After chanting, the ground starts to freeze over starting from me. After reaching the bandits. The frost starts to freeze their legs and slowly moving up.

“What. What is this? How is this possible?” says the fourth man.

“I… I only have some questions… That I want to ask you…” I say.

“What do you want to know?” Says the fourth man.

“When you called me a level five mage. What did you mean? I want to know.” I ask.

“A. A level one mage is someone who can sense mana. A level two mage is someone who can see mana. A level three mage is someone who can start to interact with mana. A level four mage is someone who can manipulate mana. A level five mage is someone who can cast spells while chanting. That’s. That’s what you wanted to know right? So please. please stop the cold. The cold hurts. Please. I beg of you!” Pleads the man.

And here is the problem. I never figured out how to stop the freeze… I even tried wording it differently but it seems the end result is the same. Hmmm… Maybe if I make another chant?

“I can help you. But you will bring me to the nearest city. And if I can’t get in legally. Smuggle me in.” I say.

The men around me nod eagerly. The ice is nearing their heart.

“By my will, allow the molecules within an area of 5 meters to resume their previous movement.” I chant.

With that. The ice disappears. No warning. Simply disappearing. Damn, if stopping the ice was as easy as chanting again, I should’ve figured that out. But level five just means chanting? Is there a higher level? Like chantless magic? Hmm...

The fourth man, bowing down says, “I thank you for your benevolent heart. The nearest city is the walled fort Alevia. It is less than a day's walk from here.”

“I see. Lead me to the walled fort.” I order.

Nodding, the man turns and walks down the path.

So this path did lead to the city anyways… Anyways. There might be the possibility of there being chantless magic. But what annoys me is that although using the air around me as a barrier was a good idea, something like wind arrows doesn’t work. Unless I force the air together? Hmm… It could be possible to make an air gun this way. But what good would an air gun do to armor anyways? Nothing, is the answer.

But wow. I skipped 4 steps and went straight to chanting. Should I attempt to sense mana? Or maybe I have different filters in my eyes that allow me to see mana? Tapping on the section of my body labeled eyes. A zoom in of my eyes comes up. And there. Different lens… There’s only normal lenses… Nothing too interesting but it seems as if I can add more lenses. That’s good.

Hmm? What’s this new bar?

Pure mana available for use: .5 fillawatts

Um…. Nice? I remember something about pure man being used to create materials. Do I use this to improve myself? Wait… With this, I can make a lens to see mana… Or I could use this to improve my current self… I feel like this was all explained in that opening speech that 666 gave while I was zoning off…

Well, what’s done is done. Should I go back and unfreeze those trees? And also, after freezing their bodies, how are the bandits still moving? Is it some weird thing that everyone in this world is capable of? Or was it because I said to allow the atoms to move the way they were before… I don’t know… I know I did take the basics and a bit more of chemistry and physics but… This doesn’t actually work… I still need information huh?

On that note. Don’t I need a job or something? I can’t go jobless in this world can I… But with my unique characteristics, maybe I should just apply as a guard or something. If I apply as a guard, I should earn a high salary right? Guards are in high demand right? Then with this money I should be able to buy a house… Preferably next to a library...

The one who acts first and prepares first always wins in the end. I may not like the fact that I’ve entered a new world. But in the old world I died. So what would going back do for me? Nothing. For all I know, by the time I find a way back to Earth, Earth may already be a desolate world.

So my first step is get a job. From there, buy a house and gather information. But before all of that, I want to see what I can do with .5 fillawatts of pure mana… With this… I can make… An extra arm… Or I could put it all into making a lens to look at mana… But since I can just use mana without needing to see it… I won’t need that. Should I have a shoulder cannon or something? Would that be helpful? I would have to convert the pure mana into ammo… And my understanding of cannons isn’t a lot.

