Aster ripped the note into pieces “YOU BASTAAAAARD!!!!!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, reverbeating all over the mind. If he could breathe fire, the whole room would have been consumed instantly by it.
-outside the mind-
Sophie saw as Aster stopped completely while he was getting up, but a second later he started moving normally, even more refined than before.
From the tip of his finger grew a small bone, shaping itself into a thin spectacle frame without the lens, he gently but quickly put it on his face “ah, that’s better, I didn’t feel like myself without it”
“???” she was confused about his tone of talking, it felt very different than a few moments ago.
“oh right, sorry for the intrusion, let me introduce myself” he straighted his back and then bowed slightly towards her with his arm on his chest “I’m MAster, Aster’s first changed will and in charge of his mind and magic”
It finally clicked to Sophie what was happening, Aster already told her about his different wills “oh, good day then, but why did you sudenly appear? I was going to teach Aster some spells”
“about that, there is two answers, first, I wanted to test if a alternate will tried to learn something the effect of obtainment would activate, second, I’m the one in charge of learning magic, so I wanted to be a little selfish and learn it before him”
“...... wouldn’t he get angry at what you did? He seemed quite excited about it”
“oh I know, right now he is screaming all over the place, I'll have to apologize after this” he knew that what he did was something bad, but he just couldn’t hold himself, FABL could distract himself by training, SPAster was sleeping all day, the newly changed ATAster was going around helping all the other EX Asters, but MAster was the only bored one, he laready finished understanding the small portion of the book Aster had read today at school, so he had nothing more to do, but when he noticed that Aster was going to learn magic he went for it.
“well, as long as he is fine I don’t mind” Sophie said as she felt a bit down, right now it was like talking to a complete different person, breaking the calm ambience that had been created “well then, you should know already about the spells and magic ranks, right?”
“yes, I can remember what he did”
“ok, there are mutliple ways to learn a spell, if the spell’s rank is low then there will not be any problem on using a keyword, but as the ranks increaese, you will need more time to learn each spell, taking in the experience every time you cast it untill you know of the flow it has”
“the flow? Can you explain more about it?”
“you see, what did you feel when using the lighter spell?”
“well, Aster made the fire element mana to flow towards his finger”
“that’s the thing, he only made the fire mana flow to his finger, but as the spells advance the more comples they get, you can’t just make it flow out of your body, you need to make different flows deppending on the spell, that’s why you need to use the basic spell chanting to learn different spells.... unless like I said before you are of a higher rank, making you have higher mana control”
“I understand, but you said that there were other ways to learn spells, can you explain them?”
“of course, there are two other ways, the second way is by scrolls, when making a scroll one needs to write the desired spell in mana language while pouring mana from the pen, after fully writting it if someone else were to inject a bit of mana on it, the scroll will activate and do as if someone chanted the spell, using the mana inside the one who holds it to cast it”
As MAster was listening what she said made him remember of a skill he obtained some time ago “I think I have a skill about that, it evolved from a normal writing skill”
“..... what?” she was confused about it “but you awakened mana yesterday, right?”
“yes, that’s correct.... but I think I know what happened, while we were evolving our skills, we evolved the writing skill while investigating the energy itself, writing the characteristics the energy in the air had”
“that’s a.... weird way of obtaining it, we can only interact with mana only with our affinity or using its language, there has been no exception”
MAster started thinking more about it ‘now that I think about it, how was I able to use the mana?’ he started thinking, linking all the skills it had and what could have made that happen, he started scratching out the ones with the lower possibilities to the higher ones, but there was only one that stood out the most, obtainment.
‘this was the first skill I recieved and compared to the other ones I can’t see its tier, I still remember the description it had.... did this skill force the evolution? It also gave me the mana storage that time even when I was supposed to not have it, but the more I think about it the more questions I get, because after getting the mana storage it was sealed after noticing I couldn’t handle it, does that mean it can think? Was it an automatic response after sensing danger? HOW could it have sensed danger? Does it have any intelligence?’ the more questions he resolved the more would appear.
