A scratching sounded in the basement. Sen and Rild were carving magical circles onto the cauldron that was to be used to rebuild Rild's body. The teacher and apprentice did not speak to each other while they worked, but this did not seem to affect their teamwork in any capacity. Every fusion of their circles was executed perfectly, and every space constraint was managed flawlessly. Teacher and apprentice were using different sized chisels they pass between each other wordlessly.
Solana and Bez were standing to the side, looking at the two of them working.
“Could you not do it faster? You should be able to change the surface of the cauldron to contain the needed circles. Is it because you do not know the needed ones? I can barely understand what exactly those two are carving,” asked Solana, the spirit next to her. As an earth mage, she would be able to do something similar if she knew what circles exactly were needed.
“No, I know what circles are needed. These two just wanted to do this together. That is probably the last time they do something like this together.”
“Did they do something like this often?”
“Not really. Master Sen is a masterful artifact craftsman and tried to teach the craft to Rild. Incredibly the boy who had talent regarding everything magic had two left feet when it came to any and all craftsmanship.”
“You mean two left hands?”
“No. People with two left hands can at least create SOMETHING. When he tried to create a lamp, he nearly burned down the entire mansion. When he tried to make an elementary-level potion, which only needed three ingredients, it ate through the floor. After a while, he just gave up. He can create the magic circles, but he is unable to infuse them into the material. When he and master created low-level artifacts, it was usually Rild creating the circles and master infusing them.”
Solana looked at Rild with a thoughtful look before she answered.
“He is the complete opposite of my granddaughter. She nearly unable to collect magical energy, but for some reason, she is able to infuse the circles of people several stages above hers.”
“There are different people with different talents. By the way, the fairy just fainted because the big knight accidentally hit her on the head with the wooden sword during their training. You probably should get the priest to heal help her. He is in Rild's room reading one of the books.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I am connected to the space crystal in the mansion. I can feel the entire space the crystal is controlling.”
Solana looked interested at the spirit. She wanted to know more about the space crystal since the knowledge of the space element was something very rare. Even the mage families only possessed two books about it. Unfortunately for her, Bez did not continue the conversation and simply continued to look at Rild and Sen working.
Solana did not push and went upstairs to get Tyler.
–

When Fai opened her eyes, Tyler was kneeling next to her. The fairy sat up, trying to regain her senses. She looked around and saw Reston and Solana talking at the door. A sigh escaped her lips. She lost once again. She was sure that after spending two years at the front line, she would be able to defeat the knight, but he proved her otherwise. Fai knew that although she was a pretty decent sword fighter, her power came from her darkflame, not her swordplay. She relied on her natural speed and agility as a fairy to compensate for her lack of mastery against Reston, but it was for naught since he defeated her each and every time they trained together. Reston was a true master when it came to the sword. His movements were not graceful or fast, but every strike, stab, jab, cut, block, and parry were made at the perfect time, with the exactly needed force. No matter how she tried to bypass his defenses, Reston would be able to react and block. In a sense, it was good for her to have someone far more skilled than her as a training partner. She had to admit that she learned a lot fighting the knight.
Fai took Tyler's stretched-out hand to get on her feet. The two of them made their way to the others standing by the door. Just as Fai wanted to proclaim that she was ready for another round, Agatha and Neln entered the room.
“It is time. You and I are needed. The reconstruction will soon begin,” said Agatha to Fai.
The fairy nodded and followed the light mage out of the room. The rest of the mages did not want to miss this opportunity to witness such a complex magical ritual. Now the only person in the room was Reston. The knight had no interest in it and just started practicing with his sword alone.
–

“Well, we are ready. But before we continue, I have something to give to you, Rild. I noticed that it was still on my finger when I woke up,” said Sen as he took a ring from his finger.
“The sigil ring? I did not want to take it from your corpse and thought I would just create my own if I ever need it,” answered Rild as he took the ring.
The ring was made out of silver, with an unknown giant yellow-golden gem embedded on it. The symbol of the worldmages was engraved upon the stone. A faceless mage of unknown gender in a robe stood in the front with smaller and less prominent figures behind him. It symbolized the worldmage who stood as a shield before the rest of the world.
“You cannot just create a new one. Even if it is not magical, it is still an inherited object of the worldmages. From the first, straight to you!”
Rild just shrugged and put the ring in his pocket before starting to undress. He did not care for the ring, even if it was an inheritance from the first worldmage. Just before he and his teacher climbed into the cauldron, Rild remembered something.
“Wait! Leave a finger behind!”
Sen looked confused at his apprentice and waited for him to explain why he needed a finger.
