Magnus walked into the massive stone maw, admiring the ancient work of the ruins. It was much more impressive from up close. The 'throat' of the dragon was actually where the spring was, the broken columns made him wonder if there had been some kind of ceiling over the area once upon a time. Now it was just the clear sky above.
The spring was similar to the one on top of Mount Lanayru, a large spring with a statue of the Goddess on an altar. While the Wisdom spring was bereft of any vegetation, this one had two massive and very obviously magical trees.
He could feel the two of them practically observing him from their spots, it made him wonder just how old they were, or did they die and were reborn every few centuries?
Unfortunately he wasn't his brother and couldn't just step up to any random rock and ask them how the day was and get an answer. Milo's charisma just worked on another level. But Magnus could see about asking the Great Deku Tree if he visited the spirit.
It was hard to pinpoint the presence he had felt previously, but not so much as if it had disappeared, but more because it covered everything in the area; it suffused it.
He stepped forward and sank a foot into the water, walking towards the old Goddess statue.
Traveler, you who have come afar
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, he was also hearing it not with his ears. It was also a voice he couldn't really compare to the one he had heard on top of the mountain, so he couldn't say if it was one of the three Goddesses or something else.
You who have completed the first test
Even if the Spring didn't lack a ceiling, he would have not missed how the night sky started to darken and darken. Heavy and deep clouds of pure black covered the heavens.
Stand Courageous against the attendant who wields the Lightning
A powerful thunder rumbled in the sky, drawing Magnus' eyes towards the glowing figure of Farosh. The dragon of white and yellow swam in and out of the storm clouds, lightning spreading through the clouds starting from its body. They bore one magnificent horn from which lightning ran down towards the land.
He felt it as the power discharged into the ground not far from the ruin's entrance. Such might and he had to stand to it. He felt excited.
Magnus stepped out of the spring and could see the spot the lightning had landed. It wasn't just the burnt ground. It wasn't the magical lightning that still crawled over the rain puddles. It wasn't the crater produced by the explosive power.
It was how the crater had revealed a monolith that had risen off the spot. It was made of polished obsidian, a smooth and mirror-like sheen only interrupted by the same lightning crawling up and down its height.
He looked up, the dragon still weaving in and out of the clouds, obviously waiting for him to get into place. It made him wonder if others had gone through this before, the monolith was quite altar-like.
He blinked onto the altar and got ready, there was no need to ask questions in this, it was a test of Courage after all. He took a deep breath and looked up.
"Bring it."
It couldn't be said if the dragon heard his words, or simply knew it was time. The serpentine figure flew up into the clouds until there was not a scale visible, but the clouds grew heavier, charged up with electricity. The darkness light up as electricity saturated the clouds.
It was hard to miss what was coming. He could hear the sparkles as the dragon fed the imbalance further and further, until it peeked down and all that charge concentrated on their horn. And down it came, landing right on him.
The time it took the lightning to travel between the horn of the dragon and the monolith felt like an eternity. It allowed Magnus to think about what he was doing, almost wondering if he was going a bit too far, or maybe was being a bit too self-destructive. He hadn't taken any elixir against this kind of thing, but he honestly doubted any kind of potion could actually deal with what was coming. All he could do was center himself and let the power go through him.
The distance didn't take an eternity, it didn't take a moment, nor a fraction of things. One moment all that power had been accumulated on the sky, the next there was a perfect path down, and all the power rushed through it.
Night became day, and the lightning was visible from very far away, the thunder was heard soon after. Many animals in the vicinity just fell to the ground dead, the sonic explosion being more than what they could deal with. Their insides cooked or ruptured, brains practically turned off or mushed.
But Magnus stood untouched, surprised as he hadn't closed his eyes, nor had been blinded by the light. He still stood in place on top of the monolith, the area around it had become even more carbonized as the Lightning, capital very much earned, had just gone around him. It was practically glass, any dirt burned away and the leftover sand and stone melted.
He looked at the monolith, patted and felt it still warm. He theorized it must create a sort-of Faraday Cage, but to redirect such power…
He shook his head before he felt a burning sensation on the back of his palm, a new crest drawing on his skin. Three circles were drawn in a light green color, one inside the other, inside the other and all aligned to the left, or at least it looked that way when he looked at the back of his left hand. Farore's crest.
Courage shown, a test completed
He watched as Farosh flew down from the clouds, running his horn and body against the ruins of the temple.
Temper Bravery with Knowledge
He rushed to the spring and grinned, many dragon bits were floating on the water.
"Two down, one to go." He quickly started to collect the dragon materials.
He would spend the night in the Spring to calm down, his body felt strangely energetic during the night.
Magnus spent the night studying the ruins without disturbing the area much. Thankfully even without that he could still scan most half-buried with the use of his Darkness. It was only interrupted early in the morning when Purah messaged him.
