The experiment

With the four students gone, Archmage Zaroth finally feels secure to talk to Bythos.

"What did you see there?" Archmage Zaroth asked.

"What do you mean?"

In a frenzied manner, Archmage Zaroth grabbed Bythos' shoulders and shook him, as if to shake his words through.

"You know what I mean," Archmage Zaroth said, "what did you see after using that gem?"

Archmage Zaroth's composure is unlike before. Previously he has always composed himself with a calm demeanor, but now he's acting in a manner unbecoming of someone of his dignity.

Bythos gave a brief description of what he had seen, but omitted the appearance of the mysterious figure. Upon hearing what Bythos had described, Archmage Zaroth went deep into thought and gestured for Bythos that he can leave.

....

With Bythos gone, Archmage Zaroth hurried back to his own office. Once inside, he rummaged through his shelves and flickeda hidden switch behind the stacks of paperwork.

The hidden switch triggered the opening of a hidden door right behind the cabinet, and Archmage Zaroth went inside hurriedly and casted several anti-detection spells as the hidden door closed behind him. This place was hidden for a reason.

Archmage Zaroth sat down and grabbed a bunch of paper and began consolidating his thoughts.

Archmage Zaroth has lived a rather long life, even for someone as adept at magic as him. The reason was simple, he had been studying death and blood magic.

Ever since his retirement from public life, Archmage Zaroth is not under as much scrutiny from the church. The church is more concerned with mage's in close proximity to power and rogue mages, so someone like him who's been around for so long is not a priority.

When he was still a boy, Archmage Zaroth was enrolled into the mage's academy for his talent in magic, and managed to rapidly advance to the titular rank of Archmage at the age of 30. Thereafter he spent many years furthering his skills in the paths of magic he had previously ignored, and attained level 5 in all paths except water and nature which he had less talent for and the three paths of holy, death and blood which he had not undergone any study.

After this period of study he realised he had reached the limit. Archmage Zaroth resigned himself to that and worked as the court mage for several decades. Eventually he tired of it and retired from service and took up the role of the Archmage of the academy.

As Archmage Zaroth grew older, his mortal desires had lessened, and what replaced it was his desire to advance himself in magical capability.

Not knowing how to advance further in the other paths, Archmage Zaroth decided to pursue the only path where he knows advancement is possible-death and blood.

To study without instructions, one needs to immerse oneself in the environment of path. Cemeteries for death, living sacrifices for blood. In this process, knowledge of the magic in these paths will gradually appear.

Archmage Zaroth also hunted down the documents which had once belonged to the three mage-kings without drawing attention to himself. Just like in the documents, Archmage Zaroth spent large amounts of his free time in battle zones and graveyards. To advance in blood magic one needs living sacrifices but he couldn't bring himself to do it, so he made do with larger quantities of livestock instead.

Eventually he managed to reach level 5 in those two paths and no further. The same scene confronted him when he tried to empower himself in death and blood.

Something must be wrong. If they were able to do it, so should I. With this thought in mind, Archmage Zaroth tried and tested every method recorded in the found mage-kings' manuscript.

The clue remaining is this: two of the three mage-kings are not from this world.

Previously Archmage Zaroth was not able to test if this was the reason the mage-kings were able to accomplish what they did, but now that Bythos is here he'll be able to put it to the test.

Archmage Zaroth jotted down his hypothesis: Those from another world are not subject to the same limitations place upon us, hence the different experience during the empowering process. If so, it should be possible to bypass some normal limitations with their help.

...

The next day, Bythos was called into Archmage Zaroth's lab to do some experiments.

On the lab's floor was drawn a magic circle surrounded by nine different items, each corresponding to the nine paths.

"I had this place set up for some time but there weren't any suitable person to do this experiment. I hope don't mind being the first one I try it on." Archmage Zaroth said.

Bythos simply nodded to indicate he doesn't mind. He walked to the centre of the magic circle and was told to sit down.

Once Bythos sat down, Archmage Zaroth began casting his spells. Bythos immediately felt a strong sense of unease. He could feel something was crawling and itching under his skin, yet he could not move himself to scratch that feeling away.

"You will feel a little uncomfortable, but that can't be helped. What I had casted on you is a modified version of the Overseer matrix. In the past it was used in mage formations, but nowadays there aren't enough mages in the world to properly utilize this spell."

Archmage Zaroth continued further, as if to distract Bythos from his discomfort.

"This spell is casted by the user himself in coordination with someone casting the overseer master spell. The mages who casted the overseer matrix spell will essentially surrender their capabilities during the battle to the "master of the matrix", giving him greatly improved magical abilities. I modified it to a targeted spell and weakened its effects as non-magic users will die from its normal effects."

Bythos grit his teeth to try and alleviate the discomfort he's experiencing but it only seemed to make it worse. Archmage Zaroth casted the next spell which caused the crawling sensation to get progressively worse, until it burst forth from under Bythos's skin in the form of balls of light.

These glowing orbs coalesced together above Bythos' head until it is the size of a melon, then it dropped onto the floor with a clang.

"Hmm... The experiment seems to have failed. I had originally intended to artificially create magic gems by extracting magical power from you, then use my thaumaturgic circle to resonate the magic with the most suitable path and crystalize it into magic gems, but it seems to have just become a normal glass ball."

Archmage Zaroth picked up the ball and examined it closely, then threw it hard against the ground. The glass ball bounced off the ground with a crisp sound but did not shatter. When he picked it up and examined it again, there was not a scratch to be found.

"I'll bring this back for further study. Are you feeling alright so far?" Archmage Zaroth asked.

The effect of the spell had worn off so Bythos just stood up. He looked at himself and there weren't any injuries. The previous bursting forth of light seemed to not have hurt him.

"I don't feel anything weird once the spell ended." Bythos replied.

"Alright then, come back tomorrow and we'll study this together." Archmage Zaroth said while pointing to the glass ball.

Bythos headed back to his own office to carry on translating his book. It has been a while since had had last read it, so in the process of translating, he took some time to reread and digest the contents.

A thought came to Bythos' mind. Is it a good idea to bring ideas from his world to this one? It may be good or detrimental, but on some level, he doesn't really care that much. Bythos had only intended for it to be Archmage Zaroth's private reading, so it probably won't be circulated outside. At the very least he can be kept occupied.