"Jon! Oi, Jon!" A panicky voice echoes within Jon's consciousness, Ora's light stretching on the blue sky and a blurry figure sat beside him shaking his body.
Jon groans as his consciousness slowly returns, blinking his eyes repeatedly and trying to wipe his face from all the dirt and sweat on it.
"Ack, that hurt." He attempts to raise himself but he suddenly feels as if the ground was pulling him back and plops back to the ground.
Bale immediately pushed Meyvil away from Jon and nudged its snout on his head as soon as it saw him plopping back to the ground. It checks on each side of Jon to see if there were any other injury or wounds after plopping down.
"Damn horse! Like I said, the lad struck me first!" Meyvil uses all of her strength and pushed Bale out of the way in return for pushing her away as well.
"Come on, yer awake now, let us get you up." She stands from the hard ground and reaches out a hand, although a hint of fear is seen on her eyes as she remembers her mana being eaten by the abyss inside the boy in front of her.
Jon extends out a hand and grips on her hand as he uses her hand to prop himself off the ground. He dusts his ragged tunic as soon as he got up, and like Meyvil a hint of fear can be seen on his eyes.
"I... I am sorry for attacking you suddenly." After what seemed to be an eternity of awkward silence, Jon sees several bruises on Meyvil's arm and face and felt the something as if something stabbed him in the heart.
"I... I thought you were stabbing me from behind." He continued, the guilt in his voice even more prevalent than before.
Once more, Meyvil's thought about the two who went inside her domain had changed, from mockery to fascination to fear, she feels a non-existent danger the more she gets closer to these two.
'All beings in this world would have not reached this point had we not risked facing our fears!' The fear hidden within her instantly vanished as she remembers the reason why she became a Sorcerer.
All graduates of Sorcery were excellent researchers, although they mastered in magic meant to harm any other being, whether it was astral or a personification of mana, the magic formulated and experimented by Sorcerers were to search any sort of way to hurt anything that lives.
However, the eyes of a researcher are not set in stone for only one thing but it is to uncover everything. From all sort of myths to any natural phenomena, a researcher is all about discovering the facts from these hidden gems.
Without saying much, she grabs Jon on the wrist and drags him back inside the cave, forgetting about the 'Restoration Phenomenon'. Her eyes gleaming with excitement as if she had found a legendary species worth experimenting on.
Thinking that Meyvil will hurt him again, Bale once more tries to push her away from him, but this time before it could touch Meyvil, she chants softly and a bright magic circle appears on Bale's eyes. The magic circle flashed and disappeared a moment later, but Bale's tenacity vanished and it seemed as if it has forgotten about Meyvil hurting Jon.
"W-what did you do to Bale?" Jon was confused by her reaction beforehand, but what she did to the horse was more questionable to him.
"A calming spell, no need to worry, it only lasts for a few moments." She nonchalantly replies as she focuses more on her thoughts about the abyss inside Jon.
Several moments later, they arrive inside Meyvil's domain, where Vernack and Halungr was happily resting, not knowing the activity that occurred outside. Meyvil loosens her grip on Jon and strode toward an empty wall with only stalactites on its ceiling.
"Thine locks of plenty, thine path to secrecy, O Spirit of the Hidden, Let the hidden be of sight!" Meyvil loudly chants as she waves her hand on the stone wall.
A moment later, the wall slightly shakes and a large brown magic circle appears on the stone wall, then each piece of the stone crumbles into nothingness without the cave violently shaking.
As the wall was crumbling, a hint of another entrance can be seen through the dust cloud formed by the wall as it falls apart.
Then, as the dust settles, what seemed to be a hallway that stretched infinitely is seen inside the new entrance, a limitless amount of floating dimly lit orb on each side for every fifth step, the ceiling as if it extends into the sky, and the wall and the floor turned into cobble. The entrance was large enough to fit three Halungr on its pathway.
Jon marvels at the vastness of the new entrance and the floating orb of light which seemed to float on about at the same place.
"Where does this lead to?" Still marveling at the entrance that appeared after Meyvil's chanting, Jon asks excitedly without facing her.
"It leads to somewhere bigger than this cave." Meyvil happily replied and lead Jon deep inside.
Only the sound of them walking inside the cobble hall echoed within as they treaded deep into the dimly light hallway. Although the hallway seemed to stretch infinitely and they had been walking seemingly for an eternity, Jon never left a single drop of sweat nor he felt tired for walking this long.
Moments later, Jon sees a hall from a distance and what seemed like the stars in the night sky as countless number of light orbs floated around within this hall.
When they finally arrive at the hall Jon was bewildered at the sight, what he had imagined beforehand paled in comparison to what he was seeing now.
The hall was tremendous than the height of the hallway's ceiling, in here was different. What seemed to be the ceiling of the hall reminisced the sight of the cosmos, with the vastness of space being swallowed by an astronomical orb of light which made Jon look like an ant compared to it.
It also had what seemed to be shelves stretching horizontally with no end at the sight of it, a table in the middle of the hall with stacks of scrolls and a stool, on the side was a table with a clear crystal ball, on the opposite side of the room was a rack of alchemical potions, and beside this rack was a shelf filled with various jars of body parts from different species in the world.
