Magic!

Seth woke up in the same position he went unconscious. He opened his eyes, it was still light out. Seth slowly got up from the ground and looked around, Agustus was still lying on the ground. Judging by the amount of his blood on the ground, it had only been a few minutes. Seth clenched his fists, he felt many times more powerful than before. He opened the system.

---

Seth Berner

Mortal

(ascended strength soul)

total: 998,805,084

Intelligence [2,059]

Body Strength [2,191]

Vitality [2,133]

Soul Strength [772,339,184]

Luck [2,000]

Magic [1,000]

Magic Regeneration [1,000]

[skills]

[shop]

---

His stats had more than doubled, the small amounts of extra stats were probably from his growth. He now had two more stats and there was a new tab. For some reason, his stats did not seem to reflect how he felt. He opened the skills tab, he wanted to know what they did and how to use them.

---

(to activate skills, think their names)

[Inspect] Active

[Basic Dispel] Active

[Basic Heal] Active

[Basic Strength] Passive

[Basic Regeneration] Passive

[Basic All Weapons Mastery] Passive

[Basic All Affinities Mastery] Passive

---

There were a lot of skills, more than half of them were passive though. The reason he felt much stronger than what his stats showed probably had something to do with Basic Strength. The names of the skills were very intuitive so he didn't feel the need to ask what they did. He did, however, ask the system to include the effects of his skills into his stats screen. His Bodily Strength was actually 4382 and his vitality was sitting at 3199.

Seth looked around after closing the window, he saw little colored lights floating around everywhere. Seeing the lights, he felt an unknown power well up inside him. He felt like those lights would bend to his every will. It must be magic, the Basic All Affinities Mastery must be the culprit. Seth noticed that although all the colors were floating around, it was mostly a majority of whitish-blue in the sky. On the ground, the lights were mostly brown.

Seth looked over at his dying brother, he was filled with green, gold, and black colors. The green lights were slowly seeping out of his body and the black lights were taking over. Seth cast Inspect.

---

Augustus Berner

Lower Mortal

(dying)

(deviation)

(light's apostle)

(pseudo-transformed)

Intelligence [284]

Body Strength [397]

Vitality [385]

Soul Strength [288]

Luck [273]

Magic [364]

Magic Regeneration [343]

[skills]

---

Seth didn't have time to think, he immediately cast Basic Heal on his brother, green lights flew into his body. He felt like some of his new energy was depleted, a minuscule amount though. It was immediately restored back to full. He checked his brother's status again, he was no longer dying but he was still fatally injured. Seth felt like the number of green lights that went back into his brother's body was not nearly enough, he could do so much better even without the special skill. He commanded the green lights in a 20-foot radius around his brother to move. All of the green lights converged into his brother's body, he rapidly regenerated and was fully healed. The black lights that had been pouring into his body had been completely pushed out.

Seth looked around, all of the grass had wilted. The previously lively area had become lifeless and dull. He felt that the amount of energy he had used had increased by ten times, it had still recovered instantaneously though. His brother still looked like an abomination and his body was lifeless. It must be the deviation and pseudo-transformed notes. Seth cast Basic Dispel, he saw what it did to the motes of light and copied it with greater force. Dispel pushed out the non-green lights, now Augustus's body only had green lights in it.

Augustus stirred and his body slowly shrank back into its normal form, the black goo dissipated and he looked like the battle never happened. Seth checked his status one last time before he left him alone.

---

Augustus Berner

Lower Mortal

(light's apostle) [Broken]

Intelligence [288]

Body Strength [415]

Vitality [402]

Soul Strength [291]

Luck [74]

Magic [387]

Magic Regeneration [353]

[skills]

---

Seth's actions had removed every ailment but the light's apostle was still there, just broken. Now Seth had one more thing to worry about, his brother could become a demonic being and try to kill him at any time. His stats had actually increased, probably because of the lights that had been poured into his body. He didn't know what Lower Mortal meant, but it was probably based on his stats.

Seth tried to control the brown lights in the ground. After a little experimentation, he found that through controlling the brown motes, he could control the actual earth around him. He just had to make them push and pull the earth and he could do anything. He controlled them to make holes in the ground under the bodies and debris from the fight. He filled the holes back up with dirt and the ground looked good as new. Seth realized that he hadn't even needed to do that as he had his inventory. He opened his inventory in the same way he had used his skills and put away the bodies and trash. He was surprised as he hadn't even needed to touch the things to put them in his inventory. Everything took a total of four inventory spaces, one for each type of item. He still had 9996 spots left.

All done cleaning up, Seth walked over to his brother and picked him up as he had started to wake. Augustus awoke in his brother's tiny hands, he tried to struggle free but was held in an iron grip. He didn't remember anything after meeting his brother with his dad.

"Seth? Where are we?" Augustus looked Seth in the eyes.

"We are outside the castle. You fell asleep on our walk to meet your friends."

"What? Why don't I remember that?"

"I don't know Augie." Seth set down his brother and let him walk. Luckily, he didn't bother too much about it and quickly moved on.

