Zero Potential: Chapter 29 (Patreon)

Chapter 29

As it turned out, there would not be a round two of combat. As Terra made her way towards the mouth of the cave, she found that no minds entered the sphere of her aura. As she got closer, the reason for this became clear.

The Matriarch, as long and as powerful as she was, was still blocking the one known exit of the tunnels. While the Patriarch slyvern had survived the initial crushing weight of stone dropped on it, the wounds it suffered, along with the apparent inability to get air caused it to die. At least that is what Terra could deduce.

She used her knowledge of Earth magic, along with the abilities of her staff to clear a hole and show her all the bodies of the vile monsters. She even went so far as to make sure to puncture the remaining eggs to ensure no further calamity class monsters would be born.

Decapitating the Patriarch was a lot easier task than the task of killing the Matriarch had been. Also, with the body nearly perfectly preserved under the rubble, Terra had opted to use the stronger and much further along Patriarch slyvern skin for the next phase of her plan. Namely, replacing her clothing that had been completely destroyed by the acid blood of the Matriarch.

There were of course many reasons for Terra to choose the Patriarch's skin for her clothing. First, the Patriarch was a higher evolved being, even though it hadn’t fully manifested the final changes, what changes it had undergone were enough to make the skin even more resilient and durable. Second, and probably most importantly, the Patriarch had no ties to poison blood, meaning that the meat from it was both satisfying, and the skin gathered from it did not cause any residual irritation, unlike the few patches that Terra had tried to gather from the Matriarch’s hide.

Thus, Terra began using her survival skills that she gained in her past lives and put them to good use. She wove tiny strips into threads. Then she used the threads to weave patches and swaths of skin together, to finally piece together a working set of clothes.

Over the next few days and weeks, she spent her time clearing out the various monsters of the cave system.

Compared to killing the serpent, a few lurker spiders and large rats were nothing. Then with her powers over the elements, she created a chamber where she could both rest and preserve food for future use.

At first, she started eating the remains of the patriarch, but she made it a part of her training to consume parts of the poisonous meat that was the basis for the matriarch’s attacks.

Then, to make sure she was set up for success. She set about taking the meat from the two behemoths and preserving it as best as possible. In this way, Terra set up her own dwelling.

Beds of stone, sand, and snake scales served as her resting area. While simple uses of water and air magic made it, so the dwelling was habitable.

With her shelter, food, and water taken care of, Terra then decided to focus on the most pressing issue. Namely, what exactly were the changes that had happened to her, now that she was an Immortal.

There was also the knowledge of her Seer bloodline that she also wanted to try and unlock. Thus, the next three weeks passed by in relative seclusion.

***

(Three Weeks Later)

It was the day before Terra was to meet with Lady Montague, and true enough to her word, Terra was doing everything she could to track down the lost lady Montague, and her daughter.

Sympathetic Magic.

One of the most basic building blocks of reality, the fact that by touching and interacting with parts of this world you leave behind a little bit of your resonance with everything you touch. The longer you touch something, the more profound your resonance signature is on that item. This was the governing principle that Terra used to track down not only lady Montague, but her daughter, the true owner of the pendant she had borrowed.

Unaware of where she was going, she invariably found herself moving north. As she moved, she didn’t use any of her auras. Instead, she found that her natural state was fine. Especially as she had a field around her that naturally spoke of supernatural dread.

In her mind she went over her items, and inventory.

Burning Eye of the Tiger: 95% Charge.

Arcane Staff of the Elements: 63% Charge.

Arcane Power Cores: 5.

Obsidian Blades: 2.

After a lot of searching, she was able to find the fifth arcane power core, a find that she was more than excited about.

The rest of the items she had were ones that she made. Including a full complement of leather armor, leather shoes, gloves, a travel bag, water skin, and of course a number of rations of dried slyvern jerky.

With these possessions in hand, she followed the trials of sympathetic magic.

At first, she kept her head on a swivel as she remained vigilant, always looking out for the next source of danger. Yet, over time it was clear that even the predators within the forest did not want to deal with her. As such, over time Terra let her guard down.

While she still kept an eye out for any monsters that were resolute enough to stay within her realm of influence, she had forgotten a few of the basics.

Thus, she was caught unaware when she entered an area where uniquely designed magical traps were deployed.

Fwoom.

There was a distinct tickling sensation, as if many unique spider webs of magic thread wrapped themselves around her.

Instantly she knew the spell had been accurate.

Just as she had set off a spell earlier when she left the confines of the Academy due to her wearing a school uniform. This time she set off the same advanced warding system. The only difference being the fac that this time she set off wardings that indicated her as an Immortal.

Feeling the ward against her skin she paused and waited.

And waited.

There were no tugs or pulls of magic that attempted to constrict her magic, as she would expect of wardings that detected her as an Immortal. Instead, all she felt were alerting threads that fired off like lightning off into the distance letting the creator of these wards that an Immortal had crossed a threshold to the kingdom.

