Intelectual problems

"What do you think about star attribute?"

Lucy expected Layla to have some kind of well-formed opinion hoping to get a clear answer.

"It's a hard nut to crack of question, Lucy. I don't know. Even this term... is unique. I guess that mrs. Hayako started to guide you to master her way of doing magic and you started to think on her terms. So the answer in some ways should be: Star attribute is a term used by Hayako Agria to name the thing we, Celestial Spirit Mages wield."

As Layla expected Lucy was a bit disappointed so she continued before her daughter could oversimplify things.

"Obviously this is the simplest definition. We need it to have some phenomenal ground to stand on. What kind of attribute wields Aquarius?"

"Water?"

"So it's not a star attribute, right?"

"I... don't know. I wanted to ask hoping you have some insight. Ways of Mrs. Hayako are..."

"Overbearing and sometimes even bossy?"

"How did you know?"

"She was my master too, Lucy. In times when I was looking for power, Hayako created her new style. We know each other because our bloodline is as old as hers. For my request, she even taught me some secrets, but in the end, I wasn't able to make real use of this."

"Why?"

"Because our family had all golden keys. Do you know what happens when you get all twelve golden keys?"

"Yukino said something about it. Twelve golden keys were needed to open Eclipse Gate. The owner of all keys has a great power way beyond just summoning spirits."

"There was a time when I had all golden keys for myself. It's like... no, this is literally cheating!"

"WHAAAAAT?"

"Yes, here I am! If you have that kind of power the effects of Hayako's training methods pale in comparison. It's very convenient if you accept that power will never be truly yours."

"Mom, what about star attribute?"

"I think that Hayako wields it but doesn't know what it is. If you look on Celestial Spirits, most of them fight without using this so-called star attribute she's talking about. At least not in a pure form. Perhaps Aries uses pink wool and Aquarius water is somewhat oceanic yet those don't resemble the star attribute. Only two spirits clearly utilize star attribute: Sagittarius and Spirit King. For them star attribute is just their nature, so they don't know anything about it. I wielded it but it was due to my connections with spirits. What is it? You will have to find the answer by yourself. It's not easy like solving the mystery of ice or lava element."

"So there's no shortcuts excluding golden keys."

"No shortcuts at all, Lucy. Your ambitions require something better than the power of the Zodiac."

They talked a bit more about things like the date of starting plan to come for Brain following family matters and questions about life routine. Layla said goodbyes to Lucy saying something about having to talk with Makarov about the plan as he's the main guarantee of the success in the operation so Layla can't stay.

...

Next week was nothing much. Newspapers were writing about the absurd of the thug being beaten by Lucy which in turn popularized the academy's courses as a way to make kids learn some arts of self-defense so Gran Doma was rather delighted that kids have a new motivation to learn even if the reason for that is not reasonable. In eyes of Gran Doma and Hayako Lucy was just talented enough to progress quickly. Now she's able to cast star bullet and hardening enchant in a few seconds and mastered some of enchanted letters from the guide book that she got from Gran Doma. It wasn't going well for learning the branenish language, but it was mostly due to not having much time for it. It takes a lot of practice to learn a new language and ancient languages are even harder to be practiced. Almost no one uses branenish to talk or write.

Ren didn't talk with her a lot. He wasn't angry at all yet he also didn't have time for her or... he was using the excuse of being busy. She hoped he would be her friend a bit longer. Even if he thinks she lied to him, under normal circumstances, kids don't hate each other for too long if it's about little lies. They don't have a suitable sense of pride for that. But can she consider herself as normal? No. Can Era be considered as a normal place? People of power are always somewhat abnormal and Era is a condensation of those. It cannot be normal. There's even a legend here about four prophets.

Four prophets met in a pub and they started talking about what gods made them proclaim. First said that gods told them that he blessed a land and they should settle a city there. The second said that his god wanted them to respect all animals including frogs. Third mentioned that god said that he have to meet him on a mountain with a flat top. Forth said that he has a problem with huge taxes to pay. He didn't want to but his god said that for his sake he must do that even if that means selling his horse. The conversation happened to be heard by the barman who was a king's spy. It happened that right before hearing this king was confronted by an angry god who demanded the king to follow the 'will of heavens' saying something about his era coming. The scared king heard about the conversation of the four prophets which determined what he did next. The king found a mountain with a flat top and considered it as the blessed land so he settled a city around the mountain. Then he found a powerful wizard to make him turn his well-respected high officials into anthropomorphic frogs and made them keep their positions. He forced people to live there and to pay huge taxes and waited on top of the mountain for god to meet him and show that he fulfilled his orders. The god never descended and the king was later killed by some angry frogs. Only the name of the city did last until today: Era.

...

