“But how would that help us with getting out of here?” I ask while glancing at the exterior and then interior barriers.

“With the help of the contract, I’ll be able to escape the interior barrier using your mana,” she explains. “And then vice versa with the exterior barrier, having you use my mana to escape.”

I purse my lips before scratching my chin a little and glancing between the two barriers. And after several seconds of consideration, I turn back to the phoenix, looking her directly in the eyes and finding not a hint of insincerity in them. Something I’ve grown used to seeing in others, making me rather good at detecting it in people.

Doesn’t hurt that almost everyone I see has at least some of it in our messed up world.

Eventually I uncross my arms and ask, “Alright, how do we form this contract?”

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