A spit full of dirt fell out of Yovan's mouth when he woke up. He wiped his lips, taking his time to scan his surroundings. Once he made sure he was in no immediate danger, he got up and cleaned his clothes with his dirty hands. It was more a statement to himself than actually cleaning, but he felt it was an important ritual. He still remembered everything from yesterday. The hunger, despair, his lost self, his promise… All was still there, filtered and ingrained inside him. He knew what he needed to do, and if he dies, he dies. He strode back towards the city. No mistakes anymore.

Yovan needed to get out of the country as fast as possible. But first, he needed to learn to survive with this new "curse". It was impossible to store magical essence, so he would need to find monsters at least once a week. This will be his ritual. The path to defeating the hero-mages will be a long one, but he had nothing else to live for. In a way, it was better for him that a long journey was ahead of him.

Unlike yesterday, the streets were barren. People were leaving, their carts full of everything they could carry. For Yovan, this meant easier navigation through the city. Finding a decent leatherworker or a weaponsmith was a challenge. In the end, he settled for a black rhino leather armor, reinforced with protection against death and earth magic. For weapons he acquired a short sword, enchanted with fire magic, and a yew bow. And he added a couple of healing and stamina potions. In total he spent three gold coins on his new equipment and had two more to spend. He had gaping holes in his knowledge, unacceptable in his current predicament. His mind was a tool as much as his body. If he was going to survive he couldn't allow any uncertainties.

The scholars quarter was eerily close to the palace, that was why Yovan chose dusk to finalize his shopping spree. In the basement of a ruined two-story building, he found a bookstore. A poignant smell of dust and old paper came out of the room as he opened the front door. The picture inside matched the smell. A dim-lit room, with books on the shelves and tables, carefully arranged with a delicate touch and cold but dry, rock floor. There was no sound, not even the outside world disturbed the tranquil grove of books.

"Is anyone here?" asked Yovan.

There was a rumble behind the shelves and a silent cursing. An old man appeared, his left arm on his back and his right holding a magic lamp. He slogged through the room until he came a couple of steps from his guest.

"I apologize, I dozed off. I wasn't expecting visitors. How can I help you?"

"I need 'Encyclopedia Magicka', some books on combat magic and countering magic, and also a book on non-magic abilities. I will also require life and water spell scrolls."

"Hrmph. That's a lot of books. I think I have them somewhere here." The librarian disappeared slowly behind one of the shelves. "Strange you are buying so many books, are you maybe leaving? Everyone is leaving these days. My daughter and her husband packed and took off yesterday. Took the children with them also. They went to Lovorkozoru. It's in the Necromancer's domain, but they say it's too far away, so the Necromancer mostly leaves them alone."

Yovan searched the place, looking for anything useful. Most were non-magic books, memoirs, poetry, but there were some that could interest him once he required advanced knowledge. Maybe a book on strategy or subterfuge could be useful. The sound of books falling to the floor interrupted his perusal. The librarian coughed and swore under his chin.

"When you're old you can't do anything right. If I were younger maybe I would've gone with them. Now, the trip would be too difficult on these old bones. I've never been outside of Kamenar if you would believe it. Fourth-generation that owned this store. Heh, it is sad it will come to an end after me. Where will you go?"

"No idea."

"Heh, young people. Never mind where we're going as long as we're moving. They say generations are different. No, people are the same, it's the times that are wicked, I tell you. It's easy to be respectful when everything is given to you. I would've loved to see my generation in these times. They would've pulled out each other's eyes in an instant. For spell scrolls, are you looking for healing or purification spells?"

"No, combat life and water. Energy blast, ice lance, water fist…"

"Ah, I see. I guess no one is interested in healing anymore. That's too bad. You never know when you will need a healing when you're off adventuring. One misstep and you get wounded or cursed or worse."

"I have potions for that…"

"People don't respect the healing enough these days. Did you know in my time, one of the strongest adventurers, Rino Tariman, knew only healing spells! It's hard to believe, I know, but it's the truth. In a fight, he would let his opponent hurt him and he would just heal any damage. You throw a fireball at him, he heals, you hit him with a wind fist, he heals again. And battles would last until his opponent was completely exhausted. When he couldn't stand anymore from all the spells he's cast, then Rino would simply come up and wrestle him down. He was a really big guy. His arm was as big as your leg. But it probably wouldn't work today. Spells were much weaker in my days. Now your average elemental mage would probably blow Rino's head with a single spell. Mages are too powerful today, that's true as well."

