Leon was lost in memories while looking at his past life's skeleton, all the achievements he made in that life and this was his ending. He knew the cause of his downfall and vowed not to make the same mistake, no matter how much he was hailed as a genius it didn't matter. Like smoke in the wind, it could vanish if he let his ego take over. He needed to work harder to make sure that whatever risks he took, were not only worth it but kept within acceptable limits.
He walked over to his skeleton and on its remaining hand was a plain gold ring, according to his memories this was a treasure. He pulled it off his finger and picked it up, on the inside we're some runes inscribed in an almost impossibly small script. The ring was by no means rare, there was many like it in this world, but this one, in particular, was special as it was made by him.
It was a storage treasure with a large amount of space inside, using mana to open it a person could store whatever they wanted inside. the objects were not actually stored in the ring, but rather in a separate dimensional rift created through the mana passing through the runes. From his memories, he knew he had worked hard on creating this one as it had ten times the space of a standard storage ring.
He felt inside himself using his senses and from his planet like core, he drew forth a strand of mana and passed it through the runes on the ring. His mind was drawn inside the rift, he found himself in a space thirty meters in diameter. off to one side, he saw a neat and orderly stack of potions. they had different colours to them, red for wound regeneration potions, blue for lesser mana potions, purple for greater mana potions.
The red ones, although they seemed like miracle potions, only worked on superficial wounds like cuts and burns. The damage to internal organs and a mana core cracks were far too serious for them to have an effect which is why he still passed into reincarnation in his last life.
In a separate area was an oaken table with many different tools and brushes on it. this was his past portable inscription table, it had carving tools and different inks used in the rune drawing process. once a rune was carved to a precise standard a certain ink had to fill in the gaps, the same rune could cause a different effect depending on which ink was used. according to his memories.
Most inks had to contain some of a different crushed gemstone as part of the mixture as once mana was instilled into it, they had to solidify and create a smooth and seamless rune that was flush with the surface of what the rune was carved on. Too much ink and it wouldn't be a smooth surface and could cause an imbalance that would at best destroy the rune, at worst it could cause an explosion. Too little and the rune wouldn't form and the mana would disperse.
There was also another type of ink that could contain different metals, this was a type of ink he had created himself after a lot of work. This type was used on human flesh to create a tattoo, and it's the main purpose was to do what seemed impossible. It would help fix a damaged mana core, but the requirements for it were far beyond what he was capable of at present.
Despite having the knowledge, having a base level one major rank higher than the intended individual was needed to have sufficient mana for it to work. Having the same elemental attribute was also needed or it would cause a reaction in the mana core, resulting in an explosion. his memories flashed by of many experiments and many deaths along the way to get it right.
He looked around the dimensional space further and saw many raw materials used in ink creation such as different gemstones and ores, bottles of beast blood labelled carefully and different high-level formation boxes to contain different herbs. It seemed he had most of what he needed in order to create formation and inscriptions, all he lacked was sufficient mana which would now come with time.
He withdrew from the rift and began to think of how he was going to leave, he looked back towards the way he came and but could only see that slide in which he came down. He tried sifting through his memories to remember how was going to get out of here when it came to him. He once more went to the formation on the floor and began tapping different runes in a sequence, after injecting a small amount of mana into each one the central large rune once more began glowing. He took a deep breath and drew forth some of his wind attribute mana as his palm once more made contact, in a flash of ethereal green he was gone!
In the small little area were he opened the trapdoor the wind started spiralling, a green glow formed in the centre and Leon appeared. Although it wasn't actually teleportation, for short distances you could travel as if you were made of wind. Those with this element had it easier as it required none wind spellcasters to use a wind attribute gemstones to power it instead and it wasn't a cheap venture to use continually.
He kicked more dirt and stones over the trapdoor and made it look like it had never been opened and then set off on his way.
