"Please sir, a towel and some water."
"Thanks, James." A sweating Alaric said.
"Body and Mind in attunement is truly the key." He thought.
It's been another 3 months since Alaric started experimenting with Spice on normal, unusual and magically gifted humans.
And 2 weeks ago, he unlocked the knowledge to correctly use Spice.
Spice was an enhancer, a drug that straight up strengthened the mind. The issue was that for a lot of normal people, suddenly unlocking more of their mind meant that they instantly fell into a high stress situation.
It took Alaric so long because the prisoners, once mentally overstimulated, spiraled into deeper emotional collapse—trapped in fear, despair, and the knowledge that their fate was already sealed.
The cause of Alaric's success was the small girl. After having failed on the grownups, he realized the mistakes with the girl. The one who had seen the results for herself and at some point, just accepted her fate.
This mental strength gave her the will to not fall into a hole.
That in return gave Alaric the exact data that he needed.
It also instantly clicked in his mind because the different order and societies in dune trained their mental strength nigh unhuman levels.
Now he took spice himself. Combined with a rigorous training plan for himself.
Again – Body and Mind need to be in attunement. To prevent a degeneration of himself.
It was no wonder that the nobles in the dune franchise had a crazy amount of physical fitness in a world where most of humanity would probably simply lay there, lazy in happiness just enjoying whatever luxuries they could be offered.
The girl, he gave a pouch full of gold. Enough to live till her natural life's end and sent her away. He didn't need to kill a kid for spreading rumors about things, which most people wouldn't care about or declare her crazy for.
That was still below his moral line.
Killing with a means or a goal in mind was fine. Without it, it would be blatant murder.
Since then, Alaric has been taking Spice very regularly – around every 2 days. His eyes were starting to shine in a very eerie blue. Take some dune by inhaling it via smoke, meditate on it and then do fitness.
He felt better than ever and even enjoyed it. A greater open mind, constant advancement in his attributes, be they mental or physical. And last but not least the pure feeling of furthering his progress – even in his magical knowledge. Strings of knowledge connected. As if he had suddenly found the place to put the puzzle piece into.
The further he got, the faster it became.
James stood by the side of the sand-polished training stones, holding a basin of chilled water, condensation running in thin rivulets down its side. Alaric took the towel first, then the water. He drank slowly, letting the liquid cool his lungs before speaking.
"Next regimen, combat forms. Then two hours of theory work."
"Yes, sir," James replied, already noting it down in a floating glyph-record that hovered beside him.
Alaric's body, though still that of a boy, was beginning to bear the faintest edge of muscle tone. Not from brute effort — but from efficiency. Every motion honed. Every form refined. Not unlike how he approached his studies. He didn't waste time lifting stones for pride or sparring for ego. Every action had to feed into a greater progression.
And Spice made that progression… clearer.
Its most terrifying gift wasn't raw strength or even foresight. It was clarity. He didn't just read faster — he understood faster. Magical theory that once required hours to thread together now simply fell into place, like recognizing handwriting in a familiar language. He didn't even need to read twice anymore. Once was enough.
The Vault, too, was responding. Its pulses had grown steadier. Deeper. It no longer corrected him — it collaborated. Shared fragments of knowledge he didn't know he'd acquired. Sometimes it showed him things before he asked. Other times it refused until he understood the framing of the question.
And the greatest sign of all?
He had begun dreaming in symbols.
Not memories. Not fractured illusions. But full, lucid structures. Spell matrices layered into abstract logic trees. Ethereal diagrams. Logic gates threaded in runes. He'd wake up and sketch them instantly. Two-thirds didn't make sense yet.
But the remaining third?
Revolutionary.
The latest was a spell-filter frame — something that could dynamically adapt a casting thread depending on emotional state. Meaning: you could think anger, and the spell would strengthen. Think fear, and it would shift to defense. Real-time adaptive magic.
He was still testing that one.
Behind him, James folded the training mats and set down a new book on the stone bench.
"Today's subject: Cross-world Magical Frequency Calibration," the golem intoned.
Alaric's fingers itched as he approached the book. It was an original copy from the private collection of a djinn-archivist in Cael Varn. He had paid with a secret — an original spell form that stabilized defective enchanted tools for longer use. Minor, but efficient.
He opened the book. The symbols gleamed slightly under the dusk light.
"This," he murmured, "this is how I translate Dune's spice-touched casting to work with Silver City glyph arrays. Maybe even Hogwarts wand theory too, later…"
He flipped to the first page.
Another Vault pulse.
Another idea.
Another piece in the puzzle of becoming more.
He smiled faintly, eyes glowing blue, hand already sketching new notes in his book.
Then he felt it.
The start of the 4th thread started forming.
"Another year has passed again." He mused.
He came to the conclusion already that the threads would form around once a year. At least that was the time period that it took the first 3 times. And now apparently also the 4th time.
"Well let's prepare in advance. James – give me a timetable of all official business, with the rest of the world." He commanded.
James instantly taking a piece of paper and noting down the different work he still had to give to teacher. A crafting job he needed to fulfill for a merchant that had organized him some enchanted silver. And last but not least – the usual classes in school. The thing that he hated by now the most. He couldn't even sleep in them as that would make the teachers just give him bad grades out of spite.