More questions than answers

POV Chul Asclepius

How many skills were you hiding, kid?, I smiled as that phrase crossed my mind.

So far in the sparrings he had shown great growth, but compared to me he barely makes me use sixty percent of my capacity if we are generous.

But right now he is making me use eighty percent, if he were his real and conscious self, maybe he could even make me fight a little more seriously, but how is he doing it?, that qualitative leap with his core level should be impossible.

It was the only thought I had in my mind, I had already exchanged several blows in hand-to-hand combat and had not been able to hit a single effective blow.

The curious thing is that he has not even tried to fight me head-on, he has been more focused on finding a way to escape from my reach and Evascir's.

That shows the huge degree of latent potential in him, as he seems to be fighting by instinct and not systematically.

At first I thought he had adapted completely to my speed, but it did not seem to be the case as the fight progressed and we reached the trees at the entrance of Hearth I could understand something.

He is not reading my movements, he is predicting several steps ahead the destination of my blows and moving accordingly.

What he does is see the future, but that is crazy, how does he do it?; the only plausible explanation is Ether, but not even the few Djinn descendants left here can do that.

I started to throw a series of punches again, but this time I increased my body with fire magic.

This time he did not deflect my attacks, but began to dodge them completely, why?.

Knowing the great variety of elements he uses he should be able to restrict my movements at this level, but he is not doing it, is something wrong with his magic?.

Now that I think about it, the boy could have created a medium-scale phenomenon to escape and would have had a better chance of getting out of Hearth successfully.

But he did not, can he not?, cutting my thoughts, I hear Mr. Mordain's voice, "Chul, the boy can not use elemental magic at the moment".

"Why?", I questioned.

"I have two theories, the first is that apparently the boy is not completely under his control and is restricting his use of mana in some way, that is why they need to do something else and are trying to get out of here with his body to finish the process".

"What is the second", I asked

"Probably, the two cores he has are focused only on maintaining a hand-to-hand combat with you and can not process anything else" answered Mr. Mordain

"I see, but he should still be able to cast some elemental magic, in exchange for hurting himself a little", I questioned again.

"It seems that the person who wants to take over his body does not want him to suffer damage, but because the core level of the boy is too low, he can not defeat us in a frontal battle quickly", Mordain replied.

I see, obviously the person inside is looking for the right moment to cast magic and get out of here, so he tries to conserve as much mana as possible for when he manages to escape.

"Wait Mr. Mordain my brother's core is not", before I could hear the warning words of lady Sylvie a wave of frost and icy wind burst in front of me, when I could understand the situation I was buried in a huge ice formation.

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POV Sylvie Indrath

As I clenched my fists with frustration over my brother's condition, I watched the whole fight he was having with Chul.

Surprisingly, they were fairly evenly matched and my brother might even have the advantage, as the phoenix-Djinn hybrid had not managed to hit any effective blows.

I saw the phoenix throw several series of punches combining kicks and fists; however, none of them managed to hit my brother, is this the level of the Laplace skill taken to the maximum?.

He has not even been able to bring out his full potential; due to the overload of information that enters his mind every time he uses it, so how is it that the person who is controlling him could do it?. Besides, the short adaptation time is terrifying.

In the middle of the fight I saw Mr. Mordain give him some explanations that seemed plausible, but his last statement was not entirely correct.

While it is true that most human cores have limitations and they should be completely saturated just to keep up with the physical combat pace with an Asura.

My brother is different, he is an anomaly with the ability to jump ranks for a short period of time, in that way he has been able to cast a limited number of spells of higher level than his central core.

Quickly, I tried to warn the phoenix next to me, "Wait, Mr. Mordain my brother's core is not", unfortunately I arrived a step late and a large formation of frozen ice was in front of us with Chul buried inside.

"Boom"

"Crack, crack, crack"

The only thing that entered my ears was the sound of the explosion and the noises of the ice cracking, I also felt the cold air touching my cheeks while the breath that escaped from my mouth had become visible.

I tried to locate my brother, but I could not see him with all the fog covering the area, my heart beat much stronger than before thinking of the worst scenario where he managed to get out of Hearth, fortunately my fears seemed to be unfounded

I looked in the direction where Mordain should be, but I could not see his silhouette and then I heard an explosion at the entrances of the door to this space.

In the middle of it was Mordain sending a strong punch to my brother's stomach.

"Craaaack".

The sound of broken bones was clearly transmitted to me, it was terrifying and painful to hear, even knowing that the leader of the Asclepius clan held back.

Did he not kill him by mistake?, with those thoughts I started running to his location to use the Vivum arts transmitted by Dryas.

When I got to Julian's side I saw blood coming out of his mouth and eyes due to the internal shock that the blow caused him, so I directed my reproachful gaze at the culprit for having used excessive force.

He made a gesture of apology that clearly said he regretted it, but I did not believe him if he had done from the beginning what I told him; to knock him out quickly nothing of this would have happened.

I knelt down next to him and began to use the Vivum arts to heal him, at the same time I saw how little by little his horns were shrinking and disappearing, as well as the long hair began to return to its original length.

He was coming out of his third phase, Mordain seeing this approached and began to recite strange words at the same time that he touched an area near my brother's spine and there a small seal was generated that seemed to be containing something.

"Boom", I heard an explosion of the ice formation and saw Chul come out completely unscathed but angry.

