(Jason, 16)

Papa Jared examines the ancient artifacts, and I can tell by his expression he's impressed. He always is, when he sees my handiwork from when I was Nolan. All of this was made before I left Ikarix back then, too. Crafted using techniques from my homeland, the Delvarkari, and others which I had picked up or researched.

If he saw the stuff I made later in that life, he would probably die of a heart attack, and that's not an exaggeration. Compared to some of those things, stuff like the spear would be a failure. Actually, the spear was a failure, and that's when taking into consideration how powerful it is.

A spear which can cause realistic illusions, making its targets suffer more the more they fight back against it, before ultimately knocking them unconscious with a potent sleep spell, or which can release dangerous copies of itself which will pierce right through most defenses, causing chaos in the magics which try to stop it.

The actual intent was for the illusion to occur after the copy struck and broke through defenses. Instead, they ended up as two separate trigger abilities of the weapon's.

My papa comes back to the stone, though I already explained to him how it works. It doesn't power any spell or enchantment, simply increases the strength of it. The increased strength does come with an increased mana cost, but that wasn't an issue for me when I was Nolan.

Considering that by the time I was the age I am now, I had enough mana to rival a dragon, I could handle the increased mana cost of spells a decade later as if they were trivial things. He still wants to know why a grey-level mage with as much magical knowledge and ability as I had needed a power amplifier.

Two words: not telling.

Three words: it was fun.

After he finishes examining all of the items, Papa Jared turns his attention to the pair of collars, which Niko and I took the liberty of cutting into two pieces with our Magus Swords, some of the only weapons capable of piercing items forged in the heavens. Niko split the one meant to be put on him when they went to put it on him, while I split the one intended for me when I found it after binding all of the Nelem soldiers with mana-draining cuffs and tying them up with rope.

Yeah, I'm not telling them why I had a thousand pairs of the cuffs in the godsteel variety. Nor where I got them from. Letting them know I remembered one of my secret vaults from when I was Nolan might not be the best of ideas.

Those cuffs came in handy back when we were Magi, and I know Niko and Lina recognized them, but they probably won't tell anyone. We used them when we needed to interrogate angels or gods, and everyone told me I went excessive with forging them.

Okay, sure, we might not have ever needed two thousand of them, but we certainly had them in case we ever did. Hopefully, Uncle Zach keeps his promise of returning them to me, it's been a couple of days since the incident, and they aren't back in my possession yet.

"Jason," Papa Jared looks at me, and I continue to pretend to be reading the book. "If these were made shortly after the war, like you said, what kind of stuff did you make seven hundred years later?"

"Depends on my mood," I answer. "Sort of like right now. I once made a comb which would tangle someone's hair, and your expression just told me you know where it's located."

"Why would you make a comb like that?" He asks.

"It's a long story."

One involving an evil queen, six seductresses, an overlooked demon, a flock of human-eating thunderbirds, a cursed waterfall, and a princess desperate for help taking down her mother. Where the comb factored in, I'm not going to say.

"Speaking of long stories," I say with a glance to the clock. "It's time for me to be heading to bed, Papa Jared. Can I put that stuff away now?"

"In your spatial storage?" He asks.

"Temporarily," I answer. "I have a safe place to store them where they won't be located by mortals again."

"Uh-huh."

"Erm," I decide to hint about my secret vault. "Considering it hasn't been found in over three thousand years, I'm going to say that's a safe bet. And its seal is as strong as on the tombs."

"The tombs you opened?" He asks.

"It's time people discovered the truth," I shrug. "Once the journey logs are translated, people will begin to know the truth of what happened in the war. What really happened, and the state humanity was in. It'll be just as convincing as having three separate gods declare it."

Speaking of gods, I'm supposed to ask Jaklenai to stop antagonizing the flame boars outside of the city. He's not doing it trying to cause problems, he's just having fun. But it's causing problems for our adventurers and people traveling between towns, so Uncle Zach asked me to talk to him about it, since Jaklenai actually listens to me.

I'll do that when I see him at university tomorrow.

One thing that's nice, though, is that my fellow students are slowly but surely adjusting to having a god around regularly, and are starting to look at him as just another person. I can tell they're already starting to forget he's a god.

He doesn't flash it around all the time and just acts like a goof a lot, which helps.

