They sat down at the summer garden. To his right, Zu could see the balcony and the door back to the common room. To his left – the lazy waves of the sea. Ta’ala sat in front of him.

“Well, let us begin;” Ta’ala said formally. “First, what do you know about magic?”

Zu took a second to think of a proper answer:

“I guess, it’s, like a field of energy?” he tried, “Or like, a power source that can make you super strong. Or do you mean more like spells that make stuff like teleporting possible?”

Ta’ala nodded slowly. “It is a way of looking at it, yes. But primarily, magic – or more accurately, Magyo – is a collective term. Primarily however, it refers to souls and the energy they produce.”

“I.. think I can understand that.” Zu scratched his head. “But… Doesn’t that mean that Magyo is a finite source?” he added, starting to think.

Ta’ala paused for a moment. “No, I believe it’s not so. There are explanations, but let’s not rush into things just yet.” He eventually said.

Zu nodded. That’s something he could pretend he read, and ask Auraiiya or Kaybol later about.

“Anyway,” the fox continued, “there are primary branches of Magyo-using; the circles, the aura, and rituals.”
He counted with his fingers on one hand, as he drew symbols in the sand with the other.

“So, every kind of magic falls into one of these three categories?” Zu asked, wondering.

“Exactly.” Ta’ala confirmed. “Each kind of Magyo-driven action can be categorized into one or two of these fields, but not all 3.”

“What about magic artifacts?” Zu asked.

“They fall under the ritual category, with aura as secondary classification.”

“Potions?”

Ta’ala hesitated this time.

“Potions are modified rituals combined with alchemy, which is also ritual.” He admitted.

Zu didn’t want to linger about it for too long, and continued questioning:

“And Mageia techniques?”

That made Ta’ala laugh.

“Where did you hear that one from?” he asked with a grin.

Zu smiled sheepishly, and didn’t answer. He didn’t want to admit he found that term in tale of the scarred armored.

Ta’ala examined him in curiosity for a few more seconds, and then straightened back up and continued as if nothing happened.

“The first form is Magyo Circles, also known as Magyo Moldeu.” He tapped the first sigil on the sand, and it ignited in a golden hue. “A Circle is a living sigil, manifesting the very core of one’s soul. That means that while looking like a simple sigil projection, it gets a singular skill.”

Zu frowned in confusion at that.

“Why bother with something that has one skill only?” he asked.

Ta’ala smiled, and put his hand on Zu’s shoulder. “Because it’s driven straight from the core of the most ‘you’ there is. And besides,” he added as the sigil rose from the sand, “it’s a good way to start controlling your own Magyo.”

“How do circles even work?” Zu asked curiously. “I mean, how do you even teach me something that is ‘the most me’ without knowing what it is?”

“Ah, you’re asking the right question!” Ta’ala nodded sagely. “Since I can’t teach you your own circle, we are going to force you to reveal it.”

The boy looked at him in confusion. “Um, what?”

#

“Yuundonn-Sama, you don’t have to bother yourself with this.”

Kaybol said to the Midnight Lord that was strolling in the library alongside him.

“Indeed, I don’t.” Yuundonn confirmed, tapping with his walking cane with every step. “But you see, I got interested.”

The library was mostly empty, with only a small group of 15 librarians in their shift, and another few servants from the research department. One of them noticed the unusual pair.

“Yu- Yuundonn-Sama!” one of them couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise. “Is there an inspection today?” he managed to say, before his fellow researchers shushed him and scolded him for not bowing first.

Kaybol studied the servant. He was young – for a Nyxian - probably barely in his third millennia. He probably was new here, because the Yuuns never did inspections, unless something out of the ordinary happened.

“No, my boy.” Yuundonn chuckled. “I am here to conduct research of my own. Or more accurately,” he added as he made sure to pat Kaybol gently on the head. “that’s a little pup who also happened to be a very good friends of me and my wife. And he got a topic to research.”

