NOVEL NEXT 136 - Thinking About Rot
"You did what?" Dana nearly shouted as Div explained where he was during the night.
"It was that or letting them damage your soul. Furthermore, while I loathe working for Emerios, I am benefiting from it."
Dana paced around the room as Gennorina sat at the table and shook her head.
"You leave without a word, in the middle of the night, and now you tell us you've offered yourself to him?" Dana asked. "Is there something wrong with your head? I told you I could deal with it by myself!"
Div sighed. "I'm sorry for storming off. It wasn't the right way to do it. But, experimenting with my skill is something I want to do. Honestly, Emerios might not even benefit from it."
Gennorina spoke up. "That's until you make enough progress. Then, he'll pressure you into working for him more."
"I know, but what else could we do? Dana's soul was literally cracking."
Neither Gennorina nor Dana had an answer to that. As distasteful as it was, Div cooperating with the elder looked like their best bet at weathering the storm.
"Look," Div continued. "I'm not planning on letting him take advantage of me. But for now, we're stuck in Trabine. Once the siege is lifted, I'm getting as far away from him as possible."
"If the siege is lifted," Gennorina said. "I know it looks like Gaumil's forces are struggling with food after scouring the region, but I doubt they didn't account for this when planning this campaign."
"Do you know what our side's plan is on that front?" Div asked.
Gennorina grimaced. "All I could glean is that we're waiting for reinforcements from Kheiron. Gaumil might not have transcended yet, but he's still a peak Ascended Rank. The elders are afraid to fight him."
Div frowned. "Terebus can't be far from the peak either. What if Gaumil transcends before our reinforcements arrive?"
"I don't know about Terebus," Dana said. "But if Gaumil does transcend, reinforcements or not, all we can do is surrender. That said, his success is rather unlikely. How many Evolved Ranks ascend? Very few. It's even less for Ascended Ranks transcending."
Div didn't answer. Frustration was gnawing at his bones. Being locked up inside the walls, knowing there wasn't much he could do to affect the outcome of the war was torture. Worse, it looked like Kheiron would be the decisive party in the conflict. The Lienien elders were not powerful enough to stop the invaders from the eastern range.
Once more, he was at the mercy of his old clan. If it had ever truly been his clan. With what Emerios had told him, he didn't know anymore.
The elder's words made sense. But he would be a fool to trust him. Emerios had his own agenda. Perhaps he opposed Uncle Basil's rising influence. Perhaps not.
Ultimately, it didn't change his present situation. If he wanted to uncover the circumstances of his exile, he would have to return to Kheiron. Something he both couldn't and didn't want to do.
At least, not for now.
Div caught up on sleep in the morning before taking up watch duty in the afternoon.
For the following weeks, he spent his days between the walls, Emerios' dungeon, and the school where he taught what he could to Lepin.
The boy wasn't particularly bright. Not that Div thought himself to be. They were both average, and it was completely fine.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Yet Lepin tried. Harder than most. He showed up early, left late, and never once complained, even when exercises led nowhere. His obsession with mold—disgusting to others—was something he embraced without shame. There was stubbornness in him. Maybe even a spark of talent buried beneath that stubborn grit.
Without a solid theoretical foundation to work from, he had to come up with innovative solutions to teach his first student. Even if he had warned Lepin not to get his hopes too high, as Div was but a novice in the art of rot magic, he didn't want to disappoint.
As a result, Div had to sit down in the library and peruse books about all kinds of magic. He started with the most common types: fire, water, earth, wind, the kind of magic that would awaken regularly. There was a definite pattern to how magic was taught.
First, students were asked to interact with the mana of choice. For example, a fire mage apprentice would light a fire and watch it burn. More accurately, they would feel how it burned.
Some went too far and burned themselves on purpose. Something most books recommended against.
That part was intuitive. In fact, Div had done the same before he even unlocked the Rot Magic skill. It would be a good exercise for Lepin.
In parallel, the student was supposed to practice a basic spell. Once more, Div noticed a pattern. The spell in question was always a light manipulation of the element.
Typically, a water mage would practice moving water using only mana. A fire mage would try to spread the burn to a kindling that wouldn't light up otherwise. An earth mage would use his magic to dig a small hole.
On that point, Div took a long time to figure out how to apply it to rot magic.
It was only when he read tomes on rarer types of magic that he understood his mistake. Rot wasn't an element, it was a concept.
When he understood, it took all his willpower not to slap himself in the face. This was something he already knew. Sun and Sky magic were concepts based schools too, so he was aware of this since his youth. In Camboaci, when Theaphilia had introduced him to the basics of magic, she had mentioned that rot was likely the same.
Of course, it was hard for her to say for sure as she didn't know anything about his magic. But still…
Conceptual magic was different from elemental magic in the sense that manipulating a concept was a lot harder than manipulating an element. A young sun mage could try all they wanted, but they would never make the sun budge. Even for Ascended Rank elders of the Leios clan, it was a tall order.
Instead, conceptual magic worked by nudging reality toward what the concept represented, by guiding, pushing it to behave like the user wanted it to.
That was exactly what Div was doing with his spells: coaxing rotlife into bringing forth his vision of rot.
That was the key difference—elemental magic shaped the tangible; conceptual magic whispered to the fabric of existence. Div wasn't lighting fires or digging holes; he was beckoning decay, asking the world to give in. No wonder he had been struggling to teach it like a mere spell.
Now, the issue Div was faced with was that Lepin couldn't detect rotlife. He didn't have his skills, he didn't have his Rot Heart to help him earn the Rot Magic skill facetless.
Lepin, however, had a deep connection to mold. While mold was but a subset of rot, Div believed it could work as a first step to rot magic. It wasn't like Div understood all there was to be known about rotlife, and Lepin's relatively modest goal of unlocking the Facet of the Rot Mage seemed achievable with only mold.
One day, after weeks without result, Div swallowed his pride and asked Emerios for advice.
Emerios chuckled at the idea. "I can't believe you're asking me to help you with Rot Magic. But fine, our Leios clan's sun mages start by learning a rather simple spell: Nourish. One of the sun's aspects is its ability to sustain life, since it only takes plants to practice, it's a cheap way to teach them to shape mana."
"So you're saying that I should have Lepin do something similar?" Div asked.
"No. You shouldn't teach him any spells. It's a complete waste of time before he unlocks his magical skill," Emerios scoffed. "Those books you are basing yourself on are for apprentice mages. I'm afraid your student isn't there yet."
"Then?"
"Nothing, if he can't get it by manipulating rot-attuned mana and getting familiar with the concept, then he'll never get it. All you can do now is encourage him and wait," Emerios said.
Div sighed. It wasn't the answer he had been hoping for. But, in the end, he knew Emerios was right. Anyway, Lepin was still a long way from completing his first facet. Teaching him could only be a long-term project.
Nevertheless, his studies had helped him organize his thoughts about his own magic. Something he should have done earlier, but there always was something more urgent.
Skill leveled up: Rot Magic Lv7 -> Lv8
Each new level brought his skill closer to Evolved Rank. He wasn't sure what it would take to evolve his magic, but he was looking forward to it.