“well, it must be your power, so I suppose you are the only one who can get the answers” even if she wanted to know, she felt that she wouldn’t know even if she investigated it “we should really stop straying so much while talking, it already happened multiple times and we are losing time”
She brought back MAster’s attention as she kept talking “when activating a scroll it will use the mana of the one who holds it, I already said that, but the thing is that, if a person were to imitate the flow they felt when using the scroll, they would cast the spell and be able to put a keyword to it”
MAster was now listening carefully, deciding to investigate more of what he was thinking earlier for later “so, even if one follows the correct flow, they still need to put a keyword on it?”
“yes, it will make it easier for the spell to be cast, it’s like reinforcing your mind and making it remember the designated spell the mana should do”
“okay, and what wbout the third way?”
“this way of learning can be both easy and hard even for advanced scholars, it will need two people, the one who casts the spell and the one who wants to learn it, the second person will need to make a ‘link’ with the first person to feel the flow of the mana when chanting the spell”
“.... that sounds pretty easy”
“It looks like it, but it isn't, the second person needs to feel it without any error or it will fail once they try it, and even the advanced scholars don’t have the senses to fully feel the inside flow of another person, and more if they are stronger than the one who tries to learn it”
“because their mana and body is more refined than the one who is making a link to learn?”
“yes, the more one advances the more mana they have and more refined it gets, making their spells stronger and breaking the link of the weaker mage”
“so, how can one truly use this to learn?”
“well, they need three things, highly enhanced senses, a high mana affinity and enough willpower to mantain the link while also trying to learn the flow, they could also learn from a weaker mage. Now that I explained the three possible training methods, what do you want to us-”
“the three of them” MAster interrupted her “I want to learn as much as possible, the more knowledge the better”
“...” she knew that he would want to test the three of them, but it truly was different from how Aster was “okay okay, let’s do it in order” she grabbed her backpack and took out a book “read this and learn the mana language” she gave the book to MAster.
The book was a bit thin, but it still had some weight on it, he opened the book and read its content, he saw strange symbols used for each letter and their pronunciation, the sounds of different words and more.
MAster felt a bit weird while reading it, its knowledge felt several times bigger than when learning another normal language ‘I suppose it’s the importancy of it, this is on another level compared to all other normal languages’ After fastly reading the book, he started digesting the knowledge he obtained.
A few minutes later and he had already learned it, he went and gave back the book to Sophie, who was meditating on the floor absorbing mana “I did it, now what?”
Sophie opened her eyes “do you have some paper and something to write on it?”
“yes, Aster always brings anything he thinks can help” he reached for his backpack that was at the side on the floor and took a notebook and a pen, giving it to Sophie.
She started writing something on a page, and after a few moments she finished it and ripped it off the notebook, giving it to master “chant it, it’s the basic fire ball spell”
MAster read the whole spell and started chanting it “************....” after completly chanting the spell, a fireball appeared on the air.
skill chanting has been obtained skill fireball has been obtained
T2 chanting Lv1 speed of spell chanting +25% T3 fireball Lv1 produces a fireball that can be launched in any direction, enhancement +0%
MAster looked at the fireball at his side, some seconds later the fireball dissipated after not being thrown “...” he didn’t say anything as he was only thinking.
“congratulations on using a spell the same rank as yours, I should recommend you that you put the keyword as the spell’s name, it will make it a lot easier to remember”
‘.... how weird, did I get a copy? How could I get such a similar skill?’ he started making more questions ‘also, although the spells are of higher ranks, they don’t have a higher porcentage compared to each other, does the mana skills work different than the normal ones?’
Sophie saw as MAster entered into a storm of thoughts and quickly pulled him out of it “LISTEN HERE! I DON’T HAVE ALL DAY SO PAY ATTENTION NOW AND THINK LATER!!!” she let out her aura as a high grade mage, startling MAster.
“OKAY!” he said as he straightened his back.
“now, I wrote anothe spell while you were doing chanting fireball, I want you to use it as a scroll” she gave him a piece of paper with a spell written on it.
MAster grabbed it and injected mana into it, he felt the mana inside his body being used up, after some seconds a gust of wind covered his surroundings.
skill wind shield has been obtained
T3 wind shield Lv1 produces a strong gust of wind around the user, enhancement +0%
“this spell is good against projectiles, now try to use it agai-” she was interrupted once again after MAster casted it again without any problem “..... that was fast”
“yeah, now let’s try the last one”
“well, there is a problem with that....” she scratched a little bit the back of her head “my rank is too high compared to yours, you said that you awakened the mana heart not long ago, but I already have the third mana circle so you would be completely unable to do it”
“.... well, it doesn’t hurt to at least try, right?”
