The Twelve Apocalypses: A Damned Soul's Path to the Abyss

Elemental affinity is a funny thing. Most elemental mages start out with at least some level of affinity for their chosen element. But how do you tell if a young mage has that affinity? What test could a family like the Halls use to determine if their young mages should be trained as summoners or crystal elemental mages? There are way too many traditions out there, and they all swear up and down that their methods are infallible. In some creatures, elemental affinity is easy enough to spot. No one would look at the weird ice creatures Mia and I had encountered in the caverns and not say they had some kind of affinity for the element they were made out of. But that's the problem. Most of the time, real affinity comes down to some kind of physical trait. A bloodline, a mutation, or some other quirk of nature that makes you more closely aligned with one element or another. And what if you don't have any such obvious traits? How is a basic boilerplate human supposed to be tested for their affinity towards different paths of magecraft or elements? That's where all the different traditions come in. Everyone has their personal preference. For the Hall family, this boiled down to a glorified personality test. You're great with animals? You like learning about the weird quirks of different species? Yay! You get to be a summoner. If not, yay! You get to be a crystal elemental mage. Granted, politics did play a significant role. If you were a main member of either of the two dominant house branches, then you automatically had 'great inborn potential' for the art they espoused, and that was that. I wanted to roll my eyes at the whole process, but it worked surprisingly well for them… until Melchom came along and ruined everything. I didn't regret ending up in the crystal elementalist line. Mercutio's nonsense had put me off summoning magic, and the crystal spells I'd encountered in Tridsten's memories were fascinating. In fact, I didn't really need the grimoire for the beginner spells on the crystal path. I already had them carved deep into my subconscious from all the repetition Tridsten did in life. Still, out of respect for tradition (and my own curiosity), I read through the crystal-bound grimoire first. The book contained heady promises of power. It spoke of conjuring unbreakable crystalline tentacles to strike at my enemies. Of how I could one day call forth entire cities with a wave of my hand. Of crafting defenses that could withstand the most powerful attack spells. It even contained surprisingly advanced secrets on construct craft that outshone what I'd seen the jinn do on Lagyel. Towards the end of the grimoire, there was a particularly powerful spell. It promised to guide me through the process of transforming my own body into crystal while unifying it with my soul, in order to become a living magical construct. It was an incredible piece of magic. With enough people wielding this power, turning away the demonic invasion on Ao could have been easy. But the ritual came with far too many warnings attached. Only old mages at death's door were recommended to make the attempt. Considering side effects like 'a severe loss of humanity' and 'impeded critical thinking', I understood why the Hall family wasn't swamped with eternal crystal mages. After all, most magic practitioners value their own minds above all else. Not many would willingly transform themselves into constructs. Yet, in spite of all these promised wonders, what captured and held my attention was the most foundational spell of my family branch. The aptly named 'Crystal Growth' did exactly as advertised on the tin. What made it stand out was its ability to conjure actual, permanent crystal from thin air. The entire spell was based on a lovingly optimized rune sequence. It caused elemental mana to collect in layers, which were constantly condensed until the mana was forced to shift and take on physical form. The result was natural crystal growth. With this spell, I would never be without the materials required for other crystal-based magic. It was huge. Determined to make this spell my own, I tried to relegate all Tridsten's memories of it to some shadowy corner of my mind. Only then did I attempt the spell myself. I watched with great fascination as the tiniest kernel of crystal formed in the air above my palm, followed quickly by many additional layers. Effortlessly, I fed as much mana into the spell as it demanded. It was only when the blue-green crystal was nearly the size of my first that I cut off its growth supply. The mystical force keeping it aloft vanished, and it landed softly on the palm of my hand. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. There it was. Almost perfectly spherical in shape, and quite shiny. Shiny enough, in fact, that I noticed a golden pair of eyes tracking it as I idly rolled it across my palm. I couldn't keep in a snicker of amusement. "You like it?" I asked, offering the crystal for Mia's closer inspection. She plucked it out of my hand and eyed it for a long moment before imperiously nodding. "Yes." "You can keep it, if you like." The offer was met with a satisfied meow that I wasn't sure Mia was aware of, and an additional nod. I then spent several minutes watching her roll the crystal around on my chest before I forced my attention back to the spell. I'd have time for kitty cat antics later. Swiftly, I grew another crystal to the same size, gauging my mana expenditure. I then compared what I