Darkness and silence surrounded Jacob as he woke up. Something was different from before. Something was off.
Where am I? How’d I get here? What the hell is wrong with my body?
Confusion struck quickly. He couldn’t remember what happened before he woke up. All he knew was that something bad had happened to him. But what could have put him in this situation? He couldn’t feel his arms or legs. He couldn’t even feel his head. His body just felt like one large blob. Or perhaps a cloud? It did feel like he was floating. A discomforting feeling, that’s what it was.
“¤¤¤¤”
A sound could be heard. At least he assumed it was a sound. Jacob wasn’t the sort of person to doubt his senses, but when those very same senses were telling him that he was currently lacking most of his body parts and, well, ears, he felt like he had no choice but to be wary of their judgment.
Despite that, he heard the same noise once again.
“….¤¤¤…..¤¤¤¤¤¤¤”
It was faint, but it did sound like talking. He couldn’t understand a word of it, however. The talking continued and slowly grew louder in volume and clarity. At the same time, the darkness surrounding him gradually began to disappear and was replaced by the sight of a large room. The floor was made up out of dark wooden boards and shelves filled to the brim with all kinds of books lined the walls. At the far end of the room stood a desk with large piles of books and paper spread all over it. Everywhere he looked in the room he could see small particles that floated about with a faint blue glow, yet that wasn’t the most surprising factor about this place. Jacob was currently fascinated by the floor in the center of the room. Or rather, what was on the floor.
Covering an area of at least a dozen or so meters was an incredibly large number of circles nested inside each other, each circle smaller than the one before. Each circle’s border was covered with dozens upon dozens of odd-looking glyphs and runes that glowed with a faint pulse. All in all, there were at least a few hundred circles drawn on the floor. Maybe even over a thousand. For some reason, this huge amalgamation of circles had a weird kind of allure to him. It was almost beautiful to look at. Like a piece of art. And he was at its center.
The talking continued and he shifted his attention from the circles on the floor to the source of the sound. A man seemingly in his fifties stood at the edge of the circles that surrounded Jacob and spoke in some unrecognizable language. He wore neat, black, suit-like clothes and had slicked-back black hair that had started greying at the temples. His beard was short and finely trimmed, with almost as many grey hairs in it as black ones. Jacob couldn’t describe it as being nothing else but majestic.
The man was observing Jacob intensely as he waved his right hand in front of his face. Before his hand, several violet-glowing circles similar to those that surrounded Jacob appeared and several of the circles on the floor started glowing accordingly. A very large amount of those particles he had seen floating about in the room suddenly erupted from all of the glowing circles and surged towards him, entering him, flowing through him and making him feel incredibly dizzy. After a few seconds the particles stopped flowing towards him, the circles’ glow died down and the dizziness disappeared.
“—all this time. I have succeeded. Now HEED my word!”
Wait, what did he just say?
Earlier he hadn’t understood a word of what the man had said, but after that light show, he could now understand what the man said clear as day.
“KNEEL.” The man commanded.
Jacob didn’t move. Who was this man? Did he have something to do with what had happened with his body? Who did he think he was to order him around like that in a situation like this? He tried voicing these questions out loud but to no avail. Without any vocal cords to produce the sound, there wasn’t much he could do.
“Hmph. Not entirely compliant.” The man stroked his beard. “Very well. It was expected, after all.” He waved his right hand in front of him once again. This time, the violet-glowing circular pattern that appeared before his hand was several times more complex than previously and respectively, many more of the circles that carpeted the floor started glowing. A mind-boggling amount of the same particles from earlier surged outwards from the glowing circles, quickly overflowing the area around Jacob like a thick fog that obstructed his sight. The particles then moved towards him, once again entering into him, but this time they brought pain. And that pain brought memories.
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Jacob Mitchells was his name. Just your average-26-year-old-joe. At least if you asked him. If you were to ask those that knew him they might not agree entirely on the ‘average’ part. Some of them might even go as far as to call him weird. But that was just a small minority. The majority would settle with just calling him a tad bit eccentric. They were nice like that.
When he had just woken up he couldn’t remember what had happened right before he lost unconsciousness, but now he remembered it clearly. He’d been out at night in a bar with some of his pals and had had entirely too much to drink. Ordinarily, he wasn’t one to drink much, but tonight had been an exception as they were celebrating one of his friends scoring the job of his dreams. Jacob had done the mistake of going to the toilet by himself and, appropriate to much he had drunk that night, he fell asleep right after he was finished with executing nature’s call.
