Records of Rebirth

Chapter 169 - Secrets Of The Core

I went close to the wall to examine the cut made by the dark blade. It had looked as thin as a hair, but the slit in the wall was about a foot thick and spanning across three meters wide. 

And when I peered into the wall, I was astonished to see it went in much deeper than what appeared on the surface.

Although it disappeared into the wall, the outline of its shape continued until I couldn't see it anymore, essentially creating a foot wide tunnel in the shape of an arc. 

The inside of the curve was extremely smooth to the touch and I wished I could regain my smaller form just so I could crawl inside it to see how far it went.

It gave me the impression the dark blade would continue sailing on for miles, at least until the magic it contained fizzled out.

It had to, considering how much of my mana Sensei had used to create it.

I looked at my status menu, at my MP bar  that had gone from [397] down to a mere [100] points, and I was shocked!

For the first time in a long while, I felt utterly exhausted, and I plopped down into a coil against the wall of the plateau to recover my magic and gather my thoughts. 

Darkness Manipulation, eh?

Well…that was an unexpected gain.

It was a different kind of magic from [Shadow Magic] and unexpected because it was due to Sensei that I gained it. 

He was mostly unhelpful, but he'd done something good for once. However, this new revelation made me question a lot of things I believed about my existence.

Sensei could use magic…no, he could use MY magic. 

It was startling to realise he could do this and I had to admit, I never saw it coming.

I expected him to maybe use his own magic, I mean, he had such a great, big core. It wasn't there for decoration, was it? 

But no. He did not use his core at all. 

My MP was drained by three-fourths, and I began to think long and hard to re-examine everything I thought I knew so far.

It didn't feel as though I was under some weird hijacking spell, it felt completely natural. No different from when I used my magic myself. 

I could sense the energy shifting all around me, pulling and shaping my shadows to form the condensed version, the only difference was that none of the control for the process had been mine.

It sent my thoughts reeling from curiosity all the way down to fright.

How was that possible?

I couldn't begin to fathom just what he had done, or how?

There was also less resistance, compared to when I used it, like my magic was simply bending to a more experienced hand.

But it was still me in the end!

Well…my body I guess.

It also made sense because we shared the same body, so my magic wouldn't be foreign to him, but this made me even more mad.

There shouldn't have been any difference at all!

And I felt like I was stuck in hard mode while he was on easy.

If he could do this, didn't that mean he could use all of my skills…and even better than me?

I was secretly fuming, but I put my frustrations aside and acted like I wasn't bothered by any of it.

"Can you do it again?" I asked Sensei. "The same size as the last one."

«If it's that large, you'll run out of MP.» Sensei replied.

That was exactly why I wanted him to do it. If he was still able to create the dark sphere even after I ran out of Mana, it would prove he wasn't solely using my magic but some of his too. 

And maybe that way, I could justify my ego and wouldn't feel so bad about the situation.

"If it's too small to see, how can I recreate it?" I replied sharply.

However Sensei refused. «Running out of MP here is too much of a risk. It will put you in danger. I'd rather you wait for it to recover first before I make another demonstration. It's too much for your mana to take at this point.» 

Hah! Since when was he so concerned about my well-being?

But he refused to budge no matter how much I argued, and I had no choice but to wait patiently for my MP to recover. But even then, he refused to create the dark blade again, seemingly anxious about pushing my meagre MP too far.

Was the first one so big because he overestimated my capacity, or was it a sign that he had even less control over it than I thought?

Eventually, we came to a compromise though. 

He would show me very tiny versions of the dark blade that wouldn't deplete my MP as much, and then I would try to recreate it.

He gathered the shadows once again and compressed them to the size of beads. The dark blades created from these were so small I could barely see them at all. 

The slices they created in the wall were less than a quarter the size of the previous one, however, the damage was still just as potent, and my MP didn't fall as drastically as before either.

But something good came out of it still. My [Darkness Manipulation] went up by a level and the [Shadow Magic] and [Shadow Manipulation] by three. 

While this was great, I couldn't help wondering how long Sensei had been able to use my magic without telling me.

