《The Only Survivor》 Chapter 1 - Just Another Lucid Dream? I felt an immense wave of heat over my body. Opening my eyes, I saw yellow, orange, and blue flames dance around my room and slowly working its way to my bed. I dived out of my bed and jumped through my window. I looked back at my house burning to the ground. I peeled my eyes away from the sight and looked all around my respectable town, or, what was once my town, yet now is a world of fire. I ran as fast as I could to my favorite sanctuary: our local library. Panting heavily, I ran through the path that I knew from pure muscle memory and found myself in front of a burning library. I looked through a window and saw a lot of ash, and no books. I ran back to what was once my home and called out. No answer. I screamed a cry of pure, primal agony. Then, I stood there numbly until I heard the sound of hooves galloping towards me. I looked towards it. There was a warrior riding on a fire horse and holding a flaming torch. Seeing what he was holding, I acted on nothing but anger. I screamed and ran at him. He threw his torch to the side and took out a club. I reached him, jumped up, and punched him as hard as I could. My fist bounced off his chest plate and pain shot up through my body. I saw out of my peripheral vision that a fist was about to hook me on the side of my head, but before I could react I was already hit. The last thing I thought before I fell to the ground was how realistic this lucid dream felt. With a start, I woke up, pain ringing in my head. Wow, that was pretty intense for a lucid dream, I thought, slightly shocked by the violent yet exhilarating situation that my brain put me into. After shrugging off the shock, I decided that it was a good idea to see where I actually am, since the hard surface I woke up from sure didn¡¯t seem like my humble bed. And of course it wasn¡¯t. I was trapped in a goddamn dungeon cell. I really can¡¯t deal with this right now, I sighed, not wanting to think about even the slightest possibility that my ¡°lucid dream¡± wasn¡¯t so much of a dream after all. And I went back to sleep. Hard as the floor was, I thought that it would be better to just sleep it off than to go crazy and try to do something stupid like breaking out of this cell or something. That kind of stupidity would probably just get me killed. I figured it would just be better to learn more about the context of my imprisonment before doing or thinking about anything. Right now, doing could hurt me physically while thinking could hurt me mentally, so perhaps doing nothing until something happens or I get bored would be ideal. If I get woken up by a guard for food or something, that means I am actively being held in this dungeon. If not, I was probably tossed in here and forgotten. Well, let¡¯s see what happens. I thought, drifting off to sleep, dreaming about relaxing aspects of life like rainbows and unicorns. ¡­ I woke up sometime later, still inside the cell, so any lingering hope that I was in some sort of extremely vivid nightmare or pranked by some passing Illusionist Mage was long gone. Well then, I thought, Let¡¯s see what¡¯s out there. I left the cold, hard floor for the first time since I saw this cell for the first time and slowly trudged towards the bars holding my into my cell. Carefully, I tapped one of the bars to make sure they weren¡¯t infused with electrical energy or something. As they seemed like normal metal bars, I brought my head as far out as I could between the bars to look outside my cell. Sure enough, not counting the empty cell right in front of me which I have seen for the part however long, there were near endless cells to my left and a decent amount of cells to my right. It seemed like all the people, or should I say -- skeletons -- trapped in this dungeon were to my right, and to my left were empty cells as far as I could tell. Ok, so the exit is almost guaranteed to be on the right, I thought. Well, it doesn¡¯t seem like anyone cares about us being here, and looking at all the skeletons, it seems like that will be my fate if I don¡¯t escape. I guess I was just forgotten here, which I think is a good thing because I can try to escape unobstructed. First, I tried the least risky way. ¡°Hello?¡± I called out, just in case there were some people who were alive. Sure enough, after a couple seconds, I heard a call back. ¡°Is anyone there? Bing bong bing.¡± I tried, just to make sure it wasn¡¯t my own echo that I heard. Soon, I heard a muted ¡°Is anyone there? Bing bong bing.¡± and gave up calling for help. All right, time to see what I can do, I thought, Maybe I have super strength or something and I never tried enough to know it. First, I tried pulling a bar out of place by locking my feet at the bottom of the bar and pulling on the middle of the bar, attempting to use torque to my advantage. Unfortunately, in this particular situation, you can know all the physics in the world, but you can¡¯t do much to break or bend a bar unless you are strong enough. And no, I most definitely didn¡¯t have super strength, or even average strength, for that matter. Why I even tried that method is beyond me. Anyway, then I retreated back into the cell proper and looked around for any items that could help me or any alternate escape paths.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The ¡°door¡± to the cell seemed to be too high to reach. Huh, looks like they just dump people from the top and leave them so they can¡¯t escape through it. Explains my head pain when I woke up. You can¡¯t break the lock and open the door if you can¡¯t even get up there. There was a drain in a corner, which would have been a good escape route if I was the size of a rat. It¡¯s quite impossible for a powerless human like me to crawl through a drain made for excrement. I banged all over the walls to see if there were any structurally hollow or weak points that I could capitalize on for escape, but everything seemed too solid to do anything with. And of course there was absolutely nothing else. So with nothing to do and a whole lot of time before I dehydrate or starve to death, I went back to the drain and felt around inside it. Putting my hand all the way in, and feeling as high as I could, I felt some type of fossilized moss or something. Eh, might be handy for something, I thought, and grabbed as much moss as I could before taking my hand out and putting as much of it as I could fit into my pockets, and dumping the rest onto my cell¡¯s floor. Then, I reached back in all the way and felt towards the bottom. By some miracle, my fingers were submerged in water! YES! There¡¯s my water problem solved! I thought on the bright side, trying hard not to think of what would likely actually be in the drain water under a dungeon where skeletons were rotting. Eventually, I mentally shrugged and convinced myself that consuming ancient excrement may give me some sort of powers. While this idea was not at all a logical conclusion and I was a man who prided himself in his logical sense, I did what I needed to do to mentally prepare myself to drink some water that would either expand my current lifespan to a couple more weeks or kill me immediately. Steeling myself, I cupped some of the water and drank it as fast as I could. Funnily enough, it tasted mostly like normal water with a metallic flavor to it, from which I convinced myself that this was perfectly normal water that tasted weird. Now, I had a source of water and I could live for a while at least before dying of hunger. At this point, I decided that the optimal thing to do was to slowly bend two bars outwards enough so that I could barely slip between them, all while living off the drain water. So that is what I did for the next chunk of time, slowly getting extremely hungry which increased my desperation enough and maybe gave my a steady adrenaline rush where I didn¡¯t feel the need to sleep or do literally anything other that pulling these two bars apart and only when my throat is parched, taking a short break to drink some drain water, before immediately returning to my tenuous task. Realizing that my efforts were not in vain, and the bars I was pulling apart actually had a slight larger gap than the rest of them, I felt validated and continued with newfound energy. When my arms would not work any longer, I used my shoulders to push the bars apart. When my shoulders were burning, I used my legs to pry the bars apart. When I could stand no longer, my arms were back to help. And after what felt like an eternity, I made enough of a gap between the bars to slip out through the middle. After I dumped myself outside my cell, I didn¡¯t have enough energy to celebrate, or do anything other than slowly walk to the right, where I remembered that the exit most likely was. After passing by all the other cells between my old cell and the end of the hallway, I stood face to face with an iron door. That. Would. Not. Budge. I stopped trying to open it, sweat pouring down my face, and simply sat down with my back to the door. To my right, there was a bunch of small jagged rocks, seemingly from a dropped statue or something. To my left, there was a ladder. Well, now I know how they get up to the cell doors and dump the captives inside. As my steady adrenaline rush from the past eternity wore off and I forgot the last time I slept, I realized that I had no more energy inside of me. I am going to die. Right here. Right now. My life flashed before his eyes. I was born and raised in a humble family of craftsmen. Talented in the fields of Mathematics and Physics, in part due to my origins in a craftsmen family and in part due to my interest in these topics. Spending hours after hours in the local library, learning anything I can about the world for my unbridled love for knowledge and understanding. Helping my family around the house by following in my father¡¯s footsteps and crafting various tools and objects. Naively dreaming as a child that one day I would craft something so ¡°fantabulastic¡± that no had ever done before and become the best craftsman in the entire world¡­ And that¡¯s about it. Damn, my life was boring, I realized, before I closed my eyes for the last time. ¡­ Or so I thought. Until I woke up again, exactly where I thought I died, feeling just slightly energized from my sleep but still starving. Ha! I just won¡¯t die, will I? Ok then. Let¡¯s look for some food, I thought. I got up and walked over to the first cell. Completely empty, save for a skeleton. Next one? Same. After looking through a few more cells, I found a cell with a short yet sturdy skeleton that didn¡¯t completely rot yet, and still had a decent amount of flesh on it. It seems that dwarves had such dense flesh that it took a while to rot as well... Now I¡¯m not one to eat my own race or ones that look like it, but desperate times call for desperate measures, you know? So, I took the ladder next to the iron door and placed it to get up to this particular cell¡¯s entrance. How did I open the lock, you ask? And how did I avoid getting stuck in this cell? Simple. I used some of the jagged rocks to try and pick the lock, opened the door, sat on the top, moved the ladder to the inside of the cell, used the ladder to pull the fleshy skeleton closer to the bars, pulled the ladder back over to the outside through the door, and finally got back down to enjoy the meal. Honestly, at the state I was in, this old skeleton flesh tasted like the best food I had ever eaten in my entire life, and I¡¯m not ashamed to admit it. I continued this process every time I saw a skeleton that had flesh on it -- and no, they were not all dwarves -- and soon, I was left with tons of locks, a trusty ladder, a bunch of jagged rocks, and a full stomach. I don¡¯t care what this looks like to you, but I saw this as an absolute win. Chapter 2 - Discovering History Eventually, I made my way down the other end of the hallway, which happened to turn right and had many more cells before finally stopping at another iron door. Mentally I named this one Door 2 and the one closer to my original cell Door 1. Unlike Door 1, this one had an intact statue next to it that I assumed was the same one that was once on the other end before it broke into the jagged rocks I¡¯m using now. The statue was of a tall bulky man wearing a magnificent crown on his head, standing on a pedestal, with one hand seemingly pulling out his sword with the other hand stretched out in front of him, like he was casting some sort of spell. Looking down, I read the words on the pedestal. Hyronius Galamon Founder of the Galamon Dynasty 3142 - 2579 BC What?! Thousands of years before the Catastrophe?! I have read about the Galamon Dynasty, but its founder was unknown and lost to time according to all the books I¡¯ve read, I thought. If this is true, then I¡¯ve just discovered ancient forgotten knowledge! I realized giddily, forgetting for a moment where I was and what condition I was in. From prior knowledge, I knew that the Galamon Dynasty was at its peak about 400 years after the Catastrophe, having conquered half of the known world at the time, but is now a husk of its former self as the Galamon family nowadays are just rich nobles who live in castles. So¡­ I was captured by the Galamon family? Maybe? But why would they do this? I need answers, Goddamnit! I fumed. All I remember before waking up inside this dungeon was that I went to sleep in my room at night, and that¡¯s about it. Unless¡­ I sighed. It seems as if the horrifying nightmare that I woke up from¡­ wasn¡¯t just a nightmare. The only way I have been moving forward without thinking much about my ¡°dream¡± was by convincing myself that it was indeed a ¡°very intense lucid dream,¡± which I was able to believe for a while because I have lucid dreams often. However, there was one image engraved onto the statue¡¯s pedestal that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that my drowsy nightmare was not simply my brain putting my into insane situations: an insignia of a wyrm wrapped around an orb staff. While I didn¡¯t have the state of mind to register that insignia during the moment when I rushed the warrior in my ¡°dream,¡± I most definitely do now. And that warrior had this exact insignia on his right shoulder plate. If I had any doubts before, they were all washed away on this realization. The world of fire was real. I saw nobody on the streets but the Galadon warrior with a torch. Everyone I knew and loved, my family, my friends, my rivals, they may all be dead. The house I grew up in for twenty years -- gone. The library that I spent the majority of my time in -- gone. My entire town, all I knew, was burnt to the ground. At this moment, life caught up with me and I just dropped to the ground, ignored my current semi-imprisonment, and cried openly for my past life that was long gone. I would never find the same peace again. ¡­ After crying my heart out and gathering my bearings, I resolved to myself that I would leave any more unproductive activities until I was free and safe. So, I got ready to mentally create my next short term goals as well as some long term goals. All right, for the short term, I need to find a way to get through one of the iron doors. I don¡¯t think waiting for some Galamon guard to open them is a very reliable idea. Though, I should create some contingency in case that happens so I could escape in an ideal way. Now, I realize that I could go in and out of any cage as I wish because I picked all the locks already and all I have to do to avoid getting stuck was bring the ladder with me inside whichever cell I am going into. Then I could just drink some drain water, set the ladder, climb up to the open door, pull the ladder over, and get down outside the cell. Easy. Since the drain water probably isn¡¯t going anywhere and all the many remaining fleshy skeletons are most definitely not going anywhere, I have a reliable source of both food and water. