That's was the story of of an Obsessed king.
The letter slipped out of my hand while I fell back against my bed, slowly trying to comprehend all I had just read.
There was...a lot of to take in.
'So much info dump, ' I grabbed my head and groaned. There was so much to think about now, so many more complications and contradictions. Ah, my head hurts when I just thought if it.
This was the letter of a mad King from long before the era of Magic. This person was obsessed with interacting with eminent principalities called "Laws" that govern and bind the very fabric of this reality and this world.
Magic was one of such Principality, and from the letter, it seemed mankind wasn't well aware of the *Laws* or at least at that point in time, other than the Mad king, no one was.
I was excited about learning a new spell, but now I'm having some really unsettling mixed feelings about all this.
Hadn't I just discovered some incredible knowledge?
Perhaps something even bothersome and dangerous.
"Goddammit...I didn't ask for any of this! I could have lived longer without this knowledge..." I whined as I held my face in both hands.
It was clear that this letter wasn't an original part of the old book. It was stuck in there by someone; and if I considered the timeline, it wouldn't match. The Mad King spoke of times when he alone was the only human to wield magic, while the old book was fixed together as a sort of walk through guide after the discovery of magic four hundred years ago.
That also meant someone else, or others, are also aware of the Mad King and his tyrannical obsession of interacting with the Principalities. So maybe the knowledge about the presence of *Laws* isn't such a grand forgotten secret?
Perhaps at the level of a state secret, but even that is too much!
I just casually learned a state secret! Fuck it, the secret of the universe even!
"More importantly, how did such an incredible knowledge get in the rough hands of an old beggar?" No matter how I saw it, that homeless old man raises more questions than needed ever since we ran into each other.
"... We did 'run in' to each other, right?"
This was weird.
How convenient was it that just around the time I had earnestly began my interest in magic, I come across a strange old man who offered me all I would need to pick myself up...
I raised the letter and glanced at it...
...and at the same time, pass to me the inheritance of what could otherwise be called a Powerful Mage from a long forgotten period in history?
I was getting a headache.
That old beggar always seemed peculiar to me, now I'm not sure what to think anymore.
I sat up against my bed and took in deep breaths to relax my nerves.
If this Letter hand come through the old beggar to me, then it may have been through lots more other people, and this makes the Mad King's inheritance less valuable.
"The ability to relate with the laws of the universe..." It sounded grand but the concept was nothing if not vaguely suspicious.
Kind of like the whisper of a devil, granting you all desires, only at the risk of something more than you could afford.
Plus there's also the mentioned risk of death.
The Mad King created a single spell that let the user interact with the Principalities through what he described as..."magic brainwaves"...but at the countless sacrifices of many throughout years and centuries.
From what I understood, these guys had their minds ripped out of their body and passed on to others to create a coalesced dense will absurd enough to interact with actual universal "Laws" binding this reality.
If that didn't sound like bullshit, nothing would.
"This is crazy. Even if all of this is true, there's no way I'm learning such a spell made of the life and blood of many thousands of innocent people. The Mad King's inheritance can just go to hell." Saying so, I rumpled up the sheet of paper and tossed it towards a corner of my room.
And to think I actually got excited over this thing.
I was having sincere mixed-feelings about this inheritance. From what I read, the writer himself didn't seem like a bad man until he began obsessing over magic and laws. He lost everything... sacrificed everything...his family, his people...his humainty and sanity, and the lives of a thousand others over centuries of years...and ultimately still failed.
That's not quite right.
He didn't fail, but it was too late by then.
That was why he left his inheritance, in hopes that some others of the future generation would excel where he didn't. In some manner, he did all of this for the current Era. When I thought of it that way, the Mad King just appeared as a parent wishing the best only for their child, and willing to do anything at all for that.
If the Mad King was right about the Principalities and Laws...then his inheritance could bring about a massive turn around in this world's existence.
Once more, I realized how crazy it was that I ended up with something like this.
The King's inheritance was something dreadfully incredible. The prospects it offered were simply incomprehensible to someone like me who still struggled to wrap my head around the existence of magic, only to discover it was merely the tip of an iceberg in a vast ocean of infinite possibilities.