The librarian appeared before Yovan with a couple of books and a bundle of spell scrolls in his arms. He laid them out on the floor like a mother goose. He took the biggest book and presented it to Yovan.

"Encyclopedia Magicka. For combat magic, I have Rivelle's 'Not a second too late: a guide to offensive and defensive magic'. Magic counters is a somewhat esoteric subject, but Pakonovich is considered the greatest expert in the field. He's not the best writer, so his 'Everything mages don't want you to know about countering magic' might be difficult to read, but I doubt you'll find anywhere greater knowledge on this. For non-magic abilities, I only have 'Southern blocks, northern attacks' by Dandilo Remecci. Non-magic abilities are best developed through practice anyways, books are just to give you an idea. And here are two energy blasts, one ice lance, and one water fist."

"Sure. So how much is all that?"

The librarian started mumbling, seemingly calculating everything.

"In total, for all of this… Thirteen silver and twelve bronze coins."

Yovan took out two more books that grabbed his attention, on subterfuge and strategy, and put them down next to others.

"How about I take these two as well and we make it fifteen silver coins."

The librarian put his hands up, like he was surrendering.

"Sounds like a deal."

Yovan shook the librarian's hand and put all of his newly acquired books into his bag. He turned and walked up the stairs, grabbing the handle of the door.

"Be sure to come by again anytime if you need anything. I'll add a special discount for you."

"Sure. I'll drop by again."

This time Yovan picked a different tavern. There was no point in taking unnecessary risks. And he will need only one night anyways. There weren't many guests, so he got the room for almost nothing plus he had all the peace and quiet he wanted. He took out a map first. He needed somewhere where he could lay low. Warlock's and Mentalist's countries were out of the question. Primary reason was that both mages were after him. Secondary reason was that they just started a war, and no one wants to be caught in between. Druids are usually peaceful, one with nature and other similar philosophies. It should be a much better pick than Necromancer's country. He needed to trek north, by the Eretia mountains again, pass the whole Necromancer's country to reach the Druid's. It will be a hazardous journey.

His old nemesis from the academy was next. Encyclopedia magicka. There was a joke among the students that authorities debated to declare it a cold weapon, because it was so big. Yovan placed a bowl of almonds beside it and started nibbling. This will be a long night after all. He opened the first page.

"Everything in the world is made out of magical energy. Even matter is made of different types of magical energy interacting together. There are six types of energy responsible for all creation and destruction in the universe: life, earth, water, death, air, and fire. Magic is a phenomenon available to some beings through which they emulate similar processes that occur in nature. Given enough magical energy and the correct spells, one could create everything in the universe, even a whole planet. This remains highly theoretical as the amount of necessary energy would be astronomical. The manipulation of magical energy is called a spell.

"Six types of energies and their relationships"

"On Antipodes and Prevailers"

"Antipodes and Prevailers are two concepts about the energy that are most often misunderstood. Antipodes is a classification of energy based on opposite qualities. There are three pairs of antipodes: Air-Earth, Fire-Water, Life-Death. These energies can not coexist together. Spells of equal magnitude from antipodes will nullify each other without effect. On the other hand, prevailer is a ternary relation of a cyclic power order of different energies. What this means is that every energy has exactly one prevailer and prevails over exactly one other energy. If energy prevails over another it means that when two antagonistic spells of similar magnitude confront each other, the spell with the prevailing energy will always overpower the other. One way to illustrate this is: Life cracks Earth, Earth absorbs Water, Water purifies Death, Death corrupts Air, Air suffocates Fire and Fire consumes Life. Other combinations can interact without nullifying or destroying each other. For example, Air and Life interact freely when combined in a spell, they reinforce each other regenerative and adaptable properties. And when two mages attack each other, one with an Air spell and the other with a Life spell, the mage who used more energy will win.

