Frequenting the library was a part of Eliza’s life for the last month. After she was deemed a prodigy by Iris, her father embarked on a political visit to the Royal Capital where Eliza’s mother was. In a sense, she was the sole owner of the entire mansion but her father’s advisor was the one that had all the rights.

Considering that Bernard was a sour-tempered man that did not fancy children, Eliza rarely, if ever, ran into him without her father’s company, intentionally or unintentionally.

Most of Eliza’s time was spent learning a Skill, or at least trying to do so in the library so there was no need for her to leave the room in most cases. Iris took up the offer of getting some much-needed rest in the form of reading books rather than looking after Eliza throughout the day. Simply sitting at the opposite corner of the room sufficed as looking after Eliza now that she was glued to the old man.

“Focus on your eyes. Try to see the flow. You know it’s there. You know what to look for. You know what to see,” instructed Fabian, the old man, his warm hands placed on Eliza’s shoulder. It let the Mana flow into her eyes, even if she didn’t have it herself, and allowed her to channel it.

When it entered her body, it was worm but when inside her, it was cold —the same cold that you felt when you drank cold water on a hot day. It was refreshing and almost electrifying.

“See the Mana,” whispered Fabian and as if something snapped, her sight was gone. Rather, she saw things but not in the same manner as she was used to. She could see tiny blue particles the size of dust, glowing a gentle blue, moving away from her hands as she tried to catch some in her cupped hands.

Eliza couldn’t see her body, only tiny veins of dim blue covered by a blanket of darkness.

There was no Mana in her flesh, only in her never-before-used Mana Circuits. The alien Mana flowing through them made her body ache ever so slightly but it was negligible.

“Do you see it?” asked Fabian and Eliza nodded. He then added, “Look at the servant. Do you see her? She’s to your left.”

Eliza didn’t.

“She doesn’t have any Mana in her body. That means your Mana Vision will not work,” said Fabian and let go. He stepped back and then instructed her, “Now, look at me.”

Eliza could see the Mana Circuits in his body. The majority of it was focused around his head and tiny circuits were spread across his entire body, making the rough shape of a human apparent. She couldn’t see his flesh either, for there was no Mana in it.

“Focus on my face,” said Fabian as the Mana in the circuits in his facial area focused on where his eyes were supposed to be, so much so that it was almost as bright as a flashlight, “I’m using Mana Vision now. When you use magic, the Mana in the surrounding circuits is gathered and used as fuel. As I’m using magic through the medium of my eyes, they are now focused there. Can you see that?”

That’s when her vision abruptly cut off and as if a layer was peeled off right in front of her eyes, the vision of Mana promptly disappeared and Eliza could see Fabian’s fragile body rather than the vibrant Mana Circuits within him.

“Ah, you’re just out of Mana. You’ll have to develop it further after you get your own core,” said Fabian and collapsed onto his rocking chair. He let out a deep sigh and groaned, “My body isn’t quite what it used to be. Let’s continue our lessons… later. For now, read your books.”

Fabian was Level 9, a former Battle Mage in the service of the Crown. His days as a fighter were long gone and he’d become a Scholar to retire.

Considering that you could only gain XP by killing and to level up, you needed XP, it was almost impossible for a non-combatant to have a high level. It could either be a monster or another sapient being, with the latter providing more benefits.

If a Soldier who undoubtedly killed numerous people in his lifetime was only Level 9, Eliza wondered what the highest recorded level was. No mere serial killer would possibly have a higher level than Fabian.

This made Eliza question whether both his mother and father had any problems with killing. Her common sense gravitated toward the side of no, but she couldn’t know. Level 2 was considerably easy to reach but Level 3 was rare, apparently.

At least among those that weren’t supposed to fight such as Peasants that weren’t hunters. It was enough to make the nobility punish commoners just because they had a higher level than they should have.

If they didn’t have permits and had a high level, it meant they were either murderers or poachers —both of them were crimes punishable by execution.

The Peasant Class could be evolved into either Soldier or Scholar. After you became a Soldier, there was no way to return to Peasant so most retired Soldiers evolved their class to Scholar or would switch to Noble if they had great feats, which was understandably rare unless they conquered any other nations.

The System was flawed but it provided far too much to be neglected if it could be neglected in the first place.

“Yeah… I’m not in any shape to continue as well,” said Eliza and fell onto another chair. Using Magic was tiring and the tiny stings from before didn’t go away, leaving most of her body sore. Especially her head, now subject to a migraine.

