Merlin

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Merlin Ambrosius 1
Alias(es)	Magus of Flowers; Dream Mage 1 7
Species/Race	Half-human, half-incubus; also described as a semi-Fairy 1 41
Gender	Male 18
Affiliation	King Uther’s Royal Court; Avalon; supporter of Artoria Pendragon’s succession 1 26
Occupation/Role	Court mage, prophet, and teacher of magecraft and martial combat 1 2 29
Origin	Flowers 4
Magical Attribute	Originally the five great elements; replaced by his Flowers Origin as he matured 4
Status	Alive; does not age after reaching physical maturity, but can still be killed 2 41
First Appearance	Chapter 1, “Son of the White Dragon” 1

Background / History

Merlin’s mother was a princess of Wales, while his father was an incubus. He inherited the nightmare branch’s ability to feed on dreams rather than the succubus branch’s feeding traits. At seven years old, he was found in Carmarthen and brought with his mother to Vortigern. There, he exposed the sorcerers’ failure to identify the pool beneath Vortigern’s fortress and interpreted the conflict between its Red and White Dragons as a prophecy concerning Britain 1 31.

Merlin studied under an unnamed female teacher associated with Avalon. His original talent encompassed the five great elements, but his Flowers Origin eventually became strong enough to replace that attribute, leaving his existing magecraft severely weakened. He and his teacher subsequently created an entirely new flower-magecraft foundation, with Merlin crediting her for most of the work 4.

During Aurelius’s reign, Merlin accompanied Uther on a campaign against Ireland. After learning of Aurelius’s death through the stars, he encouraged Uther to claim the throne. As Britain’s mystery declined, Merlin and Uther arranged for a child bearing the Red Dragon’s bloodline to be born with mystery. Uther became Merlin’s friend and lord for several decades 1 37.

Appearance

• Hair: Long and iridescent 18.
• Eyes: Amethyst-like, with an appearance capable of briefly captivating an ordinary observer. His pupils take on flower shapes when examining Alaya’s divinity 3 40.
• Clothing: A white robe 8 18.
• Distinguishing impression: Possesses an uncanny, seemingly inhuman beauty attributed to his incubus heritage 31.
• Manifestation: Frequently appears amid drifting flower petals 3 18.

Personality

Merlin’s cheerful expressions and teasing manner conceal a fundamental difficulty with human emotion. Although only a small portion of his body comes from his incubus ancestry, his patterns of thought and feeling are almost entirely those of an incubus. He later explains that his own emotions ceased after his teacher withdrew from the world, and that his usual expressions and tone are performances 2 40.

He instinctively likes beauty, interesting stories, and smiling faces, even when he cannot understand their meaning. Pleasant dreams provide little nutrition, but their positive emotions comfort him after consuming nightmares. His wish to spare Artoria a lonely future leads him to seek a companion who can understand her inhuman nature 2 3 40.

His appetite for entertainment makes him intrusive and unreliable in his students’ eyes. He eavesdrops on private conversations, watches Sovell through Clairvoyance, and initially treats Sovell’s rampage as a spectacle. During sword practice, he may abruptly draw his staff and attack with magecraft, turning admiration into exasperation among his apprentices 7 20 31.

Nevertheless, Merlin rejects the idea of raising Sovell as a weapon. He sacrifices valuable dream reserves to restrain him and abandons an opportunity to attack the White Dragon in order to save his falling student. When the White Dragon mocks Sovell’s attachment to his adoptive father, Merlin looks upon another creature with sorrow for the first time 2 19 38.

Abilities & Skills

Flower Magecraft

Merlin is the first Magus of Flowers and the world’s only user of the foundation he created with his teacher. His Origin and attribute align so closely with it that he is practically bound to the foundation 4 14 23.

