Mana Mirror: Chapter Fifty-Seven (Patreon)

The following morning, Ikki appeared a minute before the normal time. I frowned – that had never happened before. He was always immaculately precise.

“What’s going on?” I asked. Next to me, Dusk made a curious cheep. Ikki shot her a strange look before suddenly doubling over.

"I have been instructed to give you an offer. Do not take it," Ikki said, his voice warbling as if he was speaking through thick mud.

"Okay..?" I said, my mind whirling. Meadow had said I'd be getting some offers that were traps, and I trusted her.

Then the clock ticked over, and he straightened, returning to his prim and proper demeanor.

"My father would like to break your contract with Orykson. He will pay you ten times the sum you currently owe, as well as grant you a peach from his personal garden, and give you a barony over some of his lands. All you need to do is bring this into your soul."

He held up his hands, and a spark of lightning appeared in it. It exuded a pressure of power that was complex and frightening. It felt almost like the Lushloam Seed – deep in a way that I didn't understand.

But where the Lushloam Seed was rich and vibrant, this was harsh and dark. Dusk shuddered and shied back from the spark.

If I wasn’t convinced already, that would have done it. She’d been voracious for mana, after all.

"What… Is it?" I asked, genuinely a bit concerned.

"A loyalty measure, to ensure you never betray him or your new country."

"Ah," I said. "I'll pass. Thank you for the offer, but I must decline."

Wealth and power were nice prizes, but they weren’t worth selling my life and free will over.

Did Ikki have a spark like that in him? For his sake, I hoped he didn't.

"Very well," Ikki said, dismissing the spark. He seemed to relax some once it was gone, and then glanced at Dusk.

"Before we move on," I said before he could ask, "I have a question. Should I stick with Orykson? Or follow Meadow instead?"

"Well," Ikki said, seemingly lost in thought. "When I first met Orykson, he was a brash young man, fleeing from the Death… The Death King, I believe. I was a simple courtesan in my father's court, content to laze about, as I had for the past century or so. At the time, I was about as strong as your brother was when we first met, and I'd eaten one of my father's Peaches of Immortality."

"You're immortal?" I asked, my eyes widening slightly. He smiled softly and waved for me to begin to head out back.

"Yes, I am. I have been for… far too long. There's no point to it anymore. Regardless, Oryskon made quite an entrance into the court by killing my then-husband, Admiral Li Zhou. Zhou was an Arcanist, and not a weak one either, as well as being from a wealthy and influential family at the time. Orykson was a peak fourth gate, yet to breach the wall to Arcanist. It was quite the upset."

"What happened?" I asked, curious.

"Zhou was arrogant, and sought to take from Orykson, demanding some of Orykson's spellbooks as tribute – they were quite rare at the time. Orykson shot a bone shard through his neck, gored him with a summoned deer, and then animated Zhou's skeleton to rip itself from his body before turning to the court and announcing that he would not be so merciful to the next person that sought to take from him."

My stomach churned at that, and my eyes widened. Ikki laughed, but it wasn't one of humor.

"At the time, it wasn't seen as mercy, but it wasn't seen as cruelty either, just an eye for an eye. One thing about the modern age is that, while softer, it is also fairer. Kinder. Better. Regardless, that sparked my interest in Orykson. Over the coming months, we became friends. He ignited something inside me, a passion for power."

An actual smile split his lips at that point, and he let out a soft laugh.

"I followed him like a puppy. I even asked him to court me after we discovered the methods to allow me to transition."

"You wanted to date… Orykson?" I asked, a half strangled laugh managing to escape.

"I know," Ikki said, laughing fully now. "I look back on those moments now and wince. But it is true, I did."

He grew more serious after that, and looked at me seriously.

"We did many things together. Some of those things I take great pride in. Many others I wish I could go back and undo. And some keep me awake at night, even still. Orykson's path is soaked in an ocean of blood and pain, both his and others. From that blood and pain, he has made a base of power."

He nodded and raised his fists, and I dropped into a ready stance of my own, depositing Dusk onto one of the larger stones to watch us. She let out an interested grass-whistle noise, but sat.

"I can say without a doubt in my mind that a world without Orykson would be a far more brutal place. That if not for the actions of him and others, this world would be far darker. He is not alone, it took many others, but to say he did not play a role would be lying to you."

He struck me twice in rapid succession, so my next words came out in a wheeze.

"I sense a but coming."

"But it is not that time," Ikki said, nodding. "Not anymore. The time of the old guard, of him, myself, and others? It is gone, and it is never coming back. Our way of thinking should do the same."

I managed to dodge a series of quick kicks, and Ikki inclined his head in approval.

"How about Meadow?" I asked. Her method of teaching and thinking seemed radically different to Orykson.

