Fallen Mage Regressor

Mal—along with all the other members of his circle—had been dragged out of the garden and down to the "courtyard."

It was a strange thing to call a giant slab of wood with dirt and grass on it, floating hundreds of feet in the air and supported by tree branches a "courtyard." Nonetheless, that was what it was referred to as.

The grass was neatly trimmed and there was thin rune markings along the edges of the floor. If Mal had to guess, there was probably a barrier to prevent someone from falling off the side.

"So you are my brother's circle mates," Holam frowned. "A Dracanid, a human, and a maid."

Holam looked particularly disturbed by the appearance of Philo.

Rolam tried his best attempt at a smile. "The maid possesses an A-grade core. Malfrasius is brilliant, and the one who's led us to great success in the rankings of the school—"

"Rankings." Holam scoffed. "More evidence of Exodi's lackluster curriculum. The idea of forcing students to compete—"

"—the Dracanid is in possession of the typical traits that we associate with his species, but he has proven to be a..."

His voice trailed off.

"Philo's beginning to believe it was a bad idea for Philo to come here."

"He has proven to be adequate," Rolam finally said.

Holam crossed his arms. "An A-grade core? I suppose that is rather impressive."

A beat of silence.

"Show me what you've learned," Holam said.

"Of course, brother."

Mal hadn't remembered Holam from the previous timeline. Either Holam was one of those who died early, or he'd ended up being so inconsequential that Mal had steamrolled over him with his armies and generals. Either way, Mal didn't really care about Holam's opinion of him.

What he did find interesting was the way that the two brothers interacted—both with each other and with Rolam's circlemates. It wasn't quite hostility, from what Mal could make out. Holam came off as harsh... and extremely racist... but it wasn't the worst behavior Mal had ever experienced.

Rolam took up a stance at the edge of the courtyard. He held out his hand and an arcane sphere formed in front of him. It shot out and collided with the dirt. Grass and roots flew into the air along with a random mouse.

Holam stepped closer and inspected the impact. "A basic push spell," he said. "But compared to your previous attempts, you've improved by miles."

Rolam grinned for a moment before the smile turned strained. "I suppose that you'll be showing me your recent efforts?"

"Indeed."

Holam stepped up to the edge and Rolam gave him plenty of room. Holam held out his hand and two Arcane Spheres circled around each other, circled around his outstretched palm. They lit up with alternating lights of red and blue, then launched out and erupted into a twin spiral of water and fire before they dissipated harmlessly into the air.

He then immediately followed that up with another two Arcane Spheres. They weaved in and out like a sine wave before they crashed into each other and erupted into light. The light faded and in its place was a swirling ball of energy, different from the Arcane Spheres that had come before. It bubbled and fizzed, then exploded for a second time, sending white flecks in every direction like little bullets. He squeezed his fist and they dissipated, again before they could touch Mal and the others.

It was all very showy and fancy and Mal found it perfectly unbearable.

“How impractical,” he said.

Rolam turned and glared at him. “What? That was masterful. My brother is one of the finest mages of his generation.”

“He is,” Mal said. “And his control is unmatched. But if you were to try to pull that in a real fight, you’d be at a severe disadvantage.”

There was an odd mixture of a smile threatening to break out on Rolam’s face mixed with a frustrated scowl.

“Besides,” Mal said, “Savaly puts him to shame.”

“You speak of the princess?”

At some point in the conversation, Holam had walked up in front of them. He showed no sign of having heard Mal’s previous comments. Either that, or if he did, he didn’t care.

“You know of the princess?” Mal said.

Holam’s nose and ears twitched and his eyebrows furrowed downward.

“I’ve had the misfortune of meeting her,” he said. “She’s talented, yes, but utterly unsuited for the duties of nobility. To her, the interplay between countries and rulers is nothing but a high stakes game of poker. A gamble to amuse herself with.”

Mal tilted his head. “It sounds to me a little bit more personal than that.”

“She had the nerve to call me boring.” Holam scoffed. “I am not boring. I am interesting.”

“Don’t take offense, she considers everyone boring.”

Rolam cast a side-eye at Mal. “I think we both know that’s not completely true.”

