Holt could no longer control himself and he started exclaiming in joy. Elwin, Astoria, and Hazezel all also rushed forward to congratulate and praise Drake as well.

The whole family was overcome with joy!

Although they all knew that this boy was a genius, it was still quite rare for a human to form a mana core. None of the siblings had formed one, so they didn’t have high hopes for Drake either.

Ray himself had a complete change in expression.

He initially didn’t have much hope either but now that Drake had formed a mana core, his sense of superiority mostly vanished as they were both mages now. However, he still looked at Drake with slight disdain and gave an exaggerated cough to calm everyone down.

“So, it seems you have indeed formed a mana core,” he said out loud. “However, your aptitude is really poor.”

Drake was slightly confused. He didn’t know how Ray could detect his aptitude yet, but it was Astoria who asked the question.

“Um… can you explain what you mean? What is an aptitude?” she asked innocently.

Ray laughed and spoke with a hint of condescension in his tone.

“As you all hopefully know, the mana core is the energy centre that can collect, refine, produce, and control mana. Aptitude is how many mana cores you form. You have formed one mana core which is the minimum required to cultivate and is also the most common aptitude, especially for humans. It is rare for people to be born with multiple mana cores, however, without that aptitude, it is also very hard to progress in cultivation.”

'Only one mana core!?'

Drake was speechless. He died and reincarnated into another world! His life sounded just like the protagonist of some story. Shouldn’t he be blessed with God-like powers?

Drake felt cheated.

“Don’t worry son,” Holt comforted with a smile as he went in to hug him. Stroking his head, Holt said, “Aptitude is not the be-all-end-all of cultivation. How fast you cultivate will also depend on the cultivation technique you use, pills that you take, any fortuitous encounters you have, how much effort you put in, and so on.”

‘That’s true’ thought Drake, many factors could affect the speed of a person’s cultivation. ‘There might also be ways to increase your aptitude,’ he thought to himself. Though he didn’t know any such methods, maybe as he learnt more about magic and cultivation, he might be able to figure something out.

In any case, Drake had the mind of an adult. He had faced numerous difficulties in his previous life. He knew he should be happy that he was able to use magic at all. Thinking so he calmed down and gave Ray a deep bow.

“Master Dragmoor. Thank you for your assistance. When will you start teaching me magic?”

Ray sized him up carefully, wondering if this student would be any good. After a while, he replied in a high and mighty tone, “I will begin instructing you from tomorrow. My teaching methods are strict, so you better prepare yourself!”

“Haha!” laughed Holt. “Mr Dragmoor is an esteemed guest of our family. Until you finish your education, he will be staying in our best guest room and all his needs will be taken care of. Everyone, please welcome Mr Dragmoor!” Holt said to the rest of the family, still overflowing with joy.

Holt was becoming old, so he wanted to prepare an heir to take over as the leader of the village. As the eldest, he preferred Elwin. Elwin was very talented, strong, and kind-hearted but he was also quite naïve and wasn’t a mage. Though he tried to meet his father’s expectations, Holt couldn’t help but worry about what kind of a leader he would be.

However, with the appearance of Drake’s extraordinary talent, as long as he supported his brother, he knew that the family would do very well in the future. So, he couldn’t help but be filled with joy at finding out that his young boy was a mage.

A servant immediately walked to the front and politely led Ray to his room. As he left, his siblings continued congratulating him. Along with feeling happy for Drake, they all also felt relieved.

Since none of them had formed a mana core, if even Drake didn’t form a mana core, then once Holt’s reign was over it would be extremely hard for their family to remain in power. This was especially true if a member of another family formed a mana core, then they would immediately have the power to contest for the position of the head of the village. If they succeeded, then the Reynards would have to live a completely different lifestyle from what they’re used to now, making them all quite worried for their future.

Hence, having another mage would now finally secure their family’s status within the village, as well as increase the entire village’s military strength, helping them resist the demons and onis in the Beast Woods, and give them more negotiating power with the other villages.

