Unlimited Isekai 56 The Fruit of Immortality

Svenn immediately took a liking to Remicra, and the pair rapidly descended into technical blacksmithing jargon that went way over Dave's head. The conversation between the two buzzed with excitement and passion, a testament to their shared love for the art of crafting weapons. Thirteen pairs of well-coordinated, undead hands that didn’t seem to tire were a welcome addition that helped the dragoness organize the mountain of stolen supplies at a much quicker pace.

Dave left the thirteen elkin and the dragoness in the now bustling workshop and stepped outside into the garden with Cedez joining her on a wooden bench and, enjoying the respite from the cacophony of things being rearranged and fervent discussion on the matters of manufacturing.

"So, what do you think about Svenn?" The dark vixen asked, her eyes eager for his opinion.

"I think that he's a great addition to the team," Dave admitted. "I should have gotten him earlier with you at my side, instead of blaming you for the world's problems."

"Mmhmm," Cedez smiled, clearly pleased with his response. "Am I the best Sovereign or what?"

"You're the best," Dave agreed. He ignored the incessant buzzing of the ghost-shield, quickly brushing his hand against her mane atop of her head.

"Mmmmmm," Cedez closed her eyes. "More pets, please. I like pets."

"Kind of worried about getting zapped by your absolute charisma," Dave said, hesitating slightly.

"Pet the fluff, don't make skin-to-skin contact for longer than four seconds and you’ll be fine," she advised. "If you feel sparks dancing on your hand, just let go."

"Right," Dave acquiesced and proceeded to gently brush his hand over Cedez's soft fur.

The kitsune leaned against the stone cottage and began to purr, a contented expression on her face.

Dave couldn't help but smile at the sight. Things between him and the bewilderingly complex Sovereign of Shandria were finally working out.

"Cedez, why are you the way that you are?" He asked, genuinely curious about the enigmatic foxgirl by his side.

"Eh?" she opened one silver-blue eye, a playful glint in her gaze. "What's wrong with me?"

"There's nothing wrong with you per se," Dave clarified. "Your personality intrigues me. You often act like a kid, and yet you have these moments of absolutely ruthless brilliance in between."

"That's because I'm both quite clueless as a peasant's daughter and packed full of arcane knowledge," she laughed, her infectious mirth filling the air.

"I guess I'm just trying to understand why Empress Nox and her Archmagi created this peculiar system where the ward selects random girls to host her Divine Shadow. Why not create, oh, I don't know, immortal, perfect copies of herself to administrate the Empire? Why start over with new Sovereigns?”

"Ah," Cedez replied, her tone growing more serious. "It has to do with the nature of magic on Arxtruria and how it interacts with human bodies."

"Oh?" Dave raised an eyebrow, intrigued by her explanation.

“Human souls harvest magical radiance spilled by Nihilim onto the world, turning it into mana. Mana slowly accumulates and crystallizes in people's bodies creating a skill-shaping structure within you. This crystalline-organic structure becomes harder and bigger with each year," Cedez elucidated. "Having power changes you on a fundamental, physical level. When you go past level one hundred this crystallization process reaches critical mass and mages become less like themselves and more like walking dungeons."

"They lose control?" Dave ventured a guess.

"Precisely," the foxgirl nodded. "In a lot of cases, high level mages get old and the flesh decays, leaving a crystal remnant behind that will try to complete their unfinished business or just murder everything it sees.”

“Right,” Dave nodded. “That’s what happened to Archmage Rim. So, what do people do with the crystalline core when a powerful mage dies in Shandria?”

“They burn the remnants of the flesh and bring the core inside a warded magisteel box to the central tower,” Cedez said. “There, the Ward Keeper deposits the core into a mechanism that grinds it into dust, thus disrupting the structure of the crystal, mixing it with the gargantuan sandpit beneath the city, adding its power to her Divine Shadow.”

“Damn,” Dave whistled. “Even after death everyone empowers the ward, huh?”

Cedez nodded.

“Are there really no healer archmagi that can keep the body healthy in perpetuity?” Dave asked.

“Oh there are,” Cedez said. “There are definitely mages that go past level one hundred. When an archmage relies on a healer’s power ad nauseam to keep their body functional past its expiration date, the flesh stretches, adapts to sustain a dungeon core inside it, but the mind... the mind slowly decays, gathering minute problems that the healer is simply unable to fix.”

“I see,” Dave said.

“Have you ever looked up at the false stars of the evening sky and asked yourself why there's so much war?" Cedez waved her hand at the heavens.

"I have," Dave nodded, recalling countless nights spent pondering the nature of the endless strife on Arxtruria.

"Continuous immortality leads to madness," Cedez said solemnly. "The Dragon God Emperor is an ancient bastard, a mass of stretched flesh shaped somewhat like a human... But there is very little humanity left in him. His actions are guided less by his mind and more by the massive dungeon core residing in his overgrown gut, a skill that simply wants to summon more heroes and grind them into dust, thus gaining more power with each death."

"Damn," Dave shuddered, the grim reality of local immortality settling upon him like a heavy shroud.

"Empress Nox figured out a way to become immortal while maintaining her sanity," Cedez said, pointing at herself. "New bodies. New experiences. Growth. Evolution. She understood that to preserve her humanity, she needed to embrace change, ensuring that her essence, her legacy would live on in new bodies, untainted by the crystallization effect."

"I see," Dave said, processing the weight of Cedez's revelations. “Do you remember being her at the end? Did she die of old age?”

“I remember,” Cedez said, her hands trembling ever so slightly. “I did not die of old age.”

