The next day Ciel and Mystogan resumed their travels in the early morning.

 

Ciel was a little bit tired because he had to stay on guard after midnight. Usually, he would just leave the sky domain active while sleeping so that if in danger he would be alert and awake.

 

But after using his demon mark last time, the overall magic power in him had increased greatly. So for a spell-like sky domain which needed very delicate magic control, he couldn't maintain it in sleep anymore.

 

"Sigh...I'll have to practice magic control again now.." He lamented silently.

 

Meanwhile, Mystogan was feeling great today. Unlike the previous days, he didn't have any of that nightmare stuff yesterday. So he was able to sleep soundly. Although he did feel a little uneasy.

 

"Hey mystogan.," Ciel called out.

 

"Hmmm..? What happened..?"

 

"Didn't you use a teleportation spell to escape back then..?"

 

"Yes. I did."

 

"Then can't we use it go back..?"

 

"We could...But right now...impossible"

 

"Why..? Isn't that usually used for high distance transportation anyways."

 

"Yes, it is. But I can only go to places where I have carved a certain type of rune on. And usually, for activation it uses a high amount of magic power, but in my case.."

 

"You use your staves instead right..?"

 

"Yes, that is correct. But one of my staves has been broken by that demon back then. And it looks like one of the others had a crack too, leaving me with only 3 usable staves."

 

"So..?"

 

"So I can't use any magic above 3 circles for now."

 

"Haaa...what a bad luck," Ciel said dejectedly.

 

"Looks like I'll have to pay a visit to Miss Porlyusica again."

 

"The crazy old lady..?"

 

"Huh..? why do you call her that..?"

 

"Don't you know.? She doesn't like humans. And chases everyone out if you get close to her house."

 

"Is that so..!" he replied with a distant look.

 

---

 

As they calculated, the duo reached Clover town by noon and boarded the train to Magnolia. Time flew as the train headed towards its destination at high speed.

 

Both of them were quite tired by their travels so Ciel went to sleep, real fast sitting on the train. Mystogan wanted to sleep too. But he felt a growing discomfort as the train went on.

 

"What..is this..? This feeling. It wasn't much this morning..!" He couldn't pinpoint what it was. It was certainly something very familiar to him. Yet he didn't know. While thinking about it, he too fell asleep at one point.

 

"AAARGHHH..." He didn't know how much time had passed by, but Ciel was woken up by a loud scream.

Jolting his eyes open, he saw Mystogan screaming, grabbing his head tight sitting right in front of him.

 

"Hey...dude..what happened..?" Jumping out from the seat he went to the man who was clutching his head in pain.

 

"Wha...what do I do now..?" Ciel was also in panic mode as he didn't know what to do right now. He didn't have any healing spells after all.

 

"Dammit...if only I had some healing abilities." 

 

"Porl..." Suddenly Mystogan mumbled something in the midst of the grunts.

 

"Huh..! What..what was that..?" He brought his head towards the man to hear what he was saying.

 

"Porly..usic..a" 

 

"That's right...She might be able to do something.." Without wasting any more time he picked up the fellow mage using his wind magic and headed towards the door.

 

A few people had gathered hearing the commotion, making his way through them Ciel asked.

 

"Have we reached Magnolia yet..?"

 

"N..no. The next stop is magnolia" A bewildered passenger informed the boy.

 

"Hmm...that means, we're in the middle of Onibus and Magnolia...so that means.." With his other hand, he slammed open the door of the running train.

 

"H..hey..don't.." Some passengers tried to warn the boy.

 

"That right there is the East forest..!" He yelled and jumped out to the horror of the people gathered there.

And before hitting the ground flew towards the forest in view. 

 

"Hang in there Mystogan..." With lightning speed, the boy flew towards the healing mage's house in the forest, while the other man was grunting in pain.

 

---

 

A few minutes later a young boy landed at the east forest with a floating man alongside him.

 

"Where was it..I'm sure it was somewhere around here," Ciel mumbled as he frantically searched for the house.

 

And then a huge tree caught his eye. At first glance, it is easy to confuse with one of the trees growing in the East Forest, as the base for its construction is most likely one of the local trees. There was a small wooden door on the base of it.

 

"Finally..." He rushed towards on glee and started banging on it.

 

"Hey...anyone here...Miss Porlyusica...? Please open the door, it's urgent." Even after knocking for a long time, no reply was heard from inside.

 

Finally losing his cool, Ciel blurted out.

 

"If you want to play like that, I'll play along with you crazy old hag...I'LL JUST RAZE THIS DAMN TREE TO THE GROUND!!!"

 

"Who're you calling a hag brat..?" Suddenly an elderly woman opened the door with a broom in her hands.

 

"You finally opened...please help him," Ciel said showing the knocked out Mystogan with him.

 

Porlyusica went silent for a minute seeing the man. And told the boy.

 

"Get him inside."

 

---

 

"Yeah...she's checking him right now. So we might be late."

 

"No it's alright gramps...yeah...bye." Putting away the communication Lacrima he went to the lady who was in the midst of checking the masked mage.

 

"Is he gonna be alright..?"

 

"What did you people even do. His magic flow is all messed up..and how did he even get magic in the first place." The woman asked staring at him intensely. 

 

"We..had a fight with a demon..."

 

"Tell me the full details."

 

After a few minutes.

"The rest of what happened after I was knocked out, is from what he told me." He concluded.

 

"So she enhanced magic onto him....No it can't be." Realizing something, she went to check on the man again.

 

"No..way..it really is....resonance..!" She had an unbelievable look on her face.

 

"Resonance..? What's that..?" Ciel asked cluelessly.

 

"So the legends are true.." A new voice emerged.

 

"Mystogan you're awake...!"

 

"Yeah..I've been up, for quite some time now." He said to the boy and turned to look at the old woman.

 

"Is it truly resonance..?"

 

"I don't have any proof. But have you been seeing anything out of ordinary lately.." She asked. getting a reaction from the man. He was seeing memories that did not belong to him after all.

 

"You do...So it's really..."

 

"But isn't that only a theory..? A myth..legend of the past..?" Mystogan asked hopefully.

 

"And yet you satisfy all the symptoms." She said in a monotone voice.

 

"Sigh..."

 

"I'm sorry...what's going on here..? What is resonance..? Why is he very upset about it..?" The confused boy asked.

 

Porlyusica looked at the masked mage as if waiting for his approval.

 

"Just tell him. They all may come to know about it sometime anyway."

 

"sigh..if you say so... Listen here boy..have you heard of Unison raids..?"

 

"Yeah of course I have. It's combining two kinds of Magic similar in nature together, making it even stronger. Isn't it..?"

 

"In a nutshell yes. But it's much more complicated than that. Do you know why the very little amount of people can pull that off." Seeing the boy shake his head she continued.

 

"In addition to having the magic of similar nature, they must attune their magic wave lengths to match each other. If they can do that..it will result in a phenomenon called resonance. It will merge the two magics together and empower them. That's the core principle of Unison raids."

 

"Ohh... I see how it is."

 

"But.." Porlyusica continued.

 

"What if the magic signatures and wavelengths of the two are the exact same..?"

 

"???"

 

"You know that magic is the very essence of life right..? Everyone in this world has magic in them. But only a few people have enough, to be brought outside. That's why only a few populace is mages."

 

"If the magic signatures are the same, the one with lower magic power... will be absorbed into the other one..."