Mage Of Shadows - Chapter 2 You Are Too Kind

‘Huh? Was that just now an in-game notification? But I’m not in a game right now, what does this mean?’ Favian instinctively opened his eyes wide as he usually would whenever he was surprised.

‘Not only have I reincarnated, but I even seem to have my favourite game World of Exile’s game system reincarnated with me. I must be dreaming. Please wake up because this isn’t funny anymore!’

[Ding! System can confirm host is not asleep! Host currently under 4 times planet’s gravitational pressure. Would you like the system to initialise protective barrier around host? Mana required 10]

‘Yes please, quickly I’m struggling to not fall onto my face right now’ he replied in his mind. This whole sequence of talking with his game system took less than one second to occur, thus the onlookers would not have been able to notice any difference in Favian’s mannerism.

A translucent barrier suddenly formed around Favian, and the pressure, which was weighing him down, slowly started to subside, allowing him to get back up on his feet.

‘Breath Favian, breath. Everything is gonna be fine. Let’s see if we can get some help here from this woman.’

Before he could even get any words out of his mouth, the dark-haired woman motioned him to come towards her and spoke, “Interesting. Already able to cast a novice barrier spell without speaking. Why don’t you come with me to the front of the carriages?” She paused, looking at the carriage which Favian had just come out of, and then replied, “The conditions will be a lot better with me, I’m sure you’re smart enough to assume.”

“Yes ma’am, it would be an honour.” Favian replied, and gave a courteous bow, lowering his head all the way to his hips, still breathing heavily due to the punches to his stomach. This was the natural way for an individual to greet somebody from a much higher standing than oneself in this country, according to Favian’s memories of his body’s former owner.

“Oh, and he even has some manners, unlike these pieces of filth on the floor here. I am starting to like you more and more young man. Now, why don’t we move to somewhere quieter” she said, smiling towards Favian.

Without waiting for Favian to reply, she grabbed him around the waist and hoisted him around her shoulders, proceeding to fly off into the air at a terrifying speed. The feeling of being this high in the air without a parachute left him frightened, making him close his eyes shut tightly.

He felt completely powerless from the moment he woke up in this weird new world, and he didn’t wish to be powerless anymore. It had only been a couple of minutes but Favian already resolved in his mind to learn as much as he could so that he wouldn’t ever have to feel like he had no control in his life again.

After roughly a minute Favian felt himself slowly descend towards the ground. Having mused up the courage to open his eyes, he was met by some of the most beautiful scenery he had ever seen. Next to a waterfall filled with some of the most pristine water imaginable, a campfire illuminated the dark campsite where multiple carriages had stopped to rest for the night. Smoke slowly drifted up from the campfire, and the surroundings were littered with tall pine trees, standing unnaturally tall at roughly 60 meters. The snow which covered these led to an even more unique feel to the area, and the bustle of various people chatting added to the inviting feeling he received from this place.

After landing on the ground, Favian was brought into a rather large tent by the dark-haired lady. After exchanging pleasantries and asking about the different academies, Favian found out that her name was Aria, a magic instructor from the Dusk Academy.

She explained to him that all individuals would be asked to go through some quick preliminary testing when they reached their destination in a couple of days, and that this testing would simply be to gauge every initiates magical potential. The higher a person’s magical potential, the more offers they would receive from various academies.

Magical potential could be increased through the usage of various potions and herbal concoctions, thus those individuals from noble backgrounds had an inherent advantage when it came to securing offers. Not only did they have such potions to increase their intelligence, which would in turn increase their mana pools and magical capability, however those of noble standing would usually have instructors who taught them magic from their childhood. As academies only accepted individuals from 14 years of age and upwards, this was already a 14-year advantage that they had on Favian.

After their conversation ended, Aria brought Favian to a small tent near the campfire and motioned for him to go in.

“You should probably go to sleep for now, it’s already gotten really dark, and you definitely look like you need some rest. Come look for me first thing in the morning, I’ve got something important that I want to talk to you about.” Aria said and smiled at Favian before walking back towards her own tent.

‘This is so weird, why is she being so nice to me? I mean I won’t complain but I bet that whatever she wants to talk about in the morning will have something to do with her unnatural kindness to me.’ Favian thought to himself.

Having been 22 years old in his previous life, Favian obviously was much more mature than all of the other youths that were going to the magic academies. This would give him an edge, he thought to himself, as he already knew how to work hard on command in order to accomplish his goals; especially since he went to medical school, where you would rarely get a break from studying or hands on practice.

Looking in the reflection of a mirror placed in his tent, Favian could finally see what he looked like. He had very dark hair, with some hues of purple spread across, which fell onto his shoulders. His eyes were similarly peculiar, as they were a dark brown but would move towards a more purple colour whenever he focused more intently at them.

‘Must be an effect of the magic in my body or something’ he thought to himself.

He had a pretty toned body due to the relentless working out that his former owner used to put himself through. Yet, his body malnourished and sickly. His owner would never know, but he died to overexerting himself in training, as he, similar to the Favian currently inhabiting his former body, wanted more power.

Favian knew that he couldn’t make the same mistakes this body’s former inhibitor did, and luckily for him, Favian had a living cheat code for himself.

‘Interface open up and show me my current stats’

[Ding! Name: Favian. Race: Human. Gender: Male. Constitution: 0.6, Strength: 0.8, Intelligence 2.4, Agility 0.6, Arcana 1. Mana pool 90 (100) points remaining]

A blue screen popped up in front of Favian’s eyes, and he could see all the stats related to his body, along with an in-depth anatomical view of his own body and explanations of every stat. Here he could see that his body urgently needed an increased gain of nutrition, as a constitution of only 0.6 relayed that his body was 40% less able to combat against disease and fatigue than a regular human, who would be at a stat of 1. Similarly, his strength and agility were low, as a weak constitution would shackle how strong or agile a person could get, regardless of how much they trained.

Yet, his intelligence was at 2.4, and he was therefore more than two times smarter than any regular individual. This may partly have been due to his reincarnation, which allowed him to keep all of his previous memories on anatomy and the medical practice.

The arcana stat was the most confusing one there. It seemed that this stat was what controlled his total mana points, with a conversion of 1 arcana to 100 mana. Arcana could be permanently used up in order to learn certain spells or to convert into one of his other stats, however when Favian asked the system how to gain arcana it simply replied with an error.

[Error, host knowledge not high enough to access this information. Host needs to level up arcana knowledge (50 experience required). Would host like to level up arcana knowledge?]

‘What? I should have expected this when I realised you were from the World of Exile system, using up all my hard-earned experience.’ Favian furrowed his eyebrows as he came onto this realisation. ‘Well, I mean I didn’t actually do anything but call for help and was rewarded with 50 experience points earlier so it’s not exactly a loss now that I think about it’.

Looking at the blue screen, Favian forced himself to press onto the ‘level up arcana knowledge +’ button.