Corvis Eralith
As Leòn Leurenzian, I finished yet another song with a flourishing sweep of my hands across the invisible strings of Fate attached to Fiorwato, making my wand-cane-sword the absolute perfect imitation of a guitar.
The sprawling crowd in Carn exploded into deafening cheers. I theatrically bowed before them, cringing inwardly as the hyper-critical image of Kamiel Rennoux, my music teacher and sound magic master, flashed involuntarily before my eyes.
The large flags of the Interdicathian, which I had designed myself, flapped proudly in my conjured wind currents.
They bore the circlet of the three royal animals of the kingdoms chasing one another over a dark sapphire background, with a stark white blazon bearing the word "Dicathen" written boldly beneath it.
From the grand stage we had built in the centre of one of Carn's largest squares (every cost lavishly covered by the generosity of Finn Warend's seemingly endless coffers), I looked out at the thousands of humans who had attended the concert.
The city garrison of Carn had been completely overwhelmed by the sheer presence of the "Wandering Musician" Leòn Leurenzian—a pseudonym that had become wildly famous across the Sapinese countryside since my debut concert in Greengate just a week ago.
Good music and a magical spectacle, all of it provided for free; a genuine rarity, I had quickly discovered, as seasoned mages and bards strongly preferred to be handsomely paid.
Coupled with the rumour of the mysterious Magician's Potions—elixirs sold by a kindly dwarven lady that were said to awaken a person's mana core—it was an irresistible draw for the masses.
I sighed as I straightened up. Becoming a continental pop idol truly wasn't on my bingo card for this second life, but if it entertained the common people and helped drive massive foot traffic towards the Interdicathian network, then I would gladly bear the embarrassment.
Walking away from the stage, I watched the massive crowd dispersing in two distinct directions.
Those who wanted to rush the stage to speak with me were immediately blocked by a supposedly "unassuming" bodyguard boasting fiery orange hair and the sheer muscle mass of a mountain: Chul.
Those who wanted to verify the existence of the Magician's Potions, usually the wealthiest nobles and affluent merchants, hurried over to the elderly dwarven lady selling them: Danna Roksson, the esteemed owner of Stonebound Tomes in Zestier's Grand Nectary.
I had originally wanted to ask Master Kamiel to accompany me on this tour, mostly so that he could absorb all the obsessive public attention like a sponge while simultaneously representing the Elenoirian nobility as a member of Sister House Rennoux.
But, as always, whenever you actually needed the eccentric elf, he was nowhere to be found.
Passing my hands over the shaft of Fiorwato's cane-scabbard, I dispelled the two connected, golden double-helix strings of Fate that formed the chords of my makeshift "guitar."
The Re-Construction Greatrune's greatest strength, I had found so far, was when I used it in tandem with REstringify, the Arbiter's authority over the Edict of Spatium.
Together, they allowed me to forge new strings of Fate whenever I desired, synthesising them directly from raw mana.
So, whenever I needed to perform, I could simply manifest two strings of Fate, attach them to my walking cane, and, aided by sound magic, wield the absolute finest instrument a musician could ever dream of.
Stepping down from the stage, I let out a deep sigh, glancing high above at the blazing sun. Carn was one of Sapin's hottest cities due to its proximity to the vast, arid desert of Darv; the only reason humans could even inhabit this sweltering place was because of the river Sehz bathing the Sapinese plains.
The closest comparison I could make to my past life on Earth was one of Egypt's many cities sustained by the Nile.
And just like the Nile, it was the Sehz and its many tributaries that made Sapin such a rich and fertile territory. It was, by far, the best land in all of Dicathen for standard agriculture.
I entered the tavern that the Warend Trading Company had rented for my stay in Carn, a quiet sanctuary where my staff and I could finally rest.
Sapin's inns were exactly what you would expect: the quintessential, rustic medieval taverns that rightfully belonged in any magical world like the one Fate had reincarnated me into.
Occupying an important section of the ground floor right now was a sulking Berna. My massive Guardian Bear had essentially been turned into a circus performer to make each of my spectacles feel grander.
Entertainers using tamed mana beasts were exceptionally rare in Dicathen; usually, only the royal families and the wealthiest nobles could afford to hire them.
