21. Sofi's Past

After a few minutes Sofi finally managed to calm down and compose herself.

Deciding to trust Constance, even though she didn't have much idea why, she told her a little about herself, how she was older than she looked (almost two and a half centuries older than she looked), about how she and her friends faced a very strong enemy in a short time before the Corruption emerged and sealed the fate of almost the entire world. How some species were unable to save themselves in time, such as the elves who died shortly after they lost forever the World Tree they protected, and how and why she managed to survive until today.

Sofi was a powerful magic user, one of the best of her time without question, and if someone was dumb enough to do it she would either make the unfortunate person experience firsthand what it was like to be in the middle of a fire tornado or what would it feel like to freeze and less than 2 seconds. Not only was she highly versed in magic, she was also an accomplished craftsman of magical items and creator of potions, even though several of her items did not gain much recognition, they were impressive objects, one in particular was useful to her to this day.

But even so, the enemy of that day was too strong for her and her friends and her loved one, when she realized what had happened it was already too late, everyone was dead around her and her loved one, even though he was torn up and half-dead, was still clinging to a thread of life, a thread that Sofi did everything possible, with the face of the magic she had at the time, to ensure that it would last.

However, it didn't help much, using her magic as a kind of crutch and what was left of the potions she still had (some of which she admitted with a mix of shame and resignation, she have taken from the bodies of her other friends), she managed to keep him in that state, half-dead until she managed to make a preservation chamber, but just before she could place him in it and (with any luck) repair his body enough for him to survive, he died.

Desperate Sofi then, using the literal last drops of her magic at the moment, used one of the most forbidden necromantic spells she knew and trapped the soul of her beloved Liam, inside his own broken corpse. Even the ancient potions, far better than any sold in any capital of any current kingdom, were not enough to repair his body, so to ensure that he felt nothing while trapped in the body, Sofi used her knowledge to alter the cylinder that he placed, by reducing the size she managed to create a spiritual/physical suspension system.

While the necromancer spell that Sofi used, usually would be used as a punishment, forcing the soul to inhabit a corpse that would slowly decompose and be devoured by worms while the soul would feel all of this helplessly in addition to indescribable hunger, thirst, sleep and pain. The cylinder would preserve the body in a suspended state and give the impression to the soul that the body would be whole and not decompose, just lying in a state of suspended animation, possibly forever but the soul in the body would not know and it would essentially remain asleep while the body was kept inside the cylinder with the liquid.

But to do so she had to cut off a part of his body herself, she admitted tearfully that it was the worst thing she had ever had to do. From then on, things got worse, Corruption appeared, consuming the mana and life essence of the land itself, leaving it mostly extertile for most races, strangely excluded by most of the monsters that already existed before it appeared.

Sofi could feels her magic diminish with each day, knowing that without magic she could do nothing for Liam, she again took a practical step. She performed surgery on herself, a surgery that redirected her mana paths and body's magic conduits, by doing so instead of absorbing the mana from the environment, combining it with her own and giving a command to perform some phenomenon, both external and internal magic began to supply her body, just as she had done with Liam before, which extended her lifespan indefinitely, as long as the environment had mana she could possibly live forever even with the mana diminished day by day for centuries.

Obviously this came with a price, even though her mana paths had been literally sawed off and rerouted Sofi could still do traditional magic. However, now the cost to do so had increased to astronomical levels, if before she needed 1 mana to create a ball of light the size of an apple that would last until she undo the spell without any problem, now she would need 100 mana by a ball of light to create a ball of light the size of a lemon and would have to endure pain as if his own blood (which wouldn't be totally wrong now) was being sucked out through holes in his skin caused by red-hot needles every moment for the ball to be active.

And that's just for a basic spell, according to her one of the first that any magic user would learn, imagine the results if she tried higher level spells, the fire tornado or the almost instantaneous freezing that were her apple before? She would likely die from the intensity of the shock of pain, and the spell could very well go out of control and harm allies. The same would also apply to just redirecting her mana to some object, even if she had created it herself, that was also why some of the potions she made were so effective, while others were just water boiled with herbs and turned into poultices.

However, something that no one could have predicted was that Sofi's condition allowed her to withstand Corruption for a certain period of time, according to what she said she could spend up to 1 month in areas taken over by Corruption without suffering too much from it. On the other hand, if she stayed for more than 2 months, Corruption would not start to wall or kill her directly, but would literally digest her from the inside out.

And with this ability she spent the next few centuries searching the ruins within and beyond the Corruption for ways she could restore Liam and perhaps even help herself. But even after centuries, everything he found was not what he expected, all the books told people things, about how it was impossible to bring the dead back again and again.

Except for a few examples, which said that there was an elixir that could bring the dead back to life and reconstitute their cups, the Elixir of Resurrection, a legend even in Sofi's time, but her only hope in the current world, with that as her object she spent the years both in search of more knowledge and the components to create the Elixir.

Against all odds, Sofi managed to gather half of the ingredients to make it, as well as plants that she could use to continue to keep Liam in a state of spiritual ecstasy, but it had been over a century since Sofi had been looking for the lasts ingredientes with no success. It was obvious why, the more Corruption spread, the less mana in the world and fewer of the most important components managed to develop.

Sofi went into despair, everything she had endured, everything she had done, would be for nothing, because she hadn't been able to be quick enough to save him again. She then, motivated by desperation and a remnant of hope, went to the desolate lands of Corruption again, for a Whole Year, in the hope of reaching one of the few other places that had created ways to withstand Corruption and the mana could still be more present, even if there were only rumors of it at the time, no, not even rumors could be considered but basically legends.

But they were the only thing Sofi could think of that could help, after all for years she asked the heavens for help with no answer and since then she decided to act on her own. With a course in mind (if it could be called that), she set out and endured far more pain and agony than she had felt in centuries. The last thing she remembered was one limb walking or running in barren, Corruption-blackened land, the other crawling through green grass she had almost forgotten existed, and finally fainting in front of a hunter with a young man. red-haired apprentice with an irritable and sarcastic disposition but a kind heart.

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A/N: I said I would slow down the release, not that I wouldn't release another chapter today.

😁😁😁😁