The status. Of course. How could I have forgotten it? To be honest, I hadn’t. I just didn’t think it was useful. I still didn’t. The status had given useful information. I was Rank 3. I had not expected to be so high.

The Duke had to have fed Aphra a ton of things to get him so high. There were many plants and flowers that could raise one’s mana, and could only be used once. With the Eldanveir family’s power, getting them would be easy. And once the Duke killed me, he would get that mana too.

Rank 3 was powerful. This was the stage at which a lot of noble heirs graduated from the academy. The level at which most commoners stopped. There was a large barrier between Rank 3 and 4. Not that it mattered to me.

I had no spells. And without spells, the mana was useless. I looked over the information again, hoping to see what the Fae Queen had been trying to point out.

Name

Aphra Eldanveir

Bloodline

[Bloodline Cutting Blade: 10% activated]

Elements

[Blade]

Elements (bloodline minor)

[Light: unawakened]

Rank

3

Story level

Unawakened

The Story was important. That was the magic I had been aiming for. I still wanted it. But I also had no idea how I could get it.

That left Bloodline and Elements. Hmm, [Blade]. That was my element. I had expected it, but I also didn’t know what to do with it. Darkness had seemed like a better option, since I was aiming to learn the stealth spell. The [Blade] was far more focused on combat.

The situation was different now. I didn’t have the option of picking and choosing anymore.

“Elena, could you give me your knife?” I asked.

The girl turned to look at me with a confused expression on her face. “Why?”

“I have the Blade element.” I answered. Elena just looked at me expectantly.

“I’m hoping that holding the Blade might help me learn magic.” I continued. “I do have the Bloodline and the Element.”

Elena still looked doubtful, but she did give me the knife.

I held it aloft, trying to feel something. There was, of course, no response from the surrounding mana. Rowan had managed to learn magic with just this, but it figured that I would not be the same. There was a different in talent between the protagonist and a side character.

I swung it down, trying to see if mana reacted. Even a tiny reaction would be significant. I could build on that.

Mana did not react. The System did.

[Bloodline activation increased to 35%]

I looked at the notification, feeling a little tension bleed out of my body. A 25% increase just from swinging a blade. I did not see any other changes in my status, but it was something. Perhaps activating the bloodline was the answer to my troubles.

I swung the blade again, staring at my status the entire time. There was no response. I had gotten too excited. A Bloodline was not so easy to activate.

“Did it work?” Elena asked from beside me. I jumped, not having realized that she had snuck up on me.

“Yes.” I answered. “The Bloodline activation increased by 25%.”

“Oh.” Elena said, looking at me expectantly. “So you can cast magic now?”

“No.” I answered, avoiding her gaze. The experiment had been somewhat successful, but it had not given me what I had wanted.

I still could not fight against the rabbit. I needed more. This was not enough. I needed magic. Blade magic, Darkness magic, I would take any of it. But I needed one of them to respond.

The System had told me two words when the test had begun. I had forgotten about them in what happened after, but they occupied my mind now.

[Please die]

The words were scary. I could feel anger from them. A powerful determination stood behind them, like someone out there wanted to kill me. I did not know how I knew this, but I did. The feeling remained, making my heart beat faster even as I thought about it.

Elena shook me out of my thoughts. “I cast the spell again. Tried to see what you were talking about. Mana responded this time, like it knew what I wanted and was giving it to me.”

I looked at her, hopefully. The Prince of Magic had mentioned using emotion to shape mana. But Rowan had not actually used it. The thing came naturally to those that had used a spellbook, but I would just have to take the long path to it.

But if I could somehow figure out what emotion Darkness mana came with, I could try to use it.

“Mana keeps bringing up the Viscount.” she continued. “When I cast the spell, his image comes to my mind. I see him coming for me and my brother, and I want to hide from him. Use the opportunity to put a knife between his ribs. That’s the kind of feeling I get from this.”

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

I nodded. “So it is revenge in the end.”

Elena shook her head. “No, no. This feels…different from revenge. I don’t know how to say it. I remembered the times when I used to feel helpless. Rowan and I—we weren’t working in the same place.”

Elena gulped, taking a deep breath to calm herself. “The bastards would whip him. I had to serve tea to the Viscount while his men made my brother work in the mines. That is what I remember.

“The spell works for me because I want to stab him in the neck. That’s what I want to do with the spell—what I would have done if I had it then. I would hide in the darkness, wait for him to come and cut his neck off.” An expression of dissatisfaction flashed across her face. “That still sounds like revenge, but like it isn’t -”

“No, I get you.” I interrupted her. And I really did. There was revenge. That was still a part of this. But there was something else she had given even more attention to. The thing that was the cause behind her wanting revenge.

The suffering.

Darkness mana liked her because of the pain that was behind her motivation. What if that was the answer to this? What if Darkness mana drew power from one’s suffering, powering its spells through it. The air grew even heavier as we walked, until it felt like I had a heavy weight on my shoulders.