I'm still curious where he goes at night, as I haven't bothered using my magic to track him down. But that's a question that'll be answered eventually, and I asked Papa Jared one I kind of want answered now, because I am tired, and he's just thinking over what I told him.

"Papa Jared?" I say. "Please?"

"Go ahead," he tells me, and I quickly start putting away my artifacts. "I take it that's where those cuffs came from?"

"Yeah."

"I thought such cuffs were a relatively new invention," he says. "Yet it seems that you had them during the war."

"Honestly?" I ask. "None of us had any memories of them, which was why none of us remembered them. But the others recently regained those memories, and I'm, well, both Jason and Nolan, so I already have all of my memories, it's just that I've forgotten a lot of stuff and need things to prompt them to come to the surface."

"Right," he says as I put the last of my things away. "Well, goodnight, Jason."

"Good night, Papa Jared."

(Niko, 16)

"What did your Papa Jared say?" I ask Jason once the session for the training group ends.

Jason was supposed to show his Papa Jared the artifacts last night, the smithing Sage having returned from Kelrar to stay here in Varilsy temporarily. Sage Samuel is protecting Kelrar now, while Mar is managing on its own for a little while. With one of our neighbors destroyed by my rampage, and the other having chosen to accept magic, we are not in as much danger, and Sage Samuel has taught the basics of magic to several adults who wished to learn it.

So unless an emergency appears, Mar will be on its own for awhile, which does not bother me. I am certain my parents and Derrick are glad to have Sage Samuel gone. Even if they have accepted that magic is not evil, having such a powerful mage around still made them uncomfortable.

It will take time for everyone to fully accept magic and not be bothered having mages around all the time. The few who have begun learning magic have to keep it hidden most of the time, practicing only in select areas or their quarters and homes.

"He didn't comment much," Jason tells me. "I think he wants to think over the stuff before saying something."

"That makes sense," I nod. "Were I considered to be a master of my craft, only to be presented items I could not have dreamed of crafting forged by someone who was not even half my age when he made them, I would likely need time to process what I had looked at."

"Yeah," Jason chuckles, then claps me on the back. "Anyway, I think you wanted to go do something? Good luck."

"Thank you," I tell him. "Enjoy the rest of your evening, Jason."

Jason nods, then leaves, and I approach Lina, giving her a kiss before wishing her a good evening. I exit the university while she resumes talking with Kyra, Kayla, Hailey, Tasha, and Elise, then open up a gate.

Rather than blue, my gate is now indigo. It appears I progressed to indigo today after we performed the magical control training, as it was still blue then. I am a little bit closer to violet, now.

I step through the gate, then close it and immediately open up another. When I step through the second gate, I am in my brother's camp. He still guards part of our western border, away from any fortress or city.

After asking around, I locate my brother in a space which had been cleared out for training magic, a small fence set up to show the boundary of the area, which spans fifty feet in diameter.

Aiden is barefoot and bare-chested, wielding a wooden training sword as he attacks two of his soldiers. They, in turn, are using magic to try to stop him. Judging by how soaked in sweat Aiden is, I would guess that they have been at this for awhile and will stop soon.

The fact that someone can sweat in freezing weather always amazes me. Last week, during the advanced training group, most of us ended up sweating after training hard physically. Kyra commented about it, stating that she wondered the same thing.

Jason heard it, and he explained that whether or not we sweat is not necessarily related to how hot it is outside, but how hot our body is. Sweating is our body's way of attempting to cool us down, and physical exertion causes our blood to flow more, which causes our body temperature to rise. He said there was more to it than that, but that what he said is the most relevant information to the question.

Knowledge from another world sometimes answers many questions we have now. According to Jason, what he said was relatively common information back on Earth, taught in a class most students had to take.

The concept of having a 'health' class that teaches us basic stuff our parents teach us now is strange. Well, most people's parents. Mine never taught me a lot of that stuff, but I learned enough from other sources. Apparently, most parents there rely on their academies to teach basic life things to their youth.

That sounds stupid.

Anyway, it looks like Aiden and the two mages are finishing up. The mages are using force magics, shooting bolts of it at Aiden or manifesting shields of it to stop his sword. With how fast he is moving and the loud cracks from when his sword hits the magic, Aiden has enhanced both himself and the sword. I would not doubt that he has enhanced his resistance, too, based on the one time he allowed one of the force bolts to strike him, the attack only barely affecting him.