That, paired with Berna being a quadra-elemental mana beast and the rampant rumours surrounding her—namely, that she was actually Prince Corvis Eralith's very own pet—made Berna a star attraction in her own right.
I approached my bear and immediately spotted one of the inn's workers trying to feed her.
"No!" I exclaimed, rushing between my gluttonous Guardian, who already had her massive maw wide open, and the mouth-watering pork leg the attendant was offering her. "She is on a strict diet."
"A-Apologies, I hadn't been told," the waiter stammered, hurriedly backing away with the meat. Berna stared longingly after it. I turned to face her, crossing my arms.
"Evascir chastised me like... like some ignorant brat because of what I've been feeding you for the past few years!" I scolded her. "Don't give me those puppy eyes!"
In the wake of our brutal clash with Bairon Wykes, after Berna had been "repaired," Evascir had delivered a rare, blistering lecture directed at the Highprince regarding Berna's diet (as if he wasn't the first one to give his own Guardian Bear free rein over its food), but he made a valid point.
It seemed that Berna had grown woefully unaccustomed to the specific metals she needed to ingest for her core to function optimally, which apparently held a much higher energetic value for her physiology than standard meat.
Berna just kept on whining, lowering her huge, furry head to the floorboards, emerald eyes pleading silently.
From my dimensional storage ring, I retrieved a set of glass ampoules containing Berna's "supplements;" the four specific metals she needed to consume to fuel her elemental magic.
But these were not just normal chunks of ore floating inside a solution of alcohol.
No, they were ultra-concentrated, immaculate versions of them: Oathgold, Hymncopper, Faithsilver, and Creediron.
The difference from the standard metals mined from the earth? These were exactly 101% pure. Yes, Brahman, the mythical mana arts of the Titan race, could casually break the very laws of physics.
Berna narrowed her glowing green eyes suspiciously at the glass ampoules.
"You have loved eating metals for years," I sighed, popping the corks off the vials. "Just open your mouth."
Berna shook her massive snout in stubborn defiance, clamping her jaws firmly shut. I rolled my eyes and looked back towards the kitchens where the inn worker had retreated.
"Excuse me, could you bring that pork leg back, please?!" I called out loudly.
When the waiter nervously returned and handed me the juicy, bone-in meat, I held it up like a trophy before Berna's twitching nose.
"If you eat your metals, you get the pork. Deal?" I negotiated.
Thoroughly satisfied with those terms, Berna opened her massive jaws wide: a cavernous abyss ready to be filled with tasty food... and physics-defying metals.
She swallowed the concentrated metallic solutions in one begrudging gulp, wincing slightly at the taste, and then immediately snatched the pork leg.
Laying her head on her paws, she proceeded to savour the meat with an excruciating, deliberate slowness, looking incredibly smug about her successful extortion.
The loud swing of the tavern doors suddenly caught my attention.
Turning, I watched as Chul held the heavy wooden frame open, gesturing for Elder Danna to enter first like a true gentleman.
"Thank you, Lord Elijah," Danna said, stepping into the dim interior.
Hearing that name spoken aloud sent an involuntary shiver down my spine.
Chul had started working for the Warend Trading Company short after receiving the Warrant of War, operating across both Zestier and Vildorial.
To walk amongst the lessers without raising suspicion, he had chosen a very peculiar pseudonym for his disguised Narmanakaya: Elijah Knight.
Yes, Elijah Knight. The very same name Nico Sever had been known by in Dicathen, in a timeline that would never come to pass.
The origin of the surname, "Knight," I already knew: Hythlodaeus Knight was Chul's father and also Elder Rahdeas's revered master. (I had recently discovered that Elder Danna, owner of Stonebound Tomes, was another one of the Powders Hythlodaeus had taken under his wing many, many decades ago).
But the origin of his new first name? Elijah was supposed to be the name of Chul's brother, had he ever had one.
From what my nephew had explained to me, Dawn Asclepius and Hythlodaeus had owned two pets during their youth in old Focularsa, and they had affectionately named them Chul and Elijah.
