Lucas was lying on the ground, looking at himself he looked like a mess. The pain was gone, but his body hadn't healed fully yet. Even with reaching Rank 1, it seems the physical body doesn't miraculously regenerate as he had hoped.
Luckily Freya was there to heal him during his crisis, or he wouldn't be able to see the light of day again.
Lucas started to snicker before it turned into genuine laughter. "Hahaha, I did it! I'm alive!", his joy was overflowing, not only had he reached Rank 1, he was happier about the fact that he survived that disastrous poison. His skin was still dried up like a farmer's land during a drought, but that wouldn't require that much work to fix up.
Freya was sleeping next to him, although sleeping was maybe the wrong word to use. She was overexerting herself to heal Lucas as best as she could, falling unconscious due to magic depravation.
'So, do you have anything to say?'
'Hmm? I don't know what you're talking about.'
'Didn't you want to kill her and absorb all the energy she had stored?'
'Yeah and?'
'We wouldn't be having this conversation if we did do that.'
'So what, aren't I allowed to make any mistakes? How many have you made huh? Don't criticize me!'
'I'm just saying to think twice, no thrice, as many times as you can. Only then can we make decisions.'
Lucas started the healing process of his body. With his magic improved to the next level, it didn't require a lot of work even though he only had lower-leveled runes.
'Once we reach a town, we need to scavenge a library or two.'
'Or just go to school and gain information in the least conspicuous way.'
'That's boring though.'
Not long after he was finished healing his body, he couldn't wait to test out how strong he had become. He now had the power that Venion had, although unrefined.
'Venion said that a mage is strong in multiple ways, not only magic, but also tools, knowledge and experience.'
'We lack all of them...great'
Using the beginner runes of fire he created a simple fireball. normally this would be enough to make a tree catch fire, but that's it.
"I̸͕͐̑̀g̴̰̤̉̏n̵̡̤͚͎̎͠i̶̹̹̜̒̇̓͐̉", the speed of which the fireball was created was increased. The fireball looked a tiny bit bigger than a normal one, making Lucas disappointed at first. The moment it made contact with one of the nearby trees it exploded into an explosion of flames.
BOOM
'What the hell did you do?'
'That was a simple fireball, nothing else, you know that .'
'This doesn't make any sense, Venion didn't have such power in his attacks, or we would be dead in the ground!'
'I..I don't know!'
The explosion woke up everything in the area, birds flew away while the animals were starting to hide. Only one woke up with glee to see her friend standing with a strong posture and a serious look.
"Conrad! You're alive!", Freya's smile was dazzling. She had poured most of her energy into Lucas over and over again in order to heal him as fast as possible. She did make sure not to strain her core to the point of breaking.
"Thank you Freya, thank you.", they reached for each other's embrace, Freya was crying again from the past events, awakening and almost losing your only support was a strange and annoying combination. Lucas on the other hand felt something different, with reaching Rank 1 his mental capabilities were improved to a higher standard. His thoughts became a lot more complex and he simply didn't feel the need to start crying.
'You're not going to cry? Or comment on how she's using a fake name? No? No sympathy?'
'What would that accomplish? Also, right now we're Conrad, the moment it becomes necessary, we'll be Lucas again.'
Yes, the event could've killed him, but it didn't, so is there any use crying over spilled milk?
'Only pain from the heart can make us cry, emotions can make us confused.'
'Then lock them away.'
But Lucas quickly threw away that idea, feeling completely apathetic didn't feel good in the past, then nothing would feel good or bad, so what would be the point in living?
'We need emotions, but we have to be in complete control of them.', with that his thoughts continued while holding Freya in his arms. Totally ignoring the crying princess, he was too busy with looking at the future.
She was finally a mage, a full-fledged one, runes and magic weren't the stuff of legends anymore, she could finally come into contact with it. Being in her hands reach, all because of Lucas and his stupid idea. To her Lucas was more than a simple traveling companion, he was a friend, maybe even more than that, he was the man that made her dreams come true, almost at the cost of his own life.
The hug was primarily silent with the sniffling of both parties mixed between the laughs of adrenaline. Lucas was faking his sniffles, making his first attempt at manipulating emotion, he did feel that crying was possible but he simply held it back. If he wanted to be in complete control of himself he would need to be capable of tearing up when necessary. So starting now would only hasten his work.
Lucas was the one that broke the embrace this time, "Thank you, Freya, truly, you saved my life.", his smile was genuine this time. Even with the nasty feeling in the back of his mind, he had still achieved what he had wanted for a long time.
