It was hard to track ti here underground, but Valens guessed it took him about an hour and a half to get his mana pool full. Ignoring the growl of protest from his stomach, he started after the undead, trying to act as if he was in the company of a slightly larger man with a set of bones harder than an average adult. And with it serving as the vanguard, he decided he might as well use the ti to go over a few things.
Two things, specifically.
First of all, he was beginning to suspect to a degree that things could be not what he thought they were. Whoever that Mad Magus was, the second part of this trial didn’t quite make any sense. He had half the mind to ask this question to the undead, but for so reason the creature was more inclined to believe he sohow lost his mind than to consider the possibility of Valens having co here from another world.
Guess that's the most sensible assumption here. I didn't tell him I ca here from another world, after all.
That made him question the alternative scenario in which he told the undead that crucial information. What would he have thought had he co across a man similar in his position back in his old world? Prior to the knowledge of connected worlds? Would he have considered the notion that he was in the presence of a totally oblivious stranger? Another lifeform that didn’t belong to his world?
Not likely. Though arcane was a depthless well, without being familiar with the intricacies of Void, it was certainly easier to treat a case like that as a matter of psychological breakdown. Amnesia, for one, definitely fitted that response.
For now, I'll keep that as a secret. I can't risk it.
The second thing was the instant conjuring of his spells. Say he was facing a Master Void Magus. Say this particular Magus had all the knowledge of the void in the world. Say he was so hermit who took a liking to playing sick gas with people who had chanced their way into this world. Even then, it didn’t explain how he was easing the process of casting a spell by simply using his void insights alone.
He could weave magical words in the air with a flick of his finger, but he shouldn’t have been able to affect the way Valens used his own mana. Or could he? Could it be that a Void Magus was such a terrifying existence, and that was why the First of the Magi sealed this source?
Either way, this changed a lot. It ant that Valens was holding a spell like Inferno at his fingertips, ready to blast the cave with roaring flas at any mont. He wouldn’t have to weave those threads one by one anymore. Even now, he could feel the spell burning at the edge of his mind, yearning to blast forth. He could just pick a direction and send the web sprawling over to his foes.
Apathy, Lifesurge and Lifeward were the sa. He still had to pay heed to the Resonance and find the damaged area, keeping physical contact with the patient during the process, but the mont he ca up with a diagnosis and a way to fix it, he could just send a Lifesurge to do the deed instead of operating himself.
The spell could read his mind and act upon his thoughts by itself.
If Master Eldras could see this, he would be shocked beyond recognition. This alone would’ve likely sparked a conversation between them that lasted hours and days.
But he’s not here anymore. You’re alone.
Valens shook his head. His strict education in the Institute had drilled into him the lesson that a Magus couldn’t afford to be fixated on certain things. The most important thing for him right now was to keep an open mind.
Try to understand. Try to blend in with the world and pick out the details. Then use that information to build a strong foundation upon which you could start weaving a theory.
One such piece of information was walking in front of him right now: an animated—no, an intelligent corpse who was surprisingly sensitive about racial topics. Its voice suggested that it had once been a man, and a grumbling one at that, so long as Valens kept blurting out the odd similarities between his kind and that of the skeletons.
Still, he had to admit that however strange his new acquaintance was, he was rather glad to have found so company in the narrow passages of the cave system. That didn’t an he wasn’t wary of the undead, though. If there was one thing he knew, it was that everybody lied.
Onward, the undead guided him through the cave, tapping his left foot now and then and clicking his jaw in awe.
“I’m Valens, by the way,” he decided to say after the long silence started getting to him. “Do you have a na?”
“Valens, eh? That’s an odd na, but simple and has a good ring to it,” the undead sniggered. “I’m Nomad. Truth be told, I don’t like complex nas. None of the undead do, unless you’re a Lich. You have to pick a good na if you’re crazy enough to beco a Lich. Our Lord goes by the na Zahul’ghad, though I have it on good authority that he regrets having picked that na. That’s why we simply call him Lord Zahul.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringent.
Valens paused, chest tightening. “So I was right!” he said, raising a shaky finger to the undead’s face while it gave him a perplexed look. “You do have a Lord! Lord Zahul, is it? He must be a terribly strong Void Magus. I understand that he has a rather different way of communicating with all those strange words and levels and other things, but I have to admit I’m quite fascinated by his expertise. And how is he,” - he willed for a Fireball to appear, and flas blazed alive over his fingers right away - “doing this? Sothing about the abundance of mana in this world, I presu?”
“You—“ Nomad’s sword nearly slipped from his hands. He barely managed a hold around its handle as he gave him a strange look. “You don’t rember the system, either?”
“The System?” Valens muttered. “What is that?”
“No way,” Nomad muttered.
“Elaborate, if you will.”
“You’re serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Valens asked, tapping his chin with a finger. “So that was your Lord’s system… An odd choice of words, surely. What purpose does it serve other than to test an occasional Magus who happened to plop into his cave?”
