10/01/ AWAD 200

Jay’s eyes opened to a white ceiling. It wasn’t the cleanest white, but it was a familiar white. Morning used to be a slow business but Jay dealt with it a lot better now. He simply got up earlier to give himself more time, still hated it though.

Breakfast was sunny side eggs as usual. He turned to his mom to thank her for the food…

Jay woke up tearing up. There was never a chance to say goodbye. The ceiling he saw now was Jax’s room’s, a dark brown. He shook his head as though to shake away the sadness.

Without possessing a stable whirlpool in his core, his swords proved to make the amount of raw mana he emitted worse. The solutions to sealing the swords were sheathes crafted from halfy wood. Normally the insulatory effects of the wood would be lost when cut down but stayed fresh from absorbing mana from Jay's swords. Strong enough surges would obliterate them though.

Why emitting raw mana exposed his thoughts still hadn’t been explained to Jay’s irritation. Master told him to find the answers to questions like ‘that’ in reading after he finally learned to read. The urge to try to force the magi to teach him to read as soon as possible crossed his mind multiple times.

Today, though, he would finally get answers to at least some of his questions. Like why the year was denoted as ‘AWAD 200’.

Learning the language properly to use magic was necessary apparently. For all he knew, maybe the ‘common language’ was an altered form of the ‘magic language.’ That could be the reason magi referred to Japanese as a good analogy.

[You guessed right. The common language is indeed an altered form of the language of magic. I thought I told you to consider me as your master? Come outside.] Master thought to him.

Jay couldn’t wait for when he managed to regain his privacy.

A surreal but familiar sight was set up right outside. Almost straight out of a classroom, a white board and rows of chairs were set up. Even a couple kids from the village were gathered.

[Well I thought my favorite student would like company,] Master thought to him.

[Bullshit! The purpose of this setup is for me to develop attachments,] Jay shot back.

[Whatever you may believe, that doesn’t change how I will only teach you this way. I will start in five minutes, so become acquainted with these kids. Be aware that some children can sense lies from how you emit mana,] Master dismissed him with a warning.

Jay wanted to retort but thought it was pointless and scanned the crowd for Jax. Starting with someone he knew would be best. Finding Jax didn’t take long with his head sticking out above most.

“Hello Jax, I am gonna hang out with you a bit. Can you introduce me to some of your friends?” Jay approached the group of excited kids feeling more than a little silly.

Being rebellious to the magi would be foolhardy though.

“Sure Jack,” Jax replied. “Hey guys this is the wanderer who saved me from several wolves.”

Jay felt surprised at how Jax hadn’t messed with the story to make himself look better.

"I can tell he’s telling the truth but tell me how you pulled off fighting off the wolves. I find that a child killing one of the monsters is really hard to believe.”

Jay sighed. The girl might be capable of sensing lies. An imploring of the group was called for.

“I can describe the fight to you guys without any embellishment, but is that what you want? Out here in the middle of nowhere, you must not get much news nor excitement. Who here wants me to make the fight thrilling with some exaggeration instead of plain and more boring?” Jay asked.

“Make it fun!” Most of the kids answered.

“Well the wolves were certainly cunning. They almost got me. Call me Jack, by the way,” Jay began. “I rushed to offer my assistance when Jax yelled for help and saw the two wolves circling and waiting for him to tire. I drew my sword to cut them down,” he unsheathed his sword to show them.

“But both the wolves must have sensed me since they immediately turned around to rush me. I barely managed to cut one down and had to knock back the other with a gauntlet. Regaining space made striking down the second wolf possible, but that wasn’t how the fight ended,” Jay paused.

“These wolves weren’t only abnormally sensitive but also abnormally intelligent. A third wolf had hung back waiting for the right moment to attack. Right when I was about to strike down the second wolf, the third wolf decided to attack. With a hair-rising howl, it leapt for the back of my neck. Fortunately, I chose to lunge forward to cut down the second wolf in the exact same moment and threw off the third wolf’s aim. However, its weight slammed into my back and knocked me to the ground, turning the fight into a wrestle,” Jay paused to check for attention.

The eyes of the other kids were glued to him.

