Chapter 3: Book of Paths
Sunlight filtered into the study through the large window. Big bookshelves containing a variety of books filled the study. Silver sat alone at a large table, engrossed in reading a thick book. This Study was the equivalent of Silver's personal library, as neither Arthur nor Sylvia was interested in reading books. Arthur did, however, stack up a lot of books in the study after realizing that Silver liked reading books.
So focused into reading, Silver didn't notice when Arthur quietly stepped into the study. He was jolted up by the sound of knocking. He looked up to see Arthur standing by door, holding a large book in his hand. He hastily got up to greet him. "Father."
Arthur waved his hand. "Sit down, sit down."
Silver obediently did so. He was a bit nervous and guilty to face his father ever since that day at training. He felt like he had let him down. Arthur also must have realized that as he kept reassuring him that nothing was wrong. Still, Silver couldn't get over the incident.
Arthur walked over to him and placed the book in his hands onto the table. Silver noticed the big title on the book.
'BOOK OF PATHS'
Arthur sat in the chair beside him.
"When I was a kid just as old as you, my father gave me this book. I don't know from where he got this, but it is quite detailed. At that time, however, I had already fixed my mind to become a Battle Mage, so I didn't pay it attention to it as it wasn't of much use to me. It might be a different matter to you. Try reading this, and then see what Path attracts you the most."
Silver looked at the book curiously. Arthur ruffled his hair. "Just remember that Father and Mother will support you no matter what Path you choose."
Silver hesitated for a second before nodding. Arthur smiled and left the room, leaving Silver alone to ponder over the book. Silver picked up the book and opened it, filled with curiosity.
BOOK OF PATHS
A comprehensive study of all the known Paths across the continent of Valdour.
By Delvin Ragor
"Delvin Ragor? Never heard the name." However, Valdour was a huge place. Even though Silver had read many books, he couldn't say that he knew the names of all the scholars, so he ignored it and moved forward.
Silver quickly became absorbed in reading the book. The index page of the book introduced all types of Mage Paths, the names of some of which Silver had never even heard of before. The most common path chosen by most of the mages- Battle Mage was introduced at the beginning.
The Path of a Battle Mage was not a specific Path per se. It was a Path that eventually divided into numerous Sub-Paths. For example, Silver was aware that his father was a Fire-type Battle Mage. He was most adept in using fire type spells. Though he could use the basic spells of other fields, he would never be able to become as proficient in them as a genuine mage of that particular Path. Also, he would have to expend a disproportionate amount of energy into learning those spells, compared to fire spells.
Though Elemental-type Battle Mages were the most common, there were a lot of Battle Mages who ended up following other Sub-Paths too. Transformation-type, illusion-type, weapon-type and strength-type were just a few of such examples.
Beside the section of each Sub-Path of Battle Mage, a complex rune was illustrated. Silver was only somewhat aware about the function of these runes. Each Path had a rune representing it. These runes were known as Leone Symbols. A Leone Symbol was essential to a Path. Without a Leone Symbol, the Path couldn't exist and no one would be able to follow it. This was because a Leone Symbol was necessary for the process through which a Mage attains a path. Silver, however, was completely oblivious as to how that process went about.
Silver read some paragraphs from the sub-section of Fire-type Battle Mage, which was at the very beginning of the Battle Mage Path section.
"The Leone Symbol for the Sub-Path of Fire-type Battle Mage was one of the first known Leone Symbols across the continents of Arcane. It was a gift by the Arcane Ancestor, along with the Leone Symbols of the other five primary Elemental-type Sub-Paths, on his first journey to the continents of Arcane. These six Leone Symbols then formed the basis for the innovation of the symbols of other Elemental-type Sub-Paths, such as Lightning which was first known to be innovated by…
"Though many philosophers like to believe that it was the Arcane Ancestor who was the creator of the system of Leone Symbols and thus the originator of Paths, there are some theories which suggest that these symbols might not have been actually created by the Arcane Ancestor as the name 'Leone' doesn't belong to him…
"Fire-type Battle Mages uses fire as their primary conduit for magic. Their spirit mainly consists of fire aligned arcanite particles and rejects the intake of other aligned particles…"
Though Silver wanted to read more, he felt like even if he spent the entire day reading, he might not reach the end of even the sub-section for Fire-type Battle Mage. Since he was not interested in becoming a Battle Mage, he decided to just lightly skim over its various contents and only paid attention to interesting facts. As Silver reached the end of the section for Battle Mage, he noticed that at the last page of the section, a thin crystal was embedded.
"What's this?" Silver observed the crystal. It was in the shape of a diamond, and had a glistening surface. He touched the crystal in order to see what it felt like, but as soon as he touched the crystal, glowing lines started slithering across the crystal. Silver immediately pulled his hand back. It was never too safe to be extra cautious about things that interacted with the arcane. This was a lesson his father had hammered into him since the first day of his training.
