Chapter 22

Now that we had left the town behind, my father and I continued on our journey, heading toward an even larger town. Our mission? To procure more books. The last town offered some useful texts, but nothing exceptional—basic volumes on poison, acid, and metal magic. I had hoped for more, something advanced like life or death magic, but it was a poor showing. While those basics were useful, they were not enough to satisfy my ambitions. My hunger for knowledge, particularly in magic, pushed me forward. I needed more, much more.

In the back of my mind, I kept thinking about how I wanted to travel to a place with a frigid climate. It would be ideal for honing my ice magic skills, a crucial aspect of elemental mastery that I had yet to fully explore. Ice was to be by far my hardest magic to learn for now. But it wasn’t just ice magic I sought; I wanted books on other types of mana as well. My goal was to master all the elements. Yet, I knew I couldn’t do it alone. I needed help—whether that came in the form of teachers, magical artifacts, or, perhaps, something even rarer.

One particular item stood out in my thoughts: a Dragon soul stone. When a dragon is in their ancient stage. Or above they have a rare chance of forming a soul stone from their magic. This soul stone puts a dragon to sleep as if going through a slumber. And It's as if you are going through 2 or 3. And greatly improver your physical might and magic.it's incredibly rare to get one due to most dragons keeping them and using them for themselves. The odds of forming one also increase in latter age stages.

I realized that my odds of accruing one were incredibly rare. I would either have to steal one from an ancient chromatic Dragon. Given their cost of buying or trading for it would be incredibly high. Each dragon can only use one soul stone that's why they are sold and traded. Or the other option is to stumble upon a metal dragon with extras from older family members. Metal dragons generally have strong family ties. And older dragons in their family usually give out their soul stones. And beaing more kind-hearted their price for it would be much lower for it. and they would have more of them as well.

As we walked along the road to the next town, I pulled out one of the books I had obtained and began reading about poison and acid magic. I was eager to deepen my understanding of these volatile elements, hoping they would serve me well in the future. Both had their differences and similarities, but the distinction between them became clearer the more I studied.

Acid magic, for instance, corroded and destroyed upon contact. It was direct, brutal, and impossible to ignore. Poison, on the other hand, was more subtle. It often required ingestion or inhalation, slowly weakening or killing the target over time. Poison magic could spread silently through air or water, allowing its user to take down a group of enemies without being detected. In contrast, acid left a visible, undeniable mark on anything it touched. Both types of magic were used to wear down an opponent, to weaken them before delivering the final blow.

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

However, the more advanced uses of these magics were truly impressive. I couldn’t help but think of my cousin the green and black dragons, whose mastery over poison and acid respectively made them nearly unmatched in their fields of battle in poison and acid. A green dragon’s breath could instantly poison any creature it touched, leaving them writhing in agony, sometimes even reducing them to a pitiful, paralyzed mess. It was said that green dragons could even poison other dragons—an impressive feat, given how resistant we are to most illnesses and toxins.

Then there were black dragons, whose acid breath was far from graceful but undeniably effective. The globs of acid they spat could reduce a living creature to bones in seconds, even melting through the scales of other dragons. It was, without a doubt, the least majestic form of a dragon’s breath weapon, but perhaps the most terrifying. To achieve that level of mastery in poison or acid magic, one needed to reach legendary status. I was far from that, but the idea of being able to wield such power was exhilarating. I wanted it to be like I was born a green or black dragon for those fields complete mastery over poison and acid. Not that I would actually want to be born black or green, given I'm the best kind of dragon blue.

Acid magic had practical uses beyond combat as well. For instance, it could melt through materials silently, allowing for stealthy infiltrations. Poison, on the other hand, was useless against anything non-living. Despite their differences, these magics were connected in ways I found fascinating, both being subtypes of the original nine elements of mana.

It’s said that, in ages long past, there were only nine basic types of mana: fire, earth, water, lightning, time, space, light, darkness, and life. Over time, however, new forms of magic began to emerge, developed by ancient mortals or perhaps even the gods themselves. Nobody knows who created these elements of mana except maybe the oldest of gods. Under the domain of dark magic came death magic, from which poison and acid magic eventually sprang. Other forms of magic had their own evolutions as well. Metal magic, for example, was born from earth magic, and sound magic emerged from air. Heat magic derived from fire, cold from water, and electricity from lightning. Each element could be combined and transformed into something new, expanding the limits of what magic could achieve.

With my thoughts in order, I packed away my books and stood up from the roadside where I had been resting. My father and I continued our journey, my mind filled with ideas of how I could apply what I had learned. As we walked, I experimented with small spells of poison, and acid magic. These elements were difficult to control, but with enough practice, I could feel myself slowly getting better. I would save metal for the later

Hours passed before we finally reached the next town, its walls towering over us as we approached. This town was larger than the last, bustling with activity and filled with opportunities. My father told me it was called Eldervale. Apparently, the largest town out here for kilometers, and even has a magic school for those out in the countryside. I could feel the excitement building within me as we crossed the threshold into its streets. Here, I hoped, I would find more of the knowledge I sought, more books to fill the gaps in my understanding. And maybe, just maybe, I would come one step closer to my ultimate goal: mastering all types of mana and unlocking the secrets of the ancient magics hidden in this world.