Rebirth of the 8th-Circle Mage

It wasn’t his imagination. Henry’s left forearm had really exploded.

‘What the…!’

Henry could only stare at his flesh floating in the water and the blood from his arm spreading in the water like ink. It was certainly a sight. As Henry’s blood dissipated in the water, the Elyragon egg hidden in his arm appeared.

‘Huh?’

The egg was glowing. It was now bigger than the size of an adult fist and it constantly sucked in the water, which was mixed with Henry’s mana and poisonous blood. The egg continued to grow bigger.

Whoosh!

The strange whirlpool sounded like a monster howling. When it finally came to a stop, the glowing egg glowed even more brightly and began to emit light throughout the entire lake. Blinded by the light, Henry had to cover his eyes with his shattered arm.

However, at that moment, another absurd situation began to take place.

‘What the hell is going on now…!’

Henry’s arm regenerated his forearm all by itself. He moved his fingers; they seemed just synced to his body just like the original ones.

‘Can it be… Was it because of the light?’

It was said that water spirits had healing powers, but it was only an egg even though it was an offspring of Elyragon. Henry laughed at the thought that the light could heal his arm. He had never experienced anything like it before.

‘I guess I shouldn’t complain about good things.’

Finally, the light died away. Henry saw that the egg was gone and there was a new creature in its place: a dragon hatchling.

‘That is…’

But it wasn’t a dragon hatchling. The Elyragon was the highest form of water spirit, and the dragon form of its offspring was an especially rare occurrence. The Elyragon began to open his eyes, squinting. Although the egg had been large, the offspring was small and cute like a puppy.

Shaaake-!

The Elyragon shook himself like a wet dog. He took a look at his surroundings and then began to sniff the ground, walking on all fours. He was a light green color and had a tail and wings. It was clear that he was a dragon, but the behavior of the majestic Elyragon seemed to be just like that of a…

‘...Dog?’

After a while, Elyragon stopped at a certain spot and began to dig with his forelegs. Henry continued to observe the Elyragon with his arms crossed.

Sniff!

‘Hmm?’

How deep was the hole? After he was done digging the hole, he stuck his face inside with a confident expression and after sniffing for a while, he came back up with a small marble in his mouth.

‘T-that is–’

Henry’s eyes grew round. It was an Essence marble, one that could only be found in pure Mother Nature. It was the Essence of Mother Nature.

Henry hadn’t even seen the Essence more than a few times, but the Elyragon held it casually in his mouth. Henry finally understood.

‘That’s why the lake was frozen.’

The Essence of Mother Nature was influenced by its environment, and it was created only when the energy of nature had accumulated over a long time. If Henry’s guess was accurate, this was the Essence of ice.

‘The cold air unique to Salgaera must have accumulated at the bottom of the lake. No wonder the lake kept freezing over…’

He finally grasped what was going on, but then…

Shatter!

“W-wait!”

The Elyragon bit down on the Essence marble and swallowed it. Henry was so surprised that he had spoken out.

‘T-that precious thing…’

The Essence of Mother Nature was just as precious as a spirit’s egg, so it was natural to be shocked. However, as soon as the Elyragon swallowed the Essence, his entire body began to glow brightly again, this time with a blue light like a crystal. Gradually, the light began to fade and when the Elyragon reappeared, its body had transformed.

‘Did he evolve?’

It seemed like an appropriate description. The previously tiny puppy was now the size of a fully grown cat. The light green scales were now a dark turquoise, and two small horns appeared on his forehead.

The Elyragon shook himself once again like a wet dog. It seemed that he was satisfied with his shaking and slowly began to swim his way toward Henry as Henry continued to watch in silence.

When he neared Henry, the Elyragon rubbed against Henry’s ankle.

-Kkue.

It was definitely a show of affection.

‘Just minutes ago, you blew off my arm… But I guess you still recognize your nest.’

