Lyns studied the descriptions of different soul awakening methods and after about 4 candles of time he had a clear picture about what had to be done. For the shadow path inheritance that he had, the optimal method required him to draw a circle of runes around himself with his own blood, then he had to consume an awakening pill while igniting the runes around him. At the back of the book, the hardcover had a stash built in it, which stored almost a hundred awakening pills. These pills were refined by the past generations of inheritors. This awakening technique helped the soul to grow its potential on the path of shadows.

Lyns was enthusiastic to start practicing magic so he went outside with all the prepared items. After calming his mind, he made a shallow cut on his palm; he wanted to jump up and swear from the sudden pain. He started to copy the runes from the book with his blood; he had to push his skin to get more blood, also he had to be in a condition to start the ritual, so he drunk a lot to replenish his lost blood. It took half a candle’s time to paint all the runes. He swallowed a pill, after few seconds a burning sensation in his abdomen, which started to spread through his whole body. Lyns quickly ignited the runes, going against common sense the runes made from blood started to burn. The black and crimson flames pounced on his body and started to seep inside his pores, it was a very painful feeling, like being skinned alive. Lyns stood up and screamed in agony, he instantly fell back on his knees when the pain invaded every part of his body in reverse order compared to the pill’s sensation. The dark energies of the world ravaged inside his now unconscious body, while the pill tried to collect the useful energies under his heart. After about a quarter candle’s time, monstrous big lump of energy gathered and started to take the form of Lyns’s head. After a while it completely manifested, it was grey with shades of black, there was a golden luster around it which seemed extremely domineering. It started to circulate its own energies inside Lyns’s body, He gained clarity almost instantly and jumped up in disbelief. He felt immense power with his soul, it gave the intoxicating feeling of constantly being in control of everything around him.

On the path of magic, one had to check his soul, to adopt appropriate methods for soul advancement, and to know his souls progress and status. It was crucial to know what specialization he had affinity for. After reading the book’s description about soul checking techniques Lyns settled with an easy one which merely required him to touch a bluestone and concentrate on it. Bluestone was an ordinary ingredient with good magic conductor abilities.

It took about half a candle’s time to find a box of bluestones inside the laboratory’s storage room. Lyns brought it to his bedroom and started concentrating on it excitedly, suddenly he felt energy fluctuation around the stone. The stone’s reaction was actually quite normal, due to his concentration Lyn’s soul instinctively moved its energies to the stone, which reacted accordingly and started to slowly observe the energies around itself. It didn’t take long before the bluestone begun to project images on its surface about the energies surrounding it. The world’s energies were colored light blue, meanwhile there was a face that radiated imposing golden light and had a black and grey layer at its edges. Of course, the face absolutely resembled Lyns’s features only its expression was different from Lyns’s usual expressions. It had the disposition of a ruler, the face of a true conqueror with indomitable will, it beamed with authority as if the whole world had to kneel before him.

Lyns was pleasantly surprised, but since he woke up with no memories. Beside the panic that not remembering anything caused, he always felt he had some talent or secret sealed inside his body. According to the book the face of a person’s soul displayed their inner qualities and the combat style which suited them the most. Lyns couldn’t interpret everything about his soul, but he got a general idea. Based on the layer of black and grey, he had good affinity for dark arts, like the shadow inheritance he had, but the greatest talent he had wasn’t this. He had a soul which excelled in control, precision and raw power. The book mentioned the only shadow inheritor who possessed a soul which had golden luster was the one who made it the furthest on the path of cultivation. It signified great talent and great resonance with the world which only one from thousands of mages had. If he casted a spell and someone ordinary on the same level of cultivation casted the same spell, Lyns’s spell would be stronger because it absorbed and used the energies more efficiently.

He was ready to learn spells, he successfully awakened his soul and he possessed immense talent. To understand more about magic the first technique that the book taught was a method of perception. As he had done before, Lyns had to concentrate and manipulate his soul in a way so it can sense the world around himself. It was called soul sense, the more powerful the mage was the more the range of its perception could expand. Soul sense was a technique which required the mage to equally spread the soul’s energies around so it can detect almost everything inside it. After about two candles time Lyns managed to succeed with soul sense, he could make a sphere with a radius of five meters. Lyns figured out how it worked and about a candle’s time later he could use it like it was second nature to him, he had a feeling of familiarity which he didn’t really understand, soul sense felt like a long-lost lover which he reunited with after a long time, it was genuinely weird thing. Soul sense drained only some attention and didn’t consume the soul’s energies. He can now perceive all the worlds energies around himself, it was a lot more detailed than before he awakened his soul. Lyns had his doubts why could he do something similar even before awakening his soul, but these doubts faded by the inspiring experience of soul sense.

The introduction to basic spells started with a small letter:

‘Dear inheritor,

Haste only brings waste, on the path of cultivation talent and patience are the most valuable qualities. You must spend your next few months solidifying your foundations with the first layer of magic and you should not rush things, because if your vision is not wide enough about all specialization you will be a cripple as a mage and as a warrior too. Your ancestors didn’t spend their time honing their skills and perfecting our techniques, just to get an idiotic inheritor who is so full of himself that he is a waste. Overall, I hope you won’t bring shame to us, and you will indeed practice with the first book as it was intended, talent and knowledge is not the same, it is necessary to feed a talented person knowledge so this person can reach his own potential.

Best regards Simon the third inheritor.’

Lyns was slightly surprised because the person who had the most talent and cultivated to the highest level according to the inheritance, was Simon, who had written this humble letter filled with his wisdom. Lyns took this advice to heart, but he decided for today he would stop with magic, because he was tired and after this long day he wanted to eat and sleep.

After taking dinner and feeding the horses he went to the bedroom, where he saw the demonic sword which still impaled the wall. Lyns got very curious about checking out his cursed sword with his soul sense so he quickly grabbed it and sat down on his bed. Lyns began to use soul sense on the sword in his hand, but the unexpected thing that happened absolutely shocked him.