"Master Ashton, Invocation... is omnipresence?" Olaf wasn't just taken aback by Ashtons confession, he was wholly confused.
Simply imagining the many eyes and overwhelming connection with others Ashton described, wasn't enough to sympathize.
No one besides an Invoker, could relate to another.
Ashton forced himself upright into a sitting position on his bed, waving his hand through his system to close it. "That is a mild comparison. It felt like I was at the bottom of an endless ocean, the weight of it was not only crushing my body, but my mind as well. I don't even know how I am awake right now."
This, Olaf could relate to.
He was more than friendly with the toll battling with your life on the line took.
He was somebody whose life was such battling, for a long time.
Just as he was about to offer words of wisdom from his own experience and shed light on how he recovered thus far, Ashton spoke first
"Leave for now." Looking at Olaf with wide red eyes, he knew Ashton was not asking.
Olaf said nothing, no protest or words of advice.
The only thing that followed was the sound of his boots shuffling out of Ashtons bedroom, without urgency.
As the door closed behind him, it revealed the swords he had left behind.
The same rectangular blade he gave to Ashton for his trial, but this time its matching pair was with it.
Slightly shorter but the same exact make and model, the swords were twins. Olaf's signature.
The sight of the swords moved Ashton. It was an action of trust, a passing of the torch.
Ashton reached for the weapons, trying to call them to him with a wind spell but he was left gripping his heart in agony instead.
As he was wheezing for air and his body was shaking, the mana flowing within his mana channels felt like barbed wire forced down a small tube.
In the moment, it became clear to Ashton, his channels weren't just strained, they were broken. Crippled.
[Why are they so damaged? I didn't use too much of my own mana last night...]
He was suffering from a disease without cure. A disease with many names, Devils Squeeze, Mana Restriction, Sequence Disabled.
There were many names from all types of cultures that described this phenomenon, but none of that mattered.
All that mattered to Ashton was that it is happening to him.
The disease was career ending. In severe cases life threatening.
Under anguish that would break most men, Ashton sat in composure.
Stabilizing his breathing he recalls his trial, trying to pinpoint why and when his pathways became broken.
Then it hit him, the brutal pain he felt for the split second the Nightmare Flames graced his body before the Aether Systems notification.
The adrenaline flowing within in him, then the weight of his Invocation, masked the damage from the flames kiss.
The Aether Systems designation of the Nightmare Flame as a dark art, not only protected Ashton from it, but it also gave him agency over it.
Control he didn't exercise in the moment, but that didn't matter. The flames he wore as he exited from the inferno seeped down within his body.
Like the flame was alive and running home, it burrowed inside of Ashtons body. It was neither warm nor cold behind his lungs where it found sanctuary, it was weightless, unnoticeable.
[I had forgotten about you,] Ashton thought as he pulled the flames from his body and into the palm of his hand. [It takes no mana to summon you, yet it is hard to handle you without any]
While Ashton was playing with the nightmare in his hand, studying it and becoming closer with it, his system lit up.
"Nightmare Flame
1/100%"
[1% of its potential, quantity, or what?]
Looking at his flame, he wasn't upset with how little the Aether system told him, his thoughts were less duplicate and more elevated.
Taking a meditative position on his bed, throwing his blankets into the floor, Ashton took his flame back into of his body.
Unable to look inside himself with is mana, he felt it with his flame.
He guided it through his mana pathways, [I have nothing more to lose] he thought as he began. [It cannot hurt me anyways]
The flames, like a scalpel, cut away at the rot inside of his mana channels.
He coughed violently, purging toxins from his pathways, blackened blood leaking from his ears and nose, and yet, Ashton was still. Like a monk at prayer.
The flame didn't hurt, but the exertion did. Every cough, every tremor of bleeding muscle lit his nerves like he was burning from the inside.
It was working, his pathways opened like a dam releasing his mana into them like a flood.
Not only were they cleaned and widened, but they were also smoother than before.
His mana flowed through them without resistance. A welcomed mutation.
[I didn't believe that would work] Using his mana to enhance his body and rise from his bed [I was ready to only use this flame for the rest of my life]
His bones ached and his muscles could hardly support his weight, so he used more mana in enhancement.
Walking across his room and out into the hallway, to the maids and servants he appeared in perfect health. They couldn't notice him moving solely by will and magical support.
But Chamberlain Olaf and his father noticed immediately as he swung open the doors of the counts office.
His arrival was more unexpected than the topic the two were discussing.
"Son..." Count Shaun opened, "Go back to your room, you are clearly forcing yourself too much."
The words were foreign to Ashton.
Before, the tone in his father's voice, firm but carrying concern would have felt loving to him.
But now they were distant, he no longer saw the protectiveness of a parent in them, or the authority.
Taking a seat close to the door, ignoring the command laced in a father's embrace, "What were you discussing?"
The look in his eyes, defiant but clear, stating he is exactly where he needs to be.