Being in prison and all, I didn’t really have much to look forward to, other than my ‘acting sessions’ with Radix and the occasional interaction with Genesis. However I did have recreation time every day with the other kids that were in prison with me, but most of them didn’t have the greatest personalities, and let’s face it I was severely lacking when it came to interpersonal interaction after 120 years of moderate isolation, so I mostly excluded myself from playtime with the other kids.
Instead I pestered the guards supervising the children. The guards were very stone faced when I first started to pester them, but after a couple days they probably got permission from their supervisor on what they could and couldn’t say. I was then able to get answers to my questions about magic and some other things.
You would think that after reaching the age of 180 that I would know everything there is to know about magic and the world, but that was far far from the truth. Unfortunately I had to focus almost all of my studies and research on extremely niche areas of magic that required me to basically build everything from the ground up. So, although I could be considered an expert in my fields of study, I was severely lacking when it came to diversity and many basics in my knowledge repertoire.
Needless to say, my questions, which were strange for someone my age to be asking, caused me to gain a reputation as the weird kid even amongst a group of problematic children, but it achieved its purpose. My efforts to learn from the guards didn’t yield too much, probably because they were limited in what they were permitted to tell me, but it did give me a better grasp on some common knowledge I was unaware of before, as well as give me an excuse to start practicing magic.
One afternoon, after draining the guards of all the information they were willing to give me, I decided to start training divination magic. I was already very familiar with anti-divination magic, due to my past need for it as a man on the run, plus divination magic wasn’t flashy, meaning it would be hard for others to determine how much progress I was making. So even though I was being monitored, it would function as smoke and mirrors to hide in plain sight.
There was other magic that I would need to practice before my eventual escape from prison, but I couldn’t let my captors know that I was capable of things like space magic and time magic. I would have to wait until I was sure they wouldn’t notice before I started to practice those, and divination magic would help me accomplish that.
Divination magic was a magic rarely ever learned independently, even though everyone was capable of doing it. The reason was quite apparent as soon as I started practicing. I started and almost Immediately I knocked myself out.
Basically, I blasted my mind with the raw information from divination magic and passed out from my mind being overwhelmed by the overload. For most people this would be a hard stop to any attempts to do freeform divination magic. Others would have to learn specific divination spells that would convert the raw information into something they would be able to handle and understand. But I was different.
I woke up, after almost a half an hour, with a splitting headache, and found myself in a bed with a healer nearby. The healer immediately started asking me all kinds of questions, but I did my best to be difficult and not answer his questions clearly. Radix was obviously called over to deal with me, and he ‘persuaded’ me to tell him the truth about my attempted divination magic, which made the amount of monitoring and observation I was subjected to skyrocket to uncomfortable levels. It was definitely a pain, and most certainly wouldn’t be going away anytime soon.
I wasn’t concerned though, because this was a necessary part of my deception operation. But it was a long term plan, and my present focus was still primarily on learning divination magic.
This meant that I continued to periodically knock myself out. It was a brutal training process that was only made possible because of one of my greatest assets.
[Metaphysical Organ: Adaptive Mind]
: The adaptive mind affects the brain, nerves and basically the mind in all its forms. This makes all the aspects of the mind adapt and improve much more freely.
After nearly a month of knocking myself out, I eventually adapted enough to the point where I no longer knocked myself out. Of course I still gave myself a massive headache, but eventually even that would go away.
During this time, one of the kids approached me during recreation time. Despite Tallen being a mostly Human-centric country, there were plenty of other races that lived within its borders. So when I saw that the kid coming up to me wasn’t Human, I wasn’t surprised.
He was a bit shorter than others and his skin was as black as a black hole, so it was a bit hard to make out the details of his face when looking at him from the front. His 2 eyes were solid neon magenta and lit up everything he was looking at with neon light. However the most notable feature was the fact that he seemed to suck the heat out of the area around him.
Because of him pulling the heat out of everything around him, most of the other kids tended to avoid him. He came up to me, and I could feel the air around me get colder and colder as he drew near. He stopped a fair distance away from me, probably a learned habit, and started to talk to me.
“Hello, my name is Friochró, and I was wondering if I could ask you something?”
“Sure, go ahead.”
“I was curious about why you kept fainting over and over again. I’ve overheard all of the other kids keep calling you reckless Radiant, and I was wondering what it is that would make them call you reckless when you’re just passing out?”
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I had told some of the other kids that had asked me before, but it seemed like Friochró was somewhat of an outcast. So I decided to humor his question, “Well I’m practicing magic. When you say I’m passing out I’m actually knocking myself out because of my magic practice.”
“You can do magic already? Does that mean you’re already a mage?”
“Ha, no it doesn’t make me a mage, but yes I can do magic.”
“Wow. What kind of magic are you practicing?”
“I’m practicing divination magic.”
His eyes sparkled, “Divination magic? My Dad does that too, but he said that only adults can do it.”
“Oh? I guess most people would have to be adults to learn it.” Looking at Friochró, and hearing him say that his Dad did divination magic, seemed to send off some sparks in my mind. I wasn’t certain why, but it made me ask, “What does your dad do that uses divination magic?”
Friochró answered animatedly, “Oh! My Dad sells information to people. He has all sorts of people come and ask him about stuff.”