“I will try to resurrect you later. For that, I need a piece of your body to reconstruct it from.”
Sen sighed and looked at his apprentice with a smile.
“It will not work. Even if you reconstruct my body, it will still be old because the piece of me you used to reconstruct it is also old.”
“There is a chance that I will find a way.”
Sen shook his head and gave up. He knew that he would not be able to convince his apprentice otherwise. Sen took one of the chisels they used to work on the cauldron and cut off one of his fingers with one swift motion. His face did not even change during all of this.
“I will never be able to understand how in the world it is possible to ignore pain just like that,” murmured Solana to herself.
“Oh, I start to understand it,” said Neln as he thought about the agony he has to endure in order to open the sixth gate of magic. He did not even imagine how painful it would be to open the seventh gate.
By this time, Sen has already stripped naked and climbed into the cauldron. Rild did not enter it immediately and faced Agatha, who stood next to it.
“You should know when to put this in,” he said while pointing at an ugly clay pot standing near the cauldron.
“The eight element magic essence?” answered Agatha , while she gathered light magic in her hands to assist the two worldmages in the reconstruction.
“Do not put in all of it. I still need one drop.”
Agatha stopped for a moment to consider if she could ask for a bit of it. The best the mage families had was six-element magic essence which was incredibly valuable in itself. It was not easy to concentrate magic essence, and mixing elements increased the difficulty steeply for each added one. Only someone who has opened the fourth gate of magic could amass the magical energy of a specific element to make it into essence. In order to mix the essence with others, to create multi-elemental essence, two mages who worked together perfectly were needed. It was easier if it was one mage who opened two elements up to the fourth gate, but mages like this were not very common. Agatha did not even imagine how much Neln and the others worked and how much they took from the reserves of the mage families. The amount to create the massive pool of magic essence needed to resurrect Rild was simply gigantic. She imagined the combined worth of the used resources was what the mage families would amass in a hundred years of peaceful development. Most likely, several archmages who participated in the ritual were broke now because of the massive cost. And yet, Agatha understood that even all of the used-up magic essence for the resurrection was worth far less than the tiny amount in the clay pot standing next to her. Magic essence was used to enhance magic circles and artifacts for a short period of time without damaging them because of overload. The strengthening increases in power for each element within the essence. Agatha could not even imagine what kind of power a perfectly balanced essence of all eight elements could achieve.
Agatha sighed as she looked at the clay pot. She had to admit that she was jealous of the worldmages knowledge and wealth. Agatha wanted to ask if she could have some of the essence but refrained from doing so. She understood that the more of the essence was used in the reconstruction, the better the results would be.
By this time, Rild has already climbed into the cauldron and sat before his teacher.
“Ok fairy, you can start. Burn as hot as you can. With a sixth gate light mage, all of this just got a whole lot easier, so you can go all out. Ah right, before I forget,” Rild grabbed his staff which was leaned on the cauldron and put it in with them.
“Why?” asked Sen confused as he looked at the ordinary piece of wood.
“I do not know. Just have the feeling I should do it,” answered his apprentice with a shrug.
Sen wanted to tell him that the staff would most likely be destroyed but refrained from doing so. It was not important anyhow since Rild could simply get another wooden pole to serve as the base of his new staff. He would use it only until he gets Atsurio back anyway.
Suddenly the two of them felt heat coming from below. Without a word, Rild took his teacher's hand and pulled him into his soul hall.
When Sen opened his eyes, he looked around the white hall. When he saw the red mortar, he shook his head as he faced the four rilds sitting in a circle in the middle of the soul hall.
“Have I ever told you how creepy this red mortar is? It looks like blood veins or pieces of flesh which were pressed together by white marble.”
“Yes you have told this to me every time you visited my soul hall,” answered the four rilds in perfect unison. ”Do you need help, or can you...”
“No, no, I can do it myself. One does not need magic for this. Although what we are attempting is something quite new, I am confident in my control over elemental energies.”
“I am quite happy that you are helping me. It would be far more difficult to do this alone.”
“In all honesty, I do not think you would be able to do this alone. This ritual is something that requires experience in control which you simply do not have.”
“Even better that you are here then,” answered the rilds with a smile on each of their faces.
The two of them sat in silence for a few minutes preparing, for what they need to do. After a while, Sen whistled to signal Rild that it has begun. From now on, he needed to devote 100% of his concentration to the task at hand.
