1875 Joining the Team (Part 1)

"I brought those flasks as a present." Jirni said. "Ilyum told me how interested you were in our pseudo cubes so I assumed that something related to Origin Flames might be useful for your research as well. Since we are already here, there's a way you can repay me."

She took two more empty flasks out of her dimensional amulet and pushed them toward Lith.

"Let's see if you can fill them."

"How many of these things do you have?" Lith asked in amazement.

"A lot. My husband changed his suppliers several times and they all insist for him to buy their own flasks, claiming that the other Beasts are incompetent fools." She rolled her eyes at the memory. "There's no point arguing over a few coins, so he humored them."

Lith took a few deep breaths before turning into a Tiamat and breathing a jet stream of Origin Flames. The flask absorbed his imprint, making the fire ebb and flow against the glass without damaging it.

It looked like a single breath, but it actually contained several sparks of his life force to guarantee a perfect purification and surgical precision.

"It contains a lot more than I thought." Lith said while catching his breath.

"So this is how you really look like." Jirni was sizing him up again, her fingers steepled and her expression focused.

"You played me again." He sighed.

"There's no shame in losing to a much more experienced player." She replied with a warm smile that Lith didn't buy for a second. "Fill the other flask with those black flames of yours, please."

"They have no purifying power. Void Flames only destroy."

"Good." She nodded. "So we can both check if the flasks can contain them and give Meln a nasty surprise if he dares come to my door."

That name was enough to arouse Lith's hatred and suffering so that when he breathed the Void Flames, they packed enough energy to blast open a castle. He closed the stopper the moment he was done, ready to Warp himself and Jirni to safety if needed.

The flask's surface became red and it rattled on the table for a while before stabilizing.

"Perfect. Another item on our agenda is done." Jirni stored the flasks, leaving Lith only an empty one. "At this point, I would be glad if we stopped pretending that I don't know that you are like Nalear, whatever she was.

"You can produce an aura, you cast spells with nothing but your mind, and you were absurdly strong as a kid." Then, she added to reply to his silent questions. "Everyone saw your fight with Meln and you just examined the flasks without even pretending to cast magic.

"I was paying attention the whole time so it couldn't be just a spell you kept at the ready."

"And this is the third time you've played me today." Lith clicked his tongue in self-reproach.

"The count will only go up if you keep treating me like an idiot." She replied dryly. "Make no mistake, I've always kept an eye on you and I know that you went from monster to Tiamat around the time Kamila broke up with you."

"It's called Awakening." Lith raised his hands in surrender. "It's what Manohar was researching before his death. It improves both your body and magical abilities, allowing anyone to cast spells like Nalear did."

"And you Awakened Phloria after the Feymar mines, Friya after Night's attack, and recently even Quylla. Correct?" It was asked as a question but it was actually a statement.

"Not really. I didn't Awaken Friya, Faluel did. As for Phloria and Quylla, I merely helped them survive the process. It comes with many risks and the stronger the mage is when it happens, the fewer the survival chances." He replied.

"And for that, you have my eternal gratitude as their mother." Jirni wore the first real smile since that meeting had started.

She took his hand between hers, gently caressing it with her thumb.

'Fuck me sideways, I've never seen Jirni emotional before. Scratch that, I've never even seen her smile sincerely before. Even when they extend to her eyes, I can always tell that it's just a charade, a mask she wears, just like I do.' He thought.

"How did you notice with such precision?" Lith asked.

"As I already said, I'm not stupid. My daughters have all been educated like noble dames, trained as soldiers, and instructed in the art of magic. Every one of their movements overflows with grace, be it when they lift a flute, a sword, or trace a rune in the air." Jirni replied.

"After those events, however, I noticed them becoming clumsy and walking on eggshells every time they had to physically interact with people or frail items. On the other hand, they also became stronger and so fast that sometimes, if they are not careful, their hands become a blur that my eyes cannot follow.

"Phloria and Friya played it a little better, getting back home the same day it happened, but Quylla couldn't have made it more evident even if she wrote it on a banner." Jirni chuckled at the memory.

"She disappeared for three days, the girls refused to tell me where she was, and her boyfriend was in the dark as well. Now, were you her boyfriend or a heartbreaker, I would have just thought the two of you were having a fling.

"Yet I know you are not the type to do such a thing to a friend and when Quylla came back, she was another person. Not only her body, but also her mind and confidence have skyrocketed since that day.

"I don't know what Awakening exactly entails, but for what you did for my daughters, for protecting their lives and happiness, I will always be indebted to you."

'We really are two peas in a pod. The only thing we really care about is our family.' Lith thought.

"You know, sometimes I can't help but think about how similar we are and how things would be different were you born from me instead of Elina." Jirni took the words out of Lith's mind, making him falter in shock.

If not for Life Vision and Abyssal Grasp agreeing on her being just a regular human, Lith would have believed that Jirni actually was a mysterious being with even more mysterious bloodline abilities.

Yet her life force was human, her mana core orange, and her mass that of a petite woman. There was nothing uncanny about her but her brain. Lith had faced monsters, Divine Beasts, and Eldritches, but nothing scared him more than Jirni's mind.

"We would have made a great mother-son team and I'm sure that you would have made me proud. Yet I doubt that I would have managed to make you happy. I have given everything to my children, wealth, status, honor, but I always failed at bringing them happiness." She said.

"I want you to know that I care about you and I consider you part of the Ernas family as does Orion. Otherwise he wouldn't have gifted you something like War nor would he have kept it a secret from me for so long."

"You didn't know about War?" Lith asked.