Purah: What did you do?!
Robbie: I've to admit I'm curious too, boy. We felt it even up here.
Purah: Don't try to lie, I've seen the scans you've uploaded to the DD database and calculated the rough location of both the lightning and the spring of courage.
Magnus: In my defense, that was the trial carried out by Farosh.
Purah: What kind of test needs something of that magnitude?
Magnus: The Spring's Attendant created a massive storm cell and unloaded all of its charge down on my head. And before you ask, I wasn't even touched by it. The monolith I was standing created a sort of safety bubble, the test was showing bravery in the face of danger.
He also felt like the test called him an idiot after, which made him wonder if there was any other way. Or maybe he had to prepare more? Or maybe it was the first and the Wisdom test was meant after this one.
He could feel Purah sighing from the other side of the screen as he retold the short series of events.
Purah: Hopefully your last test doesn't cause Death Mountain to erupt violently, or create a new volcano.
Symin: Given the records on the matters of Din, it's most likely the test would ask him to show his power by stopping a Volcano, or maybe creating one himself.
Purah: Please don't create a new volcano, or at least discuss it with us so we can choose a good spot.
Magnus chuckled as he wandered through the Farosh Hills, he had to climb up a bit, but it was certainly cutting his travel time as he would come out directly onto Lake Hylia.
The hills were peaceful, practically no monsters around and only a few animals. Given their name, the dragon must enforce a certain amount of control over the area. He talked with the Sheikah until he finally reached the edge. Unfortunately the way down wasn't steep enough for him to just jump out, and just descending was a bit too boring.
There was something he had honestly hadn't tried yet and this seemed like the perfect moment to do so. He shifted into his beast form, fur covering his figure before he tapped into his race's transformation capability.
Zoroarks had two interesting abilities. The first was the ability to create large-scale illusions with the aim to confuse and befuddle, this was primarily used to prank others and protect their pack. Magnus had been tapping into this ability by mixing it with sound and music for some interesting effects. The second ability of the species was the ability to self-transform, now Zorua had also had it, though in their case the transformation tended to be imperfect; ears and tails were common signs of transformed Zorua. Zoroark, on the other hand, had this ability perfect to the point they could effectively do anything physical the form they adopted could.
And one of the skills he remembered practicing was flight. Unfortunately the only form he could adopt was that of a Rito, and the species didn't fly with just their wings, they tapped into wind magic from what he had observed. But they could still glide quite well.
He hoped Kass wasn't angry he copied him. He quickly grew larger, his shoulders widened, arms lengthened and hands expanded. His fur shifted into feathers and his muzzle turned into a beak. His legs and feet shifted last.
He shivered and ruffled his feathers as he got used to the new form.
"Let's see if I remember right." He thought out loud before blinking up in the air and spreading his wings.
It took him a moment to remember how to properly read and catch air currents, thankfully he was high enough that even a few scares weren't going to stop him. It was also because he would be definitely hitting the ground hard if he stopped.
Still, after a few drops, he managed to catch a good current and glided down towards the water, the transformation reverted twice once he was a few meters above the surface. He retrieved Forward and used the trident as a literal spear point as he dived weapon-first into the water.
"Okay, System, guide me to the segment." He subvocalized and swiftly followed the presented directions.
It had taken almost an hour to find the buried segment, wait for it to dig itself out and accompany him to the coast. Thankfully Lake Hylia was quite free from monsters, or at least it was in the area the segment had fallen into.
"So what's this segment for?" He prompted the System. "And should we unlock it?
"Segment can't be unlocked. Segment contains over fifty percent of the ship's general areas such as hallways, multi-purpose rooms, bridge and similar."
"Then in you go." He gestured to the open inventory window and allowed the segment to float in.
Magnus chuckled and opened the map of Hyrule. He was West from the road going North, that meant he could hug the edge of the great plateau to cut his travel time shorter instead of following the road.
It was still early enough that he could make it to the Forest of time by noon and follow the road from there. What worried him was that he would most likely make it to the stable way before the evening, and stopping there would mean losing several hours of light and travel time.
And since he didn't want to lose more time, either at the moment or later, he started to walk.
Robbie turned his wrist first to one side, then to the other. It still surprised him that rewinding his body's age by just twenty years had brought such a difference. And while it was a bit of a bother to get his old clothes mended so he could use them again, having his full hair back more than made it worth it.
He turned to look at Jerrin, his wife had already used the Age Rune a week earlier. But in his opinion she looked just as good as always.
"How were the things down in the stable?" He asked.
"People were worried, but barely anyone actually saw the lightning." She answered as she closed the door behind her. "Most were actually more worried that it was Death Mountain becoming more active."
He couldn't help but chuckle as it felt like a silly come back to his earlier conversation through the DDN.
"What did you tell them?"
