At this point Hakyeon doesn’t know that having a lot of deliberate magic is what leads to corruption (faster). They learn that over time and from peeps. I’ll write more about it soon, I think.

Reminder that Subin is a member of Hakyeon’s team. (I thought I’d remind you because I was reading over it and was like ‘who the hell is Subin?’)

Chapter 19 – What He Needs To Do

After joining the potions team Hakyeon finds that time seems to pass a lot faster. He was constantly busy working on the potion, teaching Jaehwan, and trying to break the spell on Leo. He couldn’t believe it when he realised he’d been here for six months already.

The spell on Leo was difficult and he’d begun working seriously on it the night he’d joined the team. It suddenly seemed a lot more important to get Leo away from here now that he knew what they were willing to do to the Anyethi if the potions was taking too long.  

From what he could figure out so far the spell was in three parts. The first part prevented Leo from using his intuitive magic at all and Hakyeon thought this might be broken simply if the silver band was removed. The second part was much more difficult and made him reluctant to just remove the band because it could just make things worse. He didn’t understand how Leo could transform, and Leo couldn’t explain it either, so Hakyeon couldn’t figure out how it worked. The third part stopped Leo from leaving the palace and Hakyeon couldn’t figure out how it was incorporated into the other parts.

He often spent his nights working on the spell, trying to figure out what the silver band had been combined with to make it so strong. Sometimes he’d fall asleep in Leo’s room while working on it, or after talking, and he’d wake up with the boy curled up with his face pressed into his chest and blush at the proximity.

After working on the potion all day and the spell all night, the last thing he wanted to do was more work but he’d promised Jaehwan he’d teach him magic on his days off. Teaching Jaehwan magic was tedious. It took the guard a long time to pick up spells – and his potions were abysmal – but once he did he was good. Hakyeon actually thought that Jaehwan probably didn’t know how good he was because he always seemed surprised when a spell worked the way it was supposed to.

“Aish,” Hakyeon mutters as Jaehwan’s spell fizzles out and dies for the fourth time today. “Do you have no reserves at all?”

Jaehwan grins sheepishly and scratches the back of his head. “You know I don’t really make potions often.”

Where Hakyeon had spent more than ten years constantly making potions and building his reserves because of it, Jaehwan had only ever made potions in the training the guards went through. Hakyeon had suggested he practice more often but the guard had seemed reluctant, saying he didn’t want to ‘sacrifice cute, innocent animals’ just so he could build his reserves.

The way he’d said it made Hakyeon think a little. Since meeting Leo he’d been against using top-level creatures – though he had to use them when developing potions – but he still used minor and major creatures indiscriminately. His reserves were already large so maybe he should start using substitutes for the major creatures in potions. He wonders if the genius kid from his home town used substitutes since he didn’t have any deliberate magic reserves.

The potion shop in his home town was owned by a sorcerer Hakyeon believed was probably not from this country. Her son, Ravi, was on an entirely different level and Hakyeon had met him a number of times when his teacher met with the sorcerer.

Hakyeon knew he was above average when it came to magic, but even Ravi outdid him at potions. He could probably figure out the teleportation potion a lot faster than Hakyeon was. At one point Hakyeon considers sending him a letter but he decides not to risk it. It would be considered treason if it was found out. Besides, even if Ravi figured it out they couldn’t leave until Leo’s spell was broken.

“Your Majesty,” Subin cries, instantly dropping into a bow.

The rest of the room mimics her and work ceases for the moment.

King Jihun enters the room with Suhee and an older sorcerer Hakyeon recognizes but can’t put a name to. He fights to control his expression when the sorcerer’s eyes fall on Leo and light up in excitement.

“This is Yeongsik,” the king announces. “He’s going to be supplying your team with ingredients from now on since you’re using so many. I’ll leave him with you so you can tell him what you need.”

The king inspects their work personally with Suhee. Suhee demands an explanation for the fingernails and hair only thing and Hakyeon gives her the same bull he fed his team. King Jihun throws Leo an unimpressed look – as if Leo was the one responsible for the slow progress – and then he and Suhee leave.

With Suhee and the king gone Yeongsik immediately heads to section three. Still trying not to openly scowl Hakyeon introduces himself.

“I met you at the party a few months ago, actually,” Yeongsik says.

Hakyeon bows. “I’m afraid I don’t remember.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine, I didn’t expect you to. You met so many people after all.”

“Do you hunt creatures?” Subin questions. “Since you’re our supplier now?”

“Currently I have fifteen apprentices at various levels so I don’t have time to go after creatures myself. However, I employ a large number of sorcerers who go and catch ingredients for me.”

That’s a lot of apprentices, Hakyeon frowns. He was his teacher’s only apprentice in the last thirty years so it was a little overwhelming to think that that many apprentices were living and practicing together.

“Do you collect creatures?”

Yeongsik smiles proudly and it makes Hakyeon’s skin crawl. “Only the useful ones. I’ve got one really rare one but he’s been pretty useless so far. Other than that I just use them as they come.”

Hakyeon’s eyes fall on Leo then, noting that his ears are flat against his head as he glares at the sorcerer. Hakyeon’s glance at the Anyethi is all it takes for the older sorcerer to suddenly remember Leo’s existence. He doesn’t say anything but Hakyeon can see the desire and greed in his eyes. He doesn’t want to hear this man even mention Leo.