The mages are both red in level, so they are not particularly strong, but I would have still expected that attack to hurt Aiden. Then again, he is indigo, and has trained in magic for over a decade. His body has a natural resiliency as a result, so it could just be that protecting him. I could probably take their attacks unprotected and not be bothered by them, even without having physically enhanced my resistance. For someone like Aiden, who has trained his body for longer than a few months, it would do even less.

Their match ends after another minute, and Aiden walks to the edge of the ring and hands the sword to one of the servants, who hands him a towel to wipe himself down with. After Aiden does that and hands it back to the servant, he addresses the two soldiers he had sparred with, giving them feedback on their attempt at stopping him. The two of them are covered in bruises and cuts from where he struck them during their match, and I can tell that they will take his words to heart.

His soldiers are all immensely loyal to him. He also told Father that reinforcements were not necessary, so the troops our Father was sending here were sent back to their posts, though a few were moved to other locations along our western borders, since we still deal with the occasional monster attack from the west. I suppose Aiden prefers having men he knows are loyal to him and will not have an issue with magic around, rather than unknowns.

Father did still insist on sending ten here, I am not sure how they are handling the sudden shift in military style. Do they even accept that this army uses magic?

"Niko!" Aiden exclaims as he approaches me, having finished speaking with the two soldiers. "Welcome! I didn't expect you to return so soon!"

"I have what we discussed," I tell him, opening up my spatial storage and pulling out a thick tome, which I hand to my brother.

The tome is something which could be bought in a stationary shop in Varil, not from a bookstore. I bought it from one near where I am living now specifically because of Aiden's request to me. When I bought it, I also bought journals for each of the ten Marran teens who have been learning magic under Jason and me.

They were each told to write down the basics of magic, what helps them with visualizing, and other things. All of it in Marran. Then, I collected up the journals, combined the information, and wrote it all down into this tome myself.

Because of differences in culture, it would be easier to make a guide for Marrans to use magic by Marrans who had to learn it. Jason might be an excellent teacher, but he cannot make up for cultural differences entirely. Otherwise, I would have enlisted his aid in creating this tome.

Instead, it was made using knowledge from Marrans who had to adjust his instructions into something that made sense to them, when it did not in the lesson, or needed to be explained in multiple ways before understanding was achieved.

Aiden opens the tome and begins looking through it, using the fence to support the tome as he does. There are approximately seven hundred, eighty pages in the tome, and each one contains a spell apart from the front of the first page and the back of the second pages. A total of sixty-five spells per school of magic, written for Marran understanding.

Creating the tome took me two weeks, due to my lessons, meetings with Zachary, and other dealings I had. I also wanted to make sure everything made sense in it, as I know that sometimes, a mage's personal understanding might not make sense to other mages.

"Thank you, Niko," Aiden tells me after skimming through part of it. "How did you organize the spells? Most of the ones I saw were for fire, water, and earth magics."

"I organized them," I say. "By the standard order of saying the elements. I also marked on the first page which page each element's spells began on. Jason calls it a 'Table of Contents'."

Aiden flips back to the first page, where he sees the Table of Contents.

"Very nice," he tells me. "You told me before that enhancement spells are categorized as special, so I take it that's where they're located?'

"Yes," I answer. "The final section of the tome. It also contains a few other spells, though figuring out a total of sixty-five spells in the special element was not easy. I had to do some research, but managed to come up with enough to fill out that section as well. Most of them are spells you and your men are unlikely to ever manage to cast, but I included them anyway."

"Thank you," he chuckles, closing the tome. "Would you care to practice with me, Niko?"

"What type of practice?" I ask.

"The same," he says. "As I was just doing. You attack me with magic, and I attack you with a sword. The main point of the training, if you're wondering, is to give them experience fighting with magic against something using a weapon. Or someone, in case we're ever stationed to fight against people again. But it's also to help them react with magic to a target attacking without magic, without putting them in danger by pitting them against monsters. However, they're all weaker than me, so I have to restrain myself. I would like to try it against someone closer to my level of power."

"You know how to enhance your body's strength, yes?" I ask. "Not just your strength, but how well your body can take attacks?"