“I found myself on the ground holding back two wolves away from my neck, a dangerous but also humiliating situation for me. There I was, about to be killed by random wolves. That infuriated me. Along with the anger that bubbled up, I felt a surge in mana that brought me strength. After shoving away the wolves, I cut them down with my shortsword,” Jay dramatically finished recounting the fight with a re-enactment with his short sword.

He could see their eyes brimming with excitement. Everyone seemed to be at rapt attention to his description of the fight, the fight playing out in their heads, exciting them. How many others would join Jax with the same intentions for adventure?

Gina, Han, and Saman seemed to want to be fighters pestering for more details of the fight. Afterwards, Jafta and Jefus wouldn’t shut up about food and wondered how wolf meat would taste. Jax simply listened to everyone. Dakisa remained skeptical and also asked for more details.

[Oh I forgot to mention that you aren’t my only mage trainee,] Silvia thought to him.

Jay groaned. That would mean that more people were privy to his thoughts. Irritation in him bubbled.

“Kids I am going to start so get seated. I plan on furthering your education.”

Jefus blurted out, “is that something delicious?”

Not losing a step, master replied, “it could help you get more delicious things, but stop joking, Jefus. Let me start with one question: do any of you know what the AWAD of AWAD 200 stands for?”

Dakisa’s hand shot up, “that stands for After the War Against divinity. Year 0 is the year the otherworlder successfully toppled the gods.”

Master clapped, ”Very good Dakisa. Everyone else should read more.”

Jay would have to find out where the library was.

That would explain why the elf wanted his death. Jay didn’t really pay much attention after that. The lecture sounded like a fluffy overview anyway. Burying himself in the library after he gained literacy would suffice.

He still caught how there were twenty three kingdoms on the continent. The gist was that these kingdoms had been in various states of hostility ever since the age of the gods ended. The gods were really destructive so not many records survived to leave much else to discuss. Master was only running through the popular theories and lengthened the lecture with pretty illusions.

Jay was more perplexed and interested with the kids surrounding him. They all appeared to be educated but didn’t appear to live constantly in fear like the other residents of the village. A ruler who poisoned the rivers and had a secret police should still be terrifying. Although, the ongoing atmosphere of fear potentially came from previously living where the tyrant’s secret police was more active. The children probably didn’t remember enough.

“… people even say that the mana taxes’ purpose is to make gods out of the kings…”

Jay choked. That might be a highly classified secret if that was true!

[That was just me playing tricks on your mind. Don't worry. Preventing tricks on your mind will be simple eventually,] Master assured.

“... and as you well know there is a mana tax to go along with the normal tax at the moment. You’re dismissed.”

Jay would have to find out who the trainees were.

"Hello [Jay Black]. We are what you would call the senior apprentices,” a cheerful voice called out.

Jay turned back to see a redhead girl and boy walked up to him.

Although Jay did intend to meet them, his irritation from before flared. Two more people invaded the privacy of his thoughts, a hazel eyed redheaded and probably her brother.

The redhead said, "I'm Shannah and this is Jervoh, as you guessed my brother.”

Jervoh walked off without a word, maybe tired of his sister. She already seemed to be capable of talking people's ears off.

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Jay sighed, "you’re going to have to teach me to read so show me the alphabet for now.”

“Sure, but we need to go outside first so the remnants of casting spells isn’t left in the town,” Shannah said. "You won't have the usual problems thanks to magicraft."

“There is no point for that. Master mentioned that I apparently created mana scars,” Jay replied.

"Is that so? I don’t care," Shannah huffed. “The town is stuffy.”

She must have really wanted to get out of the town.

They walked quite a distance away from the town before they came across a clearing.

"Here's the alphabet," an image of almost forty glyphs sprung up on Shannah’s right. "Yes this is an illusion, an external one. There is a surprising amount of history in the art of illusion spells. You see the first spell was fire and..."

"Umm.. can we get back to the alphabet?" Jay interrupted.

Jay normally was all for going for tangents but learning literacy was a priority. Plus, having his responses pulled straight from his head was irritating. Strangely, the glyphs seemed to shift before his eyes.

"Are the two alphabets like how Japanese originated? A derivation of alphabets from other alphabets? Master did mention that Japanese would be a good analogy for something," Jay asked.

