[Remaining of the 5th Year and Beginning of the 6th Year]

Thank you sincerely for the revisions that have been made in these last few days! I was pleasantly surprised by the support you all gave me, also I thank everyone who gave their Powerstones to this Work and those who ended up commenting on the chapters!

This is motivating me to try to improve my writing and the work more and more (∩^o^)⊃━☆゜! (wow, this emoticon is kind of... strange.)

Please let me know if there is any inconsistency or any part that I failed to translate; this chapter was... challenging. Many words I used ended up poorly placed/translated, so I had to search for several solutions until finding the best choice of words. Perhaps things may seem a bit strange.

[Words: 4.570]

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[Year 5 /- Year 6]

Half a year had passed since Vesper woke up and became some kind of 'disciple' to Serie.

[Remaining of Year 5]

Initially, things were quite hectic and even uncomfortable due to Serie's nervousness about Vesper's identity and Vesper's lack of social skills, which only worsened the situation by making him say the wrong things at terrible times.

Fortunately, as time passed with days turning into weeks and weeks turning into months, they slowly got used to talking to each other under the guise of 'study' and 'teaching,' allowing Serie to be more honest and discard her fear during these 'lessons' she provided to Vesper.

In the first few days, the lessons were extremely basic and simple, involving the [Mana] of this World, aiming to make Vesper understand how Mana emerged, functioned, and how it could be used by every living being.

Serie ended up thinking that it would be quite difficult to teach someone for the first time, but she was wrong when Vesper really devoted himself to the lessons regardless of how simple or repetitive an explanation or new concept presented was.

Vesper's dedication and patience ended up making Serie forced to admit that he was essentially a much better Mage than she was, because she herself hated it when she was forced to review the basics to finally be able to advance again.

After a full week of teaching Vesper, Serie was surprised to realize that all the basics had been completely understood by Vesper, making him already considered a Mage, even if he was still a Beginner Mage.

The result became even more concrete when she gave Vesper a kind of 'test' to conclude involving everything that had been taught to him during that week, and unsurprisingly: he aced the test completely, without showing any difficulty or uncertainty while doing it in less than five minutes.

This result left Serie astonished but in a way, more confident. For when she realized that Vesper was really taking her teachings seriously instead of disregarding or contesting her because he was a superior being (a God, according to Serie's interpretations), Serie developed a kind of confidence that made her more comfortable when interacting and talking with Vesper.

Vesper himself noticed this but didn't complain, find it uncomfortable, or even weird, it was quite the opposite. He was fascinated by Serie's change in behavior, making him even more excited to learn, it just so happens that he had developed a kind of passion when it came to 'studying,' he blamed Mr.G for this passion in studies.

After the first week of studies was completed, Serie taught Vesper about the types of Mages. There were countless types of Mages: those who devoted themselves purely to research, those who wanted to battle, those who wanted to learn as many spells as possible, there were so many types that it was impossible to mention all of them because the only thing that limited these types was the imagination of a mage.

[Year 5 - Seventh Month - Vesper's Self-Discovery/Vesper's Mage Type Choice]

During the teaching about the types of Mages, Serie ended up explaining to Vesper that he should seek the type of Mage he would like to become. After all, having a goal or objective in mind would make the journey extremely more gratifying, satisfying, and in a way: easier, this was something that every Mage in this world would have to do at some point in their life.

In normal cases, this kind of subject would only be discussed when someone was extremely experienced in the field of Magic but Serie decided otherwise, asking Vesper to focus on this instead of anything else. After all, she may not be old (only 275 years old) but considered herself quite experienced in the field of Magic for being a Great Mage, and precisely because of this, her methods were more advanced than the vast majority of mages when it came to teaching.

Vesper didn't question Serie's decision or her explanation, he initially didn't understand why but decided to trust her completely. She didn't show herself to be someone bad or dangerous during the time he spent with her and Serie's Destiny was far from being related to 'evil,' allowing him to place complete trust in her even though he had known her for just over a week.

In this way, Vesper went through one of his biggest mental challenges so far: deciding the type of path he would follow as a Mage. And it was precisely this part that made him spend not just one day or one week on it, but a whole month.

