Mage of Creation

"I choose 'Mage of Creation'"

Ezren knew that there was probably no need to say it out loud, but he hoped that saying it out loud would help him stop second guessing himself after the choice was made.

[You've chosen the class: 'Mage of Creation']

[Your body will be modified to compensate for the greatest drawback of the class 'Mage of Creation']

'Wait my Body will be modified?'

Before Ezren could finish the thought a wave of agonizing Pain washed over his body. For a moment he felt his body being torn apart and disintegrate. Then he lost consciousness before he even managed to scream out in pain.

_______________

Ezren opened his eyes again and was confused and disoriented for a second. But a moment later he remembered everything that happened before he fell unconscious. It seemed that compensating for the greatest drawback of 'Mage of Creation' required modifying his body.

While he was a bit scared of what he would see he still opened his Status to check. He was rather hopeful that there wouldn't be too great a change to his body since he felt almost the same way as before. At most he felt a bit empty, as if he had lost something that he couldn't describe.

[Status

Name: Ezren

Last Name: None

Race: Sentient Mana (fixed Human form)

Age: 19 Years

Rank: 1

Level: 1

Classes: Mage of Creation (Rank Unique, Lv. 1)

Mana: 190 (108)

Constitution: 9

Strength: 8

Agility: 9

Intelligence: 15

Magic: 19

Innate Skills:

|Separated from the arcane Elements (Lv. Max)|, |Mana-Matter transmutation (Lv. 1)|

Acquired Skills: None

Achievements: None]

'That is certainly not what I expected. I was afraid that my appearance would change, like growing an extra arm or something like that. But as far as I can see I still look exactly the same way as before. Well, there might be some changes to my head or back since I can't see those without a mirror… But I did not expect my whole race to change.

I am Sentient Mana now? What even is that and what does no longer being human entail?'

Ezren was very calm, which itself was very concerning because he was pretty sure that he would usually be panicking in a situation like this.

Was this change caused by becoming Sentient Mana? Or was it caused by no longer being Human?

'Well, it's just another question to add to the huge pile of unanswered questions I have about what's going on. There is no point in mulling over questions I can't answer right now.

It seems that the change of my race healed my injuries, which means I am no longer in immediate danger of dying.

From looking at my Status I can see that I no longer have Vitality and Stamina, instead my Magic and Intelligence increased. Since I can't run out of Vitality anymore, I would assume that I can no longer 'die' in the same way as a human would die. But I also doubt that I am truly immortal.

My current mana is only 109 while my maximum mana is 190. Were these 81 mana used to heal my injuries? Well, there is a simple way to try it out!'

Ezren let his gaze wander around the train cart trying to find a sharp piece of metal. Upon seeing the horrific scene around him again he felt nothing, absolutely nothing.

No repulsion from seeing the corpses of dozens of humans and no grief or sadness for their deaths. This was very disturbing to Ezren since he knew that he was supposed to and had previously felt all those emotions.

Just a few hours ago, feeling those emotions, had been subconscious, instinctual even but now he had to consciously think about it and 'decide' to feel grief based on the morals he had acquired during his life.

In this moment Ezren felt truly inhuman, and even the panic caused by this realization was not instinctual but closer to a conscious decision.

Ezren stood there frozen in place contemplating the indications of this discovery.

It was not that he had lost the ability to feel emotions since he could 'force' himself to feel emotions.

But it was not like he had suddenly gained perfect control over his emotions either. He still felt excited and was curious about the other changes that had happened to him like the skills he had gained. He was also feeling annoyed because he had too many questions and too few answers.

'Does this mean that I no longer have emotions towards other humans?'

Ezren felt like that was not the correct answer, but it was the best idea he could come up with right now. Maybe this question would be solved once he found and interacted with other humans.

'Another question that I can't answer right now. Great!'

Ezren continued to search for a sharp object while simultaneously forcing himself to feel repulsed by the human corpses. Who knows? Maybe, he could teach himself to start feeling that way subconsciously again.

After a few seconds, Ezren's gaze landed on a sharp piece of broken metal. He walked over to the piece of metal and carefully made a shallow cut in his forearm.

So far everything seemed normal to him. His skin was as easy to cut as before, he felt the same amount of pain as before and his wound bleed like the wound of any normal human would. But then after around 30 seconds, a blue mist started rising out of the wounds and a moment later the cut along with the pain it had caused vanished.

Ezren proceeded to check his status, and his current mana had indeed decreased by a few points.

'It seems that as long as I have sufficient mana my injuries will heal automatically, and since mana has replaced my vitality, I would probably die the moment my mana runs out. The last thing I am not sure about is whether this 'healing' effect can save me from mortal injuries like my head being cut off. And sadly, I don't really have a way to try this out unless I want to risk killing myself in the process..

Now it is finally time to take a look at my new skills.'

Ezren was kind of excited to hear some good news after he had made one horrific discovery after another.

'Since there are no explanations, I will have to figure out what those skills do on my own. |Separated from the arcane Elements| is a very strange name since I don't know what 'arcane Elements' are. My best guess would be that it is either a kind of defensive ability that protects me from whatever 'arcane Elements' are, or it is a downside of the class. In that case it would mean that I can't use 'arcane Elements'. Since I have no way to test it out, I will just have to add it to the pile of questions.

|Mana-Matter transmutation| on the other hand obviously allows me to either transmute mana into matter or the other way around. Maybe it even goes both ways.

Let's try to transmute matter into mana first.'

