Awarang, a small elven town in Gretharea Kingdom, 47 Gearro 3982

Finally I made a decision. The specialization I would choose would be the dual one, golden and dark purple for each of my eyes. I knew that this would not be the safest or the most powerful choice. But this would definitely be really… interesting, if it worked.

On one side, I would get the ability to learn every type of magic spells. On the other side, I would not be able to learn any single magic spell, but I could learn monsters’ magic. If this worked, it would be possible for me to use both normal magic spell and monsters’ magic. It would be ridiculously easy to get overpowered.

Damn! I knew I probably should not do this, but I could not resist the temptation. I would try it. I would definitely try it.

I stretched both of my hands. My left hand touched the floating golden eyeball, while the right one touched the dark purple eyeball simultaneously.

It started alright. Both gigantic floating eyeballs started to glow brighter at the same time. But then…

“Argh!” A shocking pain jolted what seemed to be my whole body and soul. What the… This should not happen… It should not be painful… Did I make a bad mistake? But…

The two gigantic floating eyeballs that I touched glowed brighter… and brighter, before finally…

Splash! The golden one burst out like a balloon pierced by a needle and disappeared as it turned into thin dark mist. The dark purple one, on the other hand, glowed even brighter… and was finally disintegrated into countless particles of light that were quickly absorbed by my body.

And when the last particle disappeared within my body, the darkness around me disappeared. My consciousness returned to the hall of the Temple of Day.

“Oh, gosh! Purple eyes? Incredible!” The excited voice of Veyra, the priestess, greeted me at a top speed. “I can’t believe it. You’ve got purple eyes. It is the first time for me seeing this color on someone’s eyes. I know about this color of course, since a person of this kind of specialization was not unheard of. But it is so rare that I have never seen one before. I don’t think that anyone alive today, other than you, has this kind of specialization. You know that people with your kind of specialization are often called Beastmages, don’t you? Ah, probably you don’t, but…”

I sighed. It failed, huh? My attempt for dual specializing golden and purple colors didn’t work. And surprisingly, it was the golden one that was eliminated. Oh, well… at least I was lucky enough not to be magically crippled by the failure.

“Ah, Little Khael! Are you disappointed with your color?” asked the priestess. “Don’t be that dejected. You know, there is a legend of a purple-eyed elf called Sobatta, who lived about a thousand years ago. He was able to fight a fire dragon equally without any weapon. A fire dragon, did you hear that? It was a dragon, not just a wyvern or a wyrm. You can be like him if you work really hard. You should not be disappointed, you know. Every specialization is special. As long as you accept it and make a good use of it, the special power of your color will definitely be able to bring you to the top.”

“Thank you, Veyra-ka. I’m not really…”

“Ah! You remember my name. That is incredible. Nowadays, not many people will remember the name of people who work in public service like us. You are really something, aren’t you, Little Khael? With that kind of attitude, I am very sure that you will be a great person in the future. You know… Wait! Now that I see it more clearly, your clothes are ruined and… Is that blood on your body? Ah! I know. I know. You were also fighting those nasty sragallae, weren’t you? Fighting monsters in this young age? Amazing! As I’ve thought, you are really a promising young man. I know that you will…”

“Er… I have to leave now. It’s getting really late. Thank you very much for everything, Veyra-ka.” I quickly ran away from the overly enthusiastic priestess. Gosh! She was really something… to just now realize my ruined clothes and bloody body.

I tossed two silver coins into the donation box outside the temple without stopping my running legs. I had spent too much time choosing my color. It would be very late now. Uncle would definitely… Wait!

I stopped my run and looked up to see the position of the sun which didn’t seem to be that different from the time I entered the Temple of Day. Oh, shit! I forgot about that… time dilation. The time I spent to choose my color, just like the time I spent to choose my name… was essentially different from real time. What took hours of contemplation in that pitch dark realm would be nearly instantaneous in real time. How could I forget that? How could I become such a dumbass?

I groaned. It seemed that disappointment in my heart had clouded my judgment. This was… ridiculous. Was I that disappointed?

