7 Chapter 7: A Close Call

"Huff… Huff…"

The familiar surroundings and sensations pulled me out of my immersion. Moments ago, I was about to die. Right, that sensation of death coming closer to my neck sent me to another wave of chills.

Then… I used my cheat to turn back time–the time of my state–to thirty minutes ago. With that, I am successfully pulled out from the jaws of death. Still, I could not get rid of that scary feeling.

My body continuously trembled. My knees became weak whenever I thought of standing up. My hands are also shaking visibly when I placed them on my knees.

For a moment, I thought of staying like this. But, that monster might still be here.

In the end, my fear of that monster overcame these remnant feelings. I managed to stand back up, albeit my legs almost gave in again.

"Eek..!"

That sensation of its metallic claws digging deep into your flesh is not something I would forget easily. I could still remember my left arm separating from my body and creating an arc of blood that stained my face. Even when I saw that it is restored–including my clothes–it is a sensation marked deep within my memories.

I ran away in the opposite direction of it. It did not matter how far I am from our house. The most important thing is to get out of there.

After running for a while, I found myself back in the original alley where everything started. There, I saw a horrendous scene of carnage. The gray walls were now painted red. Some flesh whom I presume belongs to that magician is attached to it.

My eyes widened before the contents of my stomach rose.

"Urgh..!"

I covered my mouth and swallowed it to prevent myself from vomiting. I could not leave any traces here, never!

While my thoughts are more hectic than before, I retained my sharpness. If I left anything that would point out my existence here, I don't know if I will be tracked by other magicians. Even, they could have something that would enable them to see the past events of this place!

'Shit.'

I realized that from the moment I stepped into this place, I am already screwed. There is no such thing as a lucky encounter, only misfortune that can bring my life to the bottom in an instant.

'Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!!!'

I punched the wall out of frustration. My fist reddened as a result of it, but my anger overrode everything.

'Wait.'

Suddenly, I had a thought. If they do have something like that, won't my cheat be able to negate it? It was only when I almost died did I know that my cheat had more uses. It could target 'things' and revert their states up to ten years ago. A good example of that is my body.

If… If I could revert time to when that magician is still alive, these traces would disappear!

I checked the time on my wristwatch. 3:55 PM, huh? When I was chasing after him, it is only 3:52 PM. Only three minutes had passed when those absurd events happened.

'I need to target two 'things'. The alley… and the magician.'

I chose the alley to erase my presence from before. As for the magician, I could see that the magician's everything is destroyed. It is disgusting to look at so I averted my sight away from him. The smell of blood–iron–still exists, but I am not to the point of vomiting.

Anyways, saving his life is one thing. His belongings that I need to "get" is also gone.

I saw a torn pouch not far from his… corpse. That might contain the secrets behind magic.

Since I am restoring the state of his belongings, I decided to include him as well. I… I still can't leave someone behind if I could do something.

'Modify the state of the target to 5 minutes ago?'

I held a piece of his flesh. It is necessary to activate my cheat.

'Confirm.'

With one thought of mine, I saw the blood in the alley disappear. There are no special effects that occurred. What was left is the magician heaving heavy breaths while unconscious. Wounds are scattered throughout his body, but it is not as lethal as before.

"Um…"

I gulped after seeing how powerful my cheat is. It could bring a dead person back to life. What is the mechanics behind it?

One item was left behind without the gore: a torn silver pouch. After using my cheat to reverse time, I was left with its repaired version.

'Huh…'

I pulled the silver chain that sealed the pouch. I expected to feel a small space in it, but I was wrong. I moved my hand inside it and felt quite a large space inside.

Based on my touch, I felt books, some glass vials, and…

"Smartphone?"

I pulled it out and saw a sleek black smartphone. It is similar to the phones in 2015... which should be impossible now that it's only 2012.

"Magic accelerated the technological advances..."

Without a doubt, magic could have done that.

I checked his smartphone.

For some reason, it wasn't locked. I unlocked it after a swipe.

'What is here..?'

I started rummaging through it. I know that I could not bring it home because there might be a tracker in it. Only god knows how meticulous are those magicians in their belongings.

'Apps, none. Images… His girlfriend? Meh. Videos… The documents..!'

In his file manager, I saw a huge amount of .pdf files.

[Elementalfusion.pdf]

[Visualization.pdf]

[Fifthelement.pdf]

…

I saw dozens of such files.

Ba-dump-!

Ba-dump-!

'I…It would be a waste if I leave this..!'

Immediately, I thought of a solution: my cheat. When I thought of it, that familiar feeling of itch in my chest appeared.

