Knull walked out of his dorm with a small smile on his face after making a new friend. He wasn't really used to meeting so many new people after living in the forest for so long but after 3 months in the capital he was fairly comfortable around them.
Remembering their interactions from this morning he blushed slightly as he remembered walking in on her changing. Swearing to knock properly from now on to prevent that kind of situation from happening again he silently praised himself for not letting any emotions out earlier.
On thing he learned after living in a dangerous environment like the forest for so long is that if your enemy can't read you, you always have the advantage. Walking around the school a bit as well as visiting the places where his classes will take place he was getting slightly tired. Deciding to sit down and rest for a bit he went towards a nearby tree to sit in the shade.
Knull was a person who values his privacy, and kept his emotions to himself, as well as somebody who wasn't necessarily antisocial but he preferred to be in the presence of people he knew he could trust. He didn't know too much about the academy except that it is where most people who were great went to learn magic, but one thing he did know is that conflicts rarely happen here. So while it might give him a bit of comfort thinking he won't be attacked suddenly he still couldn't shake off his constant vigilance he adopted for the 7 years he lived alone.
Deciding to practice some magic in the fresh air he focused his mana to manifest around him and controlled it to make a small ground of elemental dolls perform a play for him. It was a small play but it was enjoyable nonetheless, he enjoyed how the colorful puppets were able to be controlled to such a fine degree that they seemed almost human.
After playing around with his mana for a bit he started to get up, only to suddenly feel a gaze on him. Looking in the direction it was coming from he saw an old man looking through the windows of the school staring right at him. Smiling softly at him he gave him a small wave and started to walk away.
As the old man saw that the young kid who caught his interest actually noticed his gaze he was pretty surprised. Not many people at his age had keen enough senses to detect his presence from so far away. The only people who could accurately sense his gaze were war hardened veterans, or people who had grown up in an environment where danger was everywhere, so it was easy to see how the old man got surprised by this seemingly normal young man's control over his body, senses, and even the mana he had just awakened.
Knull on the other hand was musing to himself about how convenient mana could be. Experimenting with it on his walk he tried to infuse it into his body in different ways. Infusing it into very specific parts of his body allowed him to temporarily control it to a fine degree, so fine in fact that he could alter his dna to become something else temporarily. And it wasn't just him either he could do it to everything around him.
The next thing he tried to do was infuse his mana into his fingertips and write in the air with it. What resulted was words written in a rainbow color floating mid air with an ethereal glow to them. Deciding to experiment a bit more he wrote the word fire in english mid air as well as infused intent to make it burst into flames into it. And then suddenly there was a bright flash of light followed by a searing heat that singed his surrounding as the words briefly burst into flames only to dissipate as he got distracted.
Dumbfounded by what just happened knull just stood there dumbly. Deciding to experiment on this particular matter at a later time, preferably in a place where he wouldn't burn everything to the ground, he cast a simple water and cleaning spell and fixed the damage he caused as well as put out the fires around him.
As he got back to the dorm room, it was already very late after a long day of him exploring and checking out the school he would be going to. To be honest it wouldn't be weird to think the academy was a whole new city within the capital as everything here was self sufficient, down to even farmland that students practiced nature magic on.
Anything you would see on campus had something to do with mana or its uses, whether its tamed beasts, magical crops, or even just students practicing magic, you could see so much activity of the mana it was somewhat overwhelming.
For people like Knull and Emma who could see all the mana around them this was actually a huge problem as the already large amount of mental taxation they get from seeing mana at its purest is boosted in a magic rich environment like this making it somewhat harmful. Knull started to think if there was anything he could do to solve his problem when he remembered his small experiment from earlier.
What Knull did was something many people had been trying to figure out for millennia but never could, he had written worded runes. What worded runes were is a hard thing to explain, but simply put they are runes in their purest form. Runes were literally just magic constructs that took the meaning and intent inside people and transmitted them into constructs. It was used in enchanting, spells, and anything you wanted to infuse mana into.
