The Prince Of Magic

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Zelretch coughed, breaking the silence in the room.

"With that out of the way, I wish to talk about the results of your scan now." The old magician stated.

Hadrian blinked, a bit surprised by the sudden change in topic before he regained his composure.

"What'd you found, opa?" Hadrian asked.

"Do you want to hear the good news or bad news?" Zelretch offered.

"Second." Hadrian chose the bad news first just to get it out of the way.

"Alright then…" Zelretch took a moment to take a deep breath before he started. "Bad news is that the magic circuits in your brain are still increasing. It's not even yet at half percent in awakening, so it'll take several years more for the process to be over. Which means, these 'episodes' of yours won't be going away anytime soon."

"Wait, so I'll have to endure these damn headaches for five years of more?!" Hadrian sputtered, aghast.

"Not five. Ten years, actually." Zelretch answered without blinking.

"What?!" Hadrian was in shock.

And to think he would be relieved to find out whether he would be finally free of the damn headaches.

"Pffft!"

The restrained laughter of the old magician snapped him out of his shock, causing him to notice the mischievous grin on the latter's aging countenance.

With an irate huff, Hadrian glared at his grandfather, who hunched over a little in his seat as he let out the wave of chuckles that he could no longer hold back.

"Bwahahaha! You should've seen your face, enkel!" Zelretch wheezed in between his laughter.

"Not the time to pull jokes on your grandson, opa." Hadrian scolded through gritted teeth, crossing his arms over his c.h.e.s.t.

"Eh, relax. No harm done with a little jest here and there." Zelretch grinned dismissively.

"Then, what's the real estimate?"

"Six or seven years, give or take." Zelretch answered, having gone over his mirth.

"Oh, okay. Six or seven years of bloody annoyance then. That's great." Hadrian deadpanned, unamused.

"Well, you did awaken your mystic eyes just around six months ago. You're a late bloomer. Consequently, that makes your case understandable, unique even. Usually, most natural-born mystic eyes users awaken around the ages of ten and twelve. Compared to them, you'll have to play catch up in controlling those special eyes of yours." Zelretch pointed out.

Recognizing the truth in his words, Hadrian simply nodded his head in agreement.

"Also, from what I've seen of the results, it seems your mystic eyes are different." Zelretch added, pointing a finger on the monitor screen.

Hadrian lifted one brow in surprise.

"How so?"

"For one, it's quite unique. There were a few records in the Mage's Association that relates to your kind of mystic eyes, but the information about them was scarce. Thus, I had to improvise. I'd searched for more information via the Kaleidoscope instead. What I discovered was quite… interesting." Zelretch said with a thoughtful pause.

"Do tell then, opa." Hadrian prompted as he leaned back in his seat.

"There had been two users of the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception." Zelretch stopped, thinking. "Actually, make that three if you count the legend relating to the eyes."

"You mean the God of Darkness, Balor?" Hadrian said, recalling the piece of knowledge from his own findings.

"Yes, but the ones that had been passed down to you and the two others seemed to be different. My sources indicated that the eyes that you and the other two had obtained are the watered down versions of the original. However, based on these results, I'm not exactly sure it's the same in your case, enkel." Zelretch frowned in thought.

"What do you mean?"

"Your mystic eyes are still evolving, that's what." Zelretch announced, causing the young heir's eyes to widen in surprise. "This means that your mystic eyes have yet to reach their full potential. Those little 'episodes' you've experienced so far, they're the signs. The magic circuits in your brain are not just increasing, it's also changing. Quality wise, per se. If I stake my bet on it, it's probably due to your origin."

At the last remark, Hadrian couldn't help but think back on his lineage in his first life.

For centuries, there had been rumors that the Lucis Caelum were descendants of the astral gods, Bahamuth and Etro.

It was a singular belief that many citizens of Lucis share, despite the fact that members of the royal family themselves believed that they were mere mortals.

Even Hadrian was not an exception, seeing as he did his best in living his life the way he wanted to, despite having been shackled by the chains of his duties and responsibilities as the King of Lucis.

In his second life however, one thought brought a question in his mind.

Was there a hidden lineage somewhere in both the Schweinorg and Aelfryth that he was not aware of?

Perhaps something similar wtih the Lucis Caelum? Or maybe it was the Lucis Caelum that was at fault?

Regardless of which, Hadrian was not exactly surprised to acquire an ability related to death.

He had a similar one in the first life, but it was more of a spell than an ability that he could manually activated at will. Upon his reincarnation, he had somehow lost sight of the spell and was unable to activate it anymore. Hadrian couldn't even remember incantation for the spell, no matter how much he thought about it.

Perhaps the mystic eyes were something of a replacement for that one spell that was lost to him forever.

"In other words, the process that seemed to be a highly occurrence when it comes to users of that type of mystic eyes."

"Did the other two users go through something like this?" Hadrian asked, curious.

"Why indeed, they had. Their own mystic eyes turned out differently from each other as well. They had their own little 'episodes' too when it comes to the mystic eyes of death perception. Theirs isn't a huge case of migraines though, but they experienced their own negative side effects nevertheless. I'm sure you've met one of them before in the war, no?" Zelretch smirked.

"Ah… yes, yes I have." Hadrian admitted with a strained expression.

"Miss Shiki Ryougi, was it? Hehe, hard to believe you'd survive that encounter, enkel. Even my colleagues were impressed." Zelretch chuckled, stroking his bearded chin.

"Well, it wasn't easy. That's for sure…" Hadrian sighed.

And it truly wasn't.

If not for Arturia's presence and his own mystic eyes, Hadrian would have died along with Arturia and Leonardo B. Harwey would have been the one to win the Holy Grail war by default.

Even though there certain elements that allowed him to survive that unexpected encounter, Hadrian was also sure that luck had played a major role in it.

He would even go as far as to say that his battle with the strange woman in a red jacket was far more difficult than the ones he had with Leonardo B. Harwey and, later, Twice H. Pieceman.

While Arturia had been the one who did most of the fighting, coming up with strategies to expose the mysterious woman's ability and countering her moves had been quite stressful to Hadrian.

Regardless of her somewhat delicate appearance, Shiki Ryougi was indeed a 'monster' in human skin.

The automaton was not that far off in its remark, given her eerie ability to cut almost anything in her path.

Recalling how the woman in red had left the Moon Cell, Hadrian wondered if he would be able to replicate such a thing with his own mystic eyes.

Cutting the space to make a portal to earth was quite cool in his opinion.

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