"No, thank you, you made me into a mage, my core awakened even though the doctors said there was nothing that could be done. Also, promise me you'll never do something that stupid again.", she turned her smile into a look of an angry mother who only wanted the best for her children. "Haha, sure, I'll try to not make any plans that involve my life in the equation.", he said half-heartily, but Freya was being serious. Her feelings were all over the place, but for now, she just wanted to stop and rest.
"Conrad, can't we take a break from traveling? I want to rest for some time. Were both mages now, we'll live longer than normal humans anyway, we can afford to live for a bit."
"Wait, we live longer than normal humans? That's the first I've ever heard of that.", his expressions seemed a bit more extreme than normal, trying to forcefully make certain expressions could make them seem a lot more exaggerated.
"What, didn't anyone tell you? If you're awakened it increases your lifespan for about twenty years, Rank 1 mages live even longer than that, the higher the rank the longer the lifespan. It's as simple as that."
'So when Venion said that we would only have to work for him half a century, he was basically asking me to voluntarily enslave myself for the rest of my life.'
'What did you expect from him? You're the same.'
"I don't think it's that simple, but sure, we can take a break, I think my body needs some rest as well.", they hugged each other another time just to feel the soothing warmth before setting up camp. While he did say that, he simply wanted to experiment a bit and know his strength before encountering anything dangerous.
They didn't worry about anything, simply camping in the forest with makeshift tents and a campfire was enjoyable. Lucas still had some worries, but he simply pushed them to the back of his mind.
The night passed and Lucas woke up, only to see that Freya had disappeared, probably going to wash herself up. Normally he would start his training or circulate his core, but the moment he did, nothing happened. He had circulated his core thousands of times, yet now, nothing happened.
'What going on? Why is the circulation useless?'
'How am I supposed to know? Probably because the circulation was for forcing the runes of the first circle, not the second. If the runes of the second circle started to form on a Rank 0 core, it would most likely explode.'
'Fantastic, so we need to find not only higher leveled runes, spells and items, but also new circulation methods.'
'Hey sarcasm is my job, don't do things above your station.'
Lucas walked into the woods, in a random direction, keeping track of where he came from. The sounds of the forest were relaxing, he wouldn't mind staying here for some time. The sound of splashing water reached his ears, intrigued by the sound he sought the source, coming across a small river with transparent water. It was filled with smooth rocks and pebbles, the water looked drinkable enough, and little fish were seen darting through it. Even some salmon trying to fight the stream, going in the opposite direction of the flow.
In the middle of the river stood a woman, completely naked from head to toe, she was facing the other way, so Lucas could only see the back, but that was already quite a sight to behold.
'Ow shit', he quickly realized who it was his eyes were ogling, he didn't have any experience with anything sexual, but he still had basic instincts. Hiding behind a tree and holding his breath didn't do much.
"I already know that you're there Conrad, no need to hide.", Lucas was surprised by the second part of her sentence, he didn't know how to approach these things. Neither did Freya, she had been locked up in a room for most of her life, although she was going through puberty, she also didn't have any knowledge about the subject, only hearsay.
Her voice was shaky and she clearly didn't have the most confidence, "I-I don't mind if it's you.", she said quietly. Her hopes were dashed when she sensed that Lucas was running toward their campsite, it seems he didn't want to risk anything.
Some time passed before she reached the camp, this time dressed in full clothing and with her hair stylized in her typical water flow. "Hey.."
"H-Hey welcome back.", Lucas voice cracked a bit in the beginning before he forced it down to a deeper voice. "How are you feeling? Your skin looks good, almost fully healed."
Inspecting his own hands and arms he saw that some of the cracks were still left, his body was recovering. The healing he did took care of most of the problems, but it seemed that certain problems couldn't be fixed by low-level runes, even if they were strengthened.
"Yeah, it's a lot better than yesterday, I did want to ask, how were you capable of using magic so quickly, when I awakened I couldn't use any magic."
"Did you forget? I was taught to become a Rank 4 mage, and I don't know most of the runes, but I have the first level written down, so I can always look back at them. You looked poisoned so I searched for the simplest runes that could help against that. How were you even poisoned though?"
Lucas didn't know if he should explain what he had found in the ball of energy he absorbed. "Before I answer your question I want to ask a final question. How much stronger do spells become when you reach the next rank?"
"Hmm, in theory it should increase the power by a fourth or fifth. Depending on the runes of course."
'Then we aren't normal.'
'You figured that out only now?'