Arthur

It has been six months since I arrived in Zestier. During this time I managed to create the spellform to passively purify a mana core and gave it to Alea and Aya to see if it could bypass the limiter placed on them, but so far there were no results. They were told about our regression to make things easier. While we avoided telling them the specifics of the war for now, we needed them to be at least aware of what was coming.

Regis has made a lot of progress with the creation aspect of Vivum and now was able to create simple objects with it such as swords, daggers and certain 'clothing' that suited his tastes. Lucky for me he couldn't make anything organic.

Tess finished forming her mana core a few days ago, so along with the purifying spellform I also gave her the Acclorite. While I wanted to give it to Ellie so she would have a powerful weapon that was perfectly suited for her, giving it to Tessia made more sense since she would be fighting a lot more in the war, plus I could always ask Wren for something to protect my little sister once I was taken for training with the Asura. We also finished linking the communication rings, making them change in appearance slightly. My ring was now black with a dark green band around it in the middle and Tess's was white with a purple band in the same style as mine.

As for Sylvie's eggs, I was able to develop the merging art to the point where she would be as strong as when her training in Epheotus ended. It was also a good thing I didn't use the art yet, as I noticed an Asuran presence in Elenoir periodically. Whoever Kezess sent here wasn't doing a good job of hiding themselves so it's definitely not Windsom. Hopefully they stop coming here before I finish my assimilation.

My own training has been going well as I discovered I could use aether and my godrunes inside the third keystone, making experimenting with them a lot safer. For Godstep I could now leave markers in place making it so I could teleport to places further away much easier. I also practiced sending my swords through the aetheric pathways, it wasn't easy or convenient but could come in handy in the future. My proficiency with Realmheart increased a bit as well making its aether consumption decrease a little. Destruction hasn't seen much improvement, I could control it for a few seconds more than before but that was it.

The rune that improved the most was Aroa's Requiem. I still couldn't use it on organic things, but if I was quick enough I could use it on spells after they were formed to undo them. Not only that, but thanks to the assimilation process I was able to use Static Void again through the godrune, which makes me wonder what the first phase of my beast will is going to be. It would be nice if it was the ability to make portals but who knows, it could just end up being an improvement to my aevum art.

Right now it was time to solve the keystone as I couldn't see myself making more progress with my runes without real experience. I picked it up and sat in a meditative position in my bed. Sending aether into the device I felt my consciousness being pulled inside it and found myself into the fairly large room I've been using for training in the past few months. It was shaped like a pentagon and divided as such. The walls were a pristine white and the floor black with golden lines for the different partitions. Four of the partitions contained mana, one of each element and the fifth only had aether.

Thanks to training here I knew I could only manipulate the mana through Realmhaert, but just manipulating it didn't seem to do much. I tried to mix the mana of the different partitions and noticed some resistance when I did. I kept trying different things with the mana to no avail so I moved to the aether section. I tried absorbing it, but it wouldn't move to me. Maybe I need to be in the middle of the room for something to happen.

As I sat in the intersection trying to move aether and mana, I noticed that there was a greater resistance the closer the mana was to the lines and the aether seemed attracted to it. Imbuing the lines with the aether in the room I focused on sending it to the fire partition and watched as amethyst walls rose from the lines and closed the section. Keeping a hold of the walls I tried moving the fire mana but only the bits that were on the outside responded to me. I did the same for wind and water mana and got the same results, but this time I noticed that it wasn't that the mana wouldn't answer, it couldn't.

Suddenly an idea popped in my mind. If I need to use a godrune to make progress in this keystone, what would happen if I tried using the others on the aetheric walls? And so I got work, first with Godstep. The result was that I could connect the walls turning them into a pseudo portal, making it so whatever touched one wall would be moved to the one it was connected to. With Aroa's Requiem time inside the walls could be stopped or reversed, which wasn't very useful since I could do that already. Maybe I could use it as a trap or an AoE to reverse time on multiple objects or spells at once.