She thought about it it “well okay, but you have to use all your strength on the mana link, but I’ll warn you, it will be EXTREMELY difficult with your current power”
MAster nodded, he had not even thought of underestimating anything he was being taught, he wanted to learn more and not just because of the power of obtainment, but because the path of magic was based on only one thing, knowledge is power, and the more knowledge one has the more possibilities of surviving he will get.
“first, put your hand on my back and try to extend your mana inside my body” MAster followed her instructions, but when he tried inserting his mana, it felt it crushed into something, like as if he was trying to stab an iron wall with a wooden stick.
“....come on, I’m waiting, I even lowered my defenses as much as possible”
“...” MAster was silent, trying every way possible to pass over her mana body. He tried finding a weakspot, but didn’t find anything, tried to use all his power in one place, but it also failed, everything he tried failed.
“see? I told you that with your current power you wouldn’t be able to do it, I reccomend you to try it later when you get stronger”
“...” he was still silent, thinking to himself ‘I failed again...’ he felt a burning sensation coming inside him, but as soon as it started it completely dissapeared, his calmness skill had supressed his anger. He started thinking about some things while talking with Sophie, after he changed it was noticeable that his traits also changed, after he became more intelligent he also became more fragile towards failure, he noticed that when failing to find the skills inside their soul ‘I should be more carefull with that, I’ll have to find a solution about it’
And they kept talking “even if you failed, there are still the other two ways, now that we talked about the spells, let's talk about the elements themselves. A magic user can have mutliple affinities with elements, but the most common ones are earth, water, air and fire, there are a lot of spells using those four elements, but just because you have a higher affinity with one element doesn’t mean you can’t use different spells, the higher the affinity you have with one element the easier it will become to use those spells, and you can also enhance your affinities by harsh training or drugs”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
“uh?” he was a bit shocked hearing the last part “what do you mean drugs?”
“well, after our world changed the ecosystem also changed, making some plants absorb the magic power in the air mutating them into rare plants that can be used as ingredients in alchemy to make potions and pills, and they can also be found inside rifts, but the thing is that with those rare ingredients that has large quantities of a certain element you can make elixirs and depending of the used materials it can increase your affinities if fully absorbed”
MAster listened carefully, saving that information for future plans “and what about the other affinities?”
“as I said earlier the four first are very common and so are their spells, but the rarer the affinity, the harder those spells will become, an example are the spatial spells, the basic spells for spatial magic are only available after reaching the second mana ring, as they are very difficult and cost a lot of mana, but it trully pays off because it can let you escape on any dangerous situation..... as long as you get enough distance, there are some monsters that will still follow you, and if you find another mage that also knows spatial magic then he could also follow you through the trail the spatial magic leaves behind”
“so, are there materials with rare elements?”
“yes, but they are always locked away by the sorcerers schools because they are extremely rare and precious....”
After some talking, she explained to him the different kinds of elements there were and their characteristics, such as neutral affinity, wich had no elemental effect, light and dark magic, etc
“and now, let me ask you, do you know your own affinities?”
“oh, I got some of them but I think it doesn’t fully fit in with magic.... I’ve got blood, flesh, magic and affinities with weapons”
“mmmh, blood and flesh could be used with life and dark magic, magic affinity is just that and then weapons...... uh? What do you mean by weapons?”
“well, after training the basics of multiple weapons he can get them as skills, and after they evolve they seem to get an affinity.... I think that it depends on the way he handles it and the power he uses when doing it, he used a blood sword and had a high affinity with blood, and the it evolved into blood swordmanship, changing completely how we handle swords now”
Sophie was thinking, trying to find similar information of what MAster said “it seems that you created your own path on swordmanship, creating a technique that fits with your current power, you should test your other weapons with different affinities and skills when evolving them, maybe you can create an incredible technique with it”
‘she is right, maybe if I obtain different affinities from my current skills I’ll be able to create different kinds of techniques’
“now, I think I taught you all the important things, let’s make you learn some spells now” she sat down on the floor “I’ll be writing some scrolls, after I finish writting one use it, learn it and wait for the next one, it will be easy and it will not take that much time, let’s go!” she started writing at an insane speed, making scrolls even faster than before.
