Chapter 4 “Magic“

Chapter 4

As Julian was walking through the village, he heard all the villagers talking in the same strange language as the two guards. But to his suprise he could actually read their writing system. Or rather, the ‹Eyes of Knowledge› translated everything to him.

"I would definitely be useful if I had something like ‹Ears of Knowledge› to translate what they are saying"

After he looked around some more he found some interestinng shops. The most attracting being the bookshop, the pawnshop and a tailor's shop.

"Hmm... Since I can't understand what they are saying, I should buy a book to learn their language. I need clothes aswell, since the ones I'm carrying aren't really all that comfortable. But for both of those, I need money. Maybe I can sell one of those crystals I got."

After coming to a conclusion, he made his way too the pawnshop.

At the pawnshop multiple elves were buying and selling things. Before selling things himself, Julian wanted to see the standarized prices, so he wouldn't get ripped off. He was standing in the pawnshop acting as if he was looking around for something. But Julian closely watched the trades going on at the counter.

The only elves that sold similar crystals to the ones Julian found, were seemingly warriors. Most of them got a few coppercoins for each, but some even got a silver coin.

There were three currencies that Julian was aware of. Copper coins, silver coins and gold coins. He only saw a few gold coins, because he walked across an equipment store. The prices seemed quite costly.

A gold coin seemed to be worth ten silver coins and a silver coin worth ten copper coins,

There wasn't any difference in size when the stones were sold. So there was only one way to estimate the worth. The clarity. Just like in his world, the crystals with better clarity were worth more.

From what he saw, the crystal from the boar was worth about a silver coin. But there wasn't a single item traded with near similar appearance as the one he found in the cave. If he would guess, the energy crystal from the cave would be worth at least five silver coins.

After having made sure that he wouldn't get ripped off, Julian made his way to the counter. The pawnbroker only then realized that Julian was inside his shop. That's just how powerful the cloak was.

The pawnbroker, a goblin, was startled, but shortly after welcomed Julian in elven language.

"Iaw, pr n(y) wn wdm! Nfr r sDm.k?"

Julian guessed it was a greeting and just put the beast crystal on the counter. The goblin inspected it with a magnifying glass before putting two silver coins on the counter. It was worth a bit more than Julian estimated.

'This world doesn't seem to be very evolved yet, so the books might be very expensive... Since I can't do anything with the energy crystal, I can just sell it.'

Julian moved his hand behind the cloak, acting as if he was grabbing something. But he instead got the energy crystal out of the Void. 

'The guards didn't seem very knowledgeable about my ‹Teleportation›. So I should show off more of my skills. I don't want to scare the whole village.

After putting the crystal on the table, the broker looked quite baffled. But he immeadiately hid his surprisement. He quickly inspected the crystal and put three silver coins on the counter with a pokerface.

'He really wants to rip me off! That bastard!' Julian was quiet surprised about the boldness of the goblin. Even Julian could sense that this crystal was worth way more than three silver coins.

'If he wants too play this game I can gladly also put on a show!' Julian used his soul to modify his eyes and made them glow with an intimidating bloodred. 

With the cloak eerying the surroundings and the scythe laying intimidatingly on his back, the goblin started shivering uncontrollably. He seemingly hadn't seen something like Julian in his entire carrier.

After realizing that Julian had discovered his rip-off prize, he immeadiately adjusted it, putting a whole gold coin on the counter. Julian stopped using his intimidating power and was surprised to see a gold coin on the table. 

'A gold coin? This bastard wanted to rip me off of seven silver coins!?'

But since Julian didn't want to cause a scene, he left with the money.

'Okay, I got twelve silver coins. I guess the clothes will cost me about 2-3 silver coins, so the books will have to cost under 9 silver coins.'

After going to the tailor, Julian had a comletely new outfit. A white shirt, a black gilet, a black necktie, a thin, black coat with white patterns around the neck part, chains connecting the fron of his gilet with the back of his gilet. Black long pants and black leather shoes. It made him look as if he was a 

well-known scholar or teacher.

He put his cloak into the void for a later use.

Although his total appearance was the complete opposite ffrom the elves around him, there were a lot of envious stares on him and the female elves were blushing when he passed by. Julian wasn't bothered by it since he was used to it.

Then he arrived at the bookstore. It was small and not easy to notice. It was a little run down aswell. He entered the large, wooden door, entering a dimmly lighted room full of shelves filled with books.

There wasn't anyone around, which wass good for Julian. He looked around the different shelves searching for one that he could use to learn the elven language. Then he found one. It was a fairytale about a hero fighting against an evil dragon together with his companions. An elven archer, a beastman tank (a whitefurred wolf) and a human priestess. Together they slayed the evil dragon, it's remains scattered on a mountain called ‹Yffnir›. 

Thankfully every word in the book covered the pronunciation, so Julian could easily learn it while slowing down time. Within a few minutes, he learned most of the elven language. He still needed to cover more words, so he moved on to the next book.

After about an hour he had learned the elven language the best he could. Memorizing the pronunciation, grammar and even the vocabular. After he had learned all of that, a woman suddenly approached him.

