"That's not how this works. The demons are always going to invade. It's in their nature.
That's why it's our nature to kill them.
Given this fortress has been abandoned for centuries, there should be some buildup here.
Or the protective seal on the gate should have been restored much more recently, after an invasion.
Instead, nothing's happened and the portal is practically nonexistent."
There were a few possible causes that came to mind in August's head, none of them pleasant. Most of them made little sense given the time period.
He had yet to confirm the precise date that he had been transported to, but the fact that this was Jafeila's first assignment as Champion told him that the invasion of Gharrick Pass was imminent.
So that meant many of his theories were out by default.
He resorted to voicing his thoughts aloud to Jafeila.
"Demonic energy builds up in portals the same way that magical energy builds up in the stones.
Demons then use it to expand the portal or invade. They clearly haven't done either, as this portal is one of the smallest I've seen, and they haven't invaded, because the seal was intact."
"That means…"
"I don't know."
"Oh. I thought you knew everything." Jafeila bit her lip. She didn't mean it as a jab, but it sounded like one anyway.
He sighed. "I can speculate, but knowing something is different to guessing. Something or someone has likely bled the demonic energy off.
Maybe a major invasion took place nearby and used this portal's energy."
He shrugged. 'Too many possibilities. Too little evidence.'
The portal was inactive and tiny. August turned and made to re-enter the fortress. A squeak of surprise caused him to stop.
Jafeila blushed as he looked at her. "Um, shouldn't we get rid of these demons?" she asked, fiddling with her sword hilt.
"A few demons won't cause any problems."
"But… but…" she mumbled. Her ears flattened against her head, and her tail ran against the ground, picking up dust.
Somebody was going to need to give her tail a proper clean after today.
It was filthy, and her black fur had lost its sheen.
"Fine. You can have your fun," he said. She perked up and spun around.
Before she leaped away, he grabbed her by the shoulder. "But we have something important to do first, Champion."
"Eh?"
"Did you forget the most important part of being a Champion?" August pointed at himself, then at her. "There's one last step, then you'll be a true Champion."
A moment passed. Then two.
Jafeila stared at August in visible confusion. Then her eyes widened. "Wait, you mean—" she cut herself off and gulped. "You're going to grant me a gem?"
August blinked. "No. Not yet."
"Aww."
"In time," he said. Her tail perked back up. "There are four stages to being a Champion. You should remember this."
"Enhancement, monogem, duogem, trigem. I know. But I hoped you would skip straight to monogem," she muttered.
"Impossible. A gem won't take unless a Champion has enough experience with the power of a binding stone.
To get that experience, I must enhance you first. Trust me, this is a significant step." He smiled at her.
"I know, I know. We get enhanced during training." She scowled at him.
August's eyes gleamed softly. Jafeila had gone from nervous and adorable to pouty and adorable, all because he had disappointed her.
She was so openly emotional now, compared to the Jafeila he knew.
Maybe he enjoyed this too much, but this felt like being able to pig out on a buffet after a lifetime of only ever eating food a single plate at a time.
"Like I said, trust me. Now, what type of enhancement do you prefer?"
"Type?"
"The typical ones are strength, speed, or endurance. They're self-explanatory. Or you can mix and match.
More advanced stuff includes focusing enhancements on particular facets of your body, like your legs, or enhanced senses."
August paused, noticing that Jafeila was staring at him with very wide eyes.
"You can also increase the magical side of things, but I don't think you know any sorcery, so best to stick to physically enhancing your body with the binding stone."
"This is permanent?" she asked.
"More or less. Your training enhancements are to prevent you from dying when you fight demons, not to help you slay them.
If they gave you a full enhancement straight away, you'd probably get a little overconfident and not train properly.
But you're a full-fledged Champion now. I need you to be a one-woman army, Jafeila."
She mouthed her name after he said it. He realized that was the first time he had spoken her name aloud after the initial greetings.
"So? Strength, speed, or endurance?" he asked.
"Wait, now I can only pick those three?" she squeaked. Her ears flattened. "I was thinking about what I'd mix and match, too."
"You can change your enhancement at any time until you get your first gem. I recommend you change it up regularly until you know what suits you best," August explained.
"So stick with the basics at first."
"Oh. Then speed. I wanna chop up those demons into ten pieces before they can even blink.
Like in the stories of the trigem Champion Tarako, and her Nine-Tail Slash." Jafeila grinned at August and bounced up and down on the spot.
He grimaced at the mention of the fictional trigem Champion. Or at least, every mystic fox he had ever met insisted that she was fictional, despite the statues and countless stories talking about the nine-tailed fox Tarako and her centuries of exploits.
Speed was a predictable choice by Jafeila. It had been her enhancement in his timeline. He was hardly surprised that she chose it this time.
Somehow, her predictability comforted him.
"Stand still and don't move. This will only take a moment," he said. "It might feel a little funny, but you can't move from that spot. Also, don't try to resist in any way."
"I trained for this. I'm ready, August," Jafeila breathed out, her voice husky.
The pair fell silent.
Not even a wind blew past them, as there was no wind in this world.
The faint sound of the keep rebuilding itself could be heard from the other side of the gate. As could the distant grunting of the demons farther down the valley.
August gave Jafeila one last look. She stood still, her muscles tensed and eyes closed.
Both her ears and tail stood bolt upright. Her fingers tapped against her leggings.
She seemed ready, so August decided to proceed. He dove into his newly activated binding stone, exploring his mental world.
There wasn't much to see. In his old timeline, he had connected himself to countless binding stones over his life.
Here, he only had the one. His mental world only contained the one stone, the tether to his own mind, and the leylines directly connected to that stone.
Plus that strange tether that August still couldn't detect, but that he knew was there.
Shrugging off that odd feeling, he concentrated on his existing binding stone.
He plucked a spare bit of magic from it and left his mental world.
Time resumed. Jafeila continued to tap her leg.
Her magical presence hovered in front of him, faint but still there. Ordinary people barely existed with regard to magical detection.
August suspected the only reason he could detect Jafeila so quickly was because she had trained as a Champion.
That process had increased the magic within her body.
Most ordinary humans and beastkin were practically invisible to August when it came to magical detection, unless he cast a dedicated ritual to detect them with his magic or used the binding stone to detect them.
Now that he had found her magical presence, August connected his own essence to hers.
The moment he made the connection, he felt her mind push back against him.
He mentally grasped the magic of binding stone, just in case he needed it to force the connection.
Then she stopped resisting him. Her body relaxed, and a sigh escaped her lips.