Drake thanked them, but he wasn’t really in the mood. He was tired after the long party, and slightly disappointed with his aptitude. However, that didn’t reduce his excitement for being able to learn magic.

He just wanted to sleep and rest now, so that he could start learning magic as soon as possible the next morning.

The next morning.

“Hiiiiya! Hiya! Hiyaaa!” Drake repeatedly shouted as he swung his mini sword left and right.

There was more than one way to fight, and the sword was a common weapon. From the age of five, Holt assigned the top swordsmen of the village to instruct all his children on swordsmanship.

Zhao Gaumond was the head of the village’s hunters. Most of his time was spent organising hunting parties and actually hunting demons and onis in the Beast Woods.

Every morning, he would spend an hour instructing Drake on his swordsmanship. Then Zhao would leave to attend his normal duties while Drake continued his practice. Zhao would later return at the end of the day to evaluate Drake’s progress.

Drake was now doing practice swings and occasionally, Zhao would give a comment about posture, footwork, etc.

Drake hated this part of the morning. He hated physical activity in his previous life and that carried over now as well. Though he understood the importance of maintaining your physical health, now that he knew he could use magic, shouldn’t he try his best to improve in that instead?

As if reading his thoughts, Zhao Gaumond shouted a response.

“Don’t get distracted! Even though you have formed a mana core, you must still be physically strong. What if you run out of mana? Will you leave yourself completely vulnerable?” he asked.

Zhao Gaumond could tell that Drake was putting in less effort than normal and it wasn’t hard to guess the reason.

Drake nodded. He agreed with him, but he still couldn’t bring himself to care much. He wanted to begin his magic training.

Zhao sighed, “That’s enough Drake. You can stop for today. Have a break, eat some breakfast, and go meet Master Dragmoor. He’s waiting for you in the back garden.”

Drake excitedly dropped his sword and sprinted to the garden.

Zhao looked at Drake’s receding figure and sighed exasperatedly.

‘He’ll understand one day,’ he thought, before leaving Drake to start his first magic lesson.

Drake quickly had his breakfast before meeting up with Ray.

The young-looking boy was still dressed in that same brown robe. He was sitting in a chair placed next to a table underneath a garden umbrella while reading a book. Upon hearing Drake’s footsteps, Ray glanced up at him with his deep blue eyes. A gentle breeze made his long white hair dance in the wind, making him appear wise and profound.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Drake… huh,” he whispered to himself. “At least he seems excited.”

Drake gave Ray a deep bow before standing respectfully.

Ray was pleased with his demeanour and gestured for Drake to sit. As soon as he sat down, Ray went straight to the point.

“What do you know about cultivation?”

Drake thought for a moment about what he had read in books. He collected his thoughts and answered earnestly.

“I know that a mage cultivates magic power. They collect the world’s mana, refine it into their own unique mana, and store it in their inner realm. Then-”

“What is the inner realm?” Ray interrupted during his explanation.

“The inner realm… is like a small dimension that exists within a person’s soul. It houses the mana core and the mana it produces,” Drake answered.

‘Not bad…’ Ray thought to himself. ‘He seems to have read up on the basics.’

Ray nodded in response, looking pleased, before saying, “Good! Continue.”

“Once you have formed a mana core, you need to learn to cultivate it,” Drake began. “The basis of any cultivation technique is simple. You need to use your own unique mana to slowly chip away at your mana core. The core will soon reform and be more powerful than before. Once the entire core has been reformed, the mage achieves a qualitative breakthrough and their cultivation advances through a minor stage. The minor stages are early, middle, late, and perfect.”

Ray nodded with a slight smile and Drake continued.

“After crossing the perfect stage, the mage’s cultivation advances by an entire realm. The realms start with a rogue mage which is a person who has just formed a mana core. The mana core in that case cannot produce its own mana, making them a mage in name only. After that is the true mage realm which is when the mana core starts producing its own unique mana. Then we have warrior mage, grand mage, mage king, and mage emperor realms.”