"Hey you! You've been looking around for an hour! If you want to buy something then do so! Don't just loiter around!" It was a young girl with silver hair and long pointy ears. Her appearance was quite beautiful and her clothes were that of a commoner. She was about Julian's age.

"Oh, yeah... I apologize..." Julian replied, his pronunciation still a bit shaky. After looking around some more he found three items he was interested in. A map, an elven history biography and a book about magic beginners. 

'Hmm, I thought it was one of those premature boys wanting to loiter around again, but he seems reasonable. Maybe he just overlokked the time.' The young woman went back to restocking one of the shelves.

When Julian saw it, he was a bit suspect of it first, but the woman assured him "Oh? Are you an aspiring magus? If you want to learn magic I would recommend the ‹Magic for Beginners› book. It covers all the basics and only costs 4 silver coins. As for the advanced and above, they are too expensive, reacing from two to three gold coins. They aren't very quick to sell aswell, so we don't have them here. If you want to learn more, you should get a stipendium to, Alfheim, the Royal Academy."

'Magic? Royal Academy? Three gold coins!?' Julian was quite overwhelmed by all of this new information.

"Okay, since it's like that, I will take this map, this history biography and the ‹Magic for Beginners› book, please.

"Okay! Do you want me to pack it up for you?" The woman asked while writing something in the sales book. "No, thank you."

'Oh my. He's very well raised aswell. Most of the people of today aren't as humble. And his looks are quite refined too...' After realizing her train of thought she quickly shook her head before asking for the payment wiht a blush of embarrasment. "T-The total comes to 9 silver coins. Four for the magic book, 3 for the history book and 2 for the map.

"Here, 9 silver coins." "Thank you for your purchase! Oh, and by the way, if you decide to go to the elven Royal Academy, go see Professor Moonlith. She's my aunt, if you tell her that I sent you, she'll let you take an exam without any preliminaries, but you'll still have to pay the tuition fee if you get accepted. It is aboout 20 gold coins per month."

"Thank you, have a good day" Julian nodded before walking out of the store.

"My name's Lucia Sanctus, by the way!" The young woman called after him before he was comletely out of hearing range.

[…]

Two hours later, in a forest not far away from the village, Julian had read and memorized the map, aswell as the history of elves.

'The mountain I came from was called ‹Ragna›, which is in the west of this village, and if I went south from here I would come to ‹Yffnir›, the mountain in the fairytale. Further to the south lays the land of the beast tribe. In the far east lays the country of the humans and in the north is the capital of the elves. The ratio is about 30-30-30, the rest of the land are islands surrounding the continent, which are inhabitated by other, smaller races.'

The continent is called ‹Primordum›, the main races, the humans, elves and beastmen, share this continent. But in the middle of the continent lies a huge lake. Almost as big as an ocean. In the center of that lake is an island almost as big as the other continents. That island is a wasteland full of demonic and crazed creatures. The three tribes share the responsibility of decimating the sheer amount of creatures, so they don't come to the mainland.

Looking over to the book laying next to him, he picked it up. "Magic for Beginners..." Julian opened it and read the contains of it.

Before reading, he activated his ability though.

"The strength of a magus is divided into the following:

 Beginner Magus - first to second circle

 Advanced Magus - third circle

 Expert Magus - fourth to fifth circle

 Superior Magus - sixth circle

 Great Magus - seventh to eighth circle

 Grand Magus - ninth circle

 Celestial Magus - tenth circle

To attain Mana you first need to see Mana Particles, also called Magicules. Mana Particles can be seen if one has attained enough knowledge of the world. To see them, you need to fully concetrate on your eyes. I should feel as if your eyes are covered by the warmth of a blanket... I see. So I just need to concentrate on my eyes enough?"

Julian put down the book and sat in a lotus position. Concentrating completely on his eyes, feeling how they touch his skin and the surrounding air. His mind started to imagine a warm blanket enveloping his eyes and protecting them from the air and his skin.

Julian slowly opened his eyes and was meeted by millions of hovering glowing orbs of light. Some of them were green while others were red, yellow, blue, brown, purple or white.

"What a beautiful sight..." He was completely amazed by the surrounding lights. The wind blew and with it the green magicules moved, the water rushed and the blue magicules flowed, the ground stood and within, the magicules flowed. The sun shined and the yellow magicules circulated, the fire in the streetlamps of the village burned and the red magicules raged, the shadows, thrown by the objects of the world, grew and with it the amount of purple magicules. The only magicules, that didn't move, were the white ones. They were as still as the water in a lake and as unshaking as the trees of the forest.

After witnessing this beautiful sight, Julian went back to the book.

"The magicules are the energy contained within the elements of nature. Fire, water, earth, air, light, shadow, holy energy, demonic energy are the most common energies of the world. To create your first circle, you need to be acknowledged by an element. If it acknowledges you, let it flow into the depths of your heart, binding you to it and it to you."

"It needs to acknowledge me? How does it do that?" Julian put down the book and tried to catch the magicules, but they would just ignore his body and go through him.

After many minutes of trying to make an element acknowledge him, he heard loud noises coming from the village.

Chapter 4 END