A cannon is basically a metal tube with an iron ball and gunpowder stuffed into it. Then you light it… Right? Or maybe I could just have the metal tube as something to aim. So I just have to compress the air into the tube and fire away… That would be good… So… Should I put it on a 360 degree pointing cannon… With a simple up and down mechanism… Right… Maybe I should have taken classes on how a robot’s eyes worked. Then I could’ve placed a camera on the back… Wait no, that’s stupid, I have those eyes from the humans! Of course. how stupid of me…

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It seems that my whole body is made of Adamantium, so I made the cannon out of adamantium. All I need to figure out now is if there is chantless magic… Should I try it? I don’t know much though… How about…

By my will, bend my shadows to cover me from other’s eyes.

With that, the shadows at my feet leap up and start to cover me. But stop just before reaching my shoulders. I suppose the shadow wasn’t large enough to cover me huh… Let’s release this, I don’t want to be that creepy half shadow man.

By my will, release the shadows under my will and allow them to return to their rightful positions.

And the shadows disappear. Wait, I never checked but does releasing my own control use mana? I don’t know… But I think the usage of the mana was the same. I think when I use chantless mana more mana is used in order to get the order across to whatever is the receiving end… However that works while if I use chants, it allows more efficiency and doesn’t use as much mana… I don’t know. This theory could be completely wrong… I’ll just have to test this more…

Actually, why am I waiting for later to test this? I can just do it now.

Whispering under my breath, I chant, “By my will, bend my shadows to cover me from other’s eyes. By my will, release the shadows under my will and allow them to return to their rightful positions.”

Huh. Checking this time. Releasing my control seems to return the mana back to me. And chanting actually does use less mana. But the problem is. After I use up all of my mana, what happens to me? Do I just shut off and then wait until the solar energy converts to power for my battery? I don’t want to test this so I’ll leave this question blank… After all, there is the possibility that by using up my battery, I simply cease to function… Yeah… I’m not playing with that.

Enough playing around. It’s time to implement my new shoulder mounted cannon with human eyeballs. Yeah… The eyeball part isn’t morbid… Actually. Is that even a good idea? If I put it on my shoulder, then people will see that it has an eye… What to do… Hmm? Is that a save button? I can save blueprints that I make? That’s good! Then I can just copy blueprints that I find into this database… Nice nice.

So in the end I didn’t implement the shoulder mounted cannon… So what should I do with my .5 fillawatts? Ah, nevermind. It jumped .1 so it’s .6 now. Should I make a blade that extends out of my wrist? Nah. I have a better idea. Let’s hop to it.

An hour or so later, I’ve designed my new weapon. The blade starts at my wrist closer to the side of my pinkie, but starts to curve outward and ends at my elbow. About 4 inches away from my elbows. I’ll just pop this onto both arms… And this makes a convenient guard and weapon. Wonderful. What… What is this itching sensation I feel? I feel… Something pushing out of my wrists… It… hurts… An agonizing moment later, the blades are complete and pop out of my wrists. That… Was slightly painful. The sensation felt more like bugs crawling around and inside my wrist… But other than that, nothing too bad…

I think the difference between this and absorbing monsters and other objects is that everything is kind of set. I don’t have a choice on color or anything. And if anyone wonders. I colored my new blades crimson red. Why not right? Ominous and cool looking.

Just making two blades used .6 fillawatts. So I have any fillawatts left… I think I gain .1 fillawatts every 6 hours. I’ve been awake for about 36 hours, and I gained .6 fillawatts in that time. So that seems about right. But for now, I can make more designs… This will keep my mind off the travelling time…

Actually, I’ve been on the move for around 4 or so hours now. Where could this city be? Ah. It’s right there. Right around the bend. And the city in all its glory.

Drabby grey walls with watchtowers at set intervals on the walls. A total of 10 watch towers. The city is in a decagon shape huh… Interesting. And I assume the watch towers are to watch for raids of some sort? All I have to do now is get in, and get a job.

“At this point, we can no longer guide you. There shouldn’t be any problems if you choose to enter the city. We will part here.” Says the fourth man.

They could be lying or they could be telling the truth. Worse case scenario I track them down and do something to them so that they never lie ever again.

I give them a brief nod and they take off into the woods. Now. Into the city!

Author’s Note:

I found a cool song. This is it. Our Last Night - Same Old War. Yup. Just wanted to share that with y’all. Oh, and. I was barely able to squeeze this chapter in so don’t expect anything until that date I said I would have free time to write.