The Core and the Brand

Looking at the towering demonic archmage in front of him, Vince had a mixed feeling

For years he lamented the fact that he couldn't use magic, after all it was necessary for anyone who dreamed of overcoming the mortal limits

The mundane man is destined for death the moment he is born, the average lifespan of the average commun person is 60 years, 80 if you are a nobleman with money to spend on expensive potions.

However, when Maxine told him that she took lessons from a respected high wizard in the tower where he studied, called the order of the golden turtle, the man was supposed to be in his 250s and looked like a healthy adult man, the same being for aura users.

While Vince saw himself for a long time as someone who had his chances stolen at his birth, not only did he not have the same chances of gaining knowledge as nobles or wealthy merchants, but even the chance to use the simplest of spells was denied him.

He felt a youthful joy warming his heart, suddenly the stories of great wizards raining fire from the sky, or warriors facing dragons no longer seemed so far away

"Boy your eyes are so easy to read..." said Zeldan "Well don't get so excited, although every living being is capable of the simplest incantations, being able to use them is what makes someone a wizard, it's a path where you need an open mind and a theoretical diligence without equal."

Zeldan then fetched a book from one of the drawers on his study desk,

"Well, how about we make a little swap then? You tell us about the world beyond the abyss, Herman offers you shelter and food, and I provide you with a notebook that details the principles of magic of my own making, and I guarantee its contents, I wrote in the hope of passing on the beauty of magic, but most of these little devils choose the aura arts."

"For me it's okay, rooms are something we don't lack, the food, however, I'm afraid you won't like it as much, we're not known for our cuisine" smiled Herman

"I don't know if I can accept something like that..." Vince said this so as not to sound rude, but the glint in his eyes didn't make it easy for him to hide his greed

"Just take it, it's moldy on my desk and I have no use for it."

"But how is he going to understand the elder language?" said Herman.

"Um? He can just use 'Translate languages'..."remembering something, he corrected himself, "Well, you can't... I wonder how you had the spell active for so long being know nothing about it before, more one mystery I guess."

He searched one of his other drawers until he found a necklace, hanging over the white cord, a small rectangular piece of obsidian had small runes carved into its body.

Hanging over the white cord was a small rectangular piece of obsidian, small runes carved into his body.

"I used it a long time ago when grimoires in different languages were still found frequently, now that it has no uses you can take it too, will allow you to read and speak the different languages ​​that your creator recorded."

'An enchanted item! I'd seen some that Maxine carried, but I never thought I'd wear one.'

"I won't deny your kindness then, thank you very much," Vince said picking up both the book and the necklace, which he put on almost immediately.

"This necklace is called the 'Barrier Breaker', it seems too grand for its effect, but it's good to know the name of an item, it always says a lot about it."

"In a way I understand why that name," Vince nodded

"Well, let's get to your end of the deal then," Zeldan said as he sat down

"Well, let me see where to start" Vince also sat down in one of the nearby chairs "I haven't been to many places, but I've heard many about them, there's a certain ridge..."

Vince then told them a little about the outside of the abyss,

On how the sun shone in the sky during the day,

And as the stars and the moon adorned the nights,

About the kings, queens, and emperors who dominated their continent,

The places and adventures that the bards sang,

The advance of science, and the little he knew about magical knowledge, was attended only to what became popular and far-reaching to the common people.

He realized that something so simple to him really messed with the two men in front of him, the archmage and the aura master had complicated expressions as if they were listening to someone tell them about a fanciful and distant world.

"Well, honestly, I thought the world outside of here was just something from a myth, and that actually this place was what was left of it..." Herman said a complicated look on his face "really was cursed, dammit."

"Well, think about it that my friend, now that we know that it's not just a children's tale that there is a place outside of here, and that it was possible for someone to get in..."

Zeldan's eyes were sharp, the red of his iris burning with a flame of hope

"Maybe we can get out too."

"I had the same thought when I saw him, but how exactly? For whole millennia our ancestors looked for a way out, you know that better than anyone, and even then, we never found anything."

"Well, that's still not clear, maybe a new perspective is needed... and time" he opened his red hands, a blue flame that hung over it forming the image of several unknown figures

"Vince, this is a place unknown to you, and let me be honest, this is the worst possible place to be, everything outside these walls wants to kill you, it's hard to find food, everything is outdated, the world doesn't move forward, and the people here, even the youngest few don't even dream of leaving this place."

The flames in his hand told stories, horned warriors running toward an abomination, before being consumed by it

"But I think I can say for both myself and Herman, that the circumstances behind his mysterious coming to this place are making the time that is so long standing still move again."

The flames then went out

"I would like you to cooperate with us, in time, I believe that the changes that your arrival has brought will begin to manifest, I already feel even now, the mana of the environment is shaking slightly" he clasped his hands together and looked at Vince "Do you have a desire to continue living? That's definitely not the afterlife, you're definitely alive."