Vesper was kind of like a Child still, not that Serie knew that. She only considered him Young for his species and thought he was adapting his age to a more 'human' term, something that wasn't so uncommon among the Elves. If she knew this, maybe she would have left this decision for a later period of time.

Being a Child, Vesper had an extremely fertile imagination and was absurdly indecisive, because no matter how much he demonstrated an extremely high maturity for someone his age, he still acted quite childish and stupid most of the time. And precisely this that ended up making everything more difficult when it came to deciding his path as a Mage.

He would have asked the [System] or even [Mr.G.] about this, asking for help and advice, but something inside him said it was better not to do this. And not out of fear or danger but because Vesper felt it was necessary for him and only him to decide this path he would tread, maybe it was a kind of pride? ego? Vesper didn't know, but he decided to completely trust in it.

And so, he had spent a whole month thinking about the type of Mage he wanted to be, until he came to an Answer.

-He wanted to learn all types of Magic, especially positive and useful Magic. He wanted to be a Mage who would help people, guide them to a better path, and consequently, make these same people achieve the same satisfaction he always felt whenever he was taught by someone (Mr.G./Serie) and fully learned the proper teaching.-

-He would be a Mage who would travel Freely, not bound by any kind of circumstance, going through places, jumping between Worlds, to provide his Help even when not requested, after all, he was free to do whatever he wanted.-

This kind of Desire developed from the few experiences Vesper had, which provided him with extremely strong emotions. He had already felt Fear, Pain, Anger, Happiness, Despair, Helplessness, Euphoria, Pride, Sadness, and various other types of Emotions, but the ones that marked him the most were the ones that lasted the least: the Feeling of Freedom, when he reached a New level of strength when completing a [Test], the Feeling of Accomplishment when he learned something that Mr.G. taught him, the Feeling of Euphoria when he managed to completely nullify the actions of a Deadly Enemy.

All the Sensations that marked Vesper always related, even minimally, to the Intention of 'helping.' He began to like this and wanted to do more of it, he didn't just want to feel and be helped even though he liked it very much, he wanted to help others and make them feel the same as he did: a sense of security, that they wouldn't be alone and that they would have him by their side so they could feel safer and in a way: depend on him.

This was a thought that required a great deal of questioning to be completed. Things like 'What if the person doesn't want help?', 'What if the person is extremely evil?', 'What if the person treats you badly?', 'What if the person you're trying to help is actually hurting another?' Several questions that seemed to want to make his goal, no, his dream into nothing, emerged. But he didn't let himself be shaken by this.

As he had wished and decided, he was someone free. He was born in a world where only he existed and was put to fight, being guided by a much superior Power System that didn't try to make him feel 'empathy,' 'pity,' 'mercy,' he was created by a Power System that sought to make him strong and absolute so that he wouldn't be threatened by anything, by anyone. His Teacher, Mr.G., taught him to be careful with people, spoke about how rotten living beings can be and that there will never be just one side, this 'environment' in which Vesper grew up and developed made his sense of 'freedom' become as literal and absolute as possible.

He was Free. Truly Free. He would do what he thought was right and felt like, regardless of the consequences his actions could cause. He liked helping people and would help them, he would be bothered and annoyed if he started to feel that people were trying to 'chain' him somewhere so he would help them forever, he would hurt others to help those he was interested in, regardless of the situation on the other side. He was created for this, he was this.

An entity created with the idea of Fun, Freedom, outside the threads of Destiny and away from any concept making him incapable of being judged, HE just WAS. HE would just BE. He wouldn't be defined by anything and wouldn't let anything try to define him, because that would restrict his freedom.

[Year 5 - Eighth Month]

When Vesper finished his self-discovery and had completely decided, he simplified the type of Mage he wanted to be for Serie. His answer, as expected, was met with a surprised look from Serie. She found this answer rather childish, but she didn't try to change Vesper's view or judge him; she just chuckled and accepted this answer cheerfully.

It seemed that his answer had transformed Serie's opinion of him; she seemed even more comfortable around him afterward, and the fear was slowly disappearing.

With the question of the Mage type concluded, Serie moved on to advanced teachings. These teachings involved how Magic Circles worked, how people typically controlled Mana to unleash spells, the types of spells that existed in this world, and finally, the interaction of the Physical with the Astral.