Meanwhile, in the cellar, the temperature of the room was at an all-time high. Neln, Solana, and Agatha were powerful enough not to mind it too much, but Tyler was in a completely different boat. He had to use his water magic to cool down. Inside the cauldron, Rild's body started to disintegrate due to the boiling magically enriched water. Agatha waited until the body was about to collapse and put her hand into the water and onto Rild's head. The water did not affect her at all since she used magic to protect her hand. The light mage started injecting her light energy into Rild, which stopped the disintegration of his body.
“Go hotter”, said Agatha to the fairy.
Fai closed her eyes to concentrate, and after one moment, her flames became even hotter. By this time, Tyler had to leave the room due to the heat. He could not endure it even, with his water magic cooling him down. If he opened more than one gate of water, he could perhaps battle the heat, but unfortunately, this was not the case. Solana looked at the leaving priest and shielded herself in earth energy which blocked out most of the heat. Neln has already erected a wind barrier which just directed all the heat around him.
Inside the cauldron, Sen's body started finally to break down.
“Well then. Let us begin,” said Sen inside Rild's soul hall.
Suddenly the pieces of Sen's body, which already broke away, started to float towards his apprentice, who was held together by Agatha's magic. The light mage noticed this immediately. Without letting go of Rild's head inside the cauldron, she picked up the clay pot from the ground with her foot and balanced it effortlessly into her free hand. She let the lid fall to the ground, where it broke into pieces, and poured the eight-element magic essence right into the cauldron.
The concoction inside immediately reacted very strongly. The magical energy inside the cauldron immediately spiked to an extreme level.
“Not good!” screamed Sen inside the soul hall. “This is far too much! Control it! I have to control the energy my body is dissolving into. If I lose control, the energy will just evaporate into the air and will just become part of the normal magic energy.”
“If I do that, then I will not be able to rebuild my body! I will need all four of my souls to control this much energy,” screamed Rild in response.
“In that case... We are fucked,” answered Sen with a calm face. Despite this, he did not stop controlling the energy coming out of his body. “Think fast! What can we do?”
“I... I... I do not know. The others outside would not be able to control all eight elements, so they can not help. And...” panicked Rild as he thought about a solution to the problem. The first pieces of Sen started entering his body but he could not direct any of his strength towards integrating them into his body. If this continued like this, the entire thing would be for nothing. Suddenly he felt some kind of pleasant sensation in his right hand. When Rild noticed what it was, he was shocked.
“What. The. Fuck,” was the only thing the young mage could mutter.
“Well, well, well. It looks like you have not told me everything. This situation is certainly interesting. What exactly is that thing?” asked Sen with an intrigued glint in his eyes when he noticed the change in Rild's body “This thing is something quite incredible! It looks like you picked up a true treasure! Too bad it is killing you now.”
The source of this whole commotion was Rild's staff. A few moments after the eight-element magic essence was poured inside the cauldron the staff suddenly started to vibrate slightly in Rild's hand. The young worldmage did not notice it at first because he needed to focus on controlling the energy around him. After a while, the staff pierced Rild's skin and started to take root inside Rild's body. That is when both Rild and Sen noticed the strange behavior of the Rild's wand. The staff's roots slowly crept along his veins and arteries. Rild tried to divert his attention to combat the intruder, but as soon as he did so, the energy of the eight-element essence started to destroy his body.
Seeing this, Agatha furrowed her brows and increased the output of the healing spell she was casting on Rild.
With no other choice left, Rild was forced to once again divert all his strength into controlling the energy raging around him. This diversion of Rild's attention allowed the staff to spread his roots across his entire venous system without much interference.
Rild was under no illusion that Agatha would see the problem. Since she did not notice it until now, Rild was sure she would not notice it at all.
“So... Remember how I taught you, to not just pick up random magical things you find?” asked Sen in an amused tone, as he continued to direct his dissolved body towards Rild.
“Not the time for jokes! We need to find a way... CRAP!”
The roots bore into his veins and arteries and started to drink his blood. Rild's souls looked alarmed at his teacher, hoping he knew something that would help despite knowing that if he did, he would have already told him. Sen just wordlessly shook his head. With his final hope shattered Rild's souls just sighed as they resigned themselves to die once again.
“Never thought that I would die for the second time by becoming fertilizer,” he murmured to himself, resigned.
Just as his body was about to give up and collapse, the staff suddenly started to emit energy through the roots across Rild's entire body. The young mage felt a wave of pain wash over him. He could not suppress a yell, which scared the people looking at the reconstruction from outside. Until now, the two men in the cauldron did not make a sound. Agatha tried once more to increase the power of her healing spell but had to find out that she could no longer inject her magic into Rild anymore. At first, she started to panic but realized soon enough that the body remained in the same condition even without her help. Still on guard, she took a step back and observed what would happen next.
