Reborn With a Magic System

Mage Teft's questions rang in Damion's head. It was an interesting question. Why did some people have magic cores while others did not? What caused a magic core to not form properly resulting in people that could use magic, but did not possess an affinity so could not learn magic seals?

Damion thought back on the science lessons from his previous life. How over time life would adapt to changes in the environment to better survive. Was that the answer? He learned history his first year in school. The first to be able to use magic were knights and for many generations, they were the only ones capable of using magic in the form of empowering their weapons.

Then came the discovery of the ancient language and creation of magic seals. But very few could use magic seals. Just yesterday though, Damion saw that mages were not as rare as he thought, were the number of mages growing because the human population was growing? Or were the number of mages growing because more humans were adapting to changes in the environment.

"Evolution," Damion said suddenly.

"So, you think evolution is the cause. That humans are slowly evolving to adapt to the environment."

"Doesn't it fit the observable evidence?" Damion questioned.

"To a degree. History is a fickle thing, change one truth today to a lie in a history book, and in a thousand years, who knows if people will believe the truth or the lie."

"Even if we can't fully trust history, look at the evidence we can trust. Arica and her master were studying the growth of magical areas. She was able to directly relate the increase in growth of the Benault Forest to the opening of certain Realm Breaches. Doesn't that point to magic coming from another realm, released here by Breaches?"

"Indeed, the evidence does show us that much, that magic flows from Breaches. Did you know the cities with higher rank dungeons in them have a higher population density of potential knights and mages?"

"Really?" Damion and Elicia both said.

"Yes, this isn't exactly a topic the Mage Council wants discussed. But I think it critical to the core of magical theory. There are only two great schools of thought when it comes to the origin of magic. Either magic was always here, and we have just slowly learned to use it, or it was sent here in ages past.

"If it was sent here, then we have the question of is it changing our world? Is it changing us? Is there a greater purpose in the Realm Breaches appearing?"

"Does there have to be a purpose? Couldn't Realm Breaches just be random phenomena that started happening in ages past and continue on today?"

"Many thought that was the case, until the first instances of intelligent races in the Realm Breaches."

"Intelligent races?"

"You've encountered one of them before."

"The goblins?"

"Yes. And they aren't the only intelligent race encountered in Realm Breaches. What if Realm Breaches are actually another world's way of changing our realm to better suit their needs."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The idea resounded as quite plausible in Damion's mind. He was reborn on Nerotath after dying on Earth. He was fully aware there was other life out there. Either in another universe or somewhere out there in this one.

"What other races are there?" Damion could not help but ask.

"Two that I am aware of, the Iblis and the Alfar."

"How come I've never heard of them before?" Damion asked.

"Neither of them appears in anything less than an A Rank Breach. My advice to you if you do encounter them, is run. They have strange and powerful magic and can easily overwhelm mages of the same Rank."

"Is this a class on magic theory or a class to scare me?" Damion remarked.

It was clear to him now that high Rankers were aware of other races and by the sound of it, they were not too friendly. Neither race sounded familiar to Damion, but then he had been speaking and thinking in Otash for so long he forgot that some words might not exactly translate from English.

"This is still a magical theory class. There isn't really anything you can do about the other races. But you are likely to encounter them one day and if you do, I want you to be prepared. Now, back to multiple affinities."

"Has there ever been someone with more than two affinities?"

"A few," Mage Teft said as she struggled to keep frustration out of her voice. "They were all unable to train because they could not balance the forces in their magic cores. They could barely even be knights because they had so little mana or magic power."

"Are there spells that don't require an affinity?" Damion asked. He of course knew the answer, the Magic System had given him Mana Absorption and True Sight, both of which had no affinity, but he had never heard of such spells from anyone else.

"There are no magic seals that do not have an affinity, as the affinity is what bonds the magic seal to your magic core."

"Magic seals bond to my core when I learn them?" This was something Damion had not heard before. This, coupled with the fact that mage were apparently unaware of magic seals without affinities told Damion there was much still to discover about magic for everyone.

"I see we are getting ahead of ourselves again, but yes," Mage Teft said with a bit of frustration in her voice. "When you memorize a magic seal, what you are actually doing, though subconsciously, is engraving the magic seal into your magic core. That is how you then summon the magic seal and cast spells."

"And my affinity for the type of magic is what bonds the magic seal to my core?"

"That is the theory yes. Unfortunately, it is not possible, as well as illegal to try, to study a human's magic core to see the magic seals bonded."

"Why?"

"When a person dies their magic core becomes inert, just like your heart stops beating. Your magic stops flowing and everything in your core fades away. Looking at a dead person's magic core is no different from looking at a Demonic Beast's core. The magic is there and can be moved to another medium, but there is no information, no trace of the magic seals. Perhaps those fade with the soul.

"Since you can't study a dead person's magic core, you would have to study a living core and to do that you would have to cut open a person and study their core as they learn a magic seal. Would you be willing to subject a person to that torture? Would someone even be able to memorize a magic seal under those conditions?"

"Oh," Damion said and went silent.

There were no fluoroscopes or magnetic resonance imagers on Nerotath. The science was simply never invented because it was never needed. A heal spell or magic healing potion could fix pretty much any internal injury. Without the need, those devices were never created. Damion considered for a moment if there was some way to accomplish the same thing with magic, but he had neither the expertise in science nor in magic to be able to answer that question.

"Multiple affinities, in ages past afflicted perhaps one in a billion mages. Since the start of the Eighteenth Age that number has changed to roughly one in a million."

"Is that because there are more mages, or is it because people are adapting that way more?"

"Either is a possibility. What the answer is we probably won't find out in our lifetime. The point I am trying to make is that having multiple focuses, is not conducive to learning. You need to focus on what you want to do and move to make yourself into the best possible version of that. So, tell me Damion, what do you want to do?"