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Now, for the long term, I need to know why my town was attacked by the Galamon family. I didn¡¯t even know the Galamon still retained enough power to obliterate an entire town! Maybe the history books I was reading were slightly outdated. Next, I will find exactly whoever was responsible for the attack on my town. And I¡¯ll KILL THEM ALL!!! ...Ah, who am I kidding? I¡¯ll be happy to get out of here alive -- forget killing a single Galamon. Besides, I don¡¯t want to kill anyone innocent, and of course there are many innocent people within the Galamon family as well. I just want to punish those that ruined my life and took away everything. Sighing, I decided that the first thing I would do was make a countermeasure for anyone opening Door 1, since I deduced that Door 2 hadn¡¯t been opened in forever, and probably won¡¯t be -- if the rust connecting the door to the doorway was any indication. Therefore, I took the moss out of my pockets. Remember how I thought that they might be useful for something. Well, here is that something. The moss was so hard that it was completely stuck together and I could slowly bend it in different ways. So I just made a sack out of it: I put all the moss I had onto the ground on the hallway and flattened them.Next, I made a couple shapes like a horseshoe and superimposed them all by angling each successive moss piece slightly to the right of the previous one. After putting as many jagged rocks and locks I could fit into this paraboloid, I pulled together all the top parts and spun it around like I was using a screwdriver. Looks like my craftsman background is coming in handy now, huh? I thought, wondering how ironic it was that I was making weapons against the Galamon with random things from their dungeon. By the end, the top part of the sack was so tightly held together by the hard moss that I could carry the sack from the top without all its contents ripping through the bottom or sides of the bag. Perfect. I grinned. I made as many of these weaponized sacks as I could until I only had a few rocks and locks left, since the moss I simply got from any drain. My plan if a guard opened the iron doors was simple: I would hear the guard about to open the door, and quickly use the ladder to get up above the iron door. Luckily for me, there was a jutted out part of the wall directly above both iron doors, like a semi-platform -- probably some sort of design -- that I can now use to my advantage.Then, once I¡¯m on this platform, I would throw as many weaponized sacks as I can from as high as possible on the guard, who is hopefully disoriented for enough time for me to grab the ladder, jump back, and break it over the guard¡¯s head for an immediate knockout by falling with the ladder. I doubt my plan would work flawlessly due to too many chaotic factors in the moment, but I resolved to do at least something resembling it in the situation that a guard opens the door. As a set-up for my plan, I placed as many weaponized sacks as I could on the thin platform above Door 1, and the last two I kept in my pockets. ... Now, it was time to try breaking out of here. I figured that if I wanted to make any amount of noise, it would be a good idea to do it near the door that no one used in forever: Door 2. So I went to the other end of the hallway and broke through all the rust with a jagged rock. Next, I decided that I would target the weak point of any door: the hinges. Luckily, the hinges were on my side and the door would open towards me into the dungeon, both signs of outdated design. Though I can¡¯t blame them because this place seems to have been built a very long time ago. It seemed as if these particular iron hinges were big, bulky barrel hinges. I decided to coil a hard moss around a lock and repeatedly swing the mechanism up into the middle hinge as kind of a discount hammer, but instantly had a better idea. I stuck a jagged rock into the lock, sharpened the other end with the help of another rock, and continued my swinging actions using a mechanism somewhat equivalent to a hammer slamming up on a screwdriver to dislodge the iron nail inside of the barrel hinge. Since there was so much rust, it took a while, but I was finally able to get the nail out of its hinge. Then, kneeling down, I did the same on the bottom hinge. I couldn¡¯t really reach the top hinge at my respectable 5¡¯ 10¡¯¡¯ height, and I didn¡¯t feel like walking all the way to the other door to get the ladder... so I sat on the shoulders of Galamon founder¡¯s statue. Haha, I wonder what Mother would have said if she saw me doing this. ¡°Have you no respect for your elders, young man?¡± The thought brought a smile to my face for the first time since I saw this place. Once I dislodged the last nail, all I had to do was pry the large, multi-ton iron door out of my way. ...Oh. Well, this should be no trouble at all, I thought sarcastically before giving up for now and falling asleep near Door 1, since I decided to be near Door 1 as much as I can. Better safe than sorry, I thought grimly, before sleep overtook me once again. Chapter 3 - Stairway to Freedom The next time I woke up, I wasted no time and got to making something that could help me pry Door 2 out of its frame. Now that the hinges were gone, taking off the door would only involve brute strength using a crowbar-type object. I knew this because after peeking through where the door¡¯s lock connects a rod of iron through the wall, it looks as if prying the door open with enough force would just allow the iron rod to break through the rock with minimal resistance. So luckily, it seems that I don¡¯t have to worry about the lock and I would just be able to take off the door if my crowbar works without breaking To improvise a crowbar for this situation, I decided to first check if any cell bars were loose and could come off, so I could use it as one. To my surprise, one of the cells had one of its bars barely in place towards the middle of the cell. I just pulled on it and it popped off. I stood there dumbfounded. Umm, wh- what? I didn¡¯t think this would actually work?! I burst out laughing at my good fortune, but quickly realized something I never really noticed as unusual before. In this particular cell, there was no skeleton. Before, I just thought this cell was skipped or something, but it seems that there was an escape from this dungeon once before. Dang, I really can¡¯t be the first for anything, can I? I thought, with a dash of dark humor, both happy that I wasn¡¯t the only one that had to go through this situation and sad for the exact same reason. Then, I noticed a slightly broken part of the wall about halfway up the cell, right behind the bar that popped off easily for me. Oh, ho ho. I know exactly what happened here, I grinned, thinking about just what kind of badass they tried holding captive in this cell once. I mentally played out a picture of what happened. This mysterious escaper jumped to the back wall, pushed off with as much force as possible -- which severely cracked the wall -- before slamming into the top of this bar, popping it right off its socket. Then, after putting the bar back into place, probably to throw off the Galamon, this escaper¡­ probably somehow waited until the iron door was opened. I can¡¯t think of a single way this person got through those doors from the inside, unless the door was unlocked or something. Clearly this person was strong enough to open the door in that case. Curious, I went to go investigate Door 1. When I peeked through its side where the iron rod would connect the lock to the wall, I noticed that the rod seemed to be welded pretty much exactly where I was looking. This all but confirms it! This escaper had some magic, energy, or power that result in cutting through a thick piece of iron. Wow, this guy is totally hero material, I thought. Then I thought about myself. Haha, if I have a power it¡¯s probably to be able to ingest old, rotten things without dying! After jabbing at my unpowered self, I thought of the statue. This escaper may have broken the statue out of spite before leaving or something. Totally something a hero would do in my mind, I thought. However, I knew I didn¡¯t have it in me to destroy the other statue: actively destroying preserved history so flippantly like that would almost be worse than killing an innocent Galamon!Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Silently thanking this mysterious hero for making my life a lot easier in these trying times, I took the bottom of the bar and slammed it into the left of Door 2 where the hinges were before I took them off. This part of the bar was flat, supposedly due to the mysterious hero swinging down the bar from the top. Due to its flatness, I was able to fit it between the door and the frame. After pushing it in as far as I could to secure the bar from slipping out, I started heaving to the right. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. This action took me back to when I was getting out of my cell by pulling it apart. But back then, I was starving, therefore leaving me with little energy and little time before I died. Now, however, I have food, energy, and all the time in the world. ¡­ I started counting days by when I slept. Every time I woke up, I scratched a mark next to Door 1 and went to Door 2 to continue prying, before coming back near Door 1 to sleep again. And so this continued for 16 days, and I knew it was working because the iron rod connector was slowly breaking the wall to the right while the thick iron door was slowly edging towards me from where I was prying it to the left. Until finally¡­ I felt the door give way. ¡°YES!!!¡± I couldn¡¯t help but yell excitedly, using my voice for the first time since I saw this dungeon. Ironic since I was about to leave it, but whatever. Then, I moved out of the way and the door slammed onto the ground, its iron rod falling with it, fully breaking the wall to the right of the door. Unable to resist after so long and wanting so much to see a new sight, I looked through the doorway. Darkness. Pure darkness. As if I didn¡¯t have enough on my plate. I sighed. Not only did I have to navigate the pitch black darkness without any light source -- since the only light in the dungeon came from some lamps so high up I couldn¡¯t even throw anything that high -- but I would have to make sure that I wasn¡¯t caught escaping because that may lead to my death. I sure don¡¯t think they would want to lock me in here again! Since I was full of energy and wanted to leave as soon as possible, I checked to make sure I still have the weaponized sacks in each pocket before taking the bar as a weapon. I also made sure to take my lock-rock combination that helped me take off the hinges. Lastly, I also took the hinges, because why not? Then, I slowly made my way outside of the dungeon by leaving through Door 2, after a quick farewell to my forced home for the past month or so, probably. I couldn¡¯t forget the statue, though. ¡°Goodbye, you son of a bitch. I will try my very best to kill some of your descendants about 5,000 years after you died,¡± I quipped, bonking it on the head with my bar before leaving the dungeon. I used my bar as a sort of blind man¡¯s stick and repeatedly tapped with it right in front where I was about to step. After walking a couple steps, I realized that I reached some stairs. So, I carefully made my way up these stairs, using my trusty stick to guide me. Slowly but surely, I stepped up the stairway, my legs burning in protest. But I went on. Some mind-numbing pain was but a small price to pay for freedom at this point. After what felt like eons of walking up the stairway that I could only feel, I felt a blinding flash in my eyes as a very small amount of light made its way into them. My heart started pounding in excitement. Freedom! Yes! I can feel it! I thought animatedly. I picked up the pace, as I was able to make out the stairway now, with the little bit of light that I had. Gradually, the light became brighter and brighter, before I stepped up as I have been for thousands of steps now¡­ and fell flat on my face. Goddamnit!!! I fumed. My legs got into such a habit of stepping upwards that they wouldn¡¯t stop, until I fell. Unfortunately, my legs lost any adrenaline it had from my journey to the top of this near infinite stairway, and my entire body was aching all over from the intense cardio, and I immediately passed out seeing the light flowing to me through the space between the door and its frame just a few yards in front of me. Chapter 4 - New Home I woke up to the same light in my face. After blinking wildly a couple times to get used to the light, I got up, picked up my bar, and walked towards the door. This door seemed to also be a door that hasn¡¯t been used in centuries, what with all the dust around it, what made it different that the iron door I had to get through was that this was a WOODEN door! I grinned from ear to ear. Looks like the God of Fortune is with me today, am I right? I thought, before rearing up for a strong grounded, well-placed kick and straight up popped the door out of its hinges. I just watched, beyond surprised at where my confidence came from to do that as well as how it actually worked, as the door fell and slid to a stop about five feet away. Shaking my head in bewilderment at my own strength after all this time, I walked out into a large room, head lifted and chest puffed with uber-manly pride at my newfound strength, imagining a badass entrance like the mysterious escaper probably had. The room I was in had many windows, allowing sunlight to flow in non-stop. Out of curiosity on why this door wasn¡¯t opened in forever, I walked up to it and flipped it around. My eyes widened as I read the message carved into the door: ¡°DO NOT OPEN -- Dangerous Alchemical Ingredients Inside This Room!!!