“That’s all correct,” Ray said, but then added something. “The only exception to the above is the rogue mage realm, which has no minor stages. As soon as you temper and reform your core once at the rogue mage realm, you will reach the true mage realm.”

“Yes, that’s true,” Drake agreed. The rogue mage realm was slightly unique as the mana core couldn’t produce any mana on its own, so it was weak and easy to temper, without any minor stages to cross.

“Do you know what happens when you cross a realm?” Ray asked, wondering how much Drake had read up.

Drake thought for a moment and then replied. “Breaking through each realm increases the amount of mana one can store and the speed of production of mana. However, the mana core would also become stronger, making it harder to temper, and therefore, making cultivation slower.”

“Good, good,” Ray replied, smiling a little more. “Do you have any questions on that then?”

“Not about that, but I do have a different question master Ray. Could you explain a bit about how mages use their mana in real life?”

Drake already mostly knew the answer to this, but he still wanted Ray to clarify the details.

“Sure,” Ray replied calmly. “Mana is used to summon artifacts and spirits. Artifacts are physical items, such as swords, shields, spears, etc, which can be summoned and used in battle. Spirits on the other hand are different. They are creatures made purely out of mana.”

Drake listened intently and nodded along.

“Spirits are used to cast spells; am I right master Ray?” Drake asked, remembering what Holt told him one day.

“Yes, that’s correct. There are many spells in the world such as fireball, wind blade, etc. Each spell has a unique rune associated with it. When mana is poured into a rune, it will transform the mana into that spell. Spirits are always born with runes engraved on their bodies whilst artifacts can either be summoned with runes directly or have runes slowly engraved into them after they are summoned. They can both have at most ten runes and are classified into ten ranks, depending on how many runes they have. True mages can summon at most a rank one spirit, warrior mages can summon at most a rank two, and so on.”

Drake took a few moments to digest all this information. It was very similar to what he had read before, but there was something that had always bothered him.

“Master, does that mean mage emperors can summon at most a rank five spirit?”

“Yes,” Ray responded. His smile waned and he seemed slightly annoyed, as if he was answering a stupid question.

“Then how can a mage summon higher ranked spirits and artifacts? Are there realms above the mage emperor realm?”

“Yes,” Ray replied, looking into the distance. He paused for a moment and continued slowly, “Once a person reaches the peak of the mage emperor realm, they can ascend to become an immortal.”

“What is an immortal?” Drake asked excitedly. He didn’t read much about them.

“Something that you will never become,” Ray replied coldly, turning back.

Drake immediately lost his smile.

Ray sighed.

“I just want you to accept the truth. You need a minimum of five mana cores to be able to attempt immortal ascension. The vast majority of people are not born with so many mana cores, so they can never become immortals. Immortals also rarely interact with mortals so there is not much that is known about them. All we know is that they are incredibly powerful.”

“If you work very hard, you can become a warrior mage, and there’s a chance that you’ll become a grand mage by the end, so that’s all you need to worry about.”

Drake hung his head, feeling helpless, but the figure of a middle-aged man in an infinite-sized room flashed before his eyes. That man, the Orion Immortal, clearly used magic to forcibly reincarnate Drake into the world.

However, he didn’t summon any creatures – could he have been an immortal mage?

Orion Immortals…

They were clearly an organisation of some sort, but just who were they? An organisation whose members have control over life and death, spanning over multiple worlds. What do they want with Drake? Even if Drake somehow passed this ‘test’, was it a good idea for him to try to join them?

Drake was silent for a long time.

Ray gave him time to accept his reality, the sooner he came to terms with his aptitude, the better. It was better to face the harsh reality than live in a fantasy dream.

“What cultivation realm are you at, master?” Drake asked curiously, wanting to change the topic.

“I am a perfect-stage warrior mage,” Ray replied matter-of-factly.

Same as father… although he is only middle stage, Drake thought.

Then Ray’s expression changed, and he added, “There is only one grand mage in our surroundings, and that is my master Myra Wan. The greatest elf!”