Brain for some time even believed that the god would descend if not for the fact that the frogs abolished those taxes. One day he found himself unable to do so and that experience prompted him to comprehend that the faith he's looking for can be preserved only in certain conditions in which one is able to achieve visions together with the others. The best for that are organized practices as they keep people believing that what they believe in makes sense. After finding himself unable to just have that kind of faith he naturally started to reflect on what he thinks he can have faith in. He found out that believing in taxes is a bit incompatible with his motivation to look for the source of his hopes. There're actually two kinds of faith and two kinds of hope. The first is about trusting in supernatural forces so that the life of the believer won't be wasted. The second is about believing in things to control them. The difference is subtle and vague but exceptionally important. It demarks the lines between religion and magical thinking.

Severin has to participate in both. Trust is a source of power and magical thinking directs it. God didn't descend because people had not enough trust and didn't guide their hearts right. The role of Brain is to guide them even if it means pretending to be a saint or... a loving parent substitute. While preparing the ritual he used his time to comfort Severin. He gave him some of his accessories and explained that the pendant he gave him was a memento after his own father. Of course, it wasn't anything like this but in a situation like this, it didn't matter.

If the ritual will go well, he'll get a strong follower. Even a bit too strong. Brain still has a fresh memory of Ultear. After succeding he was unable to control her. Due to being stronger than him and having bad impression of Brain using her was impossible. So he sent her to Hades hoping to see at least her future growth. Braid understands that if he won't find a way to get stronger himself Severin is destined to become an unstable factor in his life. He has a plan but for now, he needs to deal with Layla. Layla is a great enemy. Even after giving up on her golden keys, she's powerful enough to make his life miserable. Failed assassination proved that. Kibbe was killed by her which is proved by the fact that the organic link he used on him stopped working. Brain is going to take revenge for that. He was going to use Kibbe a bit more, but now he need to find another wizard to replace the dead one.

However, it's not a big loss. Now he can suddenly 'discover' that Layla killed Kibbe! Depending on when he's going to reveal that information the effect can be ground shaking. Even thinking that dad left him Severin still misses Kibbe. Hearing about this will make him overwhelmed with desire to take revenge. This desire can be used as an additional short-term power up against Layla. When one has to fight against a really angry wizard even an expert can fail miserably. After all angry wizards easily sacrifice their feelings.

...

Severin didn't care about being trapped. He accepted that the only way to reunite with his father is to impress him and get Layla's acceptance. He can find a way to achieve that and then... probably he's going to find a way to get his father out of Layla's hands. First, he needs to find a way to get the power to do so. Uncle Brain promised him to heal his bad condition. Nevertheless, he should try to explore some paths of his future growth. He never touched the excesses of his magic power because those were the source of his illness. But now it seems the only way to move on so he tried to ignore the heat from his fever and unlock the one kind of magic he knew he probably can perform without much preparatory training.

His father is a user of darkness magic so Severin's talent for it should be quite good and his salt cave prison is poorly lit which made his eyes accustomed to the darkness. He should try to use his magic power on something. It would be best if something like that was just made of darkness. But what is made of darkness? Shadows of course! And things from here start to get weird. There's a kind of magic called shadow magic. Shadow seems to be a bit different element than darkness, but that's still better than nothing. So Severin started to do he-didn't-know-what with his shadow looking for a way to fill it with his magic. It was boring and brought him even more headaches from the strain on his spirit which was suffering the excess of magic but despite wanting to give up the thought about ritual said him that he has to stay determined or he can forget about enduring it.

So he, again and again, tried to reproduce magic effects. It was like walking in the mist and being pushed to do something impossible. Dad never introduced him to these. Magic was always a source of little tricks like a method to hide or show some nice animal-shaped shadows. At first, it was even something to watch but at some point it became boring. And now he has to do something really boring. If someone was to see him he would say that the approach has a lot of bad assumptions. For example, Severin took darkness element way too literally. But magic in the end is something also born from imagination. If darkness is imagined as something coming from lack of light it indeed was like this. Most of the beginners have to start with incomplete intents and their natural affinities.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

A part of his shadow got deep purple. It was empty like every shadow but it's emptiness got more present. It looked like it wanted to get out of itself but at the same time get something inside itself. He discovered that he can direct this shadow into a pile of salt stones. Stones of salt were enveloped with it, then squeezed closer and repulsed each other randomly.

*boom*

The pain was less bearable and he had to rest before trying to do this again, but the element was manifested. The noise got the attention of Brain. A few moments later Brain ran into the cell to see what happened.

"Uncle Brain!"

"What happened?"

"That was my magic! I think it's darkness!"

"Uff... that's a relief. I thought that someone attacked you. How did you use it?"

Brain was happy to hear about Severin getting darkness magic. That was magic he wanted to obtain. With Severin there he can discover a way to also get it and tame it. He's planning a ritual for that. Some training can make him a very important follower but not too strong for Brain to handle.