¡± ¡­ And this warning actually worked and no one ever thought to open it in that long? Wow, I chuckled. After setting the door back in place to make it look like it was still intact, I turned back around. I looked around this room and knew that I needed to do something to fit in or escape: I had no other options. And I will not escape. First of all, I have no idea where I am. Secondly, I have nowhere to go since I only had one home and that was destroyed¡­ Thirdly, I can only find any hope for answers to explain the attack on my town right here. And lastly, I HAVE to get revenge on some motherfuckers! I swore. So, with that decision made, I slowly opened a large double door on the other side of the room and peeked outside to make sure that there was no one there, or at least in sight. Seeing just an endless hallway with a ton of doors on both sides, I nodded and closed the doors, going back into the room. Now, it was time to explore this lavish room. The first thing I did was check myself out in the mirror. Damn, I¡¯ve got to say¡­ I¡¯m looking fine for someone who hasn¡¯t taken a bath in ages, I whistled, admiring my new toned, sleek body that looked more like a natural athlete than someone who spent his entire life reading books and soaking in knowledge and understanding. My slightly longer messy hair as well as my currently growing confidence in my own looks made me feel quite sexy, in my humble opinion. After emulating the God of Ego for a few minutes ¡ª flipping around my hair, flexing my now-respectable muscles, and grinning devilishly into the mirror ¡ª I quit admiring my new look and opened a nearby closet. It was filled with girl¡¯s clothes, so I hurriedly closed it and opened another closet, which was filled with boy¡¯s clothes. After searching through all the closets in the room, I concluded that this large miraculous room was nothing more than another clothes storage to these spoiled nobles. It even had a large bathroom with a high-class tub! For what felt like the hundredth time, I sighed and exchanged my current exceedingly dirty clothes with some cleaner ones that also happened to be very fine, strong material suited for nobles like the Galamon. But before wearing them, I took a good long bath in the grand bathroom attached. Checking myself out in the mirror, I made sure to keep my hair the same as before, since I quite liked that look. Damn, with these fine clothes it looks like I was born a noble! I thought. Then, out of curiosity, I looked out all the windows just to gather my bearings and I was absolutely awed at the sights. It seemed as if I was in a large, interconnected palace with a courtyard in the middle and a moat around the outside. I also saw a decent amount of servants walking around or working, wearing clothes that looked like mine.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Oh, how ironic. I thought these clothes were fit for nobles yet are only worn by their servants! Well, that is a good thing anyway since it is much easier to fit in as a random servant than as a noble that just popped out of nowhere. Now all ready, I left the room through the double doors and started exploring all the rooms I could. If I meet someone, my excuse would be something like ¡°oh, I¡¯m so sorry for barging in. I thought no on was in here and I came to clean the room.¡± And if they ask about the bar¡­ I¡¯ll say I just found it on the ground and was finding a proper place to keep it. If they don¡¯t buy any of it, then I will have no choice but to knock them out using my bar. Wait, I¡¯m thinking too violently. Just because I got stronger doesn¡¯t mean I should deal with every problem using force. Though I will kill if absolutely necessary; I cannot be compromised. Ah, whatever. I¡¯ll just improvise based on the situation, I affirmed. If there was one aspect of myself I was proud of, it was my ability to improvise. Especially after escaping the dungeon of this very palace by hook or by crook. Many of the rooms I went into and searched were pretty useless as they were just extra clothes storage rooms and the like. However, the thirteenth room I went into actually had a sack in one of the drawers. I opened the sack and there were 3 copper coins in there, which I must say was a pretty good haul. At least until a couple rooms later when I found a box with literally 52 gold coins, 176 silver coins, and 279 copper coins. Yes, I actually counted. I am not ashamed to admit that my greed had taken the better of me at this particular moment. How was the box just open for me and never found yet? Well, two things. One, it wasn¡¯t open. It needed a key, but laughably the key in question was hidden in the same room inside a random bag in one of the closets. I would have never found it had I not meticulously searched through every little detail for any valuables. Two, the box was never found because it was stuck inside a jammed drawer that no one bothered to unjam. That is, until me, of course. I just stuck my bar in there and pried it off no problem. Compared to the iron door that lost against my crowbar, this jammed drawer was nothing. Now, I realized that this box was too heavy to carry around, so I just took a large bag I found in one of the other rooms and fit in all the coins, which are now mine, of course, since no one claimed them in a long time. This bag I carried over my shoulder, and now my disguise as a working servant was complete. I looked exactly like a noble family servant taking out the trash. I even put my bar inside the bag to complete the image. Even the warrior with the torch that captured me would not be able to recognize me now since I would look, dress, and act so different. After searching a few more rooms, I found myself in what seemed like a mage¡¯s study space, sporting some glowing orbs on a majestic looking desk, an enormous bookshelf filled to the brim, and other scrolls, diagrams, and magical items around the room. I realized that no one has been here in a while since even the servants don¡¯t clean this room apparently. I waved away some dust and smiled, knowing I had hit jackpot. I turned around, closed the door, and grinned. Time to read ALL THE DAMN BOOKS!!! I couldn¡¯t contain my excitement. In my local library, there never were any books on anything that could increase one¡¯s power, including any books on Magic, Energy Manipulation, Martial Technique, Close Combat, Ranged Combat, or anything of the sort. Of course all these topics were referred to in many books, but was never explicitly taught in any of them. That is because the wealthy nobles, royalty, and other powerful people always kept these books under wraps as much as they could. In their minds, obviously, the less people that get power, the better, and books are the fastest way of spreading knowledge. Therefore, by censoring such books, they are much more likely to keep their power. Though I understand it from a political standpoint, I would never actually do it as I believe that everyone should have a chance at getting powerful on their own merit. I don¡¯t know why more nobles don¡¯t come to the light and smuggle these books into commoner circles, but I guess I¡¯ll never think like a noble. For now, though, it was time to settle in and get comfortable. It seemed like the mage literally lived in this room, as it had a bunch of old rotten food, a water dispenser, an attached bathroom, a luxurious bed, and¡­ actually, that¡¯s about all you need to live in a place, right? It¡¯s almost as if this room was made for me: the bare necessities, a bunch of interesting objects around the room I could play around with, and books galore! I thought excitedly, before grabbing a book from the shelf called The Essence of Elemental Magic, plopping down on the bed, and starting to read while chewing on a rotten Seescent fruit from the counter. Chapter 5 - Implications in a Letter The Essence of Elemental Magic By Sovent Ladrigoff The purpose of this book is to give an intuitive understanding of magic for those who know nothing of it. As there are four different schools of magic (Arcane, Druidic, Health, and Summoning), as well as many branches of each, there are various ways to tackle the complex subject matter of the mystical arts. Therefore, this book will focus on a branch of Arcane magic known as Elemental Magic, which is the ¡°magic¡± of seemingly creating fire, water, wind, or rock where there was none before. Since Arcane Magic is most widely used by Mages, we will use Mage terminology rather than that of Druids, Healers, or Summoners. Before you can begin using magic, you have to understand exactly what magic is, from an academic standpoint. There are three ways to harness energy for your own use: Consumption, Manipulation, and Transfer. Energy Consumption is nothing special, as anything you do consumes your energy, and this is the default way that everyone uses energy. Energy Manipulation, otherwise known as Cultivation, involves using various techniques to condense energy into your body, allowing you to forcefully expel it in a certain way that varies based on how you stored it. Finally, Energy Transfer, which is universally known as ¡°Magic,¡± entails the careful transfer of energy from one place to another, using a medium called mana. We will now expand on the basic concepts of Energy Transfer. With very few exceptions that we will not go into in this book, any consumption, manipulation, or transfer of energy always follows the Conservation of Energy. Therefore, to harness one type of energy in some way, whether it be through Cultivation or Magic, one needs to give up another type of energy. For Arcane Magic in general, the way this works is through a magical Focus. Though some powerful and experienced Mages could use their own mind as a Focus, novices generally need a mana-imbued object as one. A Focus is a dual-purpose object. One, a Focus is able to slowly absorb and store energy beyond the Mage¡¯s minimal bodily energy reserves. Two, due to its high mana density, it can easily facilitate the transfer of energy from itself, or the Mage¡¯s body, to another point in space. The effective transfer of energy is proportional to the inverse square of the distance, similar to the laws of gravitation and electricity, because the mana absorbs more of your energy the farther it leaves your Focus. However, the proportionality constant is a function of the mana density of the volume that the energy is being transferred through, instead of being a fundamental constant of nature. As you can see, the mystical wonders of ¡°Magic¡± is nothing more than a wonderfully complex, yet fundamentally simple interplay between energy, mana, and various techniques that could lead to wide-ranging results. Therefore, for the rest of this book we will be tackling the mathematical derivations for the basic elemental applications of Energy Transfer as well as the qualitative theory behind what is known as ¡°Elemental Magic¡±! ¡­ One good thing about spending a vast portion of my entire life reading books and cultivating my love to learn is that I could both read and understand books faster than most people and in one sitting. After reading through the entirety of The Essence of Elemental Magic, I realized that I have been missing out! This was quite possibly the most interesting topic I have ever had the pleasure of reading in my entire life, and there was no way I could have found anything like this in my local library. I felt giddy knowing that I, though through a horrible turn of events, had the opportunity to gain highly censored knowledge that could only generally be found within wealthy circles, and also in a part of the palace which would have seemed forgotten had I not seen some servants walking around. If I wanted to read through all this entire bookshelf before, I didn¡¯t know how to describe my feelings in words at this moment. I got up, locked the door to make sure no servant would even accidentally come in here since they don¡¯t seem to anyway, and started reading another book from the shelf, this one titled Mana Theory: An Introduction, which detailed the physical characteristics of mana and its origins. According to this book, mana was just fixed, condensed energy in space that was too ¡°stubborn¡± to be harnessed but very useful as a medium to transfer other types of energy through it, keeping it intact until it reaches its goal. Mages would have to use their Focus to direct their energy through the mana and set a particular goal. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. And just like this I read through a few more books, almost as if I was back in my local library, reading book after book after book without a care in the world. Only, these books are heavily censored and very few people actually get to read them. Also, I do care now... I need to know why my entire hometown was obliterated and I need to fight back. Whoever is guilty made a big mistake by not killing me. Though¡­ why? Why did they leave me alive? I groaned at the mystery that still makes no sense to me. But all that is for later, I thought. For now, I will be leaving this room as a wielder of magic, even if it takes me through the entire rotten food supply here to do so, I resolved. After a few more books, my brain started overloading at the information-rich books, so I found some pieces of paper along with a pencil and started jotting down a crude summary of everything I¡¯ve read so far, confident that this simple action would help me retain all my knowledge for later use when I would actually attempt to use magic with the knowledge that I¡¯ve gained through all these books. While I was tremendously excited at the prospects of actually wielding magic like a Mage, the hyper-logical part of my brain assured me that if someone with access to an entire bookshelf of highly secret books on magic, literally inside a Mage¡¯s old lair, could not learn to use magic, then who could? Obviously people had to discover these things as well, in the beginning, so some people must have found some of these ideas without any books or external help. ¡°If they could do it without any help at all, then I have no excuse to not figure it out with all these books at my disposal -- books that people would kill for,¡± I told myself. ¡­ About three weeks later, after reading through the last book on the shelf, Enchanting Runes with Arcane Magic, I finished my notes with the last of my available knowledge. Wow, my notes are long enough to create another book! I laughed, flipping through my good one hundred pages of notes. Luckily, the previous owner of this room had enough leftover rotten food to last me this amount of time with some wise food rationing. I didn¡¯t leave the room a single time. Not even when I heard what was probably a servant walk by my room. It seems that the servants come in here for a monthly cleaning. Luckily, even though my door was locked, the servant didn¡¯t even try to open it. I assume that the servants don¡¯t bother cleaning this room for some reason; maybe they know the owner isn¡¯t coming back or something. On that topic though, I was rummaging through some of the boxes in the back of the room and I found a crumpled up letter to a ¡°Dabiva¡± who seemed to be the Mage whose hospitality I was now abusing. The letter was relatively short, but I got the idea of exactly what happened after reading through it, which I postponed until I finished reading all the books to prevent further distractions. ¡°My Dear Dabiva, I send this letter to warn you of the impending disaster stemming from the eastern mountain regions of Vokh. I have managed, through certain means that you surely know, to uncover a terrible secret hidden beneath the mountains. Since you are so close to Vokh, I knew I had to let you know. I implore you to join me on my quest to stop this disaster from ever occurring. I am sorry for not being able to be more clear on the particular details, due to fear of compromise, but I promise to tell you everything as soon as we are able to talk. However, believe me when I say that the fate of the entire Hoxwelton Empire rests on our shoulders now. We are the only ones who can save our nation. Imagine what rewards we would get if we succeed! Please write back to me as soon as you get this. I know you told me last time that you were done with this kind of life, but please, just think of what¡¯s on the line and come back. Just one more time. Love, Jokhen¡± After reading that letter, I took a deep breath and wiped some sweat off my brow. Whew, that went from some kind of official message straight to a personal life drama! I don¡¯t even want to know, I thought. Ironically, however, I actually understood what this Jokhen was talking about, since the clue about ¡°disaster stemming from the eastern mountain regions of Vokh¡± told me all I needed to know. Basically, about seventy years ago, there was an ancient golden dragon that left its lair deep below the mountains there and went on a rampage against the Hoxwelton Empire. According to legend, the brave heroes who faced the dragon head on were obliterated, and the dragon curiously stopped its rampage after eating the Emperor and flying off to the north past the Erulan Sea. That always made me think that dragons were sentient, but popular belief would disagree with me, I thought, Regardless, I assume that Dabiva¡­ Galamon, probably, caved and went alongside Jokhen to fight the dragon. Well, we all know how that turned out, I sighed, looking around Dabiva¡¯s room and admiring her life¡¯s work, now knowing what happened to her. Shaking my head, I cleared my throat and said, ¡°Dabiva Galamon, if your soul is out there listening to me right now, then I want you to know something: I will be making full use of your life¡¯s work to eventually kill some of your descendants.¡± After laughing my head off at my own dark joke, I realized that I hadn¡¯t laughed like that since I first woke up in my burning house. And then I realized that the first thing that made me laugh in pure unfiltered joy was not thinking about peaceful times with my family, creating new tools in the cell to survive, or even finding a box filled with so many gold coins that I doubted anyone had back in my hometown, but my own joke about murdering people. After brooding a bit at my pathetic self, I decided that humor exists to make people laugh and it would be a crime to feel bad about jokes, no matter how dark they are. I thought back to the irony of my current situation and laughed the night away. Chapter 6 - Arcane Magic The next morning I woke up, ready to finally start attempting to use magic. While I had no intention to become a fully-fledged Mage, or any kind of Class for that matter, I still wanted to learn as much as I could about each one as well as be able to use their powers and abilities as I needed. Since, at the moment, I had found a Mage¡¯s lair, I was going to learn how to do Arcane Magic first. Now, I knew more than most about how different theory and experimentation was. Whenever I set up Physics experiments at home for fun, it always took a while to understand exactly what I was doing even though I read and understood all of the theory behind it. I knew it would be the same situation here, but even harder, because while anyone can set up experiments, very few people can use magic to a respectable degree. Skimming through my notes, I recalled that the first thing anyone must do before being able to transfer energy, or ¡°cast magic,¡± was to obtain a Focus. Really, anything could be a Focus as long as it had a high mana density, but Mages generally used orb staffs. The orb was the actual focus, while the staff was for bonking things, I guess. None of the books really explained why the staff was so widely used among Mages. Maybe to look cool? I don¡¯t know. Anyway, luckily for me, Dabiva had a couple orb staffs just lying around. So I picked the one that looked the coolest and was about to move on to step two. But wait, wasn¡¯t mana defined as some sort of fixed energy at a point in space? How can all that mana stick near the Focus instead of staying at the point in space it was originally? I thought, wondering how that worked since I didn¡¯t have any explicit reason for it through my understanding of the concepts or my notes. Mulling it over for a while, I just chalked it down to something akin to a mana magnet. How the mechanism behind mana magnet would work, though, I have no idea. Perhaps I should look for a book on creating a Focus. That should give me the reason behind that as well as help me create another if this one breaks or something, I thought, before moving on to step two. Detect the mana near and inside your Focus. Well, hopefully this orb has a high mana density associated with it or else I would be wasting my time for no reason, I thought, knowing that this was the hard part. Or at least, the first hard part. Armed with my knowledge from all my reading, I stood up, back straight, good posture, chin up, lifting the orb staff high enough so that the orb was eye level. Then I closed my eyes and tried my best to clear my mind. The hardest part is detecting the mana inside your focus the first time, since after that you already know how to do it and it becomes much easier to feel the mana in your Focus. There was also an important distinction here: mana not associated with a Focus is much harder to detect than the mana attracted to the focus. The former is known as Wild Mana while the latter is called Focus Mana. In hindsight, recalling this information made me feel that my assumption of the focus being like a mana magnet wasn¡¯t too far off from the truth. Realizing that by trying to clear my mind, I was instead thinking more, I shook my head and tried again. This time, to keep me distracted from stray thoughts, I ¡°looked¡± right in front of me with my eyes closed. After what felt like hours, I heard nothing but my own heartbeat. Groaning, I put the orb staff down and jumped on to the bed. Hearing nothing but my heartbeat was bad. I was supposed to hear or feel a certain frequency of the mana in my Focus, after which I should match that frequency by humming gently in order to help connect my brain to the feel of mana. Apparently, this connection to mana is essential in order to detect it as well as use it as a medium. Frustrated, I just grabbed the orb staff and brought it beside my ear. How better to hear a soft sound than to bring it right beside your ear, I thought. Though I read a lot of books, I always questioned what I learned and never took anything at face value: this was no different. After a couple seconds, I felt like I had a second heartbeat. Stolen story; please report. What¡­ I thought, but concentrating more on that feeling, I realized it was slightly faster than my normal heartbeat. Feeling like I almost had it, I touched my left ear to the orb. Immediately, I heard an extremely shrill frequency on that ear. I winced and fumbled with the staff. Luckily, I caught it before it fell: I didn¡¯t want to test if it would survive a fall. It looked like a glass orb after all. Well, I definitely heard the mana, I thought, now it¡¯s time for the connection. I brought the orb back to my ear, and this time I could surprisingly hear it from about a centimeter away, and it was more¡­ wavy. I could hear an oscillation in the sound and I tried matching it by gently humming along. However, I didn¡¯t feel any connection magic or whatever happening, so I just yelled at that frequency. Hey, different things work for different people, I thought, while sounding humorously like a bard in training who would never actually become successful. Suddenly, I felt a snap in my brain, and I knew that I had achieved resonance between my brain and the Focus Mana. Perhaps yelling stimulated my brain more or something, I thought excitedly. At the moment, I was literally feeling the mana fluctuate inside my Focus. Slowly, I retained the posture that the books described, holding my orb staff in front of my so the orb is at eye level. Then, I opened my eyes and looked into the orb. Even though I couldn¡¯t exactly see the mana there, I felt that it was almost obvious that the orb had so much more mana than most of its surroundings. I smiled, starting step three. I had to take this mana I could feel, push some of the orb¡¯s stored energy through it at a certain direction, and allow the energy to reach its goal through the Mana. This particular technique was required in order to perform the most basic yet extremely useful Arcane spell known as Telekinesis. Since I needed less energy the closer the goal was, I wanted to direct this energy to the pencil that was on the desk, a couple feet in front of me. So, I resonated my brain with the Focus Mana, took a deep breath, and tried to slowly shape a mana path for a small amount of energy to go from the orb to the pencil. This was the ¡°Magic¡± of Energy Transfer: you don¡¯t control the energy, you control the mana whose only purpose is to create a path for the energy from one point in space to another. In doing this, I felt that some energy was going to the pencil, but the power or the rate of energy was not fast enough. There was a simple way to fix this problem. Increase the radius of the mana paths. ¡°I need MORE POWER!!!¡± I yelled, and increased the mana path radius by a good amount. In fact, this was so much power that the pencil flew back into the wall at an angle and split in two. ¡°...