While walking back to the front of the castle, Seth practiced controlling the lights. It was dumb to call them lights, they were magical elements. The new energy he had was called magic, the system literally called it that. Seth controlled the earth elements to move around and made them form shapes.

Augie happened to notice that Seth was concentrating on something else.

"What are you thinking about?"

"Ah, I'm trying to move the little lights."

"Brother can see the lights too?"

"Yes, I can see the lights. They even listen to what I say."

"Wow!"

Seth thought, his brother had magic. Of course, he could see the magic elements floating around. But he couldn't see the ones he was moving, maybe it had something to do with affinities. His brother probably had a light affinity and maybe a life or death one too. His near-death and infusion with life elements probably gave him a bit of affinity.

Seth went back to controlling the earth. He made shapes behind him as he walked and used the earth as a mapping system. Looking at the wind elements, he decided to do the same thing. He made a full 3d map everywhere he went.

There were light footsteps behind the two brothers. Seth felt the earth and wind elements react to the man. He was a guard, fully dressed up in plate mail. He seemed to be trying to go unnoticed as he was moving as silently as possible. Of course, that proved useless with Seth's elemental map.

"Who are you and why are you following us?"

"..." The man stayed silent. Augie looked back. When he saw the man, his expression filled with joy.

"Uncle Phillip!"

"..."

"Helloo~ What are you doing here?"

"..."

"Augie do you know this man?" Seth was surprised, this guy must be Augie's personal guard or something. He looked around, they had arrived at a courtyard at the side of the palace. It was a garden, there were life elements floating around everywhere. Seth noticed a plant that was filled with water and fire elements, he walked over to it.

"What's this?" Seth looked to Phillip.

"It's an icefire flower, young master." Phillip finally spoke. His voice was cool and smooth, as if he were expecting the question. Augie laughed, apparently his question was stupid. Seth sighed. He was just a newborn, how could he possibly know the name of a flower. At least Phillip had some common sense to know Seth wasn't an omnipotent god.

Seth watched the flower for a bit before he tried to control the elements in it. He moved the fire into his right hand and the water into his left. The flower withered immediately, the fire and water elements were its life. Once he took them away, its life was gone and it died.

Phillip stared at Seth in amusement. Seth was already such a monster, and now he had two affinities that he could already control. He would surely lead a good life. Augie, on the other hand, watched in amazement as Seth manipulated the elements to release water and fire respectively. He formed little figures from the flames and water. They were him and his brother. Standing side by side, one of fire, the other water, holding hands.

Seth let go of his control after a few seconds, the elements drifted away. Why did he do that? He had no reason, he thought it would be fun. It seems like he was being infected by his body, his Soul Strength and Intelligence could do nothing against his own body. He still needed to entertain himself because his body and actual brain were that of a child. The brain may not be the full controller of his body, but it controlled some things at least.

Seth was immersed in his thoughts, only for a second, before he noticed that Phillip looked surprised and Augie was looking at him funny.

"What?" These two sure are weird.

"Look..." Augie pointed at the ground around Seth. It was more lively than ever, even the dead icefire flower was alive and blooming. He had unknowingly caused the elements to gather around him, they had gone into the plants and made them grow. There were a few elements missing for some reason, perhaps some of them required special environments to appear.

The trio went back to the castle entrance after observing the garden. Phillip stayed a little farther away from Seth than he had before. The show with elements probably had something to do with that. They walked through the castle and went back to the room that Seth and Augie had left just a couple of hours earlier. Arthur had left, but Elizabeth was still sitting in the room.

Seth and Augie walked into the room and sat down, Phillip stayed outside. Elizabeth looked at the boys, her eyes sharpened. It seemed as if she was looking into their souls. Seth shuddered, he saw elements floating around his mother en masse. She probably had a much higher affinity with all of them than he did.

"Hi, mom." Seth tried to act cool. It didn't seem to work, Elizabeth just stared him down.

"Do you have something you wish to tell me, Seth?" Her voice was calm, but Seth felt like he was being stared at by a predator.

"No, there is nothing."

Elizabeth stopped staring at him, conceding after realizing that Seth didn't want to talk. She looked to Augie instead.

"Augie, go lead your brother to his new room."

"Yes, mommy!" Augie hadn't noticed anything. He grabbed Seth's arm and led him out of the room. They made their way down the halls and reached Seth's room. Augie and Seth said their goodbyes and Seth went inside. It was very lavish, much like the rest of the castle. He lay on the bed in thought.

Seth looked back at what he had done today, he was too rash. He was never like this in his previous life, maybe his new body was influencing his decisions. He had never liked fighting in the past and would rather have just run from everything. This must be a side effect of his new body, and not a good one either.

Seth also thought back to his fight with the knights. Thinking back, he was surprised by the quality of the sword that the knight had used when trying to kill him. It had been very well made and had no weak points whatsoever, the crushing force had been redistributed throughout its entire blade. Resulting in the shards being as small as needles, small enough to flow like water. If it was being used in a fair sword battle, it would have lasted the longest. The smiths in this world had very likely far exceeded Earth's.

Seth continued with his thoughts until he lulled himself to sleep.