fifthofthecovenant | The Last Voyages: IC Contact

It involves strengthening one's spiritual and physical core. Some can Cultivate to immortality. Others can only manage simple spells. It all depends on one's potential.

Uh-huh.

[Which still doesn't actually tell him anything.]

Well, we're born with magic where I come from. You either have it or you don't. You can train it, sure, but you can't build it up from nothing.

[But that is Cultivation. Think of it like growing a crop. It needs certain nutrients to be at its best. A Golden Core is really no different.]

The same applies to our cores. Some could train for several lifetimes and never develop a Golden Core. Others come by them easily, awakening them in childhood.

[Chase looks interested, though more abstractly now, since that's definitely different from how his kind of magic works.]

Our magic just kind of shows up when we hit thirteen, if we have it. No nurturing required. Hell, I didn't even know what it was. Thought I was possessed at first.

I'm sorry you discovered it abruptly. You must have been frightened. [What child wouldn't be?] When did you learn the truth? Did a teacher find you?

[Chase definitely does not comment about whether he'd been frightened or not. Instead, he scoffs:]

Are you kidding? No. I taught myself everything I know now. I didn't meet anybody else with power until I was eighteen.

Your bravery and ability are admirable. [He smiles a little.] Do you consult scrolls or books?

[Bravery? Seriously? He'll accept compliments to his ability, he is justly proud of his magic, but he's not brave, Jesus. Chase decides to roll right past that, because he has no idea how to respond.]

Not before I came here. Magic isn't a thing in my world. Almost nobody has it. If there are any books about it, they're fiction. But I spend a lot of time here in the library.

[Isn't it brave to pursue the unknown and become proficient in it? Zichen thinks so, at least.]

Then you learned through experimentation? That can be exceptionally dangerous, but I can't see what other choice you had besides ignoring your powers completely.

[Sometimes Chase wonders what would've happened if he had ignored them. If the whole... ascending thing never would've happened. Maybe it would have either way, and he'd just be even less prepared for it.

He has some more of his lunch, shrugging.]

What can I say. I worked hard and now I'm the best at what I do.

[He would have beat that stupid Caleb, if that whole... lightning bolt from the sky hadn't happened. He has to believe that.]

There is always room for improvement. [Even (and especially) if said improvement isn't power-based. Zichen watches Chase and wonders over him silently.]

How old are you? We might be around the same age.

Doesn't mean I'm not the best even if I can still get better. And I'm eighteen.

[He pauses.]

Maybe nineteen by now, technically. Adding up time on the Barge. Why, how old are you?

We're not far apart. I was...twenty. [When he technically stopped aging.] It has been ten years since then. I would be close to thirty.

Sooooo you're thirty.

[Because if you lived all that time (or sort of lived; experienced all that time, maybe) Chase figured you ought to be able to claim the age.]

Unless you weren't awake for ten years or something.

Maybe? I haven't kept count. [Time has been...strange. It felt like it stopped while he was under the control of another.] I wasn't. I had no control over myself.

[Well. Okay, then.]

You can be twenty still, then, I guess. If you didn't actually live that time, or anything.

[If Chase can look closer to twenty-two than eighteen or nineteen, somebody can be thirty and look and feel twenty.]

When life is returned to me, my years will count. Until then, I am perpetually the same age.

[As unnerving a thought as that is, it's actually more comforting than acknowledging he literally has no idea how many years have passed since he died.]

Is that your deal, then? To have your, uh. Life returned to you?

Yes. I want to return to the man I was before the spell was placed on me.

[Not a terrible wish, Chase supposes. He doesn't know what the guy was like before, but if he spent twenty years not conscious, that would kind of suck.

So he shrugs one shoulder and says,]

Hope you get it, then. Got to get paired up for real for that, right?

[More like eight or ten years, but still too damn long.]

Yes. [That is said on a sigh.] I have been unsuccessful in that as of yet.

I don't think that's up to you, right? It's the Admiral who picks who gets paired with who.

Temporarily, yes. But permanent bonds are decided by the inmate and the warden.

[That's gonna be a big surprise to all the permapairs who made no such requests, buddy. Chase, however, doesn't know any better. He frowns at his plate.]

I didn't think inmates got to make decisions like that. So I'm guessing it's all the warden's choice, in the end.

[Poor Zichen thinks it has to be a mutual thing because, really, he wouldn't be happy with something forced. This is him being optimistic. And a bit naive.]

If they are working towards their betterment and graduation, why shouldn't they get a say?

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