That was when it hit me, this rune was about separating portions of space and setting specific rules for that area. With the puzzle solved and the insight acquired I was pulled out of the keystone and felt the burning sensation of a new godrune in my back along with its name, Conditional Domain.

As I opened my eyes I saw the keystone disappearing and a very shocked pair of elves looking at me with another pair just acting like whatever they were seeing was just another tuesday. For a moment I thought there were golden threads flowing around the room but they disappeared when I blinked. Was I hallucinating or was that because of the godrune?

"What did you do this time, brat?" Asked Virion with a sigh.

"I also would like to know. We came here to check on you after one of the maids said you weren't answering when she called you for lunch." Said Merial now more composed and with a curious look.

I suppose telling them about my aether abilities and beast will wouldn't hurt.

"That was me solving a puzzle left behind by the ancient mages. I got it from the beast that gave me its will." It technically wasn't a lie since I only found this thanks to Sylvia. "And in case you were wondering, the beast I received the will from was a dragon." With that both Alduin and Merial paled and looked at me with their mouths agape while trying to say something.

"You should see your faces." Tess said while holding back laughter.

"Told you the kid was special." Said gramps with a smug look. "So what kind of reward did you get for solving that puzzle?" He asked after a few seconds.

"Let me show you." I activated my new rune alongside Realmheart and encompassed the whole bedroom while making it so wind mana wouldn't move. The walls gained a purple sheen as I did this but soon returned to normal. "Try using a spell gramps." As I requested he tried forming a basic wind spell only for the mana to not respond to him.

"What the...? How are you doing this?" He asked in a mixture of awe and confusion.

"Solving the puzzle gave me a rune that lets me separate a part of space and set a rule to the area affected. Right now the rule is that wind mana can't move." I said with a smirk while thinking on how this godrune would make fighting retainers and scythes even more trivial and deactivated the rune.

"You little monster. Keep that a secret, it's quite the powerful trump card you got there."

"I have to agree with my father, who knows what people will do to get a hold of that power, especially considering it's something left behind by the ancient mages. And that's not even considering your dragon will."

"To think they were capable of something like this, what could've possibly driven them to extinction?" Said Merial with a contemplating expression. Tess, gramps and I shared a look knowing exactly who did it. "I'm glad you trust us enough to share this Arthur. I promise we will keep this a secret." She continued.

"Thank you."

"Now then, why don't we go get something to eat. The chefs will be sad if we all skip lunch today." Virion said.

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After lunch Virion called Tess and me to his office saying some good news arrived. As we sat there waiting for the old elf to talk I decided to break the silence.

"Just say it already you old coot."

"Fine, fine. A letter just arrived from Cynthia but she isn't the one who wrote it." (This line was sponsored by Avier Delivery Services)

"What do you mean?" Asked Tessia.

"Here, take a look you two." He said while handing us an envelope.

My eyes widened as I read through the contents of the letter. It was Varay who had sent it and she wanted to meet Virion and me in the border of the beast glades and the Elshire forest to discuss plans for the war. She also complained about me not informing her I would mess with time and how that caused her to think she went insane for a few days.

"Guess we found another regressor." Said Tess before muttering something under her breath that I couldn't hear.

"More like she found us. But why did she assume it was me who made her time travel?" Tess and gramps just deadpanned at me.

"Need I remind you what you just did before lunch?" Said Tess with a neutral expression.

"Fair enough. So when are we meeting her?"

"Alea will be returning from her scouting in the glades in two weeks so we can't go before that otherwise it will be impossible to convince my son and daughter-in-law to let me take you and Tessia anywhere near close to the area. With that being said, we'll go three weeks from now."

"Hear that Regis?"

"Loud and clear. Ready to meet ice mommy at any time."

"Please don't call her that when we meet her."

"No promises." I could only sigh in resignation at his comment.