21 Pre-Awkening of Magic

Alex ended up reading the entire book through the night because of the surprisingly interesting information it had.

The book he was reading was named 'Pre-Awakening of Magic'. It included all appearances of pre mature magic awakening and methodology for doing so recorded so far, this was what he exactly needed.

With the looming threat of the annexation on Beljaris he had to strengthen and make a name for himself as fast as possible but not so he could fight off the annexation because that would be nothing but a pipe dream. Even for a super genius like Matthew it took around 60 years to simply become a Maverick which could be said to just stepping into the final stage and even then there was no guarantee one could defend the attack from Aerilon and Maurya which themselves had several Mavericks if put together.

But fortunately if there was anything that could rival the sheer prowess of one side on a battle it was information and Alex had exactly that.

All he needed to do was gain as much recognition as possible in Beljaris so that his information could be trusted upon without being questioned where did it come from. Afterall no one would ever believe if one day a kid announced that the two great empires would attack Beljaris soon.

So to put some weight in his words he had to gain recognition and to gain recognition one needed to achieve impossible feats. The tier one to three patents that he made could be said to be one of them but on a mortal scale what he needed was something magical, something mythical to convince the masses.

Alex had 6 more years to act although much but when your enemies are two great empires there's never enough time to prepare.

Alex started contemplating about the things that the book mentioned as he looked at the starry night sky through the transparent roof of his room.

The book said that there were only three ways to awaken magic.

First being, the use of external drugs, potions or pills to speed the growth of body which came with its own side effects. The technique was good until mid-levels because it clearly stated that the hidden injuries occurred while speeding up the growth would make the cultivation harder after mid-levels. It was similar to abandoning one's potential for temporary gains.

Second was the grafting of magic core, it stated that magic could be absorbed by the body if a core was placed inside it but it had many limitations.

The core needed to be fresh which meant Alex would have to hunt for a living magic user above the foundation stage (level 10) because only after foundation stage would the core develop.

Also after removing the core from the target it would decay rapidly with time so Alex would also need to hunt not just one but many living magic users.

To add to this complex process, he would also need to undergo a surgery to place each core in his body every single time and to stay in an isolated environment to restrict the flow of magic from the core as much as possible outside of his body.

Magic was also a form of energy so it would always flow from a higher density to lower density region but it required a special medium to do so. A human body could be said to be one of the best conductors of magic and the soul could be described as a battery which held this magic inside a human without letting it seep away.

Alex even after hypothetically considering that he could arrange several bodies gave up the thought because of its sheer complexity and inefficient awakening of magic.

The third method was the one that attracted him the most, 'taboo cultivation books'.

These were books that allowed the awakening of magic but at a price. The price depended from one book to another. The fortunate fact about these books was that they were not super rare or anything but were as the name suggested taboo and thus either strictly controlled by the government or in possession of powerful families. These books were nigh impossible for the local citizens to obtain unless through some background shady channels.

Many examples of 'The price that was to be paid' was also mentioned in the book that Alex read. It included vicious ways like sacrifice of loved ones, flesh of thousand corpses, souls of a 100 virgins, beating hearts of a hundred babies, etc.

But one among them intrigued him the most because the price mentioned here was 'the sheer agony of death'.

Being someone who had died once Alex could confidently say he had experienced this similar feeling before. He tried to avoid recalling the exact memories though, it was a major struggle through out his life so far to bury them in a corner of his mind because whenever he recalled them it was as if he would fall into the deepest depths of despair.

Alex majored psychology in his past so he knew this was caused due to the post-traumatic stress of the incident but there was something more to it than just simply stress. It was like a demon in his heart and mind, a demon which he had to get rid of one day and the best way to get rid of it was to get revenge but right now he was incapable so he just decided to calm down.

Alex wanted to know more about this method and the taboo cultivation book which intrigued him the most but unfortunately the Lamarka household's library had already been squeezed out of knowledge by Alex in all these years and the book he read just then could be said to be one of the most advanced of them all.

Alex knew if he had to get his hands on more info he had to either enter Military school and snoop around, search into his dad's personal computer or convince Sebastian to tell him and clearly the last option was the easiest and fastest of them all.

Sebastian had taught almost everything he knew to Alex except for the dark matters of the world which a kid wasn't supposed to know and magic skills and related stuff which one could only learn after awakening magic.

Sebastian was not his master in a real sense but more like a tutor afterall he was getting paid for his lectures even so Sebastian and Alex had a good relation afterall they had been in contact with each other for many years.

So Alex decided to give Sebastian a call but when he looked at his smart watch to call Sebastian he stopped himself as it was already 5 am in the morning.

Alex yawned and went to sleep eagerly as he was also kind of excited to see his interview which would be aired at noon. It was his first high profile interview afterall.