“This is quite the feeling!” Rick let out a gasp looking at his hands. “Wait, where are my clothes?” As he scanned over, he realized that he was sitting bare bodied. He immediately became alert, maybe there was a psychopath in the house! Just when he reached out to grab the staff beside him, a crumpling sound reached his ears. The sound was from somewhere close by! Only then did he realize that he was sitting on a pile of ash. It was his clothes, there were scraps of his jeans that had barely identifiable. Even some parts of the carpet were burnt up. The Awakenment process even had physical manifestations. While he was undergoing the Awakenment, his body was undergoing a similar ordeal. The fire did not only burn his clothes, even the carpet he was sitting on had turned to ashes. “What’s wrong with me,” he chuckled as his idiocy. “You find yourself naked and immediately assume someone came in and the only thing they did is to take off the clothes? When did you become such a narcissist?” he chided at himself. He immediately picked himself up and rushed up to get a change of clothes. He returned back within moments wearing a black sweatshirt along with baggy khaki pants. He rushed off to the talismans in panic. Only once he was upstairs had to be realised that it was already the next day. He had started his Awakenment last morning, and it had taken him an entire day just to finish it. What he did not know was that usually, the process only took a quarter of a day at most! Rick quickly shuffled through the talismans and grabbed Samira’s [Word Transmission Scroll]. Samira must have reached their destination already by now. Samira and Jay were travelling to the next city over at least before the Heaven’s Dictate the Digboi City was nearly an eighteen-hour bus ride. Rick wasn’t worried about Samira. He had complete trust in Samira and Jay’s ability and his research to clear the level three dungeon, what had him so worked up is to find out whether or not the [Word-Transmission Scroll] would still work at that distance. He flipped through all the pages and grabbed the talisman. They had decided before leaving that Samira would write down the distance they had travelled and Rick would reply with the same number. Since the talisman only recorded the last message it received, the instant they reached the transmission limit, both of them would come to know of it. Rick would stop receiving the messages. On the other hand, Samira would receive Rick’s message with the number the next time she came within range. But there were no words on the [Word Transmission Scroll]. There was just a single word on it, “Reached”. A smile broke out on his face. He swiped off the message and drew a sketch of a hand with the thumb up back. ‘If the talisman works that far away, I don’t think there is any distance limit to the [Word Transmission Scroll]’. Finally, his first success! His downward spiral into runes and now becoming a mage had all started with trying to make a communication device. No matter that it could only send the smallest of messages, it was still a success! With the first thing out of his mind, he immediately looked at what else needed to be done first. ‘Let me check out the Mana stat first’. He quickly touched his temple to open the system screen. There was most definitely a new stat in there, [RICK HANIQUE] [Strength: 12 Stamina: 11.8 Perception: 8.1 Vitality: 2.3 Agility: 13.2 Mana: 10] There really was a [Mana] stat. He immediately checked it out but it was nothing much. He already knew much more about Mana just from his experience. “I should finish examining my body,” he resolved. There were many changes in him after becoming a Novice Fire Mage that he did not get around properly look over. He sat back down on the floor cross-legged before closing his eyes. At the very instant he felt the all around him as well as within his body. Once he got the feel of mana during the Awakenment, it was impossible for him to forget its presence. He could feel the Mana around him just as he could feel the air. While the Mana in his body lay dormant near his heart. Compared to the amount of Mana around, the amount his body could store was abysmally low. He slowly guided the Mana along the Fire Circulation Path that he had memorized during the Awakenment. It took him a while to correctly complete one circulation. As he moved the Mana through the Fire Circulation Path, the Mana particles slowly became fire elemental mana particles. By the time he completed the entire circulation, he could feel the mana looking for an output. All he needed to do now was to learn the spell and he would be shooting fireballs left and right! Suddenly all his worries disappeared and a smile crawled up his face. He immediately broke the circulation and the fire element Mana lost