"When my body started to bloat, unable to support the massive core residing within it, I asked my trusted Archmagi… to carve me up," Cedez continued. "The process took five painful years. My core was slowly and meticulously fractured into nine different segments while it was still inside me. When it was done, my mages put me into eternal slumber of suspended animation and removed the split dungeon core from my gut. Nine perfect segments divided up like an orange were each assigned to a conquered city."

"Damn," Dave muttered, the gravity of her situation becoming increasingly apparent.

"The body of Nox now resides in a great mausoleum, an object of worship and reverence for pilgrims," Cedez said, a distant look in her eyes. "She's on display in the capital, suspended in a crystalline solution, dreaming forevermore, connected to the nine shards of the split core via her Divine Shadow.”

Dave could only imagine the burden of living such a fragmented existence, the vestiges of a once-whole being preserved eternally in stasis. Yet, it was this very sacrifice that allowed Nox - and now Cedez - to retain their humanity and sanity in the face of immortality. The complexity of her or their? existence was awe-inspiring, bewildering and disturbing.

"It's not a perfect solution, mind you," Cedez said, her gaze drifting up to the sky filled with the endless curvature of the inverted world. "But it's what I am. I hope that you don't secretly hate me for being so… messed up."

"I don't hate you," Dave assured her, his voice sincere and steady.

"That's what they all say," Cedez sighed, a hint of vulnerability in her voice. "Right before they ask a necromancer to stab you in the back."

Dave carefully wrapped his arms around Cedez, counting each second of the embrace. One. Two. Three. Four. He felt sparks dancing on his skin and let go, mindful of the dangers that her power presented.

"Thanks," she whispered, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. "I really needed that. It’s awful when I can’t even give my mom a hug without frying her brain."

"This absolute charisma thing, was it supposed to make you unable to have physical contact?" Dave asked, concern furrowing his brow.

Cedez shook her head. "No. This was an unexpected side effect that showed up after two hundred years. The science of what I did to myself was quite experimental, and by the time I realized that something went wrong, it was too late. The engine of my continuity has become self-sustaining. I... I really messed myself up because I didn't want to die, because I wanted to serve and protect my people."

Her confession hung in the air, a poignant reminder of the sacrifices she had made in pursuit of immortality. The unintended consequences of her actions had left her with a bittersweet existence – lifetimes spent shouldering the burden of her choices, and the longing for a connection she could never truly have now.

"Magic, the ability to manipulate reality to our will, has a steep price," Cedez mused, her eyes reflecting the depth of her own experiences. "No matter what we do... we run into the loss of our humanity, emotional instability and irrational madness."

"Yeah," Dave agreed, recalling his failure to control his emotions during the name-calling incident. "So being a wizard doesn't get better?"

"Alas," Cedez said sadly, a wistful sigh escaping her lips. "It only gets worse. The higher level one attains, the more likely you are to lose control of your magic and hurt those near you."

"This isn't very encouraging," Dave admitted, a sense of unease settling over him.

"You either become a hero that this city needs or live long enough to turn into a villain," Cedez replied, her tone both matter-of-fact and philosophical.

"That's from..." Dave opened his mouth, the words on the tip of his tongue.

"A play called Batman," Cedez supplied, a knowing smile on her lips. "Lord Chadwick wrote it. It's quite popular with the highborns, since it’s a tale of a Lord who fights crime in the late hours before the Shadow wraps the city in her embrace. I suspect it's something he pawned from your culture, yes?"

Dave nodded, feeling both annoyed and amused.

"You can see my magical radiance, as the Shadow, yes? What do you see me as?" Dave inquired, genuinely curious about Cedez's perspective on him.

"A brilliant, pale blue star orbited by a swarm of a thousand small, colorful, hollow, and broken skyships," she described, her voice almost poetic. "Two of the ships are particularly large and complex. One of them is green, the other steel-gray."

"So you..." Dave trailed off, the implication of her words sinking in.

"I am well aware that you are not a single soul," Cedez confessed, her gaze piercing. "I've always known since I've seen you through the eyes of the Shadows. Your skill has something to do with souls."

Dave felt a mixture of relief and trepidation wash over him, knowing that his secret had been unraveled by the insightful vixen.

"It's called Phantomancy," he confessed, the truth finally spilling forth from his lips.

"Took you long enough," she smiled.

Dave shrugged.

"I've never seen anything like it," Cedez added, her voice filled with genuine appreciation. "It's a beautiful skill. You must have done something truly extraordinary to gain it."

“How does one gain a magic skill exactly?” Dave asked.

“By killing a lot of monsters,” she said. “Or people. You know, I had assumed you were a trained war veteran like Svenn… but then you freed Remicra and kept acting nothing like a mass murderer which didn’t make any sense whatsoever. It takes a lot of strife to gain a rare skill.”

"Umm… I seriously didn't do anything," Dave admitted.

"Truly?" She inquired, her eyes narrowing in curiosity. “You didn’t kill an archmage or slay a dragon? Maybe you killed someone and forgot about it?”

"I didn’t bloody slay anyone!" Dave insisted, feeling very annoyed. "I was given a quest to collect a thousand teeth but never even did that. The damn bracelet evaluated my soul and simply assigned me a skill a few hours after I was reincarnated!"

"Hrmmm," Cedez pondered his words, her expression a mixture of intrigue and contemplation.

"Sherlock," Dave said suddenly. "The green soul shard orbiting my soul… he had a hypothesis that it has to do something with me dying twice on Earth."

"If you were summoned twice by the fat Emperor," Cedez mulled. "Then there is another you on Arx, another Dave that took a different, far more bloody path, an exact duplicate of your soul..."

Dave looked at the dark vixen, his eyes wide.

"And he's done something truly terrible and great to pay the price for the incredibly unique skill you now wield."