The following
morning Emelyn surprised everyone when she announced that the whole household
(Jasmine included) would be travelling to Shephiria. As Emelyn expected, the
children were delighted with her idea. Leyla was nervous, and Jasmine really
excited, but Merlin, despite being excited about making his first journey in
this world, he couldn’t help but being a little disappointed, he had planned to
start practicing magic that day, and, unless he wanted his secret to get out,
doing that journey would mean that he had to delay the start of his magic
training until he got back.
They departed at noon with the commercial caravan. Emelyn would have
preferred to depart in the morning, but the route to the capital wasn’t safe and
a simple carriage would make the day of any group of bandits, so she decided
that they’d join the commercial caravan in its return to the capital, they
would be safer in numbers, and the tax for entering the towns on the route to
the capital would be halved.
******************************************************************
On the second day of the journey, Merlin had already grown tired of looking
at the scenery and started thinking about what kind of magic training could he
do without letting his mother know… Mana sensing training was discarded,
because ever since his magic awakening, sensing mana had become as natural for
him as breathing. He thought about training the same spells he had seen his
mother teaching his brother Bly, but that would also expose his secret…
He really wanted to test the limits of his mana pool, and, as the only way
for a magus to know how much mana he really possesses was to use magic until
running out of mana, Merlin was quite exasperated with the current situation.
While looking at Bly practicing his spells in front of their mother, he
bitterly thought: *If only there was a skill or a magic that allowed you to
see your own status and that of others, just like in a RPG game of my previous
world you had the status window and the appraisal skill… but as much as this
world resembles a RPG game, I guess that’s still impossible…*
*Ding*
“Imagination Creation Magic” : Creation of a new magic spell successful. Spell created: "Status Window Spell" Description: Allows the user to see his/her own statuses and some other personal information. Additional info: (Voiceless incantation), (Mana cost: 0 MP), (Non-attribute) . |
*Ding*
“Imagination Creation Magic” : Creation of a new magic spell failed. Reason of the failure : Existence of a spell with the same effect: "Analytic Observation Spell". "Analytic Observation Spell" from the Avalon Inheritance has been unlocked. Acquisition of the "Analytic Observation Spell" successful. Description: Allows the user to see the statuses of people and objects, as well as some other information Additional info: (Voiceless incantation), (Mana cost: 2 MP), (Non-attribute). |
Merlin: "What the heck?!"
Leyla: "Is there something wrong, Merlin?"
Merlin: "No, it’s nothing… Sorry for startling you Leyla…"
After apologizing, he thought: *I guess I’m the only one who is able to
see it… Well, it’s more convenient this way…*
When he read the contents of the second window, he realized the real
meaning of the riddle left behind by Orb: The only way he had to acquire the
sealed knowledge of the orb was to either create new spells which already
existed in Avalon, thus receiving the original spell, or to learn new spells,
which would unlock the original spells related to their level and effects. One
way or the other, it was going to take him a really long time to fully unlock
his inheritance… Unfortunately, his “Imagination Creation Magic” only
worked that way with the spells from Avalon, with the modern spells, the magic
just failed, without any consolation prize.
He tried to use his newly
acquired magic "Status Window Spell".
Merlin: "Status Window!"
Leyla: "Did you say something,
Merlin?"
Merlin: "No, it’s nothing…
Sorry …"
He was puzzled because nothing had happened, then he tried to open it
voicelessly, just with his thought *Status
Window* and…
*Ding*
Status Window
|
|||||
Name
|
Merlin Pendragon
|
||||
Age
|
4
|
Race
|
**** Human
|
||
Level
|
3
|
Gender
|
Male
|
||
Health
|
300/300
|
Health Regen.
|
0.005 / Sec
|
||
Mana
|
54 391
|
Mana Regen.
|
0.009 /Sec
|
||
Magic
|
|
||||
Attribute affinity
|
Fire (extraordinary), Water
(extraordinary), Wind (extraordinary), Earth (extraordinary), Space-time
(extraordinary), Light (extraordinary), Darkness (extraordinary),
Non-attribute (extraordinary)
|
||||
Skills
|
|
||||
He was surprised at his own statuses, some of them were way higher than he
expected, but then again, he had no idea of what were the average standard
statuses in this world, so he used “Analytical Observation” on his aunt
and then understood how really high his statuses were.
*Ding*
He decided he would later use “Analytical Observation” on his mother, just to make sure…
Status Window
|
||||
Name
|
Leyla Pendragon
|
|||
Age
|
21
|
Race
|
Human
|
|
Level
|
7
|
Gender
|
Female
|
|
Health
|
400/400
|
Health Regen.
|
0.003 / Sec
|
|
Mana
|
1 349
|
Mana Regen.
|
0.006 / Sec
|
|
Magic
|
|
|||
Attribute affinity
|
Wind (medium)
|
|||
Skills
|
|
|||
He decided he would later use “Analytical Observation” on his mother, just to make sure…
He was really happy for being capable of using magic, but the moment he
saw his mother looking his way, he instantly stopped using magic. He had
completely forgotten that his mother could feel the fluctuations in the mana
around her, and he was in her range… Fortunately, as his aunt was right next to
him, as long as he didn’t use magic, his mother would be unable to locate the
exact point of origin of the mana fluctuations, and she would assume that the one
using magic had been Leyla.
