Chapter 2: Magic and A new friend Part 1

He starts to look at the various titles of the books that are on the floor. Shockingly, he can read most of the titles. He learned from an early age that knowledge can help you survive, in a world where you are unwanted.

So with the growing abandonment of books for ebooks Ghost could find a couple of the least liked genres of literature. Especially any of the for dummies books since tutorials are everywhere on their modern day internet.

Books are a great way to learn important things, so he starts to sort the various books into three categories. The first category is books that aren't that important for his current predicament. Which are books about heroes, politics and other useless things?

Hero's may be exciting but it's often exaggerated and tends to be the same in the end! A boring story where the hero kills the demon king and the end.

While in reality even if the hero successfully killed a demon king then what happens afterward is what everyone really starts to wonder about after reading it so many times.

The second category is how to books. They ranged from how to hold different weapons all the way to how to identify different types of plants.

The third category is books that he still couldn't read even with the auto-translation. He hopes that they are about powerful magic and that whoever was translating the language for him thought that he should learn how to read it naturally.

His only hope is that Liz had some knowledge about these books and didn't just keep them for collectors purposes.

The history books are easy to determine thanks to the title and most looked like they were not handwritten.

The how-to types of books were not as easy to determine. Some are like the books for dummies, while others look to be handwritten notes from researchers. The special books are the easiest to find because he couldn't understand them at all.

The first thing that he does is put all the books from the first category into the empty bookshelves that the tiny hut is filled with. -Might as well read and wait till Liz wakes up-. He thought while he opens up a book about how to treat different wounds.

-Is she ok the sun is going down yet she is still laying there asleep.-

He gets up from reading on the floor and heads towards the sleeping Liz. "Miss are you ok?" He asks with no reply so he starts to shake her a little bit being worried about her old age.

"Hmm, what is all the loud ruckus for?" Liz finally manages to open her old tired sapphire blue eyes. "Lad, don't you know it's rude to wake up a sleeping lady?"

"You have been asleep since I got here, so I was worried something was wrong with you."

"Oh really, how long were you waiting for me then?"

"I don't know how time works in this world! All I know is when I came in the sun was still high in the sky, but now it's getting dark and my stomach is telling me I've been here for a while." He immediately starts to complain without thinking like the young child he is.

"This world?" Liz ponders for a little bit. "Ah, I see you're the product of that ridiculous magic circle that is in the castle." She seems visibly happy and even claps after figuring out who he is.

"You know the kid I never trusted that magic circle. Now I have proof I was right and that arrogant king was wrong." A grin of pure bliss appears on her old faded lips.

"Uhh, he was right I just kinda got dragged along with my sister who he calls the hero. He also told me that you would take care of me while my sister is of being a hero and such." He corrects her about his sad predicament while scratching his head.

"So he is already using the favor from the bet huh."

"Uh, what bet miss." He asks her while his face screams of young curiosity.

"Nothing much just a bet if the summon works or is a hoax. You here are living evidence I was wrong and he was right." She dejectedly says.

"So do you understand what those books over there say?" He points towards the books that he can't read wondering about their contents and completely changing the subject.

"Yes and no can I read most of them, yes, but I can't really comprehend completely what everything says. I am also not one hundred percent sure about the more complicated books." She replies with a glint of sorrow in her old eyes.

"But aren't you some grand archmage that the king asked to come here for advice on the summoning circle?" Since he was young he always dreamed of magic and thought it would be his way out of the hell that he's been living in for what feels like an eternity.

"Nope! I'm just an old lady that finds magic interesting, but sadly has no talent for it. I kept collecting these books because I hoped I had some special magic that appears once every blue moon. But no turns out I have no talent for it zit nata nothing." She shatters the fantasy that every old person in a fantasy world is secretly a powerful person.

"But you can teach me how to read basic magic right?"

"Of course I can. Why? You want to learn how to use magic too?" A spark of fire finally starts to appears in her old almost lifeless eyes.

"Yes, the only magic that existed in my world was for party tricks and stealing which no one would ever teach an orphan like me about. The magic of this world is probably a hundred times cooler than the fake sleight of hand from my world."

