Chapter 5: Xyrus City

Cecil Leywin:

"Urghh..." I slowly regained consciousness, and the memories of the previous event flashed through my head.

Opening my eyes, I was in the carriage, and Mom was asleep while hugging me tightly.

She didn't look good, and I couldn't blame her. While I knew that Arthur survived the fall and would return, she didn't.

Looking down, I saw that my leg was healed, and only my torn pants and dried blood showed I was injured. I also looked at moms wrist and breathed a sigh of relief. In the novel, she tried to kill herself after Arthur fell, but it seems me being here prevented it from happening.

"Cecil, you're awake!" Mom woke up probably due to me moving around and hugged me even tighter with strength that would put an augmenter to shame.

"I'm fine, Mom... Where is everybody?" I asked her.

She looked at me for a while, and I could see the grief in her eyes before she finally spoke.

"Your dad and the Twin Horns are outside, b-but... A-aa-Arthur he..." She couldn't even finish the sentence before she started to cry.

Even if I knew Arthur would return, I didn't want to see Mom like this, but there wasn't much I could do, and a two-year-old saying that his brother was alive wouldn't help but maybe make it even worse.

I saw Dad later, and he was suppressing his grief, trying to console Mom and me.

---

We spent the next few days mostly in silence and arrived at the Grand Mountain, where we used the teleportation gate to Xyrus City.

We separated from the Twin Horns and went directly to the Helstea Mansion, where I met Vincent and Tabita for the first time.

After we arrived, Dad talked with them for some time, and by the looks they had, I easily figured out what they were talking about, but I didn't think about it for now.

Arthur is with Sylvia right now, and I need to get stronger. During the bandit attack, I froze. While this event was something important for the future, me freezing wasn't good.

I wasn't a warrior in my past life... I don't know how to fight, and the reason I can use mana easily is due to having the Legacy powers.

If I didn't have that, the only advantage would be my future knowledge, and with me being here, everything could change. What if Agrona somehow knows I'm reincarnated and have the powers of the Legacy?

What if me being here will make everything even worse?

All the worst-case scenarios flashed through my mind as I stood there.

No... I can't think like that. The only thing I can do now is learning how to use the powers I was given and get strong enough to protect my family.

It's weird how quickly I became attached to them. It could be because, in my past life, I didn't have memories of my parents, and the only person I had was my grandma before she died.

---

Months went by, and during this time, I spent most of the time with Mom or training in my room.

Mom and Aunt Tabitha became friends quickly, which was a good source of distraction from what happened.

But back to my training, I wanted to learn some abilities that would be useful in the future, and to my surprise, they were easy to recreate.

While I awakened as an augmenter, the ability to easily manipulate the atmospheric mana allowed me to use it similarly to a conjurer. However, unlike a conjurer, I don't need to supplement my mana core with the mana from the outside instead, I manipulate the mana directly in the atmosphere.

This would give me a significant advantage during fights if I could create a fighting style by combining augmenting and my conjuring-like mana manipulation.

This isn't something people would do even when their core progress and the difference between the two becomes smaller because, at that time, they are already used to relying on one over the other.

Not to mention that I should be able to use the other deviants like plants and magma but back to the spells I learned.

The first was Mana Rotation, which allows someone to continuously absorb mana from the atmosphere while moving or in combat. Thanks to my strong connection with Mana, it took me under an hour to use but was harder to focus while trying to do another spell.

The other was Mirage Walk, which allowed me to hide my mana presence by balancing the mana output from my core through my mana channels and the mana intake through my mana veins.

The last one took me much longer but was the most powerful. With the help of fire attribute mana, I can burn away the impurities from my core and help me or someone else progress faster.

I tried to use the deviant forms of magic but haven't figured out how to change regular mana to deviant mana, so it's something I would need to figure out next.

---

I spent most of my training on the fire purification technique. After my core broke into dark red, the process became easier, probably due to the improved mana connection I got after breaking through.

My guess is that the slightly purer mana in my body helped me understand the mana more, making it easier to manipulate it.

If that's true, then I can't wait to see what I will be able to do when I reach the white core or even the Integration Phase.

But ever since reincarnating here, I felt I was missing something. At first, I thought it was me not having a Mana Core, but even after creating one, I still have this feeling. What could it be?

"Dig in." Mom said and placed a pot with beef stew on the table.

"Thanks, Mom," I said with a small smile and started eating.

As we started eating the stew, we heard a voice that made Dad drop the spoon he held.

'Hi Mom, Dad, Cel... It's me, Arthur. You're probably surprised you hear my voice inside your head, huh? Well, there's a reason for that. But, before that, I want you to know I'm alive and safe...

I managed to survive the fall off the cliff, and I'm currently living in the Kingdom of Elenoir with the elves. So please don't tell anyone else this...

I don't have much time, so I'll only say the most crucial things. A friend of mine is a deviant like you Mom, except she's a diviner. That's how I'm able to talk to you guys...

I want to return to you as fast as possible, but I can't now. I'm safe, but I have a sort of, illness inside my body that I need to get rid of before coming back. So don't worry, as long as I stay here and have the elves treat me, I'm 100% okay.

So don't worry, and Cel, keep our little sibling safe, especially from the boys if it's a girl, and mom, make sure dad doesn't get into trouble.'

"You just heard that voice now, too, right? Please tell me that it wasn't just me that heard his voice..." Mom said in a desperate voice, on the verge of crying.

"Yeah... I just heard Art's voice." Dad said, still shocked by it.

"He's alive... Arthur is alive!" Mom said as she fell on her knees crying, but this time, she had a real smile, something I hadn't seen since the accident.

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Authors Note:

Thank you for reading this chapter.

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