School's Blessing

Chapter 22 - The Council

Carefully opening up the gold ornamented box, a plump purple cushion supporting two items revealed itself.

"What are these...?" I asked curiously.

The items were no larger than a marble, a beautiful shining multi colored tint to them. What was even more bewildering was the mana. They radiated an extraordinary amount of mana, Tess seemed to notice this from over my shoulder as well, her eyes wide open.

"Just before we left Epheotus to assist the Ancient Mages, Sylvia stole these elixirs from her clan's armory. That crest belongs to the Indrath Clan." Agrona clarified.

I could only nod silently, never diverting my gaze from the marbles.

"So... What do we do with them?" Tess looked up to him with a questioning gaze.

"What you would do with any other elixir, consume them." He stated as if it were an obvious answer.

"But it's not a liquid?" Tess became ever more confused.

Without speaking a word, I took one of the two shining marbles from the box before closing it and placing it on the floor. Holding the ball in between my fingers, I infused some mana into it.

The marble became hotter and burnt my fingers before it left my hand, as if it were levitating. Suddenly, the orb shot into my solar plexus, feeling it intersect with my mana core. A second passed without change, until a violent pain hit me, causing my knees to buckle and fall to the floor.

My body burnt as if I were being destroyed and reformed from the inside, but after a few seconds, the pain subsided.

"Art, are you alright?!" Tess helped me up to my feet, concerned for my well being.

"Ugh... Yeah I'm fine... What was-" I began to stand myself up before feeling my mana core, my voice becoming stuck in my throat.

"I-I'm in the Dark Silver Stage... With cracks?!" I couldn't believe it. A beast core could only give you a minimal amount of mana, needing hundreds of high level cores to actually make any sort of progress.

And yet... This one pearl just shot me up three stages...

"WHAT?!" Tessia screamed, falling on her backside in shock.

"Agrona what in the world did you give us?! And why haven't you used them before?" I asked, still in shock.

"Alacryan magic works in a very different manner. Even with a lot of trial and error, we never managed to use them." He clarified. "Now, I could not think of a better use than to give them to you."

"T-Thank you Agrona..."

This changes everything. My potential with this has grown to an unfathomable height.

So this is what Sylvia meant by 'artifacts to help me'...

Bringing my attention back to the current situation, I turned to face Tessia.

"Tess, I would usually tell you to not use it, but the way this thing works... I suggest you do."

"What do you mean Arthur? I thought I wasn't supposed to until I finished my assimilation?" Poor girl has been confused about everything since we walked in here.

"Yeah, that's normally done to prevent attracting mana to the beast will itself, making the process counter-intuitive. But these elixirs... They travel directly into your core."

She only gave me a nervous yet silent nod before picking the box up, removing the second orb. She copied what I had done as the orb flew into her sternum. I quickly grabbed a hold of her and supported her now weak body until she recovered her strength.