If any Human Mage (from the future) saw what Serie considered 'advanced,' they would be astounded; what she was teaching Vesper was beyond advanced. It was the kind of thing that only the greatest Mages would begin to study after decades of learning.

Not that Serie, who had always been a monster in Magic, knew or considered this. Or even Vesper, who simply trusted Serie too much to consider what she was teaching him as 'wrong' or 'difficult'; he believed in her and used her teachings to build a solid foundation for himself, a foundation that would allow him to move freely without being restricted by barriers of knowledge.

Thus, the Eighth Month was completely filled with these types of studies. Serie was sometimes surprised by Vesper, who had doubts about certain parts and asked her about them, causing her to be surprised by some of Vesper's questions: things she had never noticed and, after listening, began to study and consider for herself until reaching an answer, evolving.

In a way, Vesper's extremely evolved mind, the mind of a Veserithorn, allowed him to perceive minute details in extremely complex things without much difficulty. He just needed a Foundation and his imagination to work so that he could start creating countless questions that would be slowly answered by himself, stopping when he reached some 'limit' in his knowledge or something that required knowledge from outside the current subject he was studying.

And it was exactly because of this that this Eighth month worked wonders for both sides; they seemed like two psychotic scholars who didn't know of their labs for nothing, completely focused on their projects.

By the end of the month, both seemed to be beginning to form more concrete opinions about each other, opinions that would soon create a bond of friendship.

[Progress of the Eighth Month: [Mastery: Magic Circle (1 --> 20)], [Mastery: Mana (1 --> 30)], [Mastery: Worldly Language (1 --> 2)]]

[Year 5 - Ninth Month]

The Ninth month had begun, and both were discussing other types of subjects since Vesper had finished learning the previous topics. It seemed to take him at most 1 week to 1 month to learn whatever Serie taught him, turning studies that would take decades, even hundreds of years, to complete into simple 'homework' that would be finished in no time.

This pace of evolution that Vesper had left Serie increasingly certain that Vesper didn't lie about anything; this doubt always existed even though she had every reason to believe. It seemed so surreal. But this doubt gradually disappeared as she spent more time with Vesper.

Unnoticed by both sides, they were extremely strange in the way they acted. They were 'glued' to each other almost all day, only separating for more intimate tasks like bathing, going to the bathroom, and such. They didn't see any problem with this, nor did they consider it strange; they were both socially uninformed and unaware of 'personal boundaries,' and didn't bother to set these boundaries.

They acted extremely close even though internally they were only just beginning to consider themselves friends now, which in a way made the future of both of them worrisome when they evolved into 'true friends' or worse: 'best friends.'

...

The Ninth Month was filled with a series of basic spells that Serie began teaching Vesper. These spells were only meant to move Mana from the environment in minimal amounts so that he could get used to using magic circles after learning about them. Vesper now needed to put his studies into practice and not just keep them theoretical, and that's exactly what Serie did.

By teaching useless spells, which were within his 'capacity,' Serie got Vesper used to using basic Magic Circles until he became completely accustomed, which was quite... difficult, to say the least.

Vesper didn't need to use Magic Circles to use Magic; he could simply command it, and it would happen. Vesper was simply ridiculous; this kind of thing worked like an 'instinct' that he had to modify so that he thought about using Magic Circles, which had their utility.

In the Eighth Month, when Serie discovered the uselessness of Magic Circles for Vesper, she questioned whether it really made any sense for him to memorize much of magical studies to finally use spells, finding this kind of thing useless if he could simply command Mana and make it happen, but Vesper contested this.

His mind was far ahead of the Magic of this world, which was just beginning to be developed. There wasn't a single piercing Magic in the World yet, of how delayed Magic was. Thus Vesper's mind managed to raise points and theories that wouldn't even be raised in 1,500 years in the future.

He commented that Magic Circles could serve other purposes besides helping people concentrate Mana to cast a spell. Magic Circles could reduce the Mana cost needed to cast a spell, as well as apply additional conditions and effects on the Mana affected by the circles to make the Spell come out in a supernatural way.

Serie considered this topic for a while and found it simply brilliant; she was extremely willing to try it. But both she and Vesper knew how difficult this was, especially Vesper, because what he had in mind when he suggested this was something... absurd, so to speak.

