Minutes passed, and Martín remained fascinated by the animal. He had never seen anything like it in his life. Curiosity quickly took over, and he decided to touch it. Its texture was hard and smooth, resembling plastic armor but more resistant. Its stinger looked sharp, so he refrained from getting too close to that part. After a while of examining it, he saw a hole in its underside; something had pierced and killed it instantly. This wound exuded a strange and mysterious aura that didn’t seem to come from a firearm.
“Hmmm… it's as if something pierced it at high speed, but it doesn’t look like a bullet at first glance; it exploded the poor animal’s organs.” With a trace of doubt on his face, Martín slowly reached out and touched the wound.
“Ahhh!” A scream of pain was heard among the whistling gusts of wind.
“What was that? I felt a strange prick, and it burned even though it wasn’t hot.” The pain persisted at his fingertips, and his body trembled in response.
“Don’t tell me it's poison!” Martín stood up and ran at full speed, his face pale with terror.
Upon arriving home, he grabbed a ceramic jar filled with water and poured a large amount over his aching hand, frantically cleaning himself, terrified of being poisoned.
“Please, please, I don’t want to die,” Martín thought to himself as if an old trauma had been revived.
After a while, the pain disappeared, and his body stopped trembling. Martín smiled widely and let out a sigh of relief, realizing it wasn’t anything serious.
“Ha… it was just a false alarm. Anyway, I’d better go to sleep.” Feeling grateful that nothing had happened, he threw himself onto the bed and fell asleep instantly, the stress having been too much.
The next day, the night still lingered, and the stars shone intensely. The blue star had moved a couple of “tams,” indicating the passage of days. People had gotten up early to start their day. Among the passersby, humans and a few elves could be seen; beastmen were very rare.
A few days ago, Martín had met a girl with cat ears, whiskers, and a tail. She looked kawaii, the dream of any otaku from his previous life. However, to his surprise, the locals looked at her with disgust. When he asked S’yei the reason, he explained that she was a half-beast, thus despised by both humans and beasts. Racism seemed to transcend borders, worlds, and cultures, to Martín’s dismay.
“Hello Key!” A little girl with dark skin greeted with a big smile on her face. Beside her was an elf named Kyle.
Martín, who was having breakfast and lost in his thoughts, went out to meet S’wei but was surprised to see a man with a bushy white beard and a shiny bald head. He made a slight bow to greet Martín, who responded with the same gesture.
“Father came, help practice,” the girl looked at her father, who scratched his head with discomfort. He hadn’t planned to approach the messenger or have any contact, but due to his daughter’s insistence, he decided to come and lend a hand.
“Come in,” Martín replied while opening the curtain to his house. The father-daughter duo entered without hesitation and sat on stone chairs.
“What to do?”
“I don’t know… yesterday, I tried everything, and nothing worked, S’wei.”
The girl listened attentively and remained silent, thoughtful about the situation. After a few seconds, she turned to her father and began to speak with him. The elf seemed to be explaining something, and the girl nodded at his comments.
“Key, father said, ‘Feel ether and form etheric soul, pain first times, endure and continue,’” S’wei did her best to translate what her father had said.
Martín pondered, trying to piece together the words and understand the message. “Feel the ether to form the soul? Could it be that mana in this world is called ether? Could the pain be one of the first sensations?”
“S’wei, ask about the ways to feel the ether,” said Martín after organizing his thoughts and suppressing his curiosity to know more.
The young girl nodded and translated for her father, who looked skeptically at the messenger. However, not wanting to get involved in his affairs, he decided to answer and leave as soon as possible.
“Father said, ‘First, feel ether alone; second, another person help with ether; third, touch ether directly; fourth, ask god for help.’”
“The first method took this girl 12 years. The second could be feasible, but I only know S’wei and don’t think she’s very skilled. The third is the best option… the fourth isn’t even possible.” Feeling dejected, Martín thanked the girl and asked for some details.
Ether was a kind of intangible energy in the air that permeated every corner of the world. People gained abilities and power by controlling it. It was basically mana with another name and essential for life. However, doubts only increased. “So what is sacred power? What is an etheric soul? Can everyone awaken this power, or only some? Can I also control fire, or are there limitations depending on the individual?”
Martín’s mind began to propose countless unanswered scenarios, hypotheses accumulating in his brain. Suddenly, he felt a sharp headache, so he decided to stand up and refresh himself with water.
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“Sorry, S’wei, my head was about to explode,” he said with a smile.
“Feel the same when studying,” replied the little girl while raising her right thumb in a supportive gesture.
The elf named Kyle watched the situation with boredom. He had simply come to be questioned and give his point of view occasionally. He spent two hours in the same situation until the session ended.
“Thanks, have a good day,” Martín waved goodbye to his guests.
S’wei and Kyle looked at him in surprise, and the girl giggled slightly. They bowed and left his house.
“Is it strange to say goodbye with a wave?” Martín was momentarily confused while watching the father-daughter duo’s silhouettes disappear into the darkness.
“It wasn’t all in vain. I learned a bit more about the magic system of this world. Mana is called ether, and there are four ways to feel it to form an etheric soul, which would be the center of magical power, like a kind of core.” Speaking aloud and jotting it down on a sheet, Martín was summarizing what he had learned during the afternoon. He didn’t want to fully rely on the help offered by the father.
