Stygian Mage

Soren woke up late the next morning. He had pushed himself a little too much yesterday, though there was a reason behind it.

From the information, he got from the library and other people, he knew that the system was not what he had thought before.

It seemed like a game mechanics with the stats and everything but it was not so.

The stats were only the digitized representation of a user’s body. The user affected the system and not the other way round.

The system won’t help him learn anything: It was just like a notification. When Soren would learn something, the system would just notify him.

It was the same with the Spell Vessels he added to his Grimoire. He first had to understand and practice the spell before he could use it properly.

………

He cleaned himself up and went out to the same breakfast café. Although he didn’t have many crystals left with him, it was still enough for food right now.

After eating, he made his way out and went into a dark alley again after checking for any followers.

He might seem like paranoid but he had no choice but to be like that. A simple logic justified his behavior: Better be paranoid than dead.

He had an inkling that the captain would not leave him like that.

He took out the black long jacket and covered himself with the hood. He had covered his face with the collar of the high neck t-shirt. Although he felt very hot in those clothes, he would rather be safe.

After disguising himself, he made his way towards a certain place.

He had checked it out before so he knew the way. This was the place where the Initiators could practice their spell, skill or perform any experiment and the good thing about it was that they didn’t have to show any Identity proof.

They just had to pay a certain amount of crystal as rent.

……..

Soren reached the place and saw a stone building of around 10 stories standing in a somewhat desolate area. There were trees around it and only one path led to the building.

Soren made his way into the building and went to the counter.

“I would like to rent a practice room for today,” Soren said in a hoarse voice to the person sitting behind the desk.

That person said without even lifting his head, “3 crystals.”

Soren paid up and took the token that acted as the key from that guy.

Room no.201 was written on the token so he had no trouble in finding it. He went to the second floor and stopped at the first room.

He inserted the token into the slot by the side of the gate and entered the room after the gate opened.

It was a moderate size room of about 30 square meters. It was completely empty except for the metal targets that were spread in the room. There was a circle drawn in the center.

Soren had many things to do today so he quickly started. He went and sat in the center circle.

He then told Isaac, “Analyze ‘Ice Arrow’ and till then give me all the information you have related to it.”

“Yes, Master,” Isaac replied and displayed all the information he had related to that spell.

After that, he started the analyzing process.

Soren sat there and kept reading through the information multiple times.

He tried to understand the concept behind everything. He also had an advantage in this because of the knowledge from his own world.

Soon Isaac’s voice echoed in his mind, “Analysis finished, Master.”

“Good! Show me.” Soren said.

Soon a bunch of data displayed in front of his eyes. Soren went through it once and said, “Now start the simulation and show me my success rate.”

Bunch of words again flashed in the front of his eyes and soon Isaac displayed the result.

“Simulation Complete: Success rate – 63%.”

The success rate was around the same as Soren had guessed. The practice was also needed in tandem with the knowledge.

Of course, Soren didn’t know one thing. He was missing a very important piece of puzzle that all Initiators had. The low success rate he had was because he couldn’t understand the language the spell was written in.

The basic knowledge of the language of magic itself allowed someone to increase few levels of mastery in low rank spells.

His current success rate was all dependent on his understanding of the nature of the spell, which was quite low right now. He needed to understand the basics of the spell and practice it, in order to use it effectively without knowing the language.

So now, he needed to start the practice.

………

He stood up and slowly took a long breath.

He released his Stygian Grimoire and soon black mist transformed into a deep black book. He lifted his palm and aimed towards a metal target.

Ice Arrow!

He felt mana leaving his body and soon condensed into a form of small ice arrow in front of him. It looked completely white with a very sharp front.

Soren focused and pushed his palm forward a little.

But suddenly his soul shook as the spell broke down. An agonizing pain ran through him as he started coughing with some blood coming out. His face also became pale.

Although he had already expected it, it was much worse when he had to feel it.

He slowly controlled his breathing and sat down.

He again started reading through the information and asked Isaac, “Isaac, show me my data when I was casting the spell. Analyze it and mark my mistakes.”

Isaac soon completed his job and displayed the result to Soren. Soren checked the results and tried to fix his mistakes.

Soren repeated the process until he got it right.

When the Spell Vessel reached its limit, he repaired it using his mana. When he ran low on mana, he rested and studied through a load of information.

……..

Ice Arrow!

An ice arrow formed and floated in front of him. He then pushed his palm forward and this time, the ice arrow flew rapidly towards the target and impaled it with force.

Soren then snapped his fingers and the ice arrow exploded into pieces doing high damage to the target.

He put down his hands as he released a long breath.

He finally succeeded and it was not a stroke of luck but the result of his work. He had checked with Isaac before and already knew his success rate had become 82%.

After that, he started practicing his other spells.

He slowly raised his success rate and then practiced using the metal targets. The whole day passed like this and soon it was evening.

--------

Soren still sat in the center, reading about the spells. His right hand was covered in ice in some places.

His skin also turned slightly blue which signified the use of the spell ‘Cold Touch’.

Although the spell damaged the user too, Soren’s affinity with ice was very high so he was perfectly fine. To him, ice felt like a part of his body and soul.

He continued his testing through the evening as the sun went down. He was completely immersed in his own world and completely forgot everything else.

-----------

In another area of the town; there was a huge mansion.

It was completely decorated and lit up. The surrounding had a very calm and serene feel to it.

Inside the dining hall in that mansion though, the atmosphere was extremely chilly.