Merlin asked Leyla if she had any book to read with him, but she hadn’t
any so she asked around and the alchemist who was in the caravan lent her a
couple of books, one of them was “Intermediate compounding”, which
really interested Merlin (the books about compounding they had at the house
only ranged from “Initiation to compounding” to “Basic compounding”),
while the other “Meditation techniques during the ‘Lost Period’ ”. The
last book attracted his attention because the “Lost Period” mentioned in the
title referred to the period of time previous to the Great Magic Era, in other
words, the time when the Avalon Kingdom still existed.
He asked Leyla to start with “Meditation techniques during the ‘Lost
Period’ ”. The first thing written in the book was a warning: “Please
notice that the following Meditation techniques have been recovered from
ancient texts found in ruins dating from 'The Lost Period'. Until the present
day, no one has ever been able to meditate following this techniques”. Two
hours later Merlin had already memorized the contents of the book and he
retired to a corner of the carriage.
From all the meditation techniques described in the book, the one which
he thought most easy to learn was the “Lotus Crescendus”. That
technique, in the way it was described in the book, was really similar to the
meditation techniques, martial artists used in his previous world for ki
strengthening. As it was the most plausible, he decided to try it out. After starting concentrating, he felt a lot
of pain and thought *no wonder no one succeeded, who likes to feel pain? *.
Right after he stopped concentrating, the pain disappeared and a new
notification window popped up in front of his eyes:
*Ding*
“Imagination Creation Magic”: Skill
Correction.
Reason for the correction: Existence of the same skill with a more advanced effect: “Lotus Crescendus”. Skill “Lotus Crescendus” from the Avalon Inheritance has been unlocked. Acquisition of the skill “Lotus Crescendus” successful. Description: Allows the user to strengthen his/her mana and increases the mana pool. Additional info: Meditation technique exclusive to Avalon Kingdom’s royal family. |
He liked what he read on it, but he also thought: *It seems that it’s as they say: be careful with what you wish, because it might become true! I actually believed it’d be kind of cool and useful to be able to see my statuses and that kind of stuff like in a RPG game… but these notification windows which pop up when you least expect them are quite irritating! * He then tried to meditate again with the corrected technique, and he was successful. He meditated for nearly three hours before dinner. At night, after he made sure his mother was already asleep, he invoked the status window and was pleased with the improvements.
*Ding*
Status Window
|
|||||
Name
|
Merlin Pendragon
|
||||
Age
|
4
|
Race
|
**** Human
|
||
Level
|
3
|
Gender
|
Male
|
||
Health
|
300/300
|
Health Regen.
|
0.005 / Sec
|
||
Mana
|
54 436
|
Mana Regen.
|
0.010 / Sec
|
||
Magic
|
|
||||
Attribute affinity
|
Fire (extraordinary), Water
(extraordinary), Wind (extraordinary), Earth (extraordinary), Space-time
(extraordinary), Light (extraordinary), Darkness (extraordinary),
Non-attribute (extraordinary)
|
||||
Skills
|
|
||||
It wasn’t much, but with just three hours of meditation the changes in his mana were already noticeable. This made his previous disappointment to completely vanish, for the “Lotus Crescendus” meditation technique would allow him steadily but surely improve his magic, which meant that despite being unable to practice spells without exposing his secret, he’d be able to do magic training nonetheless…
******************************************************************
On the third day of the journey they arrived to the commercial town of
Katra, ruled by the infamous baronet Linus. There were rumors about how he
abused his power and some of them even said that he was the ringleader of the
black market in that town, but the royal investigators hadn’t been able to
prove anything so far, so he maintained his position. Merlin could see that the
prices were very high, even those of basic products such as eggs and flour. He
noticed that fact because he had been taught about the value of this world’s
currencies the day before.
Each race had its
own currency (with the exception of the devils, who had none), but dwarves,
beastmen and humans used the same currency system, which worked as follows:
100 copper coins = 1 large copper
coin
50 large copper coins = 1 silver
coin
100 silver coins = 1 large
silver coin
50 large silver coins = 1 gold
coin
100 gold coins = 1 white gold
coin
100 white gold coins = 1 twin
white gold coin
For a matter of reference, usually, a regular artisan family earns 2 silver
a month.
What Merlin saw at the stalls were baskets of 20 eggs each being sold at a
price of 5 large coppers the basket. He was astonished, because back at
Laklostia he had accompanied Jasmine to the market once, and the price he had
seen there for a basket of 20 eggs was 50 coppers. That was 1/10 of the price
at Katra!
Merlin saw many new things in Katra. He saw beastmen and dwarves, for a
long time he had wanted to see people of the fantasy races, but he hadn’t seen
any yet, but now, his wish was partially fulfilled! He was a little sad that he
didn’t get to see any member of the elven race, but he expected that he would
see at least one when he reached Shephiria.
Two hours after noon, the caravan resumed its journey towards the capital.
Emelyn and Leyla saw how excited the children were and started laughing,
journeying to the capital wasn’t anything new for them, but seeing the
expressions of awe in the faces of the children when seeing all the things new
to them was really hilarious and the two women couldn’t help themselves. And
so, the journey continued without any major incident for another three days. Finally,
the caravan arrived to Shephiria.
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