CHAPTER 6

"What a waste of time, " Richard grumbled. "This boy is too dangerous to be made a mage and you know that, Henricus!"

"Shut up! I already told you that he won't be made tranquil! You know the chantry laws as well as I do, without my approval you won't touch a single strand of his hair." Henricus coldly looked at the Knight-Commander.

"This is a mistake, you will regret this decision!"

...

Justice jumped to action without saying any other word, he was probably even more eager than him to defeat that thing.

The demon shouted, its voice assaulting his ears to the point making it hurt with pain. Justice slashed at the demon using its sword but the creature didn't even seem to mind the attack as it easily defended itself using an arm.

With his weapon being caught by the hands of the creature, the demon used this opportunity to kick him towards the wall of the wooden house, the strength used was so much that he literally flew away, only stopping thanks to the wall.

Now that Justice was out of the way, Abraham could finally cast without worrying. Reaching out his hand little balls of fire started surging out of nowhere, with each of them Abraham felt like something inside him was consumed, as if his breath was being taken away from him.

Noticing his actions, the demon roared and started running towards him, its claws prepared to shroud him into pieces, but before he could reach him, of the five balls Abraham created, two flew towards him, each one caused a little explosion of flames, forcing him back a meter, but it didn't stop there.

"AAAGGGH!" The demon cried in pain, its flesh in fire due to the fireballs cast by Abraham, but the damage was still on a superficial level, if it was so easy to defeat demons they wouldn't be feared.

Seeing the creature approaching once more, Abraham willed two of the three remaining fireballs to attack the creature, and the remaining one he decided to try out something.

Justice managing to stand up looked at the mess created by Abraham's attack and noticed he was trying to do something considering he didn't use the last fireball and closed his eyes, it looked like he was waiting for something, not willing to let his only ally die, he stood up and once again engaged in direct combat against the demon.

The demon was getting more and more impatient, its skin wouldn't stop burning no matter how much he moved or tried to erase the fire using his will it felt like there was something else on those fireballs as if what was making him burn wasn't the flames exactly but something contained within them, something he didn't have knowledge of.

Justice swung its sword with skill and finesse, each movement was more agile than the last. The sound of the sword bouncing off when hitting the demon's skin was heard again and again, it was like hitting rocks with an iron rod, no matter how much he tried, the demon didn't seem to be damaged in any way.

However, when the demon lifted one of its claw and strike down, trying to behead Justice, he used his superior agility to spin slightly to the side, taking the sword upwards in opposition to the demon's attack, when the creature's arm and the sword collided, there was a loud sound that reminded Abraham of a sword being sharpened by a grinding stone.

Soon after was the sound of a thud, of something heavy falling on the ground.

"Waaaagh!? MY ARM, YOU BASTARD!" The demon roared and punched Justice with its remaining arm, this time catching him off guard and knocking him out. "Now it's your time to die, mortal!"

The demon ran towards Abraham and tried hitting him, but just when his hand was 20 cm away from reaching him it bounced off. "What!? When!?" The demon looked at Abraham, completely enraged, it didn't even saw him casting an arcane shield! How could he have done that without even using a stave!? Could this kid in front of him be so talented that it could cast more than one spell at a time without the use of a focus?

Whether or not it could believe it, the demon had more pressing issues as it felt the ball of fire getting hotter and seeing how its color was starting to change to a blue one. Wasting no time it started hitting his barrier again and again.

The demon's attack was powerful, drops of blood fell from Abraham's lips as he frowned, he was trying his best to keep the barrier up, this sort of spell required him to have a lot of concentration, it was enough to shield him from weaker physical attacks and magic, but a demon wasn't what he would call weak.

Even though it wasn't a Pride demon who could have the strength of more than 20 grown trained adults, this creature compensated its lack of strength with speed, and the shockwaves from his attacks caused some sort of ripple effect, creating a backlash that damaged Abraham from within if this continued he would eventually die without even being touched by the demon.

The best part of Magic is that you don't necessarily need to create chemical components to actually bring them to life, with the knowledge of his previous life he could simply will certain chemicals to exist and incorporate them into his spellcasting, why use mana to create hotter flames and waste more energy when you can simply use lower amounts to literally create heptane and oxygen to act as fuel and oxidizer?

He wasn't really sure about the correct proportion though, which was why it was taking so long to adjust things, but at the moment he could at least tell that his fireball must have reached between two thousand and three thousand degrees Celsius.

Opening his eyes, he looked at the demon who kept hitting his barrier, making him feel pain in his guts and noticed that the fireball had turned completely blue, thanking his luck star he looked at the demon and shouted. "Die you damnable creature!"

The fireball left his hand and flew towards the creature's chest, feeling the fireball approaching it tried to escape and avoid it, but no matter what it did it never stopped following it closely. "NO!" It shouted when the spell hit its chest.

At that moment Abraham closed his eyes and simply let his body be carried away by the powerful explosion, he couldn't help himself in this regard, they were in a closed environment and no matter where the explosion happened he would be impacted by the explosion, although the flames would only really affect the demon.

"WAAAAGH!" The demon struggled on the floor, his skin burned with blue fire, hotter than the previous flames, there was a hole in his chest where the spell hit. A few seconds later it stopped struggling and its body dissipated in the thin air, all the energy that formed the demon became once again part of the Fade.

