Ayashi

The girls and I look at four more buildings. We decided against buying any of them. They were too worn down or too close to populated areas. Although, we might've been too excited about the one we found. We enter my Domain and I check the time. Shoot it's already 3 pm, I'm late to meet Ayashi. I hope she's not mad. I think before turning to the girls.

"Is everything okay? You look a little worried." Liz asks upon seeing my mana.

"Yeah, I just remembered I have something I need to do. Sorry but I need to go, Asami could you start the process to buy the office building?" I say and Asami steps forward.

"Yes, if you promise you'll be back in the morning." She says sternly and seriously.

"What makes you think he won't be back?" Innu asks her and I sigh.

"I promise, but how'd you know I was doing something dangerous?" I ask her.

"It's simple. When's the last time you had something to do that wasn't dangerous." Asami says with a smile and I chuckle.

"You got me there, I'll tell you about it later. But I am late, so I'll see you girls later." I say before entering my apartment. I take out the red crystal and paper Ayashi gave me. The crystal is glowing and I use my claws to cut my finger. I place my blood on the paper and the circle on it lights up. The light becomes blindingly bright in a matter of seconds. I close my eyes and a few moments later the light fades. I open my eyes and look around. I see I'm in a forest, in the middle of a dirt path. I look in front of me and see nothing but trees and plants. I turn around and my eyes go wide. What I see is pure destruction. I see what looks like a small village, from medieval times. The buildings have wooden walls and roofs made with, what I assume is thatch and wood. The only difference from history textbooks is that everything is destroyed. All the buildings are broken and missing walls or roofs. A few are only foundations. Everything is covered in burn marks and another dark mark, that I can't recognize but is clearly different from the burns.

"Eric!" I hear a voice call out behind me. I turn around and see Ayashi. She's holding a wooden bucket filled with water. "What took you so long? Did you run into any trouble?" She asks me.

"N-no, I just lost track of time. But what happened here?" I ask, turning back around to the village.

"This is what happens when Mythos fight each other." She says with her voice full of sorrow.

"So, this was caused by my mother and her allies?" I ask shocked. I knew my mother had attacked her tribe, but I never imagined that it would be so destructive.

"No, this was caused when your mother and I fought. It was one on one, but the two of us were Mythos. We each knew plenty of attack and healing spells. We also had the mana pool to keep going far past what others could imagine. But that's a story for another time. C'mon, I'll lead the way to the Primal Source." She says and walks past me. I follow her and look around. I still can't believe that two people caused this much destruction by fighting each other. She eventually stops at the end of the village. She stopped at the foot of a small mountain. She sets the bucket down a d spreads her arms. "Open!" She shouts and I feel mana leaving her body, but I can tell she didn't cast any spell or activate a skill. The ground shakes and I see the rock wall in front of us open up. Inside is lit by torches and appears to be a cave. She picks the bucket up and turns back to me. "Well? What are you waiting for?" She says as she enters the cave. I follow her and we walk down the well-lit cave. I look around and see the walls of the cave are carved with various magic circles.

"What are all these?" I ask, gesturing to the circles.

"These are the defenses I set up for when I'm gone. Normally they'll automatically activate and attack whoever enters, aside from me. But I turned them all off so now they're basically decorations." Ayashi answers and I nod.

"So what exactly am I going to do at the tree? Just drink the water and that's it?"

"Pretty much. Like I said before, the Primal Source can talk with others. It's rare but sometimes others have heard its voice when they first drank the water. So you might hear a voice, but the chances of that happening are small."

"So what'll happen after? Are there going to be any side effects?" I ask and she giggles.

"Afterwards you might feel exhausted but that should be all."

"Should?"

"Well, you're a Half-Mythos. It's possible that you could experience something a True-Mythos wouldn't."

"So, when my Mythos side awakens, what will happen? Will I just get stronger or will I get any new skills?"

"That depends on you. I didn't want to overwhelm you yesterday, so I held off on saying this. But, as you know, we Mythos receive aid from the natural mana in the air. When we drink the water the mana creates a unique skill or spell for us. We call this our Soul Skill. Soul Skills are different for everyone, no matter how hard we tried not one of us could ever use another's Soul Skill. So you'll get this and you'll probably gain more mana. But like I've said, it may be different for a Half-Mythos. No offense." She says and I tell her it's fine. I'm about to ask another question when she continues. "Sorry, if you have more questions, they'll have to wait. We're here." She says as I notice the cave starts turning blue. I look ahead and see it's a blue light, not the cave changing colors.