Bab 88: Chapter Eighty Seven.
Chapter Eighty-Seven: First Recruit…
Greg's gaze followed the airship as it shrank far away on the horizon. Unsure what to make of the sudden departure, he couldn't help but feel like something hadn't gone the way it should. From the way things had been going since he came into this world, he'd fully expected to have to fight the people on board the airship. If not for the fact that they were after what was rightfully Greg's reward for once again surviving another attempt by Fate, then because they were somehow associated with his teacher's former mage alliance. Despite being weak, there was no way he would have let them come after her without putting up a fight. But then, while he'd been conferring with his teacher in his dining room, his mother had come in and informed them that the airship was leaving!
"Get your family ready; we'll be leaving in a few days." His teacher's voice drew his attention away from the departing airship.
Furrowing his brow in confusion, Greg asked, "Isn't the danger passed? They only came down once and never caught sight of you."
Standing beside him with her gaze still fixed on the airship, the healer answered, "I scared them away, but they'll be back." The confusion on Greg's face deepened at her words. Thus far, they hadn't even made it past the first part of their plan, which was information gathering. How had his teacher somehow scared their guests away? Noting his confusion, his teacher questioned him, "What would you think if you saw someone come across a pot of gold, look at it longingly for a while, but then walk past it?"
"There's something wrong with the gold. Either that, or there's some hidden danger that's preventing them from taking the gold," Greg answered without having to pause to think much.
"Well, cleansing pearls are not everyday items that you can just acquire whenever you wish to. Even access to the abyssal realm doesn't guarantee that you'll get one. Not only do they take half a cycle to form, but abyssal oozes are usually found in places with high concentrations of abyssal mana. This means that there are usually several other powerful monsters around. This is a town full of mundane humans. With just the five third-tier guards they had, our guests could have easily obliterated the whole town and there's little the townspeople could have done to counter them. In the state I am currently in, not even I would have been able to stop all five of them. Against one or two third-tier mages, I can stand. Three if I'm really pushing it. But with five third-tier mages, and possibly more back on the airship, we'd have been on the losing side. And yet, there they go. Leaving behind what is easily a very valuable treasure. Why do you think that is?" His teacher posed.
"Something spooked them," Greg wasn't sure if it had been a rhetorical question or not. Still, he answered as his teacher's logic started to make sense. "But I don't see how that's connected to you," Greg confessed.
"With the being you are linked to giving a warning that the abyssal ooze was powerful enough to kill both you and me, I wasn't going to take any chances. The formations I was fashioning around the creature used knowledge and principles that only a seventh-tier mage or a very knowledgeable sixth-tier mage would use," She explained. "When you reported that they only had third-tier guards with them, I didn't expect any of them to know what it was they were looking at when they saw the formation. From the look of things, however, they either had someone very knowledgeable, or a high-tier mage on board," she guessed.
"Wait, but then why come down the first time?" Greg asked as this logical inconsistency struck him.
The healer was quiet for a while before shrugging in the end. "I don't know," She confessed.
Greg looked at the departing airship for a while before a chuckle escaped him. "If you're right, then we were saved by the fact that our enemies are even more formidable than we initially thought them to be!" He said sounding amused.
The healer didn't answer or laugh along with him, her gaze still fixed on the airship. "Thank you," she at last said. Caught off guard both by her words and the complicated feelings they seemed to convey, Greg turned in her direction. Her gaze finally turned away from the airship as she turned to look at the town beyond the compound. There was, however, an unfocused quality to her gaze, as if she wasn't looking at what was around her. "I can't tell you how many times I've imagined the day I returned to exact revenge on the ones who betrayed me and anyone in my old alliance who might have had a hand in it. In my mind, I would have regained the power I'd lost and gained even more. Enough to make my enemies quake in fear and regret the day it ever crossed their minds to come after me…" She revealed. "But out of nowhere, before I was even close to being ready, my old mage alliance was in the skies above me."
Greg wanted to say something to assuage the fear that he could see in her eyes. He, however, remained quiet, knowing that she wasn't done speaking. A self-mocking smile crossed her lips "You'd think that, with how long I've lived, I'd be more composed. But the truth was, I was panicking. I felt like a caged animal and probably wouldn't have been as calm all through this ordeal if you weren't there to keep me grounded," She admitted.
