Chapitre 8: Chapter 8
Channeling
Reskeme stared at his hands. They looked normal, no fur, not even blood covered them. He thought he should at least have blood on himself after taking his first life? Reskeme kicked the dirt, cursing himself for killing the innocent pig. To think he had destroyed so much bacon or ham. How much bacon and ham he could have eaten if he had killed it with normal fire. On the bright side, Reskeme was happy that his test dummy hadn't been a human. That would have been bad.
"What the hell, Rufus? I thought you said he had life magic?" Enis said, his voice shaky. After all, it's not every day you see something decay to ash with the touch of a hand.
" I don't know what it is, I destroyed the damned tablet in the ritual. I wasn't able to translate everything on the damned thing. Only half of the tablet was even there, most was too decayed to read." said Rufus, crossing his arms staring resolutely at Enis.
"Soo, it said nothing about demon powers on the tablet." Enis asked? Rufus held his chin and thought for a minute.
"There was something about demons, it was some nonsense about them having inverse magic. Whatever that is." Rufus Grumbled to no one in particular.
"Tell me what it said exactly!" Shouted Enis, his face red.
Rufus, trying his hardest to keep his temper in check, tried to remember what the complicated tablet had written on it. Reskeme just sat quietly as Enis yelled at Rufus. He decided to be quiet and listen. After all, it wasn't his fault the damned mage never told him anything.
"Be patient! The tablet said that demons are the opposites to angels, their entire goal in life is destruction. Which is why I was confused when the boy had life magic? The tablet also stated anything a demon does will destroy. It was very clear, Demons are incapable of peace, or was that love? Im unsure of the proper translation. By this logic that means Reskeme cannot heal, he can only break stuff? What about himself?." said Rufus thoughtfully.
" What moron wrote the tablet? Was there any signature of the warlock who wrote it?" said Enis, scowling.
"Oh, I actually copied the signature with charcoal." said Rufus as he took out a paper with a small amount of charcoal with weird letters in the middle.
"You Copied the Signature, and not the Entire Tablet?" said Enis emphasising every word.
Reskeme smiled. Rufus sweated profusely under the guild master's stare.
" Damit Rufus, what am I going to tell our boss? He is going to have my head if I tell him the truth and believe me when I say im not going down alone." shouted Enis. Rufus turned a stark white, all the colour leaving his face at those words.
" All right, what does it say? Maybe we can salvage this mess." said Enis glaring at Rufus.
" It says. Unstable, a failed Experiment. If you performed this ritual, you deserve what is coming to you. Signed, Archimage J, A." said Rufus.
" Well, that was ominous." said Reskeme.
"We'll go ahead, try healing yourself. The words of a long dead human mean nothing to me. He was clearly mad if he was calling himself an Archimage. That level of power is a myth." said Enis.
Reskeme did not like this development. Rufus turned towards him, pulling out his dagger. He eyed Reskeme with that gleam in his eye and a shit-eating grin on his face.
Rufus moved towards Reskeme as quick as a snake. The boy tried to dodge the mage by leaning back. Rufus slashed his dagger at the boy's chest, causing Reskeme to try blocking with his forearm. The dagger caused a long gash, biting deeply, causing blood to spray across the hard stone.
Reskeme let out a yelp and stared in shock at the bleeding cut. It fascinated Reskeme how much blood pumped out of his body. The pain wasn't so bad. His arm throbbed, but for the moment he was more surprised than in pain.
"Focus up boy, heal your wound." shouted Rufus. Reskeme sat down after he finally stopped panicking. The cut wasn't life threatening, all it did was bleeding profusely. As long as he healed it, he should be fine, right? Reskeme breathed rapidly, panicking internally. What about that pig? He shuttered at the thought of doing that to himself. Reskeme channelled his mana, and nothing happened. He was doing it wrong again. Rufus had to walk over and guide him through the basic channelling of magic once again.
Reskeme channelled mana of life through his body, somehow he was willing the mana to change from pure mana to life mana. Reskeme was unsure why this happened. The mana entered his body pure, lacking any affinity. Then Reskeme willed it to become life mana, while channeling, he just felt the change to the mana in his body. When Reskeme felt he had channelled his mana enough, he pushed it out away just above his hand.
