Absolute Fantasy: An Immortal's Journey Never Ends

Chapter 3: A Prodigy?

It was early in the morning, the sun rising on the horizon was a scene that comforted the hearts of many and terrified the hearts of others as a new day started, and it was time to get up.

In the same room from the day before, Alaric calmly slept in his wooden crib. The first rays of light slowly shone over him as he then woke up, now realizing that both his parents were no longer in the room.

(Isn't it slightly irresponsible of them to leave a baby on its own?) Alaric asked, seeing that his parents were no longer present in the room. (Well, they must've had something important to do) He concluded.

The warm sunlight was bathing him as he thought of what to do next, (Hum, I guess I should continue my mana link training now. It's not like I have anything better to do anyway.)

Having decided on what he'd focus on since he found nothing else to do, Alaric started his training the same way he did the last time, expanding his mind to the world around him.

(This doesn't seem to be as effective as I expected, maybe things are different in this new reality when compared to Absolute Fantasy...) Alaric hypothesized and then decided that it might be best to ask the system. (Sophia, how does mana work? and What exactly is it?)

[Mana functions as the energy source or fuel to all magic-related phenomenon, the law of magic by Zeltris, states that all magic, has an inferior effect when compared to its cost, so all magic is in the end a waste of mana.

[His quote is "For every magic spell, there's an energy conversion from mana to something else, and during that conversation, most of it is lost, so stop wasting it with magic and do something productive with it!" which led to the dissatisfaction of most magicians, and his law was disbelieved for centuries before being proven correct by Gustav the Great Sage.]

(I see, that's just what I thought... It seems things are as they should be so far...) Alaric was satisfied with this piece of information and then said, (You'll have to elaborate on how exactly this loss in mana happens.)

[Yes, Master of course! Whenever a magical spell is used, a certain amount of mana is consumed, if an individual uses 15 MP for a spell, from those 15 used only a certain percentage goes to the actual effect of the spell while the rest is wasted.

[Zeltris said in the past that no matter how well-versed in magic one is, there will always be a mana waste of at least 0.1%.]

(Good, it's exactly what I wanted to hear... I guess I was worrying for nothing. Just one more to be sure, though.) Alaric came to his conclusions, then decided to ask one more thing. (If that's the case, does the waste vary from person to person?)

[Yes, every individual has their particular mana waste per spell, defined by their mastery of mana and how much mana they use for a specific spell when it's cast.]

(Yup, and I still have this stuff, it could have been so much more simple. I got here, might as well get to the bottom of it.) Alaric said then let out a sigh of relief, and another question surfaced. (So, how exactly is mana used?)

[Mana is a form of energy present in every being of Mirth, and to control it, an individual must first be able to sense it, then slowly adapt to its flow.

[Once that is done, it will be possible to use the spell casting method by Gustav. Which states that spell casting is divided into 3 steps, namely spell genesis, determination of power, and activation.

[Which can be used for most of the many casting types, like chanting, magicraft, and silent. The exception being with player casting, spirit casting, and rune casting.]

(That's quite some information there, it is similar to stories I've read in the past, but also not quite the same. However, it doesn't seem like Cilcon has made his discoveries yet.) Alaric was almost fully satisfied, deciding to continue his training.