"Ding ding ding! The common language was formed from the fragments of the original spells,” Shannah exclaimed.

Jay groaned at Shannah’s tone but appreciated having his guess confirmed.

"Here's the word for fire," Shannah swiped her hand down and three of the glyphs drifted forward.

"Jealous aren't yah? For fields like illusion magic, which is my specialty by the way... And that would be another tangent wouldn't it?” Shannah smiled as she stopped herself.

Once again she responded to his thoughts.

Jay wondered whether he’d learn anything, but Jervoh came back. A ton of papers, a table and two chairs floated along behind him.

Setting the chairs and table, Jervoh sighed darkly, "we are simply developing you as a more effective weapon for rebellion. Literacy and conventional knowledge will be a start."

Shannah protested, “I thought we agreed I would teach Jay?”

"That was before we had time constraints. You can fill in the gaps," Jervoh grunted.

Shannah left in a sulk.

The lecture was blazed through the alphabet. Glyphs were introduced along with their common arrangements. A massive amount of information Jay shouldn’t have managed to take all in without issue. The exhaustion should have knocked him out a while ago.

“Hey Jervoh I promise I will try not to be too upset but are you currently casting a spell on me?" Jay asked.

“You finally noticed huh?" Jervoh snarkily asked.

He held up his right hand and circles of complex glyphs glowed into existence. They did seem to hold semblances to the glyphs of the alphabet.

“As you can guess, we are a little pressed for time. I enhanced your learning speed so prepare for a lot of headaches."

"Why won’t a spell like the elf’s work again?" Jay asked.

Jervoh looked at him exasperated, "casting spells under that spell is impossible. Can we move on?"

At Jay's nod Jervoh launched into the lecture once again.

10/08/ AWAD 200

Jervoh had underestimated the backlash by several magnitudes.

Jay growled. After only a week of the enspelled lectures, thinking about anything other than getting back to Jax's house became difficult. A run could possibly clear his head.

Speeding up the whirling of mana in his core, he took off at a sprint along the walls.

Jay made several rounds around the town walls, before realizing there was a person at the center of town. That person was going through a dance with a... sword? The person wasn't there anymore the next second. The next second, a cold blade was brought to his throat.

"You know I was sure no one would be out at this time normally. The men would be at the tavern to get drunk and the women would be taking care of the children in their homes. Who are you?" A gruff voice demanded.

Jay took a closer look at the man holding his jugular hostage. The owner of the gruff voice had a scruffy beard. Also, there was an overpowering smell of alcohol.

"I am the person who saved Jax from wolves,” Jay answered. “Haven't you heard of Jack?"

"You are lying about something. Bah, just go away," with a loud belch, the man motioned to shoo.

"Are you Seran?” Jay asked.

“Yes. Why do you ask?” Seran replied.

“Teach me to fight,” Jay demanded.

Actual fights were probably different then the martial arts he learned.

With a look of disbelief, Seran scoffed, "and why should I do that?"

"I doubt you actually want the circumstances you are in. Even if you do enjoy hiding in an obscure village on the outskirts, wouldn’t letting all your knowledge and techniques disappear into the void be a waste?" Jay implored.

"Pretentious brat! You think you think you deserve my knowledge and technique?! Might be fun to whack you around for a little, though,” Seran laughed.

Seran held up a vial of a black liquid.

“Mage Silvia promised this would make blades dull for a while." Seran laughed. “Now I think I know why she gave them to me. Bah manipulative gavitch!”

Jay let the object thrown at him fall to the ground. It looked to be a vial of black liquid probably for pouring onto the blade’s edge if Seran's claim was truthful.

"Good you weren't dumb enough to catch an object thrown by a potential threat to you. You would be surprised with how naive everybody here is. Go on, just a drip on the blade is good enough, besides Mage silvia would easily figure out what happened if I tried anything," Seran said.

[Seran is telling the truth,] Master interjected.

Jay drew his bastardsword but left his shortsword sheathed. A single drop of the liquid covered his sword in a black but strangely glowing substance. Seran had already prepped his own sword.

"You aren't going to use your other sword?" He asked.

"Not good enough to do that yet," Jay replied.

