Chapter 3 - I am a genius

I sit in front of the fire and focus, focus on what i don't know but I was focused. As I sit in front of the fire I brace myself for the time ahead, because in every story magic is always difficult to learn- Why can I still see the fire? My eyes are closed...No it can't be that easy. I try to turn my head and am discombobulated when my entire viewpoint moves. Reorientation myself I quickly realize that I have some sort of mana view, maybe it is due to the asshole beared guy.

Exploring super mana vision is fun, once I got a hang of it it was actually better than regular vision. It was a 360 degree vision horizontally and vertically. Walls where no obstacle and I could focus my vision like a microscope. My eyes didn't even need to be closed for the vision to work, the focusing part however did require eyes closed. Reaching the first level literally took no time at all, I probably had an easier time due to my lack of qi ability.

Quickly again focusing I try to look towards myself, to my soul. This took some time but I figured out the trick, I looked down to my body and low and behold there it was. It was a strange sight, a mass of light that swirled with the colours black,silver and blue. Sensing the soul done, now to control it.

As I was trying to do so my shoulder was hit and with the force behind it I flew and his the stone fireplace. My head was ringing as I shifted my attention to whoever hit me. It was a big man clean shaven dark black hair and purple eyes, the most eye catching feature however were the curling horns on the top of his head.

“He was trying to access the power of the shaman’s, I could not allow it.” his tone was righteous yet so was the heavy iron pan in my mothers hand.

“This isn't dremoin horned one” my mother almost growled to the man embedded in the wall.

The man climbed from the wall glared at my mother and was about to attack, but the unique advantage of being an innkeeper came into play, the numerous other mercenaries who were in the building about 8 men and woman stood up with glares that seemed to scream ‘try it’.

It was at the climax of this moment I passed out, hitting my head on stone tends to have such an effect.

Slowly regaining consciousness I instantly noticed something off my eyes hurt. It wasn't a piercing pain more of a throb. Opening my eyes told me something had indeed happened to my eyes, everything was clearer and my mana vision was already activated without me trying. I decide to look at my sould to make sure nothing happened when I got hit to the wall when trying to control my soul. To my delight and surprise something did happen, there was what I assume it spiritual energy in my soul.

It was at this moment my mother came in with food and took a double take when she looked at me.

“Your eyes” She looked slightly alarmed.

“What?” I asked, by this point the throb had turned into more of warm feeling.

“They're not green any more” She left the room after putting my food down and came back with a mirror. She handed it to me and I understood her confusion, my eyes no longer were green but instead shone with the colour of my soul. My pupils were black like usual but it seemed more like a matte black now absorbing any excess light, the iris had changed from green to a literal glowing blue my eyes were now glow in the dark, finally the sclera had turned into a shiny silver. All in all it looked very cool. It was almost otherworldly, it resembled the eyes the magus had perhaps a trademark of being a magus. This caused me to wonder how my mother missed the magus as she had so comment on not being able to get more money from him.

When my mother finally let me out of bed later, after much convincing of course. After escaping the room I went back downstairs and entered the common room of the inn. What I saw both shocked me and made me giggle a little bit. Judging from the many person sized holes in the walls and the thick stone walls I discovered the man who pushed me wasn't let go very easily.

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My mother descended the stairs muttering about having to pay repair costs.

“Hey mom” i asked

“Yeah?”

“Who was the horned guy, and why’d he hit me” Genuine curiosity.

“Oh he was just a traveller who didn't know where his cultural norms ended, nothing to worry about he was well educated about norms last night”

“Ah, ok then”

Knowing I did not get a full answer I let it slide, I felt that pushing the matter would not help things. After my quick conversation with my mother I left the inn and the town limits and entered the forest. The forest in contrast to my expectations of a fantasy world forest did not contain any mega dangerous beasts, at most there was a few wolf packs. The town I was in was in a fairly secluded dukedom away from any dangerous beast zones.

I had come to the forest for three reasons. One being I didn't want to be disturbed like a I was the previous night, second I discovered the more I of one elemental mana I sensed the greater my sense for the mana became for example before sensing pure water mana I could not sense rain from outside the building nor it going in someone's throat and into their belly, however after I observed some and absorbed it I could, the third and final reason was I wanted to perform the familiar spell and from the sound of the spell it was a spell with a fairly noticeable effect.

After a few minute of being in the forest I discovered some changes. It seemed like I had already reached the 4th level, When sensing the mana I felt I could do more and just did, i pulled in both earth and water mana which was abundant in my current environment. There was a third type of mana but I couldn't get a grasp of it. Moving on I realised I was in a pseudo stage between level 5 and becoming an elementary acolyte, I just needed to gather enough spiritual  force and compress a core. Pausing for a moment I thought about the novel I had read about cultivation in my previous life, there was always a benefit in doing something different. In this case I was pondering whether or not to gather more spiritual force and then compress it. I decided to wait until I was at that point until trying something that may not be possible.

Days past and I was in the forest more often than not, mostly due to the more abundant earth, water and some air mand in comparison to the hearth fire in the inn. I also discovered there was barley and scraps of mana left to devour in processed or converted goods such as walls and tools. The days I spent in the forest I felt reflected my current life and my last. In my past life I was lazy but my mind was always moving and pondering this shows when I would sit at the trunk of a tree, its branches or some groove in the forest and just sit and devour the mana. Other times I would prowl the forest in search of well anything. In this way I finally reached the peak saturation point of my soul and if I wanted to I could compress my core, It was a feeling that told me I could.

After reaching this point any mana I absorbed was a moot point and didn't convert into spiritual force. I couldn't even halfway compress the core and absorb more, I knew that just from the feeling I got it was almost an instinct.

Compressing the core was surprisingly a rather non eventful event, at most there was a slight feeling of accomplishment. Slightly disappointed of this revelation I decided to practice a new ability, imbuing my voice with spiritual force.

“Boom”

I said the word at a normal volume but I felt the sound reached farther than any shout I could make, further more the mana around me fluctuated seemingly exploding outwards, it caused no physical effects anywhere however perhaps when I had more spiritual power I could influence the surrounding mana and world with my voice alone.

With a bit more practice I made the volume return to normal while retaining the effect in fact when I returned home I had a full conversation with marissa with strange results.

“ Hey marissa” I said as soon as I saw her.

She stumbled as she heard my voice as well as shivering, Noticing that I realized I had unconsciously directed both air and water mana creating a shove of thought as well as lowering the temperature, interesting.

“Hi Cato, Sorry you surprised me”

“No problem, I going to my room see you later” I restrained in using force this time, I felt it more effects than I previously thought, even at this level.

I only came back to my room at this point for the book on summoning, I wanted to try this right away. Grabbing the book I ran back to the forest and into a grove I frequented.

I didn't wait, standing with the book in one hand and my other hand stretched out I began.

“Hear my call from the realm of the real to the realm of the abstract” The mana in the air became agitated it began to spin and formed a storm.

“Heed my command to traverse the veil” The world in front of me split and instead there was a world of constantly changing colors, trees changing into seas and vice versa.

“Unshackle your bonds and become one with me” Wispy lines of energy came from the rift and attached to me, more specifically my soul, as they made contact they change color to either black, blue or silver.

“Form the physical form of life by sharing my life with yours, COME” The rift closed and the wispy lines stretched from my body and formed two cocoons of black,blue and silver.

One cocoon was the size of a small ford truck and the other about the size of a harley motorcycle. I watched as they cracked and the pieces came off, excited to see what they held.