Chapter 423: The Magus (Bonus PS)

I expected Dorrik to say more, but he just turned around and entered the mountain, and I was a bit stunned to see the nine soldiers turn around and begin sorting their affairs after they all gave a long, deep bow.

Perhaps it was due to my growing power, every madness I had seen, and the loop that made me not reverent to a god, but clearly, these soldiers here were grateful for the chance to be able to break camp in front of this mountain.

It helped that from the beginning, Dorrik had not held himself with any arrogant air, and I was able to quickly become comfortable in his company, which I know was not an easy thing to do, knowing how much the gods had been vilified in my time.

I watched these soldiers move a bit away from the mountain, and they began to work. I was filled with curiosity, but first I wanted to know what Dorrik was doing, and so I entered the mountain.

I saw Dorrik at his forge with both of his hands inside the flame. He was working with a deep frown on his stone face, and now and then faint arcane words emerged from him, and they were coming from his chest, not his mouth.

Knowing that this may be a bad time to distract this god, I turned around and left his hall... it was time I talked with these soldiers and understood the war they were fighting.

Dorrik was a god, and his perspective on matters could not be the same as the mortals on the ground, whose lives were always considered insignificant in the greater schemes of things, and that was the side of the story I wanted to see.

∞

I emerged from the mountain and did not go straight to the soldiers, and I just watched them. In the short time that I had left, these people had dug into the ground and found water, as the dwarf was hauling up a bucket of it from the ground.

My eyes widened a bit in fascination. With my sight and senses, I had glimpsed water at the spot they were making camp a while ago, but I barely noted it; unconsciously, I did not see the importance of this knowledge and just brushed it aside, but for these soldiers, knowledge like this was more important than gold, and when they were searching for a camp, this was what they had considered.

If I had not disregarded these simple insights that I gained by the privilege of my power, then I would have been able to predict where these soldiers would camp even before they did.

I paused as I thought about this new understanding of my power, and I recognized that this was where my weakness lay. I had too much power, but not enough experience to apply it. I was a Magus, a scholar of the truth, and a repository of knowledge... this was my path forward.

[Soul State: Crystallizing (Second Stage) — 33% → 45%]

I closed my eyes and allowed this new state of my soul to settle into my consciousness, and for a moment, it was as though I truly pushed against the seal over my soul; I might be able to budge it.

The second-stage crystallization of my soul had not changed since my fifth Earth Gate, and I once believed it would only change when I opened the sixth Earth Gate, but I was wrong... understanding more about the core of who I really was could change this.

I smiled and opened my eyes, not expecting this change from just observing these soldiers. Looking away from the dwarf hauling water from the ground, I observed the troll, who was down on his knees in front of a collapsed horse, working the muscle along its neck with the one arm he had left.

From his motions, I could discern that this must be a healer, and I found it fascinating that this nine-foot giant that would have given me nightmares as a child turned out to be a healer.

I watched the horse slowly recover, and with my sight, I could see the fatigue and trauma inside the animal slowly vanish, as if it was being drawn away. I stared deeply at the troll, and I knew that I wanted to talk to him... I lacked the means of healing, and watching the actions of this troll, I wanted to learn from him.

This is what it means to be a Magus... learning from all things.

Assisting the troll were the two humans, the young man and the girl, who were cleaning wounds on the bodies of the horses and calming them down before bringing the horses to the troll.

I stared at these two for a while before looking at the shades and the others who were making a fire and sorting out meals for their mounts and themselves. I began to slowly walk towards them. The Beastkin had said there were thirty thousand of them a month before, and I could understand what it meant to be one of the last few standing when everyone around you was gone.

∞

The dwarf saw me at about a hundred paces and said a word to the others, and they all went down on one knee, except the Beastkin who came round the fire and bowed his head to me and stayed standing, and the tiger got up off the ground behind him with a low noise in its throat that sounded like fear.

I saw the Beastkin glance at the tiger before he turned towards me, his bow becoming a bit deeper, and I wondered if the tiger was able to sense the presence of my Heaven Beast Tamer Title, and the presence of the Moon Fox in my soul... animals were always more intuitive than we gave them credit for.

Oh well, there goes my plan of being low-key. I wanted to talk with these soldiers as a peer, so they would not be guarded against me, but without access to a spell like Lightning Edict that would have covered my true form, even wearing robes that did not fit me, there was nothing of my presence that was normal.

Adamantium Titan had given my body the sort of physicality a warrior who spent their whole life training would envy, coupled with my height and my long white hair... even the blind would be able to detect how different I was.

I sighed as I watched them for a second before saying, "Get up. All of you, please. I am a guest here, just like you all."

The Beastkin hesitated, and nodded. "As you say."

Not one of them moved, and the wind came across the flat, and except for the soft sounds from the horses, it was as if the world had gone still.

I sighed again. "My name is Elric, and this is not how guests are welcomed in the place where I come from."

The Beastkin slowly turned around and gestured to his people. They stood up and continued their task, and I nodded at him.

The Beastkin looked behind me, and I saw something go out of his face; perhaps he had been hoping that Dorrik had come with me.