Rild felt as if his entire body was completely and utterly destroyed cell by cell, reconstructed and once again destroyed. The pain he felt from this was something quite familiar. It was something he hoped he would not need to endure for quite some time, but it was a pain he knew he would have to go through sooner or later.
While on the outside, his body only produced a single short yell, on the inside of the soul hall all his souls moaned while writhing in pain on the floor.
Sen looked at his apprentice with raised eyebrows. He concentrated once again on Rild's body and raised his eyebrows in surprise when he noticed what was going on.
“Purification? And it is the same one the body would undergo when one would try to open the seventh gate of an element. No, not quite. The result is a bit different. Instead of purifying a specific element, this purifies the entire body. By doing this, the body becomes something far more magical in itself. But this should be impossible. Such a body would reject a normal human soul since the soul has no magic, and it would be impossible for body and soul to harmonize. As for an experienced mage, who already had some elemental energy in his soul, it would not be possible because he already washed his body in one or more elemental energy. Is it possible right now because his souls once possessed the needed magical energy? But it was washed away when he died so that it impossible. Except, what if not everything disappeared when entering the gate to paradise? Would that not mean that I also still have...”
Sen immediately concentrated on his soul and started to deep search every piece of it. Despite giving his best, he did not find anything. He expected something like this already and instead concentrated on the eight-element essence outside of their bodies. Instead of trying to control the mix of energies with his soul like Rild did a few moments ago, he specifically tried to control the earth element inside the essence. This experiment resulted in a painful backlash to his soul, but despite this Sen's eyes were glowing. Although it was impossible to control the specific energy for him, he could feel some resonance with the elemental power.
“How incredible. The attunement to the elements is on a level so fundamental that I can not even perceive it. How incredibly fascinating. Would it be possible to gather magical energy when I am dead if it is this way? I have to try it out.”
Sen looked once again at the body of his apprentice. By now, the roots of the staff started to absorb the pieces of Sen, which were floating towards Rild's body under Sen's supervision and included them in the purification.
“Whatever this staff is... It is a treasure beyond my comprehension. Where did Rild get it?” he asked himself as he continued to observe the reconstruction of his apprentices body.
Rild was still agonizing on the floor of his soul hall when he suddenly felt that the staff started to pump his blood back into him. Slowly the pain receded until there was only a slight feeling of discomfort brought about by the forceful injection of blood all at once across his entire body.
Rild needed a few moments to catch his breath. Even when his blood was pumped back into him, the quantity was still much lower in comparison to what the staff took. Despite this, Rild was very happy once he inspected the blood. The purity of magic inside his blood was on a completely different level. While he would not be able to train faster, since it depended on the quantity of magic inside his blood and not the quality, his spells would be far more powerful and effective thanks to that.
The staff stopped supplying the blood, and the roots slowly pulled back from his body.
“Willing to tell me what exactly that thing is?” asked Sen Rild, who was still a bit out of himself.
Rild just shook his head as he did not have the strength to answer.
“Suit yourself. It looks like it is time to say goodbye once again.”
Rild nodded and opened his eyes to look to where the body of his teacher was before the ritual began. Now it was gone because it was broken down and absorbed by Rild, which meant Sen's soul had no vessel to remain in the world. He had to pass on once again.
“Good buy, teacher. Until we meet again. Either by me dying or my plan to somehow resurrect you is successful,” Rild finally managed to answer.
“Well I can do one last thing for you,” said Sen with a smile as a sword materialized in his hands.”I can split your souls one final time.”
Rild just nodded, and all four souls closed their eyes. Sen stepped closer and raised the sword across his head. It fell with a swift motion and made contact with Rild's first soul. Unexpectedly the sword shattered as it touched the soul.
Rild could feel what was happening in his soul hall even with his eyes closed, so he knew what just transpired. He opened his eyes and looked with a surprised expression towards his teacher, who already started slowly disappearing.
“What happened?”
Sen looked at his apprentice with a thoughtful look before a shit-eating grin spread across his face.
“I think... You developed immunity against soul splitting,” he said while trying to suppress his laughter.
“I developed what? This is not funny! If even you, with your powerful soul, can not split my soul, then who the hell would have a soul strong enough to do it?!? Stop laughing and come up with a solution to this problem!” screamed Rild at his disappearing teacher, who could no longer suppress his laughter.
“I am sorry, but the situation you are in is just too ridiculous. First, you find out the eaters are already upon the world, then you need to reconstruct your body, and now you can not even split your soul properly.”
“I am happy that my situation is funny to you, but this is a serious matter! I can not start opening any gates until I split my souls one more time!”, screamed Rild nearly hysterically.
“You will find a way. We worldmages always do...”, said Sen before disappearing completely.
Rild returned from his soul hall to the real world and started climbing out of the cauldron. Due to the lack of blood, he could not coordinate his movements very well and nearly slipped and fell to the ground. Thankfully Fai, who has now stopped supplying flames to the cauldron, appeared before him and caught him before this could happen.
“The essence. I need to know if it was successful,” he barely murmured while fighting to stay conscious.
Fai helped him get to the clay pot, which was standing next to the cauldron. There was a single drop of eight-element essence remaining. Rild scooped it into his shaking hand and licked it. His body shook one time, and he closed his eyes. A smile appeared on his lips as he started to speak.
“Water up to the fourth gate. Fire up to the fourth gate. Earth can be opened up to the fifth gate. The sixth gate is a possibility but will be difficult. Wind up to the fourth gate. Light up to the fourth gate, but the fifth is possible. Darkness up to the fourth gate... barely. And most importantly... Space up to the third gate and void also up to the third gate. Not the best outcome, but it was still a great success!”
Just as he wanted to step towards his robe because he wanted to get dressed, everything went dark. The other who just wanted to start asking questions saw him starting to fall, and Fai once again had to catch him.
She wanted to lay him down on the ground but was interrupted by Bez, who took Rild out of her hands.
“He just needs sleep. I will take him to his room,” said the earth spirit and teleported with Rild in his hands away.
“Well, that was interesting! You are not able to see something like this every day!” said Neln as he stepped near the cauldron to inspect the liquid that was left inside. He was hoping to find something special about it after what happened. This water was magically enriched from the beginning, then eight-element essence was dumped into it, and finally, the body of someone who has opened two seventh gates was dissolved in it. By all logic, the water should be brimming with magic. Unfortunately for him, the remaining water was just plain dirty water without any magical energy left.
Neln raised his eyebrows as he checked again. In his experience, this was not possible. After dumping so much magical energy into the water, there should be at least something remaining. His gaze wandered to Rild's staff that was still sticking out the cauldron.
“Is that not the thing that blocked my spell in that old temple?” he asked himself as he stretched out his arm to take it.
The staff felt like an ordinary piece of wood in his hands as he tried to examine it. NO matter how he tried to insert his magical energy into it, he could not find anything special about it. Every detection or analysis spell he cast returned nothing special.
“If you see Rild, tell him that I have his staff. I want to analyze it,” he said to the group.
Before he could take another step, Bez appeared right before him.
“No you do not!” the earth spirit angrily said as he yanked the staff out of the gray mage's hand before disappearing once again.
Neln stood there for a moment and laughed silently to himself.
“Now you have your confirmation that the staff is something special. I do not think the spirit would not have reacted this way,” said Solana, who now also stepped near the cauldron.
“Indeed. And it is special enough that the spirit thinks it is a secret that only Rild should know. Better let it go and not make myself enemies where it is unnecessary.”
The two of them left the cellar together as they discussed the reconstruction of the body. By now, the only people remaining in the room were Fai and Agatha.
The fairy looked at the old woman who was starring at the cauldron with a sad expression. Fai did not say a word and also left the cellar.
Agatha stood by the cauldron for a very long time. Her son once again died, and this time it was right in front of her. She heaved a sigh, and tears flowed out of her eyes. She felt the same loss as all those years ago when she believed him dead, but this time it was far lighter. This time she was next to him when this happened. This time she knew that instead of just being killed off as she believed all those years ago, he died doing the duty he was devoted to the majority of his life.
“Farewell, my child. Let this be my funeral to you,” she said as she touched the cauldron.
A bright light shone from her hands and entered the water. The impurities in the water started to disappear at a fast speed, and a few moments later, the water was crystal clear.
The old mage sighed once again and wished away her tears. With a face like nothing happened, she stepped towards the staircase.
–

“This will have consequences. This probably has shortened the time he has once more,” said Bez to no one as he stood before the bed of the sleeping Rild in his room.
The earth spirit still had Rild's staff in his hands.
“I feel sorry for you, boy. If you had been born just a bit earlier... just a century or two... Then all of this would not have happened. You would not need to break your head on what you can do to save the world and would only need to concentrate on reaching... You know, I always pitied you. Your mentality is the worst one to have for a worldmage. If only... if only the worldmages were never needed. You would have been the greatest pride of your order...”