The Frivolous Prince

[4] Reo

Finally! A book that contained the thing that I needed the most. I never thought that it’s easy to find. I should have looked at the most obvious place first. Well, I don’t want anyone to see me and since it’s just in the doorway, there’s no way I’ll try to take a long time here.

“Oh, my little brother. Did you get lost and think that this room is your playground?” my brother Zeus said.

I can’t really stand this guy. He got magic level 7 and he turned into this. I’m glad that Zeana has a higher magic level than him, it set him back a little bit. But everytime he sees me, he wants to bully me.

“Hmm, not responding? Did you really come here to get some reading materials? Well, let me see what you are interested in,” Zeus said.

Zeus grabbed the book that I’m holding. I really need this book so I didn’t let go of it. He struggles to get it from me but I didn’t bulged.

“Zeus, stop that. Let him have it,” my oldest brother, Ziend said.

Zeus just let it go. He said, “Fine, fine. I’ll let him have what he wants. So it’s the Basic Magic Course One.”

Zeus laughs and the others laugh with him except for brother Ziend.

“You refuse to be taught by your tutor and decide that you’ll train on your own? I know everything inside of that book and I learned it in just a week from my tutor. Guess we’ll wait for a year for you to cast a single magic spell,” Zeus said.

As I was able to find a way out, I rushed out running with the book in my hand.

“Prince Zenith, you need to write it down here first before taking it out from the library,” the bookkeeper said.

I stopped as I heard her. I forgot that it’s a thing, I usually sneak the books from here but being witnessed by other people, I think I have no choice but to do that.

Zeus burst in laughter. He said, “Miss, what are you saying? That kid can’t even write so of course he’ll just run away like that. I don’t even know if he can read it, maybe he’ll just put it behind his pillow and hope that when he wakes up, he will learn everything from it.”

“Oh, my. I’m sorry about that, Prince Zenith,” the bookkeeper said.

The reality struck me. I forgot that I’m the frivolous prince, even the bookkeeper took pity on me.

Well, it doesn’t matter. Maybe I’ll live up to their expectations. Without looking back, I started walking away from them.

And before I could move for a distance, brother Ziend spoke. He said, “Sorry, about that Miss. Please write the book that Zenith takes under my name.”

Zeus laughed again. He said, “If that little brother of ours wouldn’t return it in a week, you’re the one who’ll receive punishment, big brother Ziend.”

“Ahh, yeah. Prince Ziend, don’t do that. I’ll just talk about it to the Elders when Prince Zenith failed to return it,” the bookkeeper said.

“No, it’s fine. I trust my little brother,” Ziend said.

“If you say so,” the bookkeeper said.

Brother Ziend is really kind and forgiving. Even though he’s like that, he can’t act against Zeus. Because he only has magic level 5 at his age right now, he’s inferior to brother Zeus. And if anything happens, everyone will take brother Zeus' side.

Well, it doesn’t matter. If brother Ziend just acts like he normally does, he’ll not gonna face any kind troubles.

Enough of my family matters. Now that I secluded myself in this room, it’s time to learn the magic that would help me get back to being a grandmaster, the Appraisal.

In my previous world, you just needed to learn magic from grimoires and if you can’t afford having one, you have to learn it yourself. You need to have the aptitude to that kind of magic and then you just need to have the right feeling to cast the spell. It sounds easy but the average time to master a certain skill is one year.

However, in this world, it’s not about feelings but more on intelligence. Everyone has this thing called ‘reo’ inside their soul. This reo can be found in seven chambers inside the soul and in each chamber lies the power to manipulate mana. These chambers include black, white, red, blue, yellow, opaque, and void. The eight chamber is located in the middle of the seven chambers which acts as a place where the reos combine.

There are tons of academic papers about them and with that research they were able to understand some parts of these chambers.

The reo in black chamber is associated with dark magic, it includes power to manipulate darkness, shadows and even nightmares. Controlling the reo in a dark chamber is very difficult that’s why anyone who could use dark magics are highly regarded in this society.

