James cleared his mind once more, this time using a variety of previously mastered psychological-focused techniques.

To create real magic, one has to understand magical theory. Well, James happened to be a literal god-level thief, his abilities in stealing were second to none, also the reason why he successfully stole Time itself.

To be a master thief, let alone a celestial thief, one has to have done their research into many subjects of knowledge, to crack arrays, magic locks, and magical puzzles built by the people often considered as overpowered magic-casters.

James spent a large amount of time studying mystical subjects, physical subjects, and even psychological subjects, in fact, he even went to a Universe-level University, which was considered to James as one of the most memorable experiences he has ever encountered in either of his lives, one where he had love and then lost it.

After an untold number of years spent delving into Magic Theory, Martial Arts Theory, and Psychology, James eventually became a scholar at a large teaching institute as a cover for his thieving identity, it was a short-term heist, but technically James was a professor for a while.

And a damn good one too.

Imagine what Shadows would look like in your mind, what is its shape, its color, its volume, and density. Know the properties that have the potential to combine, know the properties to avoid combining. Magic’s foundation was always centered around two factors.

Creativity and Research.

With James’s thought in motion, he motioned his right hand in a circle, once the full circular motion was formed fully, James pulled his arm back slightly like that of a slingshot, creating an invisible tension. A gathering of darkness was forming on his palm, like an oily blackness accumulating.

However, the tension the magical arts dealt with was on a metaphysical plane, one that simply could not be directly touched upon, other than a special few races like elementals.

James’s right palm started to glow with an eerie black glow, a white luminescent rune on a black eerie background appeared, the white rune itself was also constantly morphing, slightly twisting and turning.

Then with a great push, James sent his right arm forward… straight at the ground.

If one was capable of viewing the same forest, the same general area of James, they would see the large encompassing Fog that seemed to take up the entire landscape within hundreds of miles… but at that moment, the fog itself dimmed then brightened quickly once again as if nothing happened

That… is a lot of information.

James somehow was able to hang on regarding the mental tsunami of information, a series of facts seemingly magically populating James’s brainscape instantly. Most of it being useless, however, the few information bits that the Shadowless Echo provided James, could be said to be truly astonishing.

Woah, Is that a giant walking tree, a golden fruit?

…

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Revrix was a simple college history major, his life so simple and straightforward that his life would’ve never entered any of the history books he had read to even master his degree.

Was he glad that the apocalypse came? For sure.

When half of the world was grieving for what they lost, Treya was also a broken world already, half of the world roared in delight at what they could “gain” from this new encounter, with the other half likely to be severely frightened.

After somehow trapping the clumsy yet lucky goblin duo that ran at him, with the terrifying wall of fog, in the already terrifying complex forest, Revrix experienced a miracle.

Both goblins stumbled before they both tripped over a stone, throwing their balance completely off, which led to the situation where they both fell into a sharpened root after tripping over thin wire made from Revrix’s nylon shoelace, Revrix saw a flash of blue appear.

On the ground he saw a book.

A magical book.

Running and grabbing the book, Revrix tried to keep pace by moving away from the fog, keeping a dozen feet away from the slowly gaining fog.

The book’s title read simply.

Magic Book.

“First, holy shit. Second, what a lacking book title.” Revrix quickly opened up the book as he kept an eye out for the fog as well as the complex roots on the ground floor.

Climbing up on some of the larger roots seemed to make it easier to cross the dense network of roots covering the floor, a factor that many would quickly find out if they saw some of the massive roots which were like tree trunks themselves lying like fallen trees across the ground.

“Inheritance… blah blah blah. Past about some noble lineage fading, lucky finder. Same old same old, these tropes have been done thousands of times. Ah, here it is.” Revrix spoke softly as he read.

Magical Arts is one of the most difficult subjects to conquer, one can simply master magic by following the average and known paths, but to conquer magic is another feat in itself.

As a grand-master Archmage, I Tython Overa, write this book for the sake of helping the young grow with the correct and proper nurturing, I hope that one day my book will be commonplace so that even Orphans can read my book and take the torch which I lit to an unknown path.

“Hey, I’m an Orphan!”. Revrix chuckled aloud.

Taking a quick serious glance, Revrix didn’t notice anything unusual from the already unusual forest.

“So what is magic?” Revrix spoke softly before flipping to the next page.

The title coincidently read, What is magic?

“Huh.”

Magic is the final sum of all arcane, spiritual, and mystic arts. The arcane belongs to the seven elements, Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Lightning, Dark, and Light. Spiritual Arts belong to a unique category in which coincides with Qi, unlike the elements which are External Power, Spiritual Arts pursue the matter of using Inner Power to create External Power. A martial artist will use Spirit to fight at a distance commonly. A magic-user will use always use some form of Mana to fight. A mystic arts user is the third unique category which often is underappreciated in early civilizations and overly relied upon in advanced civilizations.

Mystic Arts is the most wide-encompassing category and the most “mysterious”, it can range from curses or blessings, to divination abilities or having the power to accidentally summon a bath full of demonic terror piranhas after dancing funny.

The odd thing about Mystic Arts is the consequences. Every use of a mystic art will have a “backlash effect”, if one’s mastery and theory of magic is high enough, potentially they could negate the backlash.

However, Mystic Arts use the Infinite Ether hidden in one’s soul as the foundation and one’s own creative potential as its fuel, These are some of the core concepts of magic power. You will learn more about how mystical arts matter in the future.

One last thing, the higher level of the magical art or ability, whether it be magical, spiritual, or mystical in nature, the higher control over one’s Magic is needed to be more proficient at it, this means that two people who have the magical ability to control fire have different proficiency-increasing speeds. Furthermore, in regards to innate talent, certain “realms” of the user are locked by evolutionary nature which is often the obstacle to pursuing a deeper source of magic for many in the universe which are only overcome through practice, talent, and luck.

So what should a magic-user desire, what is action-worthy?

One is cultivation. This is the most important for any Magic User, it decides the actual or visible potential of one’s power. Everyone in the world must cultivate in some fashion eventually to grow.

Two, knowledge. Only with the correct preparation will one be capable of surviving the longest. The scariest enemy is the one who is capable of knowing everything about you and your methods.

Three, practice. One must have death encounters if they want to see through the veil of life and death to evolve into something greater.

“Am I going to be the first mage?” Revrix laughed somewhat evilly as his mind wandered. Flipping to the next chapter, he noticed it was 400-pages long, all detailing the human body, the nature of mana, or other parts of foundational information.

“Fuck, this is going to take a while,” Revrix said aloud, rubbing his eyebrow in confusion from the first page.