At that, Holam very noticeably followed Rolam’s gaze and looked at Mal with an evaluating eye. He opened his mouth to speak but Mal cut him off before he could.

“So, this whole thing has to do with the upcoming Exodi triumph, yes?” Mal asked. He looked at Rolam. “Will your dad and brother be showing up?”

Rolam went quiet, then looked over at Holam, his eyes widened in curiosity.

Holam shook his head. “I’ll be appearing, but father has said that he’ll only appear if Rolam wins. And even then, he said it would have to do with whether or not his schedule was full.”

“I’ll crush them all,” Rolam said. “I’ll win in a completely dominating fashion. He’ll have no choice but to show up.”

Holam didn’t respond. Not a nod, nor a shake of a head.

Instead, he turned to the rest of the group.

“I have judged that you are no harm to our family,” Holam said. “All of you are free to explore the manor as you wish. A servant will show you to your rooms later this evening.” He paused. “Within the next few days, I may have to do some assigned tasks from the school as a part of my summer training. You all are free to join me if you desire.”

With that, he turned around and walked back into the manor.

With Holam’s permission, Mal had immediately decided the place he wanted to spend the rest of the week in was the library. After getting a good night’s rest, he immediately scrambled toward the books and spent the rest of the morning reading.

What had he selected?

Everything and anything about elven witchcraft.

It seemed that elven witchcraft was treated a little bit differently in the West compared to the East. It was still obsolete, but it was considered an important part of the development of magical theory. As such, there was much more scholarly research dedicated to it.

Unfortunately, most of it wasn’t very practical. The main things that Mal had picked up were that elven witches were far more obsessed with symmetry and aesthetics compared to Western witches. They argued that this affected the potency of plants harvested from their garden.

To Mal’s horror, he hadn’t immediately responded with disbelief, but had instead found himself thinking that it wouldn’t be too difficult to rearrange his garden to take advantage of this effect.

I’m going native, he thought. It won’t be long now before I’m staring into crystal orbs and foretelling doom to every person I come across.

Mal also reviewed the limits of mana types. There were only about seven or eight that were very common, and those were the ones that were typically used in recipes. But the upper limit was much, much higher. There were about six foundational ones, and each of those six could be combined with each other to make more “advanced” mana types. Those advanced ones could be combined one more time to create even more obscure mana types, but it was impossible to breed plants after that, for whatever reason. There was a hard limit and despite the attempts of many elven witches, there was no way past it.

Mal, again, learned that this was mostly for aesthetics. These more obscure mana types didn’t seem to have any recipes of any value. At least not that the books he was reading bothered to mention. And even the elven witches who’d been writing about these upper mana types were doing so mostly as an intellectual exercise and for curiosity.

So basically he’d wasted his entire morning.

He shut the large tome on elven witchcraft history and pushed it to the side. He stood up and took it back to the bookcase and slid it back in. He was about to turn around to explore a different section when he stopped.

Mana.

He sniffed the air and followed his nose. Soon enough, the flecks of mana became visible. He traced their path with his eyes to a small spiral-bound journal nestled in between the other leather-bound copies. He reached out to touch it—

“It’s rude to peek through the belongings of others, darling.”

It was a thin and raspy voice, weathered and gritted by age and experience. He turned around to face it. Instead of the old crone he was anticipating, it was a mature, beautiful woman, who, at most, looked to be in her early 40s. There were crow's feet along her eyes, but her skin elsewhere was unblemished and her white sundress gave the further feeling of youth. Her hair was bright red, the same shade as Rolam's, but her eyes were a striking blue.

He blinked and there was a brief flash of that crone he'd expected. A woman with a hunched back and sallow features. He blinked again and it was gone.

He reached up and rubbed his eyes. "I can't tell which part is the illusion," he muttered.

She paused.

"Ah. You're referring to my appearance?" she said.

"Yeah. I must be losing my mind, or something."

"Neither of them are false. They're both true."

With that supremely unhelpful comment, she fell silent. She was staring at him as if he were a particularly interesting puzzle or mystery to solve. Mal did the same. There were flecks of mana, aligned mana coming off her, all different colors. Various shades of green, one or two shades of blue and red—goodness, she had more aligned mana circling her than half of the garden.