Worded runes however was a much simpler but much more powerful way of using runes. You simply skipped the language part and infused will and intent into your words or writing. The premise behind spell was similar but they were just using your mana and creating an image within your mind and bringing it into reality by speaking latin.
Funny enough most people saw latin as a magical language but it was actually just the language that was spoken by magical communities of old which allowed them to create spells so perfectly. They were seen as masters of runecraft and enchanting, as well as the progenitors of magic. They were supposedly descendants of the gods and related to the 3 primordials which gifted them immense mana capabilities and knowledge, which they passed onto today's generation. Sadly they all disappeared out of nowhere during the great war that happened millions of years ago giving way to today's people, and the 3 races that descended from them.
So back to what knull was doing, what he wanted was to try to create a new spell, 2 of them in fact. One of them was a way for him to travel faster and the other was a way for people like him to increase burdens on the body and block certain senses by putting limiters on the body. The main reason he wanted to limit his body was to increase his physical training efficiency as he doesn't really tire until he trained for days straight and that was always mentally exhausting.
The first spell he would work on however was his teleportation spell which allowed his to travel to anywhere he wanted, effective creating a 'rift' between him and that place allowing him to travel there instantly. Another aspect of rift is that it will create a pathway through the Knull zone, or the domain of the primordial Knull which was said to be empty and many people had used it to siphon knull mana from it. One more thing about the Knull zone is time seems to never pass there and the only being who is freed from this restriction is knull himself.
So Knull decided to infuse his mana into his mind and voice, creating a link between his will and his words. He spoke clearly with an overbearing but calm, and small voice so nobody would hear him, 'Rift' while envisioning the door to his dorm room. Suddenly everything went silent Knull looked around himself to see him standing in a gray space that seemed to expand forever, as well as a small part of his mind seemingly opening. Deciding to look into it he meditated silently while floating in this space and found himself within his mindscape again.
The only difference is he was now in a space where time didn't flow but it was still bright, and it was almost infinitely large. Another odd aspect of it is that his clothes and other things he had on him when he went into the knull space were still there while this didn't happen last time he went to his soul space through here. Taking out a small mana stone from his pocket he dropped it into the air, and suddenly it started to grow brightly.
At this moment mana started to invade his mind and from that small mana stone land started to expand, what took place was an entirely impossible scene. A paradise straight from people's wildest dreams started to spread out in all directions, with glistening but calm waterfalls, snowy wastelands, sandy deserts with oasis' everywhere, grassy plains that expanded as far as the eye can see, mountains that seemed to touch the heavens, canyons that reached into the abyss, raging rivers that swept through the land, and a beautiful blue sky dotted with clouds on the horizon.
He felt a link to this place like he could do anything he wanted here. Deciding to test his theory his imagined there being a grand house that he could live in as well as a library with all the knowledge of the world to be put in front of him. At this moment the space seemed to vibrate as an unfamiliar energy sprouted from his body taking root in from of him, suddenly as if it was growing from the void itself a mansion started to build itself and a library off to the side started to grow like a tree with beautiful red apple hanging from it with endless bookshelves lining the inside and outside. The house looked like an exquisite victorian mansion that would be the wet dream of any architect, and the library was so expansive that even the gods would beg to stay and read forever. Picking an apple from the tree he examined thoroughly, seeing nothing wrong he took a small bite and all of a sudden an influx of knowledge about science and everything there is related to it came rushing into his mind.
The sudden influx of knowledge brought with it a head splitting pain that made him writhe on the floor with tears of blood streaming down his face his nose bleeding from too much mental taxation. After what seemed like hours had passed he finally passed out after having received all the new knowledge from the fruit. The tree which seemed to gain an almost sentient feeling to it grew outwards capturing knull with its branches and putting him inside the mansion that he had erected but was not able to enjoy moments before. And with that everything was silent once again in the tranquil paradise inside Knull's mind.
A/N sorry for irregular updates I will try to be better about it but please bear with me for a bit longer as I have final projects, exams, testing for other stuff as well as other obligations at home so I am swamped. Anyways thanks for reading and I will see you next chapter!