“If I may, Yuundonn-Sama;” one of the librarians approached and bowed. “As part of my role, I am familiar with the locations of almost any book and any topic here. I’d gladly help with the research needed.

Yuundonn glanced at Kaybol to confirm, before nodding.

“We need information of… Soul fragments.” He eventually said.

A few minutes later, the two were there together, carrying three dozen books to look through. most of them were too big for Kaybol to carry normally, but could resize it with runic sequences on the covers.

They picked one of the tables and started reading, searching between dual prisms and soul clusters. Tempering with a soul was dangerous, even borderline illegal. But soul fragments were different.

Yuundonn sighed, and Kaybol’s attention was diverted from the article about history of golems.

“You need to see this.” He said with a concerned tone.

Yuundonn reached with his hand for Kaybol to climb, and see what he was reading. Seeing it, Kaybol paled.

“You said he had bursts of raw Magyo, right?” The large, Nyxian beast asked.

Kaybol nodded weakly. “Yes, but… Zu-Niichan never remembers them.”

“Well, that narrows it down a few options, none of them are very good.” Yuundonn sighed.

“Either way, his body shouldn’t handle these bursts.” Kaybol murmured before turning to face the king of the Domain again. “What can we do to fix it?”

“Well… we will have to look that up, too.” He replied, shaking his head. “And not tempering with his Magyo, to not make the situation worse.”

#

Ta’ala drew another, larger sigil on the sand between them. Zu recognized that symbol, that looked like a sharp upside-down arch with a single line in the middle. His gaze moved between the symbol on the sand, and the identical one on front bead on Ta’ala’s neck.

“Neva has your symbol too.” He realized in surprise.

“She is under my supervision.”  The fox confirmed. “Having my crest is just a symbolic thing, but the crest itself is like a Magyo conductor. Think of it as a customized, personal rune for now.”

Ta’ala then put his hand down, right next to his crest.

“Go on,” he encouraged Zu, “put your hand here.” He added, motioning to the other side of the crest.

Zu did as he told. He wasn’t sure what comes next, as Ta’ala’s eyes began to glow.

Suddenly, the boy felt a little scared.

“Wa- Wait! What if it goes wrong?” he asked in a panic.

Ta’ala didn’t answer, as his 9 tails separated from each other and spread out. The lighter markings on his snout and hips started to glow with the same deep blue light, along with his bead necklace. Zu found it terrifying, and tried to remove his hand. He panicked even more, as his body refused to listen. Ta’ala’s light started to spread from his hand to his crest, and reached Zu. It felt like being zapped with energy. he felt like his body his burning, he could feel his blood going back and forth in his body, like waves. Except it wasn’t blood. It was waves of energy, and the source was something burning right between his ribs. A flame of power that was both intriguing and terrifying.

 #

Hilliya fought the urge to run. Her location was too exposed, non-strategical. Inside the building there were many Nyxians talking and feasting together. Wearing their vibrant dresses, exposing their bodies in places that Vastoaris won’t consider formal at the very least. For Hilliya, that wasn’t the problem.

In any other case, Hilliya would feel at ease about Nyxian gatherings. Despite their failings to feel enough empathy too often, at least they were honest. Nyxians have been treating Vastoaris as lesser beings for billions of years, but they did not lie about it. Vastoaris were routinely sacrificing their own to appease imaginary gods, and making wars for the sake of greed.

However, here in Duatsow it was different. The Kiadrio are not each other’s enemies, sure. But Hilliya did not like the interest the Kiadra of the Rampaging Element was taking in her. For this reason, Hilliya decided to treat anyone present outside of herself and her mistress as an enemy.

“Heiyo!” the voice of the boy startled her.

Hilliya turned to see a young boy, younger even than Kaybol. He had a short, messy violet hair and a pair of deep red eyes with catlike pupils. He continued so smile, an innocent smile that would fool most people. Not her though.

“Are you Hilli-Yawn?” the boy asked, before pointing at himself. “I'm Bukon, let’s be friends!”