While my mind entered a kind of self-reflection, my legs started moving again, not in a rapid running movement, but in a slow walk.

After several moments reflecting what I experienced and felt, I had finally reached a pretty much obvious conclusion. I was disappointed. I must admit that. I was disappointed because there were missing opportunities that I could have acquired, but were now disappeared into a mere dream.

Choices! Even though previously I was convinced that I would be alright no matter whatever color I would acquire, I got unexpectedly shaken just by a few available choices with their tempting potentials.

I had prepared well-developed plans for each color, including this purple one I had with me now. I should not have been so disappointed that I turned into a silly scatterbrain. Yet, those unattained choices left me this upset inside.

I should have known about this. I had experienced disappointment before. Well, I knew pretty much nothing about complex theory of psychology. But, this situation did not really involve too complicated psychological understanding. It was a simple, reasonable, emotional state of mind. I should have known about it.

After a little more contemplation, I grinned. This was actually great. This disappointment caused by disappearing chances which manifested as distracted mind… I was pretty sure that this was more or less universal. Therefore, I could use this concept as a psychological weapon against most of my future opponents. I would need to design some practical uses of this simple psychological knowledge later on.

Once I cleared up the mess of my emotion, I realized that my legs had subconsciously brought me to the bank of a natural river with clean water and rapid current. I knew this place quite well. If I crossed this river, my uncle’s house would just be about ten minutes leisure walks from there.

It was still early afternoon though. Nobody would be at home. My uncle would still be in his smithy… not that I wanted to see him that badly. Should I go somewhere first and return later just before the sun set?

I made a quick calculation and shook my head gloomily. No. I needed a safe place to understand more of this specialization of mine and this magic that I now had, this [Monster Magic Mimicry]. And my uncle’s house should be the safest spot for me now. It was guarded by plenty of enchantments after all.

I walked a little bit alongside the river, and then, at the part I knew quite well, I crossed it. I jumped from rock to rock to the other side without any difficulty. After all, crossing this river was one of the common routines I had done while doing my free run.

After I crossed the river, instead of walking, I ran home… as if being chased by a pair of monsters previously was not enough. Ugh… now that I could think of it better, I couldn’t believe I decided to do that. What the hell was I thinking of?

Anyway, on the way to my uncle’s house, I passed the backyard of my uncle’s smithy. I heard loud clanging noises from that sturdy iron-clad wooden workshop. The door and windows are closed but there was smoke coming out of the chimney. My uncle seemed to still be working there, completing special requests if seen from the closed doors and windows. And it seemed that he was oblivious to anything that had happened within the town.

Geez! This place wasn’t even that far from the town center. Did he even know that there was a terrorist attack?

I sighed and continued my run home. In a few minutes I reached the place my uncle and I lived.

Unlike the sturdy workshop which was firmly placed on the ground, my uncle’s house was… well, a tree house. It was a small cozy wooden house located on a huge blackwood tree, a typical elven dwelling in this town.

I quickly climbed the tree and pushed the door open. It was an enchanted door by the way. It would not open for anyone other than my uncle or me. Well, truly dedicated burglars might still be able to find their way in, and really strong people could still break it down, but it was not like we had precious things inside.

Inside, I quickly entered my room. Er, there were only three rooms here… mine, my uncle’s, and one that functioned as the living room, kitchen, and dining room altogether. Bathroom was outside, on the ground.

As I entered and lay down on my bed, the gears of my mind started to work again… This time I attempted to dive deep within my sub-consciousness. It would leave me vulnerable, but it was necessary. Besides, this room should be the safest place for me for now.

Within a few seconds I had submerged completely, deep inside my mind… into a personal place shaped like the inside of a library. I had entered this place for many times during my meditation practice, but this place… had significantly changed.

Before, my subconscious mind was shaped like a small library room with a volley-ball size floating transparent crystal at the center, and few shelves, in which many were filled with books. Those were the manifestation of my magic and memories.