He placed his mana covered hand over the bleeding wound. His wound burned and a foul scent filled the courtyard as it pushed an ooze out of his cut. The green mana sealed the wound closed the second the ooze lost contact with his skin. Reskeme blanched, the ooze fell onto the concrete and melted a tiny hole into the stone. As if even the by-product of his magic was harmful to anyone or anything but himself.
Rufus and Enis stared in bafflement, they had absolutely no idea what had just happened, The healing of the wound made sense. The corrosive waste from the healing of the wound was something new. They both had seen healing magic, and most times the wound would excrete the waste before closing the wound. The magic of healing would push out the dead and damaged parts and regrow new skin muscles and even fuse bones.
Waste was normal for healing magic, although it was a bit fowl. Whereas they could only describe the waste from Reskeme's healing as corrosive acid.
"Maybe his nature as a demon forces his magic to be the bane of life? It makes no sense for a demon to heal people." said Rufus.
" And what makes sense for a demon?" asked Enis Sneering.
" Sorry, you have a point." said Rufus.
"So that is what the tablet meant. The tablet meant all demons are the bane of life. The tablet spoke of how demons were powerful beings of destruction, carnage, and disorder. But nowhere on the tablet did it ever state any demon being able to heal humans." Rufus said.
"We can check that easy enough. Maybe its just animals that you can't heal?" Said Enis Grinning.
Reskeme was listening to Rufus and Enis talk about demons. He wasn't sure about everything that they were saying. They said something about demons being the Eternal enemy's of the angels. Also, that demons and angels had been fighting each other in battles for as long as the world existed, maybe even longer. That had to be a story to scare children at bedtime?
"This actually helps us. We didn't want the boy to be a healer, anyway. Reskeme is worth more to us as an assassin. Especially with that power to disintegrate his victims, That pig is only ash, and it took the boy's magic only half a minute." said Enis, grinning.
Reskeme scowled at the two uncaring mages. He bided his time. Waiting for his chance to escape this nightmare.
"What do we call this magic he uses? It will get confusing if we call it life magic," said Rufus, shuddering as though in remembrance.
"We could name it something from the ancient story of demon's attacks. The tablet mentioned something about an unwholesome flame that high-ranking demons could use. The flame tore the soul from its victims and sent them to torment for eternity in hell. The flame was called balefire." Rufus said Ominously.
Reskemes heart skipped a beat. That name sounded menacing. The story brought up its own questions. He only hoped it didn't send people's souls to hell when he finally had to take a life with his green fire. Reskeme was sure that soon, it would be kill or be killed. He had no illusions about that fact.
"He also has light magic, we got lucky indeed." said Rufus, grinning.
"How is light magic good news? You want me to steal things and kill people, right? If I use light magic, people will see the bright glow and they will easily find me. said Reskeme, shaking his head. Rufus stares mouth agape at Reskeme like he was an absolute moron.
"No, you idiot. Light Magic can bend light around you. Or and this is the best part you can create illusions." said Rufus. He did not mention that illusion was one of the hardest types of magic to master because of its complexity.
"Few people have illusion magic, so count yourself lucky." said Rufus. Seeing the questioning look on Reskemes face Rufus elaborated.
"One in One hundred mages are born with light magic and you being a lucky little shit got blessed with it." said Rufus. Reskeme scowled, disbelieving the mage's words.
"We don't have any illusionists here. As far as im aware, there isn't even one in this city. That doesn't matter I know the basics of what you need to do so lets get to work." said Rufus Shrugging.
Today was an odd day for sure. Reskeme was more exited than ever. He might be able to disguise himself? He thought. Rufus had even confirmed it. Reskeme decided this ability was the most useful magic he had ever heard of so far. To be fair, that wasn't much magic, but still.
" Alright you little shit, pull in mana from the air and channel it through your body." Rufus shouted.
"Calm down, you sadistic mage, im trying." said Reskeme.
"This time, do not think about healing or killing something. Focus on covering your skin on your arm with a pink layer of mana. Try to imagine the layer of mana looking like the skin of a normal person." said Rufus, holding out his bronzed skin as a reference.
Reskeme concentrated, he was finally getting the hang of channeling mana. Reskeme wiped the sweat from his brow. He could only do it while sitting still, but still a success. Reskeme did as the master mage suggested. He channeled his mana and instead of channeling life mana; he thought of the illusion he wanted everyone to see on his arm. Reskeme lifted his left arm, the one that once had a cut. Reskeme breathed deeply, trying to change his red skin to that of a normal boy's brown or dark brown skin.