"I do," he nods. "I haven't needed to, though. As you mentioned before, training my body over the years has increased my natural constitution as a result of my high magical power. I can take magical attacks pretty well."

"Do so," I tell him. "I am indigo in magical power, not red, like nearly everyone you have sparred with so far. Me attacking you would be the same as a red-level mage attacking a red-level soldier."

"Ah, right," he says, then grins. "You hit indigo? You were still blue two weeks ago! Congrats!"

"I hit it today," I nod, then climb the fence and join him in the training zone.

A servant takes the tome from Aiden as the one with the wooden training sword returns it to him. The soldiers around move closer to watch us, so I make a note to be mindful of my spells.

"I will not use my curse magics," I tell Aiden. "The area of magic I am most talented in. Those are not something you would be able to resist as you are now. I will also tone down my usage of high-level spells. Otherwise, you will not survive being struck."

Aiden pauses at that.

"I know you are a talented mage," he says. "Even after what you did with the ogre lord, Niko, but if you aren't using your curse magics, are you sure you'd be able to do that much damage?"

"We should begin."

That way, he can see for himself that I am not joking.

Aiden nods, then charges at me. Good thing I already enhanced my body, or he would be too fast for me. Instead, his sword clacks against the indigo barrier I summoned, then Aiden quickly retreats to avoid being impaled by spikes of stone that rose from the ground beneath him. He noticed that rather fast, but I expected him to, he has always been sensitive to the shifts of battle and to danger.

I hold out a hand, and spikes of stone begin flying out of my barrier, which wraps around me to form an all-around protection. Aiden deflects my attacks, which I have given a limited range to. It is a complex spell, but one I remembered recently. I used it as Benjamin when training my people at the castle of black stone. I am able to set a 'perimeter' with the spell, which prevents magic cast within it from exiting it.

Even if the spikes of stone are stone, they were created by magic. The perimeter spell recognizes that and stops them at the edges of it, which I set to the fence. This makes it safer for us to practice here.

My brother continues his attempts at breaking down my barrier while dodging my attacks. He also manages to avoid stepping on the spike I raise from the ground, and uses his enhanced training sword to cut through the ones that block his path.

As Aiden is only using his physical attacks and enhancements spells, I restrict myself to just these three spells – my barrier, my spikes launched from it, and my spikes brought up from the ground. The battle reminds me of when I spar against Jason, only with the roles reversed. This time, I am the one restraining myself and my opponent is the one who is not.

I can tell that Aiden is taking me seriously now, after my attacks push him back and his fail against me. He moves quicker, and his strikes against my shield are stronger. When he cuts one of my spikes, the attack is cleaner as well, which means more force and sharpness to the attacks.

One of my spikes hits Aiden, and I can see him wince. His enhancement is not that great, then, as that attack should not have been effective against him.

He bears through the attack and continues his own attempts at striking me, though, like a true warrior.

As our match continues, more and more of his men gather around the ring to watch us fight. I think that is part of why Aiden is trying so hard – he does not want his men to see him lose against his brother. Those who were here already know that I am holding back, too, as I explicitly stated I would. Some of them had also seen me and Lina deal with the ogre lord, so there are those who have seen me fighting even more seriously than I am now.

But I am not going to spare my brother the humiliation of a loss. Just the opposite, in fact. I am going to make him lose so thoroughly, his loss against his youngest brother will be as well-known among his soldiers as his talent in bed.

More than ten minutes after we began our sparring match, I cast a new spell. This time, the ground beneath Aiden opens up and pulls him down, causing him to sink down halfway before sealing itself back up, preventing him from escaping. For good measure, I send another stone spike out of my shield, this one fast enough he is unable to block it with his sword, the spike striking him square in the chest.

"Dead," I declare.

"Dead," he agrees with a sigh, so I release my barrier. "Was that last strike necessary, Niko?"

"Of course it was," I tell him. "I had to ensure you could not contest that I won the fight. By delivering a killing blow, I have won."

"The attack didn't break my skin," he tells me. "That doesn't count as a killing blow."

I snap, and one of the stone spikes that had struck my perimeter and fallen to the ground lifts up, then shoots towards him from behind, striking him in the right shoulder with enough force to pierce his skin, even with its enhancement, and push through his shoulder completely, the bloody tip of it sticking out the front.

