Chapter 6, What Comes Next

Jean broke the silence by saying. "Come on let's go eat the diner that the maid prepared, we missed lunch already and I bet you are already hungry." Almost if on cue, my stomach rumbles. We went down and had some flayed fish for diner.

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I decided to ask what core merging is and how to stop it during diner, as the whole incident felt so quick. "Hey, mom, what is core merging?" When I said this Oliver's ears perked up to listen.

"Ah, yes, that's right. I have never acutely told you what core merging is. Well, core merging is something that happens when you have a very dense core and you try to look for your unique magic. Looking for your unique magic, as you already know, is when you move your consciousness down to your core, If your core is dense it will be hard to get out of the core and your consciousness will start merging instead." she stopped to eat the last bit of food on her plate.

She shifted nervously in her chair and had a small quiver in her voice before speaking again. "Around a few hundred years ago, during the "Great War," there was a lot of not so ethical testing on humans, how their mana works, and how the mana interacts with them. They figured out that when the consciousness merges with the core you die near-instantly, right before you die if you can say conscious after the merging your power goes through the heavens, you no longer need to chant, draw circles, and can use their unique magic past its limits. In short, they become a demi-god for less than an instant."

She calmed herself down before speaking again. "Rank five healing magic and high healing potions are the only things that can stop it before it merges completely. If you can use rank six healing magic and above you can fix the merge. We don't have enough time to get a rank six magician. But it's ok now that you are conscious again." when she stopped speaking she noticed that we were all done eating, and said one last thing in a soft tone. "Now it's getting late you should go to bed."

5 years later. (10)

'My week to week routine is starting to get a little boring. All I do is alternate between training with dad and magic classes with mom with my only one day off in the week, and nothing exciting happened in the last 5 years except for Alex leaving home last year at the age of 12. Well, that wasn't exciting that was sad, and I guess Oliver and I will leave at some point too.' I thought about this while doing my daily mana training.

There is a sudden knock at my door. "Come in!" I yell out, the door opens and Anthony is standing at the door and starts to talk. "There is a large mana best In the forest, and since it's the first large mana beast since you were born I'll have you against it, who knows maybe you will be able to activate your unique magic! There are a few weapons over in the shed near the training ground, there is a short sword, a great sword, a small shield, and a tower shield. Use whatever you want and go get it. I'll have some food ready for when you get back."

"WHAT!" I yelled after he closed the door. I've only ever heard stories about them from my parents, and the beasts are supposed to be able to wipe out entire armies, 'H-How, WILL I DEAL WITH THIS! IT'S NOT LIKE I AM THE MC IN A NOVEL!' my head started to hurt when I started to think about how to defeat it.

'I guess I'll just take the short sword, the small shield, and my wand.' I grabbed some armor and one of the high potions that were leftover from my dad's last hunt, I also got some dried meat just in case I need to stay for more than two days, then I grab my weapons and go out for my hunt. I start my journey in the seemingly never-ending woods behind our farm, I could guess that this is some sort of no man's land type of border that keeps mana beasts away. And I am going into that forest, I am not very excited to do this.

After an hour of traveling around the forest, I feel a few mana signatures nearby, none of them were big enough to be a large mana beast but one of them is big enough to be an average person. Feeling this I start walking over to, what I presume and hope to be, a person. Luckily I was correct and it was a girl sitting on a sideways log with a bow next to her making some soup.

I came out of the forest into the small opening and asked a question. "What kind of soup is that, and may I have some?" she looked over at me and I noticed that she had pointed ears, light green eyes, and dark brown hair. When she saw me she didn't look surprised, but instead, she moved over on the log and patted next to her, and nodded yes. Sitting next to her, she gave me a spare bowl that had some of the soup, I took the bowl and started to eat the soup. 'Tastes good, so its rabbit soup.'

"This is some good soup. May I know your name?" she did not say anything and picked up a stick, she started to draw some pictures. After I looked at the pictures I said. "Are you asking if I can read?" she nodded her head. "Yes, I can read." she looked very relieved and sighed after hearing this, I bet she met a lot of people who couldn't read to have acted like that.

She started to write in the ground with the stick again. "{Hi, my name Faylen Herquen, can I have yours?}"

'oh shit, I forgot to give her my name.' "Hi, my name is John Reyes, and thank you for giving me some food."

She nodded and started to write in the dirt again. "{You are welcome, I made to much anyway}"

End