¡± I was speechless. Absolutely shocked. There was a small part of me that didn¡¯t actually believe that I would be able to do it. Strictly speaking, I didn¡¯t exactly do it, since I wasn¡¯t able to control it and used too much power, but I honestly couldn¡¯t care less about semantics like that. Haha, I moved a pencil, I broke a pencil, without even touching it?!? W.. WHAT? I, no, no way, ha, HAHAHAHAHA. My thoughts were in fragments and I was absolutely shocked and speechless, even though I knew it should have happened. There is a certain feeling one gets after performing real magic for the first time. The exhilaration you feel is beyond comprehension, and in the books I¡¯ve read, some Mages mentioned that they would kill if they could feel the euphoria of doing magic for the first time again. Though I can¡¯t say I would necessarily go that far, I totally understand where they¡¯re coming from. You won¡¯t fully understand it if you haven¡¯t felt it. But I did. And just for a few minutes, I felt like there was nothing holding me back. However, soon logic hit me in the face and told me to actually take control over my magical powers now. Now that I know exactly how Energy Transfer works, I can¡¯t even take the term ¡°magical powers¡± seriously anymore. But it sounds cool and makes me feel badass so I¡¯ll use it anyway, I thought with a smirk. Regardless, let¡¯s see if I can¡¯t control my mana paths. I do need to build up a fine intuition about how much power I need to use for each situation: too little and nothing happens but some energy lost to heat, too much and you lose control and waste energy from your Focus or body. Both can be deadly in certain situations so it¡¯s very important to find a sweet spot. For the rest of the day, I carefully tuned my power up from very low power to figure out approximately the perfect mana path size that would allow me to control various objects in the room, starting with a pencil and then trying a book, an empty box from the back of the room, and even a small desk from a corner. However, while spinning and flying a goddamn desk around the room, the energy from my focus ran dry and the little it absorbed back from its surroundings in the time that the desk was flying into the bookshelf due to its inertia was not nearly enough for me to regain control of it, and both the bookshelf and the table broke into a couple large pieces. Oh, and almost all of the books had been thrown around the floor, some of them snapped in two and having a bunch of ripped pages strewn about. I looked down at the mess and wondered what Mage Dabiva Galamon would do to this stupid kid if she was still alive. Welp, that was quite shameful, I admitted. Thank the Goddess of Wisdom that I took notes of every single book. Chapter 7 - First Excursion After that fiasco, I made sure to keep track of the energy in my Focus at all times. Of course, it is a common rookie mistake to not do so, and I was a rookie, but I still didn¡¯t want a repeat of the situation last night. No, I wasn¡¯t going to clean anything up. Cleanliness is a virtue that I don¡¯t care about: I¡¯ll just ignore the mess on the side of the room and continue trying out different types of Arcane Magic. Or I would have, if I didn¡¯t nearly run out of the rotten food that Dabiva had as leftovers. Now that I know that she left this room for the last time about seventy years ago, I wondered how I was still able to function and survive off of this kind of food, and how it even lasted so long. Honestly though, I clearly wasn¡¯t a picky eater and I could eat just about anything to survive. Now though, I realized that I need to leave this room to go get some food at least. I didn¡¯t leave this room for quite a while now, and I really didn¡¯t want to, which is why I just ate the rotten food instead of going outside to try and find more fresh food. However, now I have no choice, and I need food, so I¡¯m going to venture out into the essentially abandoned wing of the Galamon palace and see if I can find any good food. Though I was fine eating rotten food, since it was better than the extremely old skeletons, I definitely wasn¡¯t satisfied and I really was craving some fresh food at this point. Therefore, I remade my disguise as a servant, full with a large trash bag filled with coins over my shoulder. But before that, I used a mirror and some scissors to cut my longer hair down to about the size I saw after coming out of the dungeon, since I liked that look, and also tossed my orb staff in the bag. It wasn¡¯t that heavy anyway, and with my newfound strength it was even easier to carry things. Lightly working out every morning to maintain that strength really helped keep me fit. I actually started to somewhat enjoy working out, and I¡¯m sure I¡¯ve never even had a thought anywhere near that thought in my mind before these days. I kept the majority of my coins as well as my notes in this room, though, because I was definitely going to come back. The money I was taking with me was just in case I could bribe someone into giving me a lot of food, and the orb staff was, of course, for last minute instinctive self defense. Opening the door for the first time since I found this room, I went outside after making sure no one was around. I closed the door behind me as I walked to the right, away from the room that had the ¡°back door entrance¡± to the dungeon, because I didn¡¯t check through these rooms yet. Most rooms were again storage rooms for useless things like clothes and blankets and stuff. In some rooms I found some more money, which was always a nice bonus. In other rooms I found some antiques and stuff, which was pretty cool, but I didn¡¯t care about those too much so I left. Finally, in the room right next to the large open stairway going both up and down, there was a freshly stocked food storage! It made sense, I guess. This was probably for the servants, just like most of the storage spaces on this wing, or at least floor, since I¡¯ve never went up or down yet. And it seems like I won¡¯t have to, for a while, I thought happily, fitting as many of the fruits, nuts, and other not-really-food but still maybe useful things like straw into my bag as I can without arousing suspicion before turning to leave. I was just whistling a tune from the folk song ¡°Only a Stranger¡± from my hometown when I bumped headfirst into someone walking into the room! Ffffffffuck! I thought. My heart leapt up to my neck. For all my various accomplishments, anything social was most definitely not one of them, and I knew that if I didn¡¯t handle this situation the right way, then I could be in serious troubleDid you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. I looked up and saw a cute young maid, with long black hair and green eyes. My face reddened and I opened my mouth to say something but I couldn¡¯t get anything out¡­ Don¡¯t get me wrong. I can normally at least hold a conversation, but when cute girls are in the picture, it¡¯s a completely different story. I guess she misunderstood my actions, because she said ¡°Aw, are you embarrassed that you¡¯re taking more than your ration because that technically doesn¡¯t go against the Oath? Haha, it¡¯s okay, we all do that sometimes. Don¡¯t tell anyone I told you though. So, what got a young man like yourself swearing an Oath to the Galamon to serve them? My parents made me do it a couple years ago, but I¡¯ve only seen you around now and it seems like you would have stuck out to me if I saw you before. You just started, didn¡¯t you?¡± She talked so fast and at such a melodious pitch that I didn¡¯t even have to look at her ears to know that she was an Elf. But I did and they were, indeed, elven ears. But I quickly reigned in my thoughts at her expectant look and answered her. ¡°Um, yeah. Yeah, I started, like, a couple days ago. Why become a servant and take the Oath? Oh, haha. You know, the usual. Security, stability, stuff like that, haha,¡± I said, probably still with a red face. I kept my answer as vague as possible because I wanted her to get bored and leave so I didn¡¯t have to keep lying to this young, innocent, and beautiful person. Unfortunately, it seemed that my vague answer only interested her more. ¡°Oooh, mysterious, huh? I like that,¡± she answered in a sultry voice, smiling and bringing her finger up to my face, lightly trailing down my cheek. Nope! Not innocent! What the hell! I have to run right now! I thought. In desperation, I interrupted her right there and said with a cheeky grin ¡°Why, it seems that I have to go to the bathroom, really bad, right now. Nice knowing you. Goodbye!¡± I called before running past her to the right, because I didn¡¯t want her to follow my trail to the mage room under any possible circumstance. I sucked in a breath. That was a close call! Never want to see her again, no matter how cute she is! I thought. I heard her voice ringing from behind me, laughing her head off while calling out to me, ¡°Wait! Haha, did I scare you away? I¡¯m Selza, by the way. Until we meet again!¡± I snorted under my breath, ¡°As if!¡± as I ran until a turn of the hallway, where I slowed down and cursed. There were many servants walking around the far end of this part of the hallway, and a man with much higher class clothing was also ordering some of them to do things, like ¡°You set the table now¡± and ¡°My father needs a nurse, you go help him.¡± I could hear him from here because of his loud commanding voice coupled with the echo in the hallway. Shit! An actual Galamon? I go out of my Mage room for one day! One day! And I¡¯m running into servants and Galamons here and there! I thought angrily as I ran back the way I came. Selza would be preferable to this! I didn¡¯t see the Galamon notice me so I think that was a possible crisis averted. When I actually reached the staircase near the room where I met Selza, I saw a maid walking away along the path that follows from going down the stairs. Yes!!! She left without seeing me come back this way, I thought. That¡¯s one immediate problem solved, I guess. I all but ran to the Mage room, jumped inside, and locked the door behind me. Taking many deep breaths, I leaned on the door with both arms, stabilizing myself before plodding over to the bed and immediately lying down. Well, I never want to deal with this kind of situation again, I thought. My last thought before allowing sleep to take me away was that I actually need a good plan the next time I have to do this. Chapter 8 - Month of Magic The previous day, I did some of the riskiest things I ever needed to do so far just for some food. But it was worth it, because this food was amazing, and with wise rationing it would easily last me a month in this room without having to leave. And now, I thought, I could delve deeper into actually doing Arcane Magic beyond moving things without touching them. I decided that the next piece of magic I was going to attempt was the illumination spell, since I never wanted to be in pitch black again after the staircase out of the dungeon. An illumination spell was also mechanically simple yet complicated to actually pull off. Instead of using mana paths, this time I need to create a somewhat spherical mana boundary, and then pushing it inward, as much as I could without feeling too much resistance, to pressurize the molecules inside. This should lead to many electrons in those associated atoms gaining energy and jumping to a higher energy level. Then, I would have to slowly let the sphere grow back outward, causing all those electrons to slowly fall back down to their ground state, which would in turn emit photons in every direction: therefore, light! With this knowledge in the back of my mind, I resonated with the mana and tried shaping it into a large sphere just around my orb. The larger the mana sphere, the more atoms that would be pressured together and the longer the spell would last. Of course, it takes a lot more energy if you try to use Focus Mana too far from your Focus, so I was satisfied with a mana sphere that was about the size of my Focus right now. I felt the mana formulate into a sphere around the orb. Now for the hard part, I thought. Furrowing my eyebrows in concentration, I tried pushing the mana sphere inward. However, my execution was clunky and the sphere deformed instead of pressuring and molecules. I realized that in order to actually make the sphere smaller and keep its shape, I would have to constantly push from all directions around the sphere equally. Though the energy required for this process was high, a light spell is primarily useful if you could hold it for a long time, and the light only comes out when you expand the sphere back slowly, and this part required a very low power allowing you to hold the spell for a long time. I spent a decent amount of my orb¡¯s energy shrinking the mana sphere, and very lightly started to let go of it. Suddenly, there was a flash of light from the orb! Surprised for a moment, I lost my control over the spell and the sphere expanded back out extremely fast of its own volition due to the pressure from within. This caused a tremendous amount of light to shine out from the orb as well as a loud, hard ¡°bang¡± sound, probably due to the intense pressure that was released in a short amount of time. After shaking off my disgruntlement, I decided that I should probably also note down side effects of casting spells incorrectly, since even those may have a purpose in some situations, and more knowledge is always good. After attempting the illumination spell again, this time holding control all the way, I stared in awe at the glowing orb in front of me. I watched until the spell wore off, or in other words, until most of the electrons already reached their ground energy state. Heart beating fast in excitement, I realized that casting the illumination spell the right way didn¡¯t even take any significant amount of my orb¡¯s total energy, and since the spell was so long and the rate of my orb¡¯s energy absorption from its surroundings overshadowed the energy use from the orb, I understood that if needed, I could cycle the illumination spell indefinitely! Following this insight, I cast the spell again just for fun, before rearing up to spend the next month in this blissful state of learning Arcane Magic. ¡­ And so the days passed. I learned about the inner workings of various basic Arcane spells as I attempted them for the first time. I noted down the mechanics of each spell, what the side effects were of doing it incorrectly (or even just doing it -- I¡¯m looking at you guys, Fireball and Rock Burst!), and how to actually cast it. When my food was running low again, I decided to put some of the magic that I learned to good use in order to prevent problems similar to what happened last time I left this room for food. I quickly read through my spell notes in order to make a mental strategy about what to do. Notes on Arcane Spells
