Chapter 4: A New Beginning
Arthur Leywin
A bright white expanse spread around me, as tunnels with all sorts of colors opened up. Even with all the colors, my surroundings felt devoid of life-barren and deceased. Amidst this never ending lifeless place an amethyst butterfly suddenly appeared in front of me, its wing flapping in a subtle murmur from the thousands of delicate wingbeats and soft flight call.
It started to fly towards a specific tunnel among the countless others, unconsciously I started to follow it, like a child following a firefly in the dark. Ironically with each moment I spent inside the tunnel I felt myself grow small.
The tunnel had now darkened completely, the butterfly now soon turned into a light that now existed at the very end of the tunnel. My arm reached out for the light, my ears rang as my vision turned completely red. When I tried to say something, all that came out was a cry.
Looking around I saw a woman with distinct auburn hair and brown eyes, lying on the bed sweating profusely while a doctor and some nurses were surrounding me. I was being carried by a nurse probably as she handed me to a man dressed plainly.
The man had ashen brown hair along with deep blue eyes, his face beaming with a stupid grin.
Like a dam let loose, my tears continued to pour out of my eyes endlessly without any break.
Regret, guilt, shame, penitence, dismay. All of these emotions raged inside of me as I lamented my decisions, all of my loss that I went through.
*****
The chirping of birds echoed in the surroundings. But as I raised my arms to reach for nothingness, I was bewildered because instead of the usual refined muscled arms, what welcomed my eyes were two chubby pale ones.
What felt like moments passed by within a year, in this foreign unknown land where I had no knowledge of any sort.
An odd feeling rooted deep inside me. A new body, a new life in a new world along with a family, something I have never experienced ever.
My mother's name was Alice Leywin while my father's name was Reynolds Leywin and I was Arthur Leywin, their son who inherited my mother's Auburn hair and my father's blue eyes.
The days passed by as I was embraced by the warmth and care my family gave. Something I never got to experience. Sometimes, the warmth that I was showered with felt so familiar to that of my past life, that it felt nauseating to me.
Did I really deserve this?
The same question came in my mind as every night, the nights which were ruined by the nightmares that haunted me.
My last moments…staring at Cecilia, while I was slowly and painfully engulfed by flames always haunted me in my sleep. The scalding, searing sensation as it slowly melted my skin and killed me was still fresh in my memory. Like it happened just yesterday.
The trail of blood, the ring of fire, the death of everyone who was precious to me, all of this dug deep in my mind, not letting me get a peaceful night's sleep.
Right now, my life continued to pass by as I lost most of my motivation to live. My mother takes me along with her whenever she goes out to the market.
Within my vision, I could see colorful particles hovering in the air whenever I tried to focus my eyes a bit. After doing that, my mind ached a lot for some reason. But due to the exhaustion that came in tandem, I was able to sleep well.
As such I continued the process so that my deprivation of sleep could be fulfilled.
Whenever I went outside with my mother there were several people with huge swords strapped to their hips/backs on them, which freaked me a lot back then.
But what surprised me the most was the fact that there were things such as magic in this world. One day while watching my father practice with his gauntlet, I fell from my chair which resulted in my mother using a healing spell on me.
Ever since then, I crawled my way to the library and read every book that was present there on the topic of Mana. The language was not only a bit tough to understand, but also hard to pronounce.
After I was able to understand the language, I finally got some knowledge on the place I was in.
Dicathen, a land mixed of humans, dwarves, elves and beasts. It was a continent-like place surrounded by the sea. With the fact that there wasn't any mention of sea travel or other continents made me doubt how reliable this book actually was.
But my focus was completely on the book in front of me, the book that delved into mana.
Both mana and ki existed in the surroundings but people here can utilize the mana in their surroundings while on earth we could only use ki from outside of our body using runes. Mana also existed in the surrounding with the elements of four- Fire, Earth, Water and Wind.
Mana slowly gravitates closer to a person's sternum and after a good concentration of it is established, a mana core is formed and that person awakens. In this continent people are usually awakened after they are nine to ten years olds. It is also said that there were some individuals who awakened in a really early stage but they were mostly nobles.
The four elements also have a higher form of themselves, a deviant element. For fire it's lightning, for water it's ice, for earth it's gravity and for wind it's sound. There were also classes based on the awakened person.
They were Augmenters and Conjurers. One was a mage who fought hand to hand or with weapons while the other was a mage who fought using spells.
A repulsive feeling formed inside his heart whenever he thought of swords or close combat. My mentor who taught me everything ended up being against me in the end.