I ignored it, focusing on the current task instead. How had I suffered?

Leif killing my maid?

The rabbit almost killing me?

The two events were what came to my mind. But when compared to what Elena had gone through, they felt less. Not as important. Not as weighty.

Was there anything from my life from Earth that I could use? A moment I could call suffering? Did having to study for exams when I wanted to read books count?

… I felt ashamed for even thinking of that. Elena’s experience was much more painful than not being able to read books when I wanted to. But there really wasn’t much in my life that I could point to and say ‘that’s suffering’.

Well, there was that one time when I got a hundred on a math paper.

Mother had looked at it and said, “What’s with the handwriting? I would not check it if it were me.”

I had been pretty upset with her words, and there had been plenty of moments like those across my childhood. But none of them were really suffering. Perhaps that was why Darkness mana did not like me.

I had not suffered.

But I had to try to get its help anyway. Cause I did not want to suffer. I needed its power not because of the suffering in my past, but because of suffering that was promised in the future. Leif would bring enough suffering with him that Darkness would love me. But I did not want to go through that.

Just the thought of it scared me. I wanted to prevent suffering, and Darkness should help me with that.

No wait, that just sounded entitled. I wasn’t trying to be like that. I just really, really wanted—no, needed this. I needed a way to get through this, and magic was my answer.

Was that enough? I did not know. I intended to at least try.

I closed my eyes, feeling the mana around me. Sensing Blade mana had made me come up empty. But sensing Darkness at least let me sense what was around me. Perhaps it was because there was so much of it here. Perhaps it was because I knew more about it at this point.

I did not know, and at the moment, I did not care. There were other things on my mind. Like getting mana’s attention. I raised the knife above my head, thinking of my ‘suffering’.

Leif killing my maid.

The rabbit attacking me.

Mother dismissing just about anything I achieved, and father objecting to my dreams like they weren’t significant.

The last one didn’t really count, but adding three just felt better. Like it fit.

I felt the pressure increase around me, and my heart beat even faster. Was the third test here already? Why was it so quick?

No, I had to hope that this was a reaction to my attempt. Had to be. I swung the knife down, fear clutching my chest. I did not get to finish the swing.

A force knocked me back, making me land on my ass. I looked up. A notification, bright blue with white words glared down at me.

[Test 3 has begun.]

[This time, you die.]

I looked around, frantically, trying to spot the rabbit. The rabbit was not difficult to find. The beast stood a few meters away from me. Red eyes looked at me as it walked forward, clear happiness on its face.

That smile was of someone that enjoyed this situation. Was this a sapient beast? Did it have mana of its own?

Wait, I was Rank 3. Elena had faced the Viscount of Burtinder, but he had to have been weakened. I could not see her being able to kill him otherwise.

Was this beast also raised to a level comparative to mine? Was I facing off against a Rank 3?

I gulped, realizing the difficulty I was really dealing with. I might have been Rank 3, but without the ability to actually use mana I might as well have been Rank 1. How in the world was this a fair test? How was I supposed to defeat something like this?

A feeling of fear grabbed at me as I watched the rabbit. The thing that was coming to kill me. The thing that would kill me. This was ridiculous.

I was angry. I did not know why, but the situation made me angry. The unfairness of it made me want to stomp the rabbit to death. I stood up, gripping my knife tightly as I stared at the monster before me.

The rabbit looked back at me, grinning at me as it hopped off the ground. I was ready. I had learned from the previous battles. The rabbit was fast, too fast for me to react in time. But it was also predictable.

The beast liked sinking its claws into my body. The chest area was its target. I swiped the knife down right in front of my chest just as the rabbit jumped.

The timing could have been wrong. I had not been able to judge when it would reach my chest. The placement was just random. But the rabbit was big, and my knife was small.

The idea worked.

The knife plunged into the rabbit's body like it was cutting into simple mud. The rabbit growled, its anger visible as it reached out towards my body. I could see its claws lengthening, their sharp points approaching my body as it attempted to latch onto me once more.

I would not let it. I flung the rabbit away, the knife still stuck in it. Getting the knife out might have been a better idea. A much better idea. But I had not thought of it at that moment, I had just thought of getting the monster away from my body.

The rabbit growled, its hair standing straight as it began shaking. A few drops of blood, dropped off its body even as it did so. The blade really had struck. I was still a bit surprised about that. I had expected it to bounce off at least once.

Was it the anger? I had felt a similar anger when I tore the rabbit off my body last time. Was it the anger that had empowered me? A light bulb seemed to go off in my head as I realized something.

What if Darkness mana wasn’t powered by suffering, but just negative emotions. What if that was the answer? The reason my anger seemed to work could very well be this. I felt my heart begin to beat faster, but for a very different reason.

I was excited. I had a pretty cushy life on earth, but there was a reason I had wanted to transmigrate.

Magic.

I loved it. I wanted to feel the power of elements on my fingertips. And right now, I wanted to use that power to crush this bloody rabbit.