"On apeirons"

"In order for a spellcaster to use magic he needs to sap from a source of magical energy. Sources of magical energies are called apeirons. If an apeiron doesn't have energy associated with it yet it is called empty or void aperion. Beings that are born with aperions that are already associated with magical energy are called magical beasts. Humans are born with thirteen void apeirons. This means that humans are weaker than magical beasts at first, but leaves humans with greater flexibility to develop. Magical beasts can also have endo and exoaperions. Places can also have apeirons and they are usually greatly coveted and protected by powerful mages.

"Example of a mage with one death exoaperion, one earth exo and one endoaperion, two fire endoaperions, and eight void aperions"

"With regards to the spellcaster's body, aperions can be further classified into exoaperions and endoaperions. There are seven exoaperions and they are located outside of the body circle. Exoaperions are responsible for the spell's power and range. Endoaperions are located in the body and there are six of them in humans. Endoaperions are responsible for the control and longevity of the spell. A novice mage is advised to start with endoaperions, because when the energy is pulled only from exoaperions, the spellcaster can not control the spell and it could get cast in any random direction, even upon the spellcaster himself. With only endoaperions caster would only be able to cast spells in touch range, however, so a mix of exoaperions and endoaperions is advised. Giant spiders only have endoaperions, but fire giants have several exoaperions, making them much more dangerous.

"A magical spider with six earth endoaperions"

"In order to choose an energy source, the caster needs to focus on a void aperion and imagine the element that he wants to associate with the said aperion. Associating an aperion can happen while casting a spell or by absorbing a type of energy from the surroundings. It usually doesn't take long for the first aperion to be assigned, but it gets exponentially harder the more aperions are associated so that it is very rare for a human to have all of his aperions assigned. When choosing the type of energy to assign, the caster should keep in mind that after the first type it will be much harder to select a different type to assign. It takes a huge amount of training to develop a second type, and only the most talented casters are able to assign three types of energy to their aperions. While it is possible to assign antipodes it isn't advisable, as the mixing of flows of antipodes energy weakens both of them. So if a caster has a fire aperion and adds water aperion, both fireball and purification spells would become much weaker due to interference. Prevailers don't affect each other however and are free to mix. Mixing offers great benefits as it opens up different combinations of spells to the caster.

"Some examples of different types and spells:

Air - invisibility, muffle, air shock, wind fist, wind shield, feather

Earth - stone skin, levitation, rock barrage

Fire - immolation, fire bolts

Water - purification, ice lance, water fist, clearing of curses and debuffs

Life - rejuvenation, healing, energy blast

Death - drain touch, curses, consume vitality, buff removing

Earth & Fire - lava bolt

Earth & Life - create earth elemental

Death & Water - dark lance

Air & Fire - lightning

Fire & Life & Earth - mind control, meteor shower

"Based on types they choose, casters can be split into different groups. Casters with only one type are named after their chosen type (air mages, fire mages, life mages…). Advanced classes are based on mixing of two (priests - Life and Water; elementalist - Air and Fire/Water…) or three (warlock - Death, Air, and Fire; druid - Life, Earth, and Water; necromancer - Death, Air, and Water; mentalist - Life, Earth, and Fire)..."

Yovan yawned and stretched himself. It was a new moon so he had no idea how long it was until sunrise. He approached the washbowl and drenched his face with cold water. Did he need to shave? No, he could stick it out for a few more days, and he really should return to reading. He only had one air endoaperion, so he should carefully consider next steps on how to become stronger. He took out the book on countering magic, a little change of pace for now.

"...thanks to exoaperions being responsible for greater spell power than endoaperions, most mages focus more on developing exoaperions. That also means that they have a greater area to defend. The best way to counter a mage or a magical beast is to target one of the exoaperions with a prevailer spell. Other types can work as well but require a greater amount of energy, in terms of efficiency prevailer spells are the best choice. With enough power, aperion will destabilize and severely cripple the mage, if not outright kill him. This can work on endoaperions as well, but any spell powerful enough to destabilize an aperion will probably be lethal if it directly hits mage's body. Since mages are fully aware of this deficiency, expect high defenses on exoaperions, so the best course of action would be a surprise attack. Most magical beasts are not intelligent enough to understand this vulnerability so it is a great tool to deal with them…"

The candle kept burning even though the reader was already asleep. His head covered the book that he was reading. It was a productive day.