"You were willing to lose your life to save mine, helping you through this was the least I could do" Greg answered his teacher, a reassuring smile on his lips. In truth, Greg didn't feel like he'd done all that much. The danger had come and he'd been ready to face it alongside her. But even before they could do much, the danger passed. As far as he was concerned, he was very much still in her debt. Greg also didn't think that his teacher could be blamed for her reaction to the situation. Perhaps better than anyone else, Greg knew just how badly damaged her core and mana pathways were and consequently, how much it had weakened her. She was the equivalent of a third-tier mage but even then she could only use her magic for limited amounts of time before she had to rest, lest she overexert her already fragile mana circulation system. That she was afraid of her old mage alliance was only logical.
Still, not wanting to let her dwell on her reaction to her old mage alliance, Roka brought up a question. "Why not leave immediately? If you are certain that they are coming back, we should probably try to create as big a gap between us and them as we can," He stated.
"Because it doesn't matter how big the gap is if the one pursuing you is moving faster than you. Eventually, they'll catch up," The healer replied enigmatically. "The higher up the tiers you climb Roka, the fewer mages you'll find. There are probably more than ten billion first-tier mages in the realm right now. On the other end of the ascension ladder, however, there are less than ten ninth-tier mages. The number of eighth-tier mages probably doesn't reach a thousand and seventh-tier mages, ten thousand. Spread out over the whole realm which has more than a hundred billion people, it means that you only get a single seventh-tier mage out of every ten million people," She laid out.
"High-tier mages are so rare that you only need to have three seventh-tier mages in your alliance for it to be considered a low-level seventh-tier mage alliance. If you have seven, then you are a mid-level seventh-tier force and at fifteen, you are at the apex of seventh-tier forces. If your alliance has even one eighth-tier mage as a member, then it's immediately promoted to an eighth-tier mage alliance. In other words, while individual mages would be after the cleansing pearls, to a mage alliance like Draknar, a high-tier mage would be the true prize."
"I don't know if their liaison with the Draknar mage alliance was on that airship or not. But either way, as soon as the information that there's probably a high-tier mage on this mountain reaches them. They'll contact their mage alliance with that information. An unallied high-tier mage is almost impossible to find. If they can find one, that liaison will earn great merit with the alliance. This place is far enough away that it'll take a few weeks, perhaps even a month or two for them to arrive. You can be certain, however, that a delegation from the Draknar mage alliance will be coming. ." His teacher explained
"As a form of respect and sign of goodwill, the Draknar mage alliance will send a seventh-tier mage as the head of the delegation. This is both a sign of the alliance's strength and an indication that they are taking the prospective member seriously. The reason we can't leave immediately is because it'll be all too easy for such a mage to track us down. Regardless of which particular school of magic they belong to, seventh-tier mages usually have a wide repertoire of means that they've garnered through the cycles. I'll need to wipe away every last trace of our existence from this town if we don't want them tracking us down to wherever it is we move to. Only then can we leave with peace of mind. Otherwise, we'll just be delaying the inevitable. That's why we can't leave immediately. I need to be thorough about this, and in my currently weakened state, that will take a few days," She finally answered his initial question.
Greg wasn't sure how to feel about this. In his mind, he'd always known that he would leave this town. There was no way he was going to ascend through the tiers while cooped up in a little town in the mountains with barely any mages to speak of. Therefore, Greg couldn't exactly say that he was being made to do something he wouldn't have otherwise done on his own. At the same time, however, the idea of completely wiping away any trace that they'd ever been here made him feel like something important was being taken from him. Like rootless duckweed, he'd be adrift without any actual roots or place that he could point to and call home.
With a sigh, Greg forced the feelings down, recognizing the irrationality of feeling the way he did. He was Greg and not Roka after all. He might have the young man's memories, but in reality, they were just that… memories. Objectively speaking, he'd only been in this world and this little town for a little over a year and no more. He was already adrift. Far from home in a completely different world. To try and cling to this town would be Greg confusing himself with Roka. And that was to say nothing of just how dangerous it would be. He might have grown fond of the town over the last year. Greg, however, wasn't even remotely interested in dying just because he'd grown sentimental. Greg was about to turn to his teacher to let her know that he understood and would be preparing. Before he could do so, though, Greg caught sight of something that caused him to freeze.
Immediately, Greg sent mana to his eyes and scanned everywhere around them looking for signs of the invisible guard. He, however, was nowhere to be found. The young man from the airship had chosen to stay back by himself. Turning to his teacher, Greg noted that she seemed to also have caught sight of the young man who was walking toward his home with the former Town-head beside him. Greg couldn't help but be glad to see that his teacher was yet to revert to her true appearance meaning that even if the young man somehow got back to his people, he wouldn't be able to tell who she was. Though from the cold killing intent Greg could see in his teacher's eyes, he doubted that she was even remotely interested in leaving such a loose end.
