The Core was an interesting thing. While the person that had it was alive it was something like a mana construct interwoven with essence and it was so complex that barely anything was understood about it even to this day. Numerous Arch-Mages or even the elusive Magus have dedicated their lives to finding out its secrets but with each one that was uncovered numerous others were found.
But to Kali that didn't matter at the moment, what she cared about was what happened after the person died or in this case, the magical beast.
She channeled a fair bit of mana into her bracelet and hissed in pain as her flesh and skin restitched itself, leaving no sign of her injury aside from the ripped pants. Just as she was starting to feel annoyed at having to feel the chilly air at her thigh from now on the clothes stitched themselves back together just like her skin had done which made her blink down at the white leathery clothing owlishly.
Well, that's neat!
But she put that out of her mind as she leapt down from her perch with a deliberately graceful move. She landed on the ground with her knees slightly bent but straightened elegantly soon after as she strode towards her prize, her loot.
She fished out her knife and after dripping a bit of mana into it she started to cut the crispy wolf apart. The knife barely had some difficulty with the task, only slowing when she cut through its ribs. She soon found where its heart must have been based on her biology textbooks and stuck her hand inside the grisly hole she'd made.
When she pulled it out she grinned down at the fist-sized, perfectly spherical crystal that glowed in the same icy blue that the beast's eyes had. She frowned at that a bit.
Mana shouldn't care about what you use it for, elements are just applications of the fuel that is mana.
It must be some visual effect like how some spells glowed when they were visible despite no Rune being used for that purpose. Her eyes glowed for some gods forsaken reason too but she didn't know why. All of her family members had glowing eyes aside from her mother so it must have something to do with her being a Royal elf.
Ah, whatever, another unanswered question to my ever-expanding list.
Zadkiel annoyingly didn't know either just that the phenomenon was observed among some of the other species too who had Royal clans or families.
Her grin dimmed a bit as she realized she didn't know how she was supposed to make use of the crystal orb, in the novels she's read adventurers just 'held it' and 'absorbed it'. She held the orb in both of her hands like the precious little thing it was while ignoring the blood still dripping from it and her fingers.
She did what she thought was most evident and pushed a bit of her mana into it as she'd do with one of her magical artifacts. She threw her head back as her whole body shook and shivered in pleasure from the essence rushing into and through her body from the orb. It spread through every part of her body and spirit and even her Core before it started settling down as it assimilated fully with her being.
Kali fell onto her back in the process without realizing it and was now staring blankly at the fluffy white clouds and the gently blue sky. She raised her hands and they shook but the orb was nowhere to be seen only white ash remained stuck to the blood on her fingers and even that was rapidly dissolving into nothing.
A shiver ran through her spine as the afterglow of the addictive pleasure finally left her some room to breathe. She gasped, drawing in as much air as she could once realizing she's forgotten to breathe throughout the process. She took a few trembling breaths to calm herself.
That was wild! What the hell!?
She didn't trust her voice not to crack just yet so she could only resort to cursing in her mind. She knew absorbing essence was a pleasurable thing but it should not have been anything close to that. It was well known that getting essence was addictive but it should be like getting high on some mushrooms or something not getting overwhelmed by pleasure like she had.
Was this the downside of being an Elf? For being so sensitive? No, that shouldn't be. She'd have heard about it if they had a weakness like that.
The only other answer she could think of was that the little wolf had an absurd amount of essence stored in its Core for some reason. She focused her mana sense on her Core, trying to feel how much it had grown from this experience. She could barely feel the mana as it rushed into her alongside the essence before so she wasn't too sure about it.
She was struck by a sudden bout of panic at the thought, absorbing more mana than your Core could store could damage it even permanently or outright make it explode alongside you like a blood-filled balloon.
Her fears couldn't have been further off the mark though as she took in the feeling of her Core her eyes snapped open in wonder. That was a lot more mana than she had before.
That was insane. The essence must have strengthened the Core just as the mana was flooding into it and even now it was close to full.
She cast a Kinetic Strike as a test which took half a percent of her mana stores before and was blinking dumbly while the Kinetic Strikes impacted the snow and upturned the dirt below one after the other. She could feel mana her mana going down but only after the sixth one did she lose 1% of her mana.
She could control Spell matrixes as far as a meter away from her body and she could feel ambient mana for another four, making that a five-meter radius in which she could sense mana flowing by her gently like an endless ocean. It was just barely a glimpse into it all but she was awed.
She remembered a single Kinetic Strike costing 0.5% of her stores but now she could cast three from that same amount.
That can't be, that's far too much.
She redid the test again with other spells she remembered the cost of but the answer was always close to the first one. She's increased her mana stores by 3 times in one go, that had to be unnatural. Before this the few times she went up a level her stores increased by 10% and she knew mana increased gradually bit by bit with each level and such drastic increases weren't normal.