"Meadow is… Tell me, what do you know of Elohi?"

I frowned as I shifted out of the way of a kick, confused.

"It's always had strong wild magic, nature untamed by mortals. But in the past two or three centuries, it's risen to become one of, if not the largest, economic powers in the world."

"Yes," he said, nodding. "The unifiers of Elohi began their path similarly to Orykson. Blood for blood, an eye for an eye, death for death. But it did not create the world they so envisioned. Rather than retreat from the world, as my friend, my father, and others have, they pushed themselves. They experienced, and worked, and learned. They brought a power into this world far greater than any seen before."

He sent a flurry of punches at me, and while I dodged a few, the others struck hard.

"Justice. Empathy. Equity. They set these ideals above all others and changed. Now even Oyrkson has adopted their legal policies, by and large. What do you know of Kijani?"

"It started off as a bunch of small, weak groups and nations," I said between shaky breaths. "They unified into a republic about seventy five years ago?"

"Yes," he said. "It is the first nation established entirely from the new world's rules. I will not say there was no blood shed in its creation. That would be a lie. But rather than an ocean of blood, it was a forested pool. Progress. Meadow… She is like Kijani. New. Vibrant. And she has built her power on kindness, mercy, and a genuine love for this planet we call home."

"So you think I should go with Meadow?"

"I think you should go with what you want. Orykson's last student became strong. Very strong. Stronger than Meadow's last student. But there are folk songs about Meadow's student's heroism. And there are horror stories told about Orykson's student's deeds."

"Who are the students?" I asked as I blocked a kick to my head.

Ikki just shook his head and then held up his hand for a break.

"I cannot say. It is not that I will not. I cannot."

"I see," I said, dropping my hands and relaxing. "That was… Illuminating. I do have one more question, though. If Orykson is so… dangerous… Why hasn't anyone put him down?"

Ikki was quiet for yet another long second, one that seemed to stretch into eternity.

"Orykson has long mastered the art of being the lesser of the world's evils. His bill may come due someday, but so long as there are worse threats in the world, they'll always take precedence over him."

Ikki sighed and held up a hand.

"No more. You have been neglecting your temporal magic for too long, and you've gotten enough physical fundamentals to not move like a total amateur. Let's work on your temporal magic. Cast Capture Moment on yourself, starting with your dominant arm."

I sketched out the spell, though I knew full well that I didn't have the mana to cast it on myself like he'd told me to.

But to my surprise, as I tried to capture my own moment, the spell took far less mana than I'd expected. I still wasn't able to capture my full body, but I was able to do my arm.

"Good," Ikki said. "Now, Lesser Image Recall."

I sketched that spell too, and the temporal illusion of my arm appeared in the air.

"Why did it take less mana?" I asked.

"Casting it on your own body or your own spells is always easier than on things that aren't connected to your temporal body," Ikki said. "Now. Watch."

I did as he said, and he lashed out in a series of kicks and punches, bobbing and weaving. Each blow left a shimmering afterimage, and very quickly it became impossible to tell where his real fists were, and which were illusory, even though the illusions weren't perfect by any means.

Then he began to move. He leapt to the side, leaving a blurry image of himself where he'd been before, and then to the other side, creating another pair of images. He began to circle me, leaving a trail of illusions in his wake.

The illusions were flickery and obviously fake, but there were still so many of them that it became disorienting to try and follow him.

Then he stopped and they all faded. He nodded to me.

"When you break into second gate, I will teach you Material Echo, which can give your recall spell a semblance of reality. A physical shell of mana. Then, it can become even more terrifying. Mixing together illusions and physical echoes will allow you to create a minefield around a foe, where a mistep may cause them harm, or do nothing at all."

"It's very impressive," I said. "I don't… I don't do much melee, though."

"Cast Briarthreads," he said. "Then capture a strand, and call an illusion."

I did as he said, and between the small size of the thread of briar and the fact it was my own spell, it had a surprisingly cheap mana cost.

"Now do the same with your Pinpoint Boneshard," he instructed.

I released the bone in a zigzag pattern, and captured its moment along each point, then set illusions.

It was an impressive sight… Until my temporal mana guttered out, and all of my illusions died.

"It's very effective," I admitted, "but it drains my mana like mad."

"The drain will decrease with mastery and ingraining," Ikki reassured me. "Futhermore, Lesser Image Recall's ingrained effect allows its image echoes to linger for a few moments after you stop powering them. There is a lot of strategy in using time magic well, for it is costly."

We spent the remainder of the two hours working on my technique and spellcraft, and I did eventually wind up telling him the story of how Dusk came to be, which seemed to interest him. But before long, the two hours were up, and he vanished.

As I cleaned myself off, I thought towards my next obstacle. I needed a source first gate death mana, after all.