MAster quickly grabbed one and used it, for the spells that were a tier higher than his power he had to chant it the basic way, learning more and more spells as time passed....
-an hour later-
Sophie finally stopped printing scrolls, finishing up the ink of the newly bought pen MAster gave her, she let out a sigh “and that should be everything, so, how are you feeling?” she said while looking at the floor.
MAster was laying down on the floor, completely exausted and trying to regenerate mana “I feel.... like I’m dying....” he said panting.
“well, you should get used to it, the harder the training the better the results!”
“.....” he looked at her, he hated being looked down like that.... but at the same time, exausting himself this much felt great, he couldn’t wait to the time when he obtains his own body.
He looked at the spells he got.
T2 light sphere Lv1 produces a small ball of light that ilumates a small area. enhancement +0% T3 wind arrow Lv1 produces a sharp wind arrow that’s launched at high velocity. enhancement +0% T3 mana shield Lv1 shield produced from neutral mana, mild resistence against all damage. enhancement +0% T3 earth shield Lv1 shield produced from the earth and stone, great resistance against physical attacks. enhancement +0% T3 ice spike Lv1 produces a sharp ice spike on the ground. enhancement +0% T3 mist Lv1 produces a black fog that incapacitates the senses. enhancement +0%/ T3 heal Lv1 accelerates the healing of the body. enhancement +0% T3 simple mana enhance Lv1 increases the effectivenes of spells temporarily. enhancement +0% T3 simple sharpen Lv1 increases slightly the sharpnes of objetcs temporarily. enhancement +0% T4 fire spear Lv1 produces a large fire spear that can be launched at high speeds with high penetration. enhancement +0% T4 freeze Lv1 freezes a small area that the user is touching. enhancement +0% T4 mud Lv1 changes the dirt into a soft mud, reducing movibility. enhancement +0%
skill mana manipulation has evolved into mana control
While looking at it he felt.... happy ‘Is this how Aster always feels when obtaining skills? It feels so good....’ he started thinking, after feeling this he started feeling bad about what he did, Aster wanted to learn magic by himself and he ruined it ‘.......I’ll have to apologize later, a deep true apology for what I did’
He sat down as he looked at Sophie “I already did what I wanted to know, thanks for teaching, I’ll be going now”
“well, as long as Aster needs help I’ll be here”
“.... and I’m sorry for interrupting the both of you” he said as he entered inside the mind.
......
Inside, MAster was in the same room that he left Aster in, while looking around he saw Aster on a chair, he had his eyes closed with an angry face.
MAster got closer to him “.... I’m sorry for what I did, it was something that I shouldn’t have done and now I see the pain I caused you, so I wanted to know if you could forgive me...” MAster said with a sad face, he truly felt sad for what he did and wanted to repair what he did with anything, even if it meant working alone 24/7 on the memory organization team.
Aster calmly got up from the chair and got closer to MAster, hugging him and surprising MAster with such a kind action.
“...... thank you for forgiving m-” but before he could continue talking, he felt his feet leaving the ground, and then suddenly his head against the floor.
MAster’s back and neck made a cracking sound as he got suplexed against the floor.
......
Outside Aster’s mind, Aster finally took back his body as he shook his head, getting once again accostumed to his body and taking off the glasses made of bone that he had on his face.
“so, are you back?”
“yep”
“..... what happened to MAster? He seemed very apologetic”
“oh don’t worry, he now has some time to think about what happened and at least he will get better”
“.....” Sophie shivered when he said that, the way he said it left out for a moment a very strange feeling of danger.
Aster looked at the time on his phone “sadly, it seems it’s getting late and I need to go back home, I don't want my parents to worry about me, I’ll be going first, bye and be carefull when going back home” he said as he shook her hand and got outside, Sophie planed to wait some time before going back home so she didn’t bring any attention over Aster.
He went towards the train station and got back to the rift his house was in, after some minutes of walking he finally reached his house, entering, eating dinner, washing himself up and going to sleep.
Ignoring the fact that MAster stole temporarily his body, he had a good day, he snuggled his pillowas he entered a deep sleep in a black night.....
...
......
..........
Not noticing the person that followed him.
