Xopil walked through the inn's lobby, he noticed Lexi as he passed through. She was in the middle of experimenting with her air magic. She was controlling a tiny whirlwind in the palm of her hand, she focused on extracting as much moisture out of the area around the mini tornado as she could. Xopil paused in his footsteps as he watched arcs of lightning jumping from one edge of the whirlwind to the opposite side. Xopil observed in silence for a few minutes, taking note of the expressions on her face as she struggled to maintain her focus. Finally, she dispersed the magic and took a breather.

"You've got quite the handle on that... but, accidents can still happen. Don't do that indoors any more." Xopil stated. "I don't think I need to remind you about Caly's mishap, fortunately she was a good distance away from town."

"... Point taken." Lexi replied as her face paled at the memory of the resultant mushroom cloud, "In my defense though, I do keep my experiments as safe as I can."

"Caly does tend to let her curiousity get the better of her, doesn't she?" Xopil chuckled, then added seriously, "Still... I find myself questioning magic more and more much like she does."

"You do, even knowing how dangerous she can be?" Lexi asked.

"Only by questioning the known and the unknown can you truly learn the true nature of something. As an example, I have been wondering if fire magic isn't 'fire' at all, and we've been misusing it."

"I don't follow," Lexi replied.

"Indeed, it's a hard concept to grasp." Xopil replied and sat down at a table, Lexi followed suit, "Let's talk about it for a bit. Caly questioned the properties of it, and she stripped it of everything we know fire should have."

Xopil summoned a flame in his hand devoid of light, heat, and the ability to consume as fire does. He set it on the table and watched it intently before asking, "What would you call this?"

"I see what you mean... it doesn't behave like fire." Lexi replied, "So calling it fire is inaccurate."

"Even so, this is magical fire is it not? It shouldn't be limited to what we know of actual fire. Or should it?" Xopil twisted his hand, causing the abnormal flame to dance on the table. "We control this via what we call 'fire magic' but that doesn't truly describe what this is."

"What are you trying to say?" Lexi asked, watching the fire vigilantly.

"What if the person who dubbed this as 'fire magic' was wrong... or let's say they deliberately masked what it truly is?" Xopil asked as he waved his hand once more. The fire on the table changed drastically; it turned into a vacuum pulling smaller lightweight objects into it, but the items didn't burn, they disintegrated completely leaving nothing behind.

"I've never seen fire do that..." Lexi stated as she unconsciously put more distance between herself and the flame.

"That's my point... fire magic shouldn't be any different from what fire is, just that it's sustained magically, right?" Xopil asked while gazing at the 'fire' on the table. "I'm still trying to figure out how it is capable to create light and heat though... and then there's this."

Xopil waved his hand again, all the light in the room was sucked into the fire, leaving them in darkness. He waved his hand again, and the temperature in the room dropped drastically. "It's capable of consuming light and heat, not just emitting them."

"F-f-f-ascin-n-n-natin-n-ng," Lexi managed to say as she shivered from the sudden drop in temperature. With another wave of his hand, Xopil released the property of the spell and that returned light and warmth to the room.

"What the hell was that?" the rest of the entourage burst into the room.

"The short answer would be fire magic," Xopil stated.

"And the long answer?" questioned Felicyta.

"What if i said calling fire magic 'fire magic' is inaccurate?" Xopil answered her question with yet another question. "What if I said it's something completely different but we just apply fire properties to it so naturally that we never questioned what it truly is?"

"You're trying to say that the sudden and extreme drop in temperature was from fire magic? Not to mention I couldn't see one foot in front of my eyes!?" Felicyta retorted with more questions.

"And that doesn't make sense at all, does it?" Xopil responded. "Fire magic shouldn't be capable of such things, but that's what caused it."

"Or it's always had that capability but no one thought of using it in that way?" Calypso asked while scratching her cheek.

"That is also a possibility..." Xopil replied, "But what if what we consider to be 'fire magic' is something else entirely?"

"What would it be then?" Xiara asked, her curiosity piqued.

Xopil just smirked, but didn't offer an answer. He just looked at all of them, thinking at least one of them would figure out his hypothesis...

"Void." Felicyta stated while flicking her tail in an agitated manner.

"That's the same possibility I thought of," admitted Xopil. "Void magic."

"You're not serious?" asked Xiara.

"Think about it for a bit, it's quite compatible with fire; as such it is easy to assign the properties of fire and miss what magic you're actually using." Xopil replied, "Also... can you explain how I was able to reverse those properties if it isn't void magic? Let's go one step further... is fire magic as destructive as Calypso's mishap?"

"..." the room fell silent as they all looked at Xiara as she tried to think of a way to refute Xopil's line of thought.