With everyone else, this town was their home. Even after his teacher had wiped away every trace that they'd ever been there, the townspeople could be left to go about their life without anything being out of place. But as someone who came in on an airship, the young man approaching them was a piece that didn't belong in the puzzle. Even if they somehow managed to wipe his memories, leaving him in this town would be a dead giveaway to those already familiar with the young man that a powerful mage had done something to him. He was like a discordant note in a perfect melody. Without him, this was just a town in the mountains with no evidence of a powerful mage ever being here. With him here, any hope of obfuscating their trail was contingent on what they decided to do with him.
Greg could not help but glance in the direction of the departing airship, wondering what possible reason they could have for leaving this man behind. After all, if they were scared enough to run away, then they must have known that there was no way this young man would be able to do anything to a potentially high-tier mage. The fact that he was so openly approaching them at the very least put Greg a bit at ease. If he was up to something nefarious, more than likely he would be more clandestine in his actions. But with the former Town-head walking beside him, they moved past the gate and came to stop a few paces away.
Greg noted the look of confusion that crossed the former Town-head when he caught sight of his teacher, not recognizing her new appearance. The look, however, didn't last long as his features smoothed out soon thereafter. Whether or not he had worked out who it was most likely to be, Greg didn't know. Instead, the scarred older man turned to him and smiled. "Roka, my boy, how are you?" He greeted. Given that Roka was the one that gave the former Town-head a way out in the form of a potion, and even found a way to safely transfer power away from him while lionizing his legacy, the man had become much friendlier as a consequence. "Apologies for showing up unannounced, but this young man came back down from the airship and asked to be introduced to the one who was pushing our new Town-head's wheelchair," He stated.
Despite his words being genial, the former Town-head didn't waste time with unnecessary words. Instead, he got straight to the heart of the issue and explained how it is he came to be here with the young man beside him. Greg also appreciated the fact that the man was smart enough not to draw any attention to the unknown woman beside him. Whether or not he had worked out that this was the healer in disguise, he seemed to understand the necessity of not divulging to one's potential foes information that might be later used against them. Either that or he was just too scared of even the possibility of garnering the healer's wrath. Whichever the case, it kept the young man from realizing that the one their airship had run away from was actually a paper tiger. Who knew if, even now, this young man had a way of communicating with the airship? If he somehow got them to turn around and come back, it would spell disaster.
The young man stepped forward. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Lothar, Sanz Lothar," He stated. Greg knew from his lessons on the human tongue that Sanz was this young man's surname. Much like the Japanese in his former life, in the human tongue, the Surname came first before one's particular name. "Before we proceed, allow me to once again apologize for the poor showing that my sister exhibited. I am willing to make any reparations that you may deem necessary," He spoke calmly.
"I am not the Town-head, why did you come to me?" Roka asked. The apology was good and all, but it didn't make any sense that Lothar would make it to him. Looking back at his performance throughout the meeting, he couldn't see how it was that the young man had figured out that he was the key person there.
"When my sister tried to transfer leadership from the one you were pushing to the burly man, the burly one didn't look to the one in the wheelchair. No, his first instinct was to look at the one standing behind the wheelchair. In his eyes, there was a measure of fear as to what your reaction to the transfer of power would be," Lothar replied straightforwardly. Greg could tell that he was consciously trying to be honest and open with him. Given that the airship he had come in on was now little more than a speck on the horizon, he must have realized that he was in danger. He was doing his best to avoid earning his displeasure knowing that his life was hanging in the balance. "My sister failed to notice it, but I suspect that what she transferred was an empty title. The true power in this town lies with someone else," He said.
"An observant one this one," The former Town-head commented offhandedly, sounding impressed.
Greg's lips pressed together, unable to help a feeling of displeasure that the flaw in his disguise didn't have anything to do with himself. "What do you want?" Greg questioned, choosing to get right to the heart of the issue.
"I have but one request. Like you, I walk the path of magic," he stated. Greg didn't bother asking how Lothar knew that he too was a mage. Given that the airship had already made its escape, he probably knew that there was a high-tier mage in this town. The only way that Roka would be considered the true power in this town was if he was somehow linked with that mage. A teacher-student relationship was simply the most likely. "Unfortunately for me, I am afflicted with a mana-averse body. While I was in the first tier, it wasn't even detectable. It was only after I ascended to the second tier that it fully expressed itself and became a hindrance to me. I looked high and low for some sort of solution, but have found none. The cleansing pearls from your abyssal ooze are my last hope. I only wish to buy a few from your teacher," He went on to say.