"Well fine, I'm stuck with you anyways, just don't get your hopes up it's my first time teaching anyone after all." She slowly gets up from lying down on a couch that's in a random corner of the hut.

"Thank you, miss!" He hugs her out of excitement which knocks her back into the couch.

"Just call me Liz everyone does anyway."

"Ok, Liz!"

"Now let's see where is that book." She pauses for a moment and looks around in confusion. "Wait! Did you pick up all of the books off the floor?"

"Yes, is something wrong with that granny Liz?" He calls her granny out of instinct thinking that he ended up doing something terribly wrong.

"No, I'm just shocked because I can finally see the floor it's been a while since I could do that." A mischievous grin flashes.on her old face for a second.

"Also it will probably be harder for me to teach you. Seeing how I have no idea where the correct books corresponding to the magic text are."

"Wait, what do you mean by that?" He seems to not understand that she's just playing with him, but that's to be expected from a little kid no matter what he's been through.

"Well, you see I had written down notes in a journal for each of the books that I could understand, but you separated the two of them. It may have looked like a mess in your eyes, but in mine, I could probably find anything and everything that you would ever need. Oh well. More work for you I guess."

She gets up off the couch again and starts to slowly head to another room.

"Wait! You aren't helping me with this?!" He seems shocked about how she seems to not care about finding her own journals and is treating it as only his problem.

"Nope consider it a challenge! You may even learn your precious magic faster this way and if not then you will learn that not everything comes on a silver platter."

"You have to work hard to get what you want and if you are born with special magic to let me tell you this."

She stops for a second and looks out the cracked window. Her eyes look like they are looking far into the distance. Almost as if they were looking directly into her past.

She then snaps out of her daze and continues explaining. "You're going to have to work twice as much compared to an ordinary mage. From my research, if you have a different ability than everyone else you have to find how to use it yourself." She then continues off into the other room.

He inwardly curses his urges to do something when he's bored and makes a promise to himself that he won't clean things without permission. He looks over all the books that he already confirmed was about magic with pain knowing that he had a lot of work ahead of him.

He decides to ignore the magic books which probably hold vast amounts of knowledge and goes to the history and legends pile. He double checks if any of the books were actually research notes and to his surprise, Liz liked naming some of her research notes in vague terms. It might even be encrypted with a handmade code.

He stares at the weirdly written book with an annoyed expression before going to where Liz is to ask her about them. "Liz is some of your research notes in code?"

"Hmm? Oh, yea the lesser magic books are. I was paranoid at the time, so the first couple of books were written in code."

"You at least remember how to decode it right?" He asks for help while knowing that she probably won't help him with this at all. She probably doesn't even remember that she wrote some of these in code and will use it as an excuse for more training.

"Nope! But I already know the information so I can figure out the code whenever I want to. Let me tell you what. You figure out the code and I'll tell you if you choose the right book to go with those notes."

"Sounds like the best option I have right now." He sighs while cursing the old lady under his breath about all the tests she's asking him to do.

He probably wouldn't be so against it if she was strong since different people tend to get different treatment no matter how you put things.

"Well, they better get busy if you're really that curious about magic."

He immediately goes searching for books that make no sense at all but can at least read the letters. There are probably hundreds of books here, but there should only be one coded research notes per beginning magic guide. He quickly finds a couple weird books out of the pile and starts making a separate stack.

He gets faster as he goes on thanks to being familiar with her code and title naming habits. He also started to find which books were hers and which weren't because of her distinct handwriting.

After all that work is done he seems to have to sort them from coded to uncoded because he needs the coded to understand the basics. If he learns the basics then he might be able to understand her other notes.

"Huh? Granny it's nearly impossible to tell whether it's coded or not!"

She comes out of another room. "What do you mean by that?" She asks while she picks up one of the books.

"I mean I don't understand the code nor the complex stuff, so how am I supposed to differentiate between the two."

"Well, that is easy the complex stuff, as you put it, will actually have something to do with magic. The coded will not seem like it has anything to do with magic. Isn't that why I coded it in the first place?"

