Chapter 5: Potential

Tyler was stunned by the sight in front of him, he could not believe that there was a Library inside the demon King chambers (Mostly because he couldn’t imagine the Demon King reading a book. He always thought demons were born with their magic and didn’t need to learn spells. It took him a while to compose himself and organize his thoughts, he then took a step forward into the library in order to get a better understanding of what was in the library.

The moment he entered the hall the door behind him closed, he felt something shatter around him but he did not notice anything out of the ordinary. Just like the rest of the castle the library was lined with gold, almost as if gold was a common metal. The walls were carved with strange symbols and drawings, there were no coloured crystals to light up the room but it was strangely bright, like it was under the sun.

Tyler started to walk towards one of the bookshelf closest to him to take a better look at the books on them. The demon King must’ve used an insanely advance concealment spell to conceal the library, for a spell that had managed to last almost 1000 years after the death of the demon King it must’ve been something even above the legendary Tier 7 Magic.

Getting closer to the shelf he could see the titles of some of the books.

• Silent Incantations

• Greater magics

• Magic Circles

• Fundamental modus

• The Book of Death

Apart from that last one each book he saw was extremely valuable, to any magic user, this was a treasure trove that all races would die for. “Was this the real reason humans started the war.”

Tyler frowned slightly at this thought, if the humans had somehow found out about the knowledge possessed by the demon King, it makes sense why they were so bent on invading the demon continent and they probably deceived the dwarfs with their promise of rare ores and high leveled beast cores.

Even if the dwarfs notice something latter on their interest in the materials from the high level monsters would be more important to them, after all there won’t be too many books here that would interest the dwarfs, their main focus was weapons after all.

Tyler didn’t hurriedly pick a book, he casually walk through the library in other to get a better understanding of the place. The hall was large it would take him a while to look through the entire library, it was a shame he wasn’t skilled in using magic, his potential was not even at the Tier 1 standard. Even after trying all he could to learn basic magic spells he couldn’t perform any of the spells, the only reason he had any magic was because of an innate ability he had, Potential Break.

At first he had thought this was a cheat ability he had received for being reincarnated but he later found out that even though it was a unique and rare ability, there were a few people who had innate magic abilities as well, before even learning magic.

An innate ability is a unique ability that is different from each and every other innate ability. It would have been awesome if he was really able to use magic as Potential Break was able to forcefully increase a magic users potential turning a Tier 2 mage or Magic Swordsman into Tier 3. But in the end Tyler could only use it on one person and for only 60 seconds because of his limitations, still this was an incredible ability for his companions which was why he was able to join a relatively strong party and learnt from a Tier 3 Magic Swordsman in other to become a D Ranking Adventurer.

“Sigh… what a shame.” Tyler said as he began to compose himself again, he started walking around the library, he saw various magic books and even Magic scrolls that contain various support type spells, the latter was quite common in the human continent he had quite a few himself when he was an Adventurer, he secretly decided to take as many of them as possible when he leaves the castle, after all the library was too valuable and the books might be easily tracked he didn’t believe he could protect himself if he took a book to sell.

After deliberating about it for sometime, he started walking again to continue his exploration of the library. There were books and scrolls on the shelfs in both sides of the hall. He read the names of each book and even took a look at the scrolls. An hour later, he arrived at a corner of the library. There were no books nor scrolls, the shelfs here contained different types of accessories, artifacts and various items (Possibly magic items). There were rings, bracelets, masks, crystals etc.

The items that were displayed in a magic library would obviously be special, although Tyler was interested in them as he thought he had found a way to be stronger, he still didn’t touch them rashly he had heard of how dangerous magic artifact were, not to mention a magic artifact belonging to the demon King, plus the fact that he couldn’t use appraisal magic.

There were many artifacts on the shelfs about 150, to Tyler’s disappointment there were no weapons, but there was something that caught his attention. It was something he recognized.

It was an orb the size of a volleyball, it was dark in colour like it was absorbing all the light around.

The orb was used to test the magic potential of people, Tyler had used a similar one in his evaluation in the Adventurer Guide, he could still remember the looks of the staff members present in the room when he found out he wasn’t even able to be a Tier 1 Mage

He creased his brows at the thought. ‘Those staffs were totally mocking me weren’t they, it’s not like any of them had a magic potential to brag about. Bunch of dumbasses.’ After cursing at the dead, he thought about using the orb again maybe after so many years his potential had improve a little or whatever kept him alive underground might have done something to improve his potential (Potentials are usually permanent), but he was still a little hesitant, it took him a while to get used to the idea not being able to use magic after being reincarnated to a world with magic, and there have been people along the way who had mocked him for being weak and even told him his innate ability was wasted on him. If he took the test just to be disappointed again he might die from the emotional impact.

It was not a very hard decision to be honest, it wasn’t like he had much to do, and even if it was the same results he was already a warrior swordsman and could still used one of the other artifacts and magic items and crystals to compliment his vast weakness so why not?

Tyler had finally decided to test his potential again after contemplating for a while. His reason was because of the fact that he had no fatigue right now. As a matter of fact his body felt amazingly fit, he had incredible balance and control over all his limbs, he had instinctively assumed that all improvement was related to him being a Swordsman, but he had no idea what happened to him or why his body was in such a great shape, so maybe his magic potential was better now if he can get a Tier 3 potential it would be insane and if he gets the same results as last time, he’ll be fine because of he’s improved physique and more importantly no one else was here.