Greg had to control himself to keep from letting out a groan. Even though the cleansing pearls were his, he was fully prepared to let them go. After all, based on what his teacher said, it'd take another three months before even the first cluster of pearls would be produced. They didn't have that much time. In a month or two, people from the mage alliance would reach this town, and if they were still here when that happened, it'd be game over. All that Lothar had to do was come back then and he could have had as many cleansing pearls as he wished without even having to buy them. Instead, he had chosen to stay behind and make himself a complication to their escape plan. Greg was cognizant of the fact that Lothar hadn't actually set out to ruin their escape plan. Nevertheless, from the look his teacher had sent the young man, it didn't matter. He was now a problem that needed to be dealt with…
***
Calm as he pretended to be on the surface, Lothar could feel his heart hammering inside his chest. Back when he flew off the airship, he'd believed that he had no other choice. He had looked far and wide for other solutions and yet none had worked. This was probably his last chance and he had to grab onto it no matter what. Now that he stood before the disfigured boy, Roka, and the terrifying woman beside him, Lothar couldn't help but wonder if he had been too rash. Perhaps he should have given up on this and tried to find some other way to deal with his ailment. After all, even as a second-tier mage, he still had hundreds of cycles to live. Who's to say that another opportunity wouldn't have presented itself?
Lothar had given the burly man's reaction as the reason why he was certain that Roka was the true power in this town. But while that was part of it, it wasn't the entire story. As he was coming down from the airship, Romin, his invisible guard, had descended with him. Romin wasn't planning on staying. Both second and third-tier mages were just different-sized ants in the eyes of a sixth or seventh-tier mage. His reason for descending with him was because he had some information to share before he returned to the ship.
"You should visit the young man in the mask," A voice had sounded from beside him. Lothar didn't bother turning in the direction knowing that he wouldn't see anything. For reasons that Lothar didn't know, the man never dispelled his invisibility.
The man's words were exactly what Lothar had been planning to do, but to hear Romin tell him to do so had given him pause. Had he noticed the same thing he had or something different? "Why is that?" Lothar had asked.
"I can't be certain as he passed all my tests right after, but I have a very strong suspicion that the boy could see me!" Romin had revealed, much to Lothar's shock. Having had the man as a guard for close to three decades now, Lothar knew just how good his stealth was. Even among third-tier mages, those who weren't already aware of him would have a very hard time picking up on his presence. And yet, the young man pretending to be a servant to the Town-head had seen through his strength. Unbeknownst to his long-time guard, his words had been enough to confirm Lothar's suspicions that the boy represented the true power in the town. That, however, wasn't the end of his guard's report.
"Also, I was standing behind him when your sister threatened to kill him and the cripple. I watched his reaction up close and it wasn't of one scared. For some reason, he didn't do it in the end, but his reaction was of one who was about to attack!" Romin revealed. Lothar couldn't help the cold dread that seized him at how close to death they had come. It wasn't the boy that he was afraid of, but his master. If he had attacked, there was no doubt in Lothar that the guards they'd brought with them would have killed the boy. They'd have killed the student of a sixth or seventh-tier mage. If the mage didn't travel all the way back to the city of Varun to exterminate his whole family, it would have been considered mercy on the mage's part.
"Lastly, it was hidden under his shirt from the front, but standing behind him, I caught sight of a zarinite chain looping around the back of his neck," Romin stated.
"A mana-suppressing item," Lothar inferred. The metal zarinite had a variety of uses, so his guess could have been wildly off the mark. However, given that this was its most common use, Lothar had reason to suspect that the same was what was true here.
"Yes," His guard confirmed. "The item didn't allow me to sense whether or not he was using mana, let alone his tier, however, I am reasonably certain that he's a mage. Be careful. I hope to see you in a month," The guard had said.
"Thanks," Lothar had muttered to the air, unsure whether the man had already left or not.
Even now as he stood before the young man, Roka, Lothar couldn't sense any mana coming from him. Clearly, he hadn't gotten around to taking the mana-suppressing item off yet. However, it wasn't the boy that had him worried, but the woman standing beside him. After seventy cycles of life, He could tell when someone wanted him dead and the look in this woman's eyes communicated as much. Was she someone close to the boy who was mad that they'd threatened to kill him? Was she another of the high-tier mage's students? Unlike the boy, she wasn't masking her mana and from what Lothar was sensing, she was either in the late third or early fourth tier. Not the high-tier mage the airship had run from but still a very real danger to him if she chose to attack.
