Mage Of Shadows - Chapter 3 Proposition

[Ding! Arcana Knowledge Level 1 acquired. Current Exp 0. Arcana is the broad overview of different magical particles in the atmosphere. These different magical particles are comprised of their different elements, namely air, water, fire, earth, light and dark particles. Information on advanced particles currently unavailable. Affinity to different particles is based by innate body composition. Arcana can be drawn into your body via meditation techniques.]

‘Well that was insightful and all, but I don’t know any meditation techniques right now, so how am I going to draw in arcana?’

[Ding! User can activate automatic arcana assembly via the system, which will gather elemental particles passively. Would user like to activate function now?]

‘YES DO IT.’ Favian screamed at the system in his mind. He was so engrossed in gaining power and was also interested in the workings of magic. He wanted to soak up all this information like a sponge.

A numbing sensation slowly took over Favian’s body and mind, making him momentarily lose all the feeling in his legs, making him to fall down onto the bedroll in the middle of the tent. Wide eyed Favian looked around the room as he could now see a plethora of different coloured particles in his vicinity, with there being various different colours. Mainly there were dark particles, brown particles and blue particles.

‘Hmm, if I would take a guess, I’d say that there are more dark particles here as it is night-time, and blue particles would probably represent the water element; since I am near a waterfall there would obviously be lots of that element here.’

Suddenly, a swirl of these different elements rushed into his body. It felt as if he was being force fed food after having already been full, and left his body feeling ice cold. His whole body was now too desensitised to move about, and his mind slowly started to fade into black.

All of the troubles from the past couple of hours were completely wiped away, and he was finally at peace, even if only for a short while.

…

Favian woke up to the sounds of birds chirping away in the trees. These high-pitched chirps were relentless and made Favian feel like ripping out his eardrums. His sleep had been such euphoria; having his dream of eating pizza and donuts back on Earth end abruptly because of the birds left him feeling annoyed.

Opening the game system, Favian’s eyes instantly opened wide, as he could not believe what he was seeing. His arcana had risen by a whole 0.2 points, and was now at a 1.2 total. A 20 percent increase overnight seemed too crazy for him to believe. It was no wonder that his whole body currently still felt numb, as he must have gone through a relatively large change.

‘Wait, I don’t even know what my arcana level is relative to other mages, so this might not even be as impressive as I think. I’ll have to try and gather data on some other trainees first to see where I stand’ he thought to himself. ‘Is that possible system?’

[Ding! Affirmative, user can scan other people but is currently only able to scan those of a equal or lower power level than himself. To upgrade scan function host needs to upgrade the game system – Version 1 (10,000 experience required)]

Favian almost coughed up blood. He couldn’t believe how much experience he needed. It seemed that he would have to come back to this issue in the future, as he currently did not know how his system worked in regard to giving experience, and it would only reply with ‘Information restricted’ when prompting it for the information.

After reclaiming his bearings, he went straight towards Aria’s tent as she had asked him to come talk to her first thing in the morning.

A table filled with plates and cups of different foods was placed in the dark red tent within which Aria stayed. The sweet aroma of jasmine green tea mixed with honey lifted up Favian’s mood completely, and the fragrances from the tent seemed to sooth his body and mind.

Aria looked to be around 24 years of age, with a relatively slim build with wide hips, and a big bust. Taking time to look at her better with the sunlight shining through the tent, Favian was able to notice that her eyes had a similar purple shade just like his own, however it was much deeper in colour. The dark purple hue to her brown eyes, along with her jet-black hair really complimented her fair skin, and she looked a lot more beautiful to him in the sunlight.

After noticing that he had been staring at her for a moment too long without saying anything he quickly shifted his gaze towards the food. ‘Damn, it must be these teenage hormones affecting my mind right now. You give me the memories from my past and still force me to feel like a prepubescent teenager. That’s just perfect!’

*Grumble* *Grumble*

“Come sit, lets chat whilst we eat. It sounds like you could use some food Favian, and negotiations are always better on a full stomach. Something my master always used to say to me.” Aria motioned for him to come sit down at the table.

“Now, I noticed earlier that you were able to cast a protective barrier when I used my magic to increase gravity. As we have done extensive research on every candidate, I know that you have never learnt any magic. Would you mind explaining how you were able to use that spell without casting?” she asked him, her eyebrows raised up in interest of this young boy. Her gaze looked straight into his eyes, and Favian felt it piercing straight through his soul.

‘Shit! How am I going to explain that I reincarnated and have a game system which is basically a massive cheat, whilst also not becoming a lab rat for some academy’s experiments. I should probably lie, but I bet she has some sort of magic which can detect that. Guess I’ll have to just twist the truth a little bit’ he thought to himself as the panic that was slowly trickling onto his face subsided after he quickly thought through what to say.

“Well, I don’t completely know how, but my body just automatically did that. I had no control in the casting process of the spell. I don’t actually know any spells either, and am completely new to this world of magic, so it came to a surprise to me as well.” Favian replied, weaving in truths that could be interpreted in different ways. He hoped that this would be enough to make her believe him, or at least stop her from asking any further.

Aria slowly pondered to herself for a minute, before finally saying, “That is very interesting. I would think then that you have a very high innate talent in magic passed down from your bloodline. It’s such a shame that we have no information about who your parents are, maybe that would have given us a greater insight.”

She paused for a moment, before asking, “Do you know about how we rank magical talent at the academies here in Ortu Solis?”

“No.” Favian replied, shrugging his shoulders in defeat.

Aria went on to explain that testing trainee magicians’ ability to draw in elemental particles was how they ranked magical talent grades. The colours red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and grey would correspond to the arcane core present in the body when tested, with red being the lowest and grey consisting of the highest talent.

“Favian I have a proposition from the Dusk Academy. Since I am guessing that you have pretty high innate talent, given by the fact that you were able to subconsciously cast magic silently without ever having been taught, I would like to invite you to join the academy as my student.” She smiled as Favian, with a gleam in her eyes.

Favian cursed in his mind that he had to be reborn in such a young body. This beautiful woman was exactly his type, and even wanted to teach him.

“Oh, let me not get ahead of everything, why don’t you let me test your magical talent grade first. It’ll just take a couple of seconds. Don’t worry, it won’t hurt. Just sit tight and get comfortable for a second.”

Without the time to even react, Favian felt pins and needles all over his body, prickling through the surface of his skin. The uncomfortable feeling left as quickly as it came, with tendrils of blackish indigo energy being released from his pores and dispersing into the atmosphere.

After these tendrils of energy left his body, Favian felt a lot more stable, as if he had unclogged his pores from dirt that had always been stuck in them. The elemental particles from the atmosphere moved into his body now, which they had only done after he asked his system to do so. Now it seemed that they passively entered, and the lethargic feeling from the last time did not come.

With her mouth wide open in shock, Aria could not help but feel that she finally hit the jackpot. The only word she could muster out was, “Incredible.”