It was a ticklish, crawling sensation at first, but it got so much worse so quickly…

The red band around my wrist began to vibrate strongly, so much so, that it began causing the wind around my house to vibrate. As for me, I was in horrible pain. Right after I had finished establishing the 12 Spirit Points in my body and traced the Spirit Veins in my body, as the book instructed me to, the band began to shake, sending the Iprist (Ep-riss-t) in my body into a frenzy. Usually, if things had gone correctly, I was supposed to summon some iprist outside my body to see what color it is, but I was in too much pain to focus on the color of my iprist. Suddenly, the vibrating seemed to calm down, as suddenly, out of the band, flew out a red book that was chained to the bracelet. The book was floating in the air as it slowly began opening. It was at this moment I noticed the silence. There was not a single sound except for the fluttering of pages that came from the book. Eventually, the pages stopped at what seemed to be the center of the book, and it was at that moment, I felt a great surge of Iprist in the air. Dark crimson Iprist began to create a whirlwind around the book. The winds kept on getting stronger and faster as more crimson iprist began to surround the book. It got to the point where I was occasionally lifted off the ground by the wind. While all this was occurring, the iprist began to flow into the book, causing the book to slowly begin glowing. After a few minutes, I could feel an unfathomable amount of Iprist surrounding the book, the diameter reaching 1 kilometer. I, somehow, was barely conscious from all the suffocating intensity of the iprist. Suddenly, I felt the iprist stir greatly as all the iprist rushed towards the book and was absorbed into it. I instantly felt as if a great weight was lifted off my back as the book absorbed every drop of iprist there was. But, for me, the issues didn’t stop there. The book decided to become generous, suffocatingly generous.

I was lying on the ground, recovering from the intensity of what had just happened, when I felt the chain connected to my bracelet shake intensely. I began to worry when I sensed dense dark crimson iprist began to ooze down the chain towards my wrist. I sat up quickly, trying to stop the iprist from getting, but alas, it was to no avail, as every time I touched the iprist, I experienced pain similar to what I experienced during the explosion of the Expurgist Conflagorator [See Chapters 3 and 9]. After failing to stop the energy from getting closer, I began trying to remove the band, as I wasn’t so keen on letting something that painful touch me, yet the bracelet was tough, and everytime I tried to slide it off, it clasped hard onto my wrist, not budging a single millimeter. After failing at doing other things as well, I just gave up and laid myself on a tree and prepared myself for the pain I was about to experience. After watching the energy creep closer and closer, I decided to not look anymore. I shut my eyes tight and closed my fist even tighter. After a few seconds, it began. I felt the most intense pain in my entire life. It was as if I was being thrown between sweltering hot and freezing cold constantly. I felt the iprist flowing through the band around my wrist. Then, out of nowhere, I felt something stab into my wrist as my eyes flew open.

“Argh! Ah! W-What the h-hell?!?!”

The band hand 8 sharp spikes lodged into flesh, and along those spikes flowed the dark red iprist into my arm and throughout my body. Suddenly, the sensation I was feeling changed from hot-cold to as if, in one moment, I had the entire world’s electric supply flowing through me, feeling as if each atom in my body was being shredded, to the next moment, where I felt like a person who’s been thrown into the void, with the pressure of millions of black holes stacked upon me. It was amazing I was able to stay conscious and last a single moment, and yet, as much as I wanted, I couldn’t black out or die, no matter how hard I tried. If I injured myself, the iprist healed me, and if I felt my eyes grow heavy and tired, the iprist would hold them open for me. I wanted to die. I began to feel tears flow out my eyes as I continued to cry in pain. As I continued to writhe in pain under a tree in my backyard, I felt the book begin to summon more iprist from the surrounding area.

“N-No, s-sto-p. I-I c-can’t. Ugh, p-please.”