Ray’s eyes shone brightly as he thought of his master. Given his young appearance, he looked like a little boy who was excited after just seeing some celebrity.

Drake found the sudden change quite amusing, but he still responded respectfully.

“She sounds amazing, Master Dragmoor!”

Ray looked quite pleased with himself as he repeatedly nodded in agreement with a wide grin. But he soon changed his expression and turned serious again.

“Very well, I will teach you some different cultivation techniques. You can try to see which one is suitable and begin cultivating”.

As Drake described, cultivation just involved the repeated tempering of the mana core. In the rogue mage realm, he had to absorb the world’s mana and refine it personally, whereas in all other realms, the mana core would automatically do that to produce mana, allowing him to focus solely on tempering the core.

The process of absorbing the world’s mana, refining it, and tempering the core, can be approached in a myriad of ways. These different ways were called cultivation techniques.

Ray took out several scrolls and asked Drake to see which one suited him. Drake wasn’t sure how to decide but he just picked a scroll at random and opened it.

A huge amount of information entered his head, but none of it made sense. Within a few seconds, it turned painful, and Drake slapped his hands against his ears and screamed.

‘Hmph. Looks like he couldn’t handle that,’ Ray thought to himself.

Whilst some cultivation techniques were better and could help a mage cultivate faster than others, not all would be suitable for everyone. If a mage tried to use a technique that wasn’t suitable for them, then cultivation would be incredibly slow, if not impossible for them, even if it was a really good cultivation technique.

Hence, one had to find a balance between a good cultivation technique and a suitable one.

Ray closed the scroll and spoke with a slightly condescending tone again, “That was the best cultivation technique I had at hand. But it seems to be too much for you, so don’t worry about it. Since this wasn’t suitable, then…” Ray hesitated and picked out three scrolls and handed them to him.

Drake opened the first one. Although it wasn’t as bad as the previous technique, this one also rejected him. The second one was also not suitable.

Ray was at a loss as well; he didn’t think his disciple’s aptitude would be so bad.

Drake reached out for the last scroll.

‘If this one doesn’t work as well, I can only try those cultivation techniques. However, they are really poor quality so I hope this works,’ Ray thought to himself.

When Drake opened this scroll, a huge amount of information flowed into his mind again. However, this time, it was soothing and pleasant, like he was drinking water, but the water was actually information.

After some time, Drake learned the basics of this cultivation technique.

It was called ‘Return of Spring Arts’, and this was clearly the one most suitable for him.

“Thank you, master Ray, this one seems great!” Drake said cheerfully.

Ray nodded and took the rest of the scrolls back.

“Okay. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask me.”

Drake thought about the cultivation technique and asked some more questions which Ray patiently answered. After instructing him for a while, Ray left him alone and closed his eyes, forgetting all about Drake.

Cultivation was a long and lonely path. It mostly came down to Drake’s own efforts. Ray’s main role was to instruct him on his cultivation technique and answer questions. At the right juncture, he would finally start teaching him summons.

However, it was still a little early for that. Now, Drake had just formed his mana core. He was not even in the true mage realm yet.

Drake was silent as he reminisced over everything he learned.

Taking a deep breath, Drake sat cross-legged on the grass and closed his eyes to enter a meditative state. His attention focused on a tiny spot below his navel where the mana core was.

After that ceremony yesterday when the mana core was revealed, he felt a searing hot pain in that spot. Once the mana core stopped shining that pain also went away. However, he could now use the memory of that pain to locate his mana core.

As Drake focused, his consciousness was drawn into another space. It was completely dark as if he was in the vacuum of space. There was absolutely nothing here except a small crystal-like object - his mana core.

This was his inner realm where the mana core was located. When he gathered mana, it would also be stored here.

Drake took deep breaths again, trying to calm his mind and stop thinking about everything else. It was not easy to calm his thoughts, it took him about an hour before he got into a good enough state of mind to begin cultivation.

Finally, he activated the Return of Spring Arts that Ray taught him and began to use his mana core to gather mana into his inner realm and refine it.