Third phase

POV Julian Kingscrown

I've been training here in Hearth for two months and I have only one thing to say, Arthur, you damn masochist, how did you endure this kind of training for so many years, I've been here for a few months and I want to run away from here.

But that's the least of my worries, one of the descendants of the Djinn managed to make the Ether egg have the function of speeding up time; so I still have about eight more months left in here.

The only thing I've learned is to get beaten up by Chul, I flatly refused to fight with Laplace active to be able to adapt to the high speeds of Asura combat.

That has implied reacting with my own instinct and although I have already managed to adapt I still get beaten up after beating in the trainings.

Sylvie had also done the same with other Asuras here in Hearth, Mordain himself was even teaching her some things and apparently she was much better than me.

I don't know how many times I died at the hands of Chul in here, but I'm not going to give up, I'm going to punch this arrogant heterochromatic-eyed bird in the face, no matter what it costs.

"Arrgggg" I clenched my teeth with my arms raised and crossed to block a punch to the chest that Chul sent me.

That harmless and apparently contained blow in Chul's words sent me flying several meters backwards.

I supported my feet on the mass of water below me to stop the recoil and wait for Chul's next move.

He came to my left side and in an instant executed several punches at high speed which I began to deflect while intuiting their trajectories, unfortunately I could not do it with all of them and one crashed into my face.

I backed up several steps with my hands on guard attentive to Chul's next move, but he did not move, he just looked at me for a couple of seconds and said "let's leave it here for now".

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POV Mordain Asclepius

Fast, extremely fast, is the only thing I think when I see Julian's growth in these first two months.

He is quickly adapting to Chul's pace and that is something that not even the young Asuras could do.

I don't think even people like Kezess, Aldir or I could learn at that pace, it's like he absorbs everything he sees.

I have two possible answers for his rapid growth, the first is that he really has a learning talent superior to the Asuras and the second one that I lean more towards is that it has to do with his reincarnation, his soul is quite special, like a blank slate that you can fill with whatever you want.

I have the theory that the place where his soul comes from had nothing that would stain it, that's why he can absorb everything he sees, he also seems to be very resilient.

But for some reason he has never talked about this with his grandmother Rinia, with me or someone from the clan; he may not even have talked about it with Silvia Indrath who is like his mentor.

Unfortunately, for him, I was able to realize because of my ancestry as a phoenix that allows me to see that he is a reincarnated soul.

Also, I could see very closely another fragment of soul that is not his, but is linked in some way to his.

When I saw it for the first time I didn't even notice it, but now it's much more marked, not only that, it had also grown a kind of parasite that Yimir had told me about before he died.

Now you can see it clearly and the worrying thing is that I can't understand what it's doing there, does it want to take over his soul?, or maybe it works as a kind of watchful eye?, I'm not sure, it also seems to be connected to something else.

This leads me to think that his reincarnation is not as simple as we thought, I will have to talk to the boy about this, it could put his existence at risk if we don't do something about it.

The problem is that I don't even know where to start, since even though I have knowledge and power over rebirth, this is a topic that escapes my hands.

As I thought about how to explain this situation, I saw little Sylvie practice with one of the descendants of the Djinn her ethereal abilities, although I don't know how to compare something, she should be able to learn the granddaughter of Kezess here.

I hope this really serves for their future battles, I thought with regret knowing what was coming.

----------------------------------------------------------POV Julian Kingscrown

"Brother", I saw Sylvie run towards me interrupting her training with another Asura.

"Hi Sylvie", I replied as I stroked her head.

"You look like you lost again", she said in a mischievous tone.

"Of course not, how could I...", when I was halfway through the sentence someone interrupted me.

"Yes, I beat him up again", Chul said in a self-sufficient tone with his hands behind his head.

Damn, this is humiliating, I wanted to be invincible in Sylvie's eyes, but everything went down the drain since I started my training in Hearth.

"Don't worry, brother, you can do it", my bond said trying to console me.

That hurt my pride, but I didn't let it show, now I'm more determined than ever to punch Chul in the face.

As I complained inwardly about being so weak, I saw Mordain approaching me and said in a soft tone, "Boy, do you want to try to test the third phase of your will?".

"Sure, I couldn't miss an opportunity like this, but I still haven't been able to understand what exactly the third phase of my will does", I spoke somewhat hesitantly, since from the knowledge that Dryas transferred to me I couldn't understand what the power of the third phase of Yimir implied.

Mordain stood by my side as he looked at Sylvie and said, "Life, death and rebirth we have some sensitivity about these topics, in theory you should be able to see or feel the life energy of people". He explained.

"I know, but I've tried it and it doesn't work, or maybe I don't understand the concept well", I replied.

"You can move away a little, lady Sylvie", he said as he touched my shoulder.

I gave him a nod to move away and focused on Mordain.

"Close your eyes, clear your mind completely and try to feel the life around you", he spoke.

Obediently, I followed his instructions and closed my eyes; I began to feel my whole environment, I saw the mana that surrounded me as a kind of infrared radar in my mind.

"Calm your breathing and change your perception, I don't ask you to feel the mana, but the vitality of the environment and the people around you", Mordain gave me instructions again.

But I couldn't understand the concept of vitality, it was something completely new to me and I didn't know how it felt to try to look for the sensation.

"Activate the first phase of your will, let it flow slowly through your mana channels, make sure you capture all the sensations it gives you and gradually release it slowly until you reach the second phase", I heard his voice again.

I focused and followed his steps one after another until I felt that there was a barrier blocking the way, like a wall that I couldn't cross no matter how hard I pushed.