She gulped as she felt around her nearly full Core and knew that it was close to empty before, that Fireball spell was as costly as it was effective, eating around 60% of her stores in one go. Well now that should be down to 20% but if my Core was any fuller it'd have burst.
She grimaced at that, right where was I?... Right, gaining this much essence in one go is absurd!
Then she remembered how her father made her go from a little girl with a barren Core to what she was before with a single Ritual. She didn't know how it worked but she was sure it didn't feel like this, even so, she knew stuff like this was possible.
Not like she could deny it as the experience was quite ... memorable. Yeah, let's call it that.
She knew there were some breakthroughs a person's Core can reach from gathering essence which is more than just a difference in quantity like the one she had. Yeah, she is now several times better in every aspect of her being but a person who reached the first breakthrough could still beat her up without giving her any chance to retaliate.
There are supposed to be three all in all. Based on that somewhat dumb 'level' system which gives each person an associated level from one to 500 based on how much essence their Core has those breakthroughs are at levels 200, 300 and 400.
She should have been around level 100 before but with this, she was thinking more around the 200 mark she could be dad wrong and it could be something like 120. Levels were sorta stupid like that, you had to use a complicated mathematical formula to calculate the essence needed to go from one level to the next. This was a puny amount below level fifty but to go from level 450 to 451 it would need more than going from 300 to 350.
It was an exponential curve and it was rather steep by the end. Which by the way was a rather weird thing too, you couldn't go beyond 500 without going through some mythical process called Ascension. Kali didn't know if it was even possible, Ascendants were living gods and each had legends about them.
She of course dreamed about becoming one of them while growing up but slowly her dreams were dampened by the ugly thing that was reality. From becoming an Ascendant to an Arch-Mage to just a simple Mage and finally just being free from her deplorable fate.
All of her dreams were denied by her father, which was why she was wishing to all the higher powers that were for him not to find her. She was happier fighting to the death with a frost wolf while having to eat birds she cooked without any spice than she has ever been.
Just the knowledge that she was doing things because she wanted to and decided to do them was giving every simple thing a rose tint.
She somewhat missed her siblings but they'd be fine, she hoped they wouldn't worry so much that they went after her. She could see Ly'Riel doing something like that, Rhy'Lanor was so absorbed in his duties that it'd probably take a few weeks for him to even learn about the ambush and her consequent missing status.
She had no idea what her father would think though, she was sure he'd want her back but not what for. He could probably twist this to strengthen the alliance even more and that would leave her free but he was unpredictable. She couldn't ever manage to predict what he'd do.
One day he'd reject her requests about learning magic then he'd give her the healing bracelet a month later after she got sent to the nurse with obviously magical wounds. He was weird, he didn't even search her room or question her how she got the wounds after she told him she burned herself so her fiance would reject the marriage.
She pulled her mind out of the gutters and propped herself up into a sitting position, her hands barely shook anymore, that was good. Next came standing and she had to steady herself on the tree next to her. She was still weak in the knees and her legs were a bit wobbly but it was lessening with every second going by.
It was a unique feeling, she remembered feeling like this just after the Ritual. Her body was still tingling in places she didn't want to name and parts that were making her rather uncomfortable. Her feet were numb and it felt like ants were running under her skin.
She focused on breathing as she counted the seconds.
Breathe in through the nose 1, 2, 3, 4, then hold it 5, 6, 7, and out through the mouth to the 8th.
She repeated that a few times and once she felt more steady on her legs and even starting to feel her toes she finally dared to let go of the tree. She stumbled a bit on the first step but then it was gone and in its place was a new store of energy that felt infinite.
She knew it wasn't as this was just like with the Ritual, she was just a weak little girl before that slept through half of the day and after it, she could run circles around the castle for half a day but she did pass out once her energy was spent. It was a deceptive illusion that she wouldn't fall for a second time.
She walked with a spring in her steps, feeling like if she wanted she could jump now ten meters into the air from a casual stride. She did just that, reaching 12 meters at the apex of her jump, she kicked up a bit of snow as she landed with a thump, too excited to care about moving silently or gracefully.
She had a wide grin on her lips and started to jog, slipping in leaps every few steps. She could do it with only one leg, just by putting more force into her ankle as she launched herself. It was so fun she almost missed a large herd of moose ambling towards her in the distance.
They didn't look too dangerous but they were large, like LARGE, the one leading the herd was 4 meters at least to the shoulders with the tip of its large crown of antlers reaching maybe 6. Said antlers had electricity snapping between them while its thick coat of fur was a matte white color, contrasting heavily with its mangy brown-furred brethren.
