Chapter 37: Combat Art, Part 2

Chapter 37: Combat Art, Part 2

"Ah," Kerius quickly jumped up. He pulled out a small booklet wrapped in leather.

"Gerald, I'm prepared to make the exchange. Here's the Unmoving Boulder Art." He pushed the booklet in front of Gerald.

'What? Is this why he's here?' Gerald squinted his eyes as he was suspicious of Kerius' behavior so he didn't accept it immediately and instead said, "Hold on. You didn't juststeal it, did you? I don't want any trouble."

"No, no, no," Kerius quickly shook his head, "I would never dare to steal from my family," he assured him.

Gerald didn't quite believe him and continued to ask, "Then why are you so nervous? What happened?"

"Well" Kerius tried to speak multiple times but then he always stopped. Gerald was getting really annoyed with him right now.

"Speak! Or this deal is over."

Those words finally scared Kerius enough and he said, "Okay, okay, I'll tell you I had an argument with my elders and well I told them that you are a really powerful traveling mage. I told them that you were researching Combat Arts and that you were prepared to trade our family treasure for an even more powerful Earth spell."

Gerald pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Are you telling me that I'll have to pretend to be some powerful mage?!" he asked in disbelief. If this fool brought trouble for him, he really wouldn't know what to do.

Kerius quickly tried to calm him down, saying, "No, no, no, don't worry, you won't have to lift a finger. The elders are suspicious of me, but when they see your Stone Bolt spell I guarantee they will cool off and not make any trouble for you," he straightened his back with confidence. This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

Gerald sighed once again and took the notebook out of his back pocket. He gave it to Kerius and at the same time took the Unmoving Boulder booklet saying, "Just take the damn book and go. And leave me out of your lies next time."

Whenever he needed answers, Headmaster Orin was the best person to seek advice from.

Unfortunately this time, Gerad didn't get much help. Mainly because the Headmaster himself didn't know much. He did, however, point him to the library, where there were some old documents, containing fragments of information on the energy manipulation.

Gerald spent the next few hours, trying to get something out of the damaged scrolls, however, they were too far gone and the ink was all blurry. Some places were already completely rotten through and were completely useless.

Fortunately, it wasn't a complete waste of time. Gerald found some clues that pointed him in an interesting direction. The parts that he managed to understand, looked similar to some kind of a meditation technique.

It reminded him of some old Chinese practices he read about. It was used to balance the energies of the body and to control life energy. Gerald didn't know if these two things had any connection with each other.

He started to suspect that there was a connection between this planet and Earth. That's because just like this planet in the past, Earth was currently without Mana. And if there was a reason for why that was so, Gerald assumed there had to be some big force behind it all.

Unfortunately, he had no clue if his hypothesis was correct. And even if it was and Earth was robbed of its Mana, he could do nothing to change it. He assumed he was still in the same universe because the laws of nature seemed to be the same, but he couldn't be completely sure.

It was somewhat unnerving just thinking about it.

Mana seemed to be able to regenerate itself over time, and for the Earth to be completely void of it Some greater power had to be behind it.

Gerald went back to his room and tried some simple meditation techniques he learned in his free time so he could relax his mind.

At first, he couldn't calm down, because he was too excited. It took him almost half an hour to completely empty his thoughts. At first, he felt nothing different from before, however, after five or so minutes he started to feel something and it was way different from what he ever felt before.

Gerald opened his eyes in surprise and looked over his body. In a shock, he gasped and said, "There's no way this is real."