Mage's Path 3 Read online

  Mage’s Path 3

  DB King

  Copyright © 2022 by DB King

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Contents

  DB King Facebook Group

  Support DB King on Patreon & Hang out on Discord!

  Free progression Fantasy Novel!

  Contents

  Series by DB King

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  DB King Facebook Group

  Support DB King on Patreon!

  Free progression Fantasy Novel!

  About the Author

  Series by DB King

  Apocalypse Knights

  Crafter’s Fate

  Dragon Magus

  Dungeon of Evolution

  Elemental Mastery

  Kensei

  The Last Magus

  Mage’s Path

  Shinobi Rising

  Summoner’s Shadow

  The Last Magus

  War Wizard

  Chapter 1

  The Shadow Tower was quiet when Jack woke up. He felt stronger than he had in days. He spent a few minutes running his attention over his body, his mind, and his magic. Everything felt good.

  The headache and the stiffness in his limbs that had plagued him since the final battle at the village of Highrock was gone. After the battle his mana pool had been disrupted and depleted by having received a massive boost to its power. But now, the mana pool all felt stable and ready, too.

  He took a deep breath of the cool, clean-smelling air. There was a hard-to-define sense of change in his mind—he did not know exactly what it was, but he felt different, stronger, more effective and capable.

  “Times are changing,” he said to himself, “and I am here to change the times even further.”

  Jack had gained incredible magical powers and, at the same time, a wise and powerful mentor. At first, he’d focused on learning how to use his powers. He’d learned to absorb things—elements, monsters, objects. Then he’d learned to recreate them from pure mana alone. As his learning progressed, he built up a library of monsters and elements that he could summon at will, bending reality around himself to create those monsters, but also creatures and beings that had not existed before, then reabsorbing them when they had fulfilled their purpose.

  But slowly, as his learning progressed, Jack had come to realize that there was more than blind luck to his new situation. It was no coincidence that he had been granted such magnificent powers. Jack was no ordinary mage. He had gained his powers by absorbing a dungeon core—one of those ancient and powerful beings whose purpose was to create monster-powered adventure experiences for adventurers, and to feed off the energy the adventurers expended. This was unheard of in the world today—Jack had become a living, breathing dungeon core, in the body of a young man.

  There were prophecies about such an individual.

  Over time, it had become clear to Jack, his mentor, and his friends that Jack was the fulfilment of an ancient prophecy that spanned worlds, and even spanned the entire fabric of existence—that mysterious substance called the aether. Aether was the source of all magic, and it filled the spaces between the universes. There were beings of pure aether in there too. A powerful mage could traverse those spaces through a Grand portal.

  Jack was an orphan—or so he had always believed.

  He’d been raised by a kindly blacksmith in a mountain village, after being discovered alone in a cave recently vacated by bandits. Jack had always assumed that he was either the child of the bandits who had fled, or that he had been kidnapped by the bandits for some other reason—but now he was not so sure. There was a mysterious title that had followed him ever since he had absorbed that dungeon core, all that time ago.

  Aetherborn.

  When he spoke to the dungeons, they called him Aetherborn. When he spoke to the strange beings and voices that sometimes guided him through his magical senses, they called him that too. The ghost of an ancient and mysterious elf had recognized him immediately and used the word. And when he had spoken to Azhoth, the imprisoned aether god whom Jack had now sworn to set free, Azhoth had used the title as well.

  Aetherborn. Jack had not given it much thought at first, being caught up in his studies, but over the last few days he’d had time to think. He’d dreamed about it, the name repeating over and over in his head like a heartbeat. What did it mean? What were his true origins? Who were his parents?

  Or did he, as he was coming to suspect, not have any parents at all? Did he come into being in some other way, and for some other reason? Was he simply born out of the aether itself, as the name seemed to say?

  He felt like a man of flesh and blood most of the time, but there were moments when the magic took hold of him and he let the mana flowing through and around him guide him. At those times he no longer felt like a simple human being. When he came back down to earth he might feel drained, or plagued by all the small aches and pains that are part of being human, but when he was in that space, working magic, he felt like something else entirely.

  What was that something else?

  “Hungry,” he said firmly to himself, tossing the covers back and rising. “Right now, what I really am is hungry. Let that be enough for the moment.”

  Jack had to admit to himself that it was an uncomfortable topic to think about. It was filled with enticing potential, but who really wants to be forced to consider the basis of his very existence? Especially before breakfast!

  His feet slapped the warm stones of the bedroom floor. His giant lizard, the magical creature called Spark, raised his big head to gaze sleepily at his master for a moment, then decided against waking up. He was sleeping at the foot of Jack’s bed, and he snuggled down into the blankets again and snored gently.