To Reskemes amazement, after channeling his mana his arm colour changed. There was an obvious line on his arm, one side red and the other side a very dark brown. Reskeme gaped for a second and lost his focus on keeping his mana around his arm. In that instant, he lost control of his mana. The illusion disappeared with no obvious signs it had been there.
Reskeme's eyes went wide. As he sat on the hard stone. He didn't care that he was uncomfortable, as all of his attention was on his new magic. After all, what boy doesn't get exited at a new toy to play with. Reskeme held up both his arms and channeled. He focused all of his mana on his arms, covering his wrists and fingers from the bracers.
After channeling for a solid ten seconds and dripping in sweat, Reskeme imagined his arms a light brown color. The light coalesced around his arms as he watched; the light was colourless, and upon settling on Reskemes arms and hands it adjusted the color from red. He smiled, but the gaps in his mana cut that short.
Reskeme liked the fresh look. Even if it looked like he had the pocks, it was a vast improvement to his other appearance. Reskeme was focusing on keeping the mana in place. He wanted to practice holding the illusion for as long as possible. Reskeme tried to disguise his feet, as they were also red. Channelling his mana, Reskeme panted hard, his veins burning. It was extremely difficult to hold his illusion and channel mana for another illusion on his feet.
Reskeme didn't notice the shocked looks of Enis and Rufus. It baffled both of them that this boy was trying to dual cast on his first attempt. Reskemes second spell he was focusing on was his feet. This was extremely difficult and as he focused more effort on the new spell, the old spell was slowly getting worse.
Reskeme finally did it. His feet were light brown with red spots, that was because his mana wasn't thick enough to hide the color. Reskeme grinned at his feet, and his hands both looked somewhat normal. Even the little that Reskeme had done made him happier than he had been in days. Now he could hide his disturbing features.
Reskeme held both his spells for twenty seconds before they finally disappeared. He collapsed onto his back, focusing on two at the same time drained him beyond belief. His head throbbed at the focus required.
"Reskeme, if you channel mana into the spell after you have already created it, then you can keep the mana circling for a lot longer." said Rufus.
"Move the mana? What does that do?" asked Reskeme.
"Mana will slowly dissipate if you ignore it. When you get more advanced, you might put illusions on objects that will last for days and sometimes years. The structure of your mana changes how long your spells last and how effective they are." said Rufus.
"like sewer flowing down the grate, all the water follows the path you create?" asked Reskeme. Rufus walked over to the prone Reskeme.
"Sort of. It sounds like you have the right idea. Sit up I will show you how to create a stable spell." said Rufus smiling.
Rufus held his hand on Reskeme's shoulder and channeled mana of the world through him. Reskemes body shook at the touch.
"Watch, because im only showing this basic spell once." said Rufus. The mage guided mana through Reskemes body.
"Focus on covering your skin with what you want people to see." Reskeme complied, focusing on dark brown skin.
Reskeme could see the mana flowing through his arms as he was channeling. His veins burned as Rufus directed his mana to his arms. Rufus covered the arms in mana. Reskeme thought he would stop. Until the mana moved around his arm, creating a torrent of mana that was against his skin, it was moving slow and steady. The mana seemed to solidify and rotate even after Rufus had stepped back.
Reskeme stared in fascination at his ordinary arm: it was brown and looked completely normal, exactly how he had imagined it.
Reskeme gasped for air shaking, Rufus said, "The better and more efficient you create the pattern, the less mana it will take to maintain and the longer the illusion will stay in place."
Rufus had stated that this spell was only a very basic version of a pattern. Reskeme clenched his fists, determined to get a new pattern. Surely patterns are highly prized? And jealously guarded. The master had only given him the most basic pattern he knew.
"Channel some mana and try to add to the pattern I gave you." Rufus said, with a grin on his face.
Reskeme bounced on his feet. Adding mana didn't look hard when Rufus had done it. So Reskeme tried it. He channeled his mana. Instead of focusing on creating a new spell, he tried to add mana to the one already active.
Reskeme focused his mana on the spell trying to push his mana into the spell he figured his mana should follow the other mana. That was his mistake, and the spell shattered, sending the mana circling his arm to shoot out rapidly to escape. Reskeme yelped in pain. The mana burned his arm where the spell had been circling. Reskeme yelped, cradling his burned arms. Eyes watering, he glared furiously at Rufus. Rufus was bent over laughing, clutching his chest.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone