When I woke up the next morning I was feeling quite energetic. I was given a room in a fantasy castle and was going to learn magic together with other people from my world, it almost felt like I was inside a book. I was also hyped up to find out more about my blessing, but even if I was excited, I wasn't going to lower my guard.

I went downstairs and found Oliver munching a fruit similar to an apple. On the table there was a rich assortment of food, there were fruits, bread, jam and boiled eggs. The only thing that was missing was the most important of all, coffee. I was half Italian so I couldn't live without my coffee.

I sat down on the opposite side of Oliver and began to eat. Oliver was looking down at his food without eating it, he seemed a little uncomfortable. He then timidly raised his head and said.

“Today it seems we'll start learning about magic, a-are you excited?”

I usually didn't like talking to people about casual topics but since today I felt good and since Oliver put me much less on edge than people usually did, I decided not to cut the conversation off right away.

“You bet, it almost feels like one of these stories where the main character ends up in a magic academy, I was pretty fond of those.”

“You mean Harry Potter? I-it is my favorite book. I know everything about it, I always wanted to live something like it.”

'Actually, I was thinking of an anime but I guess that's fine too.'

I wanted to warn him of the potential danger we were in but I didn't want to be too direct, we probably were in a place where even walls had ears.

“Well it resembles it, but remember that this is reality, we don't know what's going to happen, one day we might have to fight real monsters or even a war.”

'Willing or unwilling.'

He didn't seem shaken though, his expression just got a little colder. It resembled mine a little. He then replied.

“I'm not that naïve, I know well how the world works. One day we'll probably have to kill for Hoss, I just think we should enjoy ourselves while we can.”

'That's my boy.'

I was liked this boy more and more.

“Anyway, returning to Harry potter.......”

He seemed to be a man of few words at first but now he seemed very talkative. Actually, he didn't seem capable of stopping.

"Also my top ten favorite spells are:............"

At that moment, I knew, that I fucked up.

When Alua entered the room, Oliver had been talking about Harry Potter for an hour already; I never thought I would have ever been happy to see our lovely warden.

After Alua woke up Jane and brought her to the table, she started talking.

“The first thing we will do, heroes, will be measuring your affinity to every one of the eight main attributes to see in which one you are most talented. Your affinities will all grow as you get stronger but the ones that are higher at the beginning will grow faster than the others.”

She then pulled out eight long objects resembling thermometers and continued.

“These will measure your affinity. One of the things that affinity does is help you gather the magic energy of its attribute from the surrounding so that you can absorb it. These glass tubes have a little stone of condensed magic energy of each attribute on one end and a magic circle on the other. The circle contains a spell of attribute absorption and one of illusion. The circle will activate when you touch it and is conditioned by your affinity, depending on the speed of the absorption the rune will reproduce the value of your affinity with an illusion.”

Now I also wanted to know what a rune was, I decided to ask it later.

Alua then continued.

“The standard value for a normal person is ten, but everyone has at least an attribute or two where they are more talented, their value will be more or less twenty, some even manage to score thirty but those people are quite rare. Now let's begin, who wants to go first?”

I was about to take a step ahead but Oliver was faster. He then touched every rune one by one, and every time he did a number made of black smoke appeared upon the device. Oliver scored about average on every attribute except wind where he got 22 and dark where he scored 18. He didn't seem too happy though.

“Are you dissatisfied mister Oliver?”

“A-actually I was hoping for the light or holy attribute.”

He said.

“Well, I'm sorry about that but yours is not a bad result, existential attributes are pretty rare and divine attributes are even rarer at the beginning. They are the ones that can be raised the most with training and dedication though, so don't lose hope, okay?”

I then stepped up to measure my affinity. I started with the elemental attributes: I obtained 6 on earth, 11 on wind, 13 on water, and 17 on fire. I liked the thought of launching fireballs everywhere so I was pretty satisfied.

Then on the existential attributes, I scored 12 on light and on dark........32.

I was very happy about getting a high score on dark, I had no idea of what the dark attribute did but it sounded very cool. I then measured the divine attributes, getting 15 on holy and 24 on demonic.

It was amazing, it seemed I was talented in the two coolest sounding attributes and I was good with fire too. I could already imagine myself flying around with bat wings, with bleached white hairs, raining destruction from above while laughing like a villain; or commanding a giant army of demons....... with bleached white hairs..........and bat wings...........while laughing like a villain................so cool.

But even While daydreaming. The displeased expression Alua made when I scored 24 on demonic attribute didn't escape my eyes. I guess there was a reason if the demonic attribute was called like that. It could be either for its nature or religious reasons. I hoped it was for the first reason, if it was the second one, I could run into serious troubles. I decided to test the waters with an indirect question.