  “Lazybones,” Jack said to Spark with a grin. The lizard did not deign to respond.

  From the outside, the tower Jack and Spark lived in looked like an impressive piece of architecture, tall and broad and rambling, with outbuildings clustered around the central, four-storied column, and extensive, well-manicured grounds extending around it surrounded by a high wall.

  The Shadow Tower was far from normal, however. To start with, the tower was alive, with a female soul contained in a crystal deep under the foundations. Then there was the fact that, in times of need, the tower could travel. It could be piloted like an airshi
p through space and even through time, making short work of what would be long distances in the regular world. This was a draining experience for the tower as well as its occupants, however, so this ability was only used as a last resort. Jack had done it twice, and both times the results had been impressive, but it had left both him and the tower drained.

  Jack had a powerful connection with the tower spirit. Ever since he had saved her from going berserk and harming him and his friends, she had become more available to him. Her name, he had learned, was Maia, and she had a distinctive personality—thoughtful, curious, and a bit mischievous.

  Now, however, he could barely feel her at all in his mind. She was quiet, distracted, and deep in communication with Sheobeth, her new best friend.

  “Sheobeth is still in the tower’s core chamber, then?” Jack asked as he emerged, fully dressed, into the sunny dining room on the ground floor.

  Lachlan Woe, his mentor and friend, glanced up from his breakfast and the scroll he was reading. His yellow cat’s eyes gleamed with pleasure at seeing Jack up and about, and his strange red-and-black-striped skin did not obscure the genuine smile that lit up his face.

  “Yes, she is,” Lachlan replied. “Can you feel their communication?”

  “It’s constant,” Jack said, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the dining table. “I wonder what they’re talking about?”

  Lachlan shrugged. “We probably wouldn’t fully understand it even if we could listen in,” he said. “Let them get on with it. Sheobeth is a powerful magical being, but there’s only good in her, no evil whatsoever. Whatever they are working on together, I have no doubt that it will yield a good result for all of us.”

  “You’re glad she’s come back, aren’t you?” Jack asked.

  “Certainly,” Lachlan said with a nod and a smile. “Yes, Sheobeth was always a good entity to have around. I think it means good things for the world that she’s come back. No doubt about that.”

  “What about the third aether god,” Jack asked thoughtfully. “What was his name again… Heroun?”

  Lachlan spread his hands wide. “Who can tell?” he said. “I would never in a thousand years have guessed that Sheobeth would have come back from her self-imposed exile, but there you are—she’s here. I’d never have guessed that Azhoth would have found wisdom and humility in his years of captivity, but that seems to have happened too. Heroun, well, he may come back or he may not. He may still be out there, or he may have gone so far from our world that he’s unaware of what’s happening here. It’s impossible for me to know, and I think that at this point, I’d be well-advised not to guess! The aether gods—Azhoth, Sheobeth, and Heroun—were the source of all magic back in the old world, but these days we have our own resources to draw on, or at least that’s what we’ve always believed.”

  Jack frowned. “What do you mean? Do you think that might not be the case?”

  “It’s never been clear to me that the magic we use these days is not derived in some way from the aether gods still. But I’m not sure. My magic is still the warlock magic of Azhoth, as was Roland Redhands’ magic, and now Melinda’s as well. As for Elena, her magic was the magic of the Spheres, the magic of Sheobeth, but I don’t know how we would find out if that was still active. Those old ways of doing magic are not taught anymore, because nearly all the mages have vanished or disappeared.”

  Jack knew that. Nowadays, magic was limited to simple cantrips, magic spells that were more of use to a traveling show than to a real mage. Oh, to be sure, some mages were still trained in the manipulation of the elements of water, fire, earth, metal, and air, but mastery was rare and the uses that magic was put to were prosaic and uninspired.

  In comparison to the magic of the old world, today’s efforts were underwhelming affairs. Lachlan Woe, of course, was a man of the old world. He had survived the cataclysmic war that ended the Golden Age of magic, when the followers of Azhoth the aether god had turned on their master and imprisoned him in an artificially created universe that he could not leave. The other two aether gods, Heroun and Sheobeth, had fled the world, and only recently Sheobeth had returned after feeling that she had a part to play in fulfilling the prophecy of the Aetherborn. She had taken on the form of an eccentric and innocuous fortune-teller, but had revealed herself to Jack before his final battle with Roland Redhands, the rogue mage of Nightvale.

  Since Jack’s victory against Redhands and his return to the Shadow Tower, Sheobeth—or Beth, as she was more commonly known—had retreated to the core chamber of the Shadow Tower, communing about unknown subjects in a strange, magical language with Maia, the tower’s animating spirit.

