Death's End

Chapter 33 - Deciphering

"Watch over me..." Mirayoung said, leaning against Jerius as she felt her mind growing increasingly disoriented.

While innovativeness and versatility were celebrated as part of a mage's arsenal, they risked backlashes as casting certain spells, interacting with certain arrays or artifacts would need buffering or defensive magic to shield the mind or soul from harm that the mage would not be aware of without in-depth experimentation and testing.

Then the backlash that was in her opinion the most detestable, struck her. It was a psychic backlash called Void, sometimes encountered by mages who weaved complex spells of a cerebral nature. In her case, it was a combination of audacious weaving of complex spells to interact with the array and the damage to her soul; the latter was a concerning wild card.

When the Void happened, her consciousness became disoriented, falling into the labyrinth of her memories, or any other people's memories that she latched on.

Over the centuries, there would be dozens of known cases where young, reckless but otherwise brilliant magicians lost their minds to the Void. Some came back when daring archmagi ventured into their consciousnesses to find them in the labyrinths, but most failed to be rescued and their physical bodies wasted away till death claimed them.

To combat the Void, the module on psychic spells in the academy covered an examinable part on several methods of High and Tallis magic that detailed the methods of returning from it.

Still, Mirayoung hated it, for the Void made people lose awareness of reality and drown them in age-old memories. With her eidetic memory, the Void came with a crispness not found in others, making it even harder for her to break out of it.

She hated it...

Hate?

What hate?

Mirayoung was confused by the tight knot in her heart that only unravelled a second ago. She looked up, standing before the north gate that trailed into the courtyard of the academy. Clumsily holding four scrolls that were a bit too much for her, she cursed under her breath.

"Hah!"

Mirayoung heard a familiar voice then someone threw an arm over her, weighing her down and causing her grip of the oversized scrolls to loosen. The scrolls fell to the ground, scattered.

Lyvia beamed a wide smile. "I never saw you as an obedient lass, Mirayoung."

She squatted at once, gathering the scrolls. Then she turned to pass one over to Lyvia, with mild annoyance. "Help me hold, will you? I can't get the scrolls dirty."

Lyvia took it from her, sighing in amusement. "Master Iras doesn't mean what he said."

"I'm not going to risk my spot in the expedition to Icesia North, just because I can't conduct myself well enough in his eyes. I don't have your privilege of being a necessity for the trip," Mirayoung said, darting at her friend.

"I tried teaching you Empyrean Flame," Lyvia said, lowering her voice to imitate one of their teachers. "Your lack of fire affinity‒oh, as FarSage had said‒is because of your nonchalance. You need to have a more serious outlook, young lady."

Walking ahead and crossing the courtyard to the stone stairs, Mirayoung said. "Cut it. Empyrean is a bloodline spell. Even if I have the fire affinity, I won't be able to learn it."

"Any case," Mirayoung continued. "If Master Iras bans me, you're on your own to find Frost Jasmine. If you think you can venture out from the expedition alone and pull off the whole stunt without getting killed by the barbarians, you're overestimating yourself! You can't even tell left from right."