Hythlodaeus Knight must have shared that exact same anecdote with Elder Rahdeas once. And so, in a different reality, the dwarven elder had bestowed that cherished name upon the mysterious human child placed under his care: Elijah Knight.
The longer I lived in this world, the more I realised just how deeply interconnected everything truly was.
These were not mere characters I might have once read about in a former life that was rapidly fading from my memory; they were living, breathing people with intricate pasts and profound personalities.
"Is everything okay?" I asked, looking between Chul and Elder Danna.
"Affairs couldn't be better, if that is what you are asking," the dwarven lady said, a soft, satisfied expression settling over her wrinkled face. "Many purchased the Magician's Potions. Out of sheer curiosity, I suspect, but I never question the underlying motives of my clients' purchases."
I nodded. Not that I had expected the masses to instantly believe in a strange, colourful concoction capable of making you a mage and rush to buy them en masse.
Actually, this slow, skeptical adoption was probably for the best; I didn't want to violently shake the status quo of Dicathian magic—which had always been an exclusive tool for the elite—just yet.
"I have repelled all the intruders who desired to annoy you!" Chul exclaimed proudly, puffing out his chest as if he were flaunting a hard-won military victory. "There were many females amongst them, too..."
Both Elder Danna and I shot Chul a deadpan look.
"They were probably there for you, Lord Elijah," Danna Roksson said, struggling to hide a highly entertained smile.
"What? And why would they be?" Chul asked in genuine confusion, his bright, bicoloured eyes darting between me and the elderly dwarf.
"Ehm... that is not something a ten-year-old should have to explain to you," I deflected smoothly, and the dwarven lady just laughed the question off with a throaty chuckle.
Chul's bemused expression lingered for a second longer, but then he shook his massive head and leaned in, his tone dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"Are we ready for..." he made a vague, sharp gesture with his hand. "That?"
I nodded, my own expression instantly hardening. Going on a musical tour to advertise the Interdicathian was just the flashy, public front for this expedition across Sapin.
It was a useful and engaging activity, yes, but it was ultimately meant to provide cover for our most important, secret objective: freeing the slaves; the greatest systemic plague rotting Dicathen from the inside out.
Slaves—dwarves and elves especially—were far too common a sight in Sapinese towns and cities. They were brutally exploited and abused for cheap labour, and for all other kinds of... darker tasks a corrupt noble might require a slave for.
"Yes, we are," I said coldly.
—
"Uncle—not that I don't want to fight, of course!—but why don't we just... buy the slaves?" Chul asked me quietly. "Rahdeas says money can do pretty much everything in this society."
I hummed in acknowledgement; Chul made a perfectly valid point. I could have simply bought every single slave in each city we visited. The exorbitant cost wouldn't have even made a dent in Finn Warend's bottomless funds, but...
"It is a matter of precedents," I said solemnly as we crept closer to one of the local slavehouses: grim, fortified warehouses where living people were stocked as mere goods. "If we go around buying slaves, their captors will realise there is a lucrative, guaranteed market. They will just capture more to make a profit out of it."
"But wouldn't it be the most peaceful outcome?" Chul asked, his tone conveying only genuine curiosity.
"Perhaps. But look at what following peace—and Peace only, no matter the cost—did to the Ancient Mages," I replied coldly.
I unclipped Fiorwato from my hip and smoothly unsheathed the viridian blade from its cane-scabbard.
Passing my free hand over the gleaming gemsteel, I cast a highly concentrated sound spell along the edge. It would function exactly like a pistol's silencer from Earth, completely deadening the noise of any slash or swing I executed.
Next, a large Bubblespell, intricately engraved with the Articles of Freedom and Balance, expanded outwards to engulf both Chul and me, rendering us completely invisible. It was the exact same stealth tactic I had employed during my brutal clash with Bairon Wykes.
"Fast and clean," I reminded Chul in a hushed whisper. "Just like we are used to, alright?"
Chul nodded his head enthusiastically, cracking his massive knuckles.
"To be a champion of Freedom," my nephew murmured to himself, reciting the core tenet of his Warrant. "I still cannot wrap my head around a concept like slavery... I had never even heard the word all my life in the Hearth. I don't think Father or Mother even knew such a word existed."