"Evascir, Mr. Mordain, do not interfere, I will fight him", he said as he looked in all directions looking for my brother.

Until he saw him in front of me receiving treatment, I swear I saw his soul leave his body after that.

----------------------------------------------------------POV Mordain Asclepius

After the Incident, the boy was taken to the room where he usually rests since he started his training here in Hearth.

As I saw first-hand what happened, I answered many questions that were on my mind, but also generated many others that I never expected.

The first one is that that boy somehow is jumping power ranks, the spell he cast to contain Chul should not be possible in his third phase state and with his core level.

The second one is how dangerous it is to let the boy leave Hearth, if the person behind his body manages to take control again I don't know what could happen.

The last one is the third phase; it seems to be a hybridization of his dragon body with Yimir's will which should be impossible, but somehow that parasite managed to combine them.

That gave him a huge potential if he is given enough time to grow, the problem is what is trying to take over his body, I can't even distinguish completely what it is and the most worrying thing is that we don't know its end.

It worries me to think that there is someone in the shadows planning the scenario behind all the boy's movements, if that is the case Julian is a very dangerous weapon against us.

Maybe no one noticed, but I did; the boy absorbed Chul's mana and managed to generate resistance to the skills of our clan.

For that reason I moved forward to stop him immediately, after he managed to lock his opponent in an ice formation.

Why I felt instinctively that he was a natural predator for me and I couldn't allow him to keep growing in the course of the fight.

Because of that I am now in a dilemma, what should I do with him?, in principle he is and has been a potential ally.

But with someone trying to take his body, the premise of remaining an ally could break and from what I could feel from him, that would be dangerous not only for my clan, but for everyone in the world.

Should I just kill him?, I'm not very fond of this kind of thinking, but the situation surrounding the boy warrants a very good consideration.

I'm not saying he's completely bad, but not having a certainty about what his position will be in the future is worrisome.

What should I do in this situation?, not only for my clan, but for the rest of the world, what is the right thing to do?

"Haaaaaah", we'll talk to the boy first after he wakes up, depending on his answer I have to make a decision.

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POV Julian Kingscrown

This time when I woke up I was on a beach with white and pristine sand surrounded by a crystal clear sea that reflected the sunlight.

Definitely, I'm not awake yet, but I'm no longer in that nightmare, which relieved me a little

I got up from the sand where I was lying and sat down while watching the sea, I had many questions, but no answer or clue to even be able to guess anything.

I don't know how I ended up involved with a kind of being of that scale, I wonder if that's how it would feel to be in front of Kezess or even if Mordain exerted his pressure, would it be something like that?

I don't know, I can't even identify if the fear was due to my mental state and he was not really that powerful, or maybe he created the whole situation before that to weaken my will, but for what?, what does he get by doing that.

The more I thought, the fewer answers I got and more questions arose one by one, putting me in a chaotic state, but what could I do.

Was it my mistake?, at first I wanted to keep the main scenario as it was in the novel, but little by little after meeting the characters I couldn't help but get attached to them.

I couldn't just watch them get hurt over and over again in the future, so I risked changing many things and avoiding their tragedies in a slightly more active way.

And although that probably didn't lead to my current situation, it should have been something to consider when I came to this world.

Is this the price I pay for my arrogance in believing that everything would be the same and that the butterfly effect would not bite me again?

Not from the beginning I knew that things would change when I decided to prevent Tessia from falling into Agrona's hands.

Certainly, it was my preconceived ideas that led Elijah to disappear from Dicathen before time and it was these same ones that did not allow me to see a general picture where I was being used by someone.

But that does not mean that everything I have done so far has been wrong, nor that all the things I have changed do not have a meaning and even if they really did not.

I would never regret having changed those situations, neither with Silvia, Tessia, Cynthia or Alea herself in the future.

They are living people of this world to which I now belong and I wanted to give them a chance to live in a different way.

Don't you think that was wrong?

No.

Was it right?

Maybe.

Was it necessary to do it?

Maybe not.

Don't you think there could have been a better way to do it?

Maybe yes.

But I did not have enough time to meditate and doubt every thing that happens in this world because of my presence.

I am not an omniscient or omnipotent god, not even the so-called gods of this world can be that.

So why should I feel guilty or melancholic, I have done everything I thought was right.

I have worked tirelessly within my possibilities to be as well prepared as possible for Alacrya's attack.

I may make mistakes, but I want to believe that in the same way I have created thousands of possibilities for a different world than the novel.

This is just a small change in my plans, which do not allow me to continue acting so passively, knowing that there is something else behind my reincarnation, I must talk to Virion after he returns from training.

I also need to talk to Mordain to find a way to improve my condition and also find a way to eliminate whatever is inside me.

When I was able to reach a conclusion in my thoughts, my body began to become transparent and disappear little by little.

I guess it's time to wake up, there are many things to learn before the training ends.

----------------------------------------------------------POV #e### E#a#i## o# t#e t##c### r###es###

After seeing Julian leave this space I was very satisfied.

"I didn't even have to intervene."

I thought he would start to show signs of fragility or mental exhaustion, but strangely, his will became even stronger.

I guess your mental strength and that of your soul are not as weak as they thought.

It's a pity we couldn't meet before.

I thought as I looked at the desolate landscape in front of me, with a look full of regret on my face.