The spirits didn’t recognize parents, and the Elyragon’s behavior toward Henry was from an attachment to his nest rather than an instinctive love for his parents.

Henry lifted the Elyragon up in the air like he was lifting a puppy.

-Kkue?

The Elyragon stuck his tongue out like a puppy, and Henry smirked.

“From now on, your name will be Elagon.”

It was a shorter form of Elyragon. Henry placed his hand on Elagon’s lower belly.

Voom-!

He cast the Attribute Test spell, a type of test measuring sociability that was mainly used on incoming students at the magic academy.

Henry was curious. Since Elagon was the highest form of a water spirit and had even swallowed the Essence of ice as soon as he was born, Henry was very curious to see what kind of power he had. The test revealed an unexpected power, and Henry laughed at the pleasant surprise.

‘Ha, look at this little guy.’

If Elagon were a student, he would be a prodigy because Henry could feel four strong forces within him.

‘Four different attributes… I've never even seen anything like this before.’

Elagon had inherited his mother’s powers, so it was natural that his water attribute would be powerful. Not only that, since he swallowed the Essence of ice soon after his birth, he gained attributes of ice similar to those of water.

However, there was more to Elagon than this. Henry had kept the egg in his forearm to allow his blood to provide enough hydration for the egg to hatch. Since Henry had swallowed venom’s heart in the past, his blood had become a powerful poison, which in turn gave Elagon the power of deadly poison as well.

Moreover, since the poison was from venom’s heart, Elagon possessed a much more powerful attribute of poison that was greater than that of poison spirits.

Elagon hadn’t grown addicted to the poison as he was still in spirit form while in his egg, but he had to constantly use his water spirit healing powers to deal with the toxins in the blood.

Certainly, the egg had also consumed Henry's mana; luckily, Henry had already secured a sufficient amount of mana through meditation at the Lake of Whispering.

Since Elagon was constantly using his healing powers within Henry’s body, it resulted in a new power called “Elagon’s own healing power” that was unique from the healing powers of water spirits.

Henry did not know all of the details, but Elagon’s powers came from all sorts of happy accidents.

“I hope to work well with you.”

-Kkue!

His powers were greater than Henry had expected. Now that he’d figured out the secret of the lake, Henry lessened his weight and began to rise to the surface.

Splash!

The ice on the surface of the lake had all melted after the removal of the Essence of ice and Henry was able to easily get out of the lake.

‘I think my business here is finished… Should I start digging a waterway to the mansion?’

It was time to proceed with his original plan. Henry began to calculate the most efficient route for the waterway, recalling the paths he had observed as he approached the lake.

After some time, Henry selected the most optimal path for the waterway by recalling the civil engineering knowledge he had acquired during the construction of the empire. Shortly after reviewing the waterway, Henry returned to the lake to start construction, but…

“Huh? What’s going on with them?”

It was as soon as he got back to the lake, Henry saw hundreds of dead fish floating on its surface. He could not help blurting out in surprise.

Then Henry noticed something strange.

“Steam?”

He was certain that steam was rising from the lake.

‘Why did this happen all of a sudden?’ 𝙗𝙚𝒅𝒏𝙤𝙫𝙚𝒍.𝒐𝙧𝙜

Henry walked up to the lake and stuck his hand in.

The water was warm; the sudden change in temperature had killed all the fish.

‘Right after the Essence of ice was removed, the ice on the surface of the lake melted and the lake began to heat up. It can’t be that…?’

It was strange. The lake had originally been a hot spring.

‘I never imagined that this big lake would be a hot spring…’

There was no way of knowing how an Essence of ice could have developed below a hot spring, but it was certain to change the temperature of the water.

Henry was a little taken aback.

He had already thought of a waterway path and planned to supply water to the village that way, but the hot spring forced him to rethink his plans. He needed a new source of drinking water now that he couldn’t use the lake for that purpose.

‘First… I should probably take out the fish.’

With a sigh, Henry began to remove the cooked fish.