She decides that it would be wise to at least teach him some simple logical things since she thought he'd already been able to put those two things together.

"I never thought about it like that. You're right I'm sorry for not thinking it through." He almost hits his forehead because of his inability to think of something so simple.

"Oh no dear, you just need to learn to look at the world not only through your eyes but through others as well."

He starts to realize that even if this old lady is weak she still has a lot of knowledge to teach him and that he's been a bit rude for not listening to her.

And it turns out that she's right! Now that he starts to look at these notes like she said to it starts to become easier to see which are which. "Done! Liz I'm done sorting out the coded and the complex."

"Good, but you shouldn't get too focused with work you were complaining about hunger when I woke up, but now look it's much later and you still haven't eaten a thing."

As she says that he starts to realize that his stomach has been yelling at the world and his nose has been smell something delicious.

"Good thing while you were sorting I decided to cook up an ancient family recipe. Cooked slime!" She says with the straightest face that Ghost as ever seen in his life.

"Just kidding, even though I have heard of crazies in the guard trying to eat slime before. Just a rotisserie chicken that I tend to cook to make broth out of later will be enough to fill out empty bellies."

She takes out a glistering brown chicken with its fatty skin still attached. She then takes out a knife and cuts out a generous portion of it for Ghost.

When the aroma of the chicken hits his nose he finally realizes how starved he's lived his life. It smells heavenly, but then again he's stomach may have just overruled all of his other senses and might just be playing tricks on him.

He eats his portion of the meal as fast as he could without thinking of all the stomach problems that may happen from overfilling his starved belly. He finishes his first ever home cooked meal before he can even get a real good taste of it.

"Wow, you sure were hungry."

"Yeah! That's the first home cooked meal I've ever had before. Go ahead and eat your portion granny I don't need any more, because I think I might of overstuffed my stomach." He says while holding his upset tummy and holding in a couple of hiccups.

The foods put him into the fabled food coma state where he just wants to go to sleep and rest it all off.

"You can eat more of it I really don't mind. I don't need to each much food nowadays thanks to my older age, while you, on the other hand, look so skinny and pitiful. I was so shocked when I first saw how skinny you were and short for a ten-year-old. I thought you were only eight!"

Ghost starts to break out crying from the sudden feeling of care and motherly love from this old women that he doesn't notice some obvious errors in her excuses. "Oh my. Please forgive this old lady I seem to have forgotten to ask you what your name is dear."

"Sniff. My name is Ghost Shinigami and don't feel bad granny. You're the first person to treat me so kindly besides my sister." He visibly tried to hold back his tears like a dam holding back a river.

"You're also the first person who cooked an actual meal for me and you didn't even care that I ate it so quickly."

He can't hold in his tears any longer, a dam starts to break in his eyes and the tears won't stop flowing out down his cheeks soaking the floor with their salty contents.

"It's ok." She suddenly gets up and starts to hug him while whispering in his ear. "Hush, I'm here for you know. Now come with me you should get some sleep it's been a long day." She takes him into his new bedroom where an inviting bed awaits him to sleep on.

"Yawwn! Good morning world!" He wakes up in a small room that could barely fit the bed that he's currently laying on a dresser and a desk.

He seems to be letting the feelings of waking up in a bed and home settle into his body as he takes his time before he decides to finally get up.

He eventually gets out of bed and changes into a new pair of clothes that was left for him. They don't fit him that well and are a little too big, but Ghost seems to be back at the same point of almost crying again thanks to her sudden gift of new clothing for him.

After getting dressed he exits the small bedroom and sees his new granny sitting at a desk with eleven books waiting for him to read on it. "Ahh! You're already awake. I decided that I was being too overbearing on you, so here."

She gives him the eleven books."Here these are the first eleven you should learn and here are the corresponding notes. I decided I was asking for the impossible by not at least giving you the basics."

"Thank you, granny Liz! But don't tell me you stayed up all night to get this ready for me. You shouldn't spend so much work and waste your sleeping schedule about something so small and unimportant. You could've just taught me the basics and I would've eventually figured out the code."

