Mage Among Superheroes

Midnight's tail was swishing back and forth, slowly. "We almost managed to kill the dragon. What a shame."

I pondered for a few moments. "I think you're overestimating how much damage we caused. You remember that time those massive dragons came through and Great Girl wrestled them? We didn't kill a single one, just tossed them away."

"... Because their bodies would have damaged the city, right?"

I shook my head. "Because they're basically flying tanks. Except without weak undersides." After all, dragons were usually above their enemies. If they had weak belly scales they'd always be showing their vulnerable side to most of their foes and thus wouldn't survive long. Unless those 'weak' scales were still particularly strong. "It's hard to kill them. Even that more moderately sized one."

"Oh," Midnight sounded disappointed. "Because we should really try to get rid of that one. Fleshmelter tried to kill you."

"Yeah," I shrugged. "I'm not a huge fan of that."

"Especially not when it's going to do it again. It's here for you, after all."

"... I don't know why," I admitted.

"Because of those green wyrmlings we fought. And because of Deimos. He did get dragon powers after all."

"Not very good ones," I said. I pondered for a few moments. "Wait, are you saying Handface had kids with Faceeater?"

Midnight was clearly confused. "No, what? That wouldn't make any sense."

"You're right," I nodded. "They were clearly pureblood wyrmlings."

"That's not- could he have?" Midnight sounded appalled.

"Oh, sure. Dragons have been doing that forever."

"... How?"

"The normal way. Magic."

Midnight gave me a look. "Is that the normal way?"

"For dragons with anything that's not a dragon, yeah."

"I'm not sure if I want to ask."

"They just transmute themselves. But their kids still carry draconic traits, because magic," I said. "... Do you think Handface got adopted?"

Midnight squinted. "Would that give him dragon powers?"

I pondered. "Depends on if it was magical. But in that case a dragon could probably do some other magic. I don't know exactly, but it would be like a familiar bond but meant for multiple sapients from the beginning. Though dragons might not see it that way."

"So you're saying we killed a dragon's favorite pet human."

I shrugged. "I think you were saying that, but I can see how it's connected now."

"We should Scry on it and get rid of Fleshmelter as soon as possible. I think Extra would want that too, since dangerous extradimensional individuals aren't welcome in New Bay."

"Technically, I think he or she left."

"... Is there any way for us to tell which it was?"

"I would suggest asking a dragonologist."

Midnight pondered deeply. "Is that a real thing?"

"This world has humans who mostly study individual species of ants. Why would there not be people who study dragons specifically? I'm sure we could find someone specialized in green dragons."

"I was thinking magic."

"Oh, sure," I said. "We could probably manage that with Advanced Divination Magic and some of the blood."

"And then we Scry it. Body parts are useful, right?"

"Well," I paused. "It's still magic resistant. So that might not work. But it's worth trying."

-----

I managed to get access to some of the collected blood- Extra was holding onto most of it though the Power Brigade had some as well- by assuring people that my tests wouldn't be destructive. People had a lot of interest in dragon blood, which made sense I supposed. Even in my old world it was rare and valuable.

Old Shock brought out a sealed vial. "It would be best not to expose it to air or let it warm up too much, if possible. Just to minimize its decline."

"That should be fine," I said. I left it in the stand he set it down in, dangling there. I literally had no idea what sort of Divination magic determined the sex of something, but I couldn't imagine it was more complicated than spying on things at a distance.

I gathered some amount of mana, called upon my experiences, and slowly let it form into something. I made certain to not consume anything and also to balance things with stabilizing mana. It was so slow and… normal.

The blood sparkled and- nothing.

"Oh," I said. "The blood is also magic resistant."

"That would explain why many of our instruments aren't producing any results," Old Shock said. "Assuming that applies to powers in general."

"... Hard to say," I admitted. "Knives' power worked fine, but that's normal."

"Why?" Midnight asked.

"Because she makes weapons. The magic isn't acting upon the dragon as much as it is acting upon itself and the world. And by magic I mean power. Anyway, Acid Man was acid so… I wouldn't have expected the dragon to take any damage."

Old Shock pulled some of his poofy white hair out of his face. "Why not?"

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Because Faceeater was an acid dragon."

"But different sorts of acids work differently. And…" he sighed. "I guess it's probably magic."

"Probably!" I said. "But maybe you can figure something out. Anyway, Antagonist was using the same acid as it so that would definitely do very little. In short, we have very little testing with non-magic powers."

"I see. So, if it's magic resistant are you done with the vial?" Old Shock asked.

"We're still gonna try," I said. "I have some ideas."

Looking at the vial, I gathered ten or so mana. A pretty high amount, but I didn't want to undershoot what was necessary. Then I targeted the DNA within the blood. How did I do that? Instinct. And Advanced Divination Magic. Or maybe I was just trying to do that and whatever I actually did produced the results I wanted. I was also thinking about avoiding magic resistance after all.

"Female," I said.

"How certain are you?" Old Shock asked.

"Hmm…" I looked around the lab. "Midnight, split a spell with me. 20 and 10."

I wasn't sure what spell I was using, if it was an actual spell or just some part of my unintentionally created Divination mastery. All I knew is was that it probably functioned at the 10 mana point, so with Multicasting we could hit 5 people.

That meant Midnight, myself, and four others. Because that was how magic math worked. I picked Old Shock and three women moving around the lab. Everything returned as expected.

"Pretty certain," I said. "I could experiment more with animals or non humanoids, but I'm currently confident I'm getting what I want."

