"In hearts of sorrow, downpour shrouded in your haze. Find the calm within your heart and clear away that which blinds you. Gentle Rain!" a well-formulated yet childish-sounding child announced, raising their voice at the closure of their incantation.
The boy stood there, a slightly large book in hand, one which wore tatters and signs of weathering like badges of hard-fought battles. He watched the clear sky darken ever so slightly, bringing a confident and overly zealous twirl to his demeanour as he bounced on the spot. A faint rumble of thunder rippled through the cloudless sky, announcing the impending arrival of the rain's downpour. Following the thunder's conclusion, a swarm of localised clouds formed over the head, swirling together in a coordinated dance of harmony that seemed almost telegraphed.
Letting go of the slightly large book to let it hover beside him, the boy planted his small hand on his hips. He couldn't contain his excitement any longer, watching the rain of his making fall upon the section of the pink leaves field in front of him and bringing him great pride.
"There you go again watering all the fields like it's no big deal," an elderly farmer said in endearment as he and his young adult grandson approached from out of nowhere. The boy flinched at the sound of a familial voice, knowing he'd been caught in the act of doing an adult's work.
But the boy's initial dread quickly turned to that of excitement, the Planck constant/instance he registered the tone his great-grandfather had used.
He spun around and happily greeted his father and great-grandfather with a childish grin, despite trying to look professional.
"Thanks for the praise, grandpa~" the boy said with excited glee and a beaming smile on his face, his teeth shining so brightly it threatened to eclipse the sun's dominion over illumination. The boy reached out to the floating book and gently patted its cover, giving the object its deserved praise for making the watering of the fields so convenient.
"We appreciate the favour, champ, but wouldn't you rather be playing with your-" the boy's father asked, only to be interrupted as a smaller rain cloud shot off from the main one, moving in the perfect direction to catch him in an unexpected shower. Under his breath so his son didn't hear, the father whispered to the grandfather, "I really think we should get the rain grimoire repaired or replaced; the stability of its clouds has been getting less consistent recently."
"Not at all, pops. Getting to play with magic is so much fun, no matter the purpose... besides all my friends are busy today for some reason," the boy said energetically while snatching the Rain Grimoire from the air and clutching it tightly like it was a teddy bear.
"If you say so, just make sure to put it back in the correct spot this time," the father uttered in between sighs. With a firm nod of his head, the boy sprang into action and raced away down the field-dividing path leading towards the nearby village.
As he watched his son disappear behind the seas of pink leaves, the father couldn't help feeling a little worried, hoping his son's fascination with grimoires won't lead to him ignoring his friends and wasting his chance to make more friends when it's the easiest. "Say, Gramps, is it just me... or has his manner of speaking gotten less childish lately?"
"You would be surprised how quickly kids can learn things these days."
Inkaro's father rolled his eyes at his father's comment, a nostalgic feeling plaguing his mind as he knew a monologue about the past was dangerously close.
"Yeah-yeah, if I let you go on about the past again, the crops will be ripe ahead of...". The boy's father found himself trailing off as he looked at the pink leaves beside him before widening his eyes in surprise. He could tell that all the leaves, even the ones in the very corner of the fields, were glowing and ripe for picking, a whole week earlier than he and his grandfather had predicted.
"Maybe keeping and letting Inkaro tinker with the grimoire is the better option, don't you think?" the boy's great-grandfather retorted, almost to a smug degree that made Inkaro's father.
Grimoires, fascinating magical artefacts bonded together by their creators' will and their wielders' spirit. Not much is known about their origins or how they initially came into being. Still, the people of this world have done extensive research, coming to the hypothesis, they had no clue and chalked up the discovery to the nine races' united dumb luck.
Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.
It was somewhat surprising to find out that not even the four long-lived races had any concrete clues. I would've thought a few of them would be alive around the time of the grimoires' inception.
Are grimiore just that old, they predate all current life?
Although, from my own research, there doesn't seem to be any records of the other eight races until a whole three hundred years after the first confirmed existence of a grimoire.
Hmnn...