He had woken up again to the smell of something burning and the sound of things falling down. He had barely managed to get himself standing and out of the toilet when the sound of something breaking was followed by a railing landing on him and pushing him down on the ground. Everything around him had been on fire and all he’d been able to do was lie there and scream in agony as the fire and blood loss finished him off.
That’s right. He had died. And very painfully at that. And the pain of dying reminded him a lot of the pain he was feeling right now, as these unknown particles surged into his weird body and lit the entirety of his being on fire.
“I NAME THEE, IBRAS!!” A voice sounded out, drowning out and extinguishing the pain entirely.
“Now. Heed my word my Ibras.” The thick fog that had covered the space around Jacob had disappeared and he could now see the black-clad man standing outside the circle with both of his hands behind his back and a cold look in his eyes.
“Kneel.” The single word felt so powerful to Jacob that, for just a moment, he couldn’t even formulate a thought. When he regained his semblance, he noticed that he was kneeling. Whereas before this body of his had just been in the shape of a floating cloud, it was now shaped more like a person. Looking down at his arms, he saw that it consisted entirely of the same particles that were scattered throughout the room, albeit a bit more brilliant and dense, forming the vague shape of a hand.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Have I unconsciously shaped my body like this because it’s what I am used to? Or is this something he did?
He shifted his gaze from his incorporeal arm towards the man standing outside the circles. “Good. Let me introduce myself. I am Salamar Virrona, your new master. I have expended a stupendous amount of resources in my experiments to summon you here and I expect you to be grateful. I have heard that the original ritual I based this summoning on had a high chance of summoning individuals that were close to death. It is very likely that I just gave you a new lease on life.” He was now sporting a cold smile on his face. “I have a feeling that this will be a highly auspicious partnership.”
What the hell has he done to me?! I don’t care if he saved my life or whatever, I’m not going to be someone’s slave!
“You may rise.” He said and gestured with his hands.
The moment he did, Jacob, or Ibras as he now felt the urge to call himself for some reason, felt his body stand up by itself before he regained control of his ethereal body.
“As I have understood it, summoned individuals such as you should have no prior experience with magic, no?”
Depends on how you define magic, grandpa. I’m a devil at card tricks. And if you hand me a coin, I’ll make it disappear and reappear where the sun doesn’t shine. Although I guess that was a rhetorical question. I mean, he must be aware that I can’t speak, right?
“No need to answer. I am aware that, up to this point, you would have been used to a physical body. Speech in that form would, at the very least, require you to have a modicum of experience in using wind magic.” The man observed him quietly for a second. “Well, no matter. That will come in the future. Your communication capabilities aren’t a priority. For now, all you have to do is serve. Your inexperience with magic will not be a problem either. If my hypothesis is correct, in that form, you should be able to see the very essence of mana and controlling your own mana to conjure a circuit will be as natural to you now, as breathing was to you before.” He held out his palm and a single violet ring appeared above it; its borders covered with even more of those incomprehensible characters. “This is a circlet. In order for all magic to be cast, at least one circlet has to be conjured and infused with mana.”
Hey, grandpa. You said it yourself, I basically died just a few moments ago. Most people would be freaking out right about now! It’s a miracle that I’m even this calm. You really think this is the right time for a lecture?!
Small, violet particles, presumably the mana that was mentioned, started flowing from Salamar’s palm towards the circlet and a small flame suddenly appeared above it, floating in mid-air. “Only the most basic of magic can be cast with a single circlet. In order to produce more impressive effects, one needs to use a circuit; the combination of several circlets.” Two more rings appeared nested inside the first ring and the flame suddenly doubled in size and intensity. “Each circlet has its own effect. The greatest of mages have memorized tens of thousands of circlets, the effects of those circlets and how to best combine them into different circuits. The only thing limiting a mage’s power is their knowledge of circuits and the amount of mana they have access to.” The circuits above his hand disappeared, and with it, the flame died out. “With enough training, you will excel in both to magnitudes never seen before.”
That sounds cool and all, I’ll admit, but I don’t really feel like learning magic just to be the slave of some old fart. Don’t think a magnificent beard is enough to forgive the fact that you’re an asshole.
The same circuit appeared above his hand once again, along with the flame floating in the air.“ Now, I want to see what years of research and the depletion of most of my resources has granted me. I want to see what you are capable of. Normally it would take years for a novice just to learn how to control their mana and conjure up a single circlet, but as I mentioned, that should come entirely naturally to you. All you have to do is imagine the shape of this circuit and will your mana to form it.”
