Return of the Fallen Volume 7 Chapter 9
Kazuki walked over to Danny, looking him up and down he had to admit he was slightly stunned. He remembered the difficulty in getting rid of a few 2nd tier spirits when he was reforging his Mage core. At that time it was difficult, to say the least, and it was resolved by Kai’s skills. Watching Danny so easily handle a dozen magical beast spirits all at once, it was hard to process.
Danny was without a body and was left with only his soul, yet he strived in the ways of the sword and practiced continuously. Within Kazuki’s soul world, time moved differently. Since the day of Danny’s death, well over a year had passed in the real world, while inside Kazuki’s soul world more than a hundred years had passed. Danny had improved far beyond what a normal person could in a lifetime, and it showed in his skill.
“You have improved yet again, impressive.”
Danny shrugged his shoulders, not willing to take the compliment.
“Any could attain what I have within the allotted time. In many aspects, I’m still lagging behind a certain someone.”
Danny pointed a thumb behind him at Kai, who was now grinning like a fool after hearing that.
Kai flew over and chuckled.
“That’s right that’s right. I’ve taught Danny all the way up until now. His ability with the blade is all from me.”
With this excessive brag, Kazuki and Danny started to ignore Kai but Kai was quick on the uptake and spread some of the love.
“But, Danny himself has a deep understanding and although time is a factor in his progress, his perseverance and his thinking outside the box allows him to leap over those with raw talent.”
Danny and Kazuki shared a laugh as Kai tried to scramble up praise at this moment.
After a bit, the topic naturally turned to Kazuki. The three stood around Kazuki’s Mage core. Its size was as big as a hefty pumpkin. A nearly perfected orb of magic floated silently between the three. Kai and Danny’s eyes alit with a mix of envy and awe.
Kai slapped Kazuki on the back.
“Congratulations little dummy, you broke through to the 5th stage. To think you would lose focus though at a crucial moment and almost fail. Sometimes I wonder, are we really related.”
Kazuki chuckled.
*Heh*
“You know we aren’t but that doesn’t mean you ain’t my older brother. Even if we’re not blood, you are still my family.”
Kai smiled even wider.
“Right and your mine as well. Hehehe, my brother actually managed to enter the Core stage. Not only that but your physical body is even greater than your magic. The amount of pure energy your ourodyess’s technique devoured was crazy, to say the least. I’ve already looked at your body in the outside world, your in for a bit of a shock when you return.”
A question mark appeared above Kazuki’s head and Danny confirmed Kazuki’s quizzical look.
“Kai’s not lying. Your body is even bigger. The fact that your body grows when the ourodyess’s power eats more and more is curious. You and Etora share the same devouring ability, except he seems to be at an advanced level. This level of his or maybe its because he has better control of it but his height seems to stay around 7ft tall. At the current rate you are growing, you will catch him in no time and then pass him by like a bullet. I suggest you find him quickly and get him to teach you the secret of this art before you end up as big as an ogre. I imagine that would make things quite difficult when you return to Asuna and Nunully’s side.”
Kazuki was lost in thought for a moment. He now wanted to confirm his growth first hand but before he left to check, Kai added on.
“Danny means it will be difficult laying the pipe, hehe.”
Danny slapped his own forehead before shaking his head.
“Kazuki knew what I meant without you clarifying. You can be too straightforward sometimes you know that?”
“Hehe, After over 100 years inside of here, you’re mentioning this to me now. Sorry, but It’s far too late to change now, hehehe.”
Danny shook his head once more.
“The number of times I’ve mentioned it has to be in the thousand by now yet you every time you say the same thi
Before Danny finished his sentence, Kazuki was about to leave to avoid listening to the two’s argument. Danny though stopped him.
“Kazuki.”
“Yeah?”
“Nice job. Seeing you grow and enter the 5th stage, it’s really admirable and at the same time vexing. When I first died, I felt my attachments to the world fade but the longer I’m here, the more I watch you struggle and grow…Forget it. I just want to let you know…
Danny paused for a moment unsure of his own thoughts. In the end, he simply said.
“Good job.”
Kazuki for the briefest of moments thought he saw a veil of sadness in Danny’s eyes before the pain vanished and was replaced with a smile.
Kazuki said nothing and returned to the real world.
(Even if my life isn’t the best, I still get to live it. Danny on the other hand…He was killed after only living for a brief 18 years or so. He must be frustrated beyond belief. Who swings a sword for more than a hundred years and doesn’t cut an opponent. He must feel as if the heavens are cruel. If only there was something I could do for him.)
Kazuki opened his eyes and his mind had returned to his body.
He winced for a split second, expecting waves of pain. After all, the moment he dove into his soul world to try and contain the chaotic flow of energy exploding and imploding inside, his body was battered like a crushed tomato. Bones were broken all over and organs were mincemeat. His muscles and tendons had snapped and his nerves were like splattered ramen noodles. He was near death the moment he entered his soul world and expected the same scenario the moment he came back to the real world but the scene before him was anything but.
His body was fine or rather it was beyond fine. It was perfectly healed. Not a scrape, cut, or bruise to be seen. The moment Kazuki arrived back in the real world actually left him perplexed for a fraction of a second. He felt power, an unimaginable power. Not only what was gathered inside his Mage core but the strength that flowed through his body.