Nomad weighed him suspiciously before lowering his sword. “Look,” he said. “I can understand if you forgot even the basics, but what’s with you and your strange theories? Is your mind trying to fill the gaps with so bullshit you’ve picked on from here and there?” Nomad shook his head. “And the confidence of it! Where’s that coming from, exactly? Why do you look so sure about yourself as if you’ve discovered a fascinating truth?”
“Oh, now I’m the one bullshitting about certain truths, is that it?” Valens frowned deep into Nomad’s face. “It is you who didn’t believe when I told you I’m in a trial. That a Magus is testing with a Quest, and now you’re telling you have a Lord over you. So who’s the amnesiac one, here, I wonder? Is it sothing about the lack of a brain? Is that why you can’t rember any of the words you’ve uttered to ?”
“You — Uh, you’re not even close to making sense!” Nomad grunted heavily. “There is no Void Magus here! My Lord is here because he’s invited by lton’s King to aid the Duality Guild in their recently claid Queststone. Their. Queststone. Not yours! You’ve crashed into this Rift, and that’s why you’ve seen the Quest. Because it works like that. Once you’re in the Rift, if there’s an active Queststone, anyone other than the Broken Lands' dwellers is forced to accept the quest!”
A shudder ran down Valens’s spine. He quested for words, to find a sensible explanation or a quick get-back to the Nomad, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t the one who had a hold around the ways of this world. And this undead, a mad creation he might be, knew more than him.
“And the system,” Nomad went on. “It’s just that, the way of this world. It’s just there. You learn things, and it recognizes your progress. I know so folk like to think of it as so sort of god, but if you ask , it’s hardly different from the sun. It just serves its purpose.”
“And that is?” Valens’s voice quivered.
“Recognition. Beco good at sothing, and it’ll give you a class. Do your job well, or simply kill things, and it gives levels and stats. Pretty simple stuff, actually,” Nomad answered. “Though I hate to admit, I was struck with the addiction back when I’d first been granted the Heartstone. You know, the common sickness. Always checking the status to keep track of the experience. It gets to your head.”
“Fascinating,” Valens said, nodding, even as he doubted whether he understood anything from that speech.
“It must’ve been harder for you. It can’t be easy to learn all those spells, then forget so of them even existed,” Nomad said, then continued after giving him a look. “Lord knows you’re the first Healer Mage I’ve ever seen. Reckon it’s only normal, though, as Hook once told lton Kingdom eradicated all the cults that dabbled in the healing magic back when the rule had changed. Their Gods sure don’t like soone taking a piece from their cut."
Valens snorted almost imdiately. It seed painfully similar to the situation in the Empire, where the Inquisition acted as if every Mage had an insidious potential to soday beco a wicked dark magus and set everything ablaze. But, contrary to what this lton Kingdom had done here, the Empire had unwillingly conceded to the fact that Magi were, most things considered, an indispensable part of everyday life.
After all, who would heal the wounded whenever the Empire decided to wage a war on the basis that they were spreading the Emperor’s justice all across the world? Who would build those complex machinery without the help of Earth Magi and who would, indeed, guide the storms but the Wind Magi to keep the civilization from being erased from the very earth?
Hate them all you want, but in the end you’re nothing without your Magi.
Valens shook his head. These were all old wounds, and he had different problems right now. Or rather, questions that needed answering. That piqued the part of his academic brain like no other. Made him focus on the present. So those floating texts were a part of this thing called System. He had a few thoughts about it.
Considering it’s triggered by the initial knowledge, it must have a way to record these spell formulae without the need for tools. I wonder if it’s branding them inside the mana pool? Strange. I don’t feel anything when I try to cast the spells.
He eyed the undead’s armored back.
He doesn’t look like he’s lying, but I don’t believe him. This thing can’t be just a way of this world. It can recognize the spell formula. Not only that, it can store those spell formulae as if they’re veils cramd into a box fashioned for the purpose, and by the looks of it, it’s not limited to this particular cave. It’s everywhere in their world. How? Are Void Magi that powerful? Or is this the work of a Master as talented and terrifying as the First of the Magi? Either way, sobody has to be behind all this. What… Brilliance!
Valens was shaking his head at this revolutionary breakthrough in magical theory when Nomad raised an armored hand at him.
“We’re nearing one of the core caverns,” Nomad growled through rotten teeth. “There are dozens of those boneless bastards waiting ahead. You’ve checked your status and all that, right? In case you forgot, think of the word ‘status’ or just say it to check your stats. Because things are going to get ugly.”
“Uh.” It was Valens’s turn to grunt this ti as he tried to shake himself off from his pondering. “Fine. I’ll do a check on my status.”
The mont he finished his words, an enormous wall of text appeared before his eyes, clouding the Undead’s body with lines of words.
Valens blinked at it.
Magical words appeared before him. And this ti, he could see everything.
Ding!
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