Chapter-10

"Do you know what you have to do?"

"Yes general!"

An Erlik assassin is seen bowing to his superior. A golden pendant hangs around their neck.

"Good! As soon as you have finished your objective signal back.

you know how to use light magic right?"

"Yes general, everyone in th,e assassin unit is required to do so."

"Ah, right! Your units are just so damn under the radar even I forget your abilities."

"Yes general, we usually work directly under Khulgana sama, but he is still injured from his fight with that human king. He was a lot different from the king of Ashhaven."

"Indeed, without him, Seikid sama is just relaxing. Our invasion will probably be delayed by about a fortnight. The plan could change entirely as well, but that doesn't concern you. Go finish your objective then signal back using light spells with the standard codes."

Initially, The Erlik were planning to take advantage of the element of surprise and get all the human nations one by one quickly.

They had spent a couple of years sending covert scouts to Gaia and had concluded that humans were inferior to themselves.

And they were right. The Erlik are way ahead in terms of magic principles, raw strength, and conversion efficiency. They have an innate ability to become strong due to their most fundamental advantage, Their physical and magic adaptability.

The humans, however, were comparatively more adept at making tools that supplement the lacking individual power. Given the difficulty in obtaining more powerful tools, an average human cannot beat an average Erlik. But the fight with Arthur had changed the perspective of Erlik and made them warier of unpredictables. Causing them to completely alter their original plans as soon as Khulgana wakes up.

(Ryu's POV)

"I'll use the wind slash you used to explain how magic is used. First, to use magic, you have to understand the energy contained in things. Like in the wind, there is energy in its movement, Or for a flame spell, there is energy of its heat."

Amazing! Bruno is talking about kinetic and thermal energy. The movement of particles in the air and, for heat, their vibration gives it energy.

"The only way to understand these things is by feeling it. You had to have done this already when you used that spell, energy can be felt with your soul as it is itself pure energy."

I remember what I felt before I used that spell, I could feel all the air movement around me, even the air that didn't touch me directly.

"Yeah! I did feel something like that. but how does it help with doing magic? Do we absorb this energy to use magic?"

"Hahaha!! An Interesting Idea but no, as I said you have a magic core now. It is a concentration of your soul essence and makes a container which naturally fills after resting. You are now a single-core mage. Usually, it takes about 2 months of intense focus to achieve this but, probably because of the Apostles that delivered you too us, you can do it much faster."

Apostles? Yeah, no... I don't care bout their mythologies. Sure the messengers of god delivered me here, an excellent way to give me cheat growth ability.

"So without a core i can't use magic?"

"No, you can use it. But the cores store soul essence in a much more concentrated manner, it is the difference between a grain of salt and the same amount mixed in water. Without a core, you can only do magic to the level of boiling water or the like, but, with the core, you can output fires that can burn a tree whole."

Okay, so like making a dam over a small stream.

"anyway, we believe the Highest anyone can go is up to seven cores. So with the core, you can channel the soul essence into things like air, or rocks, or water to give them the energy to move or change their temperature. The more you understand how the world works the more easily you will be able to manipulate them, that is the core of magic."

Incredible! I see it. I see my road to become overpowered. Magic isn't something supernatural here, it's just an extension of the known laws of science. Being from a modern world gives me a ridiculous cheat.

"There is another level of magic as well, known as arcane magic. The difference here is that when you get to 2 cores, you can imbue your 'intent' and do much more complicated spells than simple energy manipulation. The intent manifests as the arcane language and with the right materials and understanding you can even implant that 'intent' on objects and that is how artifacts are created."

"How do I get to 2 cores? I'll start right now"

Bruno snickered,"If I did that you might die, did you forget how painful your first core was? We can do that after you've learned many more spells, and your body is ready to handle the second core."

"Humpf! Fine, but I need to get stronger fast."

"Yes yes, I know that better than you. For now, just try to remember the feeling of soul essence flowing through your body. Close your eyes and focus on your core, try to make a vessel come out of it like branches of a vine."