He understood why his body was healed. His ability to heal was already something scary to others. As his body was being ripped apart by the pure magic exploding out of his Mage core, his body was regenerating at a slightly slower rate than the damage he was taking. The moment his Mage core stabilized, and the power returned inside and came under control, his body was no longer being bombarded with exploding magical power. His healing ability took over and he recovered in only a few seconds.
During the time his Mage core was absorbing all of the pure dark elemental energy, Kazuki had to dispose of the waste like energy. This waste energy was still pretty close to pure and was then devoured by the ourodyess eating power at the base of his soul tree. As the miniature black hole consumed all of that pure power, Kazuki’s body was constantly undergoing changes and growing, enhancing, evolving. With it, his healing ability grew as well.
Kazuki could sense the changes in his body, down to every detail, and got a clear picture with just his senses alone. Even though he could clearly sense such changes, he still wished to see himself in a mirror. It was a psychological thing more than anything. Seeing with one’s owns eyes instead of just sensing, was a natural human response.
Kazuki had three storage rings. One was his first ring, the second was Tilly’s he had recovered after he destroyed Reya and the third was an orichalcum ring he had received as a gift from his friend Oren, the King of the Adrola apes.
Kazuki knew he didn’t have a mirror inside his own ring nor his new ring but he wasn’t sure about Tilly’s. To break open a storage ring that doesn’t belong to you though is not something just any can do. The ring requires magic directly from someone’s Mage core. Since everyone’s Mage core is different, it has a distinct feature similar to fingerprints and therefore it should only be possible to open a ring of power by the user. However, there are a few loopholes to get past this.
One is to remove the inscription. To do so, you would need several 3rd stage Mages with plenty of knowledge of space magic with specialized tools and plenty of magical power. At the same time, it would require a great deal of time as these Mages would have to work in tandem and be perfectly in sync with one another. One mistake and they would have to start over. There were two other ways Kazuki knew how to open a ring of power but Kazuki wasn’t 100% on them.
Kazuki shut his eyes for a moment and several of Glacious’s memories flashed before his mind. As these memories flowed freely, Kazuki did something he hadn’t done in far too long. His hands started to blur and flex as he created hundreds, thousands of hand signs in seconds. Glacious was a master of every element of magic and that naturally included space magic. Kazuki was not and didn’t have the element of space but he did have the ancient hand symbols.
With the ancient hand symbols, he could gather any element he wished in his hands. With Glacious knowledge flowing through him, the element of space gathered and began to move according to his will. Grey energy flowed from his hand and drilled into the ring on his pointy finger. Tiny needles of grey energy extended outward and began to carve inscriptions onto the ring while at the same time erasing other ones and replacing them. Thousands were erased in an instant and hundreds were inlaid. After a few hundred then came a few thousand and then a few more after that. Every inscription tiny and barely noticeable to the naked eye but each one contained the mysteries of the element of space magic.
Kazuki was doing the work of dozens of 3rd stage Mages at the moment but to him, it was as easy as pie. Were he still at the fourth stage this would be quite difficult due to the lack of power but now that he was at the Core stage, this amount of power was only scratching the surface.
After only a minute or so, the ring was finished. Kazuki marveled at the fact he had used space magic so easily and dug further into Glacious’s memories to see what it would be like if he wished to use space magic to teleport. The moment he took a look through, a flash of pain spread across his mind as the inscriptions were far too complicated and layered by the tens of thousands. This was not something someone could just copy and inscribe, this required a deep comprehension.
Kazuki could understand how Glacious was capable of such a thing but he couldn’t even begin to understand how someone like Garn could do this with such ease.
Shaking his head he ignored thoughts about Garn and opened Tilly’s storage ring.
Inside he was surprised to see just how large it was. It was almost 1000 feet by 1000 feet. Sure this size was nothing compared to the 100 miles inside his orichalchum ring but this ring of Tillys was absolutely not normal. Most rings covered an area of 3 feet by 3 feet. As a matter of fact, that was around the area his old ring covered. Only the super-rich, nobles, royalty, and incredibly powerful people could get rings with 50 feet by 50 feet and those were considered rare, yet Tilly’s ring was doubled that. Kazuki wasn’t left wondering for long how Tilly came to buy such a ring.
In the ring, there was a hill of Gold Zeni and other precious jewels stacked a hundred feet high.
(It must be this wealth that allowed her to acquire such a ring.)
Kazuki saw many other interesting things inside but one thing he didn’t find was the thing he wanted.
“No mirror.”
As soon as those words left his mouth he felt incredibly stupid. After Danny died, Kazuki has accidentally absorbed his Mage core and with it, he took in the element of water into his own Mage core.
Kazuki awkwardly waved his hand in the air and a flow of water slowly materialized in front of him.
(I need to start practicing with this if I’m to master it.)
After a moment the flow of water became a wall of water in front of him and with a thought, he commanded the water.
(Freeze.)
The water following his will froze into a solid piece of ice. It didn’t stop there, after it froze its shape changed as well as the properties until it became reflective like a mirror.
Kazuki took a look in the reflective ice mirror and saw his own appearance, which in turn almost made him jumped in fright.
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