What made Jon dumbfounded even further was that everything was made using crystal, the shelves, the table, the stool, the floor, everything! He has never seen such large amount of crystal and only to be used to be sat on?
The light inside the cosmic-like hall was majestic as colors of different hues come here and there as the light from the star-like orb above them are refracted and dispersed by the crystals inside the tremendous hall.
"How did you get this tremendous amount of crystals? Even that Oran-sized orb of light floating above us? What..." Jon rambled on onward while still marveling at every single thing at sight inside the hall.
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"This hall is called 'Toran's Heart', a world forged by the crystal-smiths of Grosvolk and Grand Magus Toran a few Lios after the end of the 'Great Mortal-Demonaic War'." Meyvil explains as she also marvels at the sight despite having seen this hall for a countless number of times now.
"This was forged for the graduates of Sorcery, a world filled with infinite knowledge, a world where we can take and replace, a shared world for all Sorcerers!"
"We may not see anyone now, but Toran's Heart, just like the limitless stretch of the shelf before us, has an infinite amount of rooms which is conveniently made for Sorcerers to be able to do all our research in peace."
"Although there had been no records of this happening, but it was said the Magus of Knowledge, Grand Magus Toran, stole High Prince Neimas of Grosvolk's spirit and was used as the foundation of this world, since Torenn's are said to have the most refined mana soul as seen above us now."
"What?!" Jon could not restrain his shock anymore after hearing Meyvil's explanation about the history of this magnificent hall.
As Jon was looking around the hall, his gaze lands back to the entrance of the hall. He remembered that the hallway was longer that what he sees right now, he could clearly see the cave they were just in long ago.
"Was the hallway always that short?" He points at the entrance, intrigued by the sight before him.
"The hallway had always been short, only reason why it seemed longer than it is because a magical mechanism was used to trap trespassers in an infinite loop inside the hallway." She nonchalantly replies and rests her hand on Jon's shoulder.
"Come, I am eager to learn more about the abyss in ya" Her eyes gleamed in excitement as she thought of the numerous possibilities that caused the child before her to absorb any magic rather than letting it flow freely within the mana soul.
"W-wait so even when I went in with you I was considered a trespasser?" Jon followed behind her eagerly as many more questions popped inside his brain.
Meyvil chuckled and said no reply to Jon, she found it cute that he wanted to learn more about the secrets of all mages but she also knew there were limits to what she could say to anyone, even if they were someone close to her.
The two stood around crystal table that had a clear crystal ball resting atop a 'five serpent head' stand and three wings acting as its legs.
"This crystal ball is called the Aprexem, the magical object that appraises yer affinity to any sort of worldly elements." Meyvil places her palm on the crystal ball.
A few seconds later, the crystal ball faintly glowed in a gray light then intensity of the light slowly went brighter.
"Gray light?" Jon was appalled by the result as he excitement would slowly appear on his eyes.
"Gray light means Wind, thereby I am naturally a Wind Mage, but they also call me 'Sorceress of the Southern Wind' since I was famous for using scalding wind magic to fight mages and monsters alike." Meyvil proudly said as she presented the Aprexem for Jon to use.
Jon hastily places his hand on the crystal ball and anticipated for any light to appear. However, after more than a minute not even a hint of light appeared.
He slowly removes his hand on the Aprexem, disappointment in his eyes. He thought that the Aprexem might be able to give him any hint about his mana but just like mana control, he felt useless once more.
However, this did not disappoint Meyvil's excitement nor her expectations, the moment she saw that there was not even a presence of mana within Jon she already knew that the Aprexem would show no result. Although she had known at first, as a researcher she had to check up on the facts first since this was a rare case for any individual all over the world.
"No need to worry Jon, yer not the only who cannot possess mana nor conjure any magic, although there had only been five recorded cases of such but none had an abyss inside them." Meyvil uses her magic to move the infinite shelf as she searched for a specific scroll.
"I am not alone?" Jon's tone sounded as if he regained some sort of energy as he looks over at Meyvil scrolling through a million scrolls.
"Well yer not, but the abyss in you is a special case which makes you different at the same time." Meyvil pulls out a scroll and presents it on one of her crystal work table.
Jon saw few familiar symbols that he has seen from Grandmother Bliss' old books and he sees that each corner of the scroll had a green square with one black dot in the middle.
"Does this scroll talk about cases like mine?" Jon asks as he connects the familiar symbols from his memories.
"Ya can read the symbols?" Meyvil was genuinely shocked by Jon as she notices as if he was reading the scroll.
Jon shook his head in reply and gave up connecting the symbols from his memories. He had never thought that their eldest caretaker would have books written with similar symbols as these.
"It sincerely seemed that you knew how to read the scrolls." She chuckled as she reads the content of the scroll.