He somehow wanted to cast a fireball that if it hit something resistant to fire, it would instantly become a lightning ball or an ice ball, activating the condition imposed on the Mana. And this was simply absurd because it would mean that there would be no defense against this type of Magic, as long as there were conditions and enough imagination to apply in offensive Magic.

Serie didn't know this because Vesper decided not to comment on this part because he somehow felt that Serie would be discouraged with the idea of ​​giving Magic Circles the utility of 'conditions.'

It was through this that this Ninth Month was created; Serie set aside half the day to teach Vesper about more mundane aspects of Magic that still needed to be said to Vesper while the other half was exclusively focused on both parties trying to give this purpose to Magic Circles. Getting Vesper accustomed to using Magic Circles was the first step for him to help Serie with this; she didn't seem to use the simple logic of 'he's a beginner, he won't help me.'

Serie was Crazy, she was a Great Mage even in an era where Magic was underdeveloped; she was probably the only one who could do more than 100 different spells even in 500+ years. Being Crazy and extremely studious, Serie didn't think like normal, unnecessarily arrogant powerful Mages; she considered Vesper's existence extremely high due to his history and the mind he had to be a Mage, an absurdly advanced and insightful mind capable of miracles with simple suggestions.

Thus, in the middle of the Ninth Month, the real difficult part began. Every Mage had their way of casting Magic through Magic Circles; it could be said that Magic Circles were simply the 'signature' of a Mage. Developing their own Magic Circles was the true beginning of becoming a Mage, the true first part independent of any theoretical class that someone could suggest. And that's what Vesper was doing at this time; he was studying how to develop his own Magic Circle.

So far, Magic Circles were merely beautiful in appearance and woven so that they had unique visual characteristics, because their purpose was purely to control Mana and nothing more for Mages, thanks to this it was possible to make these visual alterations (even if they were absurdly difficult, showing how high the level of a Mage was based on how complex the appearance of his Magic Circle was).

And this 'basic' knowledge began to change from now on, in the hands of Vesper and Serie, who had returned to basics. The Elf had started creating a magic circle from scratch with the intention of trying to apply condition or effect to Mana through this circle; she had erased her previous magic circle because she knew she couldn't start from something that was already unnecessarily complex just to have a beautiful appearance. At least not now. And exactly for this reason, she had started to do everything from scratch, alongside Vesper.

They studied the Mana's reaction to every simple shape that was made when trying to conjure a symbol for the circle; they observed how unstable the magic became when making certain changes in the magic circle and even how much Mana was spent according to such a change, trying to instill the idea of reducing Mana on initial and larger scales. They were swimming through a completely new magical sea, and Serie was in love with it; she was loving every new piece of knowledge she acquired while trying to do this kind of thing; she had always been and always will be addicted to acquiring new knowledge involving Mana or even Magic, Spells. Perhaps because it was a species that was quite intimate with Mana? Serie didn't know, but she didn't care; she was quite satisfied.

The rest of the Ninth Month passed with both focused on magic circles because Vesper had already finished studying other parts, in just one week.

[Progress of the Ninth Month: [Mastery: Magic Circle (20 --> 26)], [Mastery: Mana (30 --> 37)] - (Comparison (Serie): [Magic Circle (50 --> 53], [Mana (51 --> 55])]

[Year 6 - Beginning]

The last few months had passed, and a new year had begun.

Serie and Vesper had finally become friends, truly, instead of just appearing to be friends. All the discomfort between them had vanished, and they seemed more at ease when conversing with each other. Serie no longer seemed like the 'monotonous' elf who barely spoke from when they first met. She now initiated most of the conversations with Vesper and hardly let the conversation end unless an hour or more had passed. She loved how she received new perspectives from someone who now knew almost as much as she did.

In the six months Vesper spent learning from Serie, he became an extremely high-level Mage in terms of 'pure knowledge.' He could now debate and discuss theories with Serie amicably, discuss different uses of spells, or even hypothesize about Mana. Serie had taught Vesper with all her heart; she refused to let such talent and now friendship go to waste. And because of this dedication Serie had, figuratively speaking, created a Mana monster that would revolutionize the use of Mana in the world. Or rather, that had already revolutionized it.

