Chapter 34

Leona told him she’d have to go through the process while he was doing so, once all the blue turned the green on her body it would be too late. Pulling the poison out at that point would be detrimental if not deadly for her.

“So a quick lesson in magic,” Leon said as Naro knelt down next to Aeli. “Both you and Sika’s magic is still at rank 1.”

“Huh? Really?” Naro said glancing back at Leona, he looked at Sika who nodded at him.

“Yes really,” Leona said. “There’s six ranks in magic, making it increase in rank is a big deal.”

“I thought there were five…” Naro said.

“Just listen. Magic is a living thing, it evolves with use and once it reaches a certain point, you are then able to rank the magic up. Different magic evolves in different ways but generally there are five evolutions, each time your magic evolves you get a Variant of the spell. We’re going to evolve yours and teach you ‘Conversion’. Go ahead, use Void and close your eyes.”

“Right.”

Naro shut his eyes and taking a deep breath pushed past the nervousness threatening to overtake him took hold of Aeli’s hand.

“Void.”

Violet energy exploded off him and he reached towards the magic in front of him, the moment he touched it a searing pain flew up his arm.

“Don’t let go. Focus.”

Leona’s voice kept him grounded and he bit his lip as the poison Mana flowed into him. He was reminded of Beso’s flames, how they burned him, the searing heat touching his skin. This was much worse, it felt as if his skin was melting off his bones as he drew the Mana into his body. He knew it wasn’t, he knew the Mana was just burning him but the sensation felt so real.

“Only focus on the poison Mana, ignore Aeli’s normal Mana. Imagine the flow of Mana as a long winding path, don’t touch the Mana that looks normal, touch the parts that look scorched, as if something burned the earth at some point.”

Naro nodded and focused his flow of Void on Aeli’s Mana, to his own surprise he could see where he was drawing the Mana from when he actually did what Leona said. Aeli’s Mana…was a cyan blue, he could feel it’s warmth, parts of it however were sweltering, he reached towards those and drew them towards himself.

He repeated his process ignoring the pain that followed when he did so, he drew that burning into his body, filling it piling up in the pits of his stomach and slowly rising higher as it continued to build.

Each time he drew from her for some reason, scenery would flash into his mind. He saw mountains, and other Dragonkin, with different colored horns and hair. He drew again and the scene changed, he saw a Coyote Beastkin lying on the ground, clutching a white bundle.

A Dragonkin that looked like an older Aeli picked up the bundle, ‘Mila’ flashed in his mind for a moment.

He realized he was peering into Aeli’s memories and each time the scene shifted.

Back in the mountains, monsters attacking the village, the Dragonkin looking towards a tiny Mila, held by the older Dragonkin, ‘mother’ flashing in his mind as he met eyes with her.

Another scene he was running, next to the Aeli’s mother clutching the bundle, looking behind him he saw the other Dragonkin chasing them.

He felt a wave of emotions flow through him as the scene shifted again, the bundle was being handed to himby Aeli’s mother, he didn’t hear the word she said but when the scene changed again to a shallow grave he felt a tear run down his cheek.

Again and again as he pulled the poison from her, more and more of Aeli’s memories poured into his mind, Mila grew bigger and bigger with each memory, and the pain in him grew worse and worse, the burning getting worse with each scene.

‘Protect’ was all that flashed in his mind each time the scene changed, it felt like his entire insides were on fire but he didn’t dare open his eyes, he didn’t break the connection.

His entire body scread at him as he felt pain flow throughout his entire body, claws scratching against his skin, pins poking his inside.
“Naro!” Leona yelled. “Now, focus on that collection of Mana in you, every ounce of that burning sensation and imagine yourself gripping it, ripping it out of your body, and reshaping it. The words that come speak them!”

Putting aside this was the first time he’d ever heard Leona yelled he followed her instructions, he formed a hand within himself and shoved it into the searing Mana. Ignoring the burn he closed it into a fist drawing all of it into that one point. He could feel the resistance from the Mana at first but he pushed harder forcing it to heed his wishes.

“Conversion!”

An explosion of violet filled the room and the sudden flare caused Naro to open his eyes, it was then he noticed the wide eyed expressions of Sika and Mila nearby.

Naro’s entire body was covered in cracks, almost all of them had turned green, the last of it had just started flowing up his face, but looking over at his hand he noticed the Mana was pulsating around his hand, different than usual, almost like he was wearing a glove of his fist.

The green in him slowly started to fade the blue, and the cracks started to disappear off his body as more and more Mana flowed into his hand.

Eventually all of the Poisoned Mana rested in his hand, he watched the flowing energy before glancing over at Leona.

“Uh…mentor. How do I get rid of it?”

“Oh, open your hand and let it disperse naturally. It is still just Mana.”

“Oh right.”

Opening his hand the Mana dissipated bit by bit until it completely fade away.

“Oh wow that was…simple…”

For some reason a sudden exhaustion consumed Naro, he felt his eyelids grow heavy and with each passing second he felt it harder to stay awake.

“Naro…Naro!”

The voices sounded so distant as Naro fell towards the floor, his eyes meeting the ceiling before they slowly shut.