"The amount of aura you have is unnaturally large. Even some 3rd Circles do not have that high of an aura amount. How is your body able to contain it?" She asked him.
"I have the Aura Pill Body, I think," Leo replied. "Did you have those in your time?"
"Yes, but none of them had as much aura. Release it," she said.
He let go of the aura, allowing it to enter the arm. The minute it did, he watched it expertly flow around to enter his fingertips. While he couldn't really control his hand or feel it, he could still observe the flow of the aura that was considered his.
Compared to him, it was very clear that Nefrati was leagues better at controlling aura. It wasn't surprising, considering that she used to be an 8th Circle Aura Knight. The aura entered the compass, creating some changes in it.
It glowed and the needle started to spin. The runes that were inscribed onto the compass were slowly being altered by her one by one. Each rune was only changed a little, after which she moved to the next one.
After she went through all the runes, the aura in his body was completely depleted. At that point, she let go of the control over his hand.
"I'm guessing it worked?" He asked with a hopeful tone. His question did not get any response.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
"Yes," a faint voice appeared in his mind. Nefrati was incredibly tired from controlling his hand to change the compass. "I just need a little time to recover my energy."
As she said that, Leo noticed that the solitude that he had been enjoying was starting to be attacked. Magical Beasts were creeping in from each side, trying to approach him.
"Fine. I'll use the compass to get to the location. Until then, you should rest," he said while rising into the air. He was holding the dangling body of Elise with his left hand. She had yet to wake up from the latest blow to her body, but he expected that she would pretty soon. Previously, she had taken very little time to wake up from the attacks.
"Okay. I just need an hour," she said. "If you have any aura, it would help."
In response, he took out a few Aura Gathering pills he had lying around. It was a very small number - only 5. But it was going to be enough to get himself a substantial amount of aura that Nefrati could use.
When he swallowed the pills and was about to circulate the aura from them like normal. However, the aura from the pills directly went to his mind as if there was a magnet attracting it. He had never experienced something like this since his magic normally clashed with the aura.
The magnet attracting the aura was Nefrati. She nourished her soul with the aura that was coming into her mind, sucking all of it before it could even react to the magic. By doing this, she was recovering from the exhaustion her soul went through to possess his body.
After a few minutes, she finished the absorption.
"I need more," she said. "Give me another one."
He swallowed another pill as she said while staying in the air. He didn't want to fly while taking the aura pills since he didn't know how using too much magic would make the aura behave. Even now, it was the first time that he had used both aura and magic at the same time.
After another few minutes, her voice asked for more. In total, the five pills he had left were depleted in less than 30 minutes. When she was done, she seemed even more energetic than before. Previously, she was just curious, but now she seemed full of spirit too.
"Well! I needed that!" She exclaimed.
"Wow, you were that exhausted?" He asked.
"Do you know how hard it was to do nothing for the duration of my being imprisoned? The chains stopped me from circulating aura. I had to use the aura just in my hands to try and transfer my soul to you," she said.
"Fine. So are you completely, recovered?" He asked her.
"Yes. So we can now be going to the actual temple," she said. "It should be pretty close, but we need to have the exact location for the blood sacrifice to work."
"You need to do that again. I don't know how it works," he said.
"I know. For now, we need to make sure that she is still alive. The sacrifice needs to be alive at the time of being sacrificed." She told him.
"Please don't tell me she has to be willing to be sacrificed as well," Leo groaned.
"No, that would be impossible. No one would be willingly sacrificed. Every human would have some selfish desire to live. But anyway, as long as she is alive, even just hanging by a thread, it will be enough," she said.
"That should work. I'll just get to the temple for now and then we will figure out everything else there," he said.
He took a look at the modified compass. It was no longer pointing at the former prison but in another direction. Before leaving, he took a look at the ground.
A soul fire burst blasted the ground, creating a huge explosion that rattled the nearby Magical Beasts.
"What was that for?" Nefrati asked with curiosity.
As the explosion cleared out, it revealed the scorched ground that was charred black. It was very different from the nearby grass and would be easily distinguished. The signs of the previous battle were very faint, but this one was unmissable.
"I need to come back here while going back to where I came from. To do that, I need a marker that points here. This is the easiest one," he said.
"Interesting. That is a good idea," she said. Meanwhile, he shot through the air toward the direction he needed to go.
After 10 minutes of flying, he saw the compass suddenly rotate the needle all of a second. He halted and smiled, knowing that he had reached his destination. Backtracking a few steps, he kept flying until the compass just turned around again.
"I'm here. But you said it was close. I've been flying for almost 10 minutes. I think I covered 25 kilometers in this time," he said.
"That is a very small distance. Even I can teleport through that distance," she said.
"You can teleport?" He asked with curiosity.
"Yes. Aura Knights can try to teleport at the 7th Circle. Since I was an 8th Circle Aura Knight, I practiced a lot more than them," she said.
"How long do you guys live for?" He asked her.
"As an 8th Circle Aura Knight? At least 400 years. I haven't heard of anyone dying of old age though, everyone dies because they were in a fight, or because they failed to break through and suffered a backlash," she said.
Leo was surprised at this. 8th Circle mages typically only survived for 30 years according to one of the books he read at the Eldridge Academy.
