Chapter 21: Sages of magic.

“Ah.” He almost immediately remembered a problem with that. “I’d sort of like to see how the spell works, but I’ve got a 0 in magical Perception. I do have a way to sense mana but…” Niv snorted at him, and the silent amethyst Elder rolled his eyes. “Get to the point.” Trent activated Voiding. “At its lowest setting, it will disrupt and suppress mana around me a tiny bit. So, you might need to account for that in your Spells? I’m not sure how exact they need to be.”

Niv smiled. “Well, that shouldn’t be a problem. Sacrill’s mana control and link Spells should allow us to overcome any disruption. Now, shall we begin?” With a chorus of nods, and no further objections, the robed Velders began collecting mana. There wasn’t enough in the surroundings to be worth collecting, but an enormous deluge poured forth out of Med. Considering that her Capacity stat couldn’t be that much higher than the rest of them, she probably had Spells that could store mana and possibly even enhance her regeneration.

The mana outpouring from her wasn’t exactly uncontrolled, but it seemed so once Sacrill took control. He guided it smoothly into complex patterns and fed the structure that Nivulous had created. Said structure was obviously made to use the extra mana, as it didn’t contain enough to even sustain itself for long.

The streams of mana circled around the room in complex patterns, and Trent tried to decipher as much as he could. It was mystifying and awe-inspiring, but it would also be incredibly beautiful to anyone who could actually see the mana. These venerable wise elders were showing off! As the Spell coalesced, he had gained a general idea of its function. To his satisfaction, he was skilled enough to determine that it had no components that would affect the mind and wasn’t even designed to cause an actual effect. Or, it would have to have a bunch of intentional flaws that would make it ineffective if it actually did do something to the target.

The Spell completed in less than a second. The majority of the mana was transformed into a concept that scanned him thoroughly. Then, the remaining mana took that concept back and processed the information. The sudden disappearance of all that mana was a bit of a shock.

The Elders studied something in front of them that only they could see, until Niv flicked a hand in his direction and a similar screen to the system’s appeared in front of him.

Name: Trent Marvis

Species: Human (1 stat point per level, access to Affinity and Sub-affinity. No natural Abilities.)

Lv: 15

Affinity: Abyss (1 Mind and 3 physical Perception per level)

Sub-affinity: Opposition (1 Vitality, 2 Endurance, and 2 Strength per level)

Stats: 

Physical: 

Vitality: 17

Endurance: 31

Strength: 31

Agility: 19

Mind: 20

Perception: 45

Magical: None

Abilities: None

Condition: Healthy (Weak constitution due to race, no injuries detected. Magical stats crippled, assumed cause: lack of exposure during formation)

Mana: 0/0

Large structures of energy were detected. Two types of energy were detected. One type of energy identified as system in origin. Second energy unknown. Unknown energy has qualities of willpower and the concept of the Abyss.

“Anything look out of place?” Niv asked casually. He had barely even looked at his own screen, probably because the Spell gave him far more detailed feedback. Trent studied the facsimile of a status page. It actually carried much more information than his normal status sheet, even if it lacked a few relatively relevant features. The condensation of his zeroed magical stats was a nice difference, especially as it wouldn’t come up too much with normal uses of this Spell. Even Abyssal grunts got a stat or two in Capacity every ten levels or so.

“No, it all looks to be what I expected. The unknown energy is my void power, which itself is what allows me to be a Prodigy and Rune whatever. I can shape it into Skills based on the system-given ones. I think, or would like to think, that it is unique to me. It appears to have some relation to both the Abyss and Earth, where I came from. The first Skill it manifested in—which I appeared here with from the start—was specifically an anti-magic Skill.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Oh, that’s also the Skill I was using to sense your mana. It’s the only one that has that sort of effect on mana, or really allows me to interact with it at all.” Nivulous hummed. “You know, anti-magic is really hard to accomplish with Spells. Especially the type that can negate Abilities instead of just disrupting Spells. I would be quite interested in studying that Skill… Actually, want to become my apprentice? It might be difficult for us to learn from each other due to the difference in our methods, but that is exactly what is needed to progress!”

Trent blinked at that. Refining his Skills with an actual teacher? Yes please! But what would that entail? “What would it mean for me to be your apprentice?” Niv hummed. “When I say apprentice, I’m referring to the practice of an Elder finding someone’s idea for a Spell interesting, and working with them to develop and test a series of Spells using that idea. With you, it might be a bit different. But the idea is the same. My experience can help you since you are new to this. And your novel methods and power can give me new ideas and help me get through roadblocks and restart projects that I gave up on ages ago. Mutual learning!”

