Chapter 6 The Road Of Magic!
?As the glow of the morning sun began to penetrate the cave at the end of Elric's words, only deadly silence filled the air. It seemed rather impossible for this land's natives to accept the overnight appearance of 'magic'. Though this was still within Elric's expectations. With a slight cough, he began to explain the concept of magic.
"Through the knowledge given by our ancestors, magic is a phenomenon caused by the existence of mana! What is mana you may ask? Mana is a unique element that exists in the air!"
Motioning for them to sit down he continued, "this unique element is then absorbed by the strange magical and powerful beasts that exist throughout Elias, through what is called a mana core!" he then pointed to the crystal-like substance behind him.
After giving pause for the natives to ogle at the strange new substance, he then continued "This, however, is not a mana core but rather a mana crystal formed after the death of a creature possessing a mana core. It fixes itself in the place of death of the creature and continues to grow indefinitely, depending on the mana concentration in the air ".
Although most of what he said were assumptions made on the analysis of both him and the chip last night, it should be enough to convince a group of primitives. Lost in thought as he waited for them to digest the information, it wasn't until George spoke up that he came back to his senses.
"Elric, although I don't understand most of what you're saying, how can this enable us to gain strength?!" A flame of revenge burned through his eyes alongside the others. Even the former dispirited George seems to be energised by the thought of gaining revenge.
Stunned by the sudden change of atmosphere, it wasn't until now Elric realised that although nobody seemed to talk about it, the former events left a deep scar on everyone. Feeling the eager mood of the crowd he waved his hand in motioning them to calm down.
"Everyone I know, you all want to take revenge and so do I! But what we need to always remember is that no matter how much you plan or try to take revenge, you will always require strength to actually do it! If we had strength would we have fled like mangled mutts? No! Would we have had to rely on the so-called God? No! So all you need to remember is that strength is always the answer." With that said the cowards lowered their heads realising they weren't thinking clearly.
"So how do we gain this strength?" Elric asked with a smile on his face as his eyes scanned the crowd, "through mana of course! Although those beasts can absorb the mana in the air we humans cannot. However, we can learn to absorb mana from those beasts"
Everyone's eyes couldn't help but twinkle in excitement at the thought of them gaining such power. However this time it was Davis who poured cold water on their moods. "Although this sounds amazing, we aren't magical beasts, and like you said we humans can't absorb mana, So how can we learn it?"
As he spoke, he immediately began to feel a chill run down his spine. Turning his head he realised that it came from Elric, who was looking at him with a rather playful smile. "Good question Davis, that's what I was going to talk about next," he then took a twig from the ground and began to draw.
"Through our ancestor's research, they discovered that what makes these creatures possess magical powers are strange patterns inscribed on their mana core, these transcriptions not only give creatures magical abilities, but they also seem to possess mana gathering abilities." With that explained, he began using the twig in his hand to draw an example inscription on the ground.
"This inscription is formed from the magical beast Tantibus, though my inscription of this has been placed on my soul from the ancestors. I have gained the power of the night. Perhaps due to its death, the inscription pattern was incomplete resulting in me not being able to fully inherit all of its powers."
"What!? how do we inscribe it, young master!" With a collective gasp, they shouted, desperate to gain strength like Elric had. From their close distance, Elric noticed their increased breathing speed. It seemed their excitement had reached its peak.
"Firstly, since we as humans do not have a mana core, we have to directly inscribe this on our soul" As he spoke excitement seemed to die down as they realised, they too would need to alter their souls. After all, anything that had to do with the soul was considered blasphemy. Since they were always told as kids that when they died, as long as they were faithful to God, their souls would ascend to heaven and live forever in the kingdom of God upon death. Eventually, they quickly threw that thought out of their minds, considering it was the so-called God that put them in their current predicament.
"Elric, although I don't know if what you said is true, regarding our ancestors, I trust you. So how do we inscribe it on our soul?" George spoke up once again, seeming to be the collective voice of the natives, putting the crowd at ease. 'Yes, it doesn't matter if it's true or not as long as it is the young master it should be fine.' This thus became the common consensus of the crowd.
Realising George had once again spoken up in support of him, Elric felt a warm feeling surging through his chest. After all, he was an orphan and a loner back on the blue star, he never had the chance to experience the kind of feeling you get when someone else has got your back. However, now was not the time to be engrossed in such feelings. Thinking back to the night before, it was only due to the A.I. chip that he was able to inscribe the pattern on his soul. Thankfully the 'world will' also solve this issue before it leaves.
According to the 'world will', visualising certain objects tends to have an effect of spiritual power or soul power, thus reaching the point where spiritual power can be used to inscribe the patterns on their souls manually. Recalling the 'world will' and Kaos from before there appears to be a lot of secrets to explore within Elias. Clearing the unnecessary thoughts from his head he continued to explain the principles of magic.
"Through mediation, we can strengthen our soul power and thus inscribe it on our souls; however, there is a limit to the amount of inscription a person's soul can maintain. So it is up to us to find out how to break this limit and study further into the concept of magic." Last night after the inscription, the A.I. chip had informed him that his soul was currently unable to carry another inscription. After all, if it was possible to inscribe such powers limitlessly, the human race would easily become the overlords of Elias. 𝗳𝙧𝐞𝚎w𝗲𝚋n𝚘𝙫𝑒𝘭.𝑐om
Still, he could not let this be a reason to give up so prematurely. With the increase of people practising his soul inscription and magic, no matter what they achieve, it would inevitably be copied onto him, thanks to the gift of the world's will. He doesn't believe that with the A.I. chip and the perceptions of the whole human race, he wouldn't be able to overcome the soul limit. All he needs to do now is to constantly practise the nightmare ability he has obtained, spread the concept of magic to nearby human tribes, collect different inscriptions in preparation for future breakthroughs or other tribes' inscriptions and stay hidden till he has enough power to fight.
Now filled with newfound confidence he spoke up again to the crowd of excited natives, "okay everyone, now I'm going to teach you a skill called visualisation. With this, you would have officially embarked onto the road of magic." Without waiting for a reply, he began to explain the process. Whether it was visualising the sun, moon, or anything else, it all had some basic similarities. Probably due to the rules of this world, they could produce a phenomenon such as strengthening the soul, unlike the blue star where at most visualisation could calm one down.
Suddenly a strange scene seemed to occur in the cave. A group of about ten people sat in front of a young man as if they were disciples learning from their master. Unknown at which time the Tantibus from before had reappeared, it looked rather curiously at what these strange weaklings were doing.