What?
Magic...
She had said that she was the source through which all magic flowed, so in some way this did make a lot of sense after he thought about if for a bit, but still what in heaven's name could she want him to cast, a healing spell, a ice spell, fire, wind, lightning, light, ore anything else?
Magic was not just magic, it was not just mana, magic was the concept of energy conversion made flesh, it was the movement of one kind of mass into something else, it was metamorphosis and it was digestion, his very digestive track was also a kind of magic in some way, it was just energy being sued for something, even making fire using wood was magic, even using acid for something was magic, action and reaction, usage and depletion, that was the essence of what the concept of magic truly entailed, not just magic itself.
Her ask could quite literally mean she wanted him to burp or shit himself, even that would be a king of magic in some way after all, or even falling would be magic, converting the energy generated by his own mass and the distance of the fall into kinetic force applied onto the floor.
How was he supposed to decide when everything, in some capacity or form, could be controlled through mana and be conversed into magic, when everything was chaos, when every bit of moving energy was magic?
That seemed like an almost impossible ask...
Still, at least she had indirectly allowed him to shorten it to just a spell, probably one he knew as he only knew those that he, well, knew...
"No sh#t, sherlock."
Cades!
Yes, that was right, Cades was also here!
It was still a fresh feeling, and kind of exotically disturbing to have another voice in his head that both belonged to and didn't belong to him, but he was quite fond of the voice, it was straight-to -the-point, humorous, and quite knowledgeable due to what he called "instinctive knowledge" after all..
Truly, there as practically no question in his mind that Cades would be able to hel-
"Sorry, Leyk, I don't think I should help you with this one, but I would probably go with something simple that you have used often, though I already know what spell she might like..."
Like?
So there might be some kind of correct answer?
Then this was made even more impossible?
On the other hand, ehetrians, and all kinds of beings were creatures of habit so he hadn't really been using too many spells lately, mainly just expulsion, mana manipulation, other stuf-
Actually, he should probably start training a bit more with normal magic instead of just relying on actives and such, he was already feeling himself grow rusty if he was really honest with himself, it was quite humiliating that he only remembered himself using such relative basic spells lately, even though magic was such a great tool.
He still remembered how Cades had used a freezing spell to freeze the wet carapace of a thomiside and cause it to fall, though some of the details weren't exactly fresh in his mind, so magic could be used to exploit weaknesses of beasts, or in the case of the harpies, a colony he wasn't sure how he had beaten, probably being eld by the call itself, that he had mostly beaten using magic to pull down the icy ceiling.
But neither of those spells were good right now, they both require the right surroundings, and this was a house, a table with food where he was already seated, right against the wall, and a woman who stood tall above him, being about 5'5 tall, relatively short but imposing and infinitely powerful nonetheless.
He needed something normal, something preferably not destructive, something he was familiar with, something he knew well enough, and perhaps even something from the beginning of this journey, something she, who was both the froward motion and the motion backward, would like.
Wait a second, was that not the very essence of time?
Forward, backwards, the passing, was that not motion itself, then was the great pillar of motion also the ruler of time, was this woman a god of time, was that being in front of him capable of saving his parents retrospectively, would he one day be able to do so?
What if that woman was truly able to do so?
Leyk knew she wouldn't do it.
There was no way she would do it for him, though, this did give him hope of seeing his family again one day, in the far future as he could already tell.
But right now he had to think of the spell he wanted to put this entire journey onto, a spell that had helped him countless times, a spell he knew well, a magic...
He wasn't a mage in the first place...why was he trying to do magic when he was an artificer...
It wasn't that he hadn't thought of a spell, he would've used the light spell, but he at least wanted to show her, Coures as she had referred to herself, who he was, who he saw himself as, though he had lately tended to forget that integral part of him, the part that was not fighter, not mage, but artificer, a scientist, he wanted to artifice, he wanted to do what he had always yearend to do back one ehetria, and right now, something was off with him, he felt something boiling inside him, something abnormally different from what was supposed to be inside him.
He looked at the table, and the woman in front of him smiled slightly, having caused another bit of progress inside Leyk's mind, inside of Cades and inside his subconscious, her test having been passed already, after all, why would the test of a pillar of progress be to fight and not to progress...
There was an earring, and he did not know what he would do, but he knew he would do it, that was how he felt as he grabbed the earring, not even understanding the fact that the ring had no colour, no form, that it was simply matter, that it was there because she had always known this would be what he chose.