New insights

POV Julián KingsCrown

After those two guards left, we started walking back to the house.

On the way, Grandma Rinia asked me, "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

After wiping away the last of the tears from my eyes, I answer, "Grandma Rinia, did you ever regret the path you chose to follow?"

Rinia looked at me for a few seconds while thinking about her answer and said, "There are always regrets, Julián, not everything can be perfect, it is one of the biggest flaws of us thinking beings, regardless of race." She took a few seconds to articulate her thoughts again. "We are by nature selfish beings, we think we are right; in my case, as a seer, I am arrogant enough to say that the path I see is the only one that exists, but is that true?"

At that moment she decided to look me straight in the eyes and said, "The gift of foresight is more of a curse, you know; it forces you to believe that there is only that path, that there is nothing else in this world full of possibilities, it only restricts you, frustrates you and makes you suffer for not being able to find more ways to do things."

Rinia raised her gaze to the sky and said, "Don't doubt if it is the path you chose, if you feel that the burden is too heavy, find allies and share it, when you feel that there is no way out, break your own preconceptions, deceive the world itself if necessary."

After a pause with a solemn look, she resumed what she was saying, "I can't do it, I don't have the power, nor the determination to do something like that; I have lived too long in the shackles of my own divination. But you, Julián, have the potential to do that, but will you live up to what you were given? Will you have enough determination to not fall before reaching the end of the path you decided to take?"

After a few seconds of contemplation, I answer, "I want to live up to the path I have chosen. No matter how tortuous it is, I want to walk it, But after talking to you, I realized that I can't do it alone and that I need to sharpen my will like a sword that can cut the path I want to create."

After taking my words and reasoning them, she answered me, "Julián, I'm going to give you some advice, don't fall for your purpose," she said, looking me seriously in the eyes, "don't get lost; I know that probably the path you want to take will be full of shadows; but don't let those shadows take over you."

After seeing the severity and the look of Grandma Rinia, I decided to ask a question, "How can I avoid being consumed by those shadows?"

There was a brief silence before Grandma Rinia's answer, "It's simple, create anchors for yourself, meet people, make strong bonds with them; although that doesn't guarantee that you will never be consumed by the shadows, probably those anchors will be the only thing that can get you out of there."

After digesting the information and thinking deeply for a few minutes, seeing our house a few meters away, I decide to speak with renewed determination, "Grandma Rinia, I'm going to find the perfect path where I don't fall and can fulfill my purpose. It's a vow I make to myself and to you to be able to reach the end I desire." I replied with a smile.

"Hmmm, only seventy points for your answer, I saw the determination in your eyes, but you lacked spirit in your words hahaha" Grandma Rinia started laughing, lightening the mood, which also made me end up laughing.

And so, making a vow of faith in myself not to fall in the middle of the way, I decide to completely change the idea of just saving them at any cost, to saving them to be with them and see the end of the path they couldn't finish in the novel. ----------------------------------------------------------

POV Virion Eralith

After receiving the message from the guards who were patrolling near Rinia's house and finding out what happened, I immediately left heading to their location.

When I arrived followed by the guards, we first checked the place of the explosion, although it was already fading, the concentration of mana in this area was very high, it would disappear in just a few hours, but the feeling of how high the level of mana was here still persisted.

After checking the marks, even though I'm not the brightest branch of the tree, it's easy to perceive that the explosion was due to some magic spell.

But there are no marks of any element used, as if it were something done by an enhancer, but is it possible to cause this kind of damage with pure mana? I would like to think that there is no conjurer who can handle pure mana and cause this kind of explosion, as it seems very controlled and precise.

According to the guards, they only saw Rinia and the boy here, I find it hard to believe, but could it be the awakening of the mana core?

If so, how talented must one be to create this kind of explosion, it's too exaggerated, but if so, as we guessed with Rinia, that brat is special.

I decided, after investigating the scene, to go and get answers directly from Rinia.

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POV Julián KingsCrown

After arriving home, Grandma Rinia didn't ask me at all about why I had those kinds of thoughts in my mind, why I wanted to do that? What path had I chosen?

I think she still expects me to say it myself, or maybe deep down she senses something else, but she decides not to ask me and gives me some space.

Which is good, I wouldn't be able to tell her that this is a world inside a novel, I couldn't tell her that she and many others were destined to die.

