Chapter 14: No Longer His Puppet

Somewhere deep in the heart of the forest, in a hidden space.

Next to a colossal tree of unknown species — its trunk black as night, its leaves a shimmering white — everything was buried in thick foliage. Fairies darted through the air, their wings catching the light. Nearby, a young-looking girl with green skin played with a writhing black mass in her hands. The thing screamed in helpless rage.

"Why did you pull me out? What use is this sucker to you? Return me, and I'll give you more than you can imagine! I, Magister of Artifactory Lerach, promise you this!"

The girl's voice was as melodic as a chorus of bells.

"I have no interest in profit. The boy simply reminded me of someone and helped me. But parasites like you — I don't like."

Lerach's voice grew more desperate, promising anything.

"How did he help you? Strengthened the forest's background? You know he owes all his success to me! My book made him a mage, my influence let him master magic without killing himself! He's nothing! But I can make you a lesser goddess! All will bow before you!"

The nymph laughed, her tone light but edged with something sharper.

"You made one small mistake in your conclusions."

"What?" If he could, Lerach would have been sweating.

"I'm already a lesser goddess."

Her expression shifted in an instant — from cheerful to dark, almost dangerous. She squeezed her hand, crushing the last remnants of the mage's soul.

He had dared to offer her power. She had her own plans for this boy, and the stronger he became, the better. He'd already surprised her by creating apple trees that fed on ether directly from the dragon vein. Their fruits would help her, even if only a little, recover from old wounds. The ignorant youth didn't even know what he'd done. She would have to keep an eye on him, just in case he managed to get himself killed.

***

After the nymph's help, meditation became so much easier. It felt as if a weight I'd carried for years had finally fallen away. It was like carrying a backpack for so long that you forget it's there — until you take it off and realize how much it was dragging you down.

As I walked through the undergrowth, grinning to myself, Apolline caught up with me.

"Arthur, you're literally glowing today. Did something good happen?"

"Of course! Life is beautiful! Just like you, by the way."

I lifted her up and spun her around. She squealed, blushing.

"Arthur, put me down, you're embarrassing me."

I set her gently on the ground.

"Are you off to your training again?"

"Of course. The stronger I am today, the easier tomorrow will be." I couldn't tell her the world was full of creatures that hungered for the flesh and souls of mages. But just the fact that I was learning magic, that I was better today than yesterday, filled me with joy.

She rolled her eyes.

"A fanatic obsessed with power. Why can't you be like other veela, who only care about beauty and—"

I cut her off, grinning.

"Boys? No thanks, I'm not one of those. I take after my dad — he was just like me." Well, he was me, but who cares about such details? Certainly not me.

Patrick appeared, waving as he jogged over.

"Hey, guys! Going to training? Can I come?"

Apolline sighed, exasperated.

"Look, another fight fanatic! Why can't you boys be more refined, more romantic?"

I'd long since figured out that Patrick knew I was a guy. He later complained I'd ruined all his fun. Joker. Just like me.

"Because when you get punched in the face, it's hard to stay refined," I said.

Patrick grinned.

"Yeah, our man, even if you are a veela."

"And you're a werewolf."

"One to one. So, are we going, or are we competing to see who's worst at making jokes?" Patrick asked, and we all laughed, heading to our usual spot — next to the soot-stained wall I cleaned and restored with spells every week.

About eight months ago, we'd started training together. Alone, neither Patrick nor Apolline could keep up with me anymore. If Apolline got upset, Patrick only got more fired up, determined to surpass me. Since he couldn't, we often fought two against one. It took ages to convince Apolline to throw fire at me. Good thing her control was even better than mine — she focused on one branch of magic, while I dabbled in many. Despite her grumbling, she too developed the habit of training to exhaustion, especially when she felt herself growing stronger. It's a hard feeling to resist.

Patrick, meanwhile, trained his body and fought with his brothers, gaining experience and learning new techniques. In that, he surpassed me. But in the sum of skills, I was ahead. Yoga and mind magic gave me an edge in reaction, and I could compensate for fire with wand charms. Lately, I didn't even need that.

Patrick started stretching.

"So, today as usual?"

"No, let's try something new — attack and hit me, and I'll only dodge," I suggested.

Apolline raised an eyebrow, smirking.

"Are you sure? Or are you one of those who likes pain?"

Code red, code red, we're raising a little troublemaker. Oh well, we made her that way.

I shot back, teasing.

"How do you know about people who like pain?"

She blushed, embarrassed. She still had a long way to go to reach my level. Said the grown man bullying children — well, everyone has their flaws.

"Don't worry, if it hurts, I'll let you know."

Apolline transformed into her harpy form. She could throw fire without it, but this way she'd last longer. Patrick attacked first, a direct left. I activated consciousness acceleration, astral vision, and yoga. The first two worked as usual, but yoga didn't just add power.

My perception broadened — I didn't just see attacks and trajectories, I understood them. I knew where Apolline would throw her fire next, how Patrick's stance would shift after his punch missed. It wasn't foresight, just a more effective use of what I already knew. I'd fought my friends so many times, I knew their styles, but never could I predict them so clearly before.