'Lom, the 3rd child of Kyfer, Count of Beneben, committed suicide ten northern seasons after learning about her 'magically crippled' since her birth. During the ten northern seasons she faced extreme mental battle or depression. Five northern seasons in, she was suddenly paralyzed while she was walking along the snowy garden of Benolis, graduates of Healing Magic even the Grand Wizard of Restoria could not heal her with any level of healing magic. However, as countless graduates of Healing Magic poured their mana into her, she finally regained her ability to move once more. The Grand Wizard of Restoria checked on her to only find out that nothing actually changed within her the moment she was healed, so the Grand Wizard passed on this result to the Sorcerer of Tri-Elemental Knowledge to research about this case. This rare case was studied upon by the school of Sorcery and Healing Magic all over the land of Easera until her death. As of this writing, no positive result was found even after opening her corpse and directly checking on the mana soul remains, she seemed to be the most normal mortal in all of the world who could not store any mana within her.'
After reading the scroll, Meyvil could only feel pity for Lom, the first being recorded to be 'magically crippled'. Ever since then, this unknown disease was deemed incurable and named 'Lom's Curse'.
Four other similar cases were recorded as well, due to this knowledge being spread around the world, the four whom suffered this incurable magical disease were treated harshly by those around them, even their family.
One of which was imprisoned and beaten down by a local lord in Abbatir, his parents left him to die as they were the one that sold him to the local lord for food. As if the death of the teen was not enough, his corpse was dragged along the desert of Abbatir and was used to feed the hounds of the local lord.
Learning about these four cases, the Grand Magus of Eternal Sight consulted the Emperor of Xular and pleaded that any information about Lom's Curse must forever be erased in the annals of history. To his surprise, the Emperor accepted the Grand Magus' plea and decreed that all mages to use their magic to erase the memory about Lom's Curse all over the world.
The decree was quickly done by the graduates of each school, however the records about the five cursed children were kept by the Magus of Knowledge and hid it inside Toran's Heart so that only Sorcerers were able to access it. It seemed the thirst for knowledge did not stop the Grand Magus from breaking the decree of the Mortal Overlord.
"Jon, it seems that yer suffering one of the incurable disease known to the graduates of Restoria called 'Lom's Curse." She turns to Jon, still pained from reading about Lom.
Jon looked at her anxiously, the word 'curse' made his complexion look as if his soul was sucked out of him. Although he was happy to hear that he was not alone, he was saddened to know that it is incurable.
"However, like I said earlier, yer the first to have some sort of abyss within that would attack or forcefully absorb the mana entering yer body." She releases a small portion of her mana and moves it into Jon's mana soul.
As the mana moves inward Jon, Meyvil would follow its movement as it moved towards his heart where the mana soul is normally found. A moment later, she loses sight of the mana as an invisible force within Jon instantly absorbed the miniscule amount of mana.
Accompanied by the abyss absorbing the mana, Jon's olive-colored eyes would faintly glow in green light and his body would go stiff for a moment then back to normal.
"I did not feel anything nor anything really happened, Lady Meyvil." Before Meyvil could ask a question, Jon seemed to have answered her question without any hesitation.
"I have not asked yet anything Jon." She chuckles as she walks toward the shelf once more and pulled out a clean scroll below the shelf.
She puts away the 'Lom's Curse' scroll and unfurls the new scroll on the crystal table. Meyvil takes a green square stamp from a crystal drawer and exposed the flat surface to a small fire she conjured.
Meyvil then stamps each corner of the scroll and takes out a small yellow circular stick, burns the flat surface, and stamps four dots in the middle of each green square.
"What are you doing Lady Meyvil?" Jon asks, he has seen a number of this stamps on each corner of the scroll but he did not understand what each of it meant.
"Stamping the corners of the scroll determines what type of documentation someone is making, and what I am making is a recording of yer abyss and to find more about it later." She happily explains, it had been long since the last time she taught other students of Sorcery about the importance of each stamp.
"A green colored stamp means it will be historical, maybe timely, maybe relevant at the moment, however it is not the same as a red or blue stamp which are at the levels of a higher degree of research."
"When the shape of the stamp is square-like then it means it is research-based on experiments, a circular shape means it is historical, and a triangular shape means it is a census."
"The number of dots inside the scroll determine the importance of the research, none being the least important and four dots being either controversial, serious, or a crucial piece of knowledge."
"Now the color of the dots determine how useful it is to anyone, yellow being useful for future experiments, red being useful for learning about an art whether it be fighting or a hobby, blue being useful for the nobles and merchants, and black being forbidden to be known to others."
Jon carefully listens to Meyvil's teaching, as her pleasant voice allows him to understand her teaching easier. He remembers the different scrolls he read before Vernack interrupted him earlier, he read the ones with a green circle and four yellow dots in the middle.
"Now Jon, tell me where are ya from?" Meyvil inquires as she takes out a black quill from her drawer and dips the tip with ink, preparing to write any useful information out of Jon.
"I was an orphan from Meadow Cross, five northern seasons ago." He answers without any hesitation.
The moment Meyvil heard that he was an orphan from Meadow Cross, she faced Jon as shock is clearly seen from her expression.
"If yer an orphan from Meadow Cross, then ya must know Bliss the Prodigy of the Mind?" Meyvil almost jabbered her words as she almost ruined the clean scroll by letting go of the inked quill on her hand.