The Empire though a few centuries old, is rather young. There are great structures and buildings all around the world that tell the tale of a great nation before the Empire.

The scholars couldn’t figure out the cause behind the disappearance of the nation. They only know that something caused all the people to move out of cities and wander, leading to the wandering period. It is believed that the wandering period lasted for at least a couple of generations by the end of which the people had all but forgotten about the nation; later these people settled back in the cities and laid the foundation of the empire.

No one has been able to figure out what caused the great migration in the first place. There were unverified theories, nothing concrete. Someone said it was a plague; others blamed a natural disaster, an earthquake, or a volcanic eruption. One even went as far as to say a piece of the moon fell on land and started the migration.

The notes I picked up talked about another conjecture, a completely befuddling one. They said the cause was neither a disaster nor a plague, but an invasion of a different race it termed Rakkhaso. There was a war and the great nation lost, leading to the great migration.

—The Witch

Mannat grabbed the bulbous crystal atop the Witch’s staff, his fingers wrapped around it. It was cold and showed no reaction to his touch. So he expected.

He was calm, heart rate low. Mind focused. He was actively ‘meditating’ since he no longer needed to sit down and concentrate. He had taken to keep the skill activated if he could since it did more good than harm. The skill-induced calmness had the effect of blocking his emotion, but that had little impact on his daily life.

Pandit especially liked him that way, since he could make fun of him and get away with it – most of the time.

“Yes, take all the time you want. There is no hurry — none whatsoever.”

The sarcasm dripping words opened a chink in Mannat's mental fortress. He didn’t react but moved on to doing other things.

He first ‘examined’ the staff despite knowing its name. Yes, the skill worked where Inspect had failed to tell him anything about the staff or the tree. He had formed the habit to use the skill whenever he could to speed up its evolution. He even had the excuse that the skill had recently leveled up and was wondering if that would have some effect on its ability.

[Key][Staff][Tool]

[It’s the key to a secret magical place.]

There was no change. Well, so be it. Guess, even the second tier ‘examine’ couldn’t tell him more about it – how it was made, what it does. So be it. The skill wasn’t a complete failure. Unlike ‘inspect’, which could barely reveal other's names and occupations, ‘examine’ revealed all of their personal information – including their attributes and skills. Though powerful, it was not omnipotent. Its failure was proof that a better skill existed beyond it, which might have the ability to see through all secrets and illusions. For now, Mannat was content with what he had.

He had asked the Witch how the staff worked and she had told him to figure it out himself, like always.

Mana moved from his heart and flowed into the veins under his control. He no longer needed to use the skill ‘mana strike’ as a proxy to move his mana from the heart to the palm of his hand. Cultivation opened that path to him. The result was that he could attack with a 'mana strike' from any part of his body.

Can you fart one out? That was Pandit’s first question after seeing him conjuring one from his mouth. It was a special situation; the demon had him pinned to the wall and he couldn’t reach it with his hands.

Anyways, ‘mana strike’ was still his only skill to expel mana from his body. ‘Cultivation’ allowed him to move mana inside his body, but it was a slow process, too slow to have any practical significance on how he used ‘Mana strike’. The previously explained situation was the only time Mannat had ever conjured a mana ball at any other place except the palm of his hand.

He stood with purpose as mana gathered at the palm of his hand. The staff represented a challenge that Mannat needed to face to cure his mother. It was one of the last few obstacles on his path. Being able to open the underground chamber meant the end would be in sight. He might not be able to cure Noor right away, but it would represent hope, an achievable chance.

Mannat didn’t let the mana gather coalesce and pushed it into the staff, much like he would to a vegetable from the Witch’s garden. The only difference was that his mana faced no resistance seeping into the dark crystal globe. He held his breath, sensed the flow and movement of his mana. 'Mana vision' might be a more convenient tool as it provided a visual aid, but this work was for his senses. He simply couldn’t see the mana moving inside the staff.

The staff gathered his mana to open a ‘mana channel’ and then greedily sucked his mana through it. Mannat would have never understood the truth behind the phenomenon if he hadn’t learned the skill.

More important than knowing what was happening was to learn how it was happening? And if it was possible to replicate the effect.

Mannat had been wondering for quite some time if it was possible to make people interested to improve their mental attributes since it was easier for people with the shallow mental capacity to turn into demons. The staff, especially the mana channel that could forcibly absorb others mana gave him an idea of how to make people realize the importance of mana.