Now, however, this personal space within my mind was significantly much larger, with ridiculously huge size of book shelves covering the walls. A large part of the shelves was empty though. The number of books I had filling the shelves didn’t seem to be that much different.

The one that completely changed was the floating crystal at the center of the room. What had previously been transparent was now dark purple. And the size of the crystal was at least three times larger.

Surrounding the huge crystal, there was a great number of revolving marble-sized spheres... about a hundred of them. Each sphere had different orbit and direction, and surprisingly, none of them ever seemed to crash against another. All of these marble-sized orbs were pretty much purple in color, but compared to the central huge crystal, three seemed to be of the darker shade while the others were lighter. Among the three darker ones, one seemed to be glowing eerily as it revolved around the crystal in a slow pace.

The huge crystal seemed to be the manifestation of my magic specialization. And then, the smaller orbs would seem to be the manifestation of the available slots for my aez and zea. The three darker ones would be my aez, and the others would be my zea.

I concentrated on the central crystal and information of my magic specialization flooded my cognition. After a few minutes digesting the details of the information, I understood, for the most part, what made my magic different from others.

If I should explain in simple manner, normal magic users used magic force, willpower, and words. They gathered magic force, commonly known here as surprisingly… mana, similar to the term used in many games. Until now I couldn’t help wondering why it would be so similar…

Ah, anyway… Normal magic users gathered mana, shaped it with willpower, and unleashed it with words… And, taraa..!! We got magic. That was why normal magic, or sorcery some might say, was often described simply as the… will and words.

In my case, it would be quite similar, except well… words. My magic specialization forced me to be similar to the majority of monsters which unleashed magic through will only, without words. Simply speaking, the minuscule ability to unleash magic through words which I previously had was severed by my specialization. That was the reason I could no longer use ‘normal’ magic.

This ‘no-chant’ thing for my magic was not as useful as it seemed, since in normal case words were not just used to unleash magic. Well, that was their main function, but words had at least two more important functions. One, it was used to help the users be more focused, especially in more complicated spells. Two, it was used to limit the ‘over the limit’ usage of spell related to the existing mana.

I had no problem with the first additional function of words for spell-casting. Concentrating without using words was not that difficult for me.

The second one was what made me worry. When a normal person with insufficient mana casted a spell; the worse thing that could happen was that the spell failed to materialize. When I used a magic with insufficient mana, the best thing that could happen to me was… I fainted. The worst… I died, since the magic would try to replace my lacking mana with my life force, and I didn’t have the normal mages’ word-filter.

I knew it simply meant that I had to pay a careful attention to my mana. The problem was that this was not a game, where you could easily see mana points. There was no such convenient thing as interface or status page here. How would I know how much mana I had left?

…

I sighed, and turned my attention to another important part of my specialization, my [Monster Magic Mimicry] ability. I concentrated on the revolving marble sized orb, the glowing one. And, another torrent of information appeared, to be digested quickly by my cognition.

I let out another helpless sigh. The description of this magic skill I had previously read was as expected… very accurate, which was quite disappointing. I had this tiny sliver of hope that the one who wrote the description of this magic was mistaken, that this magic was more useful than what I had read. My hope was unfulfilled.

Just like what I had known, this [Monster Magic Mimicry] magic used a tiny amount of mana to observe the magical action of a monster. It let me learn the active magic observed from the monster.

The problem was that it took many, many uses of the magic skill to learn a single active magic. And what I meant many here was that… many. The simplest common level of active magic required me to observe, with my magic skill on, a monster using its active magic for at least thirty times.

Well, there goes my plan of getting the super powerful dragon’s [Fire Breath] by observing a dragon use it. To observe one dragon using its fire-breath for more than thirty times… How often would a dragon need to use its fire breath anyway? How many decades would it take for me to complete that? And that was assuming that I didn’t get obliterated by the fire.

Oh, well… I didn’t put that much hope on this fire-breath plan anyway. I had a simpler plan, with much better prospects. This plan of mine was not a big plan. It was just a small one, but it didn’t mean it was a bad one. Bigger was not always better after all.