Luckily for him, she had shown restraint and at least allowed him to say his piece without being attacked. Now all that remained was to see if their teacher would be interested in his offer or not. In the Mage world, strength was the cardinal rule. If you were strong enough, you could take whatever you wanted whenever you wanted and there's little others could do about it, other than becoming stronger than you. Strength, however, wasn't by any means the only way to get what one wanted. As one who had been born to and raised in a merchant family, Lothar had chosen to go for a straightforward trade. Being the weaker party here, he was certain that they would ask for an exorbitant price. So long as it involved money, however, he was certain he'd be able to pay.
"How is mage Shia doing?" A question came from the woman before Roka could respond to his request for a trade. Lothar was so blindsided by the question that shock was plastered all over his face before he could even think to mask his emotions. At no point had the airship landed, and to the best of Lothar's knowledge, Mage Shia hadn't come down from it either. The airship was also riddled with anti-scrying formations that were supposed to keep its passengers and cargo hidden from any prying eyes. So, how was it that this woman knew of her? "Was she on the airship with you?" Came a second question from the woman even before Lothar could answer the first.
"How… how did you know?" Despite the sense of danger he felt from the woman, Lothar couldn't help but ask.
Lothar watched as her eyes glowed a soft white as she scanned him from head to toe. "She worked under me for close to fifty cycles trying to cure the swamp skin plague. I've never seen someone more gifted with poisons. Her work is easily recognizable to me" The woman stated.
Lothar felt like he'd been plunged into a vat full of ice. "W… what are you saying?" Though some part of his mind understood exactly what the woman meant, he couldn't help but ask.
"I'm saying that you don't have a mana-averse body," The woman stated calmly.
Lothar stood frozen, feeling like someone had punched him in the gut! This woman wanted him dead, and ironically, that's why he trusted her. She was powerful enough to do it without trying to get him to commit suicide by going after Mage Shia. She could just take his head off right here and Lothar knew that there'd be very little he could do about it. There was, of course, the chance that she was just sadistic and wanted him to die with the deep sense of betrayal that was currently gnawing at him. Lothar, however, couldn't see any glee in her expression at the declaration. She was simply diagnosing him in the same dispassionate way that healers tended to.
Even worse, her words felt like a piece of a puzzle falling into the right place and bringing a previously unclear picture into focus. While a mana-averse body usually becomes more pronounced the higher one ascends, there are always signs even in the first tier. With him, however, it wasn't until he was in the second tier that the issues started to crop up. Far from having problems in the first tier, Lothar had sailed through it with ease, rising to the second tier a whole ten cycles earlier than his peers. For him to start showing signs of a mana-averse body out of the blue should have told him that something was off. But as bad as his relationship with his father and sister was, Lothar would never have thought them this black-hearted.
And there was no doubt in his mind that this was his father's doing. The only thing he couldn't be certain of was how much his sister knew.
Lothar didn't have any grudge against Mage Shia. With her legendary mood swings, he had done his best to avoid the woman, not willing to gamble with his life. The woman had zero reason to come after him. His father, however, had done all he could to get close to the master alchemist and win her favor. Lothar had naively thought that his father's actions were strictly geared towards gaining a powerful ally for his business. As it turns out, he also wanted to end him with a borrowed dagger. It suddenly made sense why the man would force him to take his sister with him on this trip. The man wasn't actually interested in what Lothar was looking for. Rather, he was providing a justification for his hired killer to tag along.
Without his sister, any attempt by Mage Shia to join the voyage would have been highly suspicious. After all, there was barely any relationship between Lothar and her. Lothar would always have had his guard up against her. By forcing him to take his sister with him on the voyage, however, his father had provided the perfect justification for Mage Shia to come along. That way, she could stay close and keep poisoning him. And given that she was more powerful than his fourth-tier father, Lothar would never have suspected her to be acting on his behalf.
"H… how bad is it?" Lothar could feel his nails digging into his palms as he asked, unable to keep his voice from shaking.
The healer's eyes glowed for a second time as she studied him from head to toe before speaking. "Bad enough that the cleansing pearls won't do anything for you," She answered candidly, causing Lothar's heart to sink. "With the amount of damage that's been done to your mana pathways, the best you can hope for is reaching the third tier. Try to push beyond that and the mana will tear you up from the inside," Came the damning prognosis from the woman.
