The sun was starting to fall by the time I made it to the inn. Once I entered, I made my way up the stairs and began knocking on Chelsey’s door, hoping she still had the same room. “Come in, Crim.” her voice sounded through the door. Once I heard her voice I then opened up the door and let myself in.

There Chelsey was, sitting on the bed fixing her braid while looking out the window “How was the guild?” while she asked, I leaned against the wall beside the door.

“They told me what happened after.” Chelsey then changed her gaze to me while I spoke. “Serval Grue was belonged to a bad group and the guild hid me here, just in case there were more of his group in Trennent.” I continue on.

“Oh really? Did they tell you the name of the group?” She then asks.

“The True One. They gave me a name but that was all.” I answer right away.

Chelsey places a finger upon her lip and begins tapping it “Hmm… if I remember correctly, I heard that name somewhere…”. She tapped her lip a few more times before continuing “Ah, I remember hearing about it at a tavern before, but all they said about it was that it was like a cult.”.

I didn’t expect Chelsey to know anything about it anyways since it seemed like they tried to go unnoticed. I then changed the subject “I’m getting pretty hungry now, would you and Vaero wanna get something with me from downstairs.”.

Chelsey smiled at me “Of course, if you go on ahead, I’ll go get Vaero.”.

I nodded to her and then I left the room, closing the door behind. I make my way down the stairs and walk towards the tavern area.

I stood there thinking if I had to wait for someone or just sit down myself. It didn’t take me long until I remembered at the guild I just sat down so I went and found an empty table enough for three.

Not much time passed with me just sitting there before a wench came along asking me what I wanted. I just shook my head to her, letting her know I was just waiting for a few people first. The wench then walked away only to come back a few moments later and placed three cups of water on the table before leaving once more.

I was happy that she brought along water while I waited for them and reached out for a glass and began drinking it. As I was putting my glass down I saw Chelsey and Vaero come in from outside the inn. After they spotted me, they began making their way over.

When both of them sit down, Chelsey then speaks up “Sorry about that Crim, Vaero was out back practicing.”. “I don't know what it’s with you two in always training.” She says while letting out a soft giggle.

“No that's fine, the wench just brought the water over.” I assured her.

I turned to Vaero who was looking at me and then he asked me “Have you figured out what magic you can use, Crim?”.

“Vaero, you already asked him the same thing earlier, he doesn’t have to answer.” Chelsey interrupts before I could answer.

“No it’s okay, Chelsey. I was going to ask him some stuff about magic after we eat anyways.” I say as my gaze shifts to Chelsey. I then looked to Vaero “If the memories I saw were truly mine then I can use body reinforcement and speed.”. Vaero looks at me like he saw a ghost. “Well that's what I remember from the memory at least.” I say while scratching the back of my head, awkwardly.

“If what you say is true, Crim then that makes you a dual user.” Vaero tells me with his eyes still wide.

“Oh, oh! Are those people the ones that can use two different kinds of magics!?” Chelsey asks, looking to Vaero.

“Yeah, those ones. They are a rare type of magic user.” He answers her. “But what makes Crim more special though is that the combination he has is too good, he has both types of body enhancements.” He continued on. Vaero then peers towards me “That combination would make any swordsman jealous, myself included since I can only use body reinforcement or what my father usually called it, strengthening magic.”.

As Vaero finished speaking, the wench approached our table, asking for what we wanted. “Could you get us some roast and potatoes?” Chelsey happily asks. The wench nodded to her before taking off. “Hopefully you two are okay with that?” Chelsey says in a sweet voice.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

I couldn’t complain since I didn’t really know too many different food dishes. Vaero didn’t look too indifferent either and Chelsey relaxed after seeing that.

I wanted to talk more about magic but knew I could ask him later so I changed the subject “What are your guys’ plans?”.

“During the time you were sleeping, Vaero went to transfer all our stuff from the old carriage to the new one. With that we can leave for the capital whenever.” Chelsey answers me. She then places a finger upon her lip “Since you’re awake now, Vaero and I will probably leave within the next few days.”. She then curiously looks at me “What about you? Do you know what you’re going to do?”.

“I was told to go back to the guild tomorrow so I’ll figure it out then but I believe I’m going out east.” I let them know.

“Marawa, was it?” Chelsey asked and I nodded to her. “It looks like we are going opposite directions.” Chelsey talked with a bittersweet smile.

Vaero then spoke up “Crim, before we go separate ways. Could we spar some more?”.

I nod to him and before anyone else could say anything, the wench then placed our dishes in front of us. No one really talked while we ate except for complementing the food. Vaero and I finished our food first while Chelsey was eating her way through. When she saw us sitting there she then let us know that we didn’t have to wait for her to finish. Both Vaero and I looked at each other before we unanimously decided to head out behind the inn.