its elemental powers and the colourless neutral mana settled in his chest. It was time to learn the spell [Hot Hands]. Opening his eyes, he first touched his temple to find out more on the spell. Next, he reached for the Lemegeton for the detailed information. [Hot Hands (Novice Ranked spell)] [Mana requirement: 10 After completing the Fire Circulation path direct the Mana in the below-described path. Following this direct the Mana to the palm of your hands while articulating the following words “Adolebitque Huoagni”…] The information was given by both the Lemegeton and by God’s System. But, the Lemegeton followed this with a detailed analysis of the correct pronunciation to make as well as how to direct the mana into his hands. Of course, the Lemegeton also contained a page long biography of the creator of the spell, his inspiration and his life in general. Besides learning a new spell, Rick learnt something else as well. He solved the mystery of the burnt clothes. The last line to the description to the spell read, [The Hot Hands Spell is, in reality, a manifestation of the Fire Circulation Path. The words spoken during the casting of the spell are derived from the resonance caused by the movement of the Fire Circulation Path. The sounds are used to direct the Fire Mana in the correct direction. Casting the spell without knowledge of the spell would cause the Mage to not have control over the output and the spell would be cast all over the body of the caster burning everything in contact. This usually happens during the process of Awakenment.] Rick immediately realized why all his clothes were burnt up. ‘I have to try this spell,’ his eyes grew wide. It was impossible to not give in to the temptation of being able to cast spells! But he decided to put a lid on his impulse. There was no way he was immature enough to go casting fire spells inside his house. But he just could not make himself get up and leave without checking everything first. “I will have time. This will hardly take five minutes anyway.” he consoled his heart. He slowly picked himself up from the floor and sat down on the sofa. There was one last thing that he had to check. Within the duration of a single day, not only did he complete the Awkenment to become a Novice Fire Mage and learn a spell, he even completed one of the requirements for summoning! There were three prerequisites for summoning an inanimate object. The last time, he had already finished one of the requirements which were to gain knowledge of the existence of runes. Without a moment to spare, he opened the Lemegeton and reached the Summoning Arts chapter. There was a new line to the description of the prerequisites. [The Summoner has to discover the Mana stat. The overall stats of the summoner has to be above fifty points] Reading this, Rick started to add his stat point right away and realized it had indeed just crossed the fifty-point mark. There was just one last thing Rick had to find before he could start summoning. That was to discover the required runes. “I guess its unavoidable,” Rick sighed, “I have to go back to the Library and ask those Gods about the runes for summoning inanimate objects.” Rick sighed. He was hoping the Kings would know of this at the least. Since he had fought the Trolls and the Red Foxes, his awe for the Kings’ strength was only increasing. But this also gave him the worst nightmares! “Besides, I have to ask those idiots not to kill the stupid humans entering the Library,” Rick mumbled. He looked around the basement before abruptly standing up. “Time to go spell casting.” He spoke aloud with a smile plastered on his face. Picking up the Lemegeton he rushed out. It was almost midday and the winter sun was right above his head. A cool breeze blew rustling Rick’s hair. He was standing on his driveway staring at his palms. “Time to get busy boys,” he babbled. He closed his eyes and circulated the Mana in the Fire Path. He then cast the spell and then articulated, “Adolebitque Huoagni”. He held his hand pointed at an empty bottle on the driveway, but nothing happened. He maintained the spell for a moment. But when he did not notice anything happen he released the spell. “Damn it!” He cursed. “Where did I go wrong?” With his hands on his waist and head downward, he started pacing around while going through the entire process to analyze where he could have gone wrong. Before he could get to any analysis done, he felt a hot touch on his waist. “Ouch!” he yelped. There were two palm-shaped burn holes on his shirt and his red scorched skin poked out from within. “Haha,” he cackled. Rick could not figure out if he should laugh or cry. On one hand, his spellcasting definitely had no flaw. But on the other hand, the only use for the spell he could think of was for ironing clothes.