 

 

It took 0.1 Mana per second, which currently meant nothing for Eliza as she had no reference. She didn’t even have her own Mana, after all. It would start mattering later but she had to read a few books to learn all the Skills Fabian was trying to teach her.

The 5 Skills consisted of Mana Vision, Soul Vision, Microscopic Vision, Telescopic Vision, and Night Vision. They merged to become Ultimate Vision that allowed her to use all five of them at once if she desired to, albeit at an increased cost.

Mana Vision and Soul Vision were the easiest ones to learn and Fabian insisted it’d take only one try each after she read about both Mana and Qi enough. The others, while requiring less knowledge, would require far more effort to actually learn.

After reading the first chapter of Basics of Magic, the gateway book into Magic, Eliza understood how Mana was supposed to look. Once she knew what to look for, she was supposed to actually see it and that was the easy part when supplied with Mana.

“Iris,” yelled out Eliza.

She had to be carried to her room.

 

***

 

“Are you sure you aren’t developing laziness or perhaps sadism, milady?” asked Iris as Eliza nudged for her to turn the page for the umpteenth time.

“My entire body’s aching. This is the most efficient method,” she said and scrolled through the contents of the page once again.

“Yes, but you’re reading through them far too quickly,” said Iris and with slightly furrowed brows, she added, “I don’t believe you’re actually reading it that fast.”

Eliza lay on her bed, propped to a sitting position with the support of a pillow behind her back. The body of a four-year-old wasn’t built to endure Mana coursing through the veins but after Eliza started seeing it as just another means of increasing her stats with minimal work, she took to it like a fish to water.

Her Durability stat had increased to a whopping 6 after the third day of having Fabian channel Mana through her body.

It caused damage but didn’t actually harm her. In fact, it increased the size of her Mana Circuits so she’d get a larger Mana Pool than her peers right after the Mana Implantation ritual and that meant she was increasing her Durability and her Mana for as long as she was willing to endure the pain, which, quite frankly, wasn’t very severe.

“Let’s make another Contract, then. This time, my bedtime will be pushed back by two hours,” said Eliza nonchalantly and Iris shrunk at that.

Her bedtime was eleven o’clock now and pushing it back two hours would mean it’d be past midnight —unacceptable in the eyes of Iris.

“Why destroy your body day after day, though?” asked Iris and with a frown, she proceeded, “Is becoming a Rose that important?”

When she said the word Rose, Iris almost spat it out —it disgusted her.

“It’s better than dancing,” said Eliza.

That was a slip of the tongue.

“So you did this to escape your dancing lessons,” said Iris and raised her hand to slap her wrist with two fingers, thought about it for a few seconds, and stopped.

Among the servants, only Iris was allowed to punish Eliza in any capacity. That, and Bernard, her father’s assistant, could theoretically do it but that would only happen if she was burning down the estate.

“No,” Eliza said slowly and added, “It’s an unexpected and much-welcomed benefit, though.”

“You’ll still be required to dance it. You do understand that, right, milady?” asked Iris.

“Yes, I will learn to. Just not yet. My Dexterity is too low and I’m planning on working on that soon. Just not… yet,” said Eliza and gestured for Iris to close the book with a nod.

It sent a surge of pain flooding through her body and Eliza winced.

“Are you sure you’re a child? You talk like you’re already an adult,” said Iris jokingly and Eliza felt a tiny bit of humor within the servant.

How could she feel her emotions now after never feeling them for four years?

Was Iris opening up to her now?

That was the only viable explanation.

“So, have you given up? It’s a bit too early today,” said Iris after glancing at the grandfather clock standing at a corner of the room. It was annoying during the night so Eliza ordered the servants not to wind it past ten o’clock, for she didn’t want to hear the insufferable noise.

It was difficult to sleep when it was ticking right next to her ears.

For now, though, it was operational, its small hand on seven and big hand on eight.

As it was the early months of winter, it was already dark out and it would be a sufficient time to go to sleep. At least for Eliza, but the servants had much to do. It was always busier in the winters if Iris’s words were to be trusted.

Becoming Eliza’s nanny was a sort of promotion for Iris, apparently. She was easier to deal with than most of the chores in the house but far more annoying, allegedly.

“No, I just feel like… I read the book before,” said Eliza and let out a deep sigh.