Both had progressed enormously and, in a way, completed Vesper's idea of ​​applying [Mana Cost Reduction] and [Condition] to Magic Circles, but this was only partially complete from their perspective. This kind of idea could only be applied to spells of extremely large scale because more than ten magic circles would be created on top of each other, as if a kind of multi-story dungeon were being slowly built while establishing its stability. It was impossible for now to use this kind of thing for simpler spells, but they were pursuing this kind of thing now that they had managed to apply a simple condition and reduce the spell's cost by 10%.

It was precisely when they completed this research that they hugged each other in happiness and at the same time became true friends. Both took care of each other in a way, which made their coexistence, study, and other daily tasks more comfortable due to how simple their interaction was.

Serie couldn't teach Vesper the last part of her knowledge because it was something she was unable to put into words; it was her personal spell that was basically absolute against the kind of Magic demons had: Curses. It wasn't as if Serie was unwilling to share her personal Magic with Vesper; it was the total opposite. She WANTED Vesper to learn this Magic, but he would first need to experience in person what a Curse was, the sensation of this Magic, and how it worked. And unfortunately, this was something that only demons could use, making it impossible for Serie to pass the last part of her knowledge to Vesper, only teaching the basics about curses.

Because of this, Vesper's study was officially considered complete, and in a way, Serie became quite apprehensive, thinking that Vesper would now leave this place and travel the world. She thought she would be alone again, somewhat attached to Vesper for being his First and True Friend in her 276 years of existence. To Serie's happiness and surprise, Vesper said he didn't plan to leave this place anytime soon. There were endless things that could be done here before he finally left, making the Elf quite happy (which is a lot, considering how difficult it is for an elf to feel an emotion intensely).

Their lives now consisted of waking up > general needs > theorizing and studying; they did nothing else.

Unknown to Serie, Vesper became so involved in this kind of thing, loving every second he spent studying and learning, that he simply forgot, again, about the System and especially about [Chat]. Initially, this was done because Vesper wanted to learn without shortcuts; it would be much more rewarding this way. But after putting decades of knowledge into his head in a half-month interval, Vesper ended up leaving behind everything he no longer used: the System, after all, he was a child who was learning things at an extremely high speed, it was normal for him to instinctively unlearn certain things.

...

A strange event occurred at the beginning of the Sixth Month. Serie and Vesper were notified, through a magical bird (from Serie), that something drastic that would change the world had happened.

The tomb of a King they had never heard of had been built, and not long after this tomb entered an extremely rapid state of [Erosion], causing it to become a home for Monsters in a short time: becoming a Dungeon.

[End of the Mythical Era]

[Beginning of the Unified Dynasty Era] - (200 years before the Era of The Great Mage Flamme)

END

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And that's it! Another chapter done.

I was thinking, since this type of writing doesn't bring much depth to most of the events that may end up being narrated, what do you think about me starting to write 'Side-Chapters'? But instead of these 'Side-Chapters' telling about things that will happen in the future of the work, 'What-Ifs' or things like that, they end up detailing certain events that happened in these short narratives of the years?

Tell me what you think about it. The intervals between the Years will start getting higher as time goes on, because there will come a time when I won't have anything else for Vesper to learn in this World, besides him going out and experiencing the world and its society. It would be strange if I could write in detail about new things and new content for over 1,200 years...

Or maybe I can? ( ＾◡＾)っ✂(Intention)

...

What did you think of the little narrative about Vesper's 'self-discovery'? Was it too forced? Did it shake too much? Did I write it strangely? I personally liked it, but I, as a writer, feel the immersion much more easily than you, readers, do, because it's much easier for me to go into details and imagine the situation better, so my opinion doesn't count T^T

The result for the future of the work is good, and I'll enjoy showing this result over time, which will shed light on the topic raised at the beginning of the work involving Vesper's 'Destiny Theft,' where I mentioned that sometimes he will steal the Destiny of many important characters and even Protagonists. I'm slowly building a stage for the future ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

...

Gradually, I will implement the previous suggestions that were commented on and approved by me, so no rush. Everything will come with time.

Any suggestion, whether it's about: Character, World, Interaction, Powers, Events, Scripts, and everything else, can be said in this little guy down here. I will read and consider all, even comment and debate for more details if necessary! ≽ ^ • ⩊ • ^ ≼

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