"You're a witch, aren't you?" Mal said.

"You are as well." She shut her eyes. "I can hear it. The whistle of the wind through the brush and the entanglement of vines."

Her smile, previously unreadable and calm, grew a hint of mischief.

"Sit down with me, young witch," she said. "It's been a long time since I've spoken with my sisters in the east. This will be a good opportunity for both of us."

"A male witch." She chuckled. "Now that's not something you see every day."

Mal took a sip of his tea. After she'd sat down, she'd waved her hand and two teacups, filled to the brim with liquid, had appeared in front of them. She'd sat them down in a corner of the library where there were a few chairs surrounding a small table.

Mal wrinkled his nose at the taste. The flavor was grassy, almost like what he would imagine dirt tasted like. He suppressed the expression and set it down.

"I see that the easterners haven't refined their palate, even after hundreds of years." She snorted. "How disappointing."

Mal wasn't sure how to approach this. He knew nothing of the finer details of witch culture or if there were expected greetings or titles or anything of that sort. Cassandra had been utterly utilitarian in her lessons. Herbs and their uses, the basic rituals. And of course, the fundamental theory of how witchcraft worked. But anything beyond that, she saw as unnecessary. Mal was beginning to wish she'd at least gone over the basics.

"Truly, I am curious," she said. "How did you learn earth-speaking—sorry, witchcraft? Are you a part of some new sect? Is there a rogue witch taking on dozens of male apprentices?"

Mal almost thought of telling her that he had shattered his core before he realized that it would probably be a terrible idea given what Cassandra had told him.

"I have no talent for wizardry," he said. "But I have a high sensitivity toward mana. A witch took pity on me and taught me some of the basics."

"I see. So you already have a mistress? How unfortunate. If you didn't, I surely would have taken you under my wing."

There was that term again. Mistress.

Despite all the instincts inside of him telling him that he should flee in the other direction, he asked the question that had been bugging him for so long.

"What was up with those...?"

"Ah, well," she waved him off. "A trick of witchcraft. A ritual of my own making. I've extended my life out to its natural limits. Ordinarily, an elf lives to be about 400 or 500. I'm 900 and counting."

"I thought elves were immortal."

"Just a common bit of folklore. Most elves don't bother to correct the impression because they don't like to talk to other species at all."

Mal twitched. "The extension of life is a risky business."

"Don't look at me like that. I'm no practitioner of dark magic. Besides, I'm the same as you." She winked. "No talent for wizardry anyway."

"I'm fairly certain that there's got to be dark sides to witchcraft, just as there is for wizardry."

"Of course there is, but it's not the same type. Life extension, in witchcraft, while dangerous, isn't dark. I haven't removed my limits, merely stretched them out. I'm what would happen if the theoretical limit of elven biology was pushed to its absolute pinnacle."

The two. There was a beat of silence in the conversation.

“What was your name, again?” the woman asked.

“I’m Malfrasius Patoal.”

“And I am Hortensia Nilum,” she said. “How do you feel about learning a few techniques of elven witchcraft?”

“What’s the catch?”

“A cynic, eh?” She laughed and hid her mouth behind her hand. “It won’t be too difficult. Not for someone of your sensitivity. I’m afraid that my own is rather mediocre in comparison to yours, so I’ve been rather slow to accomplish this particular task.”

“Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“It’s simple. I want you to go into my garden and pluck a single petal from a Goldrose.”

“Any relation to Waterrose?”

“Indeed, one can trace water in that particular plant’s lineage. But you can trace all of the fundamental elementals in my plants.” She waved him off. “Well, get to it.”

“And in exchange, you’ll teach me elven witchcraft?”

“You took my Fireglove.”

Mal stiffened.

“Oh, I don’t care. I have plenty of Fireglove. But you don’t have any recipes or any idea what to do with that plant. I’ll give you one. A rather handy item that should make you dangerous in close quarters combat.” She looked up at the ceiling. “The summer ritual is coming up, I can teach you a few additions that will enhance your connection to the elements. Does it sound like a fair trade?”

No, it didn’t sound like a fair trade at all. All Mal would have to do is harvest the petals of a single plant?

How difficult could that be?

“It’s a deal."

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