When I tried to open my eyes I felt a kind of energy entering my body, breaking the dam that prevented me from continuing.

After that I was sure that I could go on and delve deeper into this feeling of empowerment that flowed through my body.

So I let the feeling of will run freely enveloping my mana channels, in the course I detected something similar to a residual mana with a shape similar to Sylvie's.

Since I was in a kind of trance I let it keep running without thinking, when I thought I was on the verge of achieving the goal I began to accelerate the sensations even more.

After that, when I opened my eyes, they were in a dark space, before my sight everything was completely black.

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POV Sylvie Indrath

I was watching my brother follow Mr. Mordain's instructions, using our bond to know what he was perceiving.

I thought that maybe I could discover something if I tried, so I was very focused trying to feel what I was seeing through our connection.

Little by little I saw how he increased the mana of the phoenix in his body and reached his second phase where he had long ashen hair and some feather marks around his eyes, also the tips of his hair had an orange tint; his appearance made him look Ethereal how many girls would fall if they saw this.

As I frowned at the absurd thoughts that went through my mind, something took me out of my thoughts, a situation that I had never seen before when my brother fought with mana beasts or trained, some orange feather marks appeared on his face.

The peculiarity they had was that they were intricately joined forming a kind of chain.

Focusing completely on my brother, I noticed that the marks were everywhere on his body: arms, legs, face and neck. Even some parts of his exposed torso in the chest area did not seem free of those marks.

I placed my attention on our bond to check if something had happened to him, but everything seemed normal.

After verifying that nothing had happened, I diverted my gaze to Lord Mordain who was apparently interested in what he saw.

But strangely he did not seem surprised or upset by those marks, which led me to think that maybe he knew what was going on.

I heard him murmur something as he placed his hand on my brother's back and opened his eyes wide an instant later.

"Another core?" I heard him say in a confused and surprised tone.

Lord Mordain looked at me and quickly revealed what I knew, "he was researching with other people the possibility of creating a substitute for the core artificially, this was the result".

"Fascinating", he said as he lowered the garments that covered my brother's back and we both saw the point that should be bright blue, but now had an orange tone, and was connected to those marks.

Mordain looked at it for a few seconds and placed his hands on that spot, I don't exactly know what he did, but the point glowed slightly and then the marks began to disappear one by one.

After all the feathers in the form of chains disappeared, we saw the point on my brother's back change shape, this phenomenon only happened once when someone tried to escape from the experiments that my brother was doing with Cynthia and Gideon.

I was in a state of constant tension and anticipation as I watched his mark change, I instinctively felt how the point seemed to be absorbing the mana of the will and my brother began to come out of his second phase partially reducing the transformation leaving his hair shorter.

After that, a pair of multicolored wings formed completely on his back and at the same time I lost the connection with my brother's consciousness.

Scared, I tried to establish a connection again, while checking his face for signs of anomalies.

At the same time, Mordain asked "boy, how do you feel?"

My brother opened his eyes and the look I saw oppressed my heart.

Mordain felt the change in my brother's gaze and quickly moved back, worried and looking at him with great caution.

The pressure he was showing was much stronger than before, unfortunately he still could not establish a connection through our bond.

With my last hope and almost choked words on my throat, I asked, "Brother?"

He only gave me an empty look, without emotions, when I saw that kind of look in his eyes, my heart agitated and tears threatened to run at any moment from my cheeks.

Inconsciously, I tried to approach him but Mordain put his hand in front of me and said to me "lady Sylvie at this moment is not the brother who is there".

I looked at him strangely and surprised because I could not understand what he was saying so I quickly directed my gaze with a frowning brow towards him in search of answers.

He did not hide his own he asked in a worried tone "have you ever acted strangely with the boy or felt that something was corrupting him?".

I started to analyze his question and remember all the moments I spent with my brother to try to find some situation like that.

I clenched my fist by the helplessness of not being able to find anything in my memories and spoke "Lord Mordain I can't remember..."

When I was about to give my denial of not finding anything strange in my brother's behaviors it came to my mind one of the first memories of my brother in this world.

It was in Elenoir the episode he had with Alea Aya and then with Claire in Xyrus; if I don't remember wrong when we first came to Hearth Yimir along with Mordain they said there was something trying to consume my brother.

How could I forget something so important not even my brother paid attention to the topic first we thought that since we had not had those kind of episodes everything would be fine.

What a mistake on our part but still lord Mordain should have seen something when we arrived and did not tell us. 

With visible anger in my eyes I returned my gaze towards the leader of clan Asclepius and asked "why didn't you tell us?".

He seemed to understand my question and his face twisted into an apology while speaking "I'm sorry I planned to tell you soon after watching a little more what I saw; don't expect this will happen".

Although my mind could understand that he had no fault at all for what was happening but my heart was furious with a torrent of emotions for having overlooked something so important.

It was not only anger against him but against myself for never questioning that behavior of my brother for having allowed it to come here.

I am the closest person to him the one who knows him best and probably always by his side as could allow this to happen.

With tears starting to run down from my cheeks tried to calm down but felt a large amount of mana coming from where was my brother so directed my gaze towards him.

I saw how the marks around his eyes in the shape of feathers disappeared and his hair began growing again intuiting that he was trying to enter his second phase again but it seemed different.

My brother or whatever it was controlling his body now got up adjusted his shirt.

While gradually a large amount of mana gathered around him and saw how horns grew on each side of his head.

The sensation that conveyed me seemed one that I did not know but strangely seemed nostalgic.

"¿Lady Silvia?", I heard him whisper to Mordain while my tears became more prominent in my eyes.