He wanted to make it back to his mother as soon as possible as he didn't want her to worry too much but when he looked towards the sky he knew there was no point in worrying about it. she would be panicked as it was, he wandered to the ruin and the sun was high in the sky, not even reaching its zenith yet. But now it was approaching sunset, he hadn't noticed the passing of time when he was reliving his memories, they may have passed quickly but it was an entire life he had flashes of and it wouldn't be done in an instant.
He began to walk back towards the market square, he noticed right away that there was nobody about as he remembered that the parade would start at sunset, how was he going to find his parents during that?
He decided the first thing to do would be to head back to his fathers stall, if he didn't find them there he would just go and wait for them at the Inn, he sped along the nearly deserted street and as he rounded a corner he could seem them in the distance, along with four guards.
As he got closer he began to worry, how was he going to explain this? he was covered in dust and cobwebs from the trapdoor and the slide and there was the bigger problem of not being able to hide the newly formed core sending strong waves of mana from next to his heart.
He got closer and saw his mother, she had tears running down her face and seemed hysterical. He looked to his father and he had a look of worry and concern but seemed to be keeping it together.
One of the guards saw him coming out the corner of his eye and turned to look casually, his mother followed his gaze and when she saw him she was speechless for a moment.
"Leon!" she finally shouted and ran over to him, she pulled him in close and started crying once more.
"Where did you go?! you've been gone for so long already!!" she stammered in between sobs. She began brushing him down and then froze, his father already had a look of absolute disbelief on his face.
The guards didn't know what was going on as none of them were spellcasters, after a few words saying they were glad he had turned up again they left.
"Son, what the hell happened to you?!" his father finally managed to say after a while.
"It's hard to explain really." did he lie to them or tell the truth? he knew he could trust them but the fewer who knew the safer he would be. He thought of his memories of his past life, there was no children and nobody he had passed on his inheritance to. It all came from a fundamental lack of trust, he had his students but they were more of a tool for him to use than actual students.
After a moment he decided he didn't want to live like that again, alone on with his secrets, he made a firm decision he was going to tell his parents everything.
"Mother, Father, I've got a long story to tell, but we can't talk about it here. I've got a place we can talk if you want to know?"
His parents looked at each other and after a non-verbal conversation decided to follow along, as his father was going to start collecting what was left of his wares Leon stopped him.
"I've got a quicker way father stand back." He looked up and down the street to make sure that nobody was around and waved his hand with the ring on it at the stall, everything vanished as if it hadn't been there at all. both his mother and father stared blankly at what they had just seen, they knew of storage devices but knew how valuable they were, how had he come to possess one?
"Follow me," he said with a seriousness that wasn't to be found on a normal six-year-old child.
It didn't take long before they once more approached the ruin of his old castle. He wandered back to the area with the trap door and once more checked they hadn't been followed, he stepped up to the hidden switch and pushed hard from the side as the trapdoor opened next to him.
"Down here please, father you go first, it will be dark down there but a chain will be next to the wall on the right-hand side, just pull that." His parents looked at each other again before his father took a step forward and lowered himself into the hole and slid out of view, a few moments later a faint light could be seen coming into existence.
"You next mother, I will keep watch until you are in safely." She followed her husband and lowered herself down and slid into the corridor, a few moments later Leon join them.
He found them both looking towards the end of the corridor staring at his corpse and he sighed. how was he going to explain this? he didn't want to hide it from them as he wanted to trust somebody in this life.
"Is it safe to be down here son?" his father asked in a hesitant voice.
"Perfectly safe, as hard as it is to believe it's thanks to that skeleton I came to find this place." Both his parents couldn't help but wonder how and he read it on both of their faces. "Follow me you will understand soon hopefully"
They walked down the corridor and passed his remains and entered the chamber, the glow from the runes was gone and it just looked like a normal formation that was inactive.
"The best place for me to start is the beginning I suppose," he finally began. "Although I am your son and I see you both as my parents, that's not all of who I am,
"I have the memories of not only this life. The reason you all say I am a genius and advanced passed my years is also due to this." His parents both looked confused but didn't interrupt him.