People weren’t interested in mental attributes since they and didn’t have a use for mana in their daily lives.

The villagers had shunned him because of his mental attributes. People didn’t care about his circumstances, they only knew that he was a failure because of his lacking physical attributes.

Yes, He could have been a scholar, a merchant, or a scribe, but the majority drives people's perception, and the majority of the poor children like Mannat had failed to achieve anything in life. It was no wonder the villagers called him a freak and stayed away from him.

This was why he smiled. He might just have found a way to change people's perspectives of those like him and get them interested in mana at the same time. However, it was not yet time to worry about this thing.

The staff glowed in a dull oceanic blue. He knew what was coming next.

Mannat focused his senses as his mana flowed down the mana channel and filled impossible troughs gorged deep in its marrow. The hieroglyphs or runes were unlike anything he had ever seen anywhere before; connected together they formed a circle with an inverted star at the center. They had a charm to them that was hard to explain, and invoked a feeling of worship inside Mannat.

He had never managed to light up the complete circular spell before as he’d always run out of mana. The result would be an outward explosion of the accumulated mana, much like his skill ‘mana strike’ but with the force equally spread in a spherical radius around the staff. Otherwise, he would have been blasted into smithereens the last couple of times he had tried to open the chamber.

The Witch had stayed true to her words. She never opened the chamber for him. It was not only his father who hadn’t seen his wife. Mannat hadn’t seen his mother either, and the longing did make him desperate. While he knew the truth about her condition, his father had nothing but his son’s groundless words to believe. Raesh had latched onto those words –no matter how vague and timid— with belief and hope, but a year of time was long enough to crumble he believes and destroy his hopes. They were both wrecks in a way. Only Mannat hadn’t stopped believing yet.

He didn’t know where he’d be if it wasn’t for the urge to reach the end that kept welling inside him and pushing him forward.

Sweat dripped from his forehead. The shirt stuck to his body as the staff sucked his mana at a rapidly increasing pace. The runic circle continued lighting up and becoming whole. By now, three runes were glowing with mana. At 200 points of mana, the resulting explosion would not be an innocent one. He hadn’t forgotten that his cultivation had just leveled up and had once again strengthened his mana.

Mannat turned his focus back to the runes. He understood neither their purpose nor meaning. He would ‘compute’ an answer for the former, which he would do later when he had ample free time; the latter was impossible to figure out without help and thus meaningless in the short run.

He kept a firm hold on the buzzing staff, unsure whether to give up or keep going. The staff was creating quite a commotion unlike whenever the Witch used it to open the underground chamber. Yes, he was comparing himself to the Witch and losing spectacularly. Mannat had an understanding of the cause of the disturbance. His inefficient control over mana meant the staff couldn’t absorb all of it, causing the shaking, the buzzing, and the tingling. He hated that it was causing all the hair of his body to stand up straight and making his ears and nose… well, about every hole itch.

The process went on for quite a long time. He questionably glanced at the Witch a few times to get some answers, but she ignored him as if he was just another bee in her hair. It was no wonder he started feeling something was amiss. Just when his heart started beating in anxiousness and he wondered if he’d fail again and started preparing to save his neck somehow, the staff hummed. Mannat sensed the complete runic circle light up before the mana channel between them broke. He stepped back in delayed shock as the humming intensified and its globular head lit up like a lone moon in a starless sky.

Mannat pulled his hand back and watched with his eyes wide open, heart thrumming and breath held. A shrinking ring of blue mana shot from the staff’s head. He followed the energy wave as it sunk into the ground, flowed into a glowing root connected to the bottom of the staff —the reason he always failed to budge it— and entered the tree.

He had always wanted to know why the staff that looked nothing more than a bedazzled cane could move the earth. Correction: it could only command the tree and not do anything else.

The system named it key for a reason.

“I did it!” Mannat mumbled first as a question, then cried out in joy by raising clenched fists to the air when the quakes shook the ground.

“You better take a few steps back or the tides will sweep you off your feet and bury you alive.” The Witch reminded harshly.