was doing to Tridsten's memories. The result was sort of depressing, but not on my end. Tridsten had struggled with this spell throughout her training. She managed to complete it, but it was never the fastest or smoothest process. It took her minutes to create a crystal that I could form in seconds. Her creations always came out with various imperfections that made them more brittle and far less useful. That was without mentioning mana consumption, too. As a demon and former mortal Archmage, my mana capacity was frankly unfair. The mana I used to form the two crystals regenerated almost as quickly as I spent it. In contrast, Tridsten's reserves would only allow her to conjure about ten crystals of the same size before she'd be tapped out for a while. It made sense, actually. Even though the spell was foundational in the sense that everything else in the grimoire built off it, creation of true matter was still a difficult feat. That's probably why most Hall mages were instructed to carry casting supplies with them until they hit the level of Archmage themselves. It would be horribly embarrassing if they drained themselves of mana mere seconds into a fight just to conjure a small crystal. Tridsten's weak magical abilities were partly why I tried to suppress her memories in the first place. The instincts she had built up were chock full of all the crutches and inefficiencies a mortal low-level mage simply had to resort to if they wanted to pull off certain spells. In fact, now that I was inspecting my own spells a little closer, I noticed that many of my own casting habits were a bit… lacking. I particularly cringed at my use of the spell Mia had passed onto me. It was only due to the durable framework of the spell itself that I hadn't splattered myself into several pieces the first time I tried to switch places with one of my mirages. The only spells of mine I could really call 'polished' were the ones cast internally. Both my refinement and strengthening techniques ran at praiseworthy levels, considering I had picked them up when I was still a mortal. I resolved to revamp my entire spellcasting approach as soon as I was able. Preferably using Abyssal runes as replacements for the ones I'd picked up from mortal memories… Too many distractions. So much to do, I groused. Forcing myself to refocus yet again, I trained my eyes on the crystal I'd created. Then, patiently, I cast the Hall family's second foundational crystal spell. I felt the connection between me and the crystal form, grow, and finally snap into place. All of a sudden, I knew the crystal sphere as intimately as I knew my own body, and the slightest hint of intention sent it rippling and changing shape. I shifted it into a spike, then a disc, then the rune for sharpness. Finally, I willed it to take the form of an extremely detailed statue of Mia, curled up and taking a nap. Grinning in pure glee at my new capabilities, I plopped the statue in front of Mia's face. "Here, another trinket," I teased, enjoying the way her lips quirked up. It was remarkable how much this simple gesture lifted her mood, and it wasn't like I needed to hang onto the crystal. In fact, the whole point of natural progression in the Hall family magical arts was to overcome the need for prepared material. Next, with a deep breath, I launched into a spell that was far more complex than the previous two. It was a marvel of optimization and innovation both, brought about by generations of the Hall family's most talented mages slaving away. Tridsten had pined after it her whole life. Pumping as much mana into the spell as I dared, I watched in wonder as spires of crystal erupted from the points in the air I'd chosen as kernels. The spires hung in front of me for a moment, suspended by my will and mana. Then crystal strands stabbed out from the spires in every direction, twisting and undulating like the limbs of some massive kraken. Mia sat up and tracked the rapid growth of the crystal with wide eyes. By the time I cut off my mana flow, the two of us were encased in a dome of crystal latticework adorned by countless wickedly sharp thorns. The crystal caught the lamplight inside the tent, making the entire construct shimmer and gleam. "You were holding out on me," Mia said in an accusing tone, and I burst into a fit of giggles. I couldn't help it. The sight of my family's magic manifested to such potential had sent my heart soaring. Sure, it wasn't fair how quickly I was getting through the grimoire and absorbing the lessons within, but for once, the unfairness worked in my favor! Besides, I was willing to admit that I couldn't have succeeded so easily without all of Tridsten's studying. She never possessed the skill or the mana to utilize the separate spells to their full potential, but her time hadn't been spent in vain. She'd spent countless hours analyzing various crystals, using her mana senses and the diagnostic spells included in the Hall grimoire. She had catalogued all her discoveries and figured out how best to apply them. It was thanks to her that I could bulldoze past the initial obstacles and know instantly what kind of crystal I ought to conjure. Tridsten lived on. Even better, she was providing me with the tools I would need eventually to bring the fight to Melchom and his traitorous branch of the family. Sure, I was still a mediocre mage in the grand scheme of things. A single set of spells wouldn't change that immediately. But I'd be damned if I didn't work tirelessly until I could finally claim my full heritage.