"I swear that I didn't want it to come to this." Manohar gripped his blade with his right hand and removed the cork from his latest concoction, Awakening number 87, with his left.
"Me neither!" Orpal roared as he extended his hand.
A black dimensional fissure opened and Moonlight galloped out of it. The Horseman's steed was made out of a single gigantic white crystal that had turned pitch-black after being attuned with the darkness element.
Orpal's rage and envy consumed him at the idea that a mere mortal had forced him to conjure his tower. After he had reached the deep cyan core, Night had ordered one of her Chosen to turn Orpal into a Thrall and give him a blood core.
This way, both his mana core and life force had the time to adapt to their undead counterpart. When he had reached the deep blue core and awakened his dormant Guardian bloodline, it had swallowed the undead energy, giving birth to something completely new.
Alas, even though what Orpal had self-proclaimed Vurdalak, the Father of all Undead, had an intimidating appearance, it was no different from Lith's Wyrmling form. It didn't make him any stronger, it just gave him bloodline abilities.
To make matters worse, being a new life form also meant being unknown. He had immediately tried to access Origin Flames, discovering to have none. Night had learned from Dusk how the Guardian's abilities worked and she had passed that knowledge unto Orpal.
Yet he had failed to discover a single bloodline ability aside from Domination. Too bad that Night had no idea how it worked and she had no one that could teach it to them.
Orpal had turned into a Vurdalak in the hope to shock the god of healing and buy the time he needed to use his breathing technique. Manohar had seen way worse in his life and he had learned from a young age to never give an opponent the time to recover.
Orpal's deep blue core was almost depleted, his body suffered from mana abuse due to the repeated use of abilities way beyond his level, but he refused to let Night fight his battle or to let Manohar go.
The moment he got into the saddle, Moonlight filled him with new energy and healed his wounds.
"Any last words?" Orpal said while focusing his mana into Thorn, to finish the enemy in one blow.
"My name is Krishna Varaja Manohar. My mother Sitri gave me life and that's the only choice I'll ever let others make for me. I might lose today, but I'm the only one that decides how I live or die."
The god of healing swallowed Awakening 87 without ever taking his eyes off the enemy. His hands weaved new spells as small tendrils of light held the sword, the wand, and the vial for him.
Manohar and Balkor had spent the days after Lith's visit discussing the newly acquired information. He hadn't said much, but to them, it was more than enough. The two most brilliant minds of their generation had concocted a potion that would grant anyone Awakening.
At least in theory.
From his previous inconclusive experiments, or failures, like the rest of Mogar called them, Manohar had learned that the process would kill anyone whose mana core was strong enough to cause a too violent body refining.
The number and the position of the impurities varied for every person and without a breathing technique, there was no way to determine how dangerous Awakening was. The only clue they had was the color of the core by looking at the mana in someone's eyes.
Yet it didn't help much. Manohar had seen even people with a deep green core die and he had no idea how to locate and remove the impurities. So he had tackled the issue the way he knew best, healing.
A violent bright violet aura burst out of the god of healing as the energy of his overloaded core forcefully spread to the rest of his body. Manohar had no breathing technique, but if he Awakened, he would finally be capable of using tier four and five of Spirit Magic.
He would also become capable of fusion magic and body casting, two disciplines that Balkor had taught him to the best of his abilities, even letting the god of healing study his body while he used them.
That along with the violent burst of energy that accompanied the Awakening process, would give Manohar the opportunity to win that fight.
First, he encased his whole body with the tier four Light Mastery spell, Second Skin. The construct coated him inside out, keeping the body refining process in check and allowing Manohar to determine its speed.
Then, he ingested two more potions. One to suppress his pain receptors and the other a tonic that would give him enough nutrients to not need to eat for a whole month.
'Lith told me that a violet core is supposed to degrade to blue upon Awakening, but that's only because the body isn't trained to circulate so much energy. By waiting the moment when my mana core was almost empty, I should have solved half the issue.
'I can use Spirit Magic to channel the excess magic out of my body safely so that once the Awakening finishes, I will retain my violet core.' Manohar thought.
A black tar-like substance seeped out of all his orifices, making him gurgle at every breath yet his focus never faltered. His bones, flesh, and muscles broke down, but Second Skin and the painkillers kept the process bearable.
"Behold the power of a true mage!" Orpal said while his spear moved through the air in wide circles, tracing runes of mystical power and absorbing the darkness element at its passage.
"This is something that an insect like you could never achieve. A perfect Blade Tier Spell."
When Thorn stopped, the night air was so clean and transparent that the light from the moon and stars illuminated the landscape around them as bright as day. Manohar could finally see Zeska on the horizon, but it was too late to open a Warp Step.
"You can do that too? Cool. It took me almost a month to learn Blade Magic. What about you?" Manohar's hand moved from the hilt of his blade to its tip, revealing countless runes of power upon its passage.
The double-edged blade deformed, turning into a single-edged blade with a big hunch near its tip. It no longer resembled a sword anymore, but an oversized scalpel. Just like Quylla, Manohar wasn't a blademaster, he was a healer by trade and that was the weapon that drew out his full potential.
The runes spread to the power cores of his Featherwalker armor, his rings, and even his Forgemastering wand. After teaching him Blade Tiers Spells, Sylpha had made sure that Orion gave the god of healing everything he needed to fuel world breaking spells.
Orpal roared in outrage since even by fusing his mind with Night, it had taken him over one year to grasp that technique and even more to master it.
"Fine! Let's see which one of us learned Blade Magic best!" The Vurdalak said.