In the white chamber, the reo is used for purification, healing, light magic and others. Contrary to the reo in the black chamber, this one is the easiest to manipulate. That’s why a lot of magicians have healing magic but they only use it when necessary since it takes a lot of mana to activate.

Reo in the red chamber is associated with fire. That would mean that in the blue chamber is water magic and for the yellow chamber, both air and earth magic are associated.

Now is the complex part. The opaque and the void chambers. They are not really associated with any specific magic, the reo in these chambers is used in compound magic. The opaque reo duplicates the amount reo already in the eight chamber while the void reo diminishes the amount by a factor of how many reo you take out.

So basically, everything is just arithmetic, with exact amount of reo and with the right type, you could use a specific kind of magic in exchange of mana.

Mana is different from reo, it is situated in the spiritual body rather than the soul. When you use magic, mana is consumed while reos return to their respective chambers. So even if you know many kinds of spells, you wouldn’t be able to just cast them infinitely. Also, if you drain your mana, your physical body will start to be worn down since the stamina you have will be converted to mana as a response mechanism of the body.

That’s why I said earlier that even though magicians know white magic, they often refuse to use it since it may drain their mana.

So the reason I need the Appraisal magic is because I want to know if I have all of the seven chambers in my soul. Not everyone has complete chambers and it’s rare to have all of them.

In this kingdom, you will take a two to three months of course about learning how to manipulate reo in each chamber. If you couldn’t use a single spell related to that reo, it is already concluded that you have the chamber for that reo. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have one. On rare occasions, others discover they have that chamber after practicing for a year but more than three months is a long time to invest for something you’re not sure about.

The Appraisal magic is not really considered as an important magic since the information it gives are those that are very obvious. But it’s only for Appraisal Magic Level 1 until Level 5, magic researchers already gave up leveling it up but from my previous world, Appraisal magic goes up to level 20 and that is what I want to achieve. If I’m successful, then the system for learning magic would have a drastic change. Only a few people have level 5 Appraisal magic, and there’s only one in our kingdom. Maybe I’ll try to communicate with that person.

So, this book that I had had the formula for Appraisal magic. Let me take a look. It says that I just need to put ten white reo and I could readily use it. Wait, so it uses white reo? No wonder why the magic researcher gave up after leveling it to 5. It takes a lot of mana!

One hundred mana just for appraisal, that’s day time robbery! Well, I don’t really know my total mana capacity. Appraisal level 5 would only let you see your mana bar but not in numbers. The magic researcher just assumes all of the current data in their research but since it’s true in every situation, it is now considered as the basis of everything. Ten mana is consumed for every white reo. Three for dark, one for blue, red and yellow, and five for opaque and void reos.

Okay, then. I’ll begin my first ever magic lesson! It’ll be funny if it turns out that I don’t have the white chamber, all that excitement for nothing. But it’s unlikely, almost everyone has a white chamber so no need to worry.

I put my hand over the book.

《Appraisal》

/ Book /

I see, imagine wasting 100 mana just to know that a book is a book. But it’s fine, the more I used this skill the more information it would give me. I hope I have high mana capacity so I could use at least two or three appraisal magic in a day.

《Appraisal》

/ Floor /

Okay, that means I have 200 or more mana. Let’s keep going!

《Appraisal》

/ Clothe /

《Appraisal》

/ Person /

It didn’t even have my name on it. Well, there’s nothing I could do.

《Appraisal》

/ Table /

《Appraisal》

/ Chair /

《Appraisal》

/ Wall /

《Appraisal》

/ Door /

《Appraisal》

/ Window /

《Appraisal》

/ Shoe /

Wait, that means I have a thousand or more mana?! But, I’m feeling kinda dizzy. I’ll try one last time.

《Appraisal》

Nothing? That means I don’t have enough mana, I’m feeling really dizzy. I’ll wait for a minute.

《Appraisal》

/ Floor /

Oh, I regained the 100 mana I needed. Should I still go on? Well, I’m confident about my stamina.

《Appraisal》

THUGG!

I fell on my feet. I’m losing consciousness?

I extended my arms so I could grab the doorknob but it’s too far.

Someone is knocking on the door? Is it Zeana? Well, that means I’m safe.