Reader Mage 11-Essence To Being A Mage

rlin had never been one for rereading works he’d already devoured, but Singularity Mage beca an exception. He also had no incentive to complain about that, considering a good chunk of his knowledge with magic, as well as his progress with the System, relied on the words in the novel. So, even if it would make his toes curl in frustration, he had to reread every single chapter word by word.

However, that was not what soured his mood at this mont.

He was seated cross-legged in the sitting room, alternating between the two tabs he had opened on his phone, his ‘mail’ tab and his ‘books’ tab, with scrutinizing gazes. Put a laser in his eyes and he might have long burnt a hole through his phone—for a good reason, though—at least to him.

I knew it. I’m not crazy. It’s been three days—four days? And yet there’s no new novel in sight. Was The Sleeping Jacket pulling my legs?

rlin wasn’t certain that such was the case, though. There was not a single reason for The Sleeping Jacket to be toying with him. If there was a more plausible rationale as to why the new work was yet to be released, it would be because it had been scrapped.

However, an author that had written a novel for three years, updating a chapter almost every day without fail, despite having only one reader, would never give a story up before it had had its run. A better reason would be that The Sleeping Jacket was taking his ti to polish his newest work before putting it up. That was a more appropriate inference for rlin.

But he’d said he wanted to let the work flow on its own. Hmmm… Maybe he changed his mind, noticing that sothing could go seriously wrong if he tried that. And not all readers are forgiving. rlin sighed and leaned back on the couch. Well, I’ll be here if it ever goes live anyway. I would be out of my mind to miss a The Sleeping Jacket update.

At that mont, Nora ca out of her room, and into the parlor. She was a ss, yawning, scratching her tummy listlessly, and her hair more disheveled than a mop.

“You’re up early,” she said, heading to the fridge and taking out a bottle of water. rlin just watched her with a narrowed gaze, waiting for her mind to snap back into place that they had a chain of events regarding their exercises and practice to follow this morning. And, thankfully, that happened sooner rather than later. “Wait, what’s the ti?!”

“It’s forty minutes past six,” rlin replied, his brows furrowed. "You would know that if you checked your phone after waking up—”

Nora spat out the water she was drinking. “Bliy ! I should have known!” Should have known what exactly? “You’re never up early!”

Well, that was unfair. How did that relate to what was happening now? And, besides, she was the one who was making them run late, so why did it feel like he was being blad for the turn of events instead.

“Just…hurry up,” said rlin, too morning-sick to bicker.

rlin’s morning-sickness differed from the more common one. His had to do with him getting up early, which always made him even more tired than how he had been the night before. The only redy to that was waking up by, at least, eight in the morning. And, most importantly, all this was definitely not because he was just a lazy bum.

Nora, on the other hand, was scrambling about, reminding rlin of how she usually was whenever her hair-tie went missing—courtesy of Po.

Why did she even get up late today? rlin wondered. She never wakes up late. At least, not after . rlin slapped his forehead and shook his head. Tsk. Stupid . It’s obviously because of Tower Raider. He then glanced at his arm as he waited, flexing it.

The pain was mostly gone now, which surprised him, to be honest. He’d been all mouth telling Janeth that he would be fine, but he had not really believed that he actually would. After all, it was not like Mages had superhuman recovery. They were still the sa as anyone. And, in that regard, the only reason rlin could think of, for his fast recovery, was that the System was involved. However, his Resilience was not particularly high, so that made no sense.

There had to be sothing he was not recalling from Singularity Mage. What was he forgetting?

Ah! rlin snapped his fingers. In one of the chapters of Singularity Mage, Kieran had found out that throwing points in his Strength and Resilience Attributes always helped speed up his recovery. However, that was subject to only minor injuries and never major ones. It was simply like taking pills for a headache as opposed to taking them for a fracture. But rlin couldn’t and wouldn’t complain. This way, his practice with deconstructing spells would end a lot better for him. He would just throw the points he’d obtained from his workouts into his Strength, and his body would slowly work through whatever pain he accumulated from practicing with Nora.

Phew… I was getting scared that I would have to go through that over and over again.

Nora shot out of her room then, ready.

“Let’s go,” she said, panting, and hurrying towards the door.

rlin eyed her and scoffed as he stood up. With the way she was huffing and puffing, one could conclude her experience this morning as a mini workout already.

“Your arm is really fine, huh?” Janeth remarked as rlin let the dumbbell he had been lifting for a while now fall to the floor with a loud thump. It was cooldown ti, and he was not giving a second of it away.

However, his cooldown period did not insinuate that he just stood or sat and gulped down water like an elephant. No. He was to perform static stretches. Things weren’t getting easier, but he was slowly becoming used to it.

The dumbbell lifting was his fourth session since he’d arrived at the gym, preceded by a run on the treadmill, push-ups, and squats. After each, he would take twenty seconds off to perform hamstring stretches, quadriceps stretches, and chest stretches. All of which he had co to know about due to Janeth giving a lot of her ti to helping him out. Which was…not exactly the deal?

Initially, the plan had been for Janeth to just offer rlin so tips while she worked out herself, which should have been grounded more in place, considering the fact that rlin and Nora had arrived at the sa ti as her. However, Janeth had given rlin a lot more attention than he had been expecting.