Unluckily for me, the book seems to be a keen follower of reverse-psychology. It began to summon even more Iprist than before and kept on absorbing the iprist surrounding the city I lived in. I felt only fear as the book began sending an even darker red iprist than before that seemed as thick as honey. It was at that moment the universe answered my prayers.

“What the hell is that thing doing?!”

Out of nowhere, a pitch black fog settles in around me as I hear quick footsteps aproach me. Entering my line of sight, I see two crimson eyes shining from within the darkness I was surrounded by. I see the figure move towards the shining figure of the book and, I presume, as I couldn’t see what they were doing, the figure shuts the book. I felt the pain within my body suddenly subside as waves of relief washed over my body. I then heard the figure speak.

“The Narrator gave you this far too early. The book is growing angry, and it’ll only grow angrier.”

“W-Why is a book angry a-at me?”

“Well, if I could guess, it’s upset you are using inferior books to learn, when you could use it instead.”

“W-What? How could I’ve known that?!”

“Well, the book was trapped in the bracelet, which gives you a good excuse, but no excuse is good enough to ward off death.”

“O-Oh. By the way, are you The Professor?”

“Yep, that’s me. Why do you ask?”

“I j-just want to thank you for saving my life.”

“Oh, your welcome. But it seems like you really aren’t good at protecting your life.”

“Oh, b-but the other time at my lab was an accident (See Chapter 10). And this one was because of my negligence.”

“The root cause of both was ignorance. Which is why this book was given to you. From now on, when you need to learn something, just call upon this book. It’ll appear and give you an answer.”

“How the heck do I call on a book?”

“Just name it something, I dunno.”

“Um, sure. I’ll name it Goliath.”

“Hmm, it seems to like the name. Well, that’s all. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Professor.”

“Ah, and before I forget, Goliath has a lot more capabilities, but until it sees you worthy of such capabilities, it’ll keep them conveniently away from you. For your own sake.”

“Oh, thanks.”

And just as quickly as the pitch black fog set in, the fog disappeared, and I was left alone in the middle of my backyard, alone. No book, nothing.

After lying on the ground for a while longer, trying to process what had just happened, I get up, deciding that I needed to throw my clothes into the washer. I walk inside and decide to do the laundry, giving me the time and silence for me to think. While thinking, I decide to go outside to learn some spells, this time not using the book I bought, but rather Goliath. After putting everything in the washer, I walk outside again, this time wearing some casual clothes, so as to not dirty my other set of work clothes. Not knowing how to call Goliath out, I decide to just call his name.

“Uhm, Goliath?”

The moment the words left my mouth, a bright red chain shot out and at its end was Goliath.

“Uh, Goliath, do you have any advice for how I could improve my system?”

Goliath opens up to a random page and begins writing.

“Oh, wow. Thanks, Goliath.”

I looked at the structure of the Spirit Force in my body and found something odd. Instead of there being 72, 14, or even 12 Spirit Points, there were only 2. One black, the other white.

“What is this?”

“But how’s 2 perfect? Even the very basic foundation of Spirit Force is to have 12 points.”

“Okay, fine.”

I start observing the point carefully, when I notice something interesting. The Spirit Points looked like there were galaxies inside them, and it seemed they were only growing more dense with more galaxy-like things inside them appearing. It was amazing to watch, but I wasn’t there to watch my Spirit Points.

“Goliath, so what’re the steps to begin practising some Spirit Spells?”

“Okay.”

I close my eyes and take my hand and put it out in front of me and start to imagine that I’m holding a ball of Iprist, when I feel as if the pores on my hand were leaking. When I opened my eyes, I saw a ball of blood red iprist in my hand.

“Wha- Amazing!”

“But why’s it so dark? Isn’t red iprist supposed to be bright?”

“That’s so interesting.”

“Oh, of course.”

Goliath then begins drawing on his pages, showing insanely complex spell constructs (For More Info, see Extras 4). After a minute, the drawings were finished and Goliath just sat on my lap, prompting me to read him. And so, that’s exactly what I did. I began reading and memorizing every spell construct in the book.