Since he had no better idea Ezren just placed his hand on the piece of metal, he had used to cut himself previously and commanded it to turn into mana.

Nothing happened. After continuously trying to turn the metal into mana for about 5 minutes Ezren gave up.

'Experiment 1 was a failure. I am either missing something or the skill is simply incapable of transmuting matter into mana. If that is the case, then transmuting mana to matter should work.'

Ezren was getting pretty exited at the thought of creating matter out of nowhere. Doing something like that would break some of the most fundamental scientific laws his professors had hammered into his head. It felt like he was truly diving into and exploring the unknown.

'….but how do I use mana and what even is mana? Since I have mana inside my body, I should be able to somehow get it out. But how?

Hmmmm… the blue mist that poured out of my wound when it healed must have been mana right?'

Since Ezren had no better idea, he just made another cut on his arm. And just like last time a blue mist escaped from his cut when it healed. In that moment Ezren tried to command the blue mist to turn into matter. Nothing happened.

He tried to touch it with his hand, but his hand just passed right through, and the mist offered no resistance. But he did feel a faint almost imperceptible tingling sensation in his hand. While not by much this experiment had already given better results than the previous one.

After thinking for a few seconds, Ezren cut himself once more. This time he pressed his hand onto the cut so that the mist would have to pass through his hand. At the same time, he tried to feel the mist leaving his wound.

This time he managed to feel the mist passing through his hand more clearly and he also felt a sensation of loss when the mist left from the open cut.

After repeating this process two more times, Ezren managed to keep feeling this sensation even after the mist had passed through his hand. And then he tried to move the location where he felt this sensation. And it actually moved, very slowly at first but then faster and faster. It was quite uncomfortable, it felt similar to using a muscle you had not used in a long time.

Just when the sensation had traveled all the way from Ezren's hand to his chest a new screen appeared before his face startling him and breaking his concentration.

[You have acquired the skill: Basic Mana Control (Lv. 1)]

'So that weird sensation really was me feeling mana and because I managed to move it around my body, I acquired this skill? From this I can infer that gaining 'Innate Skills' is only possible through your class while 'Acquired Skills' are gained by performing certain actions or learning certain things.

But I don't feel any difference compared to before. Even moving the mana through my body is just as difficult as it was before I gained the skill. Does that mean that the skill doesn't give me any abilities and instead just represents my proficiency in controlling mana?

I will just have to observe and see if there are any changes when the skills level increases.

I can now move the mana inside my body but if I want to transmute it into matter, I will definitely have to extract it from my body. Can I do that?'

Instead of moving his mana around inside his body Ezren tried to push it out of his palm. And while it was a bit harder than moving it inside his body and felt slightly uncomfortable, he did manage to do it.

A blue mist that looked similar to the one that had escaped from his cuts slowly seeped out of his palm. But while the mist looked similar there were a few differences. This mist was much more tangible compared to the previous one, almost seeming like a liquid. Additionally, Ezren could still feel and move the mist even outside his body. It was his mana after all.

But there was some kind of force that tried to disperse his mana, and he had to actively exert force to try and keep it together. Since it was slowly getting harder to resist the external force, he tried to quickly form his mana into a sphere.

After about a minute he managed to form his mana into a rough sphere. It was by no means smooth or perfectly round, but it still resembled a sphere, and Ezren was quite proud of himself.

The sphere of mana that was floating above his hand equaled about 15 mana and he could make it float around simply by willing it to do so. But he noticed that the external force grew stronger and his control over the mana grew weaker the further it went away from him.

Now it was time to try out his new skill. Since he had no better idea, he just willed his sphere of mana to become a sphere of iron. A moment later the sphere shrunk down a bit, losing about half of its volume and then turned into a sphere of iron. The surface of this iron sphere was very uneven just as the mana sphere had been before maybe even more than it had been before.

The reason the sphere had shrunk down could only mean that the 'density' of his mana sphere had been insufficient to be turned into iron directly.

Now holding the iron sphere in his hand Ezren tried to make it float once again. But it did not work. No matter what he tried he was unable to control the sphere of iron.

'That sucks. I hoped that I would be able to control the matter created from my mana just like I can control the mana itself.

What is going to happen now? Will it just stay like that forever?'

After waiting for a few minutes Ezren decided to try to turn the Iron back into mana. He willed the iron to turn into mana just like he had willed the mana to turn into iron previously and it worked.

The iron sphere turned back into blue mist. But it was no longer the blue mist he could control. Instead, it was similar to the mist that had escaped from his wounds. Since he could do nothing about it, he just watched the mist disperse.

After that Ezren felt a bit dejected because he had hoped that he would be able to recycle the matter he created and use the mana for other experiments. Well, there was nothing he could do about it.

After that he created another smaller iron sphere and placed it into his pocket. He would not do anything with that one and just wait to see if it would stay there indefinitely.

After cutting himself multiple times and creating the two spheres Ezren was running a bit low on mana. He still had quite a sizeable amount left, but since his assumption was that he would die once his mana reserves hit zero, he had decided to always keep a generous portion of it as a safeguard. Besides, he had already noticed that he felt more and more exhausted the more mana he spent, which made a lot of sense considering that his stamina had also been replaced by mana.

'I would like to go outside and look for other survivors. But I need a weapon if I meet another of those monsters.'

After looking around the train cart for a few minutes and finding nothing that could be called a weapon, Ezren reluctantly decided to try and create a weapon using his skill.