The Burning Fiend

After a few days of creating her wind avatar, a green haired Koral was pouting and looking aggrieved trying to convince Reynolds to change his mind, but he only chuckled and hugged her without a care for her indignation. "I understand that you want to become a Highgod, but using divine sparks on your wind avatar now would be a waste. You became a Demigod by understanding the mystery of 'Music', and just like Talia... you can understand the 'Wind Essence' by looking for similarities with the 'Fire Essence' and by trial and error it will not take you that long to master completely this law. You even have a high chance to fuse the two mysteries, I think you shall try it instead of fusing with divine sparks".

Koral's pride seemed challenged when Reynolds mentioned her daughter and decided to try it, she had an average affinity with wind elemental essence, but she knew that at least understanding a second law should be possible. Reynolds kissed her forehead and said. "Give it a try, if you feel that you cannot do it I will give you the divine sparks, all right?"

If Reynolds were to be honest, he felt a little jealous because even by comparison he could not gain any insights for other elemental essence. He shook his head thinking that he should not be greedy, his soul mutation was already a blessing and even if could obtain an avatar for every elemental system... without his would mutation he would never be as powerful as he was right now.

Koral noticed that his mood was strange and asked. "Master, are you upset?" Reynolds blinked at her question and shook his head. "Not really, I was just thinking that sometimes you have to lose something in order to gain other things. My soul mutation is powerful, but I cannot ponder other laws even by comparison like Talia". He smiled at her then turned to look at Windsor who was working on the final details of a sculpture.

"Koral, I think that Windsor found her own way of training and perhaps we should learn from her... she is not trying to ponder the laws or fuse them, but somehow she manages to do precisely that while sculpting. I think she does it unconsciously, but it is quite effective. Perhaps you should try it... playing your music while letting your mind to unconsciously ponder the 'Wind Essence', you might even find a point of fusion without trying".

They both remained looking at Windsor's dazzling smile, she did not like training but loved sculpting, and she had managed to link both things without affecting her love for sculpting. Koral's eyes were bright and thought that it might not be a bad idea to try, at least she would not feel bored as long as she enjoyed playing music.

50 years later, their metallic life form kept traveling toward the Crystal Cave City, in one of the compartments Rosarie was sitting on Reynolds l.a.p while they both studied the tome depicting advanced arrays. They would have to look for new material to read soon as they were close to master the runes and arrays portrayed on the books they had.

Reynolds was extremely curious about the way that runes and arrays could interact with space, from simple things like an interspatial ring, to advanced applications like the teleportation between planes. He started thinking on the small training room below the island on the Forest of Darkness, and wondered if something similar could be created with runes.

Could he perhaps create a small dimension and even carry it around? That would be useful and somehow did not seem completely impossible, perhaps he could even use that small dimension room as a base for this project... this was a project that would take extremely long time but it was very intriguing.

He made a point to remember asking Lord Beirut when they finally arrive at the Indigo Prefecture, Reynolds thought that asking about these ideas and things like the 'fake Highgod' array or the 'stealth' array in places like the Jadefloat Palace could be extremely dangerous. He suspected that those things already existed ant that they should be extremely expensive, but the real problem would be that these things did not exist and it might spark the interest of old monsters after learning that someone is asking this questions.

The Jadefloat Palace existed to serve the Sovereign, and they might report innovative things or news of treasures that might caught the interest of the Sovereign. Asking this questions to Beirut seemed less dangerous. Either way, he would not be able to afford the cost of these items at the moment and his knowledge was still too lacking to really understand how these things worked... there was no rush.

Another project that intrigued him was the idea of using runic arrays to split a soul and the creation of a new body, just like the Elemental Laws did when someone created a new avatar. He had the feeling that the universe seemed to work under complex runic arrays and that the Overgods were nothing but constrains that maintained the correct functioning of these runic arrays.

He had this idea from the stories he had heard about an Overgod suddenly appearing to destroy a powerful combatant that had caused irreversible damage to a lower plane, that seemed to be the only situation in which the fabled Overgod would ever made its presence known. Reynolds could not believe that an entity that might already existed for billions of years would care about the destruction of a lower plane that seemed of no consequence for the Universe. To him this meant that the Overgod was not a sentient being or at least... one lacking freedom.

He felt confused by these ideas, but there seemed to be some degree of truth in his crazy thoughts, and he felt that understanding the runes and arrays to the extreme might guide to an answer and even a complete understanding of the universe. He smiled thinking that it did not matter for the current him, he would ponder these ideas and continue to work in increase his understanding on runes and arrays. Perhaps one day his understanding and power would reach a realm in which he could explore and take advantage of these ideas.

Rosarie seemed completely oblivious of his brief moment of madness, that to him seemed more like a profound enlightenment, He shook his head and returned his attention to the book.

---

Bebe was feeling conflicted, he had gone to the Redbud Palace to buy information on Reynolds thinking that both Sasha and his Boss would be happy to have news of him. He was currently looking at a picture in which he recognized Koral, but his eyes could not leave the young woman next to her.

He was sure that the young girl who was so similar to Koral was her daughter, then he confirmed his idea as the information package he had bought contained a recording orb that showed Koral, Rosarie and the young woman fighting a group of bandits. Bebe could be sure now that they were different people because they both were using the Fire Elemental Laws to attack and Koral seemed protective of her.

Bebe could not help but feel curious about this young woman and even forgot that he had bought the information for Sasha and Linley. It was only after Sasha approached and started looking at the file that Bebe woke up from his thoughts and blushed furiously as if caught doing mischief.

Sasha smiled and said. "Are you thinking in looking for them? They said that if you start feeling curiosity you have already lost yourself, you know?" She smirked while pointed at the young woman next to Koral in the picture. Bebe did not know what to think, but he knew he wanted to meet this woman.

Sasha was looking at Bebe with an air of understanding and felt that she might regain her 'freedom' sooner that she had originally expected, and her travel might not be as dangerous as she had thought it would be. Bebe seemed completely lost while looking at that girl in the picture, and she knew how to use that to her advantage, she smirked in victory before returning her attention to the file.

She was already close to complete the fusion of the three laws she had mastered, 'Light Essence', 'Light Speed' and 'Healing', her rapid progress could mostly be attributed to her working with both her saint body and her light avatar without rest. She felt that she might complete the fusion within the next 50 years and proceed to take part in the Fiend Trials... by then Bebe might have already found where Reynolds was or what would be his destination.