Spell Mechanics Side Effects Casting
Telekinesis - Move things without touching them Mana path leads energy stored in Focus to target, giving target kinetic energy, and requires more power depending on weight Too little power - mild heat Too much power - Blasts away target Shape mana as a tube from Focus to target so energy flows to target and you can control it
Illumination - Light up a point in space Mana sphere pressures atoms inside Focus, causing electrons to gain energy, and once sphere is slowly expanded back, they lose energy to emit photons Losing control at any time - Mana sphere expands rapidly causing large flash of light and a loud bang Shape mana into sphere, push inwards from all parts of sphere, and let go slowly when you feel resistance
Fireball - Throw a ball of fire at a targetUnauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Stored energy in Focus acts as fuel that combusts through exposure to oxygen when heated up my Mana pressure, and can be thrown with a Mana casing around the fire to prevent dissipation -Takes a lot of energy if done correctly -Too little energy results in just fire and no projectile *Requires surrounding oxygen* - Begin as if doing the Illumination spell but keep pushing inward through the resistance, and when the fire ignites inside Mana sphere, throw it
Wind Blast - Blast an area of space with some strong wind Mana plane of some sort moves, pushing stored energy inside Focus in that direction, and that leads to air molecules gaining kinetic energy in that direction Too little plane movement - small gust of wind Too much plane movement - Wastes much energy as wind moves faster than your Mana control *Requires air* - Shape Mana into any flat figure with the size you want and push in the direction you want wind to blast towards (the larger the plane, the more area the spell will cover but the more energy it will take)
Hydrosphere - Create water around user that can be controlled Mana cools water vapor in the air by having vapor molecules rapidly bounce off energy walls, therefore losing kinetic energy to heat, which then condenses some water vapor into water, and this water can be controlled by Mana-directed energy None, really - results are essentially proportional to the amount of energy put in and how humid the air is *Most effective in humid air* - Shape two walls of Mana, each holding some stored energy, very close to each other to allow water vapor to cool in between them, becoming water
Rock Burst - Create a wall of hard rock that can be used as a shield, projectile, or deadly terrain (like spikes) Mana-directed energy condenses tons of nearby molecules into a solid state regardless of what state they were in, creating any shape of a wall of rock that can be controlled -Takes a lot of energy if done correctly (also the hardest to cast between basic spells) -Too little energy may result in some liquid resembling melted rock *Bring Focus near any solid for best results* - Shape two walls of Mana far apart and slam them together while bringing nearby molecules in between with Mana-controlled energy until a rock is formed
Lightning Bolt - Lightning strikes a target from your Focus *Takes the most time out of all these spells* To create a lightning bolt, a Mana path is made to the target, and the stored energy flowing through in the Focus is converted into electrical energy instead of the default kinetic energy by knocking out free electrons at the Focus (Mana is, surprisingly, a conductor) to create a potential difference along the path, causing lightning- *Make sure to hold back electrons until discharge* Failure to convert to electrical energy - Pushes target back a little bit Too little power - Slight shock to target Too much power - Lightning plus blasts away target Shape mana as a tube from Focus to a point right before the target (to prevent kinetic energy from flowing into them), but create a rippling effect in the Focus Mana to knock out the free electrons from the Mana until a large enough electric potential difference is induced and electricity flows through the path
Amplifier - Making your voice (or other sounds) louder Mana sets up an energy horn at your Focus that you can talk into, and as you talk, compression of air at the source would increase the amplitude of your sound waves, thus making you louder None, since mana simply holds the stored energy in place so letting go of your mana would just drown out your voice Shape Mana, with stored energy attached, into a horn at your Focus and talk into it, but compress the air at the Focus by steadily pumping the point inward and letting go using Mana
Energy Barrier - Keeps energy inside a certain volume Mana enclosing a volume keeps all energy inside *Can be used for energy forms like light, sound, electricity, and heat* Making barrier too large - Huge energy waste Simply use Focus Mana to enclose a volume in space - *Any energy forcing its way into the enclosed space immediately dissipates the barrier, so it can¡¯t be used as a weapon*
Wow, my work really paid off, huh? I thought, reliving my first experiences with each of these spells. And yes, I learned how to use the Energy Barrier before trying anything loud so that no one would hear me even if they were outside. I looked around the room, which at this point looked like the battleground of some amateur Mages. A large flat rock on the ground, a closet door covered in ash, cracks on the floor near the bathroom door, a table and its contents knocked over, and a whole lot of wet banners on the wall adorned Dabiva¡¯s former lair. Again, I started laughing at the irony of my situation. I can probably do more magic than most people in this palace now! After about two months of intense learning, training, and practice, I don¡¯t feel as vulnerable anymore. Though I realize that Arcane Magic is not a very instinctive fighting system and would only be effective when I am prepared or have a plan. Which is what I will do right now, I resolved. Since I need food, I have to go back to the servant¡¯s food storage a decent distance to the right after leaving my room. I still need the bag to fit the food in, but I¡¯ll keep the money here, I thought, since I deduced that the Oath that these servants made probably somehow restrict them from going against the Galamon family in any way, and accepting bribes from a shady person dressed like a servant probably counts against their Oath. Of course, I¡¯ll take my orb staff as well, and this time I¡¯ll make good use of it! I¡¯ll walk towards the food storage room with a small rock in front of my face so no one would be able to recognize me if they randomly show up from the front. I¡¯m counting on no one being behind my back because this part is pretty abandoned and the monthly cleaning already happened a few days back, if the servant walking past my room while I was making rocks was any indication. Now, I¡¯ll quickly check to make sure no one¡¯s walking up or down the stairs next to the room. If they are, I¡¯ll quickly hide in another nearby room and chill in a closet until I hear them leave. If it¡¯s all clear, I¡¯ll create some rocks on the ground below the stairs going up so any person walking down them later either sees them and gives some reaction or slips on them. Both would alert to me that someone is there and I would run out to the nearby room and hide in a closet. I¡¯ll also make water flow down the stairs to the floor below so that any person coming up gives some reaction or slips. Again, both would alert me of a person and again, I would perform my planned hiding maneuver. After I take as much food as I can without arousing suspicion, I will also take the rocks with me because someone may recognize them as magically created rocks. The water I¡¯ll just leave there for some servants to clean up or slip on or whatever. Hopefully Selza slips on it, I snickered. But what would I do if someone comes up behind me later and sees me go into the Mage room? After mulling it over, I decided to simply cover the entire floor between the staircases in water to make it look like someone just spilled a tank of water without cleaning up. That should distract and slow people down enough for me to run back to the mage room, I thought. I would be able to hear anyone who reacted to the water in any way through the echo in the hallway, and I could, as planned, hide in a nearby room until I think they left. This is the ideal case where no one sees me, but if everything goes to shit, I will try tricking them into thinking I am a normal servant. Only if that doesn¡¯t work would I fight, I decided. Chapter 9 - Slight Complications And now, it is execution time, or in other words, the time when nothing works out as planned and I improvise anyway, I thought grimly. After eating my last few Fusat nuts, I set up everything I needed for my plan. I cast a Rock Burst spell to create a rectangular rock that could cover my face from the front: I planned to angle it in front of my face so that I could see them without them seeing my face. Then, I created some more smaller rocks to place below the stairs. Why didn¡¯t I use my trusty jagged rocks from the dungeon, you ask? Well, I didn¡¯t want anyone to step on jagged rocks: I¡¯m not trying to kill people already! After many attempts at using the Rock Burst spell so many times, most of which resulted in melted rock instead of solid rock, I finally had all the required rocks ready in front of me. It wasn¡¯t that I didn¡¯t understand how to do the spell. To the contrary: I understood it perfectly. It was just really hard to actually cast, and as a matter of fact, the hardest spell I learned so far. This was just another example of the difference between understanding the theory and actually experimenting. In any case, I gathered all the smaller flat rocks that I planned to put on the floor and tossed them into my bag. Then, I put my orb staff into my bag upside-down to make it look like I had a trash stick in it. Then, I lifted the back over my shoulder with my left hand and grabbed the rock with which I would hide my face and tucked it between my arm and body. Then, I carefully opened the door to go out into the hallway. Peeking out to the right, I saw nothing. All clear, I thought. I walked out, with my flat rock covering my face in a way that would allow me to see in front of me. I always stayed near the wall so that the moment I heard or saw movement from the stairs, I could pop into a room. This precaution paid off when I heard a thumping noise from the front and immediately opened the door to my left. As I practically jumped in, I caught an inkling of someone walking up the stairs about 20 yards in front of me now. Breathing heavily, I heard the person keep walking up the stairs and the thumping sounds faded away. After waiting for a few moments, I went back into the hallway and continued walking. Arriving at the stairway intersection with no further incident, I looked both up and down the stairs. Since there seemed to be no one on either side, I quickly took out the flat rocks from my bag and placed them down on the floor where the stairs were going up. Then, looking around carefully and still seeing and hearing nothing, I silently took out my orb staff and cast Hydrosphere. Since this spell was quick and easy, I covered the entire intersection with water while making sure no one showed up in sight. After completing this task, I put my orb staff back into my bag and walked into the food storage, ready to loot. Some roffelet nuts, check. A couple dozen yachfruit, check. Oooh, a couple brownpops, don¡¯t mind if I do, I chuckled while stealing a decent amount of good, fresh food. Suddenly, I heard a loud voice yell, ¡°WHY IS THERE A BUNCH OF ROCKS ON THE FLOOR?!?! You stupid, good-for-nothing servants! CLEAN UP ALL THIS RIGHT NOW!!! We¡¯re not paying you dumbasses to sit around all day, twiddling your thumbs!¡± I froze. In just a few moments after that outburst, I heard a bunch of what were presumably servants running up from the bottom floor, down from the top floor, and from the other side of the intersection. Actually crap, I swore at this unplanned development, before realizing that all those running people are going to slip on the water. I sighed. This is going to be a disaster, I realized. There would be far too many people for me to run back into the Mage room right now unnoticed. There¡¯s only one thing I could do, I thought. I quickly hid my stuffed bag in one of the empty cabinets. Hearing shouts and people slipping to the floor, I used this moment of chaos to pop out of the food storage and jump into the mess of servants slipping around. Needless to say, I slipped on my own water and fell down, hands in front of my face to protect myself. After gathering my bearings, I looked around and saw about fifteen servants in total. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Huh, interesting... Selza¡¯s not here, I thought. The Galamon that called for these servants was still standing in the stairway above us, looking down at his servants with anger. ¡°You useless fools!¡± he exclaimed. ¡°How can you not see that there was water down there? And how do some of you idiots slip on the rocks that I called you to clean up!?! Fools, all of you!