  Jack glanced around, then got up from the table. “No sign of Ivan,” he said. “I guess I’ll be fetching my own breakfast.”

  Ivan was a mighty magical being, unique among the universes, but he generally took on the role of butler within the Shadow Tower. Normally, he would have appeared with breakfast and coffee for Jack as soon as he appeared in the dining room.

  “Oh, yes,” Lachlan said, “he’s out in the garden working on the hedges. I think he’s decided that you’ve lived here long enough that you can fetch your own breakfast henceforth.”

  Jack laughed. “I’ll choose to take that as a compliment,” he said as he headed into the spacious but cluttered kitchen. It didn’t take him long to find what he wanted. The big wood-fired stove was hot and ready for use, and there were plenty of good things to eat laid out in the cool, dim pantry. Jack quickly put together an enormous dish of bacon and eggs for himself, adding thick slices of freshly-baked bread, yellow butter, and sweet preserves. He made a pot of coffee and loaded the whole lot onto a tray to take back to the kitchen.

  When he returned, there was a new figure sitting at the table.

  Jack smiled at her as he unloaded his tray. “If I’d known we were going to have company, I’d have brought more food,” he said courteously. “Would you like me to fetch you something to eat?”

  The woman was dark-haired and dark-eyed, with a world-weary look in her eyes that made her look older than she was. She smiled at Jack.

  “Thank you, but there’s no need. Ivan already served me a full breakfast earlier this morning. He’s very attentive.”

  Jack glanced at Lachlan. So Ivan did not see fit to serve Jack his breakfast anymore, but he clearly had not given up his role as butler entirely. Lachlan hid a smile behind one black-gloved hand, then introduced the stranger.

  “This, Jack, is Hannah Dwimmer,” he said as Jack sat down to eat. “You may not remember, but she was here when you returned from battle at Highrock.”

  “You fainted as soon as you reappeared from the portal,” Hannah said. “I don’t blame you if you don’t remember me.”

  Jack frowned suddenly. “No,” he said, “I do remember you! I’ve seen you before!”

  “Oh yes?” she said.

  “I saw you in a vision,” Jack continued. “Early in my time at the tower, in a dream. I saw you sitting in a room in the tavern at an inn, sharpening a sword. Then, later, we were fleeing the hunters from Nightvale, and we conjured a vision to have a look at them. We saw you pursuing them, but they did not see you…”

  She smiled. “Eat,” she said. “Don’t let me stop you. I’ve a long tale to tell, but please enjoy your breakfast before I begin.”

  At that moment, Melinda came into the room. She looked fresh and bright, her long golden hair brushed back and tied up. Her shapely face shone with a smile when she saw Jack at the table, and her green eyes sparkled as she came up and leaned over to squeeze him in a quick hug.

  She was wearing dark-green woolens, and a smell of fresh herbs and clean wool filled Jack’s nostrils as she leaned close. He found his heart jumping in his chest, and he smiled up at her, with his mouth full of breakfast.

  “It’s great to see you up and looking so well!” she said to Jack, grinning down at him and placing her hands on her hips. “I see you’ve met Hannah?” she inclined her head at the newc
omer. There seemed to be some tension between the two women that they were both working hard to minimize, but which neither of them could completely ignore.

  Jack swallowed, coughed, and had a sip of coffee. Knowing he had to say something to cut through the now-palpable tension in the room, he opted for the simple course.

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ve met. I’m looking forward to hearing her story after eating. I was just finishing my breakfast.”

  Melinda’s gaze flicked to Hannah then away again. “We’ve all been looking forward to hearing her story,” she said rather heavily. “For quite some time.”

  Hannah bristled a little and seemed to be about to return a sharp reply, but Lachlan smoothly intervened. “Hannah has news which she has sworn only to tell in full to the Aetherborn himself,” he said. “Melinda and I have both been impatient to hear Hannah’s story, but we also both respect her right to do so in her own time. Isn’t that right, Melinda?”

  Melinda raised one perfect blonde eyebrow, and her green eyes gleamed with displeasure. “We certainly have been patient,” she said archly.

  “You could have fooled me!” Hannah snapped. Melinda turned to face the dark-haired woman, her hands on her hips, when Lachlan suddenly stood. His chair scraped the ground as it was abruptly pushed back, and the harsh sound turned all eyes to him.

  “Enough of this!” he said severely. “Melinda, back off. Hannah is our guest, and I will have her respected!”

  Hannah began to smile smugly, when Lachlan immediately turned on her. “And you,” he said. “I will not tolerate discourtesy to my students. I require the same respect from both of you. None of us know the full story here, but until we do I’ll ask you all to remain civil. If you two can’t be civil to each other, then you’ll have to be content with saying nothing at all. Understood?”