Vega woke up, held his head, and squinted. The pounding was worse than when he lost too much mana practicing his first spell. He looked around and almost screamed at the places around him. His memories rushed back, making him realize where he was. He was still alive and well, stuck inside the cave. He pushed himself up and tried touching the orange glow, closing the cave's mouth. But the barrier stayed there, preventing him from going outside.
'What is happening?' He didn't know how to get out of the cave. After staring at the orange glow for long, something shone brightly on the edge of his vision.
Vega glanced at the position and saw his tome laid there in the craters. The glow diminished, and he approached the book slowly. Being careful just in case it suddenly grows legs and kicks him in the face.
His eyes glanced around, but he found nothing to cover his hands and touch the book. When he looked down at his robe, he assured himself that the robe was cheaper than his life. Putting his hands behind the robe, he squatted down and touched the tome. Slowly, he flipped open the cover while apologizing to his tome. "I'm sorry, I don't know what happened, but please don't eat me."
But the tome just stayed still, and now he felt like a crazy person for talking to a book.
Flipping open pages to pages, all his writings were still intact, without the ink having faded from being submerged in the milky water for too long. The tome was indeed magical. Even the papers were dry without any creases or folding.
Suddenly the book shook in his hand, and the words started to dance. They twirled on the page, kicking the other letters away, making the page empty, and showed the word, "Hello."
Vega frowned and replied, "Hello?" With that word, he felt the instant connection tug on the corner of his mind. But nothing else appeared on the page.
"Can you hear me?"
"Yes." The words danced again.
"Can I touch you? I mean with my bare hands?" He knew that was a foolish question, but consent was still important. Just in case the book was electrocuted, it was better to be safe than sorry.
"Of course you can." Just talk like usual."
"But this is not normal." Vega frowned. Normally the book won't do anything unless he asks a question, and finally the book will give him an answer.
"Yes, but I'm finally alive now."
"Ah okay." The book evolved. He hoped he could put the book safely inside his space ring so he wouldn't have to worry about missing it.
"No, you still can't put me inside your space ring."
"Do you just read my mind?"
"So what? I could do it before, and of course I can do it now. I'm not degrading."
"Okay, so what can you do now? Can you give me any spells for free? Or even any recipes for how to gain more mana for advancing to adept?"
"Nah, that's just crazy. Like usual, I can tell you stuff you forget. Of course, right now, because I have gained my freedom and am sentient, I can help you think of the best course of action when, for example, you fail to create your potion."
"So, you can do the usual stuff without any new knowledge? That's kind of useless, right?" If Vega knew the book was so useless, he would just leave it tied to his strap and gather all the liquid mana for himself. A whole pool of liquid mana was a huge amount of money. It could even have brought him the flying magic item Mistress Vin used or a better-looking one like the one his mentor used.
"Of course not, you stupid Now you have another person beside you who can help you brainstorm. Do you even understand the word brainstorm? It's to--"
"Of course, I know what brainstorming means. And stop reading my mind."
"Unfortunately, I can't do that. We share a connection, remember? I can even recall all your past life inside of me. But wait! Don't close me. I can even keep all the information you read and listen to without you needing to write anything. So convenient, right?"
Vega nodded. That was actually very convenient. He remembered the struggle he had to do going to the library and copying all the books he read. His wrist had even cramped up from the constant writing. Now, he just had to bring the tome, and all the information he heard can be stored in the book forever. "It's forever, right? I can read all the information available in this whole land without you running out of paper."
"Of course. I'm that amazing. Now you think I'm really useful, right?"
"Yeah, yeah. I don't really want to waste my time talking to a book like a crazy person. Can you help me open whatever you create by creating that orange barrier? I need to go back quickly."
The book didn't reply, but on its page, the letters separated themselves and moved together, creating a drawing of a circle with several symbols written on its side.
The drawing was familiar to him. It resembled the sigils Mistress Vin had created for him in exchange for a crazy amount of magic crystals and even felt familiar with the higher-grade sigil his mentor gave him.
