Chapter 114: After a Year

With the war raging on, it had claimed its first major victim on the side of the Empire. The necromancer died. The Hunters had had enough of the one-man army and had launched a joint attack on him.

Fifty thousand strong they attacked him. The members of his own nation provided help in the form of an attack on the enemy, but no one got close to the man himself. The imperial Hunters were a superstitious bunch and thought his minions would curse them.

Out of everything the Empire lost one Grand Mage and about two thousand Hunters, while the Kingdom lost almost forty thousand of the strike force.

Even for the war that was no small number, and the Kingdom had to step back a little. For now, they were at a disadvantage, but killing the necromancer was an investment in their future survival.

The good news for the duo was that they had participated in that battle, and had taken down hundreds of enemies. Their quota was complete, and so they left the warzone.

Contractually they had to stay and hunt in the Tundra, but that was it. Their goal was met, and they didn't need to put their life at stake, certainly not for a nation that deemed it necessary to exile them for years in the cold.

While others fought and bled, they hunted and ate. While others died and sacrificed, they joked and played. They were treating the remainder of their time on this mission as a well-deserved vacation.

They still trained and practiced magic, but that wasn't the sole focus of their lives anymore. They had decided that they wanted to live their lives, not just survive them.

Usually, Ciaran would have never willingly lessened his progress, but he had hit a wall. His understanding of magic had slowed down to a crawl. Without a stronger body, he couldn't become a Mage, and without becoming one he could only study Rune Phrases periodically.

His body was stuck, it just refused to push forward for some reason. It still accumulated energy, but it did so at about one-tenth of the speed that it should have.

Diana on the other hand, just couldn't progress in magic. Ciaran told her what he thought was the method for breaking through, but it just didn't work for her.

Her body progressed, but it was not as noticeable as before. She was at the end of her growth sprout and she was in the mid ranks, which Warriors liked to call the Transcended Ranks.

Ciaran had found out from her that warriors had added their own definitions to specific groups of ranks. The boy thought it was for no other reason than to make the meatheads feel better for himself, but his pale moon meathead was proudly calling herself a Transcended Warrior, so he didn't find any need to be an insensitive jerk about it.

As it turned out, ranks one through three were called Ascended, ranks four through six Transcended, and everything else was called the Devine Ranks. To the boy who had seen and talked to a real God, it seemed like the biggest joke ever.

'Then again mages have two separate ranks to call out how awesome they were, so who am I to judge?'

The boy was lost in his thoughts when he felt a familiar presence.

"I expected a lot from you kid, but starting a war and just going on a vacation, was beyond my imagination," Eleftherios said, before giving a nice big hug to his lazy disciple.

Verdania was beside him, and she was the second one to give the scoundrel a little love. The dryads missed the boy to death, and finally, they were allowed to meet him again.

Strangely they weren't the only ones dying of excitement. Old man Solver was there, and he was just as happy to see his granddaughter.

"Diana, are you alright, has the crazy kid done something to you? Let me check? You are already at Rank Five? Marvelous!" He went on and on.

Ciaran didn't miss his actions or his sincerity. All this time he thought Silver wanted to separate the two kids, so they could grow stronger, but the truth was different it seemed.

He looked at his Master and asked the silent question with his eyes, but the silence was deafening. If the dryads could say, they would. Whatever was keeping them at bay was doing a very thorough job.

"How is grandma, is she well, can she help you with your spells Sis." He asked, not willing to let it go.

Eleftherios flinched, but there was no anger in his eyes, the boy observed.

'So Mother Nature isn't behind this… as far as they know.' He thought, and got a complaint from the Goddess, as she was listening to everything that was going on there right now.

"She can, but I rather not involve the demented in my work." The Archmage said with a sad sigh.

The boy got what he wanted, it wasn't a full answer, but at least he knew there was an out if they needed it.

Then his Master pulled him to the side and asked him for a crash course on what he had experienced here.

Ciaran began from the very beginning, from how he made soap, all the way to how they killed a Warrior of Rank Five. He didn't spare any details as he was proud of all of his accomplishments. He did spare him one piece of information, but that was because of sheer embarrassment. And the sad part was, the boy needed help with that particular problem more than anything, but there were just no words that refused to announce that fact.

"Well, we may be able to help you reach Rank Two. Then we need to talk, about why you need our help in the first place. But that can wait, for now, it's time to give you your bath. I will be helping Verdania this time." Eleftherios said.

This time there were five people in the magical body of water. The boy was laying there, with one mentor on each side, while Diana and Silver watched.

The Magus was confused about what the farce was all about. But after it began, he was furious. The girl had never seen her granddad so mad before. His face was red, his veins had popped out, and his palms were bleeding from gripping them too hard.

The boy was peeled, from the soles of his feet to the top of his head he was peeled. Then the cutting began, the water was cleansing itself, but it couldn't keep up with their speed.

Eleftherios was the best healer in the world, he needed but a moment to heal any injury. Verdania wasn't as skillful, but she was précis and fast, she cut every inch of the boy's body and soul. She never went too deep and moved to another area straight away.

The boy was growing, but he did not scream, he held it in, indicating he had grown used to this. Only when Verdania started cutting deeper into his soul, did the screaming begins.

The problem was, that what had been done to Ciaran was one of a kind mess, and there was no clear solution to it, so they had to experiment.

Cutting off the rotten parts was obvious, but which parts would rot if exposed was not, so she cut his soul, and peeled its layers back, checking every nook and cranny. The boy lasted thirty-five hours before he passed out.

"Give me names," Silver said, right after making sure the boy was unconscious.

He had gone beyond mad and was now in a state of permanent calmness. After Verdania shared with him her memories, however, he sat down next to his granddaughter deflated, and speechless.

He wanted justice for what was done, but the butchers did it all for the sake of the boy. Who was he to vent this feeling to now?

Diana patted him on the back. She knew how he felt, all of them did.

Before any of them could speak, the Wind howled. It should not have been able to get in Verdania's zone of control, but it did, and it was seeking the boy.

They couldn't believe their eyes, as his body was now restored, or at least a little bit more restored, it had managed to break into Rank Two. The moment it did, his newly cleansed soul expanded.

The Wind and the Water clashed as they fought for the boy, and finally, they marched as the Storm was born and engulfed its owner and creator. It lifted him up and it loudly proclaimed their presence for as far as it could, Dyrta itself empowering it.

Then it disappeared, gently letting the boy rest on the ground.

"Did… Did he just?" Diana asked, but no one answered, still unsure what they had just seen.

Even Mother Nature was left speechless. She had seen a lot in her eternal life, but someone becoming a Mage in their sleep, now that, that was going to become her new favorite Fable.