Auric was a magical prodigy, but not really any more so that Perpentach or Laroth had been. If there were a mage guild in his home town he would likely have become a powerful archmage.
The Precept of Winter has a sort of will of its own, seperate from the distinct personality of Mulcarn. This was not and most likely cannot be destroyed. Kael has never used the term, but were I the author, I would refer to this as the Numen of Winter, using the Latin term for the will and power of a godhead. This is derived from the word for a nod of assent, but was often conceived as a sort of essential power greater than the god's conscious being, or perhaps the divinity's subconscious mind, to which the rational mind of the divinity was practically just a pawn. The "Numen of Winter" is alive and well, and when it lost Mulcarn it went searching for an Avatar. Auric was the most magically gifted of all Illians, and so was chosen by the numen as its preferred host. Had Mulcarn died in the Age of Magic, I suspect Badb (Kylorin's disciple of Ice) would have been chosen. Regardless, it plenty of time and hard work for him to be made a ready vessel for the numen, and this could not have happened against his will. Probably the most important step was when he inhaled the breath of Mulcarn, which had been stored as the animating principle of Barnaxus. This can be said to be the passing of the divine essence, but it did not happen until after he had convinced the Illians to serve him as their new god.