Swordsmanship, something I trained near to perfection in my past life, I abandoned it due to the betrayals I faced.
Since he trained himself in conjuring, he was too used to it. So trying to change his fighting style wouldn't help at all.
With each turn of the page, I learned more and more about both of the occupations.
The two terms basically explained the main thing of both of the occupations, Augmenters could augment themselves with mana while Conjurers could conjure mana.
The stages of a mana core were classified from lower to stronger as; Black, Red, Orange, Yellow, Silver and White.
It seems like the difference between the two types of Mages becomes less apparent the lighter the mana core, thus allowing augmenters to will mana outside their body, and conjurers to reinforce their bodies, albeit far less effectively. Apparently, upon reaching white core, the difference in ability is completely eliminated, but most mages choose to stick with the style of fighting they are most familiar with.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes to consume whatever I had read just now. Sitting down in a meditating posture I tried to pull the mana particles around me towards my sternum slowly and steadily. But one certain thought haunted me a lot— What if I awakened as an augmenter instead of a conjurer?
I remembered what were the fundamentals of the two occupations, Augmenters refine their mana channels to be able to circulate mana inside their body while Conjurers refine mana inside their core to be able to draw in the atmospheric mana more efficiently.
But how was I expected to refine my mana core when I didn't even have one to begin with…
And as such, I started to circulate mana in my sternum, where a mana core is usually situated. Oddly enough, I didn't face much difficulty in controlling mana.
Siphoning mana from the atmosphere into my sternum as I continued my process of building a mana core.
Like that time flew by, being showered by more and more warmth from my family, a motherly love which is clearly expressed and a fatherly love which is rather reserved, yet just as warm. And another year passed by as my second birthday was soon approaching.
It was nighttime. Right now I was sitting in a meditative stance, trying to form my mana core while my parents made out in the other room. It sure wasn't very comfortable to concentrate when you hear sounds like that beside you, but there was nothing I could do.
My core was near to completion with only a few blocks left open. The last block joined as my core came into completion. A huge vacuum was created and everything around me was pulled closer and then fell to the ground.
My body flinched back due to the sudden events, the events which just occurred all symbolizes the fact that I had awakened and that too as a Conjurer. It seems like my efforts have come into fruition.
Both of my parents rushed to my room, dressed in sleepwear, as the two of them thought that it was just me throwing a tantrum for not being given attention.
Well, I also didn't have any intention to correct the two's misunderstanding. I didn't even want to imagine the reactions they would have when they hear that a two year old kid had awakened.
The night was draped in a blanket of ominous silence, as if it was the silence before a great disaster.
And then, that day came.
The day when the biggest turning point in my life occurred.
The rustling of water echoed around the house, I crawled around since I was bored.
The sound of metal clanging resonated outside. I thought there was some gathering of adventurers today until the yelling of my father was heard outside. "Hey! What the hell are you doing! This is a breach of property!"
Mother got out of the kitchen due to the commotion outside, suddenly our door burst open with father thrown back and armored people barging in our house. A cacophony of yelling reverberated in the house.
"So, are we in the right place this time?" One of the knights asked, the one in front took out a scroll and ripped it. Soon everyone in the house was shrouded by a layer of white energy, except for me.
The mana inside of me reacted strangely to the light and a golden layer formed around my skin. Seeing this, the knights took out their swords from their sheath.
Both of my father and mother's expressions were replaced with a confused one as the knights suddenly announced, "A Reincarnate is located! Everyone, capture him!"
With a bewildered face, mother continued to ask the knight what he meant while I felt the blood drain off my face.
Shaking his head, the knight spoke, " Well the thing is…" He continued to whisper in mother's ear.
Confusion turned to disgust, which soon turned to anger. With a furious tone her voice boomed, "Tell me this is a lie, where is my son? Where is he!?"
'I am here, mom.' was what I wanted to say, but the words seemed to halt in my throat.
Father was taken aback from the sudden outrage while mother continued to fume.
"By the decree of our king and the holy dragon, I announce the detaining of the rogue reincarnate," with the knight's words, the other knights pinned me down.
Gazes of disgust were being directed at me. My body was carried all the way to the carriage. From the town, the carriage started and made its way towards the forest.
The carriage continued on its path, creaking while the knights continued to entertain themselves with their talks. My hands were chained, words like, 'Finally, we would get some rewards for this.' or 'Ah, it was sad seeing those parents weep, but what can we do, it's all your fault after all.'
Like that my days of being bullied started in this new life.
