Silver Eyes

Magnus bolted into the house, unaware of his mother who was about to approach him to ask some questions. He quickly sighted a chest of drawers with a stack of notebooks and a few pens next to it. Placed on the topmost book was a couple of sticky note pads. He grabbed one of them along with a pen and went back to sit on wooden chair in the backyard. His mother observed as her son was so caught up in whatever business he was up to, therefore deciding it was best not to bother him.

Magnus stared at the pad on one hand and the pen on the other. 'Okay, now what?'

'Try writing a word and send mana into it,' suggested Magnus 2.0.

Magnus clicked the top of the pen and started scratching the word 'Great' on the sticky note. He then gathered attributeless mana and sent it toward the black lines that made up the word. He could feel his own mana infiltrating the recently dried ink. From there, he could basically transform his mana into water element and erase the ink by turning it liquid and transparent.

'I don't think that's the goal we have in mind,' commented Magnus 2.0.

It was then that both Magnuses got a bright idea at the same time. They already knew the effects of the skill, so why not use manual narration?

'System, how much for a manual narration for Language of Magic?' asked Magnus.

[Due to the great potential the skill possesses, and its capability to influence a wide variety of instances across long distances once both the hosts and the skill reach high levels, the price for narrating the skill is 650 AP.]

Magnus' eyes bulged. 'THAT'S DAYLIGHT ROB—'

'No, actually that sounds fair,' Magnus 2.0 pointed out.

'Right yeah I guess it does.'

While subconsciously clicking the pen, Magnus glanced at the training area and at the dome surrounding it. He didn't have enough AP for keeping up the anti-god coating and manually narrating Language of Magic at the same time. He could ask the others to stop practicing and wait for him until he was done narrating the skill. But then his AP recovery would slow down considerably with everyone not practicing what he'd taught and basically just lounging around. It would take a full day for him to recover enough for the coating to be back up and running. He would basically waste much of everyone's time.

He couldn't do that.

Magnus sighed. 'Guess we're gonna have to go about it the old-school way.'

'System, any tips?' asked Magnus 2.0.

[To make it easier for the host to learn the skill, it is advised that the host writes a word that aligns with the will he wants to convey. In addition, it is imperative for the host to remember to imbue mana during the writing process, not after it.]

A satisfied grin bloomed on Magnus' lips. 'Thanks, system. That's quite helpful.'

He then scratched the word 'Great' on the note and hovered the tip of the pen below it. Before he started writing, he concentrated on sending attributeless mana toward his fingers and through the pen. As he felt his mana reach the paper, he tapped the tip of the pen onto the paper and began moving it around. As a letter started to take form, he tried to imagine the word he wanted to write becoming reality once it was connected to a person. Imagination was a key to strengthening someone's will, after all.

His mana continued to pour into the ink drawn on the paper, while his imagination solidified a will that bled into the word.

'+10…'

'+10 Str…'

'+10 Streng…'

Slowly, the word finished forming. The mana had also latched onto his will, creating a synergy that empowered the meaning Magnus wanted to convey through the word. As soon as he was done writing the last letter, he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

'+10 Strength'

He had just successfully blessed the sticky note.

Magnus was feeling super drained. He realized writing just that one word along with the two numbers had consumed a lot of mental energy out of him. Without even looking at his stats, he knew his Stamina had dropped by a lot. Plus, the amount of mana constantly being poured out was no joke. He didn't know the precise number, yet. But he figured it must've shot past the 100-point threshold.

He stared at the writing on the paper and noticed a faint glow emanating from the black ink. The color wasn't exactly white. It was more like silver. 'So I guess that's my Divine Esse—'

Suddenly, he received a message from the system.

[Congratulations! You have learned a skill!

Skill Name: Language of Magic (Lv. 1)

Description: The caster uses their will supported by mana to empower words.

Mana Cost: 160 points/blessing (attributeless), 180 points/blessing (with element attribute)

Cooldown: None.]

He also got another prize in the form of 500 DP!

"Hehehehe…" Magnus giggled before noticing the silence that fell around the training area. He lifted his head and gazed at everyone with a confused look. 'I mean, I know I might look a bit crazy laughing by myself, but why are they all looking at me funny?'

"Umm, sweetie…" his mom started talking.

"I'm not crazy, mom! I swear! I just learned a new skill, that's why I laughed," Magnus tried to defend himself.

"No, honey, that's not it," said Fiona while giving him a strained smile. "What happened to your eyes?"

Magnus raised his brows, clearly not expecting such a question. "What are you talking about?" He fished out his phone from the pocket and opened the camera app before switching it to the front lens. He stared at his face displayed on the screen and frowned. "There's nothing wrong with my eyes. They're brown-and-blue as always."