“Oh nice, I scored pretty high, but are those good attributes?”

Alua seemed a bit hesitant.

“You see, mister David, demonic and dark attributes are looked at with scorn since they are the attributes that the Dark Lord used the most. Well, dark not so much actually since it is more common here in Hoss, but you see, the demonic attribute users were hunted down until a couple of decades ago. It's legal now but you might want to keep it a secret for now. Also, the fact that demonic magic is pretty common on Zaven, Hoss's rival in the northern continent, doesn't help. Many fought against it and still have a deep hatred toward that attribute. So for your safety, I ask you not to reveal that affinity to anyone. I ask the same to you mister Oliver and miss Jane, please don't tell it to anyone, or else David might be in danger.”

'You misspelled again miss Lua, you meant:” or we might not be able to use him in propaganda anymore”.'

Unluckily it seems it was too dangerous to use the demonic attribute, so I decided I wouldn't use it........... where I could be seen.

Then, after Jane and Oliver replied affirmatively, Jane stepped up and did the test.

She scored quite average, everything was near to ten except water, where she got 23, she didn't seem too downcast though.

“You scored pretty well, heroes, especially you, mister David, an affinity of 32 right at the beginning is quite amazing. Now you must know that there are two ways to make your affinity grow: the first one is to make your soul stronger. When you kill another living being, part of his soul will be absorbed by yours and so your spiritual body will become denser and all your affinities will grow. The second is simple training, by using an attribute or meditating about its nature you will become more accustomed to it and be able to grasp better its essence, raising your affinity. You must also know that there are also infinite attributes that can be obtained by mixing the first eight, but we will return on that later.”

Alua paused for a moment and then resumed her speech.

“Earlier I mentioned the spiritual body, which is the second pillar of the magic system of this world. First, you must keep in mind that magic is believed to be the actualization of abstract concepts, and the Heart Of The World, the source of all magic, is believed to be the actualization of the idea of existence. Unfortunately, we were never able to prove it, since no one ever managed to go as far as reaching the Heart Of The World to find answers, but this is the most believable theory we could think of.

That said, the spiritual body is an aggregation of magic energy that overlaps with one's physical body and incarnates the idea of self. It is divided into three parts: the core, is the most important part and also where the idea of self resides. It is believed to be linked to the Heart Of the World since it furnishes you with pure magic energy apparently out of nowhere; it's also where the attribute magic energy from the surrounding is turned into mana or ki. No one ever managed to pinpoint its exact location inside the spiritual body.

Then there is the magic body, your storage of mana, a kind of magic energy created by the core from raw magic energy, the magic body it's in the shape of your physical body.

Then there is the Linking body, which links your physical and magic body, it's composed of ki, another kind of magic energy that is created by your core to support your physical body.

The big difference between ki and mana is that mana is meant to leave your body through spells, while ki is meant to assist your physical body regenerating and augmenting its ability, it can also be focused on single attacks through martial arts. Both mana and ki can be given an attribute by making them pass through the core before using them in spells or martial arts.

That is all for the spiritual body, any question?”

I was very hyped, this world's magic seemed even more interesting than I thought at first, it also seemed that magic was usable even in close combat. There was still a thing that I wanted to know though.

“I have one, what about that blessing you mentioned on the ship?”

“Oh yes, the blessings of goddess Esha always take some time to emerge in the surfaces of your minds, but don't fear, they won't take too long. Usually, heroes begin to be able to see their blessings after a few weeks from their summoning. You see, the blessings are revelations from the Heart Of The World so it takes some time for a human brain to assimilate it.”

“A revelation? Wait, so they're not superpowers but information?”

“More precisely, they are a link that allows you to retrieve information from the Heart Of The World but yes they are information. But fear not, they can be extremely powerful, for example, a hero could see himself being wounded with ten-second anticipation, another one could tell apart truth from lie, while a third one could see who would betray him or his allies.

They don't make you invincible but all of them have a use. They are also unique for every hero and it seems that they are made to fit their user's personality, the hero from the third example was someone with serious trust issues. The reason for one's blessing might not be always this simple though, most of the times we don't understand why a certain blessing is chosen among others. Any other questions?”

I guess some of them might not be useful in battle but for a nation, someone who can give them data with absolute accuracy was far more precious than a warrior.

“If there aren't other questions we can start the lessons, from now on I will teach you this world's history and language, I will also teach you the ropes of fighting and adventuring. Then, in a month you will choose which type of fighter you want to be and you will receive a training course more fitting to your choice. After that, you will also start hunting monsters to become stronger. Now let's start with history.”

It seemed the lesson for today was still long, but anyway it's not like I was unhappy about it.

'History uh, guess it's time to play spot-the-lie, right miss Alua?'