Chapter 17: The Crystal

Backing into the crystal felt strange as if the hard exterior broke behind me and reformed, allowing me to enter it with ease, as all noise and fighting outside of the structure faded.

Turning around within the crystal, it was like the space inside of the crystal didn't match the outside of it, turning into a room about the same size as my bedroom

More spatial magic? Hmm, probably. But I wonder what the white and green mist is about. Maybe just to give it a cooler feel for kids? Or an after-effect of whatever magic? One thing I know is sitting against these jagged walls would feel rough.

Anyhow, after about thirty seconds of waiting, suddenly, small wisps of different colored light started to appear within the purple empty crystal room.

Five, to be exact. Moving and shifting through the air, the wisps form a horizontal line in front of me, as small translucent stands of inky-white substance connect out of each of them.

Hehe, the classic joke.

As quickly as the orbs appeared, they shot an inky white tendril directly at me. Reflexively I cast a barrier around myself, but unfortunately, that did absolutely nothing. As each of the tendrils attached, I felt my mana being drained at a rapid rate, as each of the wisps grew in size and consistency.

One wisp seemed to harden into a very deep green barrier, one crackled with lightning, one glowed a deep purple, eventually turning into a shade of red, one looked as if it began to blink in and out of existence, and the final one seemed to generate a small breeze.

Oh, it's like the orbs from my chest! But these steal my mana like a starving kid seeing a pile of food, instead of the well-mannered marbles.

Just as I was about to run completely out of mana, the tendrils detached and returned to their respective wisps. After about a minute of waiting, the elements of the imbued wisps started to shrink and fade, as numbers formed under each of the now "normal" wisps.

Listen, I haven't done any real complex math in over thirteen years, so I'm not even gonna pretend to understand the formula the numbers in front of me were plugged into, all I know is that the number it spits out was sixty-eight.

Almost nice, almost.

Once the number was spat out, the wisps dissipated, and the floating ethereal white number split in half, half of it flying back into me, restoring about half of my mana, and the second half flying into a small gold and silver rod in the ceiling.

Welp, that was uh, interesting.

After waiting for about another three minutes, the crystal wall I had walked in from changed into a much lighter shade of purple.

It looks like it's finally time to leave this uncomfortable room!

Walking back out of the crystal, my family, Vince, and two blue-robed magicians were waiting outside with shocked expressions.

"Well, let me cut to the chase Lord Vintra." A third blue-robed man said as he sheepishly approached my father and uncle.  " I understand I probably don't need to say this, but my employment contract forces me to."

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The younger mage then turned to me. "You see, every person is born with an innate amount of magic, and that magic fully manifests at around the age of two. Innate mana cannot be changed, but overall mana can be. Through repeated life and death experiences that drain a mage's mana, general can be expanded. Every time you empty your pool, it will come back a little bit more filled." The blue-robed man explained to me, slowly. 

"The average person is born with about twenty 'points' as measured by our machines. A genius is classified as a person born with more than forty-five 'points', and as a benchmark, you can easily grasp, the Mad Sage was born with eighty-two 'points' using this system." The mage reading and most of my non-family members gulped at his mere mention.

"Points representing both the level in which the affinity can be outputted, as well as the raw amount of mana that can be poured into the said affinity. Consider having an affinity similar to having a natural catalyst, so if someone has four "points" in a fire affinity, they can either cast that at four times the output for the same mana, the same output for a quarter of the mana, or a little bit of both. Needless to say, your son is a genius beyond almost any measure, and as you can see." The blue-robed man said as he showed my father a scroll. "Your son has over sixty of these said points, and over thirty are in his barrier affinity alone. If I can speak bluntly, if I were the current Barrier Saint, I'd be shaking in my boots."

What is this? Some kinda Dragon Bal- whatever.

Doesn't matter. Anyway, at least I'm not as strong as the "Mad Sage", and based on what I've heard about him, he's definitely someone like me who's reincarnated and began to expand his mana from day one.

I need to meet him, sure I love my family and can probably make good friends, but I need to talk to someone who's gonna get my references! I wonder how many points father has?

"But as you can see here young man." My uncle said as he took the scroll from the robed man and turned it directly towards me. "You have five affinities! Just like your uncle Vinny! We even share three of them! Do you know how rare that is?"

"Uhhh no. I thought that they were all the same?" I say this because I genuinely did.

Suddenly, my Uncle gave my father a fisheye look and laughed. "Of course not!" He laughed and picked me up, hugging me.

"To make it simple, stuff like fire and water is really common, whilst abstract stuff like healing and space are rare! You'll have a bit of an uphill battle since no one really works on barrier spells outside of the lifesaving ones, but that's the only cause of mana cost!" He said, finally ending the near-suffocating hug.

Holy shit!

Sure I may not be the best, but fuck if I'm not gonna let that stop me! I think I kinda cheated cause my mana did kinda double, but so what! A life filled with chicanery here I come!

"How many points does daddy have?" I asked, trying to hide both my overwhelming excitement and real curiosity. However, I was met with another laugh.

"You're father was born with about fifty, and your mother about thirty. I was born at nearly sixty. That answer your next questions?" Uncle Vinny said, immediately catching my drift. 

"Yep! Thanks, Uncle Vinny!" I said, giving him a small hug, causing his face to smile the warmest I've seen it.

After that fiasco, the trip back home was quiet, yet relaxing. Feeling quite exhausted, I decided to sleep, hopefully not waking up until I reached my nice, peaceful home.

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