He then walk to the shelf with the orb and picked it up. Taking a few steps back he concentrated like he had done in the past.

The orb was dark with dots of light gathering in a cluster in the center, in other to use it one must be holding the orb and will their Mana into it. The orb had the characteristics of attracting light out of the atmosphere which are a form of energy as a result it is able to attract the mana from whomever holds it, this makes it easier to sense the Mana within so even a novice would be able to sense his own mana when holding the orb and once the orb contains the Mana the specks of light scatters within it and it in turn glows the more powerful the Mana the more excited the light within is the brighter the orb glows which shows the magic potential of the one holding the orb.

As Tyler held the orb and injected his Mana into the orb he slowly opened his eyes to look at the orb nervously, Crack…

BOOM!

“It exploded?” Tyler stood rooted to the spot as he watched the dust from the shattered orb fly everywhere.

••••••

At the Red River bank.

Rain and Liz where taking turns watching the area while the other gets some rest, Rain was standing a few meters from the camp fire when she sensed something moving within the forest.

*whoosh…

it was fast and agile and she didn’t get a good look at it.

She slowly retreated to where her friend was resting and whispered. “Hey Liz, get up. Prepare to leave we have company the noise will attract other creatures.” She said while tapping her friend’s shoulders while keenly being aware of her surroundings.

Liz got up without saying anything and prepared to leave while being on high alert and ready to provide backup for her friend. Even though her leg wasn’t healed she could use various enhancement spells to regain full control of her body for a while, it was how she made it in the river to begin with. Now that she and her friend had regained some Mana they weren’t afraid of the monsters that patrolled the outer areas of the forest.

As soon as Liz had gotten up though… three flash of light flew at her from the forest at lightning fast speed it was a silvery-white claw shaped energy attack, even though she was expecting an attack she was still a moment too slow to react in time.

“Water Barrier!”

Water drops was extracted from the air as it formed a barrier around Liz at high speed. Tier 2 Elemental magic – Water Barrier. Rain had reacted in time as her left palm that had formed the magic circle was stretched out facing Liz, she instantly raised her right index fingers at the spot the attack had come from and instantly cast a spell.

“Twin Max magic Lightning ricochet!”

Two thick bolts of silver lightning shot out of her finger straight at the spot the monster had attacked from.

whoosh…

The monster instantly left it’s location and appeared to the right of the girls, away from the terrifying attack. It was a silver wolf almost the size of an adult male. It’s eyes glowed with a red luster, his fang were large and sharp and it had a hint of intelligence as he prepared another attack to finish off it’s prey, it had used the silver wolf innate ability °Speed Bust° and successfully evaded it’s prey’s attack.

Thanks to it’s fast reaction and insane speed it had escaped the attack before it even reached him, giving him a chance to finish off it’s prey with it’s next attack. After all, it knew they would not be able to cancel the attack half way through and even if they were able to cast another spell it still had a few more °Speed Bust° in him, it could simply repeat the process.

It’s fur started to stand on end as he prepared for it’s most powerful attack °Rage Destruction° which would enable him to launch an endless barrage of a more powerful and faster version of the previous attack it had used °Silver Claw Slash°.

At that moment though, two thick bolts of sliver lightning struck him right in the head as it streaked through its entire body sending electric current to attack it’s internal organs taking him down in his confusion.

As the silver wolf was overly confident in it’s speed and was in the process of casting a spell of it’s own, it wasn’t able to react at all to the speed and might of the Tier 5 spell – Lightning ricochet. it didn’t notice the magic circle that had appeared in it’s previous location and redirected the two bolt of lightning to him with greater might, in the end it body fell to the ground convulsing.

After seeing her friend’s spell make contact, not taking any chances Liz immediately cast a follow up spell of her own.

“Max magic Ice spikes!”

The moment the magic circle appeared under the silver wolf body, the ground around it froze. In the next second incredibly sharp ice spikes grew from the frozen ground. The convulsing silver wolf stopped breathing.

“Phew… if it was more than one we might have been in trouble. It’s almost Dawn we should start heading for the Demon King’s Castle.” Rain said with relief in her tone, she hadn’t known what kind of monster would come out of the forest, but she could tell it was fast so she made preparation to counter its speed. She hadn’t fully recovered her Mana so she was unable to cast any Tier 6 spell, if the silver wolf was with it’s pack they might have had to retreat into the river and hope no monsters appear.

Liz look at her friend and nodded without saying anything else. After Rain retrieved the wolf’s core and cut out some flesh for their trip, the two women started to walk along the river bank towards the direction of the demon king’s castle.

Some distance away, deep in the Darknar forest, a figure was sitting on the branch of a giant tree with his eyes closed, his right arm on his right knee cap as his right leg was on the tree branch and his left leg swayed below. He slowly opened his eyes and stood up, he turned his head towards the east in the direction of the Demon King’s Castle.

His lips curled up as he smiled and said in a low voice “Interesting.” after the words left his mouth he slowly faded away like an oil painting.