Arin then suddenly wakes up and pulled out the two books the old man had given him: What is Magic? and World of Body and Mind.
Both were thick and aged, bound in a dark leather-like material with golden script etched across their surfaces. But something immediately struck Arin as odd. The name of the author was the same on both books, but it was written in an unfamiliar language—symbols that seemed to shimmer and shift, as though alive. Try as he might, he couldn't decipher the name.
He chose to begin with What is Magic? and settled into the quiet corner of his small room, the scent of boiled herbs wafting in from the kitchen. The words on the pages seemed ordinary at first, but as he read deeper, they took on a luminous clarity. Each paragraph unraveled the very fundamentals of magic: what it was, why it existed, and what role it played in the balance of the world.
"Magic," the book read, "is not a force but a frequency. A whisper shared between nature and will."
He read how mana was not just energy, but intention given form. That magic's true purpose was not destruction or spectacle but harmony, evolution, and understanding. Spells weren't merely tricks but expressions of one's inner self. And more importantly, the book claimed that the magic core was not the origin, but the mirror.
Arin closed his eyes, and the words began to take shape in his mind. With years of focused meditation and martial arts training behind him, he had long trained himself to visualize muscle movements, pressure points, and spatial awareness. Now, that same skill helped him grasp the flow of mana in the imagery the book conveyed. He saw rivers of light coursing through invisible channels, swirling in the air and rooting deep into the earth.
A question kept rising in his mind: If I don't have magic, how am I seeing this? How did I use that artifact so well?
But the book didn't give direct answers. It taught frameworks, not formulas. Understanding would have to be earned through reflection.
Hours passed. The sun dipped behind the horizon. When Arin finally closed the book, his mind felt stretched, full of revelations he didn't yet know how to piece together. But one thing was certain: his earlier belief that magic was a tool only usable through artifacts was no longer convincing. There was something inside him—something perhaps unawakened.