“Magic is as much an elemental force as an internal force. That fact made Sages so dangerous. They were both reviled and revered. A Sage could come from anywhere; there was no requirement for talent with any of the ‘preconceived’ forms of magic, though it did help. Hey, did you catch all that?”

“No.” I groaned, doing my best to fend for my life as my new ‘mentor’ lectured me.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter that much.”

“Question!” I called, swinging my sword wildly.

“Yes?”

“Is this thing ever going to let up?”

“Of course-”

“Great!” I laughed in relief, my sword arm still trying to catch the darting figure.

“-not. Not until you tap into fundamentals needed for the foundation ring.”

“First-? Ahh!” I desperately swung my sword again, but no matter what technique or style I used to fend off my attacker, it swiftly dodged around my blade like a buzzing fly.

A buzzing fly that hurt like hell.

“Oh, come now, it isn’t that bad.” My mentor chided me once more, a wolfish grin forming as he watched.

“Easy for you to say.” I shot a look at the man, beast, whatever, just in time for my assailant to strike me directly beneath my chin, knocking me to the ground as I felt stars flutter before my eyes.

“Oof. That one looked like it hurt.”

“Yeah, because it did,” I said, groaning on the ground in pain. “Remind me again what the point of that thing is?”

“To tap into your natural consciousness, the flow required before first understanding the feel of the first ring.”

“Right, and none of that makes any sense.” I had pushed myself to a seated position before being swatted back down by the object, zipping around like a mayfly hopped up on sugar.

“Just this once, I’ll show you.” My mentor sighed, hand stuck out and catching the object that had been evading me as easily as if it were at a standstill. Secured within his grasp, I took sight of my mighty adversary, that had been playing me like a fool.

It was a book. And a rather shabby-looking one at that.

“This here is what is known as a Living Tome.”

“Yeah, you mentioned it when you showed it to me.” I rubbed the back of my neck, wincing as I noticed another new bump.

“Yes, well, it doesn’t feel right if I don’t go through the full explanation.”

“I thought only humans liked the sound of their own voices.”

“Nonsense.” My mentor waved the comment off as if it were something silly. “It won’t take long to realize humans are far from the only things with a self-inflated ego. Anyway, this here Living Tome is the Genesis of Arrival.”

When I first heard the spiel about the book a living book, it inspired awe in me.

Now I had to resist the urge to spit at it.

“Within the Genesis, it explores the fundamentals of a Sage.”

“Right, again, you’ve told me all this. But can you explain why it must attack me?” I questioned from my spot on the ground, never bothering to get back up.

“Because it’s a matter of trial.”

“What trial requires you to get assaulted by a book?”

“A trial created by an author with a bad sense of humor, I would presume.” My mentor cracked a grin, waving the book before me as he continued his lecture. “Regardless of the original author’s intentions for why he put a spell on it to cause it to react so… violently, the book’s contents are important. Before you can begin to look it over, you must go through the process of beating it. Either improve your physical reflexes to the point that you can simply react faster than the book can, such as what I do.”

He waved the book once more, proving his point.

“Or you can do what Sages of long ago did and begin to touch into their natural mana flow. Right now, the book can read you like an open book.”

“That pun sucked.” I pointed out, only for my mentor to roll his eyes at me.

“The point is, if you want to divine the long-forgotten secrets of the Sages, to tread a path that hasn’t been readily walked for thousands of years, you must first find that path. Magic isn’t enough. It is about having a conscious touch and awareness of it. And to do that, you must find the mana within the world, within yourself.”

“By swinging my sword around wildly?” I questioned, feeling somewhat unconvinced.

“Hey, I’m not a Sage. I’m just reciting what I’ve learned over a long life.”

“Why aren’t you a Sage? If they are so powerful, why not become one yourself?”

My mentor looked to the side, rubbing his neck as if suddenly feeling out of place. “To be a Sage isn’t just a matter of following some steps. It is a journey, a path. Some take their own deviations or side treks; there is no one direct course. As for me, I’m a magical beast. Reaching the elevation stage required me to walk a much different path. To become a Sage at this point, I would need another thousand years at the least to walk back everything I have done, everything I have become. Anyway, I have no wish to tread the path of a Sage past the most superficial sense.”

It was an answer that had said a lot and yet continued to be as evasive as ever, my new mentor having shown himself quite capable of such responses in the week we had been traveling together. We had set out a week ago after the man had asked me the most important question of my life.