“Ingredients,” Hakyeon almost shouts, drawing the attention from the Anyethi. “We’re supposed to be talking about what we need.”

“Right, right,” Yeongsik claps, finding some paper to make a list.

Suhee’s arrival just as Yeongsik is finishing the list prevents the sorcerer from hanging around. Unfortunately, making the list hadn’t kept Yeongsik quiet and he’d said a number of things that had made Hakyeon’s blood boil. He wanted nothing more than to just end him, but at the same time Hakyeon could see the benefit of having this man on his side.

Or that’s what he’d thought until he’d had to listen to the things Yeongsik said he’d do to create the teleportation potion, and then he only felt anger.

“That’s it for today,” Hakyeon says almost the second the door closes behind Suhee and Yeongsik.

“But we didn’t do anything today. We were supposed to start testing what type of cauldron we should use since the base is reacting with–”

Hakyeon’s expression must really be something because the whole team decides to just leave without questioning him further. He can feel Leo’s eyes on him as he unlocks the cage, and they remain on him for a good deal of the walk to the Anyethi’s room.

It is only after he casts the silencing spell over Leo’s room and the younger man wraps his arms around his neck, does Hakyeon realise he’s shaking.

He feels hot, his muscles are tensed, and magic is surging to the surface ready to be used. He’s never been this angry before, to feel like he doesn’t have control over himself.

“Are you okay?” Leo asks softly.

Hakyeon pulls away from the Anyethi gently, unable to meet his eye. “I need to go think…” he mutters.

Leo lets Hakyeon go, concern practically radiating from him as the sorcerer leaves.

Hakyeon only used dangerous magic and spells while he was making them for the king, something he had no choice in. He used a lot of other magic too, for things Leo thought he probably didn’t need to, – like getting things from the other side of the room, reheating food, summoning Jaehwan – but he did it safely. Even when he was teaching Jaehwan he stressed safety.

Because of this Leo had always felt safe around the sorcerer. And yet in the last six months he knew Hakyeon’s deliberate magic reserves had become huge, bigger than any other sorcerer’s he’d encountered, and it unsettled him a little. He’d seen Hakyeon be angry for days whenever he encountered a creature being mistreated. He’d watched Hakyeon stay awake all night working on the spell that kept Leo from leaving. He’d witnessed Hakyeon rip apart the library in the potions lab when he’d been unable to find the book he wanted.

For the first time Leo feels scared. Not of Hakyeon but for him. He’d heard about corruption, read about it in books only recently when he’d been allowed to wander. A lot of people seemed to think it didn’t exist but even more people were scared to be near sorcerers, like they just knew something wasn’t right.

Leo sinks onto his bed with a sigh as he wishes for Hakyeon’s wellbeing.

Hakyeon isn’t thinking as he trails Yeongsik, his mind is completely blank. Every now and then Leo’s words wander across his mind. Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay? It made him angrier at Yeongsik because he should have been the one to ask Leo that. Leo was the one who’d had to listen to all the ways he’d be tortured if he was in Yeongsik’s possession, and yet he was worried about Hakyeon.

“What are you going to do to him?”

The voice startles Hakyeon so much he almost throws out a spell, instead he flinches and turns to see someone he’d never actually spoken to before.

“Prince Minho,” the sorcerer bows.

Hakyeon had been so surprised to find out the king had children. King Jihun looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, young, and yet he had a son in his early twenties and a teenaged daughter. It took Hakyeon a while to figure out that he must be in possession of some sort of anti-aging potion.

The thought of what creatures must be in that potion makes his stomach swirl worryingly. He’d tried to figure out what top-level creature would be the main ingredient, but it wasn’t until Leo told him that Anyegi could stop their dog form from aging did he know. However, after searching the basement he’d found no traces of Anyegi at all and he’d concluded that the king must simply have stocks of the potion hidden away.

It had been the discovery of this potion that had finally cleared up for Hakyeon how Suhee had gotten her top position – she wasn’t in her early forties, that was for sure – and how the king had such grown up children.

“So?” Prince Minho asks. “What were you going to do to him?”

“I was… I–”

Hakyeon frowns. What had he been going to do? Had he really been considering killing Yeongsik? Was that why he’d followed the sorcerer through the palace corridors?

Prince Minho frowns also. “Tempting isn’t it?”

“What?” Hakyeon asks, surprised to hear that from the prince.

“Getting rid of all the twisted, vile men and women who use their power to hurt others,” the prince replies calmly, tone not matching his words.

Hakyeon’s a little startled by the statement because he’d thought about this before. During the nights when he worked on Leo’s spell while the Anyethi slept he’d think about how his teacher lived outside of town because people were afraid of him, about how the number of top-level creatures in this country was dwindling down to nothing, about how many people and animals got hurt because of magic. Sometimes he thought about the world being a better place without it all.

It takes but a moment for his mind to become clearer, to realise what it is he was going to do, what he needed to do. He was going to get rid of magic in this country.

This chapter was supposed to show Hakyeon becoming corrupted and I meant to have more focus on it, but other stuff happened :P