Despite greed reigniting in her stomach with a never before felt intensity Kali wasn't a moron, and as a person that wasn't a moron, she could count. With that little talent under her belt, she could tell that there were a lot of moos, mooses, moo-...fuck, anyway, that was far too much of them and far too few of her to not get trampled into the ground.
She was rather confident in her abilities after killing the frost wolf but she had to also remember that she almost died, and against a juvenile that was alone. That big ass moose was neither a juvenile nor was it alone.
Time to leave~
Kali turned tale and bounded away, continuing along the stream the annoying wolf chased her away from. Her steps were closer to leaps as each brought her four or five meters far and now that she was making an effort her footfalls were softer but still easy to hear to her acute ears.
She furrowed her brows in thought, was her hearing better or was it just harder to dampen her steps by leaping with each step? She focused and flexed her ears, the area in which she could perfectly locate each sound has expanded, now covering nearly five hundred meters.
If her range got better it was clear that its sensitivity should've also improved. Still, that just made it obvious that she was far from imperceptible or as stealthy as she thought herself to be.
She found herself smiling, she was thinking about what she could improve but not like before when it was more like daydreaming and fantasizing. Even magic was more like a toy that distracted her from reality than the wonderful tool that it was now that she had to survive alone or the well of unending secrets and challenges that it also represented.
She was thinking about practical things and she was improving in ways she liked, she liked being stronger, faster, and the many other things essence gave her just as much as she liked the feeling of power she felt when her fireball obliterated the poor frost wolf.
Life was finally worth living.
And I won't squander it!
She felt like she was almost flying, she spent more time in the air than on the ground which was a rather poor tactical choice as it was hard to change her direction in the air but she was trusting her perception to alert her well before anything could attack her.
Instead, she was relishing in the feeling of her shoulder-length hair being whipped about by the frigid wind, she even removed her makeshift hair tie to let it billow in the wind. It was so freeing to be like that, to just run and exist. Enjoying the beautiful landscape around her and the gentle rays of the sun on her pale skin.
Life was good.
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Mythral
Mythral straightened and observed the small opening in the side of the large trunk in front of him, it opened up and shove a small place inside which would be enough to hide two adult elves if they huddled together or a single one comfortably.
The opening had carving marks on its side and he found ash next to the opening.
"Less than two days old," he whispered as his fingers brushed against the wet ash hidden under a thin layer of snow, "she won't be far."
He let out a low whistle, low enough to go unheard by any humans or most animals that might hear it but his newly assigned squad of Royal guards appeared from the dense forest one after the other, saluting to him with their palms above their hearts.
"Report," he demanded gruffly and his men replied professionally.
"I've found the cut-off head of a Barkclaw bird on a nearby tree," the first said, "the cut was far too precise to be from another animal."
"I have found some footsteps hidden somewhat well leading towards a small creek," another reported but the rest stayed silent.
They didn't find anything else worthwhile then, Mythral nodded. He was surprised the King would not only let him live after failing so spectacularly but he also gave him a new squad and the mission to track down the princess.
Mythral was confused but apparently, no divination Spell managed to get a hold of the princess. Arch-Mage Zadkiel would probably know how to find her but he's left just after he's reached the castle.
He was quite sure that he wouldn't wake up again after he passed out soon after he finished his report. That damned human has done a number on him and that Feathered Serpent managed to take a bite out of his side. He prayed to the ancestors to make sure the human got eaten by the serpent, he had to escape after his injury so he couldn't know the final outcome of the battle but he could hope.
Thankfully his lost arm and flesh could still be regrown by the Royal Healer, a few more hours and he'd have been stuck as a cripple if he didn't find some mythical healer that could heal his spiritual self. According to the healer, the spiritual self took about a day after the person got an injury to take on the injury itself.
Most healing Spells used the spiritual self as the foundation of the spell, they just had to make the body grow to mimic the spirit but once the spirit naturally mimicked the body there were very few things that could help.
Mythral didn't show it in his stoic demeanor but he was worried sick, the princess was out all by herself in the wilds with monsters, animals and the humans that got away all about. He was constantly annoyed with her the first time he was assigned to her but then he tried to put himself in her shoes and it changed everything.
He was loyal to the king and the people but he was sure he'd have thrown a fit when he was as young as she was if his future was decided for him. Especially if it was as deplorable as hers.
Marrying a human for convenience.
Just the thought made him sick, he'd do it if he was commanded of course but not with a smile like the princess had done. He wasn't sure how she was able to smile. Did they not tell her how humans treated their elven wives? He didn't know if that was for the better but he pitied the girl.
Still, it was not worse than dying in his opinion, he couldn't save her from her fate but he could save her from death at least.
Please be alive Princess, I'm coming.