A well dressed woman was observing his house at the top of a building, she was able to follow Sophie without falling for her tricks and was able to reach where she was going, after reaching a huge building the woman had merged with the shadows as she observed Sophie.
She followed her to the top floor of the building but wasn’t fast enough to enter the private room that she entered, so, she had to wait outside....
And after she waited for a few hours finally someone got outside the door, it was a young man, she felt no power inside him, meaning that he still didn’t awaken... ‘weird’ was the only thing she thought ‘why would she go with a guy like him? What was she doing?’ she had no other option than to follow him and obtain more information, reaching his house.
She didn’t feel anything bad, but it still was weird ‘I’ll tell Mr.Haul about this’ she backed away, running away as if she had never been there.
but she still felt something, something was off, it was as if....
*BAM*
She had fallen into a hunter’s trap.
“UGH!!!” she was grabbed instantly by the neck by a young man, she felt extreme danger from him so she tried escaping from his grip by merging into the shadows, but before she could do anything, the young man that suddenly looked a bit more older than before smashed her entire body against the wall that was covered by the light of the broken moon on the sky of the rift, making her unable to touch any shadow, falling unconscious from the damage.
Erick looked at the unconcious woman that was only grabbed by the neck with one hand, he used his other hand to grab his phone and call someone.
*click* “hey boss, long time no see” a slightly drunken voice sounded from the phone “what do you want at this time of the night?”
“It’s nothing, I just wanted your help for something, I found a woman observing our house, she seems to be a high grade awakener, I need you to get some information from her” he said in a normal tone, as if nothing important happened.
“of course boss, HAHAHAHA! It’s been around a month since I called you that! Wanna go get some drinks while doing this?”
Erick thought for a moment “of course, It’s been some time since I talked to all of you, right now my family is sleeping so they will not notice anything”
“...... man, you really love your family, now I’m envious of you!” he said before he started gulping the drink he had “bwah, that’s better, your family is really lucky by having you!”
“you are mistaken, I’m the lucky one for having such a good family....” he said dragging the woman away “....and I will make sure that nothing bad happens to them”
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
all skills till now:
skills Lv-
obtainment
skill silencing
skill library
skill sealing
passive skills
T3 pore breathing
Lv3
T3 unique blood
Lv2
T3 knowledge keeper
Lv3
T3 absolute senses
Lv3
T3 multi-will
Lv4
T3 mind archival
Lv3
T3 blood swordsmanship
Lv2
T3 blood footwork
Lv2
T3 calmness
Lv2
T3 lucid dream
Lv2
T2 precise aim
L1
active skills
T3 scripture making
Lv1
T3 energy rush
Lv3
T3 hyper thinking
Lv2
T3 examination
Lv3
T3 super jump
Lv3
T3 hyper speed
Lv3
T3 blood control
Lv3
T3 body control
Lv3
T3 monster roar
Lv2
T3 energy punch
Lv2
T3 energy kick
Lv2
T3 energy slash
Lv2
T3 blink
Lv2
T3 future sight
Lv2
T3 ground control
Lv2
T3 earth destroyer
Lv2
T3 wood changer
Lv2
T3 soul unification
Lv1
T2 cultivation
Lv40
T2 disguise
Lv20
T2 evolving bowmanship
Lv7
T2 evolving hammermanship
Lv10
T2 evolving daggermanship
Lv7
T2 evolving spearmanship
Lv1
T2 evolving gunmanship
Lv1
T2 advanced throw
Lv1
T2 stealth
Lv5
T2 steal
Lv1
T1 simple programming
Lv14
T1 simple AI production
Lv1
Mana passive skills
T3 mana veins
Lv1
T3 chantless/keyword incantation
Lv1
T3 mana heart
Lv1
T2 chanting
Lv1
Mana active skills
T4 fire spear
Lv1
T4 freeze
Lv1
T4 mud
Lv1
T3 wind shield
Lv1
T3 fireball
Lv1
T3 mana control
Lv2
T3 wind arrow
Lv1
T3 mana shield
Lv1
T3 earth shield
Lv1
T3 ice spike
Lv1
T3 mist
Lv1
T3 heal
Lv1
T3 simple mana enhance
Lv1
T3 simple sharpen
Lv1
T2 lighter
Lv2
T2 light sphere
Lv1