Attuning

'Aegis, how's our daily analysis of Devil's micro-movements coming along?' Zephyr asked just as they paused at the sound of a distant beast cry. Zephyr had made it a point to never evade beast territories he'd spotted traces of until it was glaring enough to be spotted by a regular person. He wanted Smiling Devil to know as little as he could about his capabilities.

Analysis of micro-movement patterns show variation within the normal and acceptable range. His injuries still seem to be real.' Aegis replied promptly.

'Hmm... Alright. Please notify me whenever anything changes.' Zephyr instructed.

After a few momentary pauses, they finally reached the entrance that led to their cave. Zephyr went through the regular motions of checking the surroundings, hiding the wheelchair, and resetting the little details he put in place to quickly tell if anyone had been around before hefting Smiling Devil onto his shoulder and starting the climb up through the dark network of cramped tunnels and crevices.

They arrived at their little haven some time later, with Zephyr dropping Smiling Devil down and settling himself in his own side of the cave. The constant thundering sound and mist of water from the fall gave him some sense of solace. This far into the cave, they could hear themselves talk fairly clearly, but they still had to speak louder than normal. The stray jets of water were also mostly at the mouth of the cave— only the mist reached them where they slept.

After settling into his side, he and Smiling Devil ate their evening meal consisting of a loaf of bread and some beef jerky— two portions for Zephyr due to his large appetite. The jerky didn't particularly taste like beef, but he didn't mind. It was meat, and it supplied the necessary nutrients.

This was their daily routine. Drab and monotonous. Only with some slight variation every now and then, but nothing exciting. And Zephyr was content with it... In his books, he'd had enough excitement to last him a few years— Tier 5s, 6s? A world dying before his eyes. Traveling through the dimensional void. Crashing into someone's gateway link, and landing in a totally foreign world... Not a small rift world, but a real, fully developed world teeming with its own civilizations, history, and people. It was moments like these that the true depth of the whole experience sunk in. He was literally in another world, with no possibility of ever going back in sight. Smiling Devil had concluded that this was an unassimilated world. Yet to be discovered and conquered by any of the nations of their world. If true, this would mean the civilization here had not even started inter-dimensional travel, and both of them were fated to spend the rest of their lives here. But Zephyr wasn't convinced. Some religions here had statues of people that looked like humans from their world, making him sure that this world had at some point in history, been visited by people from their world. Smiling Devil, while agreeing with Zephyr, thought it more likely that the visitors were people who somehow got stranded like them, and never returned home. He pointed to the fact that they were still being chased down by the backer of the merchant convoy as an obvious tell— the man who saw Zephyr was most likely still alive and had described how Zephyr had cast the Mana barrier spell to someone in the know.

The earlier stranded individuals must have started up families here with the natives, and unveiled a bloodline so different and powerful to this world. That was Smiling Devil's theory. It seemed plausible, and he was committed to it.

That would explain the relentless pursuit. Someone was clearly pouring money into finding them, convinced they were onto something. Zephyr couldn't make sense of it. Such decisive action with so little apparent information pointed to an individual who was either wildly delusional or exceptionally sharp— there was no in-between.

The thought made him wonder about the others, his friends and acquaintances— Cedric, Jet and the others. If he and Smiling Devil were already drawing this much unwanted attention despite their caution, what about them? If any of them had made it to this world— Jet being the most likely— they'd be entirely on their own, with no one to offer even the slightest warning or guidance. Zephyr had no doubt that if Jet was alive on this planet, he'd have already made his presence known. The boy's fuse was notoriously short, he'd strike back at the merest provocation. Then there were the others too... Zephyr sighed, simply hoping for the best. He'd made it a point to keep an ear out for any such information, but so far there'd been nothing of the sort.

He started a chant as he sat in his corner, snapping his fingers as he visualized the nuances of a spark. He was trying to cast a simple fire ignition spell. The spell started up after a while, but destabilized and flickered out immediately. Zephyr tried it again. And again. And again. Getting the same results. The constant sound of fingers snapping and a chant being muttered droned on over and over, eventually eliciting a sharp hiss from Smiling Devil.

"Hey! You should know by now that you're not getting anywhere with that! I'm trying to rest here!"

Zephyr paused for a bit, then continued without replying.

Snap Snap Snap

"What was your mother's name?" Smiling Devil suddenly asked.

"What?" Zephyr stopped abruptly, taken aback by the question.

"Your mother— You said she was half elf, right? What was her name?"

Zephyr frowned.

"Elven names are rich with information. You can always tell an elf's lineage just by their name. Even half-elves, despite being outside the main lines, still bear names that clearly link back to a primary lineage." Smiling Devil explained.

A sarcastic retort about Smiling Devil's unexpected talkativeness nearly escaped Zephyr, but he managed to hold his tongue and keep his face passive. He knew better than to squander this chance. He'd simply play along and see where this was going.

"Ra'Elis. I don't know what her full name was, but I know there was a Ra'Elis in her name. It's the name she passed on to me." Zephyr said solemnly.

"Ra'Elis..." Smiling Devil tasted the name with his tongue. "It's incomplete. Ra shows her distance to the main line. Elis is the main family name... But I know of no such elven family. Then there's supposed to be another name to denote the branch."

"Was that the only name she gave you?" He asked again.

"Yes."

"So your full name is Zephyr Ra'Elis..."

"Zephyrus." Zephyr corrected. "Zephyr for short."

"Full name is Zephyrus Sol Ra'Elis... Dad gave me two names."

"Hm. Weird names. Uncommon. It seems the mystery lies with your father. His lineage is unclear..." He stared at Zephyr in thought. "But I can't think of any superior race that could birth a creature like you."

Zephyr's eye twitched. "Creature?"

Smiling Devil gave him a blank look. "What else would you be?"

"..." Zephyr kept mute, prompting Smiling Devil to continue.

"No race fits the bill... Unless there's some other race in our world that we've not been aware of for hundreds of thousands of years," he mused, more to himself than to Zephyr, before his eyes glazed over in vacant thought.

Zephyr held his breath, waiting for Smiling Devil to continue, but when the man remained silent, he resumed his earlier attempt at the fire spell, knowing fully that it was useless, but the rhythmic snapping of his fingers resounded through the cave again, snapping Smiling Devil out of his thoughts.

"Even if you had a chance at learning the fire spell, this is the worst place to try it." Smiling Devil said. "Too much water content in the air."

Zephyr's eye sharpened. That correlated with his findings so far. If the fire ignition spell worked by confirming the presence of certain mana signatures and excluding the presence of others, it made sense that the task would be more difficult in an environment with more of the Mana type to be excluded— In this case, water, or moisture in general.

Zephyr feigned disinterest, but the slight upward tug of Smiling Devil's lips suggested he knew the boy was interested. It seemed like he didn't mind though, as he continued anyway.

"The idea's usually to start out learning the basic spells in an environment rich in the element of the spell you want to cast," he explained. "This helps your mana core get attuned to the casting process quicker. Shaves off a lot of learning time... Though that's usually a privilege reserved for nobles." He snickered. "They're the ones in control of the various rift worlds."

'Shaves off the learning time?' Zephyr wondered. 'That had to be related to how fast the mana node created the corresponding logic gates to decode the spell.'

Should he try casting the spell in a fire-rich environment to see how much load it would take off his mana node's negating function? Maybe afterward, his single node could adapt to the process, making it easier to cast elsewhere.