Ibras, as he had now unconsciously decided to refer to himself as, tried moving closer to the man and felt surprised as he realized that he didn’t actually need to move his legs in order to move forward. He just floated forward at a slow pace. When he drew near the border of the enormous circuit that encircled him he felt the presence of some kind of border that stopped him from moving any further. He observed the circuit above Salamar’s palm and hesitated.
While I am excited by the idea of performing real magic, should I really do it? It doesn’t feel right, it’s like I’m letting him win.
“I would encourage you to do as I say. Otherwise, I can just order you do to it. That might not lead to as fruitful results, however. It would be best if you willingly tried it. If it is motivation you lack, I can once again perform the spell that brought you pain before.” Salamar said with a cold smile.
Oh, right. Forgot about that. I guess he already has won.
Ibras put his hand forward and observed it. Apparently, it was made up of mana, then. So conjuring a circuit would just be shaping some of that mana as he wanted? He tried imagining some of the mana in his hand shaping a circuit identical to the one above Salamar’s hand. He didn’t even have to look at Salamar’s circuit while envisioning it. For some reason, the image of that circuit was as clear as day in his mind’s eye, almost as if he’d always known it. An incredibly thin trickle of mana moved from his hand and started shaping itself above his palm.
“Excellent. I see that you are a sensible one, you know what is best for you. However, despite the nature of your current form, you still have to memorize the shape of the circuit in order to cast the magic correctly so I doubt that you will be able to succeed on your fir—”
A red flame appeared above the newly formed circuit and burned brightly as it hovered in the air.
“H-How is that possible?! You’ve already memorized the circuit?! This might be an incredibly primitive circuit, but even a natural-born genius should not have it that easy their first time.” Salamar closed his hand, snuffing out his flame along with the circuit before proceeding to stroke his beard thoughtfully. “Perhaps… Could it be? The unique trait you gained as a summoned outlander… It has something to do with memorization? If so, this will be incredibly useful. Seems like I have been incredibly fortunate with you, my dear servant.”
Unique trait? What’s that? Like a cheat? That’s way too convenient! Not that I’m gonna complain. I like convenience. That’s the only reason I bought a car, to begin with, considering how high car prices have been lately.
Salamar brought his hand forward and conjured up another circuit, this one several dozen times as complex as the previous one. “I am unaware of the limit of your trait. This might be too complex for it but attempt to replicate this circuit.”
It didn’t require much effort for Ibras to produce an identical circuit above his hand. As he poured mana into it, the circuit shone brightly and immediately after Ibras could feel how, similar to when the first spell was cast upon him and he learned to understand Salamar’s language, knowledge directly entered his mind.
Woah…
True Name: Ibras
Race: ???? (Unique)
Traits and Skills: Facsimile (Unique), Mana Molding
Where is this information coming from? The world? God? Not even they know what the hell I am right now? That’s reassuring... And what are these traits and skills? Mana Molding I can guess from the name, but Facsimile?
Facsimile (Unique): Copy a circuit from either a magical beast’s magical circuit or an observed circuit.
Oh, I see. So it is a cheat. Nifty. Who would have thought you get so many perks for being a foreigner! But wait… Any observed circuit?
Salamar brought forth his other hand and another circuit that was similar to Ibra’s current one appeared. His mouth widened with a smile. “Mana Molding was expected, that was the goal after all. But Facsimile? Never heard of it before, but it truly is magnificent. It even works on the magical circuits from magical beasts!? My Ibras, you truly are the gift that keeps giving.” Then his eyes opened wide with surprise and realization.
Sorry grandpa, a bit too slow this time!
Above Ibras’ other hand a new circuit had already formed, and a large amount of mana was traveling from his hand into the circuit, lighting up several hundreds of different circlets compressed into the size of your ordinary tv-screen with a bright violet sheen. Salamar recognized the spell being cast immediately. After all, not much time had passed since he himself had used it.
“NO! IBRAS I COMMAND Y—” He screamed as the room was lit up by a mass of glowing circlets and, just like last time, a massive amount of mana surged outwards. Yet, unlike last time where the mana gathered and moved towards a single target, this time it split into two different streams moving towards two different targets.
Ibras, previously known as Jacob Mitchells, screamed inside his mind as the mana surged into him and burned his entire being and he felt a tinge of regret at what he had done. But not enough to outweigh the satisfaction he felt as he remembered the panic on his “master’s” face as he desperately tried conjuring up new circuits when the mana flowed towards him. The last thing Ibras remembered before the world went black from the pain was the faint sound of screaming in the distance.