Among the knowledge that was implanted into his mind were the three paths of a soulmancer. Each path was long and arduous and could result in death if he wasn't careful. Magic is a pursuit of knowledge, a pursuit of power, a pursuit of wealth, and almost always a pursuit filled with violence and death.
The first path of a soulmancer in one that focuses on attacking the souls of your enemies. To cause pain, injury, and death was the way of the first soulmancers. With very little defense against soul attacks, only those with abnormally strong souls could even defend themselves against soulmancers. This led to soulmancers to be greatly hated throughout the magic communities of the past. At one point in time the law of the land was to execute any soulmancers that were found.
The second path of a soulmancer is the path of slavery. A soulmancer would use a spell to leave an imprint in the soul of their victim which would force them to obey any order that the soulmancer gave them. If the soulmancer ordered them to eat their forearms, they would. They would use their teeth to tear the flesh and blood from their arms and shatter their teeth on the bone before dying from blood loss. Soulmancers could enslave anyone for any reason, but it was mostly done to live a life of luxury and power. Throughout history several kings and emperors were thought to be soulmancers that enslaved those around them to rise to power. Which also made it hated by other magic users and led to soulmancers to be murdered on sight.
The third path of a soulmancer is the soul seed path. This was the newest path created for soulmancers. If he chooses this path, he would be the third to do so. This path was created by his master's master to find something called the great truth of truths. To walk this path, Grimvir would have to split a small piece of his soul and nurture it into a soul seed, then after finding someone with magical talent, he would remove that person's soul and replace it with his soul seed to create a clone capable of learning a magic different from himself. Grimvir's master had hundreds of clones, and his master's master had over a thousand. It was a path where one became many, but remained one, and a path that was hard for Grimvir's mind to full grasp.
Of course, if none of the three paths were something Grimvir wished to walk he always had the fourth path, which was not to practice magic. Although it was a very unlikely path for Grimvir to take, it was comforting to know he always had the option to throw the ring into the river for it to be washed down stream and into the ocean never to see the light of day again.
Yesterday he knew magic existed, but it was so far away from his reach that it might as well be considered a fairy tale told to children. But now, it not only stopped being a fairy tale he now had to choose the direction that he would take for the rest of his life. Normally he should have a month or two before he had to make the decision, but normal process of slowly adapting the body to mana was already taken care of by his master, which is why his body feels the way it does. He is technically a level 1 acolyte and can begin to train in any of the three paths.
A choice of three paths, but in truth there is only one path that could be taken. His master didn't pay such a heavy price to send his legacy to someone that would reject it. From what Grimvir understood he could still use soul attacks and enslave people if he wished. Grimvir stopped thinking about his choices the moment the fish was done roasting, he had made his choice, he would follow his master's path, the soul seed path.
From the moment that Grimvir shoved the first chunk of hot oily fish into his mouth, was the moment he experienced the true joy of eating a red trout. He had as liked eating roasted fish, it was different from the normal meats he ate, deer, rabbit, boar, and occasionally bear, but this was the first time he truly loved eating fish. His body had been awakened to mana and this had changed his body in many ways, including his senses. This also included his sense of taste, which is why found this simple red trout so delicious, and why he had devoured it so quickly.
Grimvir was tempted to try and catch another trout to eat, but his body was still feeling weak. So, for the first time in the one and a half months he had been in this hunting territory, he was going to have a day off. He sat by the fire till it went out, he walked back naked because he couldn't be bothered to put his now dry clothes back on. He spent the rest of the day taking many short naps and reading from the books in the chests and stretching his body in between. By time the sun had set his body was feeling almost normal.
A little before the time when Grimvir would go to bed, he pulled out the chest of orbs and removed the silver orb meant for soulmancers. He began to study the meditation technique for the soul seed method. after studying for a while, Grimvir began to meditate and soon found himself in his sea of consciousness, standing before a glowing crystal. Well, standing may be an overstatement, he wasn't currently strong enough to make himself look like himself and could only appear as a blob of soul power.
The crystal before him was what separated ordinary mortals and magic users and allowed magic users to harness the awesome power of mana to evolve far beyond their mortal selves. The first step in every magic user's journey is to adapt their bodies to mana, which leads to the creation of this crystal and the space it resides. The next step after becoming a level 1 acolyte is to meditation to strengthen the body and soul and begin to use soul power to construct the first of three inter-connected three-dimensional runes that would eventually fuse together and allow him to become a Rank 1 Soulmancer.
This space is also where Grimvir would create his soul seeds, each with their own smaller crystal that would allow him to instantly communicate or control his clones at will. And if he needed, he could recall a soul seed and store in its crystal until he found a new host for the seed. If a clone was killed its soul seed would return to its crystal on its own, unless the soul seed was destroyed. If the soul seed was destroyed the crystal would shatter, causing some damage to Grimvir's soul. But since Grimvir was about to become a Soulmancer, the little bit of damage to his soul wasn't as big of a deal to most magic users, as Soulmancers were masters of the soul and had many ways to heal injuries to the soul with a little bit of time and effort and the devouring the souls of others.