Hilliya stared at him blankly. She had no interest in making friends here. She shook her head politely. She was the soft assassin – and thus, the perfect actress. However, she was not in the mood. Something bugged her mind; was it Zutenko? No, that wasn’t it. Something else was off. It was something that O'Kitaar said.

His… wife?

“Aw, c’mon, Hilli-Yawn, that’s not nice!” Bukon said with a grin, latching onto her arm. “We are friendies now! We should play together!”

Hilliya froze. That was out of line, and she didn’t care how old he was.

“Get off me.” She commanded. Her voice cool and ruthless.

 Bukon blinked twice. “Hm?”

“I said, get – OFF!” She raised her voice, pushing him away.

Bukon fell down with a loud “oof!”.

“That wasn’t nice at all!” he exclaimed, rubbing his aching back.

“Think about it before you grab a stranger’s arm.” Hilliya replied cruelly, eyes narrowing.

The kid pouted, as Hilliya shook her head in annoyance.

She then staggered back from the punch Bukon landed on her stomach.

“You're a meanie, not nice at all! O'Kitaar-Sama said you’d be fun!” He continued with anger Hilliya would have considered cute, if it wasn’t for him just punching her.

“You're out of line, kid.” Hilliya growled. Immortality of Body-Level contract unfortunately, didn’t include immunity for pain nor healing mere bruises. Meaning the pain was gonna stick for now.

She moved quickly, shoving his arms away from his attempt at a defensive stance. She grabbed him by the hair, and tossed him into the pond under the bridge they were on.

If Vastoaris saw something like that, they would see a teen assaulting a small child. Unfortunately, Hilliya was already close to nine thousand years old, with only the last 7 thousand being in this younger body. Since the kid was a pet of a Nyxian, he probably was much older, too.

Oh, Nyx. She thought to herself in a little bit of anxiety. I sure hope so.

She decided to look for a different place to clear her head.

Hilliya gave a last look to the kid, who was luckily still alive. He floated in the water, glaring at her. She ignored him, and activated her Magyo to cloak herself. To him, it may have looked like Hilliya vanished into thin air.

She made her way to the upper windows of the mansion, peeking inside.

What’s the Kiadra really planning? She wondered, before hearing a familiar voice:

“Fijeris-Sama will poison her~” Bukon said in his sweet, childish voice. He was on the rooftop, sitting. He smiled joyously, not even looking at Hilliya. Of course, he shouldn’t be able to see her when she's cloaked.

“Your dear mistress will die soon, from a super-duper poison Fijeris-Sama worked tirelessly on.” The kid continued. “And you can’t stop it, because you're a useless pet that can’t even fight head on.”

Hilliya’s inner struggle raged between going to check on Auraiiya-Sama, and rewarding the brat for his taunts.

She then realized how ridiculous both options are. That just made the latter win. Hilliya jumped up, kicking his chin with limbs enhanced by aura to increase physical strength. Unfortunately, doing so diverted her aura from her cloaking. She was visible now, not that this mattered. Her attack revealed her position to the child anyway. She glared at Bukon as he rubbed his chin.

“It really hurt y'know!” he laughed loudly, a mad grin on his face. “I guess it’s a ‘take that back’ statement?”

Hilliya didn’t answer. Instead, she raised her arms, revealing the metal bracelets on her wrist. They were not fancy, or jewelry in any way. They were dark and gray like iron, and had a short chain of 4 links each. Then, more links were added to the chain from thin air. It got longer and longer, until stopping when two daggers appeared at the end of each chain. Hilliya grabbed her weapons, and began her attack.

Bukon dodged easily off the shooting attack, and grabbed the chain in his bare hand.

“You’ll have to try harder!” He smiled arrogantly. “By the way, what Hecatium alloy is thi-OW!!”

The boy shrieked mid-sentence and left the chain, as a jolt of Magyo was sent through it and retracted back to Hilliya's hand. She grabbed the dagger again, rewarding Bukon with a smile of her own.