(TLO) Chapter 99: The Problem (Patreon)

Igor hated having to do this again. That the Monsignor had not allowed him oversee the evolution of his own class was angering enough. Now the man wanted to make him go through their convergent skills once more simply because one of them who should not be allowed back into the seminary had returned.

Fin’s convergent skill was interesting enough. The quake of the ground was impressive, considering it was seminary grounds. In it was a touch of force reia he was certain the boy was yet to notice. Outside the seminary he was certain it would prove more powerful, but he would not tell the boy that. He would encourage him without compliment. And he did.

Jason had displayed his genius in swordsmanship. That his convergence had been born in the focus of swordplay was not surprising. There were times when a mage’s convergent skill served to support his other skills. There were also times when their effects were different. He’d seen some that were born of the mage’s experience. Some were born completely confused. But he’d since learned they were all interlinked in a way with the other skills. He could already envision how the boy could combine it with his other skills.

Barnabas manifested shadow reia. It spilled forth from him like something of a villain in a dark comic from the old world. As terrifying as it looked, it wasn’t so negative all skill. Its true impressiveness lied in the fact that he had developed skills that defied the laws of physics when he had not absorbed a black fragment. When Forlorn tossed something in it, as he had on the first day, displaying his encompassing knowledge of the boy, it had not taken much to know his target.

Unsurprisingly, Forlorn was an ass about his skill. when he placed his hand on the target Igor felt the working of his reia. Fin’s skill had instigated earth reia of sand and soil and things that exist in the ground beneath them. Jason had instigated wind reia so that it struck an invisible cut from a different angle just as his sword dropped. If he could time them to strike at the same time, it would be formidable. However, he doubted there would be any within his authority capable of defending against it so easily. They would have to be fast enough to defend an attack they could not see or predict.

On Forlorn’s part, the working of his reia was from within. He raised his reia entirely from himself, and when it was brought to bear, he manifested a slithering gust of death reia. How he had so much death reia was anyone’s guess. The technique would’ve been terrifying if Igor hadn’t seen a few mages capable of manipulating death reia. What made it impessive was how much of it had come from within the boy. And only at Iron.

Black fragments were truly terrifying.

Still, the effects were only so devastating and so quick because his target had no will of its own. Against a mage it would not be so powerful. All mages have life reia in their very existence. It was a natural counter to death reia. Coupled with their natural will to react to reia, he would need a considerable amount of power to devastate a mage of even equal authority. Power and time.

He told the boy just as much.

When Oluwatimilehin took his place, Igor withheld his discomfort. For the briefest of moments, he almost looked to Seth. He had always wanted the child gone from the seminary. He was not a fit. Whatever his motivations were, they did not seem for the sake of the seminary. They did not even seem like something the seminary could manipulate. It was always as though he had something to fall back on, somewhere to go after the seminary.

Now, seeing as the seminary had chosen to keep Oluwatimilehin despite what it had learned of him, it needed Seth more than it thought. Because if they were to grow Oluwatimilehin he would grow to be devastating. To control him, Seth was their best bet.

The boy had barely activated his skill when the reia around them screamed. It trembled something fierce and Igor frowned. Then the boy activated the skill. Forlorn’s skill’s name had been presumptuous. Die. As if by some power he would command it and it would happen. It said a lot about the child’s arrogance.

But judgement seemed aptly named.

When the skill activated, reia rushed towards it. Those who would think it pulled reia towards it were gravely wrong. He triggered the skill and the world rushed towards it, fought to stop it. that was the power wielded by the skill. And when the skill was activated, the world fled. Reia fled like prey from a predator.

Igor stood by as was his duty and watched this child torture the world in the name of a skill. Around him space broke, cracked like a precious orb of glass struck at the perfect angle. He resembled the source of a fissure, white streaks reaching out from him on both sides, extending from behind him as well.

He watched reia’s hold on itself weaken. The reia that could not escape his reach suffered for it. When the streaks threatened to stretch further, he stopped the boy.

“That’s enough, Timilehin.”

The cracks healed slowly. Then faded.

