Somewhere in the center of the forest, in a hidden space.
Next to a gigantic tree of unknown breed, with a black trunk and white leaves, around which everything was drowning in foliage, and around which fairies flew, a young-looking girl with green skin was playing with a black clot in her hands, which screamed in helplessness:
— "Why did you pull me out? What use is this sucker to you? Return me, and I'll give you much more than you can even imagine! I, Magister of Artifactory Lerach, promise you this!"
— "I have no interest in profit, the boy simply reminded me of someone and helped me. But parasites like you, I don't like," — she answered with a voice melodic as the ringing of bells.
— "How did he help you? Strengthened the forest's background? Do you know that he owes all his successes to me? My book helped him become a mage, my influence allowed him to quickly master magic without killing himself in the process! He's nobody! And I'll make you a lesser goddess! Everyone will bow before you!" — Lerach promised benefits, power and authority.
— "You made one small mistake in your conclusions," — the nymph answered him, laughing.
— "What?" — if he could, Lerach would have broken out in sweat at that moment.
— "I'm already a lesser goddess!" — and the girl, whose facial expression instantly changed from benevolently cheerful to darkened with anger, squeezed her hand with the remains of the pathetic mage's soul.
He dared to offer her power. She had her own plans for this boy, and the stronger he became — the better. Especially since he had already surprised her by creating apple trees that fed on ether directly from the dragon vein, whose fruits would help her, even if just a little, recover from past injuries. Truly the ignorant youth didn't know what he was doing. She should keep an eye on him so he wouldn't actually die.
***
After the nymph's help, it became much easier for me to meditate and it felt like the weight that had hung on me for a long time had finally disappeared. This was comparable to when you carry a not particularly heavy backpack for a long time — you get used to its weight, don't notice it. But only when you take it off do you feel relief and understand how it tired you and pulled you down. It was the same with me.
— "Arthur, you're literally glowing today, did something good happen?" — while I was walking toward the undergrowth and smiling, Apolline caught me.
— "Of course, life is beautiful! Just like you, by the way," — I lifted her into the air and spun around.
— "Arthur, let me down, you're embarrassing me," — the girl blushed, and I lowered her to the ground. — "Are you going to those trainings of yours again?"
— "Of course, the stronger I am today, the easier it will be for me tomorrow," — I couldn't tell her that the world was full of creatures thirsting for the flesh and souls of mages. And just the fact that I was learning magic, that today I was becoming better than yesterday, brought me unspeakable joy.
— "A fanatic obsessed with power. Why can't you be like other veela, who are only interested in beauty and..." — I interrupted her, knowing what she wanted to say.
— "Boys? No, thanks, I'm not one of those. I just take after my dad, he was exactly like me," — well, he was me, but who cares about such trifles? Certainly not me.
— "Hey there, guys! Are you going to training? Can I come with you?" — oh, another one from our holy trinity showed up.
— "Look, another fanatic of fights and power! Why can't you boys be more refined, more romantic?" — Apolline asked us. I had long figured out that Patrick knew I was a guy. He later complained that I had ruined all his fun. Damn joker. Just like me.
— "Because when you get punched in the face, it's hard to stay refined?" — I asked rhetorically.
— "Yeah, our man, even if you are a veela."
— "And you're a werewolf."
— "One to one. So what, are we going or competing to see who's worst at making jokes?" — Patrick voiced a sensible thought, and we headed to our place, next to the soot-covered wall, which I restore and clean with spells once a week.
Somehow, about eight months ago, we combined our training sessions, having previously trained in pairs. Alone, neither Patrick nor Apolline were opponents for me anymore. And if the girl got upset, the boy, on the contrary, was fired up with the spirit to surpass me. And since he couldn't manage it, we often fought two against one. How long I had to convince Apolline to throw fire at me. Good thing her control over it was even better than mine.
After all, I studied many branches of magic, while she focused on one. Despite her grumbling, she also developed the habit of training to exhaustion. Especially when she really felt that she became stronger after it. It's truly a pleasant feeling that's hard to resist.
Patrick, in turn, trained his physical muscle and fought with his brothers, gaining experience and studying techniques. And in this he also surpassed me. But in the totality of skills, I was ahead. Yoga and mental magic give an advantage in reaction, and I can compensate for fire with wand charms. But lately I don't even need that.
— "So, today as usual?" — Patrick asked, doing warm-ups.
— "No, let's try a new game — attack and hit me, and I'll only dodge," — I suggested.
— "Are you sure? Or are you one of those who like pain?" — Apolline asked with a hint of mockery. Code red, code red, we're raising a bitch. Oh no, we made her that way, so everything's normal.
— "How do you know about people who like pain?" — I teased the girl who blushed in embarrassment. She still had a long way to go to reach my level. Said the grown man who bullies children, well whatever. Everyone has their flaws. — "Don't worry, if it hurts, I'll tell you."
After that, Apolline transformed into harpy form. Even though she could throw fire without it, this way she'd last longer until exhaustion. Patrick attacked without words with a direct left strike. I activated consciousness acceleration, astral vision and yoga. And if the first worked as usual, yoga didn't add power, no.
My very perception became much broader — I didn't just "see" strikes and trajectories, I "understood" them. I understood where Apolline would throw her fire clot now, how Patrick's stance would change after his strike missed me. This wasn't foresight, this was a more effective understanding of what I already knew how to do. I had fought my friends many times and knew their techniques, but I couldn't predict their actions so clearly before.
As the nymph said, yoga isn't just body enhancement, it's understanding yourself and others. If mind magic gives intelligence, then yoga gives wisdom. I dodged the fist by turning my head just ten degrees, and it passed a centimeter from my jaw. From the fire clot I didn't jump back as I used to, but simply took a step forward and turned sideways.