Hearing his answer, I started to put some memories together, and these memories led to an exciting possibility. However, I wasn’t sure of the conclusion I was coming to, so I asked Friochró, “What about you? Do you want to do that when you grow up?”
Friochró nodded rapidly, “Yes. My Dad says that I’m going to inherit the family business.”
A small smile played on my lips. Friochró probably thought I was happy to just be talking with him, and after hearing his answer to my question, that was absolutely true! At first I thought Friochró was just another kid, since my memories didn’t have anyone important named Friochró in them, but that was because he went by his chosen name in the future: Farsight!
My smile grew wider as I said, “Hey Friochró, if it’s alright with you, do you want to be friends?” This was a golden opportunity to make a priceless connection, and I wasn’t going to miss it.
Friochró seemed somewhat surprised, but maybe because the other kids avoided him, he said, “Yes, I would love to be friends!”
Now that we were friends, he got even closer to me and began to talk and talk without end. I could tell that I might not have as much free recreation time to train for a while. But with Friochró pulling the heat out of the air I got to train my mana conversion, to heat up my body instead of freeze. I wasn’t certain I would need such practice, but I tried to keep a positive outlook, seeing as how I was building such a valuable relationship for the future.
-Break-
After about a month and a half I was finally proficient enough to perform the most basic self diagnosis via divination by relying on The System as a basis. My conversations with Friochró had increased my initial estimates of how long it would take, but it was a welcome distraction.
Gathering the mana from within me, I proceeded to make a mockery of those who practiced Divination, and casted the most crude divination magic, to see my System. Although I hadn’t unlocked the system yet, it was still present, in a dormant form within me, and I could use divination to see what it would display if it was operative.
[Status] Level: 0 | General Tier: 1
[Ancestry/Genetic Makeup]-(Human) (TechnicMorph)-
[Titles]-(Dimensional Traveler) (Time Traveler) (Conqueror of Mana)-
[Stats]-Mana(Nebula: Tier 0; Cells: Tier 2)
Mana Regen(Nebula: Tier 0; Cells: Tier 2; Other: Tier 5)
Magic(General: Tier 0)
Constitution(General: Tier 0)
Senses(General: Tier 0)
Mind(General: Tier 0)-
[Unique Talent]-Tier 7 (Not Awakened)-
[Magic Core]-(Color: None) (Characteristic: Mana Cell Enhancement)-
[Metaphysical Organs]-(Core) (Adaptive Mind) (Fractured Space Channel)-
[Metaphysical Physique]-(Body of Artifacts)-
[Traits]-(Ornate Chains of Talent) (Enchanting Talent)-
[Blessings/Curses]-(The Ever Present Archives Level 1 Infinite Pass)-
[Active Skills/Powers 3/3]-(Power: Mental Operator; Evolution:0 Level:3) (Skill: Mana Maintenance; Level:4) (Skill: Acting; Level:1)-
[Inactive Skills/Powers 1]-(Skill: Research; Level:0)-
There was a lot to look at, but most of it was within my expectations. It was missing things that would be shown if I were actually to pull up my Status, but it was enough for now. With that said, there were three things that were new to me, the two new titles (Time Traveler) and (Conqueror of Mana), as well as a skill I had never had before (Mana Maintenance).
After some more wrangling with divination I got the description the system had for the two titles.
(Time Traveler): Congratulations! You have successfully traveled through a substantial amount of time without dying or being killed. Time travel itself is dangerous, but even more dangerous are those who dislike time travelers. Powerful individuals rarely take kindly to those that mess with the sanctity of their fate, so the system reminds you to keep quiet about your time travel activities lest you end up dead like your predecessors that couldn’t keep a secret.
: It is now impossible for others to discover that you have traveled through time unless you make it obvious.(Seriously don’t tell anyone)
This title was a great blessing and was probably the only reason I was still alive and not erased from existence by some ultra powerful being by now. This was one of the reasons why I had to isolate myself for so many years, because the less impact I had on the world the less likely I was to be noticed and stopped before I could time travel. There were more reasons why I isolated myself, but this gave me reassurance that I had done the right thing. Next I looked at my other new title.
(Conqueror of Mana): Congratulations! Through a combination of factors, you’ve successfully wielded mana 100 times your own maximum mana reserve for an extended period of time without failing to keep control over it. It wasn’t ice mana or you’d be an ice cube, so be more cautious in the future, or not, it's your life after all.
: It is easier to sense differences in mana.
I was wondering why it seemed so much easier to sense mana and now I knew why. This was an extremely useful title and I had definitely noticed its effect, although as it stood I was still only five years old and my mana sense wasn’t that great in the first place.
The last thing was my new skill (Mana Maintenance). It was exactly as its name implied and just helped maintain control over my mana. While it wasn’t that impressive right now it could grow into something much better and I was looking forward to it.
All in all, my daily life has been pretty calm since I came back to my life as a prisoner. However I knew that this calm wouldn’t continue uninterrupted for long. My older sister had made a visit to me around this time in my past and she was the very definition of someone with an explosive and abrasive personality. I was somewhat dreading the visit from her, but mostly I was just glad that I would get to see her after so long.