We silently approached the slavehouse. It was a large, dilapidated shack guarded by heavily armed mercenaries, sitting like a rotting tooth in an otherwise unassuming neighbourhood of Carn.
Inside, men, women, and children, destined to be sold as cheap agricultural labour in the rich fields bathed by the river Sehz, were caged like cattle waiting to be butchered.
I would not let such a thing exist. Not in Dicathen. Not in my homeland.
The moon, Elenoir, was our silent, silvery witness as Chul and I moved seamlessly from slavehouse to slavehouse, jumping from rooftop to rooftop of Carn to systematically liberate the captives.
On top of my head a Portal Frog rested, its role as fundamental as that of Chul or I. Other than it being the last member of Leòn Leurenzian's retinue for this concert tour, it was the key to send the slaves back to Elenoir or Darv.
As we prepared to drop into the inner courtyard of a heavily guarded compound where elves were being held, I activated REmould.
I shed my human disguise, reverting to my truest elven self: the Prince of Elenoir, arriving in the dead of night to return his people to the Elshire Forest—or to Gaia, as Tessia would have surely, and immediately, corrected me.
Below us, the brutes guarding the slaves were gathered in a tight circle, casually chatting as they prepared for the changing of the guard. It was the perfect moment to strike.
I was upon them before they even knew what was coming. Their Fate was sealed, with absolutely no chance of appeal.
Fiorwato swept in a deadly, viridian arc around me as I landed, my fall as soft and soundless as a drifting feather.
My blade hummed a muted, lethal melody as the jailers instantly collapsed, cut down by the gemsteel before they could even draw a breath.
Their heavy armour was severed with laughable ease.
The highly concentrated sound magic coating my blade made the particular metal vibrate at a microscopic frequency capable of slicing straight through reinforced concrete.
They all fell to the moonlit soil in a collection of muffled thuds.
I stood up slowly, conjuring a thin stream of water magic across Fiorwato to meticulously wash the green blade. The gemsteel gleamed pristinely under the moonlight once again, entirely free of blood, grime, and any other residue.
"Uncle!"
I raised my head. On the upper balcony of the slavehouse, Chul called down to me. With a casual twist of his wrist, the half-Phoenix unhinged the heavy metal door trapping the prisoners inside, utterly obliterating whatever lock had kept it closed.
I leaped upwards with mana-strengthened legs, easily reaching the dark corridor overlooking the inner courtyard.
The elven slaves were confined in cramped, lightless cells.
The only thing preventing them from freezing to death (despite Sapin's generally mild climate, the winter nights were still bitterly cold) was the shared warmth of their own bodies, huddled together like a flock of frightened sheep.
I sheathed Fiorwato back into its scabbard, returning my deadly blade to the guise of a harmless walking cane.
Then, with a mere flicker of mana, I conjured a glowing green will-o-wisp woven from the emerald Flame of Elenoir atop the handle of my wand-cane, where Fiorwato's pommel rested.
As the viridian fire illuminated the dark cell, I gazed at it for a fleeting second. Something primal within me, a deep-seated elven instinct, recoiled slightly.
Fire was the eternal enemy of the Forest, a destructive force our most ancient ancestors had rightly feared, and an element we elves were naturally incapable of controlling, unlike the other Dicathian races.
And yet, here I was, an elf wielding living flame.
The slaves peered fearfully out of their vast cell, utterly stunned to see a fellow elf standing proudly before them.
"You are free," I promised them softly. "You are going back to the Elshire Forest."
"W-who are you?" one of the slaves, a gaunt young man, asked.
There were men and women, both young and old, but none seemed to recognise me as Prince Corvis; they had likely been imprisoned here for far too long—perhaps since before I was even born.
"Not important," I replied.
They would learn my identity eventually once they safely reached Elenoir; right now, their only focus needed to be their own wellbeing, not thanking their mysterious saviours.
"There will be a Sornèvaine, Lidayoz Sartobel, waiting to receive you. He and Rinia Darcassan, sister-in-law to King Emeritus Virion Eralith, will help you find your families, return to your homes, and provide everything else you might need."
Back in Azellio, Evascir and Great-aunt Rinia were already standing by, ready to welcome whichever wave of refugees we liberated from the Sapinese cities.
