Staring at the true mage that had just spoken, Serryl, Jake almost laughed out for no reason at all.
"You want my magic. Magic mimicry." Jake said, holding back his laughter. He was currently behaving like a deranged individual but it did not seem to faze any of the true mages. "I don't get a say in this, do I?"
"I'm sorry but you do not." Serryl replied with nothing but an iota of empathy in her voice.
"We need to decide the first step we shall use in getting the magic out of him." Mithral said firmly. "Rheya," he said to the true mage behind the others, "watch him. If he moves, make him know what it feels like to almost die."
"Understood." Rheya said, walking forward as the other true mages began apparating out of the building.
Now that the others had left, it was just Jake and Rheya in the building and the atmosphere was starting to get uncomfortable for Jake due to how silent the place was.
"Why do you guys want my magic anyways?" Jake asked. "From what I've seen you guys don't have specific magical abilities. You just cast spells and stuff so how would my magic be useful to you guys?"
"I don't have to explain myself or our intentions to you." Rheya replied with a voice that was absolute.
"Humour me." Jake said with his most polite smile on his face.
After a short while of contemplation, Rheya decided. "Why not?" she said. "But you will also answer a question of mine."
"Sure. Anything." Jake replied without a moment of thought. 'What have I got to lose at this point?'
"Magic mimicry is not strictly for mimicking magical abilities and elements. It can mimic any type of magic, including ours. Similar to what you said, our magic isn't like the one you know. We have actual magic. What some might call sorcery."
"So you guys don't use only one element or ability?" Jake asked.
"We don't. We use everything." Rheya answered then opened her palms. Muttering something Jake couldn't grasp the meaning of, fire appeared in her palms and was burning brightly. "Fire." Still muttering, the fire slowly changed into water. "Water."
The earth they were on began to quake slightly and the building suddenly became overwhelmingly windy.
"The four major elements." Jake said after everything had stopped.
"Yes." Rheya concurred. "Magic mimicry is capable of mimicking our magic as well and when coupled with the raw strength of a magical element or a powerful magical ability..."
"It's gonna be insane." Jake finished her statement with a look of awe on his face. 'I guess I never really did take the time to process just how strong my magic was.'
"It is not your magic." Rheya said. "Magic mimicry has always belonged to the true mages. It's been lost in our race for centuries now and we've been searching for it ever since. When our primogenitor who possessed magic mimicry died, her magic was extracted from her body and it was kept safely to honor our history."
"But just like any other precious artifact, one of our own attempted to steal it and claim it as his. In the process of regaining possession of it, a civil war happened. Two sides— one that supported that we use the magic and another that supported that we continue to honor our history."
"It was a day of ruin for us and the magic, at the end, was lost. Its whereabouts unknown until we discovered your galaxy and detected the presence of magic mimicry, leading us to this day and to you."
Jake had calmly been listening and paying attention because Rheya's explanation was something that had really piqued his interest and was something he thought he needed to know.
After listening to every single word Rheya said and the soft tone she used to say everything, Jake received a system notification.
[Quest Completed: Learn more about user's magical ability— Magic Mimicry]
[Reward Obtained: +4 Stat points]
[Stat points: 94]
'Awesome! I just...' Jake was rejoicing in his head before remembering that the true mages could read thoughts. 'Shit.'
"What just happened?" Rheya asked.
"What do you mean?" Jake asked back, thinking his way out of this was to play dumb.
"A moment ago I heard you celebrating something but nothing from what I just said calls for celebration so what just happened?" Rheya asked again.
"I honestly don't know what you're talking about." Jake replied. "I'd like some quiet now if you don't mind."
"You don't get to ask for that." Rheya said. "Have you forgotten you're a prisoner here?"
"Oh that's right. I couldn't tell from the amount of vines wrapped around my body. I was starting to think I'm a guest here."
"You have not answered a question from me yet." Rheya reminded Jake.
"Fine. What's your question?" Jake asked. "I'm only doing this because you're pretty."
"Do all humans deal with pain and grief by pretending it's not there?"
The question had caught Jake off guard and he was struggling to come up with a response. "Wha... That's..."
His mind kept wandering to the deaths of his mother and Cat. He tried to get it out of his head but he just couldn't.
"I sense I have triggered something with that question." Rheya said as if she had just made an observation.
"Wh... Why did you ask that specific question?" Jake asked.
"Maybe I should have mentioned that we are not just able to read your thoughts only." Rheya said. "We can also read your mind and see into your memories."
"What!" Jake shouted with dreadful look on his face. "Memories are supposed to be private. You guys can't just go looking into people's memories."
"There's nothing stopping us from doing it, so who says we can't?" Rheya replied.
"It's just wrong. Don't you guys have a sense of morality?" Jake shouted again and the calm, collected expression he wanted to maintain was now gone.
"Sense of morality?" Rheya sneered. "Don't make me laugh. Because you humans have a very strong sense of morality. You lost your mother and your girlfriend and decided the next best thing was to become someone who didn't care about anything."
With realization hitting Jake hard, his eyes widened.
"Do you think your mother would have wanted this?" Rheya asked.
"You have no idea what she would have wanted." Jake said.
"Do I not? You mean she wasn't a loving and caring mother who put you first before everything else in the world?"
"Impacitia gratirendihhyt jektscang" Muttering those words while rubbing and twisting one of her palms over the other, Rheya's appearance began to change.
In her place stood a woman with long jet black hair and a bit of wrinkles near the corner of her eyes. There were dark eye bags present underneath her eyes and her brown eyes still reflected the tenderness and love that filled her heart.
"Mom?" Jake called out as he saw the woman standing in front of him.