"Well, they're back to normal now," Garrett said as if it was obvious. "But it was me who first noticed that your eyes changed while you were writing on that sticky note."

"Changed?" asked Magnus, his brows furrowed. "How?"

"They were…umm, how do I put it?" Garrett pondered for a bit before continuing, "The thing around your pupils, your irises, they turned white. Or like, silvery white. And they were glowing, like cat's eyes in the dark."

"Aah," Magnus sounded out his instant understanding of what just happened. 'It must be an effect of me practicing divine magic.'

"Don't worry about it," he said. "It's because I just tried out this new skill of mine," he said, pointing the pen down at the sticky note.

"What kind of skill is it, anyway?"

Magnus grinned proudly. "Let me show you," he said before tearing the sticky note off the pad. He then got up and rushed toward TJ. Not giving his friend a chance to question what he was doing, Magnus tapped the gluey side of the note onto TJ's back.

"The fuck—" TJ was about to protest before he felt a slight increase in his strength. It was very subtle, but he was able to perceive it thanks to his naturally high Perception. He quickly opened his Status Window and noticed what the change was. With a disappointed look on his face, he glanced at his friend and uttered, "Useless."

"What?!" Magnus exclaimed, looking as if he had been betrayed. "What do you mean?"

TJ tore the sticky note off his back and saw what was written on it. He scoffed before sticking it onto Magnus' chest. "Go check it out yourself. You clearly failed."

Magnus opened his Status Window and noticed the increase in his Strength. However, the numbers made his heart sink. He then put the note in his Inventory and inspected its function.

[unnamed blessed item]

[+2 Strength, the effect will last for one week]

"I appreciate the effort, though. At least you managed to learn the skill," TJ said in a not-so-reassuring tone before he moved away to get back to training.

Magnus stood there with a crestfallen look on his face. However, he soon shook his head and returned to his favorite chair. He needed to abuse the skill more so he could level it up and improve its effects. But as Magnus was about to pick up the pen, Magnus 2.0 spoke up.

'Dude, I feel like I'm gonna have to bring up another bad news.'

'What is it?'

'I've been thinking why the effect betrayed the will we imparted, and why it can only last for a week, as opposed to the gods' items whose effects last for years, if not forever. It does have something to do with the skill level, but I feel like there's more to it.'

Magnus paused for a few seconds, trying to decipher the implied meaning behind his copy's words. 'My Divinity level,' he finally concluded.

'That's right. I feel like even when we reach the MAX level of the skill, the effects would still be capped by our Divinity level. And although the effects will be sufficient to empower the others for the time being, with our current Level, there's no way we can match the items blessed by the gods. Theirs last for years and years.'

Magnus let out a sigh. 'I guess that's true. Still, I can't complain. Hoping to rival the gods will be asking for too much. I couldn't even survive the Descended and immensely nerfed Scoville without resorting to spamming [Unbreakable] and buying myself time for his vessel to die. We'll just have to make do with what we have now.'

He took a deep breath and was about to write on the sticky note before he heard his father shout.

"Son, you might wanna do something about this!" The doctor was seen standing in a corner, pointing at the purplish gas swirling around in front of him. The gas seemed to be slowly drifting toward the center of the yard.

"Coming, dad!" Magnus replied before putting the pen and sticky notes on the table next to him. He half ran toward where his father was and casted [Bubble], trapping most of the gas inside a water sphere with the same diameter as Magnus' body height. Seeing some traces of the gas that escaped the capture of the sphere, Magnus casted [Water Serpent]. The skill allowed him to materialize water droplets that combined with each other, and then formed elongated liquid substance that he could manipulate and move in the air.

He directed the [Water Serpent] to twist about midair, catching the traces of poisonous gas and bringing them into the water bubble.

Magnus then had an idea to hasten the dissipation of the gas inside the water. He prepared light mana in his reserves and injected the bubble with it, giving the sphere a milky white glow. A mere five to seven seconds later, it looked like the purple gas had been completely purified. With that, he cancelled his skill.

Turning to his father, Magnus gave him a proud smile. "Good job, dad!"

"Thanks, son," replied Markus, returning his son's smile. "I wonder why I'm not affected by the gas, though."

"Oh, that's 'cause it was formed using your mana as fuel. Naturally, it wouldn't harm the caster."

"I see."

On the outside, Magnus maintained his smile. However, he inwardly sighed. 'With how often everyone needs my help, I need to be careful before expending so much mana to practice [Language of Magic],' he thought as he pulled the [Ocean's Tear] necklace out of the Inventory and put it on. Even though he didn't like that the item gave off so much of Atlantis' blue glow—which apparently was his Divine Essence—he needed its massive boost to keep his mana points from freefalling.