She had deliberately been a bit late with the warning. Enthralled by the happiness of getting past the largest obstacle, it was reasonable that he didn’t pay attention to the aftermath of his success – the chamber opening. A tide of cold, freezing mana blew out of the ground with the quake and filled Mannat’s surroundings. The cold dagger shook the smile off Mannat’s face and forced him to face the situation developing in front of him.

The ground cracked open. Glowing roots dug out from underground, twisting and rising, destroying everything in their path. Dirt splashed around. The quaking intensified. Mannat ran away from the tree cursing himself for forgetting about it. He barely stepped aside and dodged a group of pointed roots spike out from under his last position. They would have skewered him alive if he hadn’t moved in time. He fell, picked himself up, and moved away from the tree. He somehow made it to the rear as the ground sunk and a dark grave opened in the ground behind him.

“So much for teaching you vigilance,” The Witch lamented and glared at him with her beady yellow eyes. “I should have beaten some common sense into you first.”

“I did it!” Mannat told the Witch. He ignored the disappointment in her voice, the twitching of her lips, her glare. Nothing could faze him. Yes, he almost got hurt, but so what? It was worth it. It was so worth it! He would no longer need to please the Witch to see his mother. Unless, she took the staff; then he would have to do her bidding; it was the key, after all.

The open door to the chamber was the proof of his progress. Fate had thrown him around for long enough. Now, he had a say in his destiny. He finally had the means to cure his mother.

Mannat got to his feet and dusted his clothes. He didn’t rush into the underground chamber to see his mother, but ‘Examined’ himself first. His mana was hovering near the low twenties; he was mentally exhausted, nerves strained from the forced suction they had to endure. He had surprisingly also used a third of his stamina… to stand and hold the staff for a few minutes of time.

It was to survive, fool. Mannat complained to his inner voice.

Most importantly, he didn’t suffer from any permanent ailment. Good. Now he could get on with the next part – the important part.

“Why aren’t you rushing into the grave like a chick separated from its mother?” The Witch said. “Don’t care to see if she’s alive or dead?”

His mother was alive. He knew. “Will the door close independently?” Mannat asked.

“Worried that I’ll close it behind you?”

Mannat shook his head. It had been a year. He had adapted to her sarcasm. She was a constant barrage of evil thoughts that one learns to either ignore or get buried under. He had wondered if there was a reason behind her behavior, a method to her madness if it was an elaborate hoax to teach him something or help him in some way. The result was that his computing improved by a level. He hadn’t figured out her play, but he was on to something.

Mannat exhaled a deep sigh and went into the garden to get another batch of vegetables to replenish his mana.

“Don’t be a fool. You are in no shape to help your mother.” The Witch told him.

“I’ll never know until I try,” Mannat said before putting his attention back to the tomatoes. There was a group of five tomatoes hanging from the plant in front of him. He remembered the first time he had tried to get one from the garden, only to have it explode in his hand. A year had passed in between and a lot had changed. Mannat grabbed one of the fruits and picked it up in one sleek motion. The tomato didn’t explode but retained its red color and mouthwatering appearance. He took a bite. Its tangy flavor filled his mouth when he chewed.

He rarely used them to cook a meal anymore since cooking them burned most of the mana stored in the vegetables. A sacrifice he had to make. The mana stored inside the vegetables was the reason he had grown up so quickly. His skills would have trailed far behind without them, especially his ‘mana strike’. ‘Meditation’ alone would have only allowed him to use the skill five or six times a day after spending his nights gathering mana. He would have grown tired of that lifestyle after a while.

It was no wonder the Empire had only seen a handful of magicians since its establishment, and the youngest among them was half a century old. The reason it took them such a long time to become magicians had a lot to do with their skills.

The Empire had never witnessed the birth of someone born with the combination of skill purely feeding the two mental attributes. That’s how special Mannat was, and why the Witch had told him it was his fate to be a magician.

“You don’t need the vegetables. Try to look beyond what your eyes show. You can directly open a ‘mana channel’ with the roots.” The witch said and Mannat stopped whatever he was doing and looked at her foolishly.

“I can do that?”

“Do you need me to hold your hand and show you how to do it?”

Mannat’s lips spread thin. He looked at the half-eaten tomato in his hand and took another bite. There was no need to waste the fruit…

He left the garden. His heart was beating like a drum when he went past the Witch. The anxiousness was coming back around now that he was going to see his mother. A year had passed. He hoped his mother was all right.