"I came into this world and knew of my first previous life right away, I could think and be self-aware even while I was growing inside of you, mother." A look of shock crossed both of their faces once more.
"My first previous life was not in this world, it was a place called Earth, we had no magic and things were vastly different, we thought in different ways and handled problems differently. It was a normal life even though I was not ordinary within it.
"That's not the crucial part though, how I died there seems to have been special, which has not only allowed me to remember that life but also unlocked my memories of the one before as well."
"Hang on a moment son, you are saying that although you are our son, at the same time you aren't? That you remember everything from your past three lives?" asked his father with both shock and confusion.
"But Leon, even if that is the case, how did you come to find this place?" his mother cut in.
"Remember when I asked you about this ruin father?-" his father gave a quick nod in conformation "-well all three of those possible answers are correct, it was a school and a castle, and definitely owned by a mad spellcaster" he sighed and shook his head at this point and looked towards his corpse again.
His parents followed his gaze to look at the remains.
"The owner of the castle which blew up is over there, and he just so happens to be the life I lived before being on Earth." Now his parents were definitely shocked, it was all too much to take in. They had never heard of anything quite like this and didn't know how to handle such information but Leon kept talking about his experiences from both previous lives.
Over the course of the next few hours, he spoke of his knowledge, his powers and stories from the time of their grandparents. As well as the science and technology of Earth.
Eventually both his parents began to accept what he was saying as truth, he knew too much for him to be making it up, and from what they knew of their son he wouldn't do something like this. He finally brought the subject to his present life and his mana core.
"This formation over here is what formed my mana core, it was designed by me when I owned the castle and is used to help the younger generation asses their talent and elemental affinity.
"This time though my mana core is a little different than as the fire spellcaster that I was." at this point, he started drawing forth mana and materializing it in front of him, first came fire, his father could sense it was of a higher purity than even his own, next he drew forth the wind and it went the same way with his mother. Even with all they had learnt from their son over the past few hours they were still in disbelief at seeing him control two elements. When he brought out the earth element their eyes widened once more, with the materialization of the final element water Kane sat down there and then on the steps to the formation.
"How is this possible? this is all too much to take in. two was a surprise but it's not like it hasn't happened in the Academy before, but all four? never have I seen or even heard of something like this, no legends or myths, it's meant to be impossible." Kane was once more shaken to his core and Lily was the same.
"Kane? what are we meant to do? is it dangerous for people to find out about this?" his mother was worried, she had seen at the Acadamy many a genius spellcaster crippled due to jealousy.
"Son, it's best you don't reveal how much you can actually do. For some people, they don't like seeing others more talented or brilliant than they are and will do everything they can to ruin you. They will try to cripple your mana core or directly take your life."
"Well father, on the subject of mana cores, I actually know a way to fix them, but I won't be able to help you with yours until I reach wizard rank I'm sorry. If mine becomes damaged it's easier as I can sense and direct mana internally and externally at the same time so I don't think crippling a core will be much of a problem for me."
Hope could be seen for Kane again and his eyes lit up, after hearing the memories of Leon he knew wizard rank would be nothing to him. Thanks to Leon his world had opened up and he learnt of a new rank, Mage, one step above warlock. It was the rank Leon was when he had his accident.
"Mother, now I'm a spellcaster I can also sense why you are still not a disciple as well. What happened to your cores? it seems like two of them are broken.
Lily was shocked, at level one he was able to feel that? Memories came back to her of a particular incident she would rather have forgotten. Noblewomen didn't like competition. A talented and beautiful girl from a low-class merchant family was definitely someone they had to get rid of.
she explained her circumstances to Leon and all he could feel was rage, he knew he had to ask his father in secret later the name of this family as his mother wouldn't say a word.
"Don't worry mother I swear I will help you as well!"
In his mind, he condemned whichever family did this to his mother to death. he wouldn't let this go.