• Healing and restoration: Petals instantly repair Sovell’s wounds and torn clothing; Merlin also restores a damaged battlefield with petals 7 42.
• Barriers and restraint: Creates regenerating flower barriers and chains woven from petals 19.
• Energy neutralization: Converts Sovell’s dangerous excess magical energy into harmless petals and redirects the White Dragon’s flames 38.
• Disguise: Flowers alter Sovell’s apparent hair and eye colors and conceal Barghest’s horns and chains 24 26.
• Communication: Petals distributed among the knights transmit his announcement that the Sword of Selection has been drawn 26.
• Casting limits: Ordinary spells require little procedural effort, but immense field magecraft and especially powerful spells can still demand materials, magic circles, substantial energy, or long incantations 14.

Clairvoyance — Present Sight

Merlin possesses EX-rank Present Sight, allowing him to observe any corner of the world without a direct line of sight. Its controllability and precision distinguish it from Past Sight and Future Sight 41.

• Tracks Sovell after his departure from Avalon and observes the knights approaching the Selection ceremony 18 26.
• Locates Artoria and Kay at the River Severn’s estuary 41.
• Within Avalon, where time does not accumulate for spiritual beings, he can observe the “present” of different times rather than only the outside world’s current moment 41.
• Sorting those compressed timelines imposes significant strain. He usually synchronizes his sight with the outside world instead of routinely examining other times 41.

Dreams, Illusions, and Spiritual Form

His incubus inheritance grants him the ability to enter dreams, consume them, and create illusions. It also contributes considerable talent for magecraft 1 2.

• Conducts shared dream-training sessions for Sovell and Artoria 2 3.
• Stores dreams as food; dreams drawn from his students’ shared memories are especially appealing to him 19.
• Leaves Avalon in incubus spirit form to intervene in Sovell’s rampage 18.
• Transforms into a spirit during combat with Silver to evade the Holy Spear’s impending discharge 40.
• His physical body still grew within Avalon. His freedom from aging begins after physical maturity, rather than simply upon entering the realm 41.

Untouchable Land of Fantasy / Garden of Avalon

Untouchable Land of Fantasy is a flower-field illusion based on Merlin’s remembered mental landscape of Avalon, described as a miniature Reality Marble. Garden of Avalon is invoked when he intervenes in Sovell’s battle with the White Dragon 19 36 37.

• Encloses Sovell’s dragon roars and destructive gale within layered barriers 19.
• Can be overwritten by an exceptionally powerful intruding mental landscape: Sovell’s trauma transforms the flower field into a scene of slaughter 19.
• Merlin counters that transformation with lilies carrying Sovell’s memories of Artoria, creating dreams that suppress his draconic nature 19.
• Separating the restraint from his own landscape costs Merlin five years of stored dream-food 19.

Martial Combat and Instruction

Merlin teaches swordsmanship despite primarily identifying as a mage. He can effortlessly handle unusually dense wooden training swords and block Sovell’s reinforced attacks 2.

• Reinforces practice weapons so they withstand his students’ full-power combat 5.
• Teaches flexible attacks, including through deliberately unfair sparring tactics 31.
• Plans additional lance and spear instruction for Sovell and Artoria, warning Sovell against adopting mortal techniques unsuited to nonhuman bodies 29.
• Fights Silver with a conjured longsword, combining agility and brute force, then disables him with a pommel strike to the neck 40.

Magical Analysis and Craftsmanship

Merlin identifies magical attributes, Origins, Magic Circuits, and unusual supernatural conditions 3 4 39.

• Mystic Eyes: Guides the awakening of Sovell’s jewel-ranked eyes, tests their effects, and helps establish their amplification under moonlight 3 20.
• Foundation deconstruction: Derives a method for restructuring magecraft foundations and shortening incantations without weakening the resulting spells 14.
• Sealing: Suppresses Sovell’s draconic nature, though the seal also disrupts his human Magecraft Image and prevents ordinary magecraft until removed 19 20 41.
• Counter Force knowledge: Recognizes Alaya’s control of Sovell and perceives its divinity flowing back into the Holy Spear 39 40.
• Resistance limit: By the time of Sovell’s rampage, Merlin cannot withstand his student’s Mystic Eyes under moonlight 20.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Staff — Used to cast spells, direct petals, and establish barriers; contains a sword that Merlin draws to divide his Reality Marble 7 19.
• Dense wooden swords — Training weapons heavier and denser than ordinary wooden blades, requiring Sovell to use physical reinforcement 2.
• Conjured longsword — A broad, thick blade with fairy-script engraving and a golden guard, used against Silver 40.
• Petals for summoning assistance — Sovell uses a petal to call Merlin during the White Dragon battle, then requests a replacement 41.

