Journey Has Just Begun

The line slowly disappeared like smoke in the air, vanishing. Looking down at his finger, Edward willed mana to stop moving through the path, watching as the blue-shaped paintbrush tip disappeared.

Edward immediately brought out the book he had hidden in his cloak, flipping to the third page.

\\I presume you have learned Mana finger pen and have questions. I am your master. Therefore, I will answer them.

The first question you might have is this. What was the path I was forming? The path is known as Mana Circuit. It is like the cardiovascular system but instead made to move mana through the body. The path you made is a modification to your own body unnaturally.

The circuit is attached to you without belonging to the material world, defying physics. If someone were to cut you open, the circuit would not be visible, just like your mana core. It is there, but not there.

When you run your mana through the circuit, it is visible on your skin\\

This sentence confused Edward, so he stopped reading and raised his right arm before, forming a fist and extending his index finger. Closing his eyes, he focused on his core, finding it easier than before. It would have taken three minutes, but now it only takes mere seconds.

Pushing his mana through his Circuit, he opened his eyes to find mana on the tip of his index finger. At this moment, he noticed something he hadn't seen before.

There was a blue circuit-like line, moving from the tip of his index finger and going down his arm. Confused, he looked under his burlap sack, noticing the blue line moving across his chest and stopping at the point where his heart should be.

"What the hell." He mumbled, looking at the line. His core was like an energy ball, and the line was the circuit that transferred the energy from one point to another. "What if I made multiple mana circuits around my body? Would they all glow when I run mana through them?"

Stopping the flow, Edward could feel that he had used more than 10% of his stored mana. When he teleported using the blink skill, he used 50%. They regenerated over the hours, and now, he used them when he activated the mana brush. It seems like the mana brush dispersed mana away over time when activated.

Opening the book, he continued reading.

\\Another thing you should know is that mana brush takes mana for as long as it is activated, meaning that just having it on would waste your mana.

You might ask. Master? How do I regenerate my mana quicker?

I will answer. It is through meditation. Through the breathing you performed while forming your core, you can absorb the mana from the air to fill your core\\

Edward decided to test this out. Closing his eyes, he imagined what mana was, the view appearing before him. Taking a deep breath, no mana flowed from the air around him, so he exhaled.

Deciding to change his viewpoint, he imagined the mana around him was the air he breathed. Surprisingly, it worked. When he breathed in the next time, instead of taking in air, the mana flowed through his nose and into his body.

Some of this mana went inside his core while others left his body through the pores in his skin. Opening his eyes, Edward rubbed his throat, feeling wired.

When he breathed, he hadn't breathed air, which was a strange feeling. "If I kept meditating that way, I would die from lack of air." He mumbled, to himself, noticing the mana in his core had only filled by a bit.

Closing his eyes once more, Edward continued breathing mana, and when he felt he was about to choke from the lack of air, he would leave his meditation state and breathe normally. It went on for about five minutes before he could finish regenerating his lost mana.

Rubbing his throat once more, Edward looked back to the book. "I would have to get used to mana meditation."

\\I have answered all your questions, so let us begin the next lesson. Thaumaturgy.

Thaumaturgy is the study of magic specific to your school. So, you are going to be learning about letters of magic, what they are, how to draw them, and how to perform magic.

I recommend you put as much of your Attribute Points into intelligence and vitality to quickly learn them and heal from all injuries you sustain during this lesson. I guarantee you will be in life-threatening accidents from now to the end of your Mage path\\

Edward suddenly remembered he hadn't used any of the AP he got. Even the 16 he had gotten when he leveled up from 6 to 9 when they killed those people at the tree. With the five he got from level up to level 10 and the 18 he got from achievements and rewards, he now had 39 AP.

"Now, how to allocate it." Andrew thought, bringing up his status screen. He thought of using his AP to bring all his stats to 10. It will make him above average in everything before putting the remaining in either vitality or intelligence.

He ignored sense, as you need 4 AP to increase it by one. Bringing it from 5 to 10 would require 40 AP, which was more AP than he has. Moving to intelligence, which was already at 6, he put 12 AP and brought it to ten.

He felt cold energy run through his brain, not noticing any change. With 27 AP left, he brought Dexterity from 7 to 10, Defense from 5 to 10, Endurance from 6 to 10, and Vitality from 5 to 10.

With only 10 AP left, Edward put all of them in vitality. With his Magical Language ability, he would learn the magic language four times quicker, so vitality was more important. With his point allocated, he decided to look at his stats.

_______________________

Edward Smith

Level 10

Exp: 1170/21000

Magic- Tier 1

Vitality- 20 +

Endurance- 10 +

Strength- 12 +

Defense- 10 +

Agility- 12(+3) +

Dexterity - 10 +

Intelligence- 10 +

Sense- 5 +

AP- 0

SP- 0

TP- 0

Skill:

[Polearm Apprentice (Level 2+)(Passive)- Allow better usage and control of pole type weapons]

[Blink (Level 1+)(Active)- Using mana, teleport to a location of the user's choice, 5 meters around them(CD: 3minutes)]

Abilities:

Magical Language: Learn all Language and letters related to magic 4x faster

_______________________

With that out of the way, he returned to reading. Once he started, Edward immediately noticed the difference in intelligence. His mind could absorb and process the information quicker. He even felt like his thinking speed had increased. It was an amazing feeling.

\\There are letters of magic, glyphs, runes, and sigils. For now, you won't be learning about sigils, only glyphs, and runes. Runes are not letters like A, B, or C and do not form words. Each rune is a magical "statement" in and of itself.

There is a rune that has a statement of "Instant Death." When drawn, it kills the targeted living being instantly, no matter how strong or weak they are. It comes at the cost of a massive mana pool that even a Tier 10 mage can't draw.

So, you use another method, called combining rune. This is where glyphs come into play. With the right glyphs, you could combine any and all runes.

A Tier 10 mage would have to draw and combine 87,972,173 different lower-level runes with the help of glyphs to make the Instant Death rune. So, I hope you aren't thinking you could learn such a powerful spell. As weak as you are, you will need to draw and combine more than trillions of runes, and at your level, drawing more than 30 low-level runes would deplete your mana\\

"Damn. I thought I could keep spamming the death runes." Edward mumbles to himself as he continues reading.

\\There are seven levels of runes. Low, Medium, High, Legendary, Ancient, Mystic, True.

The difference in each rank is massive. You, a Tier 1 mage, can only draw low-level runes. The minimum number of low-level ruins needed to combine with glyphs to get a high-level rune is 200 different low-level runes. So to cast a simple Medium level rune or Medium level spell, you, my student, will need to combine 100 low runes.

Oh, do you remember the Instant Death rune? That is a True Rune. Remember the 87 million runes you needed to combine to make the Instant Death rune? Yeah, that's not low-level runes you you need to combine it's Mystic runes. So, my student. Don't get your hopes up.

Your journey through Thaumaturgy has only just begun\\