Lucas watched as his father stood and left the room, the door clicking gently behind him. Silence settled. In it, Lucas sat still - thinking.
His father had been right.
Lucas had begun to believe he was different. Not just because of his intellect but now because of his blood. Because he was a demigod.
He'd confused heritage for destiny. Power for readiness.
He thought caution was behind him. He hadn't realized - it wasn't about fear.
It was about respecting the unknown.
Still rubbing the sore spot where his back hit the wall, Lucas began to clean. Glass swept into a cloth. Candles snuffed and set aside. The dent in the plaster, he ignored.
When the room was once again still, Lucas took the spellbook that had nearly undone him and returned it to the study. Not with bitterness. But with care.
Then he turned to search again - this time, truly searching.
Not for power.
For understanding.
His fingers brushed across a shelf lower down. The spines here weren't gilded with glowing runes, nor bound in enchanted leather. These were smaller, humbler things.
Titles like:
The Foundations of Herbology
Mist for the Mortal Mind: A Guide for the Newly Gifted
On Potions and Patience
A Beginner's Bestiary: Creatures of the Ancient World
A Short History of Long Wars: The Gods and Their Mistakes
Lucas smiled faintly and picked another:
You Are Not Yet Ready: Warnings, Whispers, and Common Apprentice Deaths
He pulled them down, one by one.
Sat down at the desk.
And started studying.
...
After weeks of study - immersing himself in tomes, Lucas felt it was time.
Time to return to what he had brought back from the Mist.
The tarot card.
It rested in his hand now, worn and strange. Taken from the obsidian throne in that castle of mist. It looked like a card - but Lucas knew better.
It was not a card.
Not really.
It was a memory, or perhaps a metaphor the Mist had allowed him to comprehend. Something ancient, folded into shape for his sake.
When he turned it over, a recipe appeared.
Sequence 9 - Apprentice:
Spirituality: The user's innate Spirituality is enhanced upon consuming the potion. This also grants a foundational understanding of magic, witchcraft, divination, ritual-based practices, and the unseen. The knowledge is intuitive - felt rather than learned.
Perfect Recall: The user gains the ability to perfectly remember any event, text, or piece of information they have encountered. Even the most minute details can be recalled with clarity and precision.
Veil Sight: Grants the ability to pierce illusions and see through falsehoods. Additionally, the user can sense lingering magical residue such as wards, enchantments, or charms.
Potion Ingredients:
Water collected at Twilight, from a Crossroad
Blue Mallow Petals
Fragment of Obsidian Polished under Moonlight
Supplementary Materials:
3 grams of hemlock
9 drops of frog blood
7 grams of quartz dust
Lucas knew the card held more than it revealed, he could feel the knowledge beneath the ink. Power came with trials. The potion would not grant strength to one who merely drank it. It would grant strength to the one who understood what it meant. To digest a potion was not to consume it. It was to act its truth. To wear its meaning. To become what it offered.
He had spent the last week gathering the ingredients with care. He'd even told his father, who said nothing but watched closely.
Now, beneath a moon-struck sky, Lucas knelt before the iron cauldron. The grass shimmered with dew. Mist gathered, low and curling, as if waiting.
Steven stood nearby, silent but present.
Lucas nodded.
And began.
First, he poured the twilight water into the cauldron. The iron hissed faintly. When the boil began, he added the blue mallow petals - stirring counterclockwise, slow and deliberate, until they melted into color.
Then, one by one, he added the supplementary materials: 3 grams of hemlock, 9 drops of frog blood and 7 grams of quartz dust.
Finally, at the hour of the moon's peak, he placed the obsidian shard into the liquid.
It sank without a ripple.
The potion shifted - from silver to deep violet, dotted with glinting specks of light that pulsed, vanished, returned. Like stars hiding in clouds.
He poured the liquid into a flask. Held it in both hands.
Hesitated.
Then felt a hand rest gently on his shoulder.
He turned. Steven stood beside him, no words - just love, and encouragement.
Lucas nodded.
He drank.
The world tilted softly.
He looked up, confused.
And the blackness took him.
...
Interlude I:The Watching Shadow (Hecate)
Hecate watched.
From beyond the Veil.
Below, in the mortal realm, her son was working.
He moved with quiet focus - hands steady, steps sure, instincts finely tuned. He measured, stirred, layered intention where it belonged.
She noticed.
There had always been talent in him - that had never been in question. But pride… pride has many masks.
She had seen it in him, blooming in silence over the years. A subtle arrogance, the kind that doesn't boast, but assumes.
It had worried her.
She had not intervened.
But she had watched.
And now, she saw the change. The way he walked more slowly. The way he read more than once. The way he had asked permission before brewing the potion.
Not because he feared power.
But because he had begun to respect it.
Hecate didn't smile - not exactly. But her expression softened.
"There it is," she murmured. "Caution, reverence... finally, a little wisdom."
Then, the potion was finished. The boy drank. And, as expected.
Collapsed.
Hecate giggled. A sharp, quiet sound, full of shadows and amusement.
"At least he's consistent," she said, eyes gleaming like obsidian fire.
She waved her hand once, a lazy gesture - and the Mist around Lucas' coiled, folded, and vanished. No gods, no monsters had seen what she wanted to hide.
He had taken a step forward.
...
Interlude II : The Light cuts through the Mist (Apollo)
Apollo felt it - like sunlight piercing through a veil. A breath of clarity where there had only been clouded silence.
For centuries, something had been hidden from him. A thread twisted beyond even his prophetic sight - coiled, shrouded, deliberately obscured.
But now… something ancient had moved.
A prophecy. Old. Powerful. Dangerous.
He could feel its edges - just the echo of it, humming beneath the surface of fate. He could not yet see it, not fully.
But the barrier had cracked.
And Apollo had waited too long to let this chance pass.
He had searched. Quietly. Obsessively. But there was no trail.
There was one path that could lead to answers.
The Fates.
But he dared not confront them.
He would not risk that. Not yet. They were beyond even him.
And he would not tell the others.
Not until he was sure.
Not until he could stand before Olympus and say he had uncovered the truth.