“Um… Weren’t you supposed to be teaching me how to use Arcana? Why do you need to pull out that much energy?”
Elias took a step back, watching Seraphina suddenly pull a massive amount of energy into her hands.
“Well, isn’t it better to just experience it firsthand? People say experience is the fastest way to actually learn something.”
Without any warning or lead-up whatsoever, Seraphina shaped the energy in her palm into a fireball and hurled it straight at Elias.
“W-what?!”
Seeing the fireball rocketing toward him, Elias instinctively drew his sword and tried to block it.
Honestly, the thing was already way too close to dodge anyway.
*BOOM!
The fireball exploded the second it hit Elias’s blade, sending out a shockwave of air and spreading a wave of heat all around him.
Elias got knocked back several steps from the blast, though he came out of it unhurt.
“That’s cheating!”
“Don’t talk in the middle of a fight.”
Not giving Elias a second to catch his breath, Seraphina was already lining up her next attack.
She pressed her hand to the ground and pumped her energy into the earth.
Instantly, roots burst up from the soil and shot toward Elias from every direction.
‘I need to close the distance!’
Elias sprinted forward, dodging and occasionally slashing through the roots trying to grab him.
But right as his attention got pulled toward the roots coming from below, a fireball suddenly appeared right in front of his face.
With no time to dodge and his sword nowhere near a good position to block, Elias made a split-second decision, one that even Seraphina hadn’t seen coming.
‘No clue if this’ll actually work, but might as well bet on it!’
He wrapped his leg in Mana and kicked the fireball clean toward the edge of the training field, setting off an explosion there instead.
“Ouch! That’s hot!”
Without stopping, Elias immediately shot forward again, weaving around the roots still trying to snag him.
“Nice. I have no idea what you just did, but you’re clearly insane.”
“Thanks for the compliment, or the insult, whichever that was!”
“I’m being serious! You channeled Mana under pressure like that, even wrapped it around your own body. Honestly, I didn’t even think of that myself. But…”
In the blink of an eye, Seraphina, who’d been a few steps ahead of Elias, was suddenly right beside him, fist wrapped in hardened earth.
“Don’t assume your opponent can only attack from a distance!”
The punch landed square on Elias’s right arm as he threw it up to shield his face.
With his positioning way off and the earth-coated fist connecting directly, his arm snapped, and his whole body went flying, slamming against the ground several times before finally stopping.
“Let me explain a bit. Arcana’s broken down into several types, fire, water, wind, earth, light, and darkness. In theory, everyone can use the first four. That doesn’t mean everyone masters them easily, though.” This story is hosted at novelping.com.
Seraphina walked toward Elias, who was still clutching his broken arm.
“That’s where Arcana Affinity comes in. Everyone’s naturally more suited to certain types of Arcana. The higher someone’s Affinity, the easier it is for them to use and grow that type.”
“What about light and darkness, then?”
“Light and darkness work a little differently. Not everyone can use those freely. Usually, people from the holy church tend to have an Affinity for light, while demonkind and similar races lean toward darkness. Don’t get me wrong, though. That doesn’t mean they can’t use the opposite type. The holy church can use darkness too, just like demonkind and their kin can use light. It’s just a lot harder for them.”
Listening to Seraphina’s explanation, Elias finally got back on his feet, still clutching his broken arm.
The pain crept from his arm all the way up to the back of his neck.
“So what type of Arcana do you specialize in, then?”
“Wind and earth. Though I can use fire and water too.”
“You can use all of them?!”
“Like I said. Everyone can use the four basic types, but that’s just baseline ability. Mastering all of them is a completely different story. Arcana Affinity just makes it easier for someone to develop a specific type further.”
Elias pulled a healing potion from his storage pouch and downed it right away.
It wasn’t going to fix the broken bone instantly, but at least it dulled the pain a bit and sped up the recovery process.
“Arcana Affinity?”
“It’s a measure of someone’s natural compatibility with a type of Arcana. Normally, a person only has a high Affinity for one type.”
“So you’re not normal, then.”
“Bastard. I’m more like exceptionally gifted! Well, though there’s someone out there with talent even scarier than mine…”
“What? Who’s that?”
“Huh? You don’t know? You’re literally living with them.”
“Don’t tell me…”
“Yeah, exactly. Evelyn and Elysia from Nocturne. Their talent is absolutely ridiculous. Honestly, you could even call them a talent among talents.”
‘I already knew they were talented, but that talented?’
Elias never actually understood the Arcana system properly, even after playing this game for years.
In the game, there’d been no Arcana used to cast Magic at all.
Everything ran on the usual system, casting Magic needed Mana, while Skills ran on SP.
But in this world, everything traced back to Arcana somehow.
‘I mean…
isn’t this basically the same thing though?’
“Goodness, don’t overthink it like that. Mana’s still the core spiritual energy of this world. Arcana’s just the spiritual principle that gives Mana its specific character.” Get faster updates on novelping . com.
Seraphina then pointed at Elias’s body.
“Simply put, Mana is the energy that exists inside your body. You can use it to strengthen your body, your weapon, or create barriers. Arcana, on the other hand, is Mana that’s already been given a specific character.”
“Ah… So what I used earlier, on my legs and my sword…”
“That was just Mana, obviously. Good grief, did you actually think that was Arcana?”
‘Ah…
So that’s what she meant earlier, “You channeled Mana under pressure like that, even wrapped it around your own body.” Was I so focused I completely missed what she said?’
“Now that you get it, let’s keep going until you can actually use Arcana!”
“Keep going with what, exactly?”
“Goodness. That sounds fun. Mind if we join in too? Se-ra-phi-na…”
Seraphina and Elias both shuddered head to toe at once.
A wave of hot and cold crept up their spines the instant they heard those two familiar female voices.
Elias wiped the sweat pouring down his face.
He glanced sideways for a split second before turning to leave Seraphina all alone, her face already drained of color with pure terror.
“It’s late, my Lady. Thank you for the lesson. I’ll take my leave and head back to my room now.”
“E-Elias… Don’t leave me here, please…”
“Seraphina~”
“Hiekk!”
Seraphina swallowed hard before turning around to find Evelyn and Elysia already standing right behind her.
“H-h-hello… W-w-what are you two doing out this late? Haha… The stars sure are pretty tonight, huh?”
Elysia walked up to Seraphina and gave her shoulder a pat.
“We’d like to have a nice long talk with you. Right now.”
Then Evelyn stepped closer, touching a finger under Seraphina’s chin to tilt her face up toward her.
“That’s right. The stars really are gorgeous tonight. Perfect night for mincing up some human flesh. Isn’t that right… Seraphina?”
*HICCUP!
That hiccup came right before Seraphina’s scream rang out so loud that it reached absolutely everyone, every soul fast asleep, someone in the middle of taking a dump, Felix mid-heist stealing food from the Aurelle kitchen, and Elias, who was already sprinting for his life deep into the city.
Elias just kept running, tears streaming down his face and never once looking back.
He ran and ran and clutching his broken arm, tears spilling freely from his eyes.
‘I’m so sorry, my Lady.
I’ll never forget your sacrifice…’
For a fleeting second, he swore he saw Seraphina’s smiling face up in the sky, angel wings sprouting from her back, before she drifted off further and further into the distance.