— ["Acquired spell: 'Fireball (Common) (Level: 1)'"].
— ["Description: By manipulating the mana around you, you have concentrated elemental mana into a fireball, capable of being thrown, which explodes after a while or when hitting something very solid. It can set things on fire and enemies if there is anything left to tell the tale."]
— ["Summoning Chant: Oh, great world, the power of powers. Grant me the power to summon the fire from within volcanoes, concentrated into a fireball, so that I can throw it at my enemies and reduce them to ash. Fireball."]
— ["Consumption: 5 mana per cast."]
— "Awesome, I actually have a spell, this will make me a real mage. Hehe" Edart was happy and the messages continued to appear.
— ["Using an ancient scroll as a catalyst and through the powerful world you live in, you managed to channel mana to your desire and create a spell, job 'Fire Mage' (Rare) (Level: 1)' is available."]
— ["Congratulations, you have become a mage Edart."]
Edart looked at his new job with happiness, admiring this achievement. When he was about to answer her, he felt a tightness in his chest, a tiredness overcame him, making him fall to his knees on the floor. Soon, letter by letter appeared in his vision, forming a new message.
— ["Afflicting the world: Cursed mage."]
— ["Description: A loose end dares to use you as a source of power to cast his spells, making fun of you, infuriating you even more. The world does not know how you manage to use your power to channel spells and cannot stop you from doing so. Thus, your only way to fight back is to resist and make your spells cost twice as much mana as necessary. The world is furious with his existence, it is best to avoid him."]
— ["Effect: Every spell costs twice as much mana to cast and has half the full strength."]
Still kneeling on the ground, thinking about what he had just read, Edart didn't know if he was lucky or unlucky. Apparently, he could do things that other people couldn't normally do, thus gaining more power. Unfortunately, the world didn't like living beings using this power.
If the path he was following led to true power, the world might be afraid of this happening and is trying to make his life difficult in many ways. Unfortunately, Edart wasn't sure of anything and everything was speculation in his head, leaving him more and more confused.
— "What do we know about this world?" He said to himself, trying to organize his thoughts and knowledge he had acquired so far. Thus, he formed a list in his head.
The world was an entity that he didn't know if it was the planet itself or a very powerful being, who apparently couldn't interfere directly with his juniors, only influence the environment around him.
Mana manipulation was something that the world didn't like other beings being able to control, however, it couldn't stop it.
It was possible to use the power of this being in some way that Edart didn't understand to cast spells.
To get more opinions, Edart talked to Eris, telling her everything that was on his mind.
— "What do you think?" He asked her after telling her everything he thought.
— ["This world must be some very powerful being, like a god or something. If so, there must be rules in the universe that we don't know about that prevent very powerful beings from harming weaker ones. So, he can only manipulate the environment to a certain extent. I'm basing this on the animes, mangas and books that you've read in your world. So we can't be sure."]
— "Yes, I understand. But regarding the mana consumption of the spells, how can he interfere so directly?"
— ["Well, this must be related to the spell's invocation chant, by saying 'Oh, great world, the power of powers' you would be using his power to guide your spell. Since it's part of his power, he could directly interfere to a certain extent. If you used another powerful entity, perhaps the world wouldn't be able to influence the mana consumption."]
— "That makes sense, I wasn't sure if it would work, I just tried what I saw in the animes, luckily it worked, hehe."
Thinking about all this was giving him a headache. Since he knew nothing about this world, speculating wouldn't get him very far. Once he learned something wise about the mountain, he would ask his questions in the hope of receiving some answers.
— "Let's not worry about that now, as long as we're careful, we can be safe." Saying that, Edart stood up and went to the chest to see if there was anything good he could use.
In the chest there were two things that were very useful to him. The first thing he took was a small bag, which had small tears here and there, but could still carry his belongings.
— "It's not much, but it will be a great help."
Looking at the second thing in the chest, Edart reached out and picked it up. Holding the hilt firmly, a sword with a few spots of rust was in his hand.
— "You've seen better days, however, it should be enough to kill a few slimes."
Edart took a few more looks at the sword, tried a few blows that came out strange and poorly executed. He almost broke some jars that were on a nearby bench.
— "I need to practice a bit before I can use this. Better do it outside."
Looking at the bookshelf full of books and scrolls, Edart approached one and opened it. The same runic writing was present, after flipping through a few pages, he closed the book and picked up another. After looking at about 10 books, he realized that he would have to learn this language or he could use these books as fuel, which was something he didn't want to do.
Since there was nothing else to see in the house, Edart went out and went to the impact site of the fireball he had thrown earlier.
Upon arriving at the impact site, Edart saw a small circle 20 centimeters in diameter, where there had been grass, it was now charred and, in addition, the grass around it had ended up burned. The ground sank a few centimeters at the impact site.