'Modify the learning time of 'Magic' to ten years later?'

"Here. Here. It is here!"

Without hesitation, I thought hard about confirming.

…

Magic. It is the manipulation of phenomena through the five elements: fire, earth, water, wind, and conceptual void. They are the cornerstone of magic.

Meanwhile, mana, sometimes called ether, is the mysterious "source" of power that could be found in the atmosphere. It existed everywhere, yet only the qualified can sense it. Other than that, there are two other words related to it–astral bodies and spirits.

The process of using magic is generalized in four parts: composition of magic, expansion of formula, the bestowal of intent, and the effect during the invocation. In this world, magic is now modernized, albeit not greatly. Its underlying principles are taught in a way that can be easily understood in the current age.

Magic does not work as simply as the other works of fiction in this world. It does not work just by shouting "Fireball!"

First of all, you have to know the composition of the spell/magical technique that needs to be cast. Each has a section for protection, defenses, transfer, discharge, and so on. This gives magicians the ability to discern the purpose of a magic circle whenever they see one.

Next is the expansion of the formula. This involves the knowledge of "truth". Magicians utilize their scientific knowledge and apply their understanding of each phenomenon to the spells that they will cast. Then, arithmetic will be used to approximate its other important details—the size, power, energy conversion, and so on.

The third step is to highlight the "intent" of each spell. It uses visualization to further enhance the power of its outputs. The first two steps serve as the foundation while the third step emphasizes its purpose.

Lastly, the invocation of magic via chanting. The interference in the natural phenomena will show up. It is visual as one could see the formation of a fireball or a shield made up of mana.

Arithmetic will be used again to estimate the exact position of the spell/magical techniques' output. It is derived from the method of approximating the distance of stars. In simpler terms, Magicians can deduce the type of spell that was used with their honed observation.

These are the fundamentals…

…

"..."

I am speechless. This huge amount of information that entered my head feels unnatural for a moment. I did not have any adverse effects, though my thoughts were halted to make way for this huge chunk of information.

What's more horrifying is that… I focused more on memorizing the contents of his smartphone instead of going in-depth. After doing so, I started studying the fundamentals in-depth. The shortening of verses during the invocation, the optimization of the mana-to-spell ratio…

"...Crap."

I slapped myself really hard to wake up from that dream-like state. That feeling of floating into the sea of knowledge is just… intoxicating.

Now that I am back to reality, I continued my plan of action. Applying what I learned just now, I untied the small black bag that I got earlier. From what I know, this is a magic tool that expanded the space inside through the application of conceptual void. It roughly has a dimension of 5-by-5 which can fit me inside of it. There are more precious types of this, too. There are ones that have the dimensions of a 10-by-10 storage unit.

After I spent ten years studying such magic, I knew that there are also more precious books inside this bag, but I'll explore them later.

"I need to leave."

All that I could hear is the soft breathing of the magician as I ran away.

*****

"Urgh…"

The magician groggily woke up from his slumber. What greeted his sight is the dusty and cold-hard floor of the alleyway. He saw that it is already nighttime as the stars twinkled now and then.

"What…"

His last recollection is being severely beaten by a demon. Because he was sneak-attacked by it, his combat effectiveness was greatly reduced before the fight.

This made it so that he, a second-class magician (Rank B), could not beat a demon on the same level.

Magicians are people who had done a plethora of preparations for all situations, thus they can easily eliminate demons of the same combat power as them. This aspect is even more exaggerated for the first-class magicians and the ones above them, the tactical-class magicians; also dubbed "Great Scholars". These people are the ones who are the closest to the "truth".

Of this blunder, he is very embarrassed of himself. He anticipated all sorts of danger when he chose to investigate the mysterious phenomena in this area that made its mana levels peak–its level being comparable to the world's most potent mana-rich places.

At first, he thought that another soul vein was born in this place. But his investigations for two days did not yield any results. Just as he was about to do another round of his analysis, he was targeted by that strong demon. He could fight evenly with it, but its surprise attack "nearly" took his life.

In the last two days, he killed more than half a dozen of them. This made him think that they are also attracted to that phenomenon.

"I…I'm still alive?"

The first thing that he did is to instinctively pull out a restoration vial as his mana was drained. However, he could not grab anything from his inner pockets. He hastily looked at his other pockets, only to feel that he did not have any of his possessions save for his phone.

"What did just happen…"

In his mind, the first thing to do is to recover his mana. As long as he can cast spells, he can handle most of the danger in this place. With that, he pushed his confusion to the back of his mind and quietly left the alleyway.