"Fire is pretty destructive, but... not to that degree on its own." Xiara looked at Calypso, "Was that purely fire magic?"

Calypso fidgeted nervously before murmering, "Yes..."

"Let's move on..." Xopil interjected before an intense debate could begin, and he immediately summoned a whirlwind in his palm. "Can you tell me what's missing?"

"There's no air movement..." Lexi was the first to notice.

"And when I do this..." Xopil entwined his finger through the whirlwind, causing it to pull air into itself.

"...Are you trying to say that all magic is actually void and we just apply what we think we know about the elements to create different effects?" Felicyta asked.

"Foxes sure are clever." Xopil replied with a smirk. "That's exactly what I'm trying to demonstrate. This not only applies to air, earth, water and fire... but also space and time."

"...But space and time are considered higher tier than void." countered Xiara.

"By whom?" Xopil asked, "The founder of magic? Who is to say he knew what he discovered? Or maybe he did and he intentionally hid the truth?"

"That would make sense," Winter stated, "If you consider the capabilities of the void... it would be best to not trifle with magic that controls it, and instead limit what the practioners can do by making them think of it as a weaker school of magic than it actually is."

"Yes, quite." Xopil nodded.

"Now that we know this, we can't go back can we?" Beda asked.

"This is just hypothetical," countered Xopil, "but it does make you wonder doesn't it?"

"..." the women all stared at him doubtfully.

Under the pressure of their combined fierce gazes, Xopil sighed. And this is just one of many reasons why I don't understand why anyone would want a harem. Xopil silently activated his magic, severing himself from the flow of time. The women blinked and he was gone.

"It's pretty insane though... to think we've been using void magic all this time." Felicyta looked at her hands in disbelief. The others shared her sentiment, truly grateful that they hadn't caused any serious damage... with the exception of Calypso who had accidently destroyed a sizable chunk of the world. Xiara noticed Calypso looking defeated, so she walked over to her, placing her hand on her shoulder.

"Don't let it get you down, if you hadn't done that, it's likely none of us would have figured it out... It wouldn't surprise me if Xopil hadn't figured it out long ago." Xiara stated, "The problem was he just didn't have the ability to prove it. And, you provided him with that."

"But, this also brings something else to mind." Felicyta stated.

"You mean, space and time magic and our understanding of it may actually be void as well?" Xiara asked, "That is certainly plausible at this point..."

They all fell silent for a moment, which was interrupted when Calypso sparked a tiny fire into existance in her palm and she spoke a simple truth. "Everything starts and ends with void."

Far away from the inn, Xopil had stopped while surrounded by trees. One by one, he manfiested a fire, a whirlwind, a water bubble, and a chunk of rock. "It's all void... and yet, it's all not."

Xopil manipulated the fire, changing it's size, density and as many properties as he could think of. He ended up with a pink flame that sucked heat in, creating a cold area around it. The flame also emitted a solid light, giving everything that bathed in it a pink hue. He flicked his fingers sending the flame off to hover listlessly. "Truly unconventional for fire."

Xopil grabbed at the whirlwind, but being made of air his hand passed right through it. He closed his eyes and again manipulated the magic. The usual wooshing sound of the air vanished. The whirlwind before him became a solid mass that could now be held in his hand. He waved dismissively, the whirlwind hanging harmlessly next to the pink flame. "Solid air...? I see... it's also capable of emitting heat and light, so then the opposite would also be true."

Now then... Xopil wordlessly reached for the clump of rock, pulling it in front of him. After a series of his manipulations, the rock had been deformed, rearranged, broken, repaired, and now it was in its final state. Xopil looked at it curiously, a liquid rock without substance. He could make it generate heat, or suck the heat from the surrounding in like a vacuum. Further still, regardless of the temperature he could pass his hand right through it and not feel anything.

Xopil passed the final state of his earth magic next to the first two experiements, and his eyes were drawn to the water ball. He sighed, after all, he'd already proven that the properties of the elements were interchangeable. "So then... if all magic is void then when you're combining magic elements, why is it so much more potent?"

"Think small to practice, then go big when you put it in use?" Xopil closed his eyes as he contemplated. "No, there's more to it."

Xopil waved his hands, gathering his four experiments together. "What then... is spacial magic? It's already as close to void as it can get..."

Xopil waved his hand again, surrounding his four element manifestations and cutting them off from the rest of environment. With a thought, he smashed the four manifestations together inside the space bubble. Xopil watched as the four objects simply merged together, the resulting coalescence retaining the properties he had previously manipulated. All at once it was solid, liquid, and gaseous. More curiously though, it was now emitting a warm heat, while also sucking heat from the surrounding area into it. The pink light from before had combined with the light emitted from the earth magic, becoming golden, and this light was now bathing the forest.