I sit down on the ground and close my eyes. I focus on my breath like I used to meditate, Many thoughts come to my mind. Was I actually created by some god, and my memories are implanted? How is my family doing? I wish I could tell them I'm alive. I try to remove these thoughts from my mind to focus solely on my chest.

Soon I can feel warmth similar to what I felt that day, like a small ball of light resides in endless darkness. I imagine holding it and pinching a part of it like clay, but the part that I pinch off is still connected like a string to the core.

I can feel being pinch as I pinch like I am the ball itself. But strangely, it doesn't hurt. I pull the branch-like thing and imagine it spreading over my palm.

"Amazing! You're doing it. Now accumulate that energy in your hand", Bruno says.

I do as he says. Instead of branches, I imagine them as tubes and flow the light inside the ball to my hand and spread it over.

"Great Now punch the ground!"

"What??" I open my eyes and lose focus. The energy in my hand disappears.

"Ugh! you idiot! Why did you stop? You were doing fantastic! you have a Godly potential. Do it again and this time punch the ground."

"Fine"

I do as he says, I refocus the energy in my hand and Punch the ground fully expecting for it to hurt. But it didn't....

The ground caved in with my punch like soft clay. I got pushed back due to the force.

"......" I was awestruck at my own strength, I just looked at my fist that had just done an inhuman thing.

"That is what we call 'Augmenting,' a fundamental strengthening magic that pretty much every combatant uses with varying strengths."

"That was..... umm that was... holy shit! That was out of this world!!"

"Yes Yes good work. Now on to the next step. Here"

Bruno takes a stone and gives it to me.

"What am I supposed to do with this?"

"The best way to learn to manipulate energy is by using heat since it is easily comprehensible. Heat is a basic form of energy and has been almost synonymous with it for a long time. To understand the 'Release' method of magic, you need to pour your soul essence into this rock and heat it."

"Sure sounds easy and not at all confusing," I said sarcastically.

I sat down with the stone in my hand and focused. This time not only inside myself but at the world outside. I was beginning to feel all the energies in the environment.

With all my senses combined with my soul's perception, I began to faintly sense my surroundings. I could feel the sun's heat on my skin as well as the slightly cold air that cooled my skin. I could hear the trees sway with the breeze. I listened to the trickling of water. No.... I didn't 'hear' it.

I focused on hearing it but I couldn't, I was not listening to it, I was feeling it with my soul—the enormous energy of the flowing water.

My thoughts again start to wander.

'If magic can manipulate the very energies of the world, do the laws of science I know still apply? Seeing as how trees still move with the wind, all of Newton's laws still apply. I still see the sun, there was a mirror in the inn, maybe the laws do apply but with an added layer of magic that temporarily lets you change the laws.' 

'I can only feel the energy of movement right now, but if I can feel all the different types of energies who knows what I could do? I could be fucking magneto if I can use magnetism properly. There's also gravity. I read somewhere that it also has energy, so I should be able to manipulate that as well, right?'

‘What about electromagnetism? Couldn’t I theoretically become invisible by controlling light which is just electromagnetic waves? Bruno said that understanding is the key to sense and manipulate the energies, being from a modern world will surely be advantageous for me.’

I focus back on the rock, I collect mana, not soul essence because it's obviously just another word for mana and mana sounds better. I accumulate mana in my hands again, this time more than before.

I imagine the mana spilling out of my hands and into the rock, I focus hard and keep trying to do it, but nothing happens.

"Hey Bruno! It's not working. Am I doing something wrong?"

"What are you talking about? hmm... Oh...haha... just touch the stone with your other hand. Often at the beginning, it is hard to differentiate between energy in your hand and energy in things just around your hand if they have a similar quantity."

I put the stone on the ground and touch it with my other hand.

It was much hotter than what was possible with only sunlight.

'cool!!' I thought.