October 22, 2152
As the starlight crept into the window, Emory slowly sat up and stretched out her arms wide. Even though it had been a short night, she felt like she had rested for days on a fluffy cloud. Since it would still be a little while until the rest of the outpost woke up, she moved to her desk, pulled out sketching utensils, and began diagraming the Transformation spell. She didn't know what most of the symbols meant, but she recognized a line that looked similar to the Contract spell. There were five distinct lines of glyphs which wrapped around a person's body connected by a single glyph where the spell was cast and one on the opposite side of the body from the first glyph. Once she finished with the diagram, she looked at the main glyph closely before she finally recognized it.
The key symbol was the same symbol as the Elandrian used to apply skills to armor and weapons. Essentially, it unlocked the hidden potential of the magik already available in the equipment. With that in mind, she scribbled the lines down on a separate sheet of paper for later to show Tethys. Emory guessed that one of the lines would look like the Glyph spell she used to enchant objects. Almost as if on cue, someone knocked on the door to Emory's cabin. "Come in," Emory called out and in walked Tethys.
"Why don't you ever tell me when you get back?" Tethys huffed, "I know you want me to operate as if you're not here even when you are, but I'd still like to know."
Emory sheepishly grinned, "I'm sorry. I got in late last night and didn't want to wake you." Then she squinted as she studied Tethys's face. "Were your eyes always that color?" she asked.
"No, they changed yesterday," Tethys gleefully replied, "Right after I finished forming my magik core!"
Emory clapped, "That's wonderful! Great job! How does it feel?"
"A little overwhelming, to be honest," Tethys answered, "To have this much magik at my disposal all the time is incredible. But that's not all; my body feels stronger as well."
"Let's take a look at your mana pool first, then we can test out your body," Emory suggested to which Tethys nodded. Emory took Tethys's hand and closed her eyes for a moment while their consciousness appeared before a lake. "This is impressive," Emory smiled as she looked out at the water, "It's not as big as Perceval's, but it's much bigger than it used to be."
Tethys added, "It's roughly four times bigger than it was before the core finished forming."
"Besides your body feeling stronger, have you noticed any other changes?" Emory questioned, "Any special gifts or powers you can't explain?"
"Not that I've noticed, but it's only been a few waking hours since it happened," Tethys shook her head. The pair blinked and returned to reality.
"We'll go see Ninian and ask her if you have a gift," Emory shrugged before motioning for Tethys to come closer, "Take a look at this and tell me if you know any of these lines of glyphs."
Tethys walked over and stared at the diagram for a moment before pointing at one of them. She raised an eyebrow, "This line here looks like a mirror of the Glyph spell except the first symbol is different. What is this spell? And why did you mention Perceval? What's going on?"
"Oh, that's right, I haven't told you yet," Emory snapped her fingers, "Let's get Cath and I can fill you both in at the same time." She grabbed the link stone in her pocket and told Cath to come to her cabin.
"I'm guessing this is something you want to keep secret from Greg?" Tethys smirked.
"Definitely," Emory nodded vigorously, "I even considered not telling Cath, But since she worked with you on developing the Void sphere, I think she can be trusted with this too."
Five minutes later, Cath knocked on the cabin door before slinking into the room. She greeted Emory, "Lady Supreme, welcome back! Did Tethys already tell you the good news?"
"She did," Emory beamed, "Thank you for helping her with this delicate task. I'm sure you both put a lot of work into training. Now, I have a secret to share with you, and I need you to keep it completely under wraps for now. Myrrh, our ally on Vostea, performed a spell that transformed Lord Perceval's vessel into a magik core. His physiology is now closer to mine than either a human, a Hexblood, or an Elandrian." Cath and Tethys's jaws dropped while their eyes grew wide.
"How is that even possible?" Cath gasped.
"Apparently, someone discovered a spell to fill in the holes, so to say, in a human's vessel and shared it with Myrrh," Emory explained, "She shared the spell formula with me, but I don't know how it works entirely. From the story I heard, she seemed to know that Perceval was already most of the way there with core formation. However, what if someone wasn't, and even if they were, are there other factors I should be aware of when casting this spell? What I'm trying to say is I need to study it a bit before I feel comfortable using it."
Tethys gulped, "I can see why you want to keep this from other people. I can imagine there are a lot of people who would dive right into live testing."
"Exactly," Emory nodded, "So keep this quiet. Until Shepherd arrives, all I plan on working on is this and improving my spheres. If you two need me for something, come and get me, but otherwise, I'd like to keep it a secret that I'm here as well."
Cath and Tethys agreed before bowing slightly and leaving the cabin. As Emory turned back to her notebook, a thought occurred to her. She hastily got up and grabbed the box the crown had been in. Faintly written around the base was a short inscription with special glyphs, ones that looked identical to the script used for the spell. The next instant, Emory closed her eyes and appeared in her mind's eye at the edge of her mana pool. She called out to Ninian and waited a few minutes for her to appear.
"Niece," Ninian laughed, "Didn't we just talk?"
Emory chuckled, "Yeah, but this is about something else. Can you read our people's ancient script?"
"I mean I know the basics that have survived this long, but largely no," Ninian raised an eyebrow, "Your dad studied it though. I'm sorry."
"That's what I figured, but I had to ask. Another dead end," Emory's shoulders slumped.
"Why do you ask?" Ninian questioned, "I can't imagine it has much significance in today's world anyway."
Emory started, "Myrrh, the being that turned Perceval into a new fire child, gave me the spell to do the same as I see fit. However, she didn't know the specifics of how the spell worked, and I don't want to use it without knowing how it works. She said she was taught the spell by 'a man like us' which in my mind had to be my father. I was just hoping you knew some of the language too, so I could decode it."
"Maybe he left behind instructions somewhere," Ninian shrugged, "Where I couldn't tell you, but he did have a planet he liked to visit. You could check it out and see if he left something there."
"Why didn't you say something sooner? Where is it?" Emory squawked. Ninian placed a finger on Emory's forehead and transmitted the location to her.
"I have to warn you; time on the planet is very weird," Ninian cautioned her, "It's near the galactic core, probably so no one would come across it accidentally. Every six hours on the planet will be a day back here."
Emory hopped to her feet and hugged Ninian, "Thank you for this! I'll talk to you later!" With that, she returned to reality and quickly packed a bag with a notebook, her gauntlets, and a variety of writing utensils. Then she changed into normal clothes and got herself ready for the adventure she hoped to have. She was just about to teleport when the link stone in her pocket started vibrating which she picked up.