Trent thought about it for a bit, but there was only one real answer. “Absolutely. When do we start?”

It was surprisingly easy to get used to life in the Velder village. He had a house built by Omoz, the Elder that specialized in Earth magic construction. He had dark silver robes, which made it easy to confuse him with Amiz, the combat Earth magic expert. Amiz and Omoz wore the exact same robes and looked almost identical in their features. They didn’t talk much, but they had an unspoken duty of messing with new spawns—which they decided to include him in, of course.

The house had taken a couple of days to refine to Omoz’s standards, even though it was designed to Trent’s instructions. He seemed scandalized when Trent had tried to simplify the house so as not to be a burden. In fact, all the Velders were some level of workaholic. It made sense when you just looked around at the desolate landscape and realized that very little entertainment had been created. Velders spent all their time either creating Spells or using Spells in interesting ways.

From what he could tell, another difference between humans and Velders was the capacity to feel boredom. Or perhaps that was even the very nature of this place. After all, he himself had been dealing with the monotony far better than he had any right to.

This quality of Velders was absolutely essential to how they lived. From what he could tell, it took literally one hundred times longer for them to make Spells than for him to make Skills. It frustrated Niv quite a bit when he could barely make progress on his own side while Trent was getting close to upgrading Void Beholder. It made him feel both proud and guilty. He didn’t feel like he was all that good at this, he just had an unfair advantage in the form of Voiding and his void power. He wasn’t too sure how they were connected, but they definitely were.

It was possible that humans—or all species that use Skills—had it easier than Velders with their Spells. But from the fact that he got multiple Titles from his work on runes, that didn’t seem to be the case. So, there was good reason for him to be proud of his accomplishments. Just, he might never know how much was him and how much was… also him. Huh. He didn’t think about it much, but Voiding was a part of his being. It stemmed from his willpower, not his Affinity or something like that. Thinking about that really helped him combat the slight imposter syndrome he felt when surrounded by literal demon saints.

Trent once again marveled at how the Velders had built a society. The room he sat in would be tasteful even in Buckingham Palace. Even with the entirely grayscale plain stone, the artisanship put into every swooping arch, every curve and plane, was utterly profound. And this was just a newcomer’s bedroom, a single room in a house that took three days to build. It was truly an incredible feat, only possible with the Earth magic expertise and architectural skills of Omoz.

But the best part of the beautiful house? It was designed. By. Him. It was literally his wildest dreams! The only downside was that his own comparative inexperience in the art limited his ability to both create his own ideas and communicate them to Elder Omoz. But even then, Omoz was quite impressed by his ideas and knowledge that exceeded that of the Velders in some areas. The combination of modern Earth architecture and magical building techniques birthed a glorious masterpiece.

…Honestly, it ruined any chance that he would leave the village in the short term. He almost suspected that was on purpose. They were all really nice, but they weren’t dumb. And really, this wasn’t negative persuasion. They were just making one option better, when that option just happened to benefit them more. Well, he said them, but he was pretty sure it was just Nivulous pulling strings.

It fit him, after all. All the Elders had something like a specialty that they focused on and did better than all the other Elders. This could be pure mana control like Elder Sacrill, or mana storage and generation like Elder Med. This allowed them to cover each other’s weaknesses and work together to accomplish really powerful works, like scanning Trent. Honestly, that one could have been done without either Med or Sacrill. Both of them was way overkill.

Nivulous’ specialty was not just analyzing entities. He made Spells mainly centering on replicating senses. This sounded a lot less complex than it actually was. It also didn’t communicate the fact that he could sense everything within the village walls. With all five senses, plus mana sense and some esoteric senses. Those weren’t fully replicated, but he could amplify certain aspects to make them useful. Like danger sense and even a judge of character. That one made it pretty clear Niv was one of the most cynical Velders. But even just him sharing that Spell told Trent that he was still more genuine than the vast majority of humans.

It was also probably because that same Skill told him that Trent didn’t have negative intentions. That didn’t seem right, but when he really thought about it, he realized that he might actually not be a threat. In addition to the ability of the Elders to stop any open threats, Trent himself just didn’t have any intention to harm anyone. There was no reason to. He was a bit jumpy, but he didn’t see how he would harm any Velders unless he was really sure they were betraying him.

If Nivulous could sense all that… what sort of person had Trent apprenticed himself too?