Even though she must already know something about that future, she doesn't regret the path she has taken, even though that led her to be hated by many other characters in the novel, she persisted until her last breath.

At that moment there was a knock on the door, it was Virion; strangely for him, it was very strange that he didn't kick the door or yell old witch at Rinia.

That only showed how delicate the topic of my awakening was.

"Tell me everything that..." Virion said, trying to talk to Rinia, but the moment his gaze fixed on me, he opened his eyes wide and couldn't finish his words.

He approached me eagerly and placed his hand on my sternum, Rinia didn't stop him, for her this seemed like a necessary process to explain everything to Virion.

After feeling my mana core, Virion said, "It's incredible, you're only two years old, how did you manage to make this kind of explosion? How did you wake up so fast?

Grandma Rinia answered for me, "He learned by reading from the books I read to him and he read by himself."

"Even so, it's impressive to be able to do that at this age, I think we weren't wrong to think that he could be something special," Virion said.

Then he looked me straight in the eyes, "What do you want to do, kid?"

Taking a few seconds of contemplation, I said, "I want to train to manipulate the mana and the power I have."

"Good answer, I'll help you with that," Virion said.

Then he put his hand on my shoulder. "Seeing how developed your mana channels are, I'm going to train you in the basic fundamentals as an enhancer for now; since your body is still very young, we'll start with basic exercises to strengthen it, which will take some time."

That's how half a year passed, where Grandpa Virion gave me a small sword to train with; since I told him I wanted to be a swordsman, Grandma Rinia gave me a kind of amulet made by herself and told me that it would guide me to what I need most

Which was very intriguing, I wanted to know where that amulet would take me,

I also trained my basic fundamentals as an enhancer.

Even though Virion could only be there once or twice a week, he always left me exercises to do under Grandma Rinia's supervision and then came to help me correct what I was doing wrong.

I also reached the Dark Red stage with cracks, I've been trying to learn the fundamentals to be able to project the elements but I still can't do it.

It's funny that even though I feel like I can do anything, I have a clear limit right now; as if I lacked more power to execute what my body thought, I attributed it to the fact that I was just in the initial stages of the mana core.

The only thing that didn't change at all was the perception and control I had of mana, I could feel the changes in the environment very easily and find mana signatures no matter how small they were, I had a limited range of about seven meters, but I hoped it would expand as I grew and finally the control I had when manipulating the mana in my core was very high, Virion congratulated me but told me that I had to work on my physique and not rely only on enhancement.

Which was plausible, I had to understand my body better and prepare it to keep up with me in the future.

One day while I was a little away from Grandma Rinia's house so as not to disturb her strange rituals that had now become almost inexistent and I only saw her perform them once in a while.

That relieved me, after all I didn't want to end up crazy before the war, the only thing I couldn't overcome were her meals, they weren't bad but they were quite weird, that's why I hoped to be able to do it myself in a few years.

While I was training with the sword, I found a forest dog, he looked at me as if I were his dinner, so I raised my sword pointing at the mana beast, my level was still too low to even think about defeating it or hitting it and scaring it away, but I couldn't show weakness, mana beasts are quite perceptive after all and I didn't want to give him an advantage in the psychological battle, after a closer look I noticed that he was wounded and bleeding.

When I approached him carefully I noticed that he was wounded, in the location where I estimated that his core was located, so I didn't think he could use mana, I raised my hands to indicate that I didn't want to hurt him and when I got close enough and felt his core better I decided to place my hand on the dog near where his core was.

I realized that he had been damaged with a thrusting sword; a thin rapier judging by the damage to the core, most likely it had been humans since not many elves use rapiers and I doubt that this dog could have escaped from them in this forest.

When I tried to probe the core a little more I had the feeling that I could help him and I started to distribute the mana evenly as a protective layer to prevent leaks and I started to repair it when I finished my eyes were heavy and my back was wet with sweat.

I could barely keep consciousness, then I passed out.

I was sunk in the middle of the ocean or what seemed to be this vast space, the feeling of fullness that I had before falling asleep and arriving to the world of the beginning after of the end still persisted but this time I could reason inside.

I was no longer so sleepy, which allowed me to observe my surroundings better, but I still didn't get answers to anything, it was a void in the middle of the ocean where nothing was felt, there was not the slightest fluctuation.

After what seemed like hours in that space, the ocean became turbulent and sank me to the depths of that crystalline ocean while my heart raced.