trial 2

"Sigh...."

In the front of Topaz's room, Arthan stands there in a daze. It's been almost half an hour from the time Arthan let out his first sigh.

“haha…it's only a day, and I already miss my grunt...” 

Although Arthan is middle aged-man at the soul and a genius one at that, when it comes to emotions, he is not even a children opponent.

Children know what they want, say it, and have it realized or unfulfilled.

Not because they are wiser or bolder, but merely because they never complicate things more than they should be. 

Creak~

The door opened by itself after Arthan put his hand on the door handle, the magic formation on the door have recognised the key in his pocket, and now Arthan is the sole owner of the room.

tap! tap!

As Arthan walks into the room after closing the door, his steps reverberate crisply, showing how empty the room is after its last owner left.

Besides the empty feeling the room has. Topaz had left behind a box on top of the bed for him.

On top of the box lay a paper and a gold medal.

Arthan can’t be bothered to check the medal, as his mind is already on the paper. 

So he quickly put the medal in the same pocket he had put the keys in and then read the paper. 

[I don’t know in what mood you will enter this room.

But whatever mood you had and whatever thought transpired inside your mind.

"Fuck the other! Just do the simple one first!! All will come into picture eventually!"

Cool, isn’t it? Kekeke...don't be my stan, though!] 

“Cool your ass! Stan? Me? Hell, no!” reading the corny words, Arthan cringed, though he still smiled sunnily in the end.

Click!

Opening the box with a single click on the lock, Arthan found what he has looking for was indeed there. It was on the topmost of all item items that Topaz had jumbled together inside the box.

“Still, with him around me, my life had been so much easier!” said Arthan smilingly, holding in his hand a white round crystal with a beautiful and complex line engraved to it.

The crystal in Arthan’s hand is ‘Contract guarantor’. A grade three regular talisman. 

Like its name, 'Contract guarantor' is used to guaranty the elements contracting and make sure the attempter is safe and can become magico in one piece.

Without it, though, the attempter must walk through a diabolical pathway of elements contracting without a safety belt to save them in the chance a mishap happens. That means the attempter can be dead in every step of elements contracting!

And Arthan is a magico who is still alive to tell the tale after contracting elements without a safety belt. Or better, he doesn't even know if there is any safety belt!

At age one, Arthan has yet dared to show his mastery of this world language in fear that his great-grandfather will use him as a mouse lab like in some stories.

Thus, what he knows at that time is all about 'how to do it' from the little clue he gets and not 'what will happen if something wrong'.

But since advantages over other children by rebirth is a chance he can't give up for, he still takes a chance and barging to the gates of hell.

In the end, out of four-step to contracting mana, which are: balancing raw mana and elemental mana of choice to create an elemental seal; calling elemental wheel with the elemental seal; supplying endless mana to manifest elemental wheel; and embedding the elemental in the mind palace. 

Arthan blundered, and a mishap happened on the third step. Mana reserve he had prepared was not sufficient to manifest the number nine wheel, and he then blacks out from the concussion pain in his brain.

It's merely because of the intervention of someone he deemed as his great-grandfather that he is still alive and kicking to this day.

Toss! Catch~ Toss!

“It will be good if I have this at that time! Then my mana palace would still be a whole!” grumble Arthan while toss-catching the crystal in the air.

Catch~

Catching the crystal from the air, a grin appears on Arthan face, “Still, now with this in my arm, now I can finally cast my spell freely!”

In order to contract an element, the attempter needs to be at least six years old.

There are many reasons for this, like the pricy price of the contract guarantor, one attempt only uses, and other things.

But the real reason is that the children need to be intellectual enough first. So, they can create better ties with the element. If not, it will merely become an act of abuse on the child.

With this kind of social standard, Arthan couldn't help but refrain from showing that he had been a magico even though he was already a magico from five years ago.

“But, there still a show needs to be done!” mumble Arthan while putting the crystal and the box aside. So, he can sit on the bed.

Every time someone successfully contracts an element, there is always mana disturbance in the air. 

Thus, this time Arthan need to make a mana disturbance in the air and announce his ascension to magico rank, and this is the real reason why Arthan enters Topaz’s room.

Grab~

Arthan grabbed the light blue crystal on his neck, and utter an order to something, “Cripple, put the dome on!”

Beep

‘D-o-m-e, o-n’ slow mechanical like voice ringing inside Arthan mind. With the sounds, the world around Arthan changes, the colour and shape of things inside the room become hazy, then opaque with nothing but a white world.

“Eurgh…Why are you always made it opaque? Go made it transparent!” 

Beep

‘Y-e-s, m-a-s-t-e-r' with each enunciated syllable ringing inside his head, the colour and shape of things comebacks to normal.

‘Geez, what a pain in the ass!’ thought Arthan when he saw how slow and dumb the Cripple works is.

The Cripple is supposed to be some AI in a magical way. It was created by Arthan using a mix of illusion magic, array magic, and many other automation spells and many more magic circles he found inside the clown prince grimoire. 

By itself, the Cripple can't function. Thus, he put this AI inside grade-two dark talisman paper with ‘Illusion world spell’ inscribed.

Dark talisman is different from the light and the standard one-time used talisman in many ways.

But the significant difference was the Dark talisman can absorb the wearer mana till dry as the cost of ‘Always active’, and by mere thought, the world will change as the spell is active. Though for the Cripple to act, it will only recognize Arthan voice as a command than his thought.

The other different thing was the creation of dark talisman need some pricey items with soul power for automation as the power source. 

That is why Arthan embedded this paper talisman with some seal to blue crystal or monster core on his neck.

“Still, a voice command and how annoyingly slow it speech?!! Euuugggh…” laments Arthan while shaking his head before he put his feet crossed and made mudra with his hand.

inhale~ hold

exhale~ hold

Arthan now needs to fix his mind palace, so he cast a spell and create mana disturbance in the air. 

But to fix it, Arthan needs mana. And by doing meditation inside the Cripple dome, mana cultivation becomes five times faster than usual since the Cripple can influence mana inside its dome.

inhale~ hold

exhale~ hold

Sitting cross-legged on the bed and breathing in his yoga meditation, Arthan starts his mana cultivation session.

“Cripple, push the mana!” utters Arthan as an order.

‘Y-e-s, m--' 

“No need to answer me and just do it!!!” scolds Arthan breaking his meditation session from exasperated by how slow the Cripple answer is. But Arthan still quickly back to his meditation state after the yells.

woom~ woom woom

The Cripple pushes all mana inside its dome to swarm Arthan body, and with an inhaled motion from his nose, Arthan easily takes the mana into his body. 

The mana then goes up to the gaps between his nerve before entering a small dark crevice between his eyebrows and vanishing into his mind palace. 

‘Great! There seems nothing wrong with the transfer. So, there shouldn’t be much problem in mind palace, right? But to be sure, let’s check it out!’