When I got home today my parents sat on the couch looking apologetic like last time… that's strange. They looked up at me and said, "son we have something to tell you." Instead of speaking further, they revealed the dagger to me. It had completely changed into a radiant dagger. The golden double-edged blade sat on a silver handguard with a tightly knit cage of silver constituting the handle which connected to a golden pommel depicting an angelic being having defeated the demon, with its sword through its neck.
I pulled out my necrotic blade for comparison. It looked exactly as it did when I first got it but the pommel had changed into a statuette of a demon with an angel's neck in its jaws. As I took the radiant dagger from my parents, I asked them, "what does it do?"
"it's like the first one except when it breaks it heals you to fix itself, and if it can't heal you it makes you younger."
"ah, eternal youth if only I had a use for this."
"you may not need it now, but you might need it later."
"regardless I have some spells to cast"
rather than do work and decipher what the spells are I looked to a future where I already studied it and stole the conclusions from myself. First things first. I pulled out my spell focus and ritual cast the self-defence spell from the book. A spell called Erase Effects it seems it's a passive spell that can make it so damage never happened. I undid the disguise spell and looked into the nearest mirror as the new tattoos began forming themselves. The markings around the circle looked more like purple clouds than actual spell markings.
After a minute the regular magic circle changed and integrated itself into the more detailed look of the rest of them. Instead of a snake the red line drawn, as this spell circle, turned into a ribbon weaving itself between the two snakes straight down the middle of the road as the clouds became a misty backdrop for the fights going on, on my skin.
I now have a spell that heals me, a spell that reflects damage and a spell that makes it so that damage never happened. Interesting. I set the two daggers into specially made scabbards and attached them to my armour before casting the disguise spell again. Afterwards, I donned my dragon scale cloak and started helping my parents with the home defence preparations again. I used a space-time spell on all the doors called Permission needed it's a sort of spell that makes it so that only people invited into the house can access any doors and only the ones permitted to them.
I also cast a spell on the walls and windows so that if anyone broke in or entered in through a means that wasn't a door, they'd fall into a pocket dimension of my design, so far, it's just an infinite labyrinth with a sad homeless person I found and paid a sandwich inside to guard the door out. Inside the labyrinth, food regenerates itself when you eat it so there's no chance of starving to death in the maze. Unless they actively emaciate themselves or neglect to bring food, how terrible would that be?
I had told my parents to set up traps today in my note because it wouldn't be strange for them to still be on guard after having been attacked just the day before, we were only doing minor things like casting a few spells here and there and setting up pitfalls and such. It seems we're being watched somehow. Perhaps one of the bandits has a clairvoyance ability that lets him see what we're doing. Either way, it probably won't affect us now that I've veiled the house with a certain spell that makes spying on us through magical means impossible so unless it is an ability, they won't be able to see anything.
At dinner I checked book. "In three days the first assassin will be sent and fall into the labyrinth they won't send another until the next weekend. We'll be safe on the third day so long as all of us are in here by the time the sunsets."
"all including [best girl]?"
"yes. Luckily next week is a holiday so we might be able to spend a bit more time doing important things like learning spells to protect ourselves."
"son… you do know anti-magic fields exist right?"
"um… what about them?"
"all your self-defence spells are useless inside one"
"so… what do you want me to do?"
"take the week to do some strength training with your friends and maybe you'll be able to hold your own in a real fight with no magic"
"we may need to set up an anti-magic field just to spar or else someone who's not me might get seriously hurt."
"you could just deactivate your necrotic self-defence spell"
"never."
After dinner, I went to bed and started reading what my future had in store for me to see if any changes needed to be made. It seems she'll wear her dragon armour to school tomorrow so I best don the cape, so we match. I know she'd probably be giddy about it somehow when I tell her it was a gift from her in an alternate timeline that I kept regardless.
Though book says I should probably wait until she shows hers off to me before revealing I have one just like it. It seems unwise to not report back to the archery club advisor so I'm going to have to make time for that. Also, it seems an assassin will pose as a transfer student with the intent to either find leverage against my family or try to kill me somehow, but their motives seem to change the more I look at them it's as if they're specifically put into my life to mess with my ability to see into the future.
Well, most I can do is forge a path and head down it in the best way I can. I look towards the second assassination attempt to see what will happen. It seems they will bring armours that specifically negate magic. So, I'll need something to counter that… luckily my parents are well versed in hand-to-hand combat so as long as I have them take care of it, it should be fine.
The next morning, I told my parents about the future I predicted over breakfast. "see, you'll have to learn hand-to-hand combat eventually"
"There is a space-time spell that can attack someone in a way that scrambles their insides. You know. Since it bypasses the armour entirely it's possible for me to twist parts of their bones in ways they shouldn't go or just whisk their brains or hearts."
"you've become more morbid since learning necromancy magic"
"I just didn't realize the possibilities of this magic until I began studying it," I said as I held the space-time grimoire transcript leisurely. "There are many hidden spells in the descriptions of these spells it's almost as if the reason space-time magic is so convoluted was less to keep the spells secret and more to confuse the casters into making the spells go wild by randomly throwing in formulas for different spells entirely."
"so, it's dense and full of tangents?"
"exactly"
"wouldn't that just make it really difficult to understand"
"for a beginner maybe. But it's plain to see only parts of the spell descriptions are necessary, and the rest is completely worthless to the spell it says it's for, so it makes sense that the spell would be hidden. The only problem is it's difficult to see which parts correspond because there are so many hidden spells as opposed to most grimoires that have one or two. Also, hidden spells have a tendency to go unnamed so it's difficult to know the effects without either casting it or being very familiar with the magic used."
"so, it's impossible to master without mastering it first"
"yes"
"well, this is all very confusing"
"it's meant to be."
After making my case of not wanting to do physical labour when I already devoted most of my time and energy growing up to learning magic, I went to school. That morning I was expecting to see the assassin transfer into my class but after checking book it seems that's not meant for today. It seems they had only put forth the intention to transfer an assassin here to throw me off, but how did they figure out intentions can change the direction of the future I see?
Perhaps they didn't. I decided not to react to the lack of a transfer student and merely sat as contemplative as I usually do and slept through the classes I usually did, I made no effort to show anything had changed from my usual demeanour which isn't very difficult considering I don't do much of anything in class anyway.
During one class today I had to give an oral report and so I had to stand before the class and speak. Though I noticed a presence not familiar to this school I ignored it and went along with my presentation before sitting back down and noticing a note on my desk.
'we know you know' is what it said, I knew that before I even sat down to read it. It was written in book and I read it on my way back to my seat. When I sat down, I read the note and dismissed it just as I normally would when one of my friends would do such a thing to mess with me. So, I wrote a similar note and left it on one of my friend's desks as a clever ruse to make them think I think it's a prank.
'I'm living in your walls' my note said. Book says someone picked it up and read it after I left, and it wasn't my friend. It seems like they've given up for now, but I can never be too sure. During lunch today my food was poisoned by truth-telling serum and someone in a school uniform I didn't recognize walked up to me and said, "how much do you know?"
"that's a complicated question. Are you asking me about my childhood? My magic studies? My hopes and dreams? All these questions and more could be answered over dinner." This person whose gender I couldn't tell at a glance suddenly became flustered and walked away.