"Ow!" He exclaims, looking at it. "Okay, okay! Dead! I'm dead!"

"Of course you are," I say. "I won the fight."

"Can you please release me so we can get this looked at?" He winces.

Ignoring his request, I walk past him and sit behind him, then I pull out the spike. The hole is rather large, but also quite clean. I pierced skin, bone, muscle, and whatever else is in a shoulder. Under normal circumstances, he would never use his arm again.

"Niko, please don't mess with it anymore," Aiden winces. "I need to get it looked at by a healer."

"Your healers," I say. "Do not use magic. The tome I gave you has healing magics in it, though, so they can learn. That said, while curse magics are my highest affinity, I do know some healing spells."

Holding my hands up to his wound, I begin channeling holy magics into his arm. One thing that is nice about healing magics is that we do not need to know how to mend each specific part of the injury. With the way magic works, we simply need to desire to heal the injury we know, and shape the spell that comes to us.

It does take some practice to be able to actually perform the healing magics, as shaping it is rather complex, especially the worse or more complex the injury is, but holy magics and curse magics are two sides to the same coin. Unlike Tasha, I have learned both sides of the coin.

Mostly because my sparring lessons with Jason usually result in me having some injuries, and I did not want Jason to be the only one practicing his holy magics during our training sessions.

It does take me nearly half an hour to mend his injury, though. I am not expert at holy magics, so I have to make up for lack of skill with extra time and added mana. When I finish, however, my brother's shoulder is back to normal.

Only then do I free him from the ground.

"You really were holding back," Aiden tells me as he tests his shoulder. "Wow. It still hurts, yet it's as if you hadn't even hurt it. Healing magics can do that?"

"Holy magic, yes," I nod. "But try not to suffer too strong of injuries, I was only able to mend that because of my magical power level and my large pool of mana. I doubt anyone here but you would be able to heal it all the way, as I did. Not even you, not without a lot of practice."

"I'll keep that in mind, Niko," he says, then looks around the training ring. "I don't suppose you could fix this, could you? Having all of those spikes coming out of the ground will make it hard to train."

"I can," I tell him, then begin removing my attacks, separating them from the ground and smoothing them over.

The spikes will probably be tossed out of the camp by some of the soldiers or servants, but at least their training ground is back to normal now.

"Come on," Aiden tells me. "I know you came here right after the training group, you must be starving."

"I am hungry," I confirm with a nod.

"Let's go get something to eat," he says.

Aiden pulls on a tunic and wipes off his feet, then slips on his boots. Then we make our way to his tent, where we are each served a thick stew with some bread, cheese, and ale on the side. The food is nowhere near as good as what I eat back in Varil, but this is a military camp, not a university, mansion, palace, or Jason's. Their food has less spices to it and is made more in large batches to feed soldiers.

"So," Aiden says as we finish our meal. "How are things going between you and Lina? Last time you were here, you said you were wanting to convince King Zachary to allow you to take Lina on a date outside of the city, to a location favored by couples?"

"Yes!" I answer. "I did succeed in convincing him to allow me to take her on a date. We enjoyed the cool spring air, watched the stars, spoke a little, and enjoyed each other's company. We also shared a nice, Anotisian wine I purchased from a traveling merchant."

Jason assured me the wine was authentic based on what his Papa Harold had taught him, and it was a rather delicious wine.

"That sounds nice," Aiden smiles. "What else is going on? I'm sure you've got more to tell."

"I do," I nod. "This morning, when we met in the lecture hall for lessons, Lina gave me a gift. She said it was in thanks for the nice date I took her on, so I have been thinking about what I could gift her back in return."

I hold up my right hand, on the middle finger of which is a ring. A band ring, rather than a crest or family ring. It is made of some sort of black metal, and is set with a pair of green emeralds, a silver wolf to either side of them, facing the stones, with the crest of the Magi resting between the two stones.

She said it represents me. My black hair, my green eyes, my status as a Magus, and my homeland of Mar, the silver wolves. Inside of the ring is a light engraving, with the ancient rune for 'Niko' under one wolf and the ancient rune for 'Benjamin' under the other.

There is no doubt in my mind she commissioned it before our date, so I want to give her something in return. But figuring it out is not easy. What would she be happy with?