"... Interesting. Are you able to determine arbitrary genetic information? We could-"

"Make Bolster do it," I said. "Or Jerome." If she didn't have Advanced Divination Magic yet, we could force her to Scry people around Scrying Anchors. That had been the biggest factor in my development. It wouldn't even have to be enemies, since the Brigade had developed their own version.

Old Shock shrugged, "Fair enough."

Our next step was to take the blood to the Scrying Chamber. It was much easier than moving around a 3500 kg diamond block. Especially since it wouldn't fit through standard doors.

"Let's start with you first, Midnight," I said. "Just in case it works at the normal mana price. And maybe you'll be more effective because she isn't watching for you."

Midnight nodded, gathering mana. Everything was going normally with the mists swirling about until he suddenly staggered backwards.

"Midnight!"

"I'm alright," he said. "I just wasn't expecting such a strong… rejection."

That was another problematic factor- the will of our target. Combined with inherent magic resistance, we might not get much. But I certainly had to try. I poured 22 mana into my spell, though at that point I thought I might as well go as far as I could and added the last 2 I could handle. If I could do this, now would be the opportunity.

Mists swirled in and around the Scrying orb. Clearly I was more balanced this time then when I needed to find Midnight and saw flickers of different places. I had some of Faceeater's blood, so the connection was viable. And it even worked… somewhat.

It was a pretty pathetic result for not having a Scrying Anchor. The scene around Faceeater was… small. And vague. She herself was also blurry. Still, the spell stuck for a few seconds before she slashed a claw and tore apart the Scrying. Inside the Scrying orb, I saw pieces of the scene flutter apart like strips of cloth in the wind. Then nothing.

"Well, I don't know what we can get from that except 'vaguely still in the woods'," I commented. "Maybe someone else can find something on review."

"I barely even saw anything," Midnight admitted. "It was so blurry I couldn't even tell if there were wounds. Or if it was the same dragon."

"I'm pretty sure that issue wouldn't come up with the blood. And I don't think this is one of the dragons that normally learns healing magic so she's probably still wounded."

"... You need to explain what you know about dragons."

"I wish it was more. Maybe Sir Kalman can get us some information, though. I feel like that's a pretty normal request. But mostly I know that dragons are big and magic and probably don't have access to classes."

Midnight gave me a suspicious look. "Probably?"

"Probably. A year and a half ago I would have said that there wasn't any way to get better at magic except getting levels, and a whole bunch of other things."

"Fair enough," Midnight said.

-----

"Why can't druids teleport?" Ceira complained. "This is unfair!"

I shrugged. "You can heal people though. Ah, and you might be able to teleport. Kinda."

"How so?" she asked.

"Tree Stride. I assume you're leveling up swiftly? You're doing a lot of magic and don't have a weird Aspect, right?"

"Right," she agreed. "I don't know how you would tell, but I get experience without fighting. But what's this about Tree Stride?"

"It can take you between big trees. Of the same type."

"... What about different kinds of oaks?" she asked. "Or sequoias?"

I shrugged. "I have no answers for you. I am not a druid. But you can test that yourself."

"Ugh, but that would cost more mana," she grumbled. "It's kinda not worth it."

"If you recover twice as fast, then as long as you have a few hours it is. Plus, you can increase your mana capacity that way, right?"

"I'd still rather foist the responsibility onto someone else," she said. "You do it for me."

"Or… you could hire someone to teleport you. I'm sure there's a super who would bring you to the park entrance. There has to be someone with teleportation powers that would be willing to do that. Maybe there's someone licensed to travel internationally?"

"Do you need a license?" she asked.

"I feel like people would complain if you don't have something like it," I shrugged. "I've only gotten to other countries the normal way. With an expedited passport process." And then I used Gate to come back to the United States, because we had a little excursion to another world. But that was an exception.

"Alright," she said. "But today, you're doing the job."

"Yep," I said.

Today, we were going on a trip and not spending as long in the car. In this case, 'we' was myself, Midnight, Ceira, Zeb, Angela, Jerome, and Izzy. I'd offered to bring Tylissa and Haralamb, but the former had work and the latter had school. Unlike Jerome who was no longer attending, his friend and my semi-apprentice still needed to attend in person.

It was a bunch of my friends who understood magic and knew Ceira, and also a couple others who were Ceira's bodyguards. They were trusted not to reveal the identity of someone who a bunch of villains would probably like to snag, so nobody was concerned with revealing some information about some of us who a smaller selection of villains would probably pay significantly less to try to kill.

The bodyguards were… exactly the same. Except I knew that wasn't true. Instead, they looked the same, but it was some kind of power. I could probably dispel it, but that would kind of ruin the point. Their purpose was to make it unclear exactly who was protecting Ceira. So far, they hadn't had to do much that revealed themselves- probably because of how many billionaires that would be angry if she was delayed when she showed up to heal a tiny scar they had.

Anyway, Angela verified them- and I was quite sure Angela was Angela. She felt like she always did, which is to say this one was a copy. Probably so her main self could continue to push out copies in the city, if there was anything that needed to be done. Besides, it wasn't like she could meaningfully contribute to battle. Even as Madame Multitude, my understanding was that she was somewhere around basically proficient in combat… for an old lady. Well, middle aged to old.

We bypassed the entrance, though it was my understanding Ceira planned to donate to the park. We just didn't want to draw attention. It was probably the dozen squirrels or the giant bat that would have done it, but an orc might also be a sign of something weird.

We probably shouldn't be roaming around among the great sequoias as we pleased either, but we had a druid with us in case we did something to screw up nature so we would probably be fine.