Chapter 26: Into the Breach
"Alright, alright! She's out!"
Seeing Claire lifted by the pale-blue hand to the wellhead, Arthur quickly reached out to gather her in his arms.
"She's freezing!" The moment he pulled Claire into his arms, Arthur knew something was desperately wrong. Her eyes were tightly shut, and her entire body was as cold as ice; only her swollen belly offered any slight warmth. She was unrecognizable from the capable, no-nonsense village woman he had known days ago.
With a quick rip, Arthur tore off his cloak, turning to Adda: "Do me a favor. Get her wet clothes off and wrap her in this."
Adda murmured, "Oh," and squatted down to start working, muttering under her breath: "I helped you out, so you have to take me along next time you kill someone! I'm a princess, you know!"
Had the girl's curse truly been lifted? Why was her head still full of violence and killing…
"Thank you. I wouldn't have gotten her out this easily on my own." Triss sat on the well's edge, dabbing sweat from her brow with a small, exquisite handkerchief. Hearing Arthur's thanks, she offered a bright smile: "Why be so formal? If you can save someone, why can't I? Or has your Witcher master been poisoning your ear with more nasty rumors about Sorceresses?"
Arthur shook his head. Kolgrim rarely spoke about mages, but Arthur knew his master disliked Sorcerers from the very first day they met.
"Speaking of which, I didn't realize your Lux spell was already so good."
"Really? I feel like that thing is much harder than the Signs. I've been practicing for so long and have only barely managed to master it."
Arthur didn't feel he was learning quickly at all. He'd been practicing for a day and still hadn't seen the prompt: [XX Magic Proficiency has been upgraded to Apprentice Level]. My Golden Finger is clearly flawed, he thought. It runs at full power for weapon training, starts slacking off when I learn alchemy, and for magic, it's completely absent. Is it true that Northern brutes only care about things they can lift and smash heads with, and have no interest in magic?
Hearing Arthur equate Signs with mere cantrips, Triss covered her mouth and chuckled: "A cantrip, no matter how basic, is still a complete spell. As for the Signs…" She extended a hand and waved it back and forth at Arthur, a wave of fragrant air washing over him: "The magical principle behind the Signs is much like what I'm doing right now. Do you understand?"
Arthur nodded. If a cantrip was a steam engine, then a Sign was, at most, the whistle on a kettle signaling that the water had boiled. Though the principle was similar, the level of application was entirely different.
He wanted to ask more about magic, but behind him, Adda screamed: "Arthur! She's fading fast!"
Both quickly turned. Claire's brow was tightly furrowed, her face flushed with an unnatural tide of color, and she was groaning in pain.
"It's premature labor!" After a quick examination, Triss said hurriedly: "I know how to deliver a baby, but not here! The wind in this season will kill her!"
Arthur anxiously looked around. This desolate village was nothing but ruins and dead trees; there was absolutely nowhere to take shelter from the wind.
"Take her to White Orchard?" he asked anxiously.
"No time! The jolting will kill her!"
"A portal?"
"Do you want her to give birth to a mutant?" Triss pulled a small notebook from her tunic and handed it to Arthur: "Take this. It's my magic notebook from my school days! You cast the Barrier Spell inside. I need to save my strength for other spells."
"I can't!" Arthur flipped through it and quickly found the spell. As he read it carefully, his heart sank halfway to his boots.
The notes related to the spell took up five and a half pages. Four pages were devoted to casting essentials and prototype analysis. The remaining page and a half was a summary of lessons learned; in the Sorceress's elegant handwriting, it was clearly recorded that she had attempted the spell over a hundred times and spent a full half-week just to master it!
This was a Royal Advisor-level Sorceress, and it took her half a week! How was he, a Northern man without the aid of a Golden Finger, supposed to learn it?
"You took half a week! How can I possibly cast it now?!" Arthur was panicking.
Triss, hands glowing, yelled back without ceremony: "Then learn it now! If you don't, she and the baby will die! [Temerian expletive] She's your friend, not mine!"
"Bloody hell! Bloody hell! Bloody hell!" Hearing Claire's screams grow louder and more agonizing, Arthur burst out with a stream of curses and forced himself to look at the writing in the small notebook.
This spell was hard.
Or rather, it was the hardest piece of magic he had encountered so far.
It not only required an amount of raw magical power that needed to be actively summoned, but it also demanded subtle adjustments to the incantation and the spell's magical template based on the surrounding environment…
For a novice who only knew Signs and cantrips, this learning task was more ridiculous than asking someone who had just mastered arithmetic to derive the Fourier Transform!
Arthur slammed the book shut, his face grim. He raised his arm and began to summon the magical power within his body.
Buzz!
The barrier appeared for only a fleeting instant before vanishing, too quick even to register a color.
"Control the flow of the magic conduit! Again!" Triss shouted.
The second time, the barrier stabilized, but only as a single surface, like a screen standing bare on the ground.
"The spell template isn't aligned properly! Again!" Triss immediately spotted the problem.
…
After an unknown number of failures, Arthur looked up, his face covered in large beads of sweat:
"I'm out of magical power!"
"Then draw from the well! The first page of the notebook describes how to extract magical power from a water source!" Triss was no longer elegant; she sounded like a frantic client pressing a deadline.
Arthur didn't dare delay. He lunged toward the well, held his arm out flat, and began drawing power according to the method in the manual.
Snap! A small patch on the back of his hand exploded, and crimson blood dripped into the well.
"You idiot! Drawing so much at once! Are you trying to burst yourself?!" Triss uttered a rare profanity. Adda squatted nearby, shrinking her neck, afraid to make a sound.
But this time, the barrier was finally successfully cast. Centered on Triss and Claire, it formed a warm, enclosed space. On the pale-blue barrier, a line of text reluctantly floated into view:
[Your Mutation Magic Proficiency has been upgraded. Current Level: Apprentice]
[When casting basic Mutation Spells, you no longer need to expend mental effort focusing on the spell's magical structure.]
Arthur thought he could finally rest after successfully casting the barrier, but before he could sit down, Triss called out again:
"Do you have any extra magical power? Give me some."
"Yes. How do I give it to you?"
"Focus the magical power into your fingertip. I'll draw it myself." Triss said wearily. The glow in her hands hadn't diminished since she started the delivery.
Arthur was exhausted and didn't register anything unusual in her request. He began to gather his magical power.
It wasn't until his fingertip was enveloped in a warm and soft sensation that Arthur suddenly jolted. The Sorceress's rosy lips were clamped around his finger, her eyes weary but laced with hunger.
Yet, Arthur, the person being 'fed' from, felt no romantic stirring at all.
He felt as though his fingertip had become a black hole. All the magical power in his body surged out violently, completely draining him in short order.
Triss released Arthur, smacking her lips with lingering satisfaction: "That should be enough, but just in case, you had better draw a little more remember to do it slower this time. Your affinity for magic is very high."
"He's out! It's a boy!"
.......
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