Chapter 8

Viewing the World is the eighth chapter of The Journey of a Dark Elf with Fading Powers manga series, written & illustrated by Daisuke Itabashi. It released on July 15, 2026.

Plot

The chapter begins with everyone soaking in the natural steam bath the Bird of Embers left behind, letting out long groans of relief. The students trade complaints and compliments about the heat. Garr grumbles that his nose is weak against it, one of them says there's nothing like a steam bath after you run your magic force down to nothing, and Milya adds that the fire dried her skin out something awful. Lumina is delighted, since she had no idea creatures like that existed and what a boon it will be for her flame category magic research, meaning her archive is going to be bigger than ever. Off to the side, Zorvan soaks alone and says that it's exquisite. Then somebody notices that things look a lot more serious over on the other side of the water. Tierlith asks whether they shall proceed with the final interview. Amira balks at the word final, and Tierlith reminds her that she wants a professorship at her school, does she not. Amira admits she isn't much good at interviews or other formal things and proposes instead that they see who can stand the heat the longest, with the loser telling an embarrassing story. Tierlith turns her down, saying she imagines Amira has many stories to tell from across the millennia, but perhaps next time. There's no need to be nervous. She only wants to know about Amira's activities in recent years, or to put it more precisely, why she vanished. Lilicena asks whether she means what Amira was doing after the war, and Tierlith says exactly. Amira agrees to share a little and starts with an incident near the end of the war. The story opens with lore about the conflict itself. The war between the Northern and Southern nations ushered in dramatic progress in magic technology and tools, and it was the first large scale war in history to take advantage of magic. There were all kinds of battlefields, but the one she means happened inside a city. Someone invoked a massive, taboo form of magic there, the kind that wouldn't stop until it had consumed the lives of everyone at hand. Tierlith asks whether Amira was involved with that. Amira says that looking back she could have fled at full speed the moment it showed up, but that isn't what she chose to do. Carrying enough magic to rip her own body apart, she opted for a full frontal fight, and it's a fight she paid a dear price for. A single silent page shows her afterward, sitting broken in the rubble with her staff planted in the ruins behind her. She sums it up flatly. It was the greatest mistake the Omnipotent Caster ever made, and that was that, the end. Tierlith quietly asks whether it really was. Amira admits it took over a century after that just to learn how to move her body again, and as she healed it became all too clear that when it came to near any field outside of magic, she was worthless. But then she started having all these things she wanted to do, so she crafted a body that wouldn't falter at all, for her own sake, so she could do all the things she couldn't do with magic. Lilicena notes she hasn't seen Lady Amira cry that much in ages, and Amira says that she was trying really hard. Tierlith asks whether staff crafting was one of those things, then Amira lays out what she actually believes. If you try your best at something you want to do and it doesn't work, it sucks, and you feel ashamed. But someday you're going to be proud you did all that. What you have to avoid is the opposite of that. The memory of not applying yourself to something, the feeling that you should have tried your hand at it, becomes a curse, and not even time can heal that wound. Tierlith sees the logic in it and points out that Amira surely knows how difficult it can be. Amira agrees absolutely, but says she still feels she has to prove to everyone around her that she can stand back up no matter what she loses, not just with words or with physical action, but by the whole way she lives. And she wants those students to try a lot of things, fail at a lot of things, and no matter what become powerful sorcerers who never let anything beat them. That's how she really feels. The students call out for Professor Amira to come over because they want to talk to her a bit. Tierlith says she thinks their professor is a tad tired out, and the whole group groans in protest until Amira, saying the wind feels really nice over there, gets up and joins them. Tierlith watches her go with the students crowding around her. Lilicena then asks whether the Tierlith would be interested in hearing a secret about Lady Amira that only she knows, and Tierlith answers that sometimes choosing not to know is the better path. She snaps her fingers instead and calls for Zorvan to prepare the water baths. Zorvan gladly obliges, and enormous floating spheres of water go sailing out across the wasteland while Tierlith announces the main event. Everyone dives in with a huge cheer. Amira hollers that it's so penetrating from head to toe and so nice and tingly cold, and Zorvan explains he turned the temperature down a bit since they'd had such a hot day. Then Tierlith gets to the point. As the head of her university, she supposes she must thank Amira as well, because without her protecting this land there may be no university at all. She hereby authorizes Amira to officially teach at the facility under the guidance of Lilicena, her special grade mage. She offers a handshake and welcomes the Omnipotent Caster to the team, or rather, Professor Amira, and welcomes her to the Kisaro Academy of Sorcery. The scene switches over to the academy tower, where Amira is finally getting the underground storage she has been waiting so long to see, and Lilicena says she can hardly wait either. Tierlith explains the space is divided into two categories, the library of forbidden books and the trove of treasures, and today she will authorize them to browse through both. Amira's answer is a delighted sweet. Tierlith remarks that not even millennia of life have quenched her thirst for knowledge, and Amira says of course not, since no matter how long she lives there's still way more she doesn't know. Then, Tierlith leads them down past colossal carved statues into the dark, noting that not even her own professors can venture past that point without her permission. Here they are, she says, the underground storage is right this way, and they may proceed and peer into whatever they like. Tierlith tells Amira to use this opportunity to traverse the layers of knowledge mankind has built. The chapter ends with Amira smiling back over her shoulder that she's sorry, but she's way ahead of the Tierlith on that.

Characters in Order of Appeareance

• Kisaro Academy students
• Zorvan
• Tierlith
• Amira
• Lilicena