For the next 40 years, Meteia showcased a great progress on her healing capability to the point that even Lothair were scared of her existence. And before he knew it, his little ball of cinnabar had evolved into a gleaming and powerful individual.
She was given the cape of Headless Ichthys, officially becoming the hidden member that was unknown to her early three seniors. Of course, all information about the Headless Ichthys were already ingrained within Meteia's head, but she was heavily restricted to interact with her seniors unless critically necessary.
"If I'm to be honest with my own opinion, there won't be a day where I'll be needing my seniors' help." She bowed down her tall stature, letting her master's palm to be placed on top of her head. "My light has only been you and you alone. My torch is none, and my heart won't waver. Shall I pave a tunnel across the sea, all of it will only carry the will and honor of your name."
Lothair lightly snickered, "Won't it be more efficient if you're able to access some favors from your other siblings?"
Strong hues of green were placed on top of Meteia's head. After a short grin, Lothair placed a wreath of flowers on top of his graduating apprentice. With pride and confidence, Meteia stood unclouded. And her gaze was filled with zeal and reverence to his one and only master, guardian, and parent.
"I'll just pray that it won't come to that."
"I thought my little Meteia strive for efficiency."
"Mmmm, this is this, and that's that."
The shade of morning fell upon these two like a spotlight. They were in the presence of morning dew and morning critter, morning grasses and its taste of bitter, flowing sail of prism light, more raring than the stream of river.
Both of them exuded a state of enlightenment for two completely different reasons.
The acknowledgement of pain and loneliness that Meteia must endure now that he won't be able to meet with his master again.
And how little of time Lothair was able to give for Meteia now that there were no tales and stories to tell to her anymore.
Of course, Lothair could still let their comforting relationship the way it was, but Lothair was afraid that his countless loose ends would come back to him while they were still together.
"So how is it? Have you settled on a plan for your future?"
"Don't worry about it, Master. I already have."
"Oya, pray tell?"
Meteia winked with a hint of maturity. "It's a secret though."
Lothair didn't expect that taking an apprentice would leave him with such a big emotional baggage now that he must persevere on watching his slowly apprentice disappear into the distance.
That was back then.
Time went by really fast. Now, Meteia was right in front of him, commanding an army of zealous followers with the arc of her blood splatter.
"You know what, Master? I really want to pick up my old man by the armpits and give him a good hug," spoken Meteia over a telepathy channel she cast, "Can't do that now, obviously."
Her followers could be seen zipping around the battlefield through the miniature wormholes they cast. The sight of such high spells being thrown around like low level fireballs gave Lothair a scare.
"That yesterday-brat has become daring, huh?" Lothair chuckled, still couldn't put his fingers on what in the actual thermosphere was happening in this battlefield. "It might be rude of me to assume, but did I just see everyone casting a healing spell?? And to be able to Overheal the fabric of space, while also using them non-frugally across the battlefield???"
"Can I get that hug later then?" Meteia smirked with a hint of boastfulness as she led her army of freaks right beside her master.
"Yeah, sure, you can hug me however you want. Ahaha…"
To think that Meteia was able to achieve this sort of feat within just a couple of hundred of years, made Lothair contemplate about his own progress and existence.
Space-oriented Overheal was something that Lothair had thought for the longest of time but just wasn't able to pull it off without breaking the layered continuum and creating an unrepairable disaster.
After all, what he had an advantage of was in his Ayin reservoir, and not the resources, tools, and demonpower to research upon his hypothesis. In Meteia's case, she basically had a whole organization going with a focused healing-spell research department.
Not to mention, the compatibility that Meteia had over the Overheal technique was above Lothair in terms of sanity-tolerance and control.
With such a realization, Lothair began to wonder why he was even trying at this point? While he already knew the reality that life would be unfair to trode, he still hoped that his healing spell—the one and only thing he possessed—would be special only to him with how trash he was at every type of spell affinities.
Now that it looked like it wasn't the case, his pride sunk deep into the abyssal trench, waiting till the murmur ends to die alongside the emptiness.
Of course, he still technically did estimated that this would be the outcome. Just, not this degrees of overwhelming superiority.
Alas, he wanted to curse those who were talented, but it would merely be a meaningless plea into the void.
"Uhm, Master, are you sulking?" Meteia voiced her concern within the telepathy channel after he noticed that her Master beside her was unmoving and was as stiff as stone.
With his head leaning to his left shoulder, Lothair had this 'I can't do this anymore' kind of defeated smile ingrained in his pale face.
"Meteia, I'm giving all of my legacy to you. I want to retire after this."
"Eeeeeh???"