Disintregated

Why was there so much in here that he had never touched on before?

A Mage's Facet only held what they had previously comprehended, which was why Stages were even a thing. You strengthened your Facet by feeding it with what you learned, in turn making it stronger.

But not only were there several things in here that he had never even thought of before, but there was also one that felt… stronger than everything else here.

'What's this?'

His curiosity got the better of him, and he wrapped his flowing consciousness around the blazing beacon within his Facet.

It was like a bomb had gone off in his mind.

Mana flooded out from the connection, rushing through his veins and altering the fabric of his being.

It wasn't a major change, more like an additional pocket sewn onto a coat, but Fate couldn't notice regardless.

His thoughts were sucked into his Facet as if it was a black hole. Freyn's Skill fell by the wayside, rendered pointless, as Fate's brain was filled to the brim with the knowledge within his Facet.

Unbeknownst to him, a familiar white wall within his psyche was reacting to this change as well, thinning out as it was battered by the Mana flooding his system.

As if it was alive and had decided it had had enough, it flashed brightly, the wave of light repelling Fate's Mana as if it had smacked against a second wall before settling back down and fading into the depths of his mind.

But Fate's Manifestation didn't take this rebuttal lying down, returning in full force seconds later and shredding the wall to pieces.

Hidden shackles loosened around his Facet before disintegrating entirely. A flood of information poured forth from behind the tattered remains of the white wall, mingling with the knowledge his Facet was cramming into his brain.

In one smooth transition, he went from 44% through the Journeyman Stage to 80% through the Adept Stage, something that shocked the only onlooker who was paying attention, Freyn.

Not only this, but the typical signs of advancing Stages didn't appear. There was no quieting of the world, no magical phenomenon around Fate, nothing. It was almost as if Fate had always been an Adept.

But this was impossible, Freyn concluded. There was no method he knew of for a mere Adept to hide something as critical as their strength from a Master such as he.

It would leak out in Fate's aura even with the best treasures designed for this task, and such treasures could only mask it at most. Freyn was confident he could detect such a mask, if not the actual power of the Mage underneath it, but he had felt no such thing.

What's more, now Freyn could feel the Mana he had poured into Fate being eroded by an unseen force, and he was forced to cut his Skill's focus on Fate short.

Enchantments that masked one's Stage could never take away something a Skill, or at least not without being extremely obvious and defeating the purpose of trying to hide one's power in the first place.

And even then, Fate could use his Skill just fine, and Freyn was certain that there was no Imprint on Ziobrun sophisticated enough to take away only parts of a Skill, let alone an Imprint that could hide such a complex pattern from prying eyes.

What happened?

He was shocked out of his train of thought as he felt yet another flood of Mana to his side, and he turned his head, wide-eyed, to Cait.

If Fate's feat was enough to doubt his eyes, Cait's made him seriously believe he was dreaming.

While Fate had slid into the Adept Stage, Cait stepped into this Stage for less than a second before her Facet seemed to turn its nose up and jump up to the Master Stage, where it settled at 3%.

Freyn, who was usually a calm and collected individual, especially in situations that would push any other man over the breaking point, had to pinch his arm to make sure he was awake.

And he was.

He couldn't decide if he should laugh or cry.

Like Fate's breakthrough, Cait's wasn't a direct leapfrog from where she had been to where she was now, it was a gentle, if swift, uptick to that point.

Freyn clearly felt her progress blaze through percent after percent before settling down.

Every Imprint he had dealt with that masked one's Stage, and he had dealt with more than his fair share, wouldn't be able to replicate the effect, and even if it could, it wouldn't be as smooth as Cait had made it seem.

His experience, his instincts, and logic told him that he what he had seen had nothing to do with Imprints.

These two, each barely old enough to be considered an adult, had just accomplished something that took the best Mages on Ziobrun decades to do, and the girl had gone above and beyond that, reaching a Stage that Mages could only dream of and work toward over the course of centuries!

At once, the eyes of Cait and Fate opened. Within their depths was a glint of maturity they hadn't held before.

'Finally,' Fate sighed.

He was finally awake.

His eyes and Cait's met across the courtyard, a flash of recognition appearing in both of their eyes.

Each one was physically younger than they had been before, and Cait's appearance had changed drastically with her ears, horns, and elongated canines, but the contours of their faces were recognizable at a glance by the other.

"You were here as well?" Fate asked. "Guess that means that the wormhole is what did this."

Cait nodded. "Eighteen years," she said, shaking her head ruefully. "And I remember every second of them."

Fate chuckled. "Finding a ship off this rock is going to be difficult."

"I'm sure the others will find us if we fail."

Freyn looked between the two with mild bewilderment, his expression having long since returned to one of calm. The two were speaking English, so he had no clue what they were saying.

"Who are you two?" he asked grimly.

Fate and Cait shared a knowing glance. "We're Styx," the two said in unison.

And they still had work to do.