“Hoo, All done.”

I close Goliath and retract him into the chain after thanking him for his help. I get up off the ground and begin formulating the spell constructs required to create a condensing spell. The condense spell is one of the simpler spells used by all for condensing items into a smaller version of themselves, and depending on how powerful the caster is, one’s able to condense huge quantities of mass, and depending on their power and the quality of the iprist, they could condense more or less mass. Also, depending on the user’s power, they can choose whether the condensed object has the same weight as before or not. It’s the simplest spell taught, and Goliath taught me the most efficient way to write spell constructs, which should amplify it. I begin to draw the spell constructs using the iprist coming out of my hands. After drawing the circuits in the air, I grab the constructs and begin putting them together in the correct order, creating a complete Spell Ring (Usually, though, spell casting speeds get faster with more experience). After doing so, I begin send copious amounts of iprist throughout the spell ring. The spell begins to fire up as the multiple layers within the spell ring begin to spin. Soon, the spell floats above my hand, waiting to be thrown. And that’s exactly what happened. I decided to aim the spell at a tree in my backyard. I grab the spell and throw even more iprist into it before throwing it. At first, the spell moved slowly through the air, when suddenly, it sped up and raced forwards. I watched it as it approached the tree as fast as baseball, getting closer and closer, when I realised my miscalculation. I had aimed too far right, and the spell missed the tree and flew away.

“Ah, damn it. I missed.”

The spell had flew by the tree and went travelling far off in the distance towards the mountains that surrounded the city I lived in.

“Well, seems like some boulder’s about to turn into a pebble today.”

I gave up and went inside.

I took the laundry out of the washer and put it into the dryer. I then go upstairs and take a shower. After taking a nice shower, I step out and put on some casual clothes. After exiting the bathroom, I walk into my study and look around for The Prince. He was sitting in the same spot I left him, on the couch near the window. It seems the blinds had covered what had happened to me outside. I walk up to him, trying to see what he was hiding from me, when I see a blue-green light coming out from his hands.

“Hey, Prince Gatir, what’re you doing there?”

“Oh, Maxwell! Look at what I can do!”

He shows me the palm of his hand, which had a ball of light shining in it. The Prince was able to do magic.

“And look, I have an affinity with space AND time!”

“Wow, that’s… That’s really cool!”

I watch as Gatir recites something and an orange falls out of nowhere into his hand. I then watch in awe as he recites another spell, causing the orange to begin molding and unmolding in his hand.

“That’s amazing!”

“I know, right? I worked really hard on perfecting it!”

“Your parents are going to be so proud!”

“… I don’t want my parents to know about this, though.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Maxwell. I worry what would happen to me if they found out about this.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“I-I can’t say right now, Dr. Maxwell.”

“Uh, don’t call me Doctor. Just call me Mister, please.”

“Anyways, please keep this a secret.”

“Okay. Well, I will. But right now, it’s time for you to go to sleep. It’s 10:49 PM.”

“Oh, okay.”

I get up and give Gatir some pajamas and put him to sleep. After making sure he falls asleep, I walk over to my study desk and grab my Notebook and write all about what had happened today, which brings me to right now. Gatir is currently talking in his sleep about not being abandoned again. I worry for him. He’s very young, yet he already seems to carry a heavy burden. I hope everything will be alright. I don’t understand what’s going on with my life anymore. It’s gone wild ever since I became the Royal Scientist, and I don’t know what the future brings. There’s so much going on, but there’s only one thing I can’t get out of my head. Who are The Professor and The Narrator? Why are they helping me? I can’t understand what’s going on right now, but I feel that Goliath may know what’s going on, so I may ask him tomorrow, although I have a feeling he won’t tell me much. Well, we’ll see what the future brings. Goodbye for now.

Sincerely,

Maxwell Maximillious

(To Be Continued…)