Quill weaved Scripts into the air.

  It was a sequential direction of commands following concepts such as ‘form’, ‘property’ and ‘size’, allowing him to conjure a solid White Ball floating on top of his palm. It was as small as a marble, solid and heavy as a rock but floated like a feather. Just like what he wanted.

  He turned to Haref, staring at him with analytical eyes before nodding. They were inside a half-collapsed building in the ruins of Gren, the cold evening wind leaking through the cracks compounded by the sweltering blue of the moonlight.

  A week had already passed. The days and nights were spent drowning in books and practicing spells inside the library. Although it was a bit too early to show how much he had improved, Quill couldn't wait to see the face of the old man.

  Especially when he had gone ahead and learned another Simple Spell. Along with his White Ball, he had also incorporated within the span of the week. It was easy to incorporate since the spell borrowed most of the ideas from White Ball.

  “Don't keep me waiting, then,” Haref said. Quill nodded before he willed a directional command straight to the White Ball in his hand, sending a message through the mana link before it flew towards an empty wall of bricks.

  It was like an arrow. It zipped through the air, finding its mark right where Quill aimed and sent specks flying where it hit. When the dust settled, the White Ball was deep inside the stone, a couple of inches wedged too far in to dig out with fingers.

  Quill found himself disappointed. The White Ball was sufficient for his first offensive spell, but it was still a few ways to go before it could actually break through the stones. He still had to find the right balance between size and speed, given the unique property of White mana, and it was already hard enough to control its accuracy.

  Haref started towards the site of impact before examining the wound. He stroked his beard before nodding, pulling a slight smile. “Good work. As per agreement–”

  “I’m not done.” Quill stopped him short before his hands and fingers moved in a blur, weaving another set of Scripts in the air. He was much faster now, showcasing the dexterity of his fingers from centuries of Scripting.

  When he was done, a white transparent layer formed around him. It was clear but solid like a glass bubble sphere, the White mana covering his outline like a defensive dome. That was the White Sphere. It was inspired by the Manashields of Orange mages.

  Quill then turned to the wall, staring at the White Ball wedged inside before he then pulled it out with a thought.

  He then sent it flying straight for him.

  The White Ball crashed into the White Sphere, sending ripples of energy over the surface of the bubble. It left the White Ball wedged, unable to break through with nothing but a crack. The White Sphere was strong enough to stop a projectile that could pierce through stone.

  Quill wasn't surprised by the effectiveness of the White Sphere, but he couldn't help but feel that he could have done so much better within the week. The White Sphere should’ve been strong enough to handle the force of the White Ball, but the crack alone was a sign that it was still far from perfect.

  “I’m sorry, young mage.” Haref sat on one of the old debris before he kneaded his head.

  “Why are you apologizing?” Quill said.

  “I had my doubts at first.” He said. “I truly wasn't expecting someone from the outskirts to learn a spell within the window of two weeks, let alone one. You surpassed my expectations.”

  Quill only stared at the crack of the White Sphere around him before he then dematerialized it into thin air. “I made sure to iterate and improve on them both, but they were lacking. I’ll make sure to do better.”

  He still remembered what happened last week: the drunk guards beating him up under the bridge. He was going to make sure that humiliation didn't happen again, and the White Ball and White Sphere were only one step forward in that direction.

  Now that the thought had come to mind, the guards hadn't bothered him for the past few days. Maybe they lost their positions from assaulting a civilian, though Quill wouldn't bet on it. He was a gray elf, after all.

  “Your Scripting,” Haref pushed his eyeglasses. “It would take decades to attain that level of speed and precision. How did you manage that?”

  Quill only shrugged his shoulders. It might seem ridiculous to weave Scripts that fast, but Haref didn't know that he had lived as a lich for centuries.

  He wasn't really anyone special.

  Given enough time, any mage could attain the same feats Quill had. It was only because of his immortality that he even reached the peak of Emerald. As mages come and go, he was just a bit more driven than the rest, and if he hadn't turned undead, then his level would’ve ended at Silver.

  In the end, Quill wasn't better than the majority of mages. He wasn’t more talented than anyone. He was just smart. He turned himself into a lich in order to acquire more time to practice spells and gather knowledge. Even then, he still lost to mortal mages who achieved the next rank of Sapphire faster than he did.

  Maybe that was why Quill was so driven to find and fight Pormor. Unlike him, Pormor was a natural-born genius, a one-in-a-billion miracle of life and all of magehood.