—"Really powerful, I want to see how the slime will react to this." Although his spell cost twice as much as normal and only had half the strength, against the slime it would be a fatal blow.
—"If I could get 10 of these on that bear, I think I might have a chance of winning." Edart saw a possible solution to one of his problems.
—"I just need to get stronger." He said with growing determination.
Unable to help his anxiety, Edart felt the need to test his new spell further. Remembering what happened to the laboratory window, he walked away from the house.
'I don't want to have to fix any more things around here,' he thought as he walked away from the new house.
Far enough away to not cause any more trouble, Edart began testing his spell, having only enough mana for four more fireballs. He needed to pay attention and learn as much as possible from this.
First, he tested how it worked to activate the spell. He tried simply thinking about the spell to activate, but nothing happened, it seemed to work differently than the skills.
Then, he tried simply calling out the name of the spell, which also resulted in another failure. Having no other choice, he began to recite the summoning incantation. Since he had to recite the incantation, he would test a few more things.
Speaking the entire sentence slowly, Edart felt how the mana inside his body heated up and moved through each part of his body, eventually accumulating in the palm of his hand, where it would form a fireball and be thrown.
He tried to change the arm on which the fireball would form, which, after trying twice, he succeeded. In the process, he discovered that he could guide where the mana would move in his body and where it would come out. It was difficult, however, with more practice, he believed he could control where and how the fireball appeared.
Edart learned that he could stop reciting the sentence and continue later, as long as he didn't change the sentence. If he got the sentence wrong, it could cause a negative reaction to his body. Fortunately, before anything bad happened, Eris used her 'Mana Manipulation' skill and guided the violent mana out of his body.
— "Thank you Eris, that was close."
Feeling exhausted from the consumption of mana, Edart sat down on the grass to rest, observing the view of his new home.
The land behind his house was covered in grass, without a single tree in sight, thus continuing until the high mountains that blocked the way. They were tall and impenetrable. The more he looked, the more restless he felt.
Noticing this, he looked around again, something was wrong, something was missing around here. He stood up and tried to see what was missing.
He went to his new house, looking in all directions and, the more he looked, the more he realized that something was missing around here.
Looking at the forest in the distance, birds took flight and came towards the field calmly. When they got close to the end of the forest, they turned abruptly and returned to the forest. This triggered something in Edart's mind.
— "That's right, but why aren't there any animals here?"
Looking around again, he realized that there was no movement of any animals, nor any presence of any. Even using 'mana perception', Edart couldn't find any concentrated mana points.
— "Eris, can you tell if there's anything wrong with this area?" After a while, she replied.
— ["I don't see anything strange about this area, what do you have in mind?"]
— "There's something that's scaring the animals away from this area, I just don't know what…" At that moment, he remembered that feeling that was trying to stop him from moving forward. Unfortunately, it disappeared after a while.
— "It can only be this…" Edart sat down again and tried to feel that feeling. After a while, it returned very weakly. Concentrating on it, he got up and walked towards the forest. The further he went, the weaker it became, so he turned back and went towards the hut and the feeling grew.
Thinking that it might be the house that was doing this, Edart walked past it and headed towards the mountains. To his surprise, that feeling of oppression continued to increase.
Stopping and looking around, he searched for anything strange, until he found a cave near the top of one of the peaks. As he looked over there, the feeling increased to a new level, telling him to stay away from there.
— "Eris, can you see something over there?" He said, pointing to the cave.
— ["No, it's too far away for me to see anything or notice anything. What do you feel coming from there?"]
— "It's that feeling of oppression from before, only much stronger, I feel like I should stay away from there."
— ["If we stay away from there, there shouldn't be any danger."]
— "I hope so, I don't want to have to say goodbye to this house." Edart didn't know what caused this feeling, but he knew it couldn't be weak at all, and it would be much stronger than that bear. However, unlike the fear the bear made him feel, this feeling didn't affect him much. So, he didn't think it would be that bad to stay here.
— "I just hope it doesn't come back to bite me later." Saying that, he returned to his new home, which needed a good deal of work to be habitable again. Before doing any work around here, Edart decided to gather his belongings, so he went back to the orchard. Since he now had a decent bag, it was much easier to carry things, however, he would not throw away his bag of leaves, it would still be used to collect herbs and flowers, so they would be kept in a separate place, without suffering any damage.
When he returned to the hut, it was already getting late and he wanted to test some things inside. He washed himself in the stream as best he could and went back inside, without waiting for the day to get dark. He entered the room and threw himself on the bed.
It looked like a bed from the modern era, different from the straw bed he expected to find. Maybe he should reconsider the type of civilization that existed here, because he thought it was a medieval civilization, in fact, it could be more advanced, but that would be for the future.
Lying on this soft bed, the accumulated fatigue of the last few days, together with a bad sleep he had, soon Edart fell asleep, sleeping like a log, where he would only wake up the next day refreshed and ready for more adventures.