As the nymph said, yoga isn't just about enhancing the body — it's about understanding yourself and others. If mind magic gives intelligence, yoga gives wisdom. I dodged Patrick's fist by turning my head ten degrees, letting it pass a centimeter from my jaw. I didn't jump back from Apolline's fire, just stepped forward and turned sideways. When Patrick swept at my legs, I jumped just high enough to clear it, then crouched to let the next fireball pass overhead.

I dodged every attack, feeling my mana drain. Everything has a price, and this level of perception was costly. Apolline was the first to tire, then Patrick.

Patrick flopped down, panting.

"That was amazing, friend. What did you use? It was like fighting my father — I can't touch him either!"

Apolline, still catching her breath, nodded.

"Want to know too?" I asked, grinning.

"So," I paused dramatically, "it's a secret!"

Apolline groaned, flopping onto the grass.

"Knew it. He's teased me like this before."

Patrick protested.

"Hey, that's not fair!"

I shrugged.

"It's a family secret, sorry."

That usually killed any further curiosity. Clans and families have their secrets, and sharing them brings trouble for everyone involved. And I wasn't lying — Arthur and Ariel, that's a clan, isn't it?

***

Now I had a new problem with training. The only way to keep progressing with my friends was to make them attack me seriously, which they'd never do. With adults, it was even worse. I could pay someone and use Patrick's father's form, but I didn't want to risk exposing him to unknown magic.

Before, I'd have run around looking for a solution, but now… I sat in meditation, entering a trance to organize my knowledge. My inner world was still a mess, like a storeroom during spring cleaning.

I imagined my knowledge as books, sorted by topic. One shelf: personal memories, by year. Another: chemistry, physics, magic, and other sciences. A third: all the random junk that ends up in the farthest corners of the mind.

All of it was protected by a force dome — the foundation of my mental defenses, to be supplemented with more tricks over time. Focusing, I found myself before a book that looked like Lerach's grimoire, because it contained exactly that. It opened to the right page.

[Doppel-magic] — a special discipline allowing the creation of magical doubles with certain abilities.

Essentially, doppels are complex material illusions: no mass, but they have weight. They range from the simplest, destroyed by a single hit, to the most complex, which must be "killed" like the original.

Doppels obey their creator completely and have no intelligence. Each doppel has all the knowledge and skills of the original.

The book continued with the word-magic spell and detailed rituals for advanced versions. Lerach often used it for complex rituals and artifacts, allocating almost all his magic to a doppel, then meditating to create another, and so on. Accumulators were more convenient, but not always available.

When I came out of the trance, I wanted to curse myself with every foul word I knew — only the risk of a mage's wish coming true stopped me. What an idiot I'd been! How much easier it would have been to grow apple trees with doppels, to experiment together! The only thing that justified me was that learning wand magic, floristics, and herbology on my own had raised my skills far more than if I'd relied on doubles.

But at the stage of creating a doppel, I hit unexpected problems. Making a double required two spells — taking a matrix and actually creating it. The first was similar to metamorph magic, so I mastered it quickly. But the second… If before, most word-magic spells worked for me on the first, second, or third try, now everything was off. As if something had been helping me before.

A whole week I trained to make the first, weakest but full-fledged doppel, not just a horror-movie knockoff. What the hell? What did the nymph do to me? When I see her, I'll give her a piece of my mind. Even if yoga got stronger, why did my word magic get so much worse? At least fire magic was unaffected.

Since this doppel vanished with a light tap, I had to switch to rituals until I figured out what was going on.

With rituals, things were better, but not simple. Before, I'd intuitively felt where and how to place a symbol. Now, that sense was gone, and my first ritual ended in an explosion. Luckily, I used a dead doppel to activate it, or they'd be scraping me off the walls. Around the fifth try and five sacrificed doppels later, I managed to create a normal double.

Interestingly, doubles appear in the same clothes and with the same tools as the original, which they can use just as well. If they could speak or share knowledge, they'd be priceless, but alas, you can't make a double of an archmage and have him teach you. In Sumer, creating someone else's double without permission was a grave crime — punishable by death on the spot.

On weak doubles, I'd already tested their abilities. They could do everything I could, except metamorphosis. Maybe not enough magic, maybe not enough skill, or maybe they lacked matrices or spatial storage. But the fact remained. Still, I wasn't upset — now I had the perfect sparring partner and assistant.

***

The nymph smiled as she watched two identical blonds sparring — one firing harmless charm rays from his wand, the other dodging and defending.

The defender was real; the attacker, his doppel — a solid illusion.

Lerach hadn't just helped the boy master magic — he'd held him back, kept him from developing independently. By influencing his thoughts, he'd kept Arthur from realizing his full potential. If the artificer's spirit had grown stronger, he could have seized the boy's soul and body with little effort.

But once she freed Arthur from that burden, his remarkable mind found a new path — gaining combat experience through his own ingenuity.

What else would he surprise her with? She waited, anticipation sparkling in her eyes.

***

—————————————————————————————————

Thank you for your support!