I always wondered what effect his core being present in my body had on me, and now I was starting to get an idea. It was basically like a doorway to access all my magic, perhaps even my mind and body!

Was nothing sacred anymore?

My head spun with all sorts of uncomfortable, scary thoughts.

If he were to destroy my core and leave only his own, would it be possible to possess me? And would I cease to exist then?

«Stop overthinking.» Sensei grumbled dispassionately. «This is why I never wanted to tell you. I can feel your dread even if I don't want to.»

This bas****!

So he knew exactly how suspicious it would look!

"If you don't want me to feel dreadful, and overthink before coming to the worst conclusion, it's best if you tell me what else you can do."

The tiny glimpse I got was scary enough, but I preferred that over being ignorant of it all. 

While Sensei wasn't the easiest to get along with, I thought we'd built a level of trust so far. And if he wanted to keep that trust alive, he better come clean about everything. 

«I mentioned already that your levels and skill points are directly linked to mine.» Sensei began to explain. «As long as you get stronger, so do I, but it won't be anything like what you're thinking. I have no intention of taking control of your body, or your skills.»

"I wasn't thinking that." I snapped. 

Sensei sighed. «I thought we agreed to be truthful.»

I brushed it off and continued. "And the store, how is it involved?"

I had a feeling the XP points I spent there had something to do with this too. Wasn't this the reason he always wanted me to hunt alone, so I wouldn't have to share any of the XP for my kills. It was only until the scary wasp that I realised such a thing was possible.

«The store is merely a tool.» Sensei replied.

"Yet you control this tool and by extension the skills I get from it." I shot back.

«That's correct.»

"What?" How could he agree so casually?

«It's only right, seeing as it came from me. Aren't you being unreasonable?»

Haaah!

"So you can use my magic, you can restrict my skills – what's next, aside from taking over me completely?"

Sensei sighed in exasperation. «There's no need for me to go to such extreme lengths though, because there's seven more of me in existence.»

I gasped in shock, not because he finally admitted to being a leech, but because he was essentially saying I wasn't special! 

This rude bas****! How dare he?

Sensei immediately tried to backtrack after seeing my reaction. «That was not what I meant to say. I'm simply stating it doesn't benefit me in any way to do so, so stop that line of thought. If you hate me using your magic so much, then I won't use it again.»

"It's a bit too late for that!" I scoffed.

I was partially traumatised already for him to act like nothing had happened!

«You asked me to show you and I did. Why are you questioning everything now?» 

Why was he trying to act like it was my fault? He was the one who hid things!

"I never thought it would feel like that!"

«Like what?»

It was like I could be controlled by anyone anytime and I hated that feeling. I couldn't find the exact word to describe my feeling so I spat out the closest word to match.

"So violated!"

Now it was Sensei's turn to reel back in shock. «What nonsense? Using your magic makes you feel violated? It was nothing like that – and you asked!»

"Yes it does! Because it's mine and not yours!"

Maybe I had used the wrong word, but I was not in the mood to feel sorry for him so I repeated that I was hurt. It wasn't so far off from what I felt either and it made me feel better knowing he felt guilty. 

And while Sensei struggled to find a response, I felt tremors coming from Typhon's direction. 

I scanned the ground around him with [Heat Sense] and detected the traces of about twenty dark worms squirming through the rocky ground. But as soon as any resurfaced they were swiftly dispatched.

He had collapsed much of the ground around him and there were hordes of worms impaled on rocky spikes in true chaotic fashion. Some were crushed under the weight of falling rocks while others seemed to have suffered poison damage, yet they continuously kept coming to attack.

Surely they should have stopped attacking by now since he killed so many already, and I could only imagine they were drawn to him by the noise.

The dark fae was mostly okay, although all she did was cry and flee. And it did help that the dark worms were pretty stupid.

No matter how many times they saw their peers get destroyed by running into her dark spheres, they still repeated the same mistake in their eagerness to catch her.

Her dark spheres were very similar to the dark blade Sensei had created and now I was curious to learn it, after seeing the two examples of how it could be used.

However when I asked Sensei to show me the blade again, he flat out refused.