Chapter 42 - The Way Of The Wizards

Once Delia had left the room, Rohan was finally alone, with a bag between his hands. He repressed the smile he was beginning to show and took out a book from the bag, before putting this one on the side.

The book was a thick one, with a black hard cover and a golden title on it. 'Rank 1 Beginner Wizard'. Without wasting more time and as he couldn't control his crave anymore, he excitedly opened the book, and began to read through it.

The reading wasn't a long one compared to what was expected from such a big book, and in only half an hour, Rohan already posed the book on his lap. He looked up toward the ceiling, watching toward a place that didn't exist.

"Fuck." His voice resonated inside his room. The reason why he had acted like that was for two reasons.

The first one was that becoming a wizard was way too hard, and even having a mana stone wasn't enough at all. If the book was read so fast by Rohan, it was because its content was simple, yet extremely complicated.

To become a rank 1 Beginner Wizard, the apprentice needed to engrave a rune all around the mana stone with a particular design by controlling his mana. And once it was done, the rune would shrink inside the stone, floating inside and having the ability to gather mana. This way, the number of runes inside the stone indicated the rank of the wizard.

From what was described in the introduction of this manual, once the wizard had engraved his fifth runes, he would have an extra step to do before continuing into the Intermediate ranks. But this method wasn't described here.

Now, engraving a rune could seem to be an easy feat. But truly, it wasn't. The whole rune needed to be absolutely perfect, and if there were too many variations and imperfections from the model, the mana stone risked cracking before breaking in countless pieces, and potentially killing the apprentice. Or the wizard, as this was for every single rune.

These runes, or at least the first one, was far from being an easy one to learn! There were two hundred pages solely there to explain this whole rune! two hundred! With each of them filled with explanations about one of the strokes of the rune, explaining how it should be done, with which intensity, with the right amount of mana and a mass of information breaking the mind of Rohan.

The second reason why he was looking at this book while being troubled was because of the introduction. And more exactly in a sentence. It was said that a good way showing that a person possessed a mana stone was to look at his spirit, as a wizard had generally a spirit of around 5.

He remembered the way the commander who had given to him the Essence Stone seemed to be shocked by his amount of spirit. And he also remembered when the wizard had come for his birthday, for no reason. But now, Rohan understood. The chance he had a mana Stone wasn't small at all!

But now that he knew about it, there was still the ultimate question to answer: how could he know if he had a mana stone or not? After all, the first step to become an apprentice was to activate this stone, and for that, one must absorb the mana in the air and gather inside his head.

When a warrior was forming his mana core, he absorbed the mana by all his pores to then gather it at the center of his body to cristalyse it. But there was a place where the future warrior wouldn't take the risk to absorb the mana, and that was of course the head. Once the mana was compacted in too much quantity, it was an extreme corrosif for the body, and if it came into contact with the brain, the damage done at it wouldn't be reversible like the other organs, and a brain dead situation would occur, far from being a rare thing.

This part made Rohan frowned as he truly had no way to come meet the wizard working for this kingdom and ask nicely if he could test him.

But with a spirit of 11, the chance that he had indeed a mana stone was truly great. Should he just try it and play with the fire? No. It was just too dangerous. If he in fact had no mana stone, than it was simply no different from a suicide, and that wasn't what he wanted to do right now.

From a drawing on the introduction of the book, he saw that the place where the mana stone should be was slightly offset from the way he would have to take to form his fifth meridian, and a bit lower from the place where he would have to connect it.

Maybe, just maybe, if he slightly changed the path he took, and directed the meridian toward the mana stone to see if there was something or not, that could be an idea. That way, if there was truly something, then it would be perfect, and if there was nothing, then he could just continue the meridian without any problem.

But that was the last point that he wasn't sure of, as in any case, he would have to continue toward the place where he had to connect the meridian. That meant that in the end, his meridian wouldn't be like the other ones. Since the meridians, their openings, and their formations were perfected from eons and eons, he didn't believe that no one would have tried what he was thinking about. And as he had never heard of that, it can only mean it was far from being a great idea.

Plus, if he really messed up with this meridian, which was the most dangerous one, he would put his life on the line, and maybe destroy any chance to promote himself above Rank 10 Intermediate Warriors. Sure, it was something that would appear only in tens of years, but still, as he wanted to become a Supreme Warrior, he needed to not make any mistake from the start.

In any case, for now he couldn't do anything about that, so he put away this terrifying book before taking out another, also with the same cover and with a golden title. 'Spell: Wind Blade'. Since Rohan didn't know at all how the spells worked, he was truly excited about this one. And if he really was a wizard, he would be able to launch his own Wind Blade! And god he wanted to do that.

The book was lighter than the previous one, but still a bit thick. In only a few hours, Rohan devoured the whole book. When he raised his head from the book, he suddenly felt an irresistible desire to throw this damn book through the window, and burned all the other in his possession.

"Now that I think about it, all mana users are a bit of masochists."

After all, to become a warrior, one must create solid paths of mana inside their bodies, making them feel a terrible pain each time they decide to meditate. And now, he just saw that the wizard had a similar love for pain. But in his opinion, this one was even worse than the daily pain a warrior was feeling.

To launch a spell, the wizard firstly needed to inscribe runes on his body, preferably the arms, as it would be easier to aim at his target. But even if Rohan could put aside the need to learn countless information about this rune as this book was doing the same ridiculous detailed description as the previous one, he couldn't with the means used to draw this rune.

It was of course with tha mana coming from the mana stone, as the mana coming from a mana wouldn't work. The reason for such a limitation was because the mana that a warrior was using was pure and couldn't be fused with any element. And the elements were what gave power to the rune, and also the reason that made Rohan feel cold sweat rolling on his back.

The ink used to draw the rune, was mana infused with an element, for example with the element of wind, and then manipulated by the mind to pierce the skin and engraved it the deeper possible. It meant he needed to control his mana, using an elemental source near him to taint this mana and then cut himself with it, while still paying attention for the rune to be perfectly drawn. What a great method.

But if all the spells were working the same way, and Rohan believed so, then it only denoted two major problems. The first one was that the wizard learning the spell needed of course to have a source of the element he wanted to use. If that wasn't really a problem for the wind spells, it would definitely be one for the lighting ones. But it wasn't what made Rohan desperate. No. It was the pain. If the wind was somewhat okay, and again he wasn't sure about this 'okay', but what with the fire ones? Would he scream and cry while drawing this damn rune?

The first wizards must have been maniac people to have even tried to do something like that! Let's not talk about the complexity of the runes, but just trying to use their mighty mana to make them feel pain with different kinds of elements definitely didn't seem right to Rohan.

This one put away this book of doom and leaned back on the bed.. He wasn't sure if he really wanted to be a wizard anymore.