¡± he yelled. All the servants got up, wet, and bowed to the man while apologizing profusely. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry, Master.¡± ¡°It won¡¯t happen again.¡± ¡°My apologies for this mess.¡± I also fit in and bowed, thinking, Haha, they¡¯re all taking the blame for it! It seems like I¡¯m somewhat in the clear after all¡­ ¡°Ha! You think you idiots could get away with this just like that? All West Wing servants will be punished for allowing this mess in our precious home! No food for any of you for the next two days! Bound by your Oath,¡± the Galamon exclaimed, with the last sentence in a voice much deeper than the pitch he had been talking, or shouting at, before. While I kind of felt bad for indirectly doing this to a bunch of innocent servants, I didn¡¯t care too much considering my food struggles in this palace so far. Literally every problem I¡¯ve had so far here stemmed from needing food. Also, I deduced from the Galamon¡¯s lower pitch while saying ¡°Bound by your Oath¡± that this Oath the servants took may be much more tangible than I first anticipated. It seems some sort of weird magic may be involved, I thought. Suddenly, a loud voice snapped me out of my thinking. ¡°HEY!!! What are you doing just standing there? Do you want a turn in my torture chamber?¡± the Galamon sneered, looking at me. I looked around and realized that all the other servants were busy cleaning up the water and rocks as best they could with some rags, towels, and stuff that they just happened to have. Oh, dear, I thought, I¡¯m in trouble. I quickly mumbled ¡°Sorry, Master¡± and started waving the water towards a servant with a towel, because I didn¡¯t have anything that would help me clean the water. Hopefully, he with this he would be satisfied and leave me alone. Or apparently not, because my actions seemed to strike a nerve with him. ¡°WHAT!?! Not only do you have the gall to mumble to me, ME, Sir Wallaheesh Galamon, but you aren¡¯t even carrying any servant gear!?¡± He quickly snapped up and seemed to compose himself. ¡°Well, no matter. Continue,¡± he told me, much too calmly with a smirk on his face and an evil glint in his eyes. Crap, crap, crap!!! If only these servants weren¡¯t here, I could at least try fighting this guy. I don¡¯t trust the servants because I don¡¯t know what their Oath entails, and even more so now that I feel like their Oath is quite tangible and real somehow. Well, the best thing to do now would be to make my way as close to the food storage room while still pretending to clean. That way, when all the servants leave and this guy inevitably confronts me, I can jump into the room and grab my orb staff. Hopefully, it would get back to full energy by then, I chalked out mentally. So I just continued as Wallaheesh told me to, and after everything was perfectly clean, he dismissed the servants. ¡°All you useless fools can leave now. Please, don¡¯t disgrace my eyes with your filthy presence any longer,¡± he said, still too calmly. But then he turned to me. ¡°You, however, will stay. I have¡­ a word with you,¡± he said, smiling. Since I was already so close to the food storage room, I just stood up and waited along with Wallaheesh for all the other servants to leave. Once everyone else was out of sight, Wallaheesh turned back to me and smiled. ¡°You, follow me. You will be tortured for your impudence!¡± he asserted, before spinning around and walking back up the steps, probably fully expecting me to actually follow him to the torture chamber or whatever. Instead, I jumped into the room, opened the cabinet, and took out my orb staff. With some quick thinking, I held it upside down to make it seem like I just found it randomly and simply using it as a stick, just to throw him off from the fact that I could actually use it if he realizes I¡¯m not following him and confronts me again. I hope he walks all the way to wherever he¡¯s going before he realizes there¡¯s no one following him, I thought, mentally snickering despite my situation, to let loose a little bit. Slowly, I walked out of the room, holding my orb staff stick up. And there he was, just staring at me. ¡°Ha! A struggler? You stupid servants should know better than to think that you could fight the Oath!¡± He exclaimed, seemingly unable to believe his eyes. Then he actually mentally registered what I was holding before proceeding to laugh his head off. ¡°HAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!!! What is a stupid, lowly servant like you going to do with an orb staff. Dumbass, you¡¯re not even holding it right! HAAHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!¡± He laughed. Hearing that, I turned it up the right way, making it seem like the only reason I did that was because he told me that I was holding it wrong. He saw me do this, and continued laughing. ¡°All right, come on. Let¡¯s see what you can do. HAHA! Even if you knew magic, which is utterly impossible for an idiot servant, you wouldn¡¯t even be able to use it against me! You know you are doomed, hahaha, but I¡¯ll let you play. Come on, try to do anything to me. You can¡¯t even do anything, because you are Bound by your Oath!¡± He yelled. He then stood with his arms crossed, looking at me with a look of superiority and victory on his face. A few moments passed, with neither of us moving. Me looking at him without expression. Him glaring at me, deriving some twisted fun from my apparent situation. Until an absolutely silent lightning bolt slammed his face, knocked him off his feet, and flew him back about five yards before he fell backwards on his head and stopped moving. Chapter 10 - Fabrications We were back in the Mage room. Wallaheesh Galamon was bound to a chair by some banners from the wall as well as some straw I stole from the food storage room the first time I found it. He was still knocked out for now, and I had him gagged with, again, some straw. I was sitting on the large desk to the side, trying to understand how Mages use runes and how that relates to Mana. I''m so happy I was able to buy enough time to set up that Energy Barrier and cast a Lightning Bolt through it, I thought. Soon, I saw him stirring from the corner of my eye and walked up to him, holding a jagged rock. He opened his eyes, confusedly looking around. Once he saw me, his eyes widened. ¡°Trying to say something, huh?¡± I asked him, with an evil grin on my face. I decided to have fun and monologue at him like the villains used to do in those theater plays that we watched a lot back in my old town. I took a deep breath before proceeding to tell him about my villainous backstory, smiling in pure joy the entire time at how fun it was while slowly walking back and forth to complete my villainous image. ¡°You must be wondering how I, a mere servant under Oath, know magic and was able to attack you. Well, listen to me as I tell you the fantastic tale of my mysterious origins and my current goal in your palace! Hundreds of years ago, I was born in but an unassuming village to a poor single mother! My father was a druid, powerful relative to my small village, but oh so weak outside. He went off on an Excursion in the city to repel monsters and died before I was born¡­ In a few years, I discovered how to use magic all on my own, because I was, of course, a genius. Then, when I was a young man, disaster struck and my village was caught between two warring factions. I single handedly protected my village from utter annihilation and decided to rally up my all my friends, train them, and create an army. Using my obviously superior intellect and power, we became a secret organization that protects innocent towns and villages from being wiped off the map, for ages to come, due to our drastically increased life spans that was, again, thanks to the great Me! My powers in Magic and Cultivation have increased exponentially as I continued my life¡¯s mission, which is why I was so easily able to bypass your stupid, puny Oath and let loose just a trillionth of my full power to defeat you even through your obvious life¡¯s worth of Cultivation! Now, my organization¡¯s protection of innocent towns includes destroying anyone in our way! Which brings me to why I¡¯m here¡­ The Galamon family is directly destroying innocent towns that had nothing to do with them. I am here to put a stop to it. Now, there is only one way I will not hunt down every last Galamon and slaughter them all -- tell me everything you know, and I will leave the Galamon family intact, killing only the guilty members. Right now, if you don¡¯t tell me absolutely everything you know about the Galamon family - everything, including the deepest, darkest secrets of the Galamon family - then you will be directly responsible for the obliteration of your entire family! Is that what you want!? No? Then you know what you have to do. If I am satisfied with the information you provide, I will allow you and any innocent Galamon to live. If I am not¡­ well, you know first hand what I can do with just a trillionth of my power. Imagine what I could do if I let loose my full power! You may as well kiss your puny palace goodbye as it turns to a pile of steaming ash as it burns in the pure intensity of the light that is my FULL POWER!!!¡± I stopped pacing back and forth as I finished my amazing speech, or I should say, my steaming pile of bullshit that I cooked up spontaneously, with influences from my true real life events, some stock villains from one of my favorite theater plays back in the day, and my desire to sound as mind-numbingly powerful as possible. Of course, while this was some of the most fun I have ever had since waking up in the dungeon cell, my monologue also had a very practical purpose: information. If I could scare this guy into giving me all the information he knows, I could use that to decide what to do next¡­ including what to do with him. He is clearly a douchebag and I would have no qualms killing him, especially if he actually tortures servants as he was threatening to me, I thought. However, he may be able to convince me of an alternative outcome in regards to his life if he gives me a good reason. I expected Wallaheesh to understand the amount of apparent danger he was in, and that defying my command may even lead to the end of every Galamon in this palace if my words were true. Which of course, they weren¡¯t. But he didn¡¯t need to know that. Luckily, he reacted somewhat as expected as he looked at me with a determined expression and asked, ¡°So I tell you everything I know about my family, and in return, you won¡¯t destroy everything I know and love?¡±This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. I smiled at him before answering, ¡°Looks like you understand the offer that I made you with my generous, merciful heart.¡± ¡°I accept,¡± he said just about immediately. It seemed that he really didn¡¯t want to get on my bad side after he ¡°realized¡± how powerful I was, I laughed mentally. I gestured for him to begin. ¡°So, first off, you should know that we have lots of secrets that even I don¡¯t know. Only higher members of the family know most of them, and I am just a son of one of the Branch Lords. I can lead you to some of these people if you want to¡­ talk¡­ with them. Um, anyway, please please please don¡¯t attack any nobles in the South Wing. That is where the children and their caretakers live, and I swear that as far as I know, no one there is responsible for any attacks on anyone. And please try not to kill the knights around the palace. They are just doing their jobs and if they attack you for any reason later, just please knock them out painlessly or something. They don¡¯t deserve the brunt of your power bec-¡° I slapped him and cut him off. ¡°I asked for information on your family, not for your begging to not kill people. I already told you I will only kill people who are guilty or deserve to die as long as you deliver on your end of the deal. If you choose to continue what you¡¯re doing now and not deliver, I¡¯ll just kill you, demolish this entire palace, and sing a song of ¡°The Galamons are Falling Out¡± within the next five minutes. The song will take most of that time,¡± I kindly explained to him, while laughing inside at my amazing villain act. He grit his teeth when he heard the name of the song that all Galamons religiously hate, but quickly went back to his fearful expression as he remembered the magnitude of his situation. ¡°I- I¡¯m sorry. So, the West Wing is partly abandoned because of a toxic outbreak that happened in one of the Alchemy rooms about half a century ago, making most of that part of the palace uninhabitable until it was cleaned up. By the time it was fully cleaned out, most of the inhabitants of that part of the palace simply moved to another part of the palace or died in their rooms, believing that they could survive a simple toxic outbreak using magic, potions, force fields, or whatever. Needless to say, none of that worked and they died anyway. Now, about fifty years after that incident, people never really moved back in to live in that part of the palace, and it became a large storage area of sorts where only those stupid, lowly servants go into. Also, most of the servant living quarters are in the West Wing. Now, hmm, I already told you about the South Wing with the kids, so¡­ the North Wing. The North Wing is where most of the family big shots live and work. I suggest going there if you want to find out more than I can tell you about whatever you want to know. If you were a normal person, I would have warned you that most of these people are quite powerful in their own right with high levels of Magic or Cultivation, my father included, but I know you would be able to destroy almost anyone there without a blink of an eye, so I¡¯ll just say that you need to use slightly more power on them than you used on me in order to defeat them. These high-profile family members include the various Council Members, the Branch Lords like my father, the Revered Elders, and our Knight Commanders,¡± he said, and he was about to continue, but I cut him off. ¡°Hmm, interesting. Tell me more about these people,¡± I commanded. The more inner details I know about the family, the more information I can use against them later when the time comes, I thought. I¡¯m pretty sure I can trust that at the very least, this guy believes that everything he¡¯s telling me is true. He looks scared out of his wits and since I made him think that he was essentially saving his entire family, living in this palace at least, from utter destruction, he seems more than eager to give me as much reliable information as he could. Well, either that, or he¡¯s even better of an actor than I am, I mused. Immediately, he dove into descriptions of all these ¡°high-profile family members.