While I trained my mana core and chatted with Sylvia, I noticed a few things. Sylvia exemplified the cliché, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Contrary to her intimidating appearance, she was kind, gentle, patient, and warm. She reminded me of my mother, in the way that they both managed to be tender while scolding me when I did something wrong. One afternoon I mentioned that the mage I had fought, along with the other bandits, deserved worse deaths than they had suffered. She suddenly flicked my forehead.

Even though she was gentle, a flick of a finger from someone over three stories tall was nothing to make light of. I was sent tumbling to the ground. When I recovered, I asked angrily, “What was that for?”

She picked me up and set me on her armored knee and, her tone soft but pained, she said, “Art. Perhaps you are not wrong in that those bandits deserved death. I myself could have saved the mage you fell with, but I chose not to, for the same reasons. However, do not let your heart be clouded with continuous thoughts of hatred and the like. Continue proudly with your life and gain the strength to protect your loved ones from harm. Along the way, you will face dangerous situations, maybe even worse than the ones you have survived already—but don’t let the grief and rage corrode your heart. Move on, and learn from those experiences—better yourself—so they won’t happen again.”

I blinked, a bit stunned to be lectured on morality by someone who looked like the epitome of evil herself. But her words struck a chord within me, and I just responded with a blank nod.

As time passed, I noticed that her wound seemed to be getting bigger. At first I found it somewhat odd that she could still be alive with a gaping hole in the side of her chest, but I soon grew accustomed to the sight of it. After several days, however, it was clear that the wound was bleeding more consistently now. Sylvia tried at first to hide it with her hand, but it was growing more and more obvious.

Noticing the direction of my concerned gaze, Sylvia gave me a weak smile and said, “Do not worry, little one. This wound festers from time to time.”

One day, while I was meditating and using strict movement techniques to better control my mana, Sylvia suddenly interrupted. “Art. Try absorbing mana during your movements. Ideally, while you are fighting you should be able to absorb at least a fraction of the mana you would during meditation. You’ll be using mana faster than you can absorb it, but you should be able to prolong the usage of your mana.”

I remembered having had this exact idea. I had never gotten to test my hypothesis, since I wasn’t able to move as freely as I could now. I was used to thinking of the absorption of mana and the manipulation of mana as two separate things, and I hadn’t stopped to think about the possibilities in this new world.

I nodded. “I’ll try.”

“Humans have a very linear mindset regarding mana and find it hard to deviate from anything that already works. Practice hard now, though, because you can only acquire this skill while both your body and mana core are immature. Even mana beasts learn this technique, but humans awaken much too late and, in most cases, their bodies have nearly matured by that time. But considering how young you are, there shouldn’t be a problem so long as you practice,” Sylvia continued, giving a proud puff of her nose.

I had to admit that, as with most theories I tested, it was extremely difficult at first. It reminded me of the exercises the headmaster at the orphanage had showed us when I was younger, the ones where you tried to make each of your arms do something different, but it was much harder. But mastering this would essentially mean I would be able to fight proficiently while still maintaining a constant inward flow of mana.

Sylvia’s only advice was to tell me that an exceptional mage must be able to split his conscious mind into multiple segments in order to process information at the most efficient speed. I’d never had a teacher tell me to split my mind, but I tried doing as she said. I’ve never tripped over my own body so many times, not even if you combined all my experiences from both my lives. This, at least, seemed to get a few hearty chuckles of amusement out of Sylvia.

______________________________________________

The months passed. I kept Sylvia company, telling stories of my family and the town I was born in, and continued to improve in the mana technique thanks to Sylvia’s patience and my diligence.

If there was a name for this skill, Sylvia refused to reveal it, so I named it myself: mana rotation.

It would be an understatement to say I had grown close to Sylvia. She had treated me like her own blood grandson and, in response, I’d gotten attached to this demon lord grandmother. And, because of our growing relationship, I wasn’t able to simply ignore what was happening. It was frustratingly clear that, as the portal that would take me home became more distinct, her wound was growing worse.

One especially bad night, after she had vomited a pool of blood, I couldn’t hold back my concern. “Sylvia, please tell me what’s happening to your wound. Why is it getting worse? It wasn’t like this before. Your saying it ‘festers from time to time’ was clearly a lie. This isn’t going to go away on its own—it’s actually getting worse!”

I paused for a second, struck with the realization. Why didn’t I notice this before?

She had been getting worse while creating the portal.

In order to send me home—

She was sacrificing her life so I could return to my family.

Sylvia let out a deep breath, knowing that I had realized what was going on. Managing a sheepish smile, she whispered, “Art. Yes, I am dying. But I will be angry if you blame yourself, thinking that you have caused this. I have been dying for quite a while now. You are doing me a favor by allowing me to leave this forsaken cave a bit faster.”

As soon as she finished speaking, a bright golden glow began radiating from her body. Shielding my eyes to keep from going blind, I tried to focus on the shape forming where Sylvia had been sitting. In place of the ten-yard titan-like figure was a dragon, even larger. From her snout to the end of her tail, she was a covered in a pearl-white coat of shimmering scales. Beneath her iridescent lavender eyes were glowing golden runes that marked her neck and ran down to spread around her body and tail like sacred engravings. They looked like an elegant, almost celestial tribal pattern, branching out harmoniously and with purpose, like carefully placed vines. The dragon’s wings were pure white adorned with white-bladed feathers so fine and sharp as to put even a sword forged by a master smith to shame.

The golden light enveloping the dragon dimmed until I no longer needed to shield my eyes. I looked at the celestial creature sitting where Sylvia had been.

“There now… Do I look a bit more like a Sylvia in this form?” Sylvia gave a toothy smirk.