Occult Awakening: From Commoner to Archmage

Luca lept across the rooftops in complete silence. The moonlight shone brightly, but he moved so fast that he wouldn't be seen anyways. After multiple more minutes of talking with Thalia, he decided to pay Digger a quick visit before returning home.

The conversation with the crazed woman was rather productive in the end. He gave her some quick instructions and asked for the methods she used to communicate with Bjorn and the other mages.

Luca was being cautious at first, but now he felt like he had the power to go up against any mage below the first rank.

He had no point of reference to how strong a first rank was, as all his opponents were either weaker or far stronger.

'I will need to be cautious of Bjorn, though.'

Bjorn was a wildcard. Not only was he the only official mage he'd met so far, he was also coolheaded. Calm people were dangerous because they were harder to predict.

Many people thought insane people were harder to predict but that was plainly wrong. You could control an insane person by feeding off their delusions and positioning yourself as a saviour. However, a calm person wouldn't fall for that.

'I'll need to be very very cautious.' he repeated.

Aside from that, he'd also asked Thalia to prepare a list of all her spells, potions and rituals at her disposal. He didn't expect her to provide everything, but it would be a good place to start from.

Surprisingly the woman gave it to him readily. That planetary spirit must have screwed with her mind to a great extent, otherwise, he doubted she would have done it regardless of how she felt about him.

Luca would look at the list when he got back, but he asked her to explain the Sea God potion first. As expected, she didn't know the potion allowed Vito's head to keep living after the rest of his body was gone.

Her explanation for the potion was rather vague, and didn't sound like anything special.

It was a potion supposed to give the user the ability to transform into a special sea creature that could control the oceans and sea beasts, but it failed midway and resulted in a wrongly coloured solution that turned the user into some sort of aberration.

Thalia said that she got the recipe from a First Degree mage who had left the city years ago. He suspected that she knew how to advance, but hadn't done it for some reason. And he wouldn't ask her for the process to maintain his image as Burning Man.

Most of his mind was still preoccupied on one thing, though.

Her plan.

The businesswoman's plan comprised of two parts. The first was her advancement into the First Degree and the second was her escape from Carinthia on the festival, and eventually the Astor Kingdom as a whole.

It wasn't a bad plan, and she explained some of the intricacies involved.

Security was strange on the festival day. Knights and priests would be crawling the city, but at the same time, there would be less of them at the borders and gates.

Thalia said the timing of the breakthrough was important, but Luca had no idea what she meant by that either.

He was more focused on the idea of the two neighbouring countries; Liore and Styria.

To get to Styria, one would have to cross multiple forests, towns and cities across the kingdom, then finally get to the Styrian Marches, which were said to have ten times more security than anywhere else in the kingdom. Then, if they somehow survived, they would be able to enter Styria.

After that, it was another long journey to get to Liore.

He did the calculations already. At his current speed, the journey would take over a year with no interruptions. However, that was still wishful thinking on his part.

'I wonder how it is in a country where mages aren't prosecuted to death?'

What would it even look like?

The question lingered on his mind for a while, then he pushed it to the side. He was approaching Digger's pub already.

WHOOSH!

The wind whipped around him as he jumped from the top of a shorter building and landed on the ground of an alleyway. It was a high jump, so the cloak didn't nullify the sound of the impact completely.

Thump.

His feet made a slight thud as they connected with the ground.

'Shite.'

There was a Knight passing in front of the alleyway right about the same time. He was a big fellow holding onto a spear.

"Huh, who's there?!" the man yelled in a gruff voice.

A small whisper escaped his throat, and a ball of pure light escaped his armoured fingertip. The ball of light illuminated the dark alleyway, revealing nothing but trashcans and rats crawling through the heaps.

He controlled the light with a few finger movements, then retreated with a few footsteps just a minute later.

Luca heaved a large sigh of relief after the Knight was gone. Luckily the light counted as sunlight, which helped him remain cloaked regardless.

He moved quickly and slipped into the street once more.

Once he got to the front of the pub, a simple question arose in his mind.

'How the hell am I getting in?'

He realized that he didn't think any of it through before coming here. However, he had some important things he had to discuss with the man that couldn't wait.

After some thought, he had an idea, but it was rather risky. Luca pressed his palm against the door then…

Whoosh.

A small surge of mana went into the wooden door, doing nothing at first glance, but a quick second later, the latch of the door opened from behind. A crack appeared in the doorway, and there was nothing but complete darkness within. Then a pair of silver eyes appeared.

[Who are you?]

Digger's voice sounded, but not out loud. Luca held back a gasp of surprise as the words appeared right in his head.

However, he didn't even have a chance to respond. Digger squinted slightly from the darkness. It took a second, but recognition flashed in his eyes.

[Eh, Luca? What the hell are you doing out here, get in quickly!]