Vince looked at the aquimago, the man spoke in a way that inspired him, it didn't sound like the arrogance or the riddle-filled words the bards sang of

His demonic appearance didn't scare him anymore either

The purple light in his eyes shone brightly

/////////////////

A young man was sitting leaning back in a tree, the green grass glowed, sheep grazed in the distance, he was sleepy, a little girl sleeping under his lap with a small book in her hands, his vision was blurry, a voice called out to him

"Vince Wake Up"

He wanted to get some more sleep, but then his voice got more grave, his tone becoming louder and louder

"Wake up Vince! Enemy attack"

The loud sound of spells falling from the sky filled the room, followed by the sound of gunshots

Vince's eyes now open saw a terrible battlefield, familiar faces he once saw filling with hope now lay lifeless on the ground.

"Oh, that's a nightmare."

Then the world collapsed

/////////////////

Purple eyes stared at the faint glow of a lamp attached to a hook in the wall, he moved his body so as to sit on the makeshift bed he had been lying on earlier.

On it was a black leather book, on its cover was written "Magic theory for beginners, by Zeldan Flamel Von Falk"

He got up and started putting on a white silk T-shirt and black leather pants that Herman had handed him earlier, after all his clothes were dirty and battered.

That done, he placed his brown armpit holster over his white silk T-shirt, held up his revolver, and counted the number of bullets

"Well, I only have 5 shots before this turns into useless scrap."

He then looked out his bedroom window as he fastened his hair with a black ribbon

Below the light of the lamps filled the darkness, the residents of the red castle walking down the street as they carried out their activities, some carrying boxes, others training in a small arena

He then held up his book and began to organize in his mind the information he had learned

"Then magicians gather the particle known as essence, spirit, ether or as it is more popularly known, "mana," from the environment around it, and formulate a spiritual organ called the "core" to accommodate it, from there when necessary they manipulate this particle to create unnatural phenomena."

Vince flipped through the pages quickly, his reading speed was extremely fast

'But this core has limitations, a body cannot have two cores, the first mages then got around this problem, they created a system where the mage creates a circle around his mana core, so when he absorbs more mana than his core could handle, he redirects to the surrounding mana rings.'

'The more circles a mage has around his core the higher his rank is, after all, the more mana a given being can manipulate, the stronger he becomes on the universal scale of things'

'Ordinary people can still use small spells, conjuring specific words etched into the world's memory, but this comes at a high cost, making it impractical, and can even lead to death by mana poisoning, since there is no core to refine it'

"Well, now if I can't form a core it's going to be very strange" Vince said as he stepped into a lotus position

'The book said to focus on feeling the mana around you, normally this would be impossible for humans, but the ancient dragons, with pity for their weakness, etched words into the memory of the world helping us, Zeldan wrote the text but said to recite the dragon version of each word in the sequence.'

"The primordial essence,

Cousin snorted

the infinite source that grants power to mortals,

Principium infinitum, quod dat potestatem mortalibus

I ask you to grant me your blessing,

Rovote, ut des mihi tuam venedictionem"

Vince felt the room get warmer, then get colder and then damp, before heading back to the nomal

He can see small blue particles glowing around him, quickly filling the room

"Beautiful" He let out unconsciously

'Well, now the hard part begins'

Vince then began to concentrate, he suddenly felt that the mana was drawn up to his eyes, even the mana that already resided in his body was heading there.

'I can't let that happen, the preferred place for the core is the middle of the chest, the ideal place to circulate mana through the body'

He then began to guide the mana up to his chest, before he had reservations about how to do this, but in the end it was as it said in the book, it would be natural the moment he began to perceive the mana around him in the same way that a child learns to walk.

The mana then converged, Vince with his eyes closed began to imagine an etheric river, waves forming beneath its surface.

Then, he began to guide this river so that it formed a circle, the lake quickly began to compress until it formed a small blue orb

The next moment Vince felt a sense of empowerment cover his body

"It's done! I'm a wizard now" He cried out in joy

Unfortunately, that joy didn't last long

A sharp ache began in his chest, as if he was being torn from the inside out

'But what the fuck! Argh, what's up..." The pain was so strong it cut through his thoughts, Vince couldn't even scream, he could only keep thrashing on the floor

A few moments later the pain stopped

'But what the fuck just happened; the book didn't say anything about that kind of pain.'

He quickly took off the shirt he was wearing and headed over and a mirror on top of a washer inside the room.

Looking at his left pectoral and noticed that something different was now there

It was one like a tattoo, a red mark that glowed slightly,

A perfect circle, within it, existed what appeared to be an eye was held by two hands, one coming from above, the other from below.

The man looking shocked at the symbol under his chest sighed;

"Well... things are definitely getting weirder and weirder..."