We had a similar system in place for the rescued dwarves, albeit a bit more logistically complicated.
They were sent to Pitrah, where they were slowly reintegrated and returned to their homes thanks to the combined efforts of the Warend Trading Company and Pitrah's local garrison: Filbrass Torserian's Bronzhers.
"But how?!" an older slave asked, stark terror creeping into his raspy voice. "We are deep in the middle of Sapin! We are surrounded by evil humans for kilometres in every direction!"
I merely smirked and raised my hands. Between my palms, I formed a massive Bubblespell. The sphere of water magic was rapidly engraved with sound-dampening spells and Articles of Peace, designed to render everything happening beneath it completely imperceptible from the outside.
The Bubblespell rapidly expanded, covering the entire slavehouse like an impenetrable, invisible dome. I then reached up and gave a firm flick to the Portal Frog resting on my head.
"How, you ask?" I echoed smoothly. "Like this."
The Portal Frog dutifully spat out the archway. The massive Djinnic portal materialised in mid-air directly above the inner square courtyard, dropping and slamming into the dirt with a thunderous impact that would have easily woken up half of Carn if not for my Bubblespell acting as a perfect acoustic shroud.
The ancient portal flared to life with a deep, resonant buzz, its intricate Manatech and Aetherology shimmering violently within the metallic construct.
The pi-times-pi-tall gate reflected the silvery light of Elenoir, standing so imposing that its apex reached past the low roofs of the surrounding compound.
Albold and Ayden had originally discovered this specific portal a few weeks ago (they found it in an AA-Class dungeon called Hidden Highland if I remember correctly), right as I was preparing to strike at Fiery House Wykes.
At the time, I hadn't known what to do with it, but now I had found its perfect temporary purpose: transporting it around via Portal Frogs to safely spirit liberated slaves across the continent.
Luckily, ancient Djinnic relics didn't seem to suffer any adverse effects from travelling through the river of time via REtrocurrent.
"Come on, let me help you out of here," Chul said warmly. As I observed the humming Djinn portal, the half-Phoenix moved past me, gently offering his massive hands to those who were too weak to walk on their own. "Everything is alright now! Dawn has come for all of you!"
Dawn has come... I echoed in my head. Chul's words resonated powerfully, striking a deep chord within both me and the freed elves. Cries immediately followed; weeping cries of absolute joy and fragile, renewed hope.
"Thank you!" "Thank you!" "Thank you!"
—
By dawn (truly now, not metaphorically) Carn's enslaved population had been more than halved.
Unfortunately, freeing the slaves that were already actively employed by merchants and nobles would have proven to be too much of a hassle.
It was one thing to quietly empty the isolated slavehouses on the outskirts of town; it was another entirely to launch coordinated assaults on private villas and heavily guarded estates in the dead of night.
Chul and I walked back towards the inn that Leòn Leurenzian and his staff occupied, the earliest light of the day slowly illuminating the sleepy streets of Carn.
I noticed a certain lingering anxiety in my nephew's rigid posture. "Elijah? Are you alright?" I asked—damn, calling him Elijah still feels incredibly strange, I commented internally.
"I just wish we could do more..." Chul admitted, his massive fists clenched tightly at his sides. "I just want to march out there and deliver absolute Justice to all those that dare enslave your people, Un—Leòn."
"We have to be patient, Chul," I said softly, trying my best to act as the wise, grounding uncle he needed me to be, despite my own physical age and inexperience. "Think of it this way: to those we helped tonight, we meant the whole world."
"Now you sound exactly like Grandfather. Always speaking of patience and delivering wise counsel," Chul noted flatly.
Whether he was joking or not, I honestly couldn't tell.
And considering the deeply conflicting, strained relationship Chul and Mordain shared in the canon timeline of The Beginning After The End, I didn't know if that comparison was supposed to be a compliment or an insult.
We returned to the inn in comfortable silence, my physical exhaustion finally starting to seep through the powerful, restorative effects of Inner Current and the Trucewater flowing through my veins.
The next city we would need to travel to after Carn was Kalberk up north, situated on Mirror Lake, where one of the Sehz River's major branches fed the basin.
