Blademaster Ascension

14- A Deal Between Gentlemen

Rowan had become almost terrified to go out and hunt monsters at the marsh. The last time, he got ambushed by a greedy douche and almost lost his life to a bunch of monsters. If it were not for his ability to scheme plans on the spot and Chip's timely help, then Rowan would be dead for sure by now.

Of course, it wasn't as if he had sustained much loss in that incident. Although he was out of herbs and ingredients for potions right now, he had killed fifteen monsters that day after Turio ran away with his tail between his legs, figuratively. One of those monster was quite close to being rank one and the rest were not half bad either.

Right now, his kitchen was stuffed with monster meat. It had been a massive pain in the ass to drag the corpses out from the marsh. He even had to abandon some after cutting away the part of their body he had to consume.
He sold the others to the townsfolk at a moderately low price since he didn't need to worry for supplies anytime soon.

However, his greatest gain was the small book in his hand currently, a simplified copy of the book which contained the knowledge to turn a normal person into a magic wielding powerhouse. He hadn't gotten the time to check its contents back at the marsh. Now that he was inside his home, safe and sound, he could finally breathe in peace and figure out how to become a mage.

With an excited gleam in his eyes Rowan sat in his bed and opened the book. The first page contained a large paragraph. As he started reading, his happy expression slowly morphed into one of discomfort and gloom.

The universe consists of many elements, known and unknown. But ether is the most influential and common presence among them all. Being able to sense ether is something few people can do. Perhaps one among a thosand may have the ability to sense them and one among ten thousand would have the ability to influence them with the necessary knowledge. Ether is a highly reactive matter. It can be transformed into or influence almost anything as long as it is not organic. The main elements, their sub categories, all of them can be manipulated and controlled with the correct use of ether. Even "concepts" like space, light and darkness can be affected with ether. Of course, mastering each of them can take a very, very long time if one lacks talent and luck.

The passage then went on and on about the rarity of a person with decent magical potential and whatnot using a bunch of terms he was unfamiliar with. Clearly, this book lacked many crucial information. Rowan turned over the page and finally saw something more useful.

To examine one's potential of becoming a mage, a certain alchemical potion could be used. It is a level two potion named "liquified spiritleaf". To concoct this, one needs to gather ....

Underneath the passages was a formula for a very complicated potion. Rowan knew few of those ingredients and didn't have much confidence in being able to find them.
He turned the page over and found another passage explaining a different subject. The book was more useful to a person who was already familiar with magic, but it kept confusing Rowan, who didn't have a iota of knowledge regarding these.

Most people see magic as something unnatural and logic-defying. But that couldn't be further from the truth. What people call magic is actually nothing but manipulation of ether to affect one's surroundings. The main baseline to achieve such a feat is to gather the ether around you. Beginner mages are categorized as into two stages. First stage is called "seeker", a stage where you must develop your sensing of ether in your surroundings. The second stage is called "collector", a stage where you learn to hoard the ether within your body. The lands under the triumvirate's rule contains many different school of thoughts regarding this process. Approximately, fifty different techniques can be found there for a beginner to choose. However, the basics are the same and one doesn't require a particular technique if they are talented enough, which of course, is an extremely rare case.