“Me? Magic? But- I can’t.”

“Maybe with that mindset. But Sages are not limited by such simple reasons as to reason itself. I, we, can make you something greater than you could possibly imagine.”

I looked around my kitchen before looking around the rest of the house. Dark, barren, quiet.

Alone.

There was nothing left for me here in the small village that now regarded me with only a slightly better opinion than outright hostility.

“Fine,” I answered with a shrug, trying not to think about what I agreed to. “What do I need to do?”

“Well, that’s a long and difficult question. We’ll focus on the first step of your journey. The Pond of Elvermarzon.”

“The pond of Elvetazoonn?”

“No, how did you even get that from what I said? The Pond of Elvermarzon, a week south of Theronhold. It is there where your journey will begin in earnest.”

A week, and while I had asked him many questions, he had found ways to answer every single one about him without ever giving me the soul of what I wanted to know. All I knew about my master was that he was a Black Mane, a magical beast resembling a wolf, who had lived for such a long time that he had reached the pinnacle of what it meant to be a magical beast. He had transcended, becoming what I was seeing now.

That was it; that was all I had discovered. He had even somehow avoided telling me his name.

What is it with everything and everyone withholding their names?

Before I could give the line of thought more, well, thought, my mentor clapped his hands as he set the book loose.

“Well, break time is over. While I may not be a Sage, I can see through your sword you’ve achieved a level of deeper focus, so it will be through your sword that you will locate the starting line of what it means to be a Sage.”

I got to my feet once more, just in time for the heavy tome to slam straight into my neck, forcing a pained gag out from me.

Deeper focus. How am I supposed to find a deeper focus when- ack! When it keeps hitting me!

No matter what sword style I used, how fast, or how I planned it out, I was no closer to even touching the book. The book wasn’t even that quick, yet nothing I did seemed to work.

Think.

I lunged forward with a version of a north-style piercing strike, as again the book zipped under my blade, apparently capable of shifting its trajectory with no concern for trivial things like fundamental physics.

Think.

A downward carving strike, but the book shot forward, cracking me in the nose before zipping back around.

Think. And not about the bloodied nose.

Everything I had tried failed. What was the point, then?

Deeper focus.

It was easy to be told that you just had to ‘focus harder’ or more intensely. Still, those, at the end of it all, were nothing more than words, their meaning unable to translate into comprehensive action. It was my job, then, to unearth was that intention was.

Easier said than done.

The book continued to collide against my body, bruises I would no doubt be feeling tomorrow forming upon my skin.

Think.

How was I supposed to simply obtain a ‘deeper focus,’ and how would that even result in my sword managing to strike the floaty book down? My sword, which by extension, was like a part of myself-

Oh. Oh, that’s it.

The answer, in hindsight, was obvious. It had never been about my sword, to begin with. My mentor had said it himself. My sword was only meant to be the medium for my mind to work through. I had simply taken the idea of refining my focus as applying to how I used my sword when I should have been taking it as how to use my mind.

I closed my eyes, trying to shut myself away from the world. The tome continued to assail me, or I assumed it was. I was focused too intensely on, well, focusing, that the individual impacts of the flying book began to lessen, a blurred canvass of sensation rather than individualistic pain.

Feel it.

With my eyes closed, the world was a dark, empty void.

Except, the longer I held my focus, the more I realized that it wasn’t.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Every human has senses, feelings, and instincts that would constantly work to make sense of the world around us. Whether in a bustling city or the darkest of voids, it mattered not; our minds constantly searched for what our eyes could not.

I had eyes, but eyes were not enough.

I had a sword, but a sword was not enough.

So, I did something I rarely bothered trying anymore.

I reached toward the familiar feeling of the kernels of mana within me, the seeds I rarely touched anymore for the simple heartache they brought. The last time I had felt them had been back during the attack on the village.

Alright…. Now what?

I was struck by the book again, smacking me in the side of the head and causing my ear to ring, my focus wavering momentarily. Ignoring it, or trying to at least, I forced my eyes to remain closed.

Feel the mana within yourself.

Rather than attempting to draw the mana outward, I imagined myself holding onto the sparse few embers, clutching them as tightly as possible.

And… open.

I opened my eyes on command, breathing as smoothly as possible, still imagining the feeling of the embers as if I were clutching them within my hand.

One strike.