If I had the King's inheritance... Couldn't I get stronger?
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I was seriously contemplating my options right here.
The King's inheritance was an incredible prospect on one hand, on the other, if others were to discover I possessed such knowledge and dreadful ability, I could be haunted amd put my family in danger. At that point my life could as well be over.
But then again, if I possessed the inheritance and the effects of the spell, wouldn't that open newer and nigh-infinits prospects for me to get stronger and protect my lifestyle? If I could use other abilities just like Magic, or perhaps even greater, I could become a terrifying existence.
And then I'll be hunted down.
'I'm just going in circles.' I hung my head.
For the meantime, I should at least learn a little about the spell and what it offered.
I get it could 'interact' with the Principalities, but what exactly did that mean? What were the Principalities? How could I gain from that? How does it work?
The Mental Sphere technique required the creation of a Mana Core equivalent, but inside the human brain. It was usually a long process of drawing refined Mana from the main core and steadily expanding the Mental Core in a process of expansion and contraction. The creation of a Core in the brain, or simply sending Mana into the organ was the deadliest part of the entire process.
This was where the King suffered the most losses and failures throughout his time. Creating a Core in the brain was like the equivalent of turning the human brain to a Mana Core; the organ simply couldn't handle that mass amount of energy and would ultimately explode, killing the host. The human brain is a sensitive organ both here and in Earth, tweaking around with it carelessly results to undesirable ends, and in some cases, death was just a lighter sentence.
It simply wasn't made to hold mass amount of Mana needed to form an artificial core. Other than mental information, anything external would break the function of a human brain.
But the Mad King bypassed that hurdle eventually.
There were other numerous factors and processes to take into consideration during the creation of a Mental Core, many i even struggled to understand.
It was expected, my knowledge in magic was merely the bare minimum needed of a local of this world, yet what the King dabbled throughout his lifetime was like a equivalent to something greater than Rocket science, but of the human body and special forces.
'... I'm not even sure what I'm thinking right now. ' restraining a headache, I continued to contemplate the requirements and conditions.
Perhaps, the King knew all this; not many would be able to execute such delicate and sensitive process without exploding their brains or damaging their bodies and Mana Core critically; perhaps that was another reason he turned the entire process into a spell.
Spells could be easily learned like studying a book or a course; by the end of it, you've acquired certain mastery and familiarity.
The Mad King's process-turned-spell, put simply, was simplified for any who wished to learn it.
It was amazing, not only was the crazily obsessive king capable of converting a process to an actual spell, but even dissolving further the same spell and it's effect into a specially carved rune.
Runes...were another thing entirely far from what I knew. The old book hadn't mentioned a single thing about them, so I had absolutely zero knowledge about them at the moment.
"That rune..." I recalled the strange diagram which caused such blinding pain, I passed out when I glanced at it yesterday.
Slowly my eyes widened in realization.
"No, it can't be....of course it can, why not!" I was beginning to feel pathetic.
Among the spell description, there was a single recurring world I found hard to properly translate. The era between the mad king and now, was at the very least, thousands of years apart. I was surprised I was capable of understanding the characters in the letter and the language this far.
But a specific character was like a tongue twister to me, causing me to frown and my head to ache each time I faced over it.
I tried pronouncing it one more time but stumbled on the very first syllable.
"Hmm...what is it? Egz...eagx? No, that's not it... "
Taking a short moment to apply my little knowledge of the Old language, I drew a transcription of the strange character closest to what I was capable of, and in English, it would go something like;
"X'xebecc's Rune."
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AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I know there are a lot of sudden info dumps and strange aspects that may seem confusing for the last two to three chapters. But in order not too stress this topic much longer than necessary, I'll be shedding light on the newly introduced Principalities over the course of the story instead.
There's a lot missing in the information, some i still have solve myself, but if there are any doubts or questions, feel free to point them out so I can address them. It'll also help me to get a far clearer image over what I'm cooking. Thanks.
Don't forget to vote and leave ur reviews and chapter comments.