Sure, he wasn’t complaining. Even though his muscles were crying out, like they were on the verge of rupturing, he was able to gain so valuable knowledge on exercising as a whole, and even obtain good enough progress in his stats. And, furthermore, he was no longer as bashful as he’d used to be around her. Of course, there were a few monts where his heart raced when she got too close, but he was getting used to her presence now, and it made his workout all the more easier for him.

Still, he was confused as to why she was going out of her way to focus on him—like now.

“Here.” Janeth handed rlin his bottle of water as he concluded his last rep for his chest stretch. “You did good.”

“Thank you,” said rlin as he took the bottle of water with heavy breaths, and imdiately relieved himself with it. He couldn’t recall the last ti he had been soaked in so much sweat—which was never, to be honest. And…he couldn’t take it anymore. He was too curious to just let Janeth’s change in attitude pass. “I have a question,” he added.

“Shoot,” replied Janeth with that amiable smile of hers.

“The deal was that you would only offer so pointers,” began rlin. “But you’ve been actively involved with my workouts. I don’t understand.” It was not like she hadn’t done anything for herself, but she’d spent more ti with him than without.

“Huh?” Janeth blinked like she didn’t understand why rlin was asking her that question. “But that’s all I’ve been doing, though—offering you pointers. You don’t like my way of teaching?” She looked down at her palms, confused, then tilted her head as she sucked in air through her teeth. “Is it that bad?”

rlin’s mouth almost fell agape.

That was her offering pointers?! Her sense of teaching’s just really that skewed?

And rlin knew, from his experience with himself, that leaving things the way it was would only make it worse. Janeth would slowly feel more and more obliged to give more and more pointers, which would push her to forsaking her own training a lot more than was required. He’d done that a lot when helping others with their howorks back in middle school. He’d be so caught up in the thrill of teaching, that he would forget to write his instead. And when morning ca and it was ti to hand it over, he would hastily try to put sothing together, and, obviously, fail. Nora, however, was his polar opposite. Sotis he wondered how she could just say ‘no’ to others without batting an eye. He wished he could be that way.

In hindsight, Janeth’s skewed way of teaching was good for rlin. But he was not trying to take advantage of a vulnerable lady. It was already good enough that she was helping him. If he cajoled her into more, he would only feel bad.

“It’s not that,” rlin chuckled stiffly. “It’s just that you have been neglecting your own exercises to focus on mine. You really don’t have to do that, you know? Well, you did at first, but now I have a bit of an idea on what to do. So, please, focus on yourself just as much too.”

Janeth had worn a blank expression all through rlin’s talk, but now she smiled.

“Awww… You’re such a sweet boy, aren’t you?”

rlin flushed. It seed he had not grown as accustod to her as he had thought.

“I-I was just looking out for you,” he stuttered. “Stop with the teasing.”

“But I wasn’t teasing. You are sweet.”

Lost for words, rlin reddened so much that one might mistake his cheeks for hot plates.

“If you’re done over there, then let’s move on to the next agenda,” Nora called, her face only halfway visible from behind the door of the sparring area. Sweat trickled down her brows, and it was more than obvious from her pale look that she had been well at work as well. Although, a different kind from rlin’s.

rlin and Nora had split their tis and routines when they had arrived at the gym this morning. First of all, they had decided to give three hours of their mornings to practicing, from seven till ten. The first two hours would focus on rlin working out, while Nora went through whatever issues she had with spell casting—in her current case, it was launching spells. Then the last hour would be for her to put that into practice, while rlin deconstructed whatever spells she had in her arsenal.

But… Nora had been involved in a completely different activity than they had agreed upon.

“What’s this?” rlin asked, his arms folded and his face an amalgam of annoyance and frustration.

“What does it look like?” replied Nora with a snort, standing just before rlin on the mat of the sparring area. “It’s my newest spell: Air vortex.” And, truly, upon her palm was a vortex—rotating at a slower speed than her Air ball, but rotating nonetheless.

rlin was not surprised that his twin sister had already created another spell. It was her, after all. And, besides, Air magic was not that hard. Grabbing the concept was the trick behind it. Once that was done, the rest was easy. Even him, a Mage that could cast no spells, could decipher the intricacies of an Air spell by just looking at it.

For instance, the Air vortex, Nora’s new spell, was obviously created following a similar chanic as the Air ball. It was only different in the fact that instead of controlling a certain portion of air currents, and condensing them at high speed, Nora controlled more than a single layer of air currents, lined them up vertically, and enlarged their width so that no air currents flowed within their centre. This way, she forced surrounding air to rush inward, creating a whirlpool that functioned in a different manner from the Air ball.

But that was besides the point.

“You were supposed to be practicing how to launch your spells, not learn new ones!” rlin reprimanded. “Do I have to tell you that there’s no essence to being a Mage if you can’t launch your spells!”

“Ugh…” Nora rolled her eyes, dispelling her Air vortex spell. “Sotis I wonder what you take for, rlin.” She conjured up the Air ball, seated it upon her palm, and stretched her arm out wide. rlin frowned, unsure where this was headed. “Of course, I’m done with that already.” And, with a slight grin, the spell shot out of Nora’s palm.