Everything about Qi felt almost too intuitive, like it was explaining colors to her. It could be a benefit of her common sense, for that was the only reasonable explanation. Why and how she had that was still a lingering question within her head but Eliza would take anything she had and try to make the best use of it.

Especially if it was her common sense, the only benefit she had that wasn’t a Skill.

Eliza already knew how Mana Vision worked and how to learn it. She just had to apply that to Qi.

Qi, unlike Mana, wasn’t something in nature. Whereas humans didn’t naturally have Mana and had to absorb the core of Magic Beast to get access to it, Qi was different. Qi was innate. It used the Soul. Everything has a Soul. Even the Deuses, semi-biological robots, had it and as a result, could perceive and use Qi.

Unlike Mana which was recovered by absorbing the ambient Mana, Qi came from within and it was a virtually limitless power that could be used as long as the user’s Willpower allowed for it.

Eliza had an infinite amount of it.

Whether that’d be mean she could endlessly use it or not was to be seen, though.

“You feel like you read the book before?” asked Iris, her eyes narrowed.

“It seems so,” said Eliza and hummed for a bit.

“Deja vu?” asked Iris.

“No, more along the lines of reading something you know already,” said Eliza and stared at the ceiling of her bed, “I know most of it but there are bits and pieces I do not. Like it’s been elaborated further after I’ve long since learned it.”

“Like you’ve learned it before? That’s new,” said Iris and sunk into the background as Eliza’s focus shifted within.

Qi was the product and the Soul was the source. Like a fire. The Soul was like an ever-burning fire that would never be snuffed out until one died. The Qi, on the other hand, was the smoke —the product of the impurities of the Soul being ejected.

Anger, sympathy, jealousy, all of it.

Any emotion could be used to fuel it. She just had to throw them into the fire. Throw it away and reach tranquility —the state of feeling nothing at all. Burn it all away, only to be left with what was base.

“Mortals will be mortals,” whispered Eliza ever so quietly. It was so quiet that even Iris did not hear.

Mortals?

Why did she… say that?

Countless thoughts swirled within Eliza’s head and she felt something. It was her own emotion, not from Iris. No one was close by and even if they were, they shouldn’t be confused. Eliza didn’t even need to tug at the source of the emotion to know where it originated.

That was suitable firewood.

Eliza sacrificed it into the fire and looked at her own abdomen. It was made simple by the fact that she was half-sitting and half-lying. She could feel the emotion get sucked in as if her Soul was a whirlpool of immense strength.

The confusion was gone and Eliza felt the flames of her Soul eat away at the emotion.

It could be felt within her chest and she felt immense pain. Enough to rattle her and drag her back to reality, forcing her to open her eyes and roar out in pain.

“Are you alright?” asked a frantic Iris, clutching onto Eliza’s hand.

Worry.

She could feel that.

Worry.

Eliza sacrificed the alien emotion as firewood and it was burnt to smithereens, powering the flames of her Soul again. It wasn’t as powerful and she could feel a comfortable warmth within her chest.

Using the opportunity, Eliza looked at her chest.

She knew what to see.

She knew that it was an orb no larger than a fist, red in color —all humans had a red Soul: it was common knowledge.

That’s when something snapped and her eyes opened.

The Qi that was created from Iris’s worry covered Eliza’s eyes and through it, she saw a pitch-black world lit up only by tiny balls of red. She could see further out than the confines of her room, able to perceive everyone in the mansion.

All of them were red save for one.

It was a deep purple.

A dwarf… that was Jane —dwarves had purple souls.

She knew that from the Compendium.

The sight disappeared as suddenly as it appeared and Eliza let out a deep sigh.

Mana coursing through her body didn’t hurt but using her Soul did?

That was ridiculous.

“It didn’t hurt like this before,” mumbled Eliza and her eyes snapped open, leaving her trance behind.

Why was she spouting nonsense?

“What didn’t?” asked Iris, even more worry flooding Eliza’s consciousness.

“It’s fine. Nothing,” said Eliza, worried that she’d worry Iris even further.

Eliza bit her lips and reminded herself again.

“Not mine,” she thought inside her head. She didn’t stop until she could distance herself away from the worry enough to realize that the worry wasn’t hers.

She wished she could unlearn Empathy…

The screen for the Soul Vision Skill popped before her eyes, explaining it in the same manner as it did Mana Vision. Almost like it was two halves of a whole: one from nature and the other from mortals…

 

 

Random Worldbuilding Fact 6: The Dwarves were created by Lady Space, the God of... well, Space, as they took up little space.