There was also Lanceler Academy in that city; the most prestigious academy in Sapin dedicated entirely to normal, non-mage soldiers, where the absolute best manaless fighters of the human kingdom were rigorously trained.
I entered my private room in the inn, a cosy medieval chamber that currently had a very peculiar, breathing carpet laying dead in its centre: Berna.
My massive Guardian Bear shot upright the moment she saw me, rumbling happily as she welcomed me back.
"I have barely been gone for more than eight hours, girl," I sighed fondly, sitting heavily on the edge of the bed while affectionately caressing my bond's thick fur.
Berna immediately replied by enthusiastically licking my entire face with her huge, sandpaper tongue.
"Ribbit."
When I was finally able to wipe the slobber from my eyes, I noticed the Portal Frog I had brought with me croaking insistently from the floor.
The REbelf was sitting right below my feet, staring up at me with those unblinking, bulging eyes, its malachite horns and bluish skin shimmering faintly in the morning light.
"Do you want something?" I asked, though obviously, no answer came. "Just let me rest for a few hours!"
I swung my legs back over the bed's edge, laying down fully on the mattress, but the Portal Frog simply hopped up onto my chest, inching purposefully towards my face.
The plump amphibian then forcefully convulsed, making to throw up. For one terrifying second, I feared it was about to eject the massive Djinnic portal I had been using all night directly onto my sternum, but thankfully, that didn't happen.
The Portal Frog attempted to spit something out once, then twice, dry-heaving as if it were failing to vomit. It was only on the third violent attempt that something finally shot out of its mouth: a small, tightly folded piece of worn, wet paper.
"What in the world is happening?" I asked aloud, shaking my head and immediately reactivating Inner Current.
Trucewater be blessed, it seemed sleep would need to wait just a bit longer.
I took the drenched, folded sheet of paper in my hands, carefully trying to dry it out with a highly controlled mixture of weak fire and wind magic.
Once it was completely dry, however, I unfolded it to find that absolutely nothing was written on it. Just a clean, blank piece of white paper.
I stared intently at the Portal Frog. They didn't possess a natural desire to shove random objects into their mouths without me explicitly ordering it. What did this mean? Had someone else deliberately shoved this paper inside a Portal Frog's mouth?
"Where did this come from?" I demanded, but no answer. Typical of Fate and anything Fate-adjacent.
I examined the paper again, holding it closer to my face, and what I immediately noticed was that it was entirely different from any kind of paper crafted in Dicathen, specifically Elenoir.
It wasn't the rough, thick ivory parchment that came from the meticulous artisanal work of elven paper makers.
Moreover, holding it up against the rising light of the sun, I didn't see any watermark embedded in the fibres: a signature mark that every self-respecting elf proudly inscribed inside their work.
This paper was far too similar to the industrially produced A4 sheets from Earth; pristine white, incredibly thin, and geometrically perfect. It was clearly the work of industrial machines, not of mortal hands.
An unsatisfying, disjointed answer suddenly bled into my mind through REtrocurrent, a wave of Insight crashing heavily against the shores of my consciousness:
It was the product of something fundamentally unsuited to travel through the river of time. It got morphed during transit, but instead of morphing physically, it got morphed temporally.
The temporal friction had forcefully regressed or advanced the object's nature, making this paper look like a pristine product belonging to a technological level far beyond this world.
Yeah, I could have guessed as much on my own. Thank you so much, Fate, I sarcastically sighed internally.
"Berna, I need to test something," I told my Guardian Bear, sitting up straight. "Try to shove something into this Portal Frog's mouth."
My bond tilted her huge, furry head in sheer confusion, but dutifully did as I asked. Using her own half of the Re-Construction Greatrune, she gathered ambient earth mana and produced a perfect stone replica of an Altawoll (a typical Titan sandwich that she and Lugano were gluttonously obsessed with).
She offered the stone sandwich to the Portal Frog, but the REbelf stubbornly clamped its mouth shut, completely refusing the item.
If Berna herself, who shared a direct, soul-bound connection to my magic, couldn't force a Portal Frog to accept an item...
That meant someone else out there actively possessed the same authorities as the Arbiter. Or something scarily, scarily similar.