“Right now, only the third method is suitable for me, but where can I find a source of ether? I’m in the middle of the desert, surrounded by dirt, sulfur, and scorpions…”
Suddenly, something clicked in Martín’s head, and he rushed out of his house toward the desert.
“The pain from yesterday, the scorpion’s wound, the strange aura in that hole,” Martín repeated quickly without hesitation, euphoria overflowing from all sides.
Reaching a few dozen meters under the starlight, Martín crouched and began digging with his hands, smiling from ear to ear while repeating meaningless words.
“I found it!” After a few minutes, he had the sulfur scorpion’s corpse in his hands, with a hole in the underside—the same one he had touched the previous night.
“Yes! Yes! You can still faintly feel it!” The wound in the underside emitted an almost imperceptible aura to the naked eye. Only by concentrating intently for a few seconds could it be perceived.
He had no idea who or what had done it, but he was now sure that the animal had been killed by some kind of magic, leaving a trace of ether in the hole. Although it might not be enough or useful, at least luck was finally smiling at him.
Returning home with the corpse, Martín was careful not to touch the stinger, so he wrapped it in cloths to avoid any accidents. He placed the scorpion with its exposed abdomen and, with an anticipatory look, slowly placed his hand over the hole.
“I don’t feel anything,” the dark-haired young man said aloud, looking at the scene before him with disappointment. However, before he could say anything else, the pain returned without warning, and a burning sensation could be felt in his fingers.
“It’s ether!” In a flash, Martín placed both hands on the wound, trying to memorize the sensation.
“Tchh! It hurts a lot.”
The heat in his fingers started to spread to the rest of his hand and reached his wrists. It was an important step to begin feeling the ether with his body. Although it hurt and burned with each passing second, the excitement of having powers and casting magic eclipsed any complaints.
“Concentrate, idiot. Focus your mind, eliminate unnecessary thoughts.” The strange aura he felt in his hands began to slowly move toward his body, as if being drawn by something. The pain increased, and his arms began to burn with each passing second.
“I can’t take it anymore!” The pain caused Martín to lose concentration and writhe on the ground. His muscles, veins, and bones were being burned in real-time.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHH! AAAAAAHHHHH!” Cries of pain began to resonate around, but due to the hustle and bustle and the passersby, they went unnoticed.
“Damn it, S’wei, you didn’t say it hurt like hell!” With his consciousness starting to waver, Martín stood up and plunged his arms and head into a water jar.
The pain didn’t subside, and the burning sensation continued spreading through his body, as if something deep within him was calling. This feeling caused by the ether was driving Martín crazy, who stopped screaming and fell to the
floor, drenched in water.
“Father…” In a soft tone and almost without strength to say more, Martín’s eyes closed, and his consciousness faded.
The next day, Soledad Village, Sulfur Desert.
A dark-haired young man was sleeping peacefully on a straw bed with animal skins. His fever had disappeared, and his pale face had regained color, looking healthy as if nothing had happened.
They had found him burning like hell and quickly helped him inside his house to prevent it from getting worse. He had stayed burning for hours until it gradually calmed down. Father Cole wasn’t in the village, so the village chief, along with other locals, had to treat him and keep watch all night.
“Ouch… everything hurts.”
“Key, you’re awake!” The little dark-skinned girl smiled with relief.
“That’s good, Messenger Key. We were worried you wouldn’t wake up,” the chief, S’yei, looked at the boy lying on the bed with serenity.
“Good thing he woke up, or the wrath of that god might have fallen upon us,” the elf Kyle looked sideways at the situation while watching the entrance of the house.
“Father, don’t say such things… that’s blasphemy.”
“Bah! The last lunatic almost wiped us out; anything is possible with that pseudo-god.”
“Shut up. Be thankful Key doesn’t understand what you’re saying, or you might be punished,” S’wei frowned angrily, reprimanding her father with a fierce look.
The atmosphere was lively, and the stars, as always, shone intensely in the night sky. However, there was one person troubled amid all this commotion. His eyes were wide open, and he didn’t know what was happening.
“WHAT IS THIS?” Martín’s thoughts were all over the place, unable to give a proper explanation for what he was seeing.
Dozens of light points were visible before his eyes, covering the people present in the room. S’yei had soft colors radiating a sense of tranquility, while S’wei’s were more vivid, reflecting her lively and restless nature. Kyle, on the other hand, had dull colors, reflecting his pessimism and reluctance to engage.
The father-daughter duo argued about something, causing S’yei’s resignation, who ignored them and approached the newly awakened Martín. He was asking how he felt and what had happened, but Martín, unaware of his questions, was stunned by what he saw. The colors changed between S’wei and Kyle, seeming to represent their emotions at that moment.
“These colors… do they represent their emotions? But I can’t see more colors outside this room. It seems the range covers this room…” Martín realized that besides witnessing changing colors, his physique looked stronger and more energetic. He felt as if he had just come out of hot springs.
“Wait a minute… I can understand what they’re saying.” After analyzing his body and vision, he realized that the conversation between S’wei and Kyle was entirely understandable, as if he were a native speaker.
“Now it looks more like an isekai; I’ve awakened my powers.” A smile formed on his face, and joy filled every pore of his body. His new life was taking the path he had planned, not without making him suffer first, which sent a shiver down Martín’s spine as he remembered the pain he had to endure.