I slid my left foot forward, my back leg holding firm as I altered my grip and stance with my sword.

The book was zipping around, occasionally smacking into me, but I ignored it.

Hold.

I wasn’t sure what I was holding for.

Hold.

This was dumb. I was dumb. I was sure I would miss, as I had every single other time I tri-

Now!

Before I could doubt myself anymore, I swung down with all the speed I could muster, trusting in my sword alone. Had someone been standing before me, I could have sliced them clean through.

There was no person, but what there was, was a book.

I wish I could say my attack landed true, so perfectly aimed that I squarely hit the book and knocked it straight to the ground.

Instead, perhaps by luck or something more remarkable, I barely managed to nick the top righthand corner of the tome. It fluttered around like a drunkard before immediately righting itself and flying off again.

“There you go.” My mentor caught my attention with a pleased nod. Hand outstretched, the book gently landed upon his open palm, opening to the very first page.

“It appears you have been recognized.” My mentor eyed the book, then me, and then back as if gesturing me forward with his eyes alone.

Tentatively, I stepped forward, afraid the book would suddenly shoot out from his hands, only to smack me in the head again.

Thankfully, it didn’t. I reached out, grabbing the book before holding it in front of myself, my hands shaking the entire time.

“Wha- what is this?” I looked from the open page toward my mentor.

“Well, we would generally refer to that as ‘page one.”

“Not what I meant.” I frowned, still staring at the page. “I’m just not sure what I’m looking at.”

“That’s the great thing about learning.” My mentor stretched his arms overhead. Whenever I noticed his hands, I felt my eyes drawn toward his inhumanly sharp nails that bordered on claws. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

Shaking my head, I looked back down at the open book. My mentor would offer me no further help unless you called cryptic phrases ‘helpful.’

Still though….

The first two pages were blank. Empty. Pale parchment with nothing on them.

Nada.

Zero.

Great. A faulty Living Tome. Didn’t even know that was a thing.

I sighed, thumbing the page as I prepared to flip it, to investigate whether the last pages would be blank. Giving it a quick flick, I stared at the page dumbfounded as it remained firmly in place, resisting my attempt at turning the page.

“What?” I tried to hook a thumb under the page, wondering if the pages had gotten stuck together, but I found no purchase. The only thing I received for my efforts was a painful paper cut.

“Oh, perhaps I forgot to mention, but you were only recognized partially.”

“Partially?” My head snapped toward my mentor, who was grinning once more from where he was seated upon a nearby stump.

“Yes, partially. You think barely nicking the book would grant you full access?”

“I- well… yeah?”

“You’ve got a lot to learn, kid.” My shaggy-haired mentor laughed softly, reminding me of a low bark before he eyed the sun above us. “I was only going to have you work on this for two hours today, but I’ve decided. Until you can get to page ten, we won’t be traveling from this spot.”

“But what about the Pond!” I nearly jumped in protest.

“Yes, but there is no point reaching the Pond if it does you no good, does it?”

“I… I guess not?” I relaxed, sighing in defeat.

“Good. Now, I’ll offer you one last piece of advice. This is magic that you are exploring. Perhaps, don’t treat everything you see at face value.”

I wanted to ask what he meant by that, but just like that, he was gone.

Poof.

Gone.

Just like that.

“Uhh, you still here?”

Silence.

A shred of panic formed within my gut, but I forced it down. First off, we were only a week out from Junaper. This area’s animals and magical beasts were, for the most part, relatively harmless, at least as far as they usually avoided humans.

Normally.

I had my sword and was far from a slouch with it. I could fend off most of the things in the area if worst came to worst, so unless an enraged bear or the like decided they had a bone to pick with me, I should be fine.

Should be. Very comforting.

I sighed once more before returning to the same stump where my mentor had been sitting.

‘Mentor’ might be putting it a bit strongly.

Sitting down, I opened the tome to the single page it would allow me to open.

Don’t think of things so routinely.

A magic book with nothing showing. If I were a magical book, how would I reveal my contents?

Right. Through magic. Probably should have thought of that first.

I closed my eyes, reaching toward the tiny embers of mana within me, embers I noticed that had died down considerably since my last attack on the book. I imagined the heat of those embers traveling through me, and with a gasp, the book in my hands glowed before a simple print appeared on the empty pages.

“Great,” I whispered before frowning at the page image. “-now, how does this help?”