Silver frowned. "Is this dangerous? But Father said that Grandpa once gave it to him. In that case, how can it be dangerous?"
In the end, Silver decided against reporting the strange thing happening in the book to his father. The weird glowing lines kept congregating across the crystal. Only after an entire minute, did they stop slithering and seemed to have reach a focal point. They abruptly gathered into a single glowing point. A beam of light shot out from that glowing point. Silver fell from his chair. He crawled away from the table.
"This…looks more dangerous than I thought." Probably should've reported this to Father. But he didn't say that thought out loud.
The shooting light stopped in the middle of air and started expanding. Silver watched with awe as the light transformed into a screen suspended in the air. The screen was blurry for a few seconds, before it gradually became clear, and a clear scene was projected from it. It was a mage. An Earth-type Battle Mage to be accurate. The mage was alone, fighting about ten opponents.
"This is so cool! I've never seen anything like this!" Silver excitedly cried out, astonished to his core.
The mage was quick on his feet, dodging the spells from his opponents. He also used his own spells to attack and defend. His spell casting speed was very fast, much faster than his father. His spells were also much stronger from the spells his Father had displayed to him. Although he was aware that his father hadn't displayed him his truly powerful spells, he felt that even his 'truly powerful spells' would not be able to match the scale of power demonstrated by the spells of this Battle Mage.
On the other hand, the spells used by the ten opponents of the Earth Mage were much weaker. Silver believed that these ten more closely matched the power of his father. Still, although individually these ten mages were weaker than the Earth Mage, collectively they were putting a lot of pressure on the Earth Mage.
Silver watched with full interest as the Earth Mage kept on getting bombarding with spells. He seemed to have given up using any attack spells. He went on full defensive. Silver frowned when he saw that. His defence would eventually wear away if he kept on insisting on this tactic. Offence is the best defence, that's what his father had taught him.
However, his eyes widened in astonishment after a few minutes. Even after a lot of successive spells bombarded his defences, they weren't able to break through them. Silver was very confused after witnessing such a scene.
"The Earth Mage didn't hold that much of an advantage over these ten people at the beginning. Why did he suddenly get so strong that he is able to resist all their spells together?"
As soon as he said this, a change occurred. The fighting scene projected on the screen paused. Silver panicked after seeing this. Did he break the magic spell powering this strange show? Was he not supposed to ask such a question?
However, his worries were unfounded as a bunch of words soon appeared on the screen.
AN EARTH-TYPE BATTLE MAGE IS NATURALLY ALIGNED TOWARDS DEFENCE. WHEN THE BATTLE MAGE CHOSE TO GIVE UP ON OFFENCE, AND STARTED FOCUSING SOLELY ON DEFENCE, HE FOUGHT THE BATTLE TO HIS ADVANTAGE, THUS MAKING IT HARDER FOR HIS OPPONENTS TO DEFEAT HIM.
Silver's mouth opened in wonder. "Ah, so that's what happened! Also, this strange magical equipment can even answer my questions! This is even cooler than I thought!"
Silver was yet to truly enter the world of Mages. He could only be considered hilly-billy in magic-related matters, whose entire knowledge about such matters was derived only from his father and mother. Perhaps if he was a fully-fledged Mage, he would've realized the significance of such a spell and how extraordinary it was.
"Resume to the battle scene!" Silver yelled at the magic screen. The screen seemed to understand him, resuming to the battle scene, just where it left off. The Earth Mage kept warding off all the attacks through his superior defences. The ten Mages kept trying to break his defences, only for it to be in vain. As soon as the Earth Mage's earth shield got even slightly damaged, he re-used his spell, recovering it to its full strength.
Through such a repeated process, the ten mages gradually exhausted all of the energy stored in their Arcanite Well. As soon as the Earth Mage became sure of that, he undid all of his defences. He then used simple attack spells to knock out all the defenceless and exhausted mages.
Silver was a bit nervous that the Earth Mage might kill all the opponent mages. After all, his mother had told him many stories about how the good guy always killed the bad guys and made sure they were dead, so that in the future, they don't come back for him to get revenge.
However, his mouth soon opened in shock when he saw the Earth Mage waking up all the opponents he knocked out. He then shook hands with all of them, who acted respectfully towards him.
"So they were all acquaintances, and were just doing a friendly spar! I never would've guessed that! They even got so wounded!"
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
TheCubicalCat
TheCubicalCat This chapter was a bit different as it finally gave some hints to the world I'm building up. There are some hidden hints here and there, that you might realize about in future chapters.
Also, I have three 5k word assignments due for the day after tommorow that I haven't even started. This is going to be a really hectic schedule, but I'll still try to upload any chapter(s?) in the meantime.
Lastly, hope you enjoyed the chapter!
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