He watched the boy turn a gaze to Seth. Seeking acknowledgement where Forlorn had issued a threat. The young Jabari might not know this, but it was a moment of truth. He could either acknowledge the boy’s power or scorn its fearfulness. Whatever he chose in this moment would make a lot of difference. When Seth offered the boy a nod, he released a breath he hadn’t noticed he’d held.

The boy returned to his brothers with the smallest, almost imperceptible skip in his steps. A lot of soul magi will see this skill and imagine the boy thought himself some kind of judge over his enemies. That might very well also be true. But what he was doing was vastly more. Monsignor Faust had said it best: the child broke reia at its very fabric. Terrorized it enough for it to want to stop him, yet, with enough power for it to know it could not.

Oluwatimilehin Adio judged the world itself. And the world was terrified of him. And rightly so.

One day, he would find it wanting. Who knew what would happen then.

Igor frowned at the empty space where Timi had stood. “Seth,” he said still looking at it, “You have seen the power of your brothers, their skills attained through convergence, their evolution to Iron. Now it is their turn to see yours.”

Seth stepped up to his place casually, then turned to him. “I will need a sword.”

A sword? He thought.

“Strange,” he said, more to himself than the boy as he took the sword from his side and offered it to him. “For one barely above average in its use, you have converged a skill dependent on it.”

Seth took the weapon without a response. He did not speak. Igor was almost impressed at his absence of a reaction. A month ago the boy frowned at every form of derision he showed him. What did he do while he was away?

Seth took it as if picking something useless from him; something less than sufficient but he deemed manageable. Then he walked away.

Igor watched him go. It wasn’t just his absence of a reaction. Much else had changed in him. It showed in the way he walked. It was slow, each step taken as if thought through. No. Slow was not the right word. It was intentional. The side of his lip twitched lightly. He held his smile at bay.

However, when the boy stopped, turned to him and met his eyes, he saw a dare in it, a challenge. When the boy took his stance, he forced his control aside. He dropped the mask of a Reverend cultivated over the years.

He smiled.

It was a manic thing. A gleeful, vile sensation. It was ecstasy in a cup. The only time Seth had ever impressed him, it had been in the same stance.

Sometimes, he thought with a manic smile, being an instructor isn’t so bad.

He met the boy’s gaze wholly and accepted the challenge.

He knew the moment Seth recognized his acceptance. Something in his eyes changed. Where they had been calm moments ago, they came alive. It was not a metaphoric thing, not a sense of motivation. It was a physical thing. His eyes trembled in place, vibrated. It was as if they could not be still. Their silvery countenance made it look special even as it quivered like an overactive child barely restrained.

He noted the boy’s hand hovering over the hilt of his sword. The boy was waiting for something. Calculating. Seth was a better swordsman now than he had been a month ago. The beauty was intoxicating. Igor’s smile deepened. It was all he could do not to strike first as his body cycled reia from just the sight of it.

The boy’s hand touched the hilt of his sword and he activated his skill.

“[Echo Draw]”

The words cracked the reia around him like a whip. What happened next was a lesson in shock. Igor stepped forward, then stopped.

The thinning reia around the boy, struggling from Oluwatimilehin’s judgement of it, was pushed away, evicted from their place. Then a wave of reia exploded from the boy, cold as winter’s chill. It buffeted Igor harmlessly, dusted against him like a gentle breeze, then continued on, reaching farther, growing. His eyes narrowed, and in curiosity he activated his gold sight. An ability to see the particles of reia in the world granted at Gold authority.

What he saw amazed him. The child seemed to defy the world just as his brother. The ambient reia around them seemed less. The chaotic rondo of countless reia types reduced. He spared a gentle look around and found where most of it had gone. They hovered at the edge of nothing twenty feet away from the boy on all sides. Expelled.

Then the boy stepped forward. His front leg pulled him forward, and he dashed at him. It was a powerful dash for an Iron. It carried him through the distance very quickly, shocking even Igor.

But Igor’s grin never left his face. The child dared to attack him with a convergent skill at a mere Iron authority. It was ballsy of him. Audacious. Commendable, even. But Igor was an instructor, and a Baron. It was his duty to teach.