Creations and Gifts

• Rhongomyniad projection — Extracts the Holy Lance’s projection and makes it solid using Sovell’s constructed pseudo-core. Adds seals to prevent its unrestricted power from destroying the surrounding land 7.
• White Robe — Passes on a robe left by his teacher for her student’s student, marking Sovell’s graduation in magecraft 8.
• Silver armor — Provides the armor Sovell wears during his duel with Gawain 13.
• Crown of Stars — Forges Uther’s crown with fairy craftsmanship as a symbol of kingship intended for successive rulers. It later appears in the White Dragon’s possession 37.
• Ship reinforcement array — His design extends basic Reinforcement Magecraft across an entire ship with low maintenance costs. The array aboard King Mark’s vessel is an imitation that lacks the original’s precision 49.

Relationships

• Sovell Pendragon — Rescued student and intended companion to Artoria. After eight years together, Sovell regards Merlin as an older-brother figure as well as a teacher, despite frequent frustration with him 1 2 8.
• Artoria Pendragon / Lia — Student and prospective ruler whose succession Merlin engineers. He recruits Sovell to prevent the isolation he foresees in her reign 2 26.
• Morgan le Fay — Former student in medicine, alchemy, and some magecraft. Merlin warns Sovell to beware her without fully explaining why 8 12.
• King Uther — Friend and lord of several decades; cooperates with Merlin in arranging the birth of the Red Dragon heir 1 37.
• Unnamed teacher — Helps create flower magecraft and leaves the White Robe for a future apprentice. Her retirement and refusal to see Merlin precede the disappearance of his own emotions 4 8 40.
• Barghest — Receives a concealment flower from Merlin; he also carries her to safety while intervening in Sovell’s rampage 18 24.
• White Dragon of Britain — Opponent during Sovell’s rescue. Merlin rejects the dragon’s description of Sovell as a defective product and defends the importance of paternal care 37 38.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Arc	Merlin’s involvement
Rescue and Avalon training	Cushions Sovell’s cliff fall with flowers, explains his White Dragon heritage, and offers eight years of support and instruction in exchange for becoming the future king’s companion 1 2.
Graduation and departure	Helps Sovell obtain Rhongomyniad, presents the White Robe, and teleports him to Britain by reversing the fairies’ Magic Circuits used to move Avalon. The destination is somewhere on the island, not a guaranteed precise location 7 8.
Dragon-blood rampage	Restrains Sovell through memories of Artoria. Offers to erase his painful memories and replace his Magecraft Image, but Sovell refuses to abandon what he regards as his responsibility and blood debt 19 20.
Selection of the King	Arranges Caliburn’s bloodline restriction and publicly presents Artoria as Uther’s heir. His account of a missing Crown Prince and a birthmark he can sense is fabricated to support her legitimacy 5 26.
Concealed royal travels	Helps spread the cover story that the male “Artoris Pendragon” has left with him for royal training, allowing Artoria to travel without exposing her identity 34.
White Dragon confrontation	Answers Sovell’s call for help, counters dragonfire, and prioritizes stabilizing his student over continuing the fight. The detailed account states that Merlin himself remains unharmed but cannot fight while containing Sovell’s unstable energy 37 38.
Silver’s possession	Identifies Alaya’s influence, incapacitates Silver, and removes the residual divinity that temporarily awakens human emotions in him 39 40.
Recovery and later guidance	Removes Sovell’s magecraft seal at his request. Later provides information that France’s reported war has not yet begun, informing the companions’ decision to remain near Cornwall 41 50.

Notable Quotes

“No, no, no, Sovell. I won't make you into a weapon. I hope you can become her companion, her friend, and her most trusted subject.” 2

“I don't have human emotions. Or rather, I can't fully understand them and use them appropriately.” 2

“A father's care and companionship.” 38