From Patrick's subsequent sweep I jumped to the minimum height needed to dodge and immediately crouched after landing, letting the next fire clot pass over my head.
This way I dodged all my friends' attacks, feeling my mana drain away. Yes, you have to pay for everything, and such a level of perception consumed energy intensively. Apolline was the first to give out, having spent her strength, followed by Patrick.
— "That was amazing, friend. What did you use? It was like fighting my father — I can't even touch him either!" — the wolf cub asked me after catching his breath.
— "Do you want to know too?" — I asked Apolline, who nodded in agreement.
— "So," — after a pause I continued: — "It's a secret!"
— "I knew it," — the girl sitting on the ground lay down tiredly on the grass. — "He's teased me like this before."
— "Hey, that's not fair!" — Patrick shouted.
— "It's a family secret, sorry," — I shrugged. After that their dissatisfaction disappeared. Clans and families have their secrets, and spreading them usually brings problems both to those who learn them and those who tell them.
So this one phrase usually causes acute lack of interest from others. And I didn't lie — the secret really was familial. Arthur and Ariel — isn't that a clan?
***
Now I had a problem with training. The only way to continue them with friends was to make them attack me seriously, which they would never do. With adults it was even more sad. I could pay someone and use Patrick's father's form, but I didn't want to compromise the man by using magic unknown to the modern world.
Before, I would have rushed around looking for a solution, but now... I sat in meditation pose and entered a trance, concentrating on finding a solution. Until my knowledge was organized in my mind into at least some semblance of order, there was still a long way to go, so now my inner world looked like a storage room during spring cleaning.
I imagined my knowledge as books arranged by topics. In one place - personal memories, divided by years, in another - knowledge of chemistry, physics, magic and other applied sciences. And in a third - all sorts of junk that gets stored in the farthest corners of my mind's chambers.
All this was covered by a force dome — the basis of my mind protection, which would be supplemented over time with other tricks and defenses. Concentrating, I found myself before a book that looked like Lerach's grimoire, because it contained exactly its contents. It opened itself to the needed page.
[Doppel-magic] — a special discipline of magic that allows its user to create special magical doubles possessing certain capabilities.
Essentially, doppels are just complex material illusions that don't possess mass, but quite possess weight. Doppels are divided into various levels — from the simplest, which are destroyed by just one damage to the outer shell, to the most complex — which must be killed the same way as the original.
With all this, doppels completely obey the mage who created them and possess no intelligence. Also, each doppel possesses all the knowledge and skills that the original has.
Further went the spell from word magic and detailed rituals for creating more advanced versions. Lerach himself quite often used it when creating complex rituals and artifacts. Because you could allocate almost all your magic to your doppel, say.
Meditate, create a new one and likewise allocate almost all mana to him — and so on. Of course, accumulators were more convenient in this regard, but you couldn't always get by with just them.
When I came out of the trance, I wanted to curse myself with the most vile words — only the fact that a mage's sincere wish could become reality stopped me from this rash act. But what an idiot I had been, how much simpler it would have been to grow apple trees together with them and conduct experiments! The only thing that justified me was that independent mastery of wand magic, floristics and herbology ultimately raised my skills quite well, which wouldn't have happened with doppels.
And at the stage of creating a doppel, I encountered unexpected problems. Creating a double consists of two spells — taking a matrix and actually creating it. And if the first was very similar to the same one from metamorphmagic, and therefore I quickly mastered it, then problems arose with the second. If before, almost any word magic spells worked for me sometimes on the first, more often on the second, third or fourth try, now everything was very bad. As if something had been helping me cast before.
A whole WEEK I had to train to make the first, weakest but full-fledged doppel, and not its brother from a horror movie. What the hell? What did the nymph do to me? When I see her — I'll tell her everything about this. Even if yoga became stronger, why did I become so bad at word magic? At least fire magic didn't suffer.
Since this doppel dissipated from a light hit, I had to temporarily switch to rituals until I figured out what devilry was happening with my magic.
With rituals everything was better, but also not so simple. Before, I seemed to intuitively feel where and how to place a symbol. Now this wasn't there, which caused the first ritual to end in an explosion. Fortunately, I used my dead doppel to activate it, otherwise they'd be scraping me off the walls now. Somewhere around the fifth try and five innocently murdered doppels, I managed to create a normal double.
Interestingly, doubles appear in the same clothes and with the same tools as the original, which they can use exactly the same way. If doppels could speak or transmit their knowledge — they'd be priceless, but alas, you can't create a double of an archmage and make him teach you. Moreover, in Sumer, creating others' doubles without the originals' permission was an extremely shameful and punishable matter. Roughly speaking, they killed you on the spot for it.
On weak doubles I had already tested what they could do. And they could do everything the same as me, except metamorphism. Either there wasn't enough magic, or my skill, or they didn't have matrices or spatial storage, but the fact remained. However, I wasn't upset, because now I had an ideal sparring partner and assistant.
***
The nymph smiled as she watched perfectly identical blonds fight — one shot various charm rays from his wand that weren't too dangerous when they hit — stinging, paralyzing, disarming, binding, stunning, while the other defended and dodged.
The one defending was real, and the attacker was his doppel, a solid illusion.
Lerach not only helped the boy master magic, no — this way he held him back, didn't allow him to develop independently. Moreover, by influencing his thoughts, he didn't allow him to fully reveal all his potential, and when the artificer's spirit grew stronger, he could have captured the boy's soul and body without much trouble.
As soon as she freed Arthur from his burden, which he didn't even suspect, the already remarkable mind found an interesting way out in gaining combat experience.
What else would he surprise her with? She waited for this with impatience.
***
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