chapter 10

After reaching the city, I tried to stabilize my cores because losing one of my cores started to affect my body. It felt as if the mana in my body was disappearing. The only way that I could stop was by getting an artificial core because my mana was disappearing, not getting weaker. I told Miss Isadora about the situation. She told me that there were black markets that sold artificial cores in the city, so we set out to find the black market sellers that practiced creation magic, who could craft an artificial core to restore my mana reserves. After heading out and asking around if there were any black market sellers that could use creation magic, we stumbled upon an old man around his 50s. He told us to come with him and he would help us. After arriving at a store in the backstreets of Evercrest, the old man used a skill to teleport us to a place underground. He called it the black market city. After asking Miss Isadora if she knew about this place, she told me yes, but she had never been here to see it for herself. After reaching the city, he took us to a store and told me to show him my hand. He took measurements of it and told me to wait while he went to craft the artificial core. We stayed in the store for about an hour, and he came back with an artificial arm with a core inside. He told me to put it on and release mana inside it. He told me that it would drain a lot of magic, and if I were not careful, I could die or become a magic overload beast. After trying it, I started to feel overwhelming pain I could not handle, and I passed out.

When I woke up, I was in a white room where I saw the lady that was in the store that sold me my sword. After asking her why I was there, she told me that she called me there because I was about to die from magic overload and she didn't want me to die because she had something for me to do for her. After asking her what it was, she told me that she wanted to move from a spirit to a god, and she wanted my help to make that happen. I asked her how I could help her. She told me that because I was special and not from this world, I could damage the gods and kill them. I asked her how she knew that I was not from this world, and she told me that my mana flows were different from every human or creature in the world, and she was watching over me from the beginning. She told me that if I helped her, she would bestow me with some of her mana and help me control the artificial core and help me if anything came up. I told her that I would help her, and she bestowed me with her magic. After giving me some of her mana, she told me to wake up and try it again.

After waking up and trying it again, it worked, and I was able to use the core that was in the artificial arm. After controlling the arm, the old man was surprised because no one was able to use an artificial core in history. After asking me how I was able to control and use the core, I told him that it just happened and I didn't know how. I did not want to tell him about the spirit and how she gave me some of her mana and helped me be able to control the artificial core and use it. After he finished asking me questions, he told me to keep the arm because he didn't believe it was going to work. But the only thing he said he wanted from me was for me to come to his store and help him with his artificial core research. We agreed and headed back to the surface where we stayed the night in a tavern. After leaving the tavern, we headed off to Shadowfen where the academy is located