Daphne had woken up when the afternoon was cooling down and the evening was just setting in. She couldn’t see Leo anywhere so she assumed that he had gotten some work at the market. She just waited for him because she was too weak to leave the shack.

At around sunset, Daphne got a little apprehensive. He never got jobs that required him to stay for long. He would typically get a few Starcoins to clean some equipment or glass vials. Daphne got worried that he wasn’t back yet.

Around 2 hours later, the door to the shack opened. Leo stepped in. He had a basket in his hand.

Daphne looked up. Her eyes showed that she was worried the whole time. She saw the remains of his clothes. They were essentially unwearable. Daphne rushed forward towards him. She tightly hugged him.

“I was worried,” she said softly.

He smiled and hugged her back.

“I was earning us the best dinner we ever had,” he told her. He lifted the basket in his hand.

Inside the basket was a proper dinner for both of them. There were chicken breasts along with potato fries. Daphne saw this with puzzled eyes. She let go of him.

“What did you do?” She asked him.

He told her about the job that Trevor gave him. He didn’t say anything about the wolf or the cave. He didn’t want to make Daphne keep dangerous secrets that could get her killed. After the altered recount of his day, Daphne pouted at him.

She grabbed his basket and turned away.

“Don’t do that again. It’s too dangerous,” she said while setting up for dinner.

He smiled. “I hopefully won’t do it anytime soon.”

_________

After dinner, He spread his blanket to get ready to sleep. Daphne was already asleep. She fell asleep because she was still sick and tired. He gazed at his wrist, looking at his tattoo in the darkness. He didn’t know what to do about it. He didn’t know what a tome was supposed to do, and couldn’t go to anyone for guidance. After thinking for a while he gave up and went to sleep.

The minute he fell asleep, He found himself in a room completely painted white. It was incredibly bright, and he was sitting on a chair. He looked up and saw a series of scribbles formed by golden light in front of him, floating in the air. He couldn’t understand anything initially.

All of a sudden he felt a pain in his head. He got a splitting headache. He clung to the chair while squeezing his head into his knees. It took him around ten minutes to recover. His eyes felt weird after he looked up. The scribbles were dancing in his eyes. The scribbles slowly stopped dancing and came to a halt. All of a sudden, he could understand all of the scribbles.

_______________________

Empyrean Magic System

Refuse the magical circles around one’s heart, for they are limiting.

Instead, condense your magic into stars in your mind. The mind is limitless.

________________________

This was not the only new thing about him. He could also remember something that he had never read – the technique to practice the Empyrean Magic System. He had an entire mage training method in his mind. This was mind-blowing to him.

The Empyrean System was different from the normal magical system – the Imperial Magic System in two ways. He would be condensing his magic into stars that he would store in his mind. Apparently, normal mages typically store it around their hearts because it is a lot easier. The Empyrean System requires great talent from the mages.

The other way it differed from the normal system was how strength was defined. The Imperial System defined mages based on how many circles they had formed. 1 was the lowest and 9 was the highest. He knew that the emperor was a 6th circle mage. Before a mage became a 1st circle mage, he would be considered an apprentice mage. This person is someone who can gather mana but did not form a circle yet.

He thought about how the Empyrean System told him to gather magic. He wanted to try it once. He would have to try and calm his mind to a stillness so that he could sense magic. He took a deep breath. He tried to calm himself. He tried to stop thinking about anything to sense the magic. However, his mind constantly wandered around and he couldn’t do anything about it.

Eventually, the entire night passed by. He was unable to gather any magic at all. He was very disappointed when he woke up. He was very excited when he thought he would learn magic, but he failed to do anything. He didn’t want to do anything except try to figure out how to gather magic.

However, Daphne was still sick. So he would have to bring her meals for her. However, since he earned a lot of money the previous day, he wouldn’t have to go to do work for the entire week. He could just bring the meals for the entire day before focusing on magic.

“What do you want to eat today? What should I bring?” Leo asked Daphne. Daphne had also woken up at the same time as him but kept lying on her sheets.

She looked at him and said, “Whatever can fill my stomach. We can’t waste too much money on food.”

He smiled. Both of them weren’t familiar with the concept of having so much money at once. They felt they had to conserve as much as possible. When Leo thought about that thought, his smile faded. He knew that if he became a mage, all of that would change. He became more determined to learn magic.