Abuse of Magic

Chapter 36: The days following the attack

"I'm sorry Master William, we don't know how he survived. None of our spells were doing any good, and yet he is recovering amazingly fast." The two healers that were in the caravan looked mystified as they tried to explain to his father their findings.

Joseph knew it was only because of his Breath ability, which he had just finished prior to the attack, that had saved his life. The realization that his training had saved his life, made his obsession at getting it done faster, more powerful.

(YOU MAY NEED TO BE CAREFUL, YOU ARE TEMPTINGLY CLOSE TO OBTAINING AN OBSESSION DISADVANTAGE)

"Would it help me finish my magic training faster?" asked Joseph, curiously.

(YES, BUT IT WOULD BE HORRIBLY INCONVENIENT TO GET RID OF WHEN YOU NEEDED TO DO ANYTHING ELSE)

Ah, he understood. He would have to break it up a bit more to make sure that the system didn't award him with it. He wanted to be the Mage King, not the mage.

It took two more days to finish training gaze but it was amazing. He didn't think humans normally saw this color.

(CORRECT, YOU HAVE LEARNED AN ABILITY SIMILAR TO THE SPELL MAGE SIGHT. IT FUNCTIONS SIMILARLY TO THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PASSIVE AND ACTIVE RADAR IN YOUR PREVIOUS WORLDS. IT IS COMPLETELY UNDETECTABLE BY MAGES BELOW THE MASTER LEVELS AND DIFFICULT FOR EVEN THEM.)

Wow. Joseph could see something like an aura around people. Stella's was amazing. So was his dad's. Others were a mix. His etiquette teacher had almost no aura but Stella's dagger instructor had an aura almost as strong as his dad's weakest healer.

The color, maybe shade, no it's a little differentanyway, it was slightly different from anything he had ever encountered before.

(MAGERY IS VISIBLE BUT SO ARE MAGICAL ABILITIES, TECHNIQUES, BLOODLINES, ETC.)

Though all were different, well, something about them. It took a couple of hours of comparing to note the differences. As he wandered along the caravan, he found that about 1 in every 10 of the slaves had something magical about them. Of which, only about a third had magery at any level. Two-thirds were at magery 0 and one-third at magery 1.

He hadn't found a magery 2 person, other than William's strongest healer. He bet Selena would be magery 2 or higher, though. Essentially 1% of his dad's slaves had magery 1, 2% had magery 0, and 7% had some combination of magical bloodline, inherent magical ability, or trained knowingly in a magical technique. Dad had thousands of slaves. If all of his towns were like this caravan Joseph would be able to get plenty of apprentice mages!

For now, he got with his dad to tell him of all the slaves he had found with magery. William and Stella were as stunned as he had been to find so many.

"I guess it's going to be your job to check over each incoming child now. I'll need to know which ones have magic of any kind."

"At least, until you figure out how to see that yourself," said Joseph with a smile.

His dad chuckled, but didn't deny it.

Joseph found that his visual perception with mage sight increased ridiculously. He could see even the smallest particles of mana. One of the new babies had a magic bloodline and he swore he could see faintly fluttering wings. He'll have to see what he could do about awakening bloodlines of people, when he got the chance to stop somewhere for a while. Maybe in a couple of years?

"Stella?"

"Yes, Master Joseph?" She looked up from twirling her dagger between her fingers, and went to flipping it between her fingers as she looked at him.

"I think you may have fey blood in you. I don't think it is quite elf, though I can't be sure yet. Your aura looks kind of like your ears should be longermaybe?"

Stella stiffened. The dagger stopped moving, and she just looked at him, blankly.

"I'm sorry. That probably came off as very rude."

'Ah there I go putting my foot in my mouth again. Way to go. Just casually mention your best friend isn't human.' He thought as he looked down in embarrassment, and missed the hint of a smile she quickly hid.

"Um, I don't think it's a problem or anythingI mean, it's kind of cool, right? Er. I'm going to be quiet again. Sorry." He glanced back up, long enough to see that she had changed her position in order to flip the knife back and forth between her hands.

Sometimes, he couldn't tell if when he said something, if she was stunned, or just gave him that awkward pause on purpose.

Six more days passed and he was gradually feeling more human again. Jet had reached intermediate. They had to set aside a more private area for him to practice. He could control the mana, but no spells, so there wasn't any force to it. His sword instructor started branching out into whips, bladed gauntlets, and spiked pads so he could get a feel for them. Maybe he would find something he was really good at, in order to train with them.

His instructor, father and he all shared the same opinion, that swords may be noble, but he still needed the practice as a mage. One hour of sword practice was with actual swords and one was split between the other techniques now. He still spent an hour dancing with Stella and another in etiquette, though much of it had moved on to history and heraldry instead of just dinning and greetings. Stella seemed to have gotten the perfect memory, too, so their lessons were speeding up incredibly. The instructor was beside herself trying to come up with new things to teach them.

Dreams started occurring again, but the System seemed to be focusing on good memories. Joseph wasn't sure he could handle anything not happy at the moment. There had to be some good memories in that life or he would have probably killed himself.

He was getting towards the end of his previous life, in a dream, when suddenly, Stella shook him awake. She had a bit of trouble. Just because he only needed three hours of sleep, didn't mean he was also a light sleep.

"Master, a runner arrived just a short while ago. I thought you might want to know."

"What kind of runner?" He was immediately alert, since everyone was on edge after the attempted assassination/kidnapping/poisoning.

"An alarm wasn't sounded, so it's probably nothing, but this wasn't a messenger like your father has been normally getting. It looked like the man came from the town up ahead, that was our next destination."

"Alright, see what you can find out, and let me know."

She nodded, and left quickly. He watched her leave, and realized she was getting really good at not making any noise as she came and went. Thinking back, he remembered when it started, about the same time he gave her the system. Could it be related to her memories? Had she been an assassin or something in her previous life?

As much as he wanted to know, he also knew that he needed another hour of sleep. So, settling back down into his covers, he drifted off.