Few people were sitting around the long table. A tall and burly man sat on the main chair. He had long black curly hair with black stubble. He was wearing a dress that looked like a black tuxedo.

He looked calm on the outside but his eyes were shooting fire.

He looked at a young woman sitting beside him and said, “Did you tell him properly?”

The young woman replied in a sheepish voice, “Yes father, I informed him personally. I even mentioned your name.”

This young woman was the same woman who had invited Soren to the dinner party yesterday: Denise Liston.

BAM!

The tall man slammed his right fist on the table and stood up shouting, “THEN WHY IS HE NOT HERE!!!”

This man was Ervin Liston.

Everyone was startled by the sudden sound.

Ervin tried to calm down and sat back on the chair. He then said, “Faron.”

A man in silver armor came forward, bowed and replied, “I will handle it, Sir.”

He then turned around and went out of the hall.

Ervin sat on the chair and said, “Let’s Eat. We don’t need to wait anymore.”

 ----------

Soren kept practicing his spells completely forgetting about the invitation. Though, even if he had remembered he would not have gone as he had more important things to do.

He returned to his hotel very late at night completely oblivious to what his ignorance had caused.

He had already removed his disguise before coming to hotel.

He was extremely tired by the spell training; he had continuously suffered from backlashes when the spell casting failed.

His face looked pale and his eyes were red and droopy.

He went back to his room and quickly went to sleep.

The night went on and soon the sky was lit up by the rising sun. Soren woke up in the afternoon feeling extremely groggy. He also had a headache.

“Ugh...I guess it’s the side effects of the backlash. Fuck! Isaac.” Soren groaned in pain and said out loud.

“Yes, Master,” Isaac replied.

“Show me the success rates of all the spells,” Soren said while bearing the pain from the headache.

“Understood, Master: 91% for ‘Ice Arrow’, 80% for ‘Cold Touch’, 94% for ‘Acid Splash’, 78% for ‘Shadow Chain’ ” Isaac replied.

Soren had practiced all the spells except for ‘Create Undead’. He thought it would be best if he practiced it where there were no eyes watching him.

He washed himself up and got ready.

He packed all his stuff in the backpack and just left some clothes in the room.

He was wearing a black T-shirt with full sleeves, black survival cargo pants, and black boots. Today, he was going to the jungle for the purpose of training and earning money.

He carried his backpack and got ready to head out.

He went out into the lobby from the elevator and saw the beautiful girl at the reception desk.

At first, she wanted to get close to Soren but as he never had free time, she could not do anything. She was a little disappointed that Soren never talked to her after they first met.

She was standing behind the desk, doing her job as usual. Suddenly she saw Soren get out of the elevator and walking towards her. She had already given up on any possibility with him but as he got closer, her heart started fluttering.

Soren went towards the desk and stood in front of the girl.

“Hi! How are you?”

The sudden greetings flustered her a little bit. The girl stuttered slightly and replied, “I-I am fine. How are you today, Sir?”

She was somehow able to manage and finish her sentence properly.

“Didn’t you have an evening shift?”

She was slightly happy that Soren remembered her time of the shift and replied smilingly, “I am filling in for someone right now but our shift can change sometimes so it’s not fixed.”

She looked into Soren’s eyes and her already calm heart again started beating fast.

Soren had changed a lot since the last time they had conversed. She had seen him a few times when he returned at night but this was the first time she saw him up close since he came here.

Soren’s affinity had amplified his personality’s trait. Now, he had a confident persona. His eyes had turned dark and cold yet they had a mysterious charm to them.

Black hair, black eyes and black attire combined with his fair skin, gave him a mysterious and charming feeling.

Of course, that was only what she thought.

If someone who was not biased towards Soren closely observed him, they would only see a dark menace that would devour anyone in his path.

Soren looked at the girl who was staring at him with her eyes sparkling and asked, “May I ask your name?”

She broke out of her trance and replied hurriedly, “My name is Leah.”

Soren smiled and moved his right hand forward for a handshake.

He shook her hand and said, “My name is Soren.”

Although he was sure that she knew his name, he still introduced himself.

“Actually, I wanted to inform you that I am going out of town today and might not be able to come back for a while.”

She was a little surprised and said, “Can I ask how many days it will take?”

Soren thought for a while and said, “I am not sure but it will take me around 6-7 days.”

She nodded and told him that the room rent for one month was already paid by the city guard office so he didn’t need to worry about that.

Soren replied with a smile and made his way out as she looked at his back slowly moving out of the hotel.

--------

He made his way towards the Hunter’s Association and entered the building. He quickly went towards one of the empty screens and inserted his Hunter I.D.

He then searched through the list of jobs for Non-Initiators.

He found many types of jobs but most of them were the non-combat type. He didn’t care though as he just needed to get out of the town with that job as an excuse.

He soon found a job for collecting herbs.

Herbs and fruits were mostly used by Potioneers, Healers, and Alchemists. They were always high in demand so they were sold very quickly and easily. This kind of job was also available regularly.

Soren accepted the job and told Isaac to record every detail of the herbs; the job had a detailed explanation of every herb required.

Although he had read many books in the library, he didn’t find any that explained herbs and fruits in detail.

The payment was decent enough so he picked it without hesitating: 10 mana crystals for 1 batch of herbs.

Soren completed the process and took out his Hunter I.D. He walked out of the building and started heading towards the main gate.

He soon reached it and looked at the large gate he had seen when he came to this town for the first time. This time though he was walking through as an Initiator.

He walked out of the gate without hesitation and made his way towards the jungle.