The images that appeared were charts of the human body. Still, as I investigated them, I quickly realized they were unlike any chart I had seen. Rather than organs or body parts, labeled within the diagram were symbols.

Symbols that I recognized as the same characters my mother put up around the house.

“Now why-” I scratched at my chin, voicing my question aloud. “-would the symbols for wild magic be charted within the body?’

The body had been divided into five subsections for the five primal forms of wild magic.

Kinzar, force, centered on the lungs.

Scorz, fire, on the heart.

Frezess, frigidity, on the head.

Rentar, earth, usurpingly on the legs and arms.

And finally, Aulous seemed to make up the rest of the body, the water mass.

I chewed on my thumb’s nail, unable to decipher the meaning of it all. My most straightforward guess was that each body segment was represented by an element, some sort of symbolic meaning.

But what exactly would that meaning even be? That the elements are somehow derived from the body?

No. I shook my head. I had heard from Sarah, the original Sarah, how she drew on her magic. At no point did she suggest that her control of the elements of wild magic originated from specific parts of the body.

So then, what could it mean?

I looked to the next page, only to be greeted with an even more confounding chart. It appeared to be a diagram of what was clearly arms. Rather than focusing on the anatomy, though, the diagram seemed focused on what looked to be five bands tattooed upon both arms.

Not bands. I mentally corrected myself a moment later. Rings.

Assuming I was correct, the second chart displayed the ten rings Sages would manifest. Unlike the prior chart, there were no symbols representing the wild elements. Instead, a single line of script was written beneath them.

What language even is that?

I’d never seen it before, but then I hadn’t seen many languages besides the spoken tongue here in Haerasong. At most, I’d been exposed to a few symbols of the written language of Varana when a traveling merchant had somehow made their way as far north as Junaper of all places.

As far as I could recall of those symbols, they looked nothing like what I was looking at now.

Right. Shelving that line of thought for the time being.

Unable to make heads or tails of the arm diagrams, I turned my attention back to the diagram of the body, confident that there was something I was missing.

Maybe I had it backward. I scratched at my chin, something my mother had once teased me for, telling me I would stunt my beard growth if I kept it up. If it’s not magic derived from the body, what if it’s something else within the body that is derived from magic?

I stood up, setting the book down gently. Even though I knew the book was sturdier than I, there was something inherently wrong about tossing an old-looking tome without care. Standing tall, I closed my eyes, imagining the chart.

Let’s start with the most obvious.

Aulous. The most extensive section of the chart suggested it was either the most basic or the most abundant.

Most essential or abundant of what, now that was the question.

Well, what can you find in the body that is like water?

“Blood.” I huffed; the answer was painfully obvious.

I nodded to myself, confident in my conclusion. It made sense if Aulous was referring to the blood of the body. It was a liquid and ran throughout the body, perfectly matching both criteria.

“Aulous,” I whispered to myself, drawing on the mana within me and concentrating on the image of the chart.

Nothing.

“Aulous,” I repeated, a little louder this time.

Nothing.

“Aulous, damn it!” I growled, frustration overcoming me.

At last, something happened.

Which is to say, I fainted.

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

“Ow,” I grumbled, eyes fluttering open as I looked up at the morning sun above me.

Wait… morning sun?

I shot up with a start or tried to, my body screaming in protest as I moved.

What happened?

My mind raced back to my last memory. I had been investigating the old tome when I had tried to figure out the meaning behind the chart and-

The book!

As quickly as I could, which was not very fast, to say the least, I staggered toward the stump where the book was strewn about, untouched.

“Thank the gods.” I sighed. I could only imagine what predicament I would be in if I somehow lost the invaluable ancient tome.

Or at least I assumed it was invaluable. I had never asked my mentor much about the actual value of the Living Tome.

With the tome secured, I felt my body, checking for any injuries. While I ached all over, I seemed perfectly fine, the picture of youthful health.

At least that’s what mom always told me, to appreciate the joys of ‘youthful health.’

The tome was fine, and so was I.

So then, why did I pass out?

“Think it through, Rook,” I murmured, slowly pacing.

I had tried to command magic, something that I never had once succeeded at in the past.

I still hadn’t, but in the process, I had fainted for…reasons.

But why?

“Oh.” I thumped my fist against the open palm of my left hand a second later.

I had been told I had mana; no, I knew I had mana. I just couldn’t use it for anything useful.