He traced the symbols drawn on the ground carefully. The first couple of symbols were easy; in fact, it didn't require him to use any mana to power the symbols. But after a while, he found some symbols overlapping toward each other, making it difficult to figure out the start and end points. But after trying to trace it in his mind, which is supposed to be powerful enough for doing three-dimensional spells,
After the symbols looked perfect, he tried to reach his mana, powering up the circle around him. One by one, the symbols started to glow blue. He smiled, but when reaching the middle point, the glow faded and the backlash of failed magic reached him.
Looking at the book again, the symbols had longer lines curving backward. After comparing the two, Vega finally understood his mistake and redrew all the symbols. It was too similar to learning a new language; one difference in the lines could mean a different meaning. After making sure everything looked the same, he finally activated all the symbols again.
This time, instead of glowing one by one, the whole symbol pulsed together in sync. After it pulsed thirteen times, similar to how many symbols there are in the circle, the glow disappeared, creating a laser light focus that cracked the orange glow in several specific spots. After spinning around and shooting the spot, the barrier crumbled showing the way outside.
"Hah, finally!" Vega's eyes twinkled. He was surprised that the symbols work. It meant after this he could start learning some theories about sigil making. His now upgraded tome would be very beneficial to help him learn the ropes.
The cave was too dark and small for him to keep staying inside. All the ambient energy had gone, and the room felt lifeless and empty. Without waiting further, he strapped the tome back and began approaching the mouth of the cave.
On the way outside, he scraped the shiny rocks and felt the rocks were too difficult to scrape, even with his stronger magic. A stalintine. All the shiny rocks were stalintines, covering the entire cave's surface. But looking at his sword with only the handle left, Vega had to stop mining because he didn't have anymore tools to gather the minerals. After putting down all the stalagmite dust, he continued to grope out of the dark cave.
Outside, the sun greeted him, and the air felt dry compared with being inside the cave. The orange hue painting the sky meant the day was almost over.
Keeping the leaves from touching his face, Vega chose the closest path to get off the road. He was too tired to go through the forest, especially this late. Every book told him that night creatures were more difficult to kill compared to the ones who thrived in the dark. The only reason? As a normal human, his eyes were not designed to see at night.
After finding his way and stepping on the hard surface of the sandy pathway, Vega relaxed. Even though the path was safer, he walked along the winding pathway cautiously, with the trees looming on either side. As he made his way closer to the academy, something shot toward him, slashing his leg open. Blood blossomed, making his leg feel sticky from the blood.
The second attack came, and he was ready, summoning a glowing shield around him. It was bigger than the previous one, covering his whole body. The sizzling sound of the fire creating smoke all over him But he was ready, creating ten ice needles and shooting them separately from where the attack came from. He heard the scream create a gust of wind that blew the smoke away. Using his vibrational sequence, he used the air around him to figure out who attacked him.
"Surrender now, who are you?"
"It's me; don't kill me."
From the bush, Mayne came out, lifting his arms out. The gesture was useless because any prominent adept can still activate their magic even with their hands tied. "I didn't know that you had advanced."
"So you mean if we're still on the same level, you are planning to kill me here?" What for?" Vega glared, summoning three ice spears around him effortlessly. As far as he knew, the academy forbade the apprentices from killing each other.
Mayne chuckled, "Look, you were away for too long. But yesterday, the academy told us some news. Any apprentices that are still outside will be considered traitors. So we can freely kill you to gain contribution points from the academy."
He didn't know what was wrong with Mayne. First, the boy asked him to be the mentor of low-level apprentices and vowed to help him, but Vega had to improvise things because he was the only one there with several apprentices ready to learn from him. And now this. He thought Mayne was nice; apart from being late, the boy had no other hidden motives. But after finding out he was an apprentice of Elder Addilyn, Mayne totally changed.
"Whatever that is, you come with me to the academy now. Or I will be the one killing you. If what you say is true, then I can just tell the guard that you are the one outside and my mentor asked me to hunt you. It's easy."
Mayne scowled, glaring daggers at Vega. "Alright, but you can't kill me."