The news was like being told you only had days to live. Lothar, no it wasn't just him, probably every mage in the realm knew just how hard it would be to ascend the tiers. But right up until they hit the hard limit past which they couldn't progress, they all burned with the ardent desire to climb to the pinnacle of power. Too soon, it was far too soon. Lothar felt like he'd barely begun his journey as a mage and yet, he was being told where it would end. It left him with a hollow feeling in his chest. As if someone had snatched his very soul and left him an empty shell. The worst part was that it was through no fault of his own. Instead, he'd been plotted against. Attacked by those that he'd never wronged for mistakes that weren't of his own making. It wasn't his aptitude that had been found wanting. It wasn't his affinity that had been too low. Instead, it was a knife in the back that had ended his journey.
On the heels of the pain and horror of being told that he was essentially crippled, came a white-hot molten rage. He'd kill them! He'd kill every single last one of them. His father, his sister, even that bitch Mage Shia. He wasn't sure how he'd go about it, but one day, he'd look into their eyes as pain, despair, and regret filled their eyes. He'd be the last thing they would ever see before they met their end. Quick as it had come, however, the fury seeped out of him displaced by an even more corrosive despair that ate away at his insides. He was only at the second tier, doomed to only ever rise to the third tier! Forget Mage Shia, his father who was stuck in the fourth tier would be enough to end him without breaking a sweat. All his fantasies of revenge were just that… fantasies.
For centuries to come, Lothar would wonder how his life would have played out if Roka hadn't asked a simple question that changed the entire course of his life. Would he have made the connection on his own? Would he have lost himself to the crushing despair he currently felt and never seen what was right before him? Or would the healer have killed him before he'd even had time to fully sink into his despair? It was a question he'd never be able to answer with any certainty. What he did know was that it was this question that saved him.
"I'm curious," Roka's voice had cut through the silence that followed the healer's cruel verdict on his fate. Desperate for any distraction from the pain of betrayal and despair that was ravaging him, Lothar had turned to the young man. "How did you people know of the abyssal ooze? That's the one thing I can't figure out in all this. To the best of my knowledge, the abyssal ooze doesn't give off any mana signal that can be tracked. So, how did you know it was here?" He posed.
Lothar had been about to answer that they hadn't even known that there was an abyssal ooze on this mountain when he froze. It was true. When they left Varun, Lothar hadn't been after an abyssal ooze. Instead, it was something entirely different that had him on that airship for the past two months… the prophecy!
"In the far reaches of the Eldaria region lies the solution to what ails you. However, take care not to provoke the visitor from another world, lest you die!"
The words of the prophecy he'd listened to hundreds of times in the past two months, once again replayed in his head. Lothar's eyes went wide as a rather obvious fact now clicked in his mind. The prophecy had said nothing of cleansing pearls being the solution to his problem. Instead, it had only told him that the solution to what ails him could be found in the far reaches of the Eldaria region. He was the one who had assumed that it was referring to the cleansing pearls. This little spark of hope caused another detail that he'd missed the first time to slam him with the force of a charging rock bull. The healer before him had said that Mage Shia had once worked under her!
In a world ruled by power such as theirs, there was no way a higher-tiered mage would have allowed themselves to work under a mage of lower tier! The only way Mage Shia would have ever worked under this woman was if she was of a higher tier than the master alchemist. How she was hiding her aura, Lothar didn't know. But rather than the fear he should have felt in this moment, Lothar could only see a lifeline, a hope for the future that he'd feared lost. Who else could heal the damage done by a fifth-tier mage if not a healer of an even higher tier?
There was no shame or reservation in Lothar as he threw himself on his knees before the healer. "Anything! You can ask anything of me in return. I only ask that you help me. Don't let my path of ascension be cut off so soon. Heal me and I'll serve you for a thousand cycles if that's what you want," Lothar begged, ready to offer more if that's what it would take.
There was a long silence following his plea. Long enough that Lothar had started to fear that he would be rejected. After all, what could he really offer? His own family had tried to cripple him meaning that he could never go back to them. At least, not while he was yet weak. Even with supportive families, many mages didn't make it to the higher tiers. Of how much less value was he now that he was crippled and had no support or resources to speak of. That corrosive despair that had been alleviated slowly began to creep back in the longer the woman remained silent. However, in another gesture that Lothar would forever be grateful to him for, Roka was the one to break the silence. "He looks like he'd make a good first soldier for your mage army, don't you think?" he asked, sounding amused…
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
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