"No, no don't thank me this is the least I should have done and it was easy to copy over some basic notes that I already read a thousand times."

"You made me realize that you and your sister are still children even if actually have the power to save this world. I was thinking that thanks to you being summoned you would, probably, have no problems with solving my code." She admits that she was having overly high expectations for a ten-year-old child.

Ghost begins to realize that everyone is treating him differently from a ten-year-old child and seems to have the wrong idea about the summoning circle that randomly appeared in their world.

He happily takes the eleven books while being careful to not drop them and mix up their order. He then brings them over to warn out desk and put the books into eleven different stacks.

"Now let's see here." He opens up the first book and its corresponding notes to see that the actual magic book looks way older than the brand new look notes.

He probably doesn't realize that Liz couldn't remember for the life of her the previous code she used and also wanted to make sure that the books covered everything he'd need to know so she just rewrote all of them.

"I see, magic seems to exist in three eternal categories." The first being elemental magic which uses the power of fire, water, earth, air, dark, light, space, time life, and death. There is also some sub-elements of various elements such as ice and lightning but they all are made up of those ten core elements.

The second category is pure mana control, but the notes just casually mention it, you need to read book five to learn the basics of this. The third category is again only mentioned a little bit. It's special magic that is seen as magic yet it actually doesn't require any mana to use. These aren't mentioned in depth nor is there any go-to book to learn more about them.

"Miss Liz" He decides it would be a good idea to ask Liz about it, but she seems to be ignoring him. He moves away from the desk to where Liz is laying down on the couch again and decides to change how he's calling her. "Granny Liz?"

"Yes, what do you need?" She replies after he called her Granny.

"I was wondering why it barely talks about special magic and there isn't a second book covering it."

"That's simply silly, no one with special magic revealed their secrets so there is no book about it. There are speculations, but that's the best you're going to get. Also, it's so rare that I doubt you will have any ability to use it."

"But they all have one thing in common that we have figured out about them. They can't use any other magic besides their special magic and they all seem to have unique bloodlines."

"That makes sense, thank you Granny. I'm going to go read the other ten now." He gets up to leave, but Liz's hand stops him.

"Oh no, you don't. You need to eat some breakfast because I don't know when you're going to put those books down again." She sternly yet lovingly starts to lectures him about the importance of having the energy to learn and not just the drive to learn.

"Fine" He quickly eats his breakfast so he can go back to reading.

The other ten books primarily talk about the origins of each element and what they do. Such as fire burns, water makes you wet, the earth is hard, the wind is invisible, darkness hides the light, light reveals what hides in the dark, space is the empty portion of the universe, time is omnipresent and exists everywhere, Life is where everything begins, and death is where everything ends.

The rest of what they talked about was warnings about elements that the other element shouldn't fight.

Fire and water cancel each other, earth stops wind, wind and water are neutral, water softens earth, fire and earth are neutral and fire feeds on the wind. Light and dark collide against each other to fight for territory, while life tries to protect organisms from time and death. Space is just there void of everything besides death, time, and itself.

Wind tends to lack in defense, but it makes up for it with speed and the ability to choose what hits you, while earth tends to lead to heavy defense with slow heavy attacks. Fire has explosive power but they lack the stamina to continue the attacks without something to feed on. Water is the calm that stops everything, but can also explode with rage when needed. Time plays by its own rules and can be in any time flow that it wants to be, while space creates an area that's hard to fight in.

Life saves others and tries not to take any lives, but that doesn't mean it can't kill when needed. Death wants everyone to die and unlike life can't really heal anyone of their ails. Light works at an incredibly fast speed, but it's nowhere near as physical as wind and tends to lack in punch. Darkness is everywhere and can hide in a separate dark version of the world. They can teleport from shadow to shadow and is mostly used by assassins.

There were also minor spells in each of the books with their chants. He decides not to try them until he gains a better understanding of magic as a whole.

"Granny Liz I finished the ten books, so can you give me the original copy of the notes. I want to crack your code."

"First let's eat some lunch. We can't have you be locked up in this old dusty house all day."