We both made our way around the corner and behind the inn. Once we were in the back, Vaero went to the opposing side before turning around, facing me. “Do you know anything about magic now?” he starts off by asking.

I think back to the memory and the words in the book “You must first learn to control your mana before you can control your magic?”.

“Essentially, yeah. Normally for me, I close my eyes and draw the mana from my mana pool which is located here” While he explains, he places his hand in the middle of his chest. “There's something in us here that stores our mana. From there you want to bring the mana to where you are using the magic, like for example, I would draw the mana to my arms and hands, strengthening them.” He then looks to me to see if I’m following.

After hearing his explanation, I attempted to draw my mana out by closing my eyes first. I focused in the middle of my chest and tried visualizing where the mana comes from. In the centre, I felt something inside me that wasn’t present before. I thought this would be my mana and I slowly began drawing it out of the source.

Once I felt strains of mana coming out of the source, I then started guiding them towards my legs. As I wrapped my legs within the mana, my legs felt lighter. Once I finished applying the mana to my legs, I opened my eyes, looking past Vaero and sprint over to the spot behind him, drawing my sword. It felt like I only took three steps to go past him and when I did, I began swinging down.

I wasn’t used to the weight of my sword at this speed and stumble forwards, struggling to regain footing. After I stopped myself from falling forwards I heard Vaero from behind “Wow, my eyes were barely able to keep up.”. When I turned around I saw that there was about half the distance we had between us before but I was on the other side of him now. “That's definitely speed magic.” he voices out. Vaero then tells me “Now try strengthening magic, it should make your sword feel a lot lighter, letting you swing it harder.”.

Following what he said but this time holding my sword, I began focusing on the source and drawing it out. I then lead the strings of mana towards my arms, wrapping them up. While the mana was wrapping my arms, my blade was slowly becoming lighter. Once ready, I opened my eyes and began swinging my sword. What Vaero said was true, I felt like I could swing my sword a lot harder without too much strain.

After I was satisfied swinging my sword around for a while, I then placed it on my back while turning to Vaero. “Thanks for teaching me how to use magic.” I told him.

Vaero nodded to me “Now that you know, are you ready to spar?”. Before I could give an answer he added “Is what I would say but with you using magic, the distance between us is so much greater now.” while he talked, he sounded a little upset. He then shakes his head fixing his expression “Nonetheless, this would be a great opportunity instead.”.

I didn’t really know how to respond so I just voiced out “I got things other than the magic that I need to try out too so it would be great if you could spar with me.”. It was true what I said, I still needed more practice with the footwork against a moving target.

Vaero looked a little bit better while he nodded, getting ready to start. Following his actions, I pulled my sword out once more, ready to spar.

We went at it until a little bit after the sun was gone before we finished up due to lack of light. The score was eighteen to thirteen in favor of me. In truth during all of them I didn’t use any magic, solely focusing on my footwork. Vaero didn’t seem upset as he didn’t use any magic either and looked to enjoy our session.

We were both catching our breaths after finishing the last fight before Vaero spoke up “One last thing about magic, I believe I told you before but you should meditate, it helps you develop and understand your mana..”. Understanding what he was saying, I was still a bit worried since last time I tried, I felt like I was being burned alive. After Vaero gave me one last piece of information he then took his leave. I stood there looking up into the night sky thinking about the things I just learned before heading back inside as well.

Once I was back inside my room, I placed my sword against the nightstand while sitting down on the bed, trying to remember the steps for meditating. Once I was sitting, fixing myself cross legged, I closed my eyes. I relaxed my whole body while I slowly attempted to drift off into my subconsciousness.

It took several minutes of concentration before I found myself in the place I did before but it was a lot different. The air was no longer thin, it was a lot easier to breath within. That wasn’t the only change as the elephant in the room was a sphere of white energy seeping through chains that wrapped around the whole sphere. I was observing it for a while before something behind it caught my attention. Off in the far distance I saw a small red glow. Curious to what it was, I began walking towards it.

It felt like I was walking forever and something similar to before was that the air started to thin out the farther away I got from the chained up white sphere. The red glow in the distance didn’t get any brighter the farther I went so I decided to give up and go back.

When I got back to the white sphere I remembered about the monster mana I had and pulled it out of the string bag that I still had on me even in here. While I held it in my hands, I saw strains of light blue energy slowly drift off towards the white sphere. When the light blue energy tried intertwining with the white energy, it began vibrating and not moving any further.

Confused on what was happening, I closed my eyes and focused more on trying to absorb it instead. While I was concentrating on trying to absorb the energy, I slowly began feeling it being pulled in. When I opened my eyes, I saw the mana flowing out of the essence in very small strains that were entering the white sphere but stopped when I broke concentration.

Realizing that I needed to solely concentrate on this, I closed my eyes once more and began slowly absorbing the mana.