"I convinced them that we used the telescope to check and that everything's okay." She answered as she grabbed her pad to check on something. "During the walk I was thinking, Magnus talked about the concept of Faraday Cage and I wanted to look more into it."
He grabbed his own and quickly searched for the term.
"Uh… a physical method to protect from electricity…" The man read through the article.
"It's actually quite interesting," Jerrin said, "with the easy access to magical resistances it seems no one actually looked into the field. But it shouldn't be discarded just because there's a simpler way to do things."
He nodded, he had seen it a lot in the Ancient Sheikah Tech, a lot of times the inner workings were very simple just because magic made it easier to insulate the system, store information or even just as a way to finish the piece.
Nothing said you couldn't use both paradigms together. His mind towards Magnus' flying drone, it used a physical propeller system instead of the Guardians' anti-gravity system.
But what if one used both?
"What's on your mind now?" Jerrin interrupted his musings.
"What do you mean? I'm just reading-"
She quickly interrupted him. "I've known you for multiple decades, do you think you can lie about having an interesting idea?" She cut to the center of the matter. "What were you thinking?"
"I was just thinking about what would be the result of combining foreign knowledge with Ancient Tech." He admitted.
She snorted. "Obviously something greater than its parts." She stated seriously.
"What?"
"You think you're the only one thinking that? Purah's doing, Symin's doing it, Magnus practically bases his dogma about learning and combining. If I had to guess, he inherited it from his mysterious father." She answered calmly. "It's okay to look and learn from others."
He sighed. "… I know, it's… just it feels like what I achieved should matter more."
"And it does, but nothing says you can take what you managed even further by cooperating." She smiled warmly. "There's a phrase I read in one of the many books Magnus provided, if I've seen further is because I've been standing on the shoulders of giants. We manage what we do today because others set the road for us to get further."
"Uh… I should really look into some of those books." He mused out loud before quickly scoffing. "Okay, okay, I won't keep it to myself, so I have a few ideas to discuss."
They quickly fell into their usual discussion. There would be many ideas coming from this, he just felt it.
Magnus passed the stable at around four in the afternoon, even with Winter having already started, it would still be about an hour before the sun started to set, giving him ample time to make his way forward.
His way around the Great Plateau had been almost boring, outside of a few random Red Bokoblins and a single Red Moblin, and there was nothing threatening about them; especially as none had been in a group larger than two.
It was obvious by now that the Great Plateau was doing something against the monsters in the area, because even he couldn't sense much of what was going behind the fog wall that surrounded the elevated geography. It had left him simply observing the steep cliff wall and how it appeared to once had been carved into a sort of wall. Had the whole chunk of land been moved in the past? Either from another part or elevated via a huge act of magic or divine power?
It definitely held some level of artificiality, but it was obvious that whatever had happened had been so long ago that no clue or sign really remained.
He did feel a terrifyingly chilling sensation when he was getting closer to the stable, and questioning the rumors once he entered the place he learned that a very powerful Lynel had claimed an ancient ruin nearby. Thankfully the monster was more than content, or whatever it could feel, to stay in the spot and not wander away. But it had also meant that the area outside of the ruins was practically quarantined and no one even wanted to see if the monster would feel like hunting anything that entered.
He was edging the Dalite Forest after crossing the bridge when his eyes caught sight of something quite curious. It had the body of a rabbit, the head of an owl, moth-like antennae and was soaked in glow paint. If he wasn't wrong, this was a Blupee, such a curious little creature, somewhere between a fairy and a spirit, and they usually were quite skittish.
Which is why it surprised him it just hopped over to him and bumped against his leg.
Magnus knelt down and stroked the little being's head with a finger. "Hey little fella, do you need help with something?"
The Blupee lost themselves in the gesture for a moment before comically shaking itself and chirping and nipping at his finger. While it didn't use words, it was obviously asking him to follow them.
"Okay, okay, I'm going." He freed his finger off their beak and followed the small creature as it started to hop ahead of him.
It didn't surprise him to see the Blupee quickly speed up, their body was that of a rabbit and it wasn't strange for such animals to reach speeds of thirty km/h, or even forty km/h in short bursts. It forced Magnus to pick up the speed and run after the small creature as they rushed towards Satori Mountain.
The Blupee took him through the forest, through a path not usually used by Hylian feet, a trail of animals and spirits. As they moved closer to the mountain, the ground filled more and more with lightly glowing, blue lantern-shaped flowers, very similar to blue bells. They grew in delicate stalks almost like decorations on the sides of the natural road.
And it wasn't just the only interesting plant, he recognized many high quality ingredients, both for alchemy and cooking; though in Hyrule those two didn't have too much difference.
The spirit looked up to him as they stopped at the base of the mountain, almost waiting for him to start climbing. So he did. He shifted into a fox and started to climb the rocky wall with his claws, easily digging them into the material.