Seth’s sword came free as he met Igor, and he struck. Igor watched the trajectory of the sword aimed at his side and parried it. He raised a simple hand and deflected the blow. He felt the reia coating the wooden edge of the blade, drawn from the domain they stood it, as he sent the blow askew. Even then, the boy’s dash carried him past Igor.

Igor returned his attention to the world around him to resume his study of it when something in his senses tingled. He turned his attention back to Seth still moving past him and watched reia coalesce next to him. It took physical form beside him, the length of the sword in his hand and shot at him.

A reia slash, he noted. Wind reia, he considered, then discarded it. No. Then what…

His thoughts trailed away from him. He found no affinity, none he knew. Was it all pure reia? He raised his hand again to take the strike, thought better of it and cycled his reia. His channels pushed reia into his hands and coated them in it. He took the strike casually, shattering it on impact and realized it was not strong enough to harm his Baron body even without a coating of reia. He would’ve achieved the same effect without channeling his reia.

Seth was an inch past him now, still moving.

Certain there was no other attack, he returned his attention to the curiosity of the dome of reia around him.

He sharpened his attention on the ones that now surrounded him. The world around him was made of pure reia tainted gravely by touches of the reia that had been there before it, too strong to be evicted, yet weakened somehow, oppressed by the boy’s. It was a curious thing. He’d only ever fought a pure reia mage of equal authority once when he was Silver. He had wiped the floor with the man. Thus, he had little experience with its type.

Seth shot passed him and he turned to look at the boy.

Then the unrefined dome of reia dissipated. The skill had run its course.

Seth scaled the rest of whatever distance he intended to and came to a halt. When he did, Igor was turned in his direction.

Seth stood with the wooden sword returned to his side. Beneath him his legs trembled, struggled to hold him up. When he turned, he stared at nothing. His trembling eyes calmed slowly. In the breath of a moment they returned to stillness, as still as eyes are meant to be.

Reia exhaustion? Igor wondered. Convergent skills tended to cost far more reia than the others. Seth’s seemed to have cost him far more than his brothers’. And aptly so. It was a deadly skill.

If Igor’s calculation was right, it had involved the expulsion of reia from his body. It was a feat only a skill could grant a soul mage less than Barony. At Barony the release of reia from the body into the atmosphere was easier, natural, willful. Anything before then was the purview of skills.

He watched the boy, the convergent skill on his mind. It was a deadly skill. A terrifying skill. It created unto the boy a world of his own. From his own core he birthed a world of reia. Just how much of it does he have?

That the boy had somehow developed a core of pure reia by himself was proof of his genius. Most soul mages take years of focus to ensure their reia remained pure.

But as much genius as it was, it was also a great stupidity. There was a reason there were only a handful of mages with pure reia. None of them Barons. The only recorded Baron that had come close had done everything in his power to gain an affinity at Gold. It was the only reason he’d broken into Barony. The reason there were no pure reia magi was because it meant being without an affinity. So while soul magi were strong in some types of reia and weak in others, a pure reia soul artist was weak in all, weaker even than the weakness of those with no affinity for them.

There was nothing wrong with pure reia. Having it meant Seth still had time to take an affinity. But the problem was with the purity of his reia. It was too pure to be unintentional. During his month missing, he had cultivated a pure reia, be it intentional or accidental. Finding an affinity now would take twice as much effort as it would’ve been getting one before Iron. And the higher he evolved this way, the harder it would be to gain an affinity.

He sighed as he contemplated it. The boy had displayed genius in a stupid direction. And something told him the child would not listen to reason and seek out an affinity before his next evolution.

“The problem,” he told Seth, drawing the boy’s attention from the void within which he stared, “is your reia. Your convergent skill is strong. However, the reia you’ve chosen is not sufficient. Something more personalized would be better. Think on it as you continue.”

With that, he turned to the rest of them. “Pick yourselves up, slackers! You still have your training with the knife.”

Then he left. Behind him Barnabas struggled to his feet and Jason breathed heavily on his knees. Forlorn did the same, his expression a mix of fear and anger.

Only Fin and Oluwatimilehi had been left standing. Fin bore shock but the latter’s face was stretched in a wide smile. He looked like a boy who’d won a bet.