Truth immersed in lies

Stephan told her a truth immersed in a lie; he couldn't tell her obviously everything was just a simulation and he didn't exist in the past. He would only create troubles for himself and he wasn't ready to handle a woman like Aurora. She was powerful and all the luck in the world wouldn't be able to save him.

"Listen to me," he started again. "I don't mean any harm. I am just here to fulfil a mission your future self told me to do. Seeing as I couldn't hide from me despite all the warnings you told me, I decided I would wait for you until you come to me. Let's just say this! I am willing to hire you in exchange for a piece of information that is valuable to you."

She was surprised by the little truth he said. However, she understood something from his word; he couldn't tell her the truth in itself. If he claimed he was from the future, then it meant he knew how she looked like in the future, how things unfolded. She snapped her fingers and an anti-sound barrier enveloped them. She didn't want anyone to overhear what they were discussing. She backed off from his and returned her dagger to her boot without forgetting the scabbard.

"It's alright!" she reassured him. "You look like you were already a corpse, apprentice mage. I knew you had something about you that connected you to me. Soprana isn't a novice witch; she wouldn't mistake someone for my disciple. So are you one in the future?"

"The relationship we hold isn't like a master and a disciple. You have left me to rot without any help," he felt a wave of silent anger explode inside him. After all the fear felt and left, anger took place in his heart and he wanted to punch her. She didn't have any right to say anything to him; he was in a bad predicament because of her. If she wanted the winner of Legend of the Past to come to Masmoenia, she had had to warn them, to warn him. At least, he could have time to prepare. "Do you know how much I had to rack my brain to think of a way to survive with the most advantage?"

The white-haired woman didn't reply.

"What did you think you were doing? Aren't I supposed to have something to defend myself with? I played games all my life so I don't know how to use something called mana or conjure a spell out of nothingness. You said I didn't have anything to give to you, it's because you never gave me the chance to prepare. How dare you say you can take my life just because you feel like it?"

Aurora still said nothing.

"Don't waste my time! Since you pulled me into all this, you gotta help me finish this stupid quest. I want to return quickly, I don't want to be stuck in this timeline."

"Oh, I see. You are from Earth. It seems like something I would do... then where is your identification? I must have left you something to be identified with."

He thought of the system but it didn't look like some kind of identification. Next, the ring, he gazed at his finger and focused on the ring imagining it there, it appeared again on his finger and Aurora opened her eyes widely. She didn't expect she would one day give her ring to someone else; it symbolized a lot and it needed a lot of time to make one similar. There was only one explanation for the whole thing. Something happened in the faraway future… something happened to her.

She had always avoided trouble and acted dumb most of the time to not attract attention. If she gave up the ring then something happened that pushed her to involve herself and break her principle of no involvement with the kingdoms. Her hand rubbed her chin repeatedly as he talked. It looked like a brat who complained to his mother to her. Well, if she pulled him from the Earth then there was only one thing she had to do, she had to train him slightly before he came back to his timeline.

"I won't ask you anymore of the future, though I still suspect you lied to me. I will respect your discretion. However, I will teach you some tricks to defend yourself."

Stephan gawped at her, not believing what he heard. "I didn't think you were this… Nice. Why didn't you do it sooner? You could have simply left me a manual."

"I don't believe in such things, anyway…" before finishing her talk, she pulled him from under the counter and started inspecting him with her hands. He turned all red; no one had ever touched him that way, it was more like molesting but he didn't have the feeling she was doing it. It was as if she was looking for something.

With a decisive movement, she brought his hand to her mouth and bit it. His blood wasn't normal in any way; there was something strange about it. If she believed herself on how to be, she must have left him something but it would be hard to learn it with his current situation.

"I think you are poisoned… No, you were given something to block your mana veins. In other words, you cannot conjure a spell or produce mana. Who did that to you?"

"What are you talking about?" he managed to say after she stepped back from him and sat cross-legged. "I was able to do a normal attack."

"Any staff with magical properties would be able to do it. A normal human with a magical staff can do it. The existence of that magical gem is what allows you to do it. Normal sceptres that don't have it wouldn't be of any use to you… Also, you wouldn't be able to use that pendant since you need to be able to inject it with mana in order to work. You have to get rid of the poison first if you want to use your magic abilities. Therefore, it's not my fault that you weren't able to do simple skills."