Panting, Abraham looked at the place where the explosion occurred, he couldn't help but curse his luck, there were so many easier demons to fight, why was he so unlucky? Although he could move, he was quite tired, that fireball spell he used could be considered as one of the most advanced spells someone can cast, in his current condition he didn't know if he would be able to cast it. At least, he knew that the spell had a large room for improvement yet, both in power, efficiency, etc.

Had he not studied Magic using Solas' method as well this would never be possible, questioning reality is good for an average fight, but if you truly wanted power it would be best to make full use of your imagination, although he can see why most people wouldn't be that great using this method, how many people know heptane, acetylene, oxygen, etc? They would never be able to do what he did through normal methods.

For once he was happy for having studied chemistry back in his previous life, he never thought he would use that knowledge for something...

Justice was wakened up due to the explosion, seeing how the demon died, it looked at Abraham and stood up.

He approached him and crouched, he touched Abraham's head and spoke. "Your help was appreciated friend, it isn't much, but accept my blessings, you'll receive part of my powers. So long as I live, and so long as you live, part of my power will be part of you, use it in any way you seem fit, and if you ever study the ways of summoning spirits, you can also count on me to help whenever you think its necessary. Justice is not reserved only for the Fade, I also deliver my justice to the world of the living whenever you mortals need it."

Abraham felt a wave of refreshing energy sweep him, but he noticed his eyelids became heavier and heavier.

"Well, it seems we part ways here, good luck mortal, Justice is on your side." With those parting words, Abraham fell into a deep sleep.

When he opened his eyes again he noticed the familiar ceiling and stood up. "This is..."

"Welcome back, sleeping beauty." Pawen's voice trailed into his ears.

"Pawen? Where am I?"

Pawen who was leaning her back on the wall of the room sighed and explained to him what happened after she took him to the harrowing. After drinking the lyrium he stayed in the Fade for almost half an hour, five more minutes and they would have killed him thinking that he failed.

When he finally finished the process he lost consciousness and Templars dragged him to his room.

"You stayed like that for almost four days, I usually come to take a look at you every morning, I truly didn't expect you to wake up when I was here."

Abraham nodded and stood up, he couldn't help but smile as he stretched a little, what Justice said about his blessing wasn't a joke, for some reason he felt much better than he usually did when waking up in the morning, his muscles felt way less stiff than usual, and he even felt a little bit more flexible.

"Damn, I feel so good!" He smiled and cracked his knuckles, hearing that popping sound he smiled once again and turned to look at Pawen. "So, what now?"

"Well, congratulations, you're now an official mage and entered the ranks of the chantry!" She clapped slowly with a mocking smile on her face.

Abraham could feel his eyebrows twitching slightly but in the end, he decided to let that pass. "Do I get any reward from succeeding on the harrowing?"

"What? Do you want me to pat your head and say that you're a good boy or something? Hehehe!" Pawen held her belly as she started laughing at him, seeing his face getting red with anger, she cleaned the tears that came out of her eyes after laughing so much and said. "Well, you do get a ring of lyrium infused silver and a weapon of your choice from the requisitions' office, although you could also request a customized weapon for you."

Nodding, Abraham thought for a moment, since he finally graduated, he needed a way to gather some attention on himself from the higher-ups... To truly achieve the power he wanted, he had quite a few things to do yet, the first was to study as many ancient elven ruins, tomes, scrolls, etc, as possible, he wanted to know through which method the elves acquired immortality in the past, he had an idea on how to make himself immortal but that would require him to study quite a lot some biological process and necromancy, and for that end, he would have to visit Nevarra.

His current theory is that its possible to make cells and the DNA restore itself to its prime state using magic if he could make this a continuous process, he would be able to avoid that way the possibility of cancerous cells being born, and a situation where the production of new cells becomes increasingly slower until it stops forever.

In a sense, it's like messing with the code of life to extend the expiration date of his body, if it worked he would be able to live indefinitely, basically, for as long as he still had magic to keep himself alive that is, so being made a tranquil or having his head cut off were the only things that could truly endanger this specific goal.

But in the end, what he truly wanted was power, and with the dangerous future ahead of him, he needed to get that as soon as possible, after all, the books he had read so far never mentioned the fifth blight, the rebellion of the mages of Kirkwall or the inquisition, there wasn't even a Cassandra or Leliana yet, or at least as far as he knew, if they were alive they might be anywhere in the world.

Abraham could vaguely remember that Cassandra was a seeker of truth before the events of Dragon Age 2, but he didn't know much about her past, as for Leliana... she was a part of 'the game' or whatever they called the political intrigues of Orlais, but he wasn't sure if that happened before or after the events of dragon age origins, after living so many years here, he was starting to forget some less important information about the games and the main characters...

Other than that, he also wanted to know if he could find either Solas or king Maric, he didn't want Cailan Theirin messing up the war against the darkspawn... Besides, he wanted to know if Loghain was truly a traitor or if he really didn't believe they could win that battle.

Shaking his head, he decided that it was time to find a notebook to write his objectives and keep track of his progress, after all, he could see a busy future ahead of him.

After thanking Pawen, he waited for her to leave to take a look at the calendar, the worst part about relying only on his knowledge of the games was that the timeline wasn't really that clear, but at least he knew that the blight would only start at the year 9:30 Dragon, and here it is... the current year is 9:18 Dragon...