"Xopil? What in the world?" Xopil nearly jumped out of his skin. He was so focused he hadn't been paying attention to his surroundings, making it easy for Xiara and company to approach him undetected.

"I'm just playing around with what I know about the natural elements and skewing them as much as possible in magic form," Xopil recovered quickly, "And I've learned a bit. For example..."

Xopil melded the spacial barrier into the magical goop he had isolated earlier, thus ending the isolation, all the properties of the magic suddenly covered the entire world.

"It's warm... but why am I shivering?" Lexi asked as she choked and coughed.

"That's not the most troubling thing though," Xopil stated as he dispersed the magic.

"It's... what did you do to the air?" Winter asked.

"...Would you believe you were breathing solids, liquids and gases all at once?" Xopil asked.

"So what then? You used your magic over the whole area, changing the property of even the air we were breathing?" Felicyta asked.

"It's... well, I momentarily changed the properties of the entire world to be like that, I didn't expect the range to expand nearly that far though, so my bad." Xopil scratched his head awkwardly, "And this is why I say to be careful with your practicing."

"Have you come to a conclusion then?" Xiara asked.

"All The elemental magic we've been using... they all originated from void magic. Spacial magic is void magic by default, so no surprises there. I haven't had the chance to completely verify this yet, but I can say with a degree of certainty that magic concerning time is a separate entity altogether."

"Why do you say that?" Winter asked.

"For starters, it's exhausting. I can use either of them separately without the huge fatigue burden, but once I put the two together I feel like I suddenly aged at least ten years." Xopil replied, "And then, there's this too."

Xopil raised his arms straight out and held his hands with the palms up. He manifested a spherical block of time magic in his left hand, while his right hand received a spacial distortion. When he started pushing his hands together, it wasn't effortless; he had to physically strain himself near to his limit just to make any progress. When he did get them slightly closer, both magics resisted and pushed back on the other.

"The fact I can do this in my sleep frightens me," Xopil said while sweating from the exertion. "but the downside is I have little control in that manner."

"There's still so much I don't know," Xopil added, "How many parallel worlds are there? The answer feels like it should be 'one parallel world is too many', and it feels like I'm adding more instead of reducing their count."

"There's no rush... well maybe slightly one, but rushing won't help." stated Xiara, "I have confidence you'll figure this out."

Xopil looked at her without saying a word. The burden he felt on his shoulders would have crushed a lesser being, even so he'd never shrug it off. Finally he asked, "Xiara... am I the same person?"

"What brought this on?" She asked, "The core of your being is unphased. It's only your memories that are suspended. There are some minor differences, but you are you."

"Minor differences? Like what?" Xopil asked.

"Small things, like what you say and do. Your attitude towards things changes based on your experiences, but there's not been any truly drastic changes in a very long time."

"And my attitude towards you?"

"I am yours so it matters little, but you used to be more straight-forward with your desires. You could say that's rubbed off on me over the years. You did suggest to me I should be more honest with myself, which I have been. Am I a bother?" Xiara responded.

"No... I just feel like I'm not me at times. Like now for example. I have a voice in my head telling me I shouldn't concern myself with the lives affected, that it's normal for casualties. And in spite of that, I want to prevent any more tragedies."

"Sounds like you're finally growing up." Xiara quipped. "Only took a hundred million years, give or take."

"..." the five elven women looked on in silence as they gleaned far more information than they should have had.

"Ok that's enough of a break. I need to figure this out." Xopil drew on his time magic. "Thus far, everything I've done with void magic can be influenced by imagination... Can I apply that to time magic? If I think about a past event..."

Xopil looked at the magic in his hand, he could make out himself preparing a meal, while apparently listening to something. Xiara quipped, "That's quite the solid recollection. Focused on something are you? Too bad it's only a visual recollection."

"It's not a bad start," rebutted Beda. The image blurred and shifted like a kaleidoscope, eventually getting sharper and clearer until it displayed Xopil repairing a huge crater. Calypso's ears drooped as her whole demeaner sank.

"...t bad Caly. I hope to learn a lot from this little accident." Xopil's voice emitted from the image as his arms waved both majestically and equally eerily as the crater slowly filled in.

"We're actually viewing the past?" Winter's eyes opened wide.

"For now... I don't have enough control over it just yet to actually interact with what we're seeing. And the consequences of meddling are... extreme to say the least."

"Who's there?" Xopil in the image looked over his shoulder toward them.

"...You were saying?" Xiara asked as Xopil cancelled the magic.

"So... that eerie feeling of being watched when I was repairing the hole was due to me peeping on myself from the future?" Xopil scratched his chin, then he sighed, "History, and the future by extension, are not so easy to change. I just blindly followed the same path as my predecessor."