But, I had never considered that it wasn’t as simple as imagining it as a dammed river. Attempts at drawing mana would drain me regardless of success, or lack thereof, something I had never bothered to test.

Well, only one way to know for sure.

Closing my eyes, I imagined the chart, replicating what I had done yesterday that had led me to faint rather ungraciously.

“Aulous.”

Keeping my attention focused on the embers of mana within me, I felt those same embers begin to dwindle in response to my call.

I opened my eyes, sure that the magic had ‘worked.’

Worked, in this case, meant nothing had happened, but I noted as a small wave of exhaustion washed over me after the fact.

“I did it.” I smiled briefly before my smile was replaced with a frown of uncertainty.

What exactly is ‘it,’ though?

Perhaps it was because, with magic, it was either you had it and could use it, or not at all, that I had never really heard any talk of this process I was going through, trying to decipher a more profound meaning that no one realized existed in the first place.

Or, well, at least no one that I had known.

Whatever I was discovering, I was making progress, that much I was sure.

I hope.

“Now, what next?” I questioned as I paced around the small clearing in the woods that we had been camping in for two days.

Where the second part of that ‘we’ equation was right now was anyone’s question.

“Magic drains your body physically, even if the magic doesn’t actually do anything.” I was murmuring out loud, trying to catalog everything I had discovered. “That suggests it’s going somewhere, doing something.”

So what exactly, where exactly is it going?

I thought back to the diagram of the body once more, walking over to the book to see if there was anything else I could glean from it.

“Scorz for the heart. Frezess for the head. Aulous for the blood? Rentar for the arms and legs, and Kinzar for the lungs.”

I raised a hand, hoping the act of miming epiphany would cause me to stumble upon something.

“Yeah, no.” After several seconds of waiting for mystical insight to strike me, I lowered my hand.

“Scorz, Frezess, Aulous, Rentar, Kinzar…. Heart, mind, blood, appendages, lungs.”

I paced around for several seconds before flopping onto the ground, exasperation taking over.

“Ahh! I don’t get it!” I shouted out, startling some birds.

I just can’t wrap my head around it.

Page ten. I had to get to page ten of the mystical tome, but I’d failed to understand even page one.

“Whatever,” I grumbled. Getting to my feet after a minute of pouting, I made my way back toward the stump, reaching out not toward the tome but my sword leaning against the same stump.

If I can’t figure out what the chart means, I might as well spend my time doing something productive.

Frustration was the day’s theme, so I opted for practicing second style, the motions all about heavy swings full of power that would be perfect for exhausting myself so that there wouldn’t be enough energy to spare for thinking.

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

Two hours.

I swung my sword around for two hours until I was positively dripping with sweat, my body feeling the burn of an intense session that always accompanied my Second style training.

I was sweaty, tired, and feeling only partially better.

I needed to cool down, wash away my aches, and then just maybe, I could put my mind back to work.

Bath first.

Thankfully, we’d set up camp near a shallow river nearby. After only a short walk, I tossed aside my shirt before flopping into the thigh-deep water that gently coursed around me.

Bliss. This is what happiness is.

I had been mentally and physically taxing myself, so I felt like a new man taking the time to relax.

“I might even be able to do the impossible right now.” I sighed, letting out a quiet snort at the thought.

It was stupid, but then I felt so good; what was the harm? Closing my eyes, I reached toward the embers of mana within me. It had been several hours since I had last tried tapping into them, so the few sparks of mana I had managed to use up earlier had already recovered. Full of mana, or as filled with mana as someone of my caliber could be, I was in no danger of passing out and drowning in the shallow river.

Wouldn’t that be a great way to go out, trying to discover the secrets of sages’ past, only to drown in a knee-deep river?

Eyes closed, I thrust my hand out, whispering without hope for anything to happen.

“Aulous.”

I opened my eyes. If anything had changed, I couldn’t tell. I took a deep breath, looking to further catch my breath and relax my body when something stuck out as odd to me.

It was slight. Oh, so small, but I felt like I was just a tad lighter; my body relaxed as if I had taken a refreshing nap.

I pressed two fingers to my neck, counting to fifteen as I measured the beat of my heart.

“Oh.” My eyes which I had closed while checking my pulse, snapped open.

“Three days,” I stated confidently to no one in particular. “-give me three days.”

What I stumbled upon wasn’t the answer I was looking for.

But it was a start.