Plus, His shortsword could be used if his bastardsword began sizzling or something, although that sentiment was only an overly paranoid side benefit. Master had backed Seran’s claim after all. Seran started circling around so Jay followed suit.

"I respect you for acknowledging your limits," Seran remarked and made a probing attack with a diagonal slash from the left.

"Huh you have basics of grip down at least." Seran grudgingly admitted following up with a slash from the right. "But we aren't dancing."

Seran broke the choreography they had fallen into, rushing Jay. Hammering away his sword to the right, Seran slammed his hilt-weighted-fist into Jay’s chest.

Looking down at Jay on the ground, he mocked, ”do you have a backbone? I can't cut you down but I can break your bones if you disappoint me!"

With a growl, Jay closed the distance and attempted to lock Seran's sword with his cross guard.

"Trying to disarm me are you?!" Seran asked as he shoved away Jay.

Jay couldn't see how he could win. With actually defeating Seran not even a possibility, impressing him was his win condition. There was no way Seran hadn't noticed the openings Jay had exposed stumbling backwards. That indicated a lack of expectation.

Seran laughed, "hey... Hey... HEY! You giving up?!"

Seran stopped mid barrage. The reason became clear with him hammering in an overhead slash. Jay’s backwards momentum made capitalizing on Seran’s opening impossible. Parrying proved impossible against the force behind the blow, and blocking left Jay’s stance weak.

He decided to gamble and fell forwards on purpose. Cranking up his mana’s swirling, he slowed down his perception of time. Nudging the overhead blow off course with his head, he steadied himself on the ground with one hand and sprang forward with a thrust of his sword.

"I can pull that trick too!" Seran sped up too and knocked away his high speed lunge.

Taking several steps back, Jay once again rushed Seran

"You know how well that went last time. At least you didn't run with your tail between your legs." Seran scoffed.

Jay still rushed him ignoring the warning, but instead of slashing, he threw dirt. Successfully blinding Seran, Jay channeled the fear and anxiety he had amassed since coming to this world and knocked aside Seran's sword before revealing his unsheathed shortsword.

Knocking away Seran’s sword far enough to make parrying or blocking impossible for Seran, made attacking with his bastardsword also impossible. Jay lunged once again but with his shortsword.

At least he tried to. Seran caught his shortsword… with his eyes closed.

"Nice try but not quite, but congrats you are someone that can be grinded into something worthwhile,” Seran remarked. “Yes, honesty in fights is for deadmen, but now you get to see how far behind you are."

Seran's tone took a dive into the dark, and what followed was a brutal beat down.

Not a beating within an inch of his life but a beating within a 'mm' of his life. Seran could trigger and even maintain his acceleration multiple times effectively making it impossible to land attacks. Jay could only pull off changing Seran's attack course one other time.

[You are mistaken about Seran accelerating. Ask him,] Master sent.

Jay decided to comply, “Seran did you not accel yourself?”

Seran laughed, “I never let my mana whirl lose speed. I didn’t brutalize you with high speed attacks the entire time because actually moving that fast burns through mana rapidly.”

Jay bowed, hoping to express gratitude for the lesson. Although irritating, the initial fight and then beatdown were both extremely educational.

“Come back tomorrow if you want to receive beati… no, be my student,” Seran called out as Jay stumbled back to Jax’s house.

The swirling of facts in his head settled down, but the exhaustion of the fight proved almost too much. Jay was out as soon as he fell in bed.

10/15/ AWAD 200

Jay yawned as he slipped out of bed and outside for a run. Not breaking the door was nice.

He steadily ramped up the whirling of his mana over the weeks, enhancing all his physical capabilities. As a result, the cool air was incredibly invigorating. The urge to yell out into the sky with glee rose in him. Maybe being taken from his world wasn't too bad? If Jay played his cards right, wouldn't doing as many things as he wanted possible? The wilderness still existed as a frontier so who knew what could be discovered. New heights could be reached in well... everything! Drunken on his aspirations for the future, Jay didn't notice Seran's attack and was sent sprawling into the dirt.

"Get your head out of the clouds fool! I thought the blacksmith's son was a knucklehead but you may be worse in a different way!" Seran roared his disapproval holding a dull sword.