The Blupee, meanwhile, simply disappeared from where it stood, reappearing much higher, once more waiting for him.
It took him almost half an hour, this was certainly not the most efficient way for him to climb up the cliff. But it was fun and helped him reacquaint himself with his body.
He soon reached an area flat enough to walk once more, the spirit guiding him through a copse of trees towards what appeared to be a small lake, or a very big pond.
The spirit chirped in surprise and disappeared in a flash of light as several Stal enemies rose from the area.
"So you needed help cleaning the area?" He chuckled. "Good for me." He brought out his blade, the weapon feeling a bit awkward on his claws. But he would do it.
Stalkoblins, Stalmoblins, Stalfos, all undead and fleshless, all technically immortal as long as their heads remained intact. He had actually tested it, the rest of their bones would slowly reform even if they had been broken, he had also seen more than one head sharing a body for unfortunate results for the monster.
Another advantage they had, was that they weren't affected by his illusions, though he wasn't sure of why.
They were still less than cannon fodder against him, even just tapping into his Light made them shy away, and Tenlight practically ate through them. The fact that they would last less of a chance than a candle in a hurricane didn't stop the skeletons from rushing him.
It still was a mob of targets, it's no surprise the Blupee had asked for his help. Such a target rich environment that he weaved his Light into a faux second blade to hold with his other hand and started to chop.
Most attacks broke skulls, the energy in his weapons burning through the Malice-saturated bones. Headless skeletons panicked for a short time before they went away, and the mob was quickly thinned down to nothing.
He quickly stabbed the illusionary blade into a skull and watched the light fade from its eye sockets and the rest of the bone crumpled away into a horn and wisps of miasma.
"Done." He stated as he looked around, seeing no other monster.
He looked around until he saw the Blupee hop back up to him.
"Was that all?" He prompted and the spirit nipped at his pants and tugged. "More? Okay, guide me."
It appeared the mountain had become infested with undead, because the spirit dragged him around, slowly getting higher until he led him to a conspicuous pile of giant bones.
The moment he stepped close the bones started to rattle, a sort-of warning that went unheeded. They started to rise and as he had expected, took the shape of a Hinox, or at least its skeletal structure. The Stalnox reached to grab its fossilized eye and stuck the glowing sphere into its eye socket.
Magnus rushed forward, dodging the clumsy attempt to grab him and swung Tenlight towards the monster's shin bone. To his surprise, the blade barely bit into the material. It felt like hitting rock.
He swiftly jumped back as the undead giant tried to kick him. It seemed the monster didn't have the same weakness as its smaller cousins.
He quickly replaced the blade for his metal bat, exchanging a type advantage for a more effective damage type. He batted at the monster's hand as it tried to grab him once more, the sound of crushed bones made him smile as the Stalnox screamed.
"Come on you big lug, a few fingers is nothing compared to what I will do with you." He cackled as his Darkness practically bled from his fur as he quickly moved.
He used and abused the natural darkness too, zipping around the area and dodging the large and clumsy monster, sneaking in to slowly break the monster's kneecaps. It wasn't too effective, the monster wasn't really standing on its bones, he could see how all magic seemed to come from the eye, this being the root of the beast, the anchor; for a manner of speaking.
The metal bat was replaced for the bow and a normal arrow, the projectile was notched and launched in just a moment. The arrow hit the edge of the eye, slipping into the empty space between the sphere and the fossilized eye socket; the malicious orb popped free and flew off the skull.
He chuckled as all danger dissipated so quickly it became comical. He grabbed the eye to observe it. It wasn't exactly a rock, more like something between very hard rubber and some soft wood. The combination of toughness and flexibility kept it from receiving too much damage.
Or it would if Magnus didn't use his weapon to beat the eye like a baseball and Blink ahead, retrieve his blade and swing the weapon with both hands.
For as tough as the eye was, it lost completely to Tenlight. The combination of high speed and the sharpness of the Light-infused blade severed the volleyball-sized sphere in half, one part hitting the ground and breaking into bits, while the other broke away into miasma in the middle of the air.
He watched the skeleton suddenly realize what had happened. The giant set of bones went stiff and started to rattle before each bone exploded into quickly dissipating bits and Malice.
He couldn't help but shudder as the area was filled with the disgusting sensation of evil, causing Magnus to cycle his Light to burn it away. It also had the effect of melting the little snow that had accumulated in some corners of the area.
Before he could check if that was all, he felt a presence behind his back. He quickly turned and froze, just a meter away, looking down on him, was what could only be described as the Blupee's father-figure.
A stallion's body instead of a hare. Two owl faces side to side, giving the impression of a four-eyed creature. A much larger set of moth-like antennae that looked like a laurel crown, or a set of horns.
This was the legendary Satori, the Lord of the Mountain.