Again, there were plenty of rumors about Immortals, everything from the beliefs that they could only enter territories that they had been allowed to enter. Or that they couldn’t cross running water, to even the fact that their reflections were distorted. While Terra herself had personally checked out the different believed facts and found that they are all false, Terra felt that some of them might have an inkling of truth.

Take for instance the way Terra feels a slight tug of water, whenever she crosses a body of water. Or the way that water magic seems to resist her control just that much more.

After the momentary pause, which lasted less than a few seconds, Terra thought about casting a quick Dispel on any lingering threads that might have bound themselves to her, but instead went for the easy route of mana disruption.

Magic Aura.

With a quick burst of her aura, Terra felt a surge of energy flood through the area. In her mind she felt all the little wards and residual magical effects that had been left in place burst to life and suddenly get dissolved into her and her ever consuming Magic Aura.

That was the one change that took the most time for Terra to get used to, as her Magic Aura was a passive drain on the area. It would greedily absorb and break down spells and effects around her. Then when there weren’t any spells to absorb, it would slowly drain the life force and energy of items that were not held directly against her person. The only items that seemed immune to the pull were items created by the dungeons, aside from those items of hers, everything else would degrade in time, if allowed. The beds she made, the preserved food particles, everything would eventually break down if given enough time and exposure to her new powers.

Now her Magic Aura was being used in a new way that she assumed most were not accustomed to experiencing from Immortals, in that her altered Magic Aura made it so casting spells, and setting wards against her was tougher than ever.

Still, this was no time to be complacent, as Terra ran forward, mentally following the path that her sympathetic magic spell had given her. She was already a few hundred meters away, and ready to shift her aura away from something that was as apparent to magic users as her own Magic Aura was, when she heard the rallying cries of the aerial wing alert border guards. The very ones that her old academy used to house.

Thrum.

There was a cast of detection magic, one that was meant to find her and bind to her, but as soon as the spell grabbed hold of her, her aura ate the energy.

Seeing the effectiveness of keeping her Magic Aura activated, Terra opted to stay with this aura, at least until she got closer to a settlement of people. The sooner she met Lady Montague and gave back the pendant, the sooner she would be able to move on with her life.

Now that she had a base of operations in the south, her two goals were to find the next chosen one and help train them, while also finding what the supreme being of evil was up to.

There were a lot of things she needed to do, but first she needed to make it through the Belaton Kingdom unnoticed. Or as unnoticed as she could manage, given how everyone was already aware and scrambling resources to apparently track her.

***

(Helga)

There was a feeling of terror, of monsters walking over her grave. That was the sensation that Helga got when her wards to enter both the empire proper, and the academy grounds went off. The wards were designed to be easily noticed, as they were meant to wake her even in the deepest of slumbers.

Yet, these wards were different.

Helga had felt the effects of Immortals crossing the border and setting off her wards. She was almost used to them, given the way that one particularly pesky Immortal had seemingly taken up residence just along the border with the southern empire.

At first Helga thought that this alert was based on that Immortal, but there was a difference. Eitehr Helga was getting older, or her sensitivity was increasing, or…

That last thought, the one that she didn’t want to speak of came to her. The thought that there was finally a monster more powerful than the known immortal. An Immortal capable of taking out an entire detachment of soldiers and leaving behind exsanguinated corpses in their wake.

“What is it?” Dean Philton came in scrambling, only to find Helga still clutching at her chest from the intensity of the wards.

Pausing, Helga wondered why the dean was here, until she realized that he would have heard the alarms related to the alerting wards.

“An Immortal.” Helga managed.

Then just as she had gotten used to the intense pull of this new Immortal setting off her wards, the intense energy stopped.

Pausing.

Helga held completely still.

The chiming sounds that had been going off around most of the academy leaders’ offices went silent.

“Did he go back?”

Helga paused, hoping that this was the case, but a quick pull caused ice to run in her veins as she realized that this assumption was far from the truth. Shaking her head, she tried to put into words what happened.

“They deactivated the wards.”

“Deactivated?” Philton asked, his face showing that he had as hard of a time understanding the concept as Helga had explaining it.

“Yes, the wards, they are gone. Everything. My attachment, everything, it is just… gone.” Helga managed.

Silence.

“Can you track them?”

“I can try.” Helga said. Casting a quick Divination spell for a being as powerful as an immortal shouldn’t be a challenge at all. Yet, as Helga began threading the weaves, her old fingers trembled slightly, for fear of what might happen.

Then, after a second of pause and reflection, she cast the spell.

“She is at the border.” Helga said, telling all the details she could gain as quickly as possible.

“She?”

“Yes, she.” There was a slight tremble to her, for as soon as the spell made contact and began providing details the connection was disrupt. Thought the connection was brief, she thought she noted an image she had never seen before. Her lip trembling, she was at a loss.

“What? What is it?” The dean asked.

“She canceled it. But I saw her. Clear as day I saw her.”

“Who was it?”

“Lady Rose.”

“You mean her daughter, right?”

“No, I mean the lady herself, almost like she came back from the grave to avenge what we did…”