After a few days of traveling I started to get motion sickness, but the knights didn't care and just went on until they faced a really big obstacle. A horde of beasts had surrounded the carriage. The knights left the carriage to fend them off, but oddly no one stood to keep a guard on me.
The thought of escaping popped up in my mind, but was there any need for it all. Yet my feet moved forward.
Why am I running away? The answer for that was something even I wasn't sure of, it surely wasn't to survive now, was it? If it was then I wasn't even sure anymore why I was doing this.
Jumping off the carriage I ran towards the dense forest.
"Oi you idiots! The old brat is running away!" One of the knights yelled, his arms being busy dealing with two beasts. Honestly, what I did just now couldn't even be said to be running. Somehow with the help of wind mana, I was able to walk at a normal speed.
Slowly yet steadily I managed to control my pace as I ran with my whole strength. The knights continued to yell about something. I couldn't hear any of his words, the rustling of the leaves under my leg and my fast beating heart was all that reverberated in my ear.
A dry chuckle left my lips as tears streamed down my eyes, even after reincarnating I never seem to find peace in life. This…curse just never seems to leave me.
My legs moved until it became sore, my whole body burned with fever. My reluctance to die kept me running, but a knight was about to catch me… soon. But something that the two of us didn't predict occurred.
After passing through a bush, I was met with a cliff through which I was falling now. The knight cursed while I continued to fall and my vision darkened.
What surprised me the most was that even though everything around me had darkened, my senses were still as active as ever.
A sense of nausea took over me, my head churned in tandem to my queasiness. My fall was softened as I fell to a mass of smooth scales.
Opening my eyes I saw a dragon with shimmering white scales and amethyst eyes stare at me. Its body was covered by numerous runes, yet the dragon felt as if it would die any moment now.
Out of reflex, I backed away until the dragon coughed real hard.
"Hey there little one, if you are wondering how you ended up here then don't worry, I just saved you from your fall," the dragon spoke, trying to give me assurance.
"Why? Why did you save me? I could have finally rested in peace from all of this crap!" I yelled at her, trying to push all my curses at the dragon. Yet the dragon didn't seem to mind at all, in fact it smiled and continued, "For a kid so young, you really are too willing to die aren't you?"
Its eyes settled on me as it spoke, "If you have no desire to live, then how about living in my stead?"
"Why should I care about that?" I asked, to which it abruptly stood up and showed its belly. A huge wound was formed there, the dragon continued on, "Because I want you to find my daughter for me, she's too young to be out there in the wilds. And unfortunately I can't leave this place, otherwise I would've left it ages ago."
"What do I get in return?" I asked, the reason why I asked it was unknown to me as well. Perhaps so that I could find a reason to deny her.
"My whole essence," It replied, "My name is Sylvia Indrath and in exchange of my wish I shall grant you the very essence of my life."
"Wait, why are you doing this?" I asked, bewilderment evident in my voice.
"Since I am forcing you to live and save my daughter, this is the least I could do," she replied, "Besides, I also wish that you can see it, the beauty of living."
My teeth clenched unconsciously. Was there really any meaning, any beauty in this cursed life of mine?
With a steady gaze, I stared at Sylvia. Understanding my actions she smiled. Her body shone in a golden color which soon extended to me and coiled around me.
"I hope you will find solace and peace in this world, King Grey."
Her last words echoed in my mind as I felt myself drown in the darkness of my consciousness.
*****
Pain.
My body writhed in pain.
It felt as if millions of needles were being pricked in my bones, as if my body was destroyed and reconstructed once again.
The dark, hollow ceiling of the cave welcomed me. Getting up I saw no one around me. A portal was shimmering in front of me in amethyst light.
So she's really dead now.
An odd feeling was grounded in my heart that I continued to ignore like I always did.
Passing through the portal I was met with a forest covered fully with mist and fog.
The trees extended so high that the usual blue sky was now replaced by an expanse of green. Mist shrouded the whole place like a cold blanket.
Every now and then my ears rang, my head felt dizzy and I couldn't even keep a track of my direction. I finally realized why the place seemed so familiar.
It was the Elven Forest.
My head hurt so hard that I felt as if I could fall unconscious any moment now. My body was hot from a fever along with my sternum aching like hell. After a while I fell to the ground, not being able to walk anymore. My eyes also started to close slowly due to the exhaustion.
'Dammit, not now. I don't want to die in the jaws of a fucking wolf or something.'
But before my eyes fully closed, I caught a glimpse of a black haired woman approaching me as a veil of darkness took over me.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
KaiAsukawa
KaiAsukawa And sorry for the late! I was really tired yesterday from my schoolwork ^^;
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