Chapter 1397 (Patreon)

Unwilling to deal with Anise and her mental fragility and weakness any longer, I returned my focus to more fruitful pursuits. First, I ate another of Lady Hecate’s absolutely and divinely delicious cookies. That alone was a massive improvement over dealing with Anise, and another try at figuring out what made these cookies so magical was just a bonus. Even without that, merely the taste and experience of consuming one was worth it, though I soon realised that too many of those would be hell on my figure. 

Whatever way Lady Hecate had used to create them, she had been generous with a couple of slightly unhealthy ingredients. Lots of sugar and butter, in addition to citrus, a few nuts and some other things I couldn’t identify, neither by taste nor magically. Delicious, but also unhealthy, making me wonder if I might be able to improve upon them. Not their taste; that was already as close to perfection as one could get with the differences in individual preferences, but keeping the taste and making them healthier? That would truly make them divine. Though given that Lady Hecate may have created the body she used to have tea with me like she created the cookies, she wouldn’t have to worry about her figure. She’d just let the body fade away once she was done using it, essentially creating the best diet ever.

For a moment, I wondered how that would work with the three elements I considered essential to a person: Body, Mind and Soul. If Lady Hecate could simply create and discard the physical form she used, what was her Body? Did she have a true Body stashed away somewhere, hidden in some sort of temple, or was her Body, the essential element of her being, something I wouldn’t recognise?

The Body had to be somewhat fluid; it had to be. After all, my physical form had greatly shifted since the Change had happened, and Luna had matured, too. That changed the body, so the Body couldn’t be a fixed state. But was that limited to biological constraints, or was the window of possibility to qualify as a being’s Body even larger? After all, my current Body wasn’t what I had looked like before the Change, and I had been an adult already. So, no natural maturation to change my body, just the influence of traits, like the one that essentially stated a Dragon couldn’t be petite and puny. Which, now that I remembered it, made me facepalm a little, as it was yet another fairly heavy-handed hint at my fundamental form, the form of my soul. It was impressive just how much one could miss, simply because of a limited perspective. 

Still, if my Body might eventually change into that of a dragon, or it could be possible to learn such a feat, would it be a stretch to think that it was also possible to change one’s Body into something else? My plans for Sigmir’s resurrection were predicated on our ability to change her Body, from the Giantblood one she had been born and died with, into an actual Giant’s body, or maybe some hybrid, partially created from Giant’s blood. Regardless, no matter how faithfully we managed to reconstruct the body, it wouldn’t be her Body; it would be a reconstruction. And yet, I was fairly confident it would work, unless Lady Hecate’s original idea for the resurrection involved heading back to Mundus, finding Sigmir’s grave and reclaiming her original Body.

But Lady Hecate had never mentioned spatial or dimensional magic as requisite disciplines to resurrect Sigmir, only Life Magic, Mind Magic and Soul Magic. Well, ‘Mastery over Life, Dominion over Souls and deep insight into the mysteries of the Mind’ had been her words, but nothing there hinted at a visit to Mundus. 

When I considered that, I realised that it didn’t necessarily mean anything. After all, I was here now to figure out Crystal Rune Mastery, with a planned next target to figure out Soul or Death Rune Mastery. Either of those would fit with Dominion over Souls, but Crystal Rune Mastery didn’t, and yet, I was fairly certain I needed it to create the tools necessary to continue my plans. So, either my plans diverged from those Lady Hecate had considered, or the three requirements were incomplete. Maybe they were simply what was required for the final resurrection, with Mastery over Life being a requirement to turn the dead, possibly already partially decomposed body back into a form Sigmir could, literally, live with. 

Shaking my head, I let out a sigh and focused on the task at hand, namely, the Library Crystal. Talking with Anise and having tea with Lady Hecate had given me more than enough time to recover mentally, so I could try again, though I used a slightly different approach this time. Instead of trying to glimpse the entire thing at the same time, I was narrowing my focus, not just in scope but also in scale. Now, I was focusing on individual runes, simply staring at them, comparing them to different runes I already knew. There might be some similarities to Earth Runes in these, or maybe Ice Runes. After all, both magical elements had some overlap with Crystal Magic, so it was entirely plausible that the runes had similarities and overlap, too. Even if my Ice Runes were those I had learned on Mundus and my Earth Runes came from studying Terran runes my students had learned. Still, I was confident in my grasp of Ice Magic and Runes that I would recognise Ice Runes, even if they were in a language I didn’t speak, so to say. Ice was, at the end of the day, Ice and I knew my Ice. 

What made the task difficult was that the runes weren’t all in a uniform alignment. They were all over the place, essentially creating a three-dimensional matrix. It was, literally, in a different dimension regarding complexity, and the individual runes reflected that. Well, not the runes themselves, but the boundary between rune and connecting patterns seemed to be somewhat fluid, making me wonder if there were more runes concealed in an even deeper layer. Not just carved into the material, but maybe engraved into the very atoms that made up the crystal lattice. That might just be the pinnacle of magical engraving and Rune Mastery, though my senses weren’t good enough to check just yet, let alone make the idea work myself. Maybe I could manage it eventually; it would certainly have incredible synergy with Darkness Runes. After all, part of Darkness Magic was manipulation of the void between matter, and engraving Runes into that void? Just the idea made me tingly in all the right places. However, for now, I just had to make do with my exploration of the superficial Crystal runes.

I had no idea how long I spent, pouring over rune after rune. Eventually, I felt my eyes grow a little blurry, maybe from exhaustion, maybe simply from overdoing things, and then, as I continued to work, my mind simply faded away. 

“And here I told you I would visit you on this fine night,” Lady Hecate’s voice chided me. The Maiden sounded rather amused and playful; the Mother was feigning injury, and the Crone was simply exasperated. A part of me wanted to chuckle, but I was feeling a little under the weather. Apparently, my exhaustion had partially been physical, and now I wasn’t within my body but within Lady Hecate’s realm, so that part didn’t count right now. The rest of it, the mental fatigue I had incurred by working for hours on end, didn’t just go away, leaving me rather sluggish and slow. 

“Apologies, I’m afraid I lost myself in a rather fascinating project,” I tried to give her a friendly smile, only for said smile to crumble when a yawn cracked my jaw. “I might have overdone it.” 

“Maybe, yes,” the Maiden laughed, “But then, you wouldn’t be who you are if you weren’t that interested and fascinated by the Arcane. If you weren’t, We certainly wouldn’t bother with you. So, swings and roundabouts, I believe the mortals say.”

“You wanted to talk about modifications for my anchors, correct?” I asked, uncertain how long my mind would play along with me. Talking to Lady Hecate without my full faculties might get difficult. Or even hazardous to my health. 

“That was the plan, yes,” the Crone replied, “But I believe that wouldn’t be wise. We can talk about that tomorrow, when you have had some sleep and didn’t spend the entire night wandering and experimenting with odd spatial phenomena and the entire day studying a new type of rune.”

“Apologies,” I repeated myself, feeling a little sheepish. 

“It’s fine,” The maiden assured me, while the Mother let out a sigh. 

“Why don’t I return a certain favour?” she asked. “You said it was some of your last, good tea. So, let me return the favour.” 

With that, I felt a ripple of power pass through the world, manifesting a gorgeous pair of lounge chairs, a matching tea table and a delicate set of china.

“Please, have a seat,” she offered, a teapot appearing in her hand, while another plate of cookies manifested on the table. 

Accepting the invitation, I sat down, curious what the night would bring now.