The Master of Uradan

Rohan was sitting with his legs crossed in the middle of his bedroom. His eyes were closed. His expression was peaceful. There wasn't his almost surreal calm on his face, it was only the face of a young man who was feeling a blissful moment.

Since that day he had fled from the battlefield, since that day that had marked a journey that he could only qualify as hellish, and in fact, since even before that time, he was feeling truly happy.

Inside his head, was resting the mana stone that he had discovered only a few months ago. On it, and recovering almost all of it, was a white glowing rune that Rohan was completing. He had already finished 215 strokes on the 223, and this in only two hours.

It seemed as if two hours only to draw a few hundred strokes was the speed of a snail, but it wasn't at all. The speed and the precision Rohan had achieved in these two hours were worthy of all the praises possible.

But he didn't care about all that, all he saw in his mind was the beauty he had drawn, and the strokes he had engraved in a beautiful dance.

The rhythm he was using since the beginning was a strange one, and the exquisite movement of the thread of mana he had formed earlier was captivating his mind.

He loved this sensation, he admired what he was doing, and he was overwhelmed by this unknown rune he was drawing.

He didn't know anything about this rune, and he thought that these days, probably very few people knew about it. Where did they come from? Which people had drawn them? He didn't know, all he knew was what the rune was looking like, and it wasn't enough. For a peculiar reason, he felt as if he was meeting with an old friend he had known a long time ago.

As he looked at the rune while he was drawing the last line, warmth spread in his whole body. It was the embrace of a mother. His own mother never liked him and had ignored her son since as far as he could remember, but even though he had never felt his mother hug him, he knew that this warmth would be like this one.

tears formed in his eyes, rolling on his cheek before crashing on the ground. This peaceful moment, he would never forget.

Then, his mana stone shook, making his whole mind tremble.

The rune was now fully drawn on the stone and shined a bright blow, chasing away all darkness, all loneliness Rohan had always felt.

Suddenly, the rune shrunk on itself, becoming smaller and smaller while the whole world was shaking around it. In only a few instants, the rune that took more than half of the surface was now not even covering a fifth and was still shrinking.

Rohan felt his heart accelerate, and his mind spin on itself. The fear that the rune would disappear in a second made his blood rush inside his body at an incredible speed. But he couldn't do anything, he couldn't stop what he had made with his soul to shrink on itself.

As he was losing hope, the rune removed itself from the wall of the stone. It spun and hovered in the center of the mana stone, creating a strange flow all around. At that moment, Rohan understood.

The rune wasn't disappearing for no reason, it was acting on its strange form and the formless power of the mana that composed it to modify the mana stone forever.

Like that, Rohan had become a rank 1 Beginner Wizard.

Inside his head, a blue-violet stone could be found, a rare treasure in the whole world. Inside this stone, a strange white glowing pattern was on its center, hovering and turning on itself.

This simple movement wasn't insignificant, and in fact, Rohan could discern a thin wave coming from it, and another responding to it.

That was at this moment that Rohan felt it. Without stopping, the mana surrounding his body was slowly crawling inside his head, as if the flesh and bones didn't exist in the first place.

The strange energy created by the rune inside the mana stone was filling all his head, and the exterior mana coming in contact with his skin was contaminated by this energy. This pure mana, corrupted, could pass through the body as if this one had recognized it as a part of him and in a few seconds, mana was already inside the mana stone.

Rohan was sitting there, trying to observe and understand this phenomenon. Seconds, then minutes were eaten by the time, and soon, it was hours. During this time, the mana inside his mana stone was filling up bit by bit, attracted by the rune. But the more mana entered the stone, the less the rune seemed active, and Rohan could guess why 10 points of mana were the limit.

The differences between the mana core that was resting inside his chest and the mana stone on his head were quite easy to understand for Rohan. Firstly, the first one attracted the mana with the different meridians he had opened.

The mana that surrounded him at all times thus entered through these openings when they were near it to fill the mana core. The number of meridians determined the speed at which the mana was regenerated, but also the maximum quantity his mana core could hold.

This limitation of mana was due to the weakness of the meridians and the core: they were formed by the warrior himself, and they were fragile. The meridians were formed in a way to stop attracting mana once the maximum amount had entered, and it was there all the ingenuity of it.

It was even said that the first warriors didn't have such a precaution and that they all finish bursting from an excess of mana.

But the mana stone was acting differently, and much more strangely. The ambient mana that entered in contact with the head was directly attracted by the mana stone.

Because of the bizarre pattern floating inside this stone, the mana could enter through it before resting on the stone, where it was slightly transformed, corrupted by the stone, and permeated with the ability to fuse with an elemental source, which normally should be impossible.

In the end, Rohan knew nothing about the secret of a wizard or a warrior, and he reckoned that he was without a doubt still way too weak to touch on these secrets. For now, he would only follow blindly what was written inside some random books.

He opened his eyes and took a deep breath. From that day onward, he was now a powerful wizard.

Of course, he still had to learn the spell Wind Blade that he had access to, but it would take some time, as the runes needed a large quantity of mana to be done. Basically, from what was noted in the book, there were a hundred lines to draw for this rune. Each one of them would need all the mana he currently had, which was 10 points.

A Beginner Wizard had the same amount of mana as a Beginner Warrior, but the recovery for the first was double the one of the latter. Plus the fact that beginner spells were much less costly than the skill of the warriors, the wizard was without a doubt more useful in a prolonged battle.

Now that Rohan thought about it, he remembered that he had now two different sources of mana, what would the Essence Stone show to him then?

He took it out and put his finger on it, and watched with a curious face at the data appearing on the black stone.

Race: human

Age: 16 years old

Constitution: 6.62

Mana: 52.33 / 60

Spirit: 11

Seeing this result, Rohan couldn't prevent himself from feeling a bit disappointed by it.

This so powerful stone was only able to feel the mana inside the body of the bearer without differencing the composition of this one, but it was to be expected. Or else, this Essence Stone would probably be much more valuable, and an intermediate Warrior wouldn't have given it to him that easily back then.

Of course, since the seance had taken a few hours and he had lost some of them to observe the mana being filled inside the mana stone, his mana was almost fully recovered at the maximum. Seeing this whopping number of 52 points of mana made him feel happy. But this happiness didn't last long.

Now that he had reached the goal he had given to himself, now that he was a powerful rank 5 Beginner Warrior, as well as a mighty rank 1 Beginner Wizard, he would need to leave this place.

He still needed to go back to his hometown to look after his mother and brother. He also wanted to meet back with his loyal butler Jonas, as he couldn't anymore with all the clean-up tasks he was doing every day anyway.

But before going back home, he had another task at hand, given to him by his master.

He would go toward the Kolmos mountain, and take whatever he would find.