Chapter 9: Conversation

Mar starts to panic as the man started to speak in the past tense, he was speaking about what *had* happened to earth. He speaks like earth has been struggling with the monster outbreaks for a while now. Mar nervously swallows and asks, "what year it is outside of the dungeon". The man responds, "how many days have you been in the dungeon?" Mar replies, "two days." The man smiles and response, "then two years have passed outside, most dungeons run at a different time speed compared to the outside world. Whether that be slower than outside by a large margin or a small margin and the dungeon can even have time go faster too. Even so, this dungeon has a very drastic time difference compared to a normal dungeon. So much is still not understood about them, very fascinating indeed."

Mar immediately drops his head, how was he going to be the strongest in the world if everyone else has gotten a head start of at least two whole years. The man looks at Mar and shakes his head, "In the grand scheme of things, you won't have been gone by that long at all, magic lengthens the lifespan after all. You will have plenty of time to catch up to your friends", he says with a smile. Mar responds immediately by asking a question he had been wondering for a while now, "What is magic, is it this unknown power I feel that can make my attacks stronger?" The man chuckles, "it can do far more than that boy. At the highest levels you can conjure anything you want into existence, how you can and why is still a gray area but it is certainly possible. I demonstrated a bit of what one can do when they reach the highest realm of magic mastery, these chairs, and the table you rest your elbows on, are made of pure magic itself."

Mar and the man talk keep talking about magic. The man continues by saying, "you can do anything you want once you learn how to wield magic properly. The ability to form magic into certain spells is more an art form than anything else. To learn magic properly you have to put your own unique spin on every spell you learn, this will eventually teach you to use magic without spell-forms. You will be able to use magic freely as if it is a part of your body, this is the ultimate form of magic.

Mar asks, "Where is magic stored? If it can enhance physical abilities it has to have something to do with the body." The man points directly at Mar's heart, "Over time, the magic you absorb into your body physically strengthens you, but that is not all. The magic also begins to saturate your heart. For me, as a dragon, I have two hearts, one magic heart and one real heart, they pump magic and blood, respectively to my body. When we run out of magic or exhaust the supply in our magic heart we don't face any backlash.

A human however, receives backlash lasting for multiple hours when their heart runs out of magic. Some theorize that this is a sort of backlash is from using all of the magic in their heart but others say that once the magic is used up completely the body is used as compensation, a certain lifeforce, is used to cast in lieu of the missing magic. Both of these theories are plausible as lifeforce is a concept well known within groups that study and use black magic, the offering of lifeforce for their own gain, truly a horrendous use of magic."

The man moves to another topic, "Humans can gauge how strong another is by measuring how much magic is inside the other's heart. The humans on earth have currently graded the strength of its fighters on a scale, from weakest to strongest at, F, D, C, B, A, S, SS, and SSS. Since SS and SSS beings are unable to exist on earth currently, disregard those rankings for now. When the magic in your heart is present you are graded as F tier, based on the amount someone can be - or + but in general most people "awaken", their mana naturally by absorbing a small amount of magic in their body without realizing it. You, Mar, forcefully awakened when you came into this dungeon, forcefully awakenings have dangerous and mysterious effects to your being.

Some people become unable to see, unable to use their limbs and some even forget how to walk. Can you believe that! Such a fascinating illness!" The dragon weirds out about this magic phenomenon. The dragon goes on to say, "the only perks of forceful awakenings are that they cause a being to jump straight into the human equivalent of F+ rank. Usually, the higher the jump in rank due to the forceful awakening the higher the side effects. the magic in the dungeons causes the human body to be forced to undergo these changes. The more magic in the environment, the higher the rank after forcefully awakening and more dangerous side effects. Mar asks what his rank is right now, the dragon replies, "D+ tier".

The dragon says, "you must have had some crazy side effects." The dragon narrows his eyes and says, "did it affect your brain? You physically look fine, but you seem terribly unsure of yourself, and very curious, asking about every little thing, almost as if, you don't know who you are! I got it, it has to be your memory, I knew it! Its your memory for sure! Mar lowers his head and mumbles, "yeah, I don't know anything about who I am besides my name." The dragon looks disheartened and says, "I am sorry Mar, there is nothing that can reverse the side effects of forcefully awakening without reverting you back to an unawakened human."

The dragon gets up from his seat and while walking over to mar he says, "I can however help you with something." The dragon feels bad for Mar, he touches Mar's forehead and whispers a spell. After a few minutes, Mar almost faints and jolts his head forward in pain. Mar grabs his head and barely whispers, "what, did you do to me?" The dragon tells Mar that the spell increases his rate of learning. Mar immediately feels an increase in his ability to comprehend. Things that were previously confusing to Mar start making sense, he feels smarter. The dragon says, "this is an artificial blessing and not a real one, as I am not a god."