Unlike most people, Inkaro has an almost obsessive interest in grimoires. He kind of reminds me of myself when I was studying coding.
Hah, if it's the two of us, I'm sure we'll figure it out-
"Master Natsumi! Master Natsumi Karuoe!" Inkaro exclaimed in glee as he barged into his own bedroom, startling the ghostly apparition of a Japanese college student and making the guy phase through the chair he'd been pretending to sit on.
(Inkaro is a very short and soon-to-be six-year-old human boy; he has super unkempt neck-low hair that's a mix of pale beige and silver, pale violet to silver gradient eyes[left eye has pale violet at the top and right eye has silver at the top], and very fair skin)
Gah!:2s!
"There's no need to shout, Inkaro, and calling me Karuoe is perfectly fine..." the ghostly otherworlder grumbled under his breath as he phased fully through the chair before levitating nonchalantly in front of his "disciple".
(Natsumi Karuoe is a tall nineteen-year-old looking ghost/spectral human male; he's made of a transparent mist-looking deep blue energy, and has neatly combed translucent deep blue hair and translucent deep blue eyes/scleras)
Almost in offence to the notion, Inkaro puffed up his cheeks as he exclaimed passionately, "Not happening! Not giving my teacher respect won't do!"
The ghostly college graduate rolled his eyes dismissively, trying to mask his crestfallen demeanour at the title. He'd hope his act made his opinion on the title less apparent to not hurt the boy's feelings, not that Inkaro would've noticed the ghost's annoyance in the first place.
A blinding grin from the boy greeted the ghost guy's vaguely see-through eyes, a faint giggle of anticipation accompanying his appearance as he looked upon the ghost with unreserved and sparkling delight.
"What's with that look? Your parents already told you, I'm not allowed to teach you anything above beginner-level grimoire syntax until the appraisal event."
"Please? You promised that if I could alter the Rain Grimoire to accelerate the Phetowa Leaves' growth on my own, you'd teach me science stuff!"
"And aren't you special for having your birthday on the same day as that Aptitude Appraisal Ceremony thing?" Karuoe retorted, hoping the mention of the ceremony would divert the boy's focus, even if for a brief moment and allow him to think of something more distracting.
Inkaro's face dropped, any hint of excitement fizzling away as the thought which had been pushed to the back of his mind due to his focus on the task his teacher gave him finally resurfaced.
The Apptitude Appraisal Ceremony and his birthday were tomorrow, and he hadn't prepared himself mentally in the slightest.
"...Ahhhh! I totally forgot that's tommorry!" the grimoire-loving boy exclaimed in a frenzy as he clasped his head and booked it out of the room, with the actual book fluttering after him.
Left in stunned shock at the boy's second outburst, Karuoe tilted his head while mumbling, "Tommorry?"
Zipping through the hallway of the family cottage house, Inkaro booked it into the living room, almost tripping over every article of furniture and furnishing in his path. As he made his way towards the shelf with a book-shaped gap, he tried to calculate the angles in the middle of running.
Inkaro braced his legs for takeoff to launch himself at the high-up shelf.
"Inkaro, sweetie, please don't try to jump in the living room again."
Inkaro froze right before his jump at the sound of his mother's sweetly coated threat, the timing of her interjection spelling an ill-fated encounter had he gone through with the jump. Staggering forward on his tippytoes, Inkaro timidly waddled his way over to the shelf, scaled the closest chair, and gently set the Rain Grimoire back in its resting place, ensuring not even the small amount of dust was disturbed.
The following morning, Karuoe was once again reading over the paper he'd received from Inkaro, displaying all of his practice syntax. At the sight of the paper's content, the ghostly guy thought he would've been sweating from nervousness had he still possessed a physical body.
"He'd already implemented more complex syntax, how'd he figure it out without me even mentioning it... Right, dumb question, it's Inkaro I'm talking about here."
Karuoe let out a breathy, but mostly positive, exhale as he peered out the window with a sombre glint in his eyes. "Knowing him, he'll end up with something along the lines of a cheat skill. Like in those isekai mangas... man...why'd that pirate manga have to finish the same day I died?"