Jay got up with a taste of dirt in his mouth and was about to protest.

Seran cut him off, "Do you think anyone after your life will bother to give you forewarning? Just know that I will attack you at random when you're running."

Jay groaned as at the idea of being brutalized in the morning on a daily basis. The unrelentless of his mentors would no doubt be life saving. That didn’t change the ridiculousness of why the experiences were necessary. The urge to howl in anger hadn’t risen so high in him… since ever. Not even working under his first insufferable boss in a law firm had been as bad, probably due to the stakes at risk.

"Yell and scream if you want to," Shannah snuck up on him.

She didn't appear to have intention to attack him, but the surprise was still unpleasant.

She continued, "you won't last long if you're tense all the time. Be more free. Oh and a bit of advice: try to get a sense of the mana that leaves your body."

Shannah then left to make herself a nuisance elsewhere. The life advice was unsolicited, but why not? That hint about mana would certainly be very useful later.

At the top of his lungs Jay howled into the air. Not simply tinged with anger but also excitement, anxiety, and a plethora of other emotions. People began to stir, disturbed by his outburst. Prompting Jay’s hasty retreat into Jax’s home.

He should have been too fearful of the consequences of disturbing the town, but didn't. The only thing he felt was a cathartic sense of exhilaration.

----------------------------------------

"Hey, you haven't learned our names have you? I'm Kenjo," A man sporting a wide smile introduced himself.

“A pleasure to meet you Kenjo, as you might have heard, I go by Jack,” Jay replied as he stopped hacking at the tree he was assigned.

"Hey you said you didn't know our names still right?" Kenjo asked. "I am thinking we could use introducing ourselves to you as an excuse for celebration. The elder might allow a little merry making then."

Kenjo seemed to be a bit of a schemer, but the plan seemed harmless and a win-win situation.

"I suppose you're right," Jay nodded his head before hacking down the tree in front of him once again.

After Kenjo smiled and began walking away a shout rang out. "Son of a gavitch I think I cut into an ancient one!"

The sounds of trees being savaged came to an abrupt halt. Jay looked at Kenjo's face. It held a look of disbelief and anger but also... fear?

"How'd someone confuse an ancient for a normal halfy tree?!" Kenjo growled before running towards the general direction of the yell.

Hesitant to draw ire, Jay asked, "would you mind telling me why this is a bad thing? Do ancients become monstrous when cut?"

"They call monsters to its defense and well monsters always are more... let’s say preemptive." Kenjo panted.

Jay was still confused. He asked, "what monsters? Pretty sure the dead mage decimated anything that could serve?"

[Ancients summon and turn fauna into guardian monsters from even thousands of miles away eventually, so they’ve been all but wiped out within the mainland,] Jervoh explained.

Jay didn't recall intending the question for Jervoh. In fact he could have sworn he wanted Kenjo to answer, but what did he know? Jervoh was much wiser than he.

[Kenjo wouldn't know much about the fantastic. Anything you get from him would mostly be hearsay. Plus, he's obviously in too much of a hurry to answer properly.] Jervoh countered.

Jay scowled. The town sounded screwed, but the Ancient couldn’t maintain the spell if killed right?

[Yeah but magi attacks won’t have any point with the ancient awake. We’ll have to evacuate,] Jervoh sighed.

If magi attacks wouldn’t work, then what about cutting down the tree physically?

Jervoh scoffed, [how are we supposed to defend the townsmen as they hack the ancient?]

Jay scoffed back. Master had only complained that the complexity of the house seeds were difficult. Wouldn’t creating and using wall seeds be possible. The house seed only took a day to finish, so wall seeds should take even less time.

[The walls aren’t guaranteed to grow in time. Oh... I see. The local fauna were wiped out, so the guardian monsters might take longer than a day to show up. That’s a gamble though.]

[Boy, you let me handle getting volunteers for the lumberman. Proceed to the north gate. Seran will be waiting,] Master ordered.

Now that Jay knew his role, he brought his speed up a notch, blowing by Kenjo.

"Hey watch it! You almost knocked me over!" Kenjo continued to spew complaints but Jay was already too far ahead to hear.