  Quill had devoted his life to striving for greatness, only for others to trample on him with less effort. Maybe this second chance at life was a way to fight back against that unfairness.

  “You have more than convinced me, young mage.” Haref placed a hand on Quill’s shoulder. “I am a man of my word.”

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  “Thank you for the opportunity,” Quill said. “What do I need to prepare for the examination?”

  Haref turned. “You are good enough, to be honest.”

  “I don't want to be good. I want to be better.” Quill brushed over his chest. This was his chance to rise above the rest, and he wasn't willing to let it go to waste.

  “Of course you would say that.”A titter spilled from Haref’s chest before he pulled something from his pockets. It was a ring made out of obsidian, pitch black like coal. He then handed it over to Quill. “I think you’ll have a use for this.”

  Quill stared at the ring. On the rim was a symbol of the Forgemasters, an organization comprised mostly of dwarves that dealt in the making of quality magic items. The symbol itself was a shield with a hammer at the center. He couldn't believe what Haref had given him.

  It was a Register.

  Back then, Quill always had one on his index finger to check his progression in magic; it was a very useful and expensive tool to have, and Haref was giving it to him for free. He hadn't expected to get hold of a Register so soon.

  “The examination will start in three weeks.” Haref started back with his walking stick. “It will usually have written and practical exams touching on the basic principles of mana manipulation, along with a few test demonstrations. Don't disappoint me.”

  “Thank you, Haref.” Quill nodded. “You know I won't.”

  “Don’t get too ahead of yourself, now.”

  Haref started back over the dirt path, the clack of his wooden stick echoing through the silence before he disappeared into the night. Quill had opted to stay for a few more minutes. The Register was practically calling to him.

  He dropped to the ground before wearing the ring on his finger. There was nothing on it aside from the Forgemaster’s symbol, but there was a trick to it. It was a quality magic contraption, not a lump of useless metal.

  All Quill needed to do was pour a portion of his White mana into the ring. That was simple enough.

  He guided a drop of mana into it before the ring then shimmered to life. The pulse of mana in the air was a good sign; it meant that the Register had now to his Core. No one else could take it from him and use it without his consent.

  White letters carved themselves into existence right in front of him. The letters and words formed one stroke at a time, almost as if an invisible knife was cutting through the air itself.

  Quill frowned at the texts in front of him.

  Back when he was at his peak, his Register was filled with a multitude of spells and Bindings. The number of Simple Spells alone would've been half a meter long, but now there were only a scant few of them showing up on the texts.

  Quill shook his head, waving the thought away before focusing on the words. It was a surprise to him that the language wasn't written in the elven tongue, given the body he now inhabited, and instead it was presented in the human language. He hadn't studied much about Bindings, but it seemed to understand his preference.

  Even the Register had called him by his human name ‘Quill’ instead of his elven name ‘Fenith’. Did the ring know that he was a foreign soul in this body?

  The next thing that caught Quill's attention was his Traits. Unlike his spells, Attributes and Bindings, most of his Traits were still intact aside from the Race Trait. It was self-explanatory then why he lost his lich-specific Trait and gained an elf-specific Trait instead.

  The lich Trait was useful in commanding his legions of undead in the past, reducing their total mana consumption by a small enough margin. Still, this High-Elf Affinity was very useful for any mage worth their salt. You can never have too much mana, after all.

  The last thing Quill skimmed over was his Mysteries. These were essentially rare and unique Traits, acquired randomly through unexplainable mutations in the body’s mana channels. It would usually take decades to acquire even one of them, and it was no way a guarantee.

  But Quill already had one Mystery right from the start. It was the Fractured Core, the same phenomenon he observed that allowed him to cast simple Black spells. This was a good starting point. Even the Night Lich only had two Mysteries in the past.

  Quill turned to the night sky above. The sky had already darkened overhead. Rain clouds had already started rolling over the moons, with the air around shifting to the smell of rain.

  It was starting to get late, after all. Quill had already told Yereth that he was going to come home late today, but he knew he was pushing it already. He washed the texts in front of him away before pushing off the ground with a grunt.

  With a heavy sigh, he started making his way back over the dirt path to his house. It was fairly close to where he was at, and it was fairly easy to spot even in the darkness, being the only building on the outskirts still lit up among the ruins. After turning left and right over the intersections, he could make out the small homestead in the distance.

  But there was something strange going on. Guards were standing right outside the house, their swords hanging and waiting by their sides. It was suspicious enough that they had chosen this specific area to patrol.

  And two of the guards were the ones who assaulted him before.