¡± ¡°So.. the Council Members follow some sort of election every couple years, and they are chosen from a vote that counts all eligible family members. I- I¡¯m sorry, I don¡¯t know more than that. I never bothered voting and I never care about this stuff normally. Um, they are the people that make all major family decisions. Really quick, you should probably know that most of the people that live in this palace are part of the main branch of the Galamon family, since this was, of course, the Galamon¡¯s historic home for thousands of years. Some people are from other branches: Me, for example. My father is the Branch Lord, or representative, of the Jerendiem-region branch of the Galamon family. That is why he lives here in the main palace with his family instead of our branch¡¯s home in the west. So, now, uh, the Branch Lords, as I already mentioned, are just representatives of all the Galamon family¡¯s branches around the continent and they are here to vouch for their branch¡¯s interests. What else was there? Oh, yes. The Revered Elders. They are simply the older family members who have lived for centuries, and they are respected and listened to since they are old and wise. And.. the Knight Commanders are just really powerful or strategic former knights under the Galamon family who ranked up to official¡¯s status to now advise the family on military matters,¡± Wallaheesh explained. Before he could continue, I interrupted him again. ¡°So these Knight Commanders are the ones responsible for attacks on towns and villages as well?¡± I asked. ¡°No no no, not at all. Most decisions for attacks and such are finalized by the Council and the other advisors I mentioned like the Branch Lords and the Revered Elders. The Knight Commanders just focus on how to execute the attack once it is ordered by the Council,¡± he said. I won¡¯t be satisfied until I know exactly why the Galamons chose to destroy my hometown and end my life as I knew it, I thought. And since I¡¯m nowhere near powerful enough to take on the average Galamon family member one on one, it may be a good idea to perhaps talk to the Council. Of course, I would have to use a cover up of some sort: maybe a secret identity or something? Whatever, I just heard Wallaheesh¡¯s stomach growling and I¡¯m not done juicing information out of him yet, so I guess I¡¯ll have to feed him for now and give him a break. ¡°Ok, so far so good. Keep cooperating and I will show you mercy. Here, take a break and have some Alquertine fruits,¡± I told him, putting some said fruit on a plate before placing it on the side of my desk and sliding him over. He shot a contemptuous look at the food for a moment, probably because it was servant food and clearly, Wallaheesh didn¡¯t seem to have a very high opinion of his servants. However, he probably remembered the risk I represented and quickly bowed his head and said ¡°thank you.¡± Since I didn¡¯t unbind his hands, he had to swallow his pride and eat straight out of the plate, like a dog. I went back to studying runes while he ate, and I got so engrossed in it that the notion of time disappeared from my mind for a while, and since Wallaheesh was too scared to say anything and break my concentration, he stayed silent. And so it happened that I was drawing theoretical diagrams while a bound Galamon ate servant food directly out of his plate on the same table. I can''t believe my fabricated tale actually worked! How did all of this even happen? I sighed. Chapter 11 - The One-Sided Deal After I finished drawing some runic diagrams to try understanding how they work, I remembered that I still needed to extract more information from Wallaheesh: specifically, some that would give me some insight on what to do with him. However, I was still down to learn as much as I could about the family as I could, to help with any potential secret identity that I may have to concoct later to fool the Galamon Council. I broke the long standing silence in the room. ¡°So, you didn¡¯t tell me about the East Wing yet,¡± I pointed out. ¡°Yes, yes, of course. The East Wing is just a massive residential area where most family members live. It is a quite densely populated area of our palace and kind of resembles an indoor city,¡± he said. Nodding, I suddenly realized that he had not divulged a single family secret the entire time I was interrogating him. He seemed to be trying to satisfy me with nothing but general information about the palace and the Galamon family. Oh, how mistaken he is, I thought. Let¡¯s see if I can¡¯t get him to reveal some more juicy Galamon secrets. He said he didn¡¯t know most of them, but that indeed implies he knows some, I thought, before deciding to interrupt him. ¡°Wallaheesh!¡± I barked. ¡°H-how did you know my name?¡± he asked, looking terrified. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Did he forget how he was boasting about himself to me and mentioned his name before I downed him with an extra-powered lightning bolt surrounded by an energy barrier to make it silent? That¡¯s great, actually. I could use this to my advantage and pretend that I have Psychic powers as well! I glared at him. ¡°You thought I was so weak and pathetic, like you insects, that I would limit myself to just Magic and Cultivation?! Are you daft or stupid, or both? I have spent entire centuries gathering all types of power, and you think I wouldn¡¯t be able to use a basic Psychic ability? You should be grateful that I¡¯m just nicely asking you for this information instead of ripping everything directly from your head and leaving you a mindless husk!¡± I proclaimed. Wallaheesh visibly shuddered hearing what I said. I think I have terrified him to a new level, I realized, laughing my head off mentally at his thoughts. When I looked back down at him, he was slumped over with his eyes closed. Surprised, I felt his pulse. Well, he is clearly alive, I thought. And then it hit me. HAHAHAHAHAHA! He fainted? In fear? Damn. I may be doing too good of a job acting like a super powerful villain. Deciding that I would tone it down a bit from now on since I wasn¡¯t able to get any juicy information from him this time, I went back to studying the intriguing field of Arcane Magic known as Enchanting Runes. I also took some notes on Enchanting, so I just glossed over what I had so far to make sure I didn¡¯t miss anything important due to the distraction that is a snoring Wallaheesh. According to my reading so far, the difference between Enchanting Runes and simply casting Arcane Spells has to do with the underlying mysteries and mechanics of Mana. While casting spells requires a Mage to have a good understanding of how to use Mana to influence or create natural or unnatural phenomena in the external world, enchanting requires one to learn how to flow Mana through an object for some amount of time. Apparently, the enchanting process goes roughly as follows. The Mage chooses a goal, like having stronger armor with the same weight. Then, this Mage would carve a Runic Diagram, commonly known as a Rune, onto the armor. Fundamentally, a Rune is just a certain path that Mana can flow through for a long time, due to its unique molecular structure. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Though I wasn¡¯t able to find much information on the details for the molecular structures for Mana, I thought. Well, I guess the Alchemists would know more about that kind of stuff. If only there were Alchemy books around here¡­ After a moment of pondering, I realized that I should probably squeeze everything I can out of this room before I let go and look for other sources of power. Haha, I¡¯m sure even a discount Mage like me wouldn¡¯t be too easy to deal with as long as I¡¯m prepared. With that encouraging thought to myself, I looked back down at my notes and kept reading through and mentally summarizing what I¡¯ve learned so far. The reason that Mana is able to follow set physical paths, with various effects depending on the path, has to do with the incredibly complex molecular structure of Mana, combined with the fact that almost all molecular bonds inside Mana hold a tremendous amount of energy (which is why the first book I read mentioned Mana being a condensed energy). To visualize this, I had to think of Mana as a fluid. Essentially, a Mage has to start the Mana flow at some point on the Rune, called the starting position, and after the Mana flows through and covers the entire length of the Rune, the flowing Mana would hit the Mana that did not move from the starting position. Now, since even objects on the quantum scale follow the conservation of momentum, the Mana that was hit would start flowing and the Mana that was flowing would stop, roughly speaking, because both halves of the fluid would be about the same mass. And this system would continue for a while, only getting slower because of the fluid resistance throughout the entire path until it wears off and reaches equilibrium. However, the actual ¡°magic¡± behind Enchanting Runes is this: if the Mage is able to create path, through calculations or other means, that can cause the Mana at the ends of the ¡°fluid¡± to collide with a specific combination of speed and orientation, then there would be a reaction between the complex Mana molecules on either end, causing some desired effect. Through fine-tuning and experimenting, Mages throughout the millennia that had a passion for Enchanting, also known as Enchanters, have perfected various Runes that provide an object with certain effects, and such knowledge has been passed down or rediscovered over time. Most of what I read about Enchanting makes it look so easy! As long as you find a diagram of a Rune, you could just engrave it onto an object and start a flow of Mana in it and Bam! You got yourself a working Enchantment, I thought. But I¡¯m pretty sure there¡¯s going to be an absurd amount of nuances involved, or else anyone who picked up an Enchanting book could become an Enchanter, and I¡¯m pretty sure that they are quite rare. Well, I guess I¡¯ll only understand why this is the case once I try it myself, I thought grimly. Satisfied with my understanding of the fundamentals of Enchanting, I decided that I was going to try carving a simple Rune onto a rock to make it heavier. I specifically picked this Rune because it seemed easy to create and I remember that a book titled Safety Guidelines for New Enchanters recommended that this be the first Rune that Mages should create because there was no way for an incorrectly carved path to give any harmful side effects. Oh, there¡¯s that too, I recalled. Enchanting things wrong often leads to explosions and other life-threatening incidents¡­ The book did mention that. I facepalmed. So that¡¯s probably why Enchanting is so rare. No one wants to blow themselves up for nothing! I really feel stupid sometimes, forgetting minor details like that, I thought. Just as I was about to pick up one of the rocks lying on the floor near my seat, Wallaheesh stirred and woke up. He glanced at me, eyes wide in what was probably fear, and looked away quickly. He shuddered and started clenching his fists rhythmically while taking deep breaths, peeking at me to make sure I wasn¡¯t looking at him, even though I could see him with my peripheral vision. Being reminded of Wallaheesh¡¯s presence in my room, a sudden thought struck me. Why don¡¯t I just use Wallaheesh to test out various Runes? That way, not only would I minimize the risk of Enchanting (for me), but I could also somehow use this situation to make him less afraid of me, which is what I need right now in order to get any good secrets out of him before he faints in fear again. ¡°Hey, Wallaheesh!¡± I called out. ¡°Listen up! I¡¯m in a good mood right now. What do you say to learning some basic Enchanting? Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll make sure you don¡¯t explode.¡± HAHAHAHA! Like hell! If he actually explodes, I wonder what his last thought would be¡­ Ah, who am I kidding? I don¡¯t even care, I thought. Wallaheesh looked at me, surprise and shock evident on his face. ¡°You would¡­ you would teach me Enchanting? Without risk?¡± he asked. I grinned. ¡°Of course. No risk. There is absolutely nothing to worry about. This is my promise to you,¡± I assured him. Yeah. No risk... To me, I chuckled mentally. ¡°But first,¡± I said, ¡°you have to tell me all the secrets you know about the Galamon family. Main branch, side branch, I don¡¯t care. Tell me everything you know, and in return, not only will I spare the lives of all innocent members of your family, but I will teach you some basic Enchanting as well. I don¡¯t believe you are in a position to negotiate. Oh, by the way, I will know if you leave anything out¡­ psychic powers, remember? So don¡¯t even think about holding anything back. Got it?¡± I asked. Without even waiting for an answer, I continued, as I was totally in the moment. ¡°So, do we have a deal?¡±