Chapter Text
~???~
Dreams and ambition, things that drives people to go far, many dreams come and go, their ambitions burning out and rekindling each time…
But I was different! No matter what people said, no matter what looks I got, my dream never changed and my ambitions only burned higher and higher! The dream to be the eminence in shadow!
But that could only take me so far… I knew I had hit a wall far earlier than I would like to admit… I had learned many things that could help me achieve my dream, multiple martial arts, mixed martial arts, how to play instruments, and real experience in fighting people.
But what good would knowing how to swing well do against a nuke dropping towards me?
The answer is nothing, it would achieve nothing. But that wouldn’t mean I would simply get all nihilistic and give up!
So I tried training the mind, spirt, and soul! Meditating, praying, and smashing my head against an old tree while ass naked!
The last one truly made me become one with nature! I could hear the voices of the world calling me! Or I was just finally falling into insanity like any normal person would have…
“It’s a boy!” A older man voice shouts with clear joy “He has your eyes and my face!”
“You’re right.” A mature woman’s voice replies back as she holds me tighter.
Unfamiliar voices? Ah right! I finally opened the gates to magic before I blacked out! It was a bright white light that was heading towards me.
I finally start seeing light after a while of pure darkness, at first I can’t make out anything but after a while I can clearly see two people, a man and a women.
”Claire come look it’s your baby brother!” The mature women says with a small smile as she tilts my body
I try reaching out my arms but I can’t, it seems I’m confined… Hehe they don’t know they’re holding a secret powerhouse!
In a quick movement my arms swiftly break out of the their confinement and… Baby arms?
”Look Claire! He wants to meet you so eagerly!” The mature women says
Hmm unknown language? Check! Bright light? Check! In an unknown body? Check! And…
My eyes scan around the room, the room looking like house out of a old nobles house from medieval times… and the thing that sticks out the most, little white star like particles floating around the room, flowing towards every living being, me included.
Magic like particles? Check!
So it seems I have been reincarnated! The white light must have been a gate to another world with magic!
The young girl with black hair and crimson eyes stares at me, visible happiness spread across her face. I’m guessing the one holding me and that child are people I am related to.
The little girl walks towards me and stares at my face with wonder. What is this your first time seeing a baby?
”Whats his name?” She asks her mother something, I really need to learn this language quickly!
”Cid, his name is Cid Kagenou.”
”Cid…” She whispers as she holds out her finger towards me and I guess this is the moment I’m supposed to hold it and giggle…
I reach out my small baby hands and do exactly that, gotta act as a baby since well I am one.
”I promise I’ll protect you…” She vows to herself in a whisper as she smiles at me.
{10 years later}
~Cid Kagenou~
”Cid!” A older voice coming from my overprotective sister known as Claire calls me out
”Yes Nee-san?” I tilt my head to give that clueless and needed to be protected brother atmosphere… which is probably why she is so overprotective… I should really start thinking twice on what I do.
”Hurry up or you’ll be late! Today is an important day for you!” She huffs as she puts her hands on her hips
“Okaayyy…” I get up and look at myself, wearing black suit that doesn’t fit me well and has navy edges on the sleeve and collar, under it is a white dress shirt and a black collar, black pants and a ordinary mob face to accompany the rest.
I do a little jog and walk next Claire, faking excitement and curiosity. Excitement for what exactly? Excitement to find out what affinity I have!
I spent my early baby years learning how the magic particles in the air work and how to use it. And just like I suspected magic exists in this world! I saw one of the households maids using a water spell to wash clothes! As mundane as thats sounds it excited me!
So by the time I could walk I would sneak to the library late at midnight since I couldn’t let them know I could already walk and read at a young age.
There were tons of books talking about magic and magic spells in the library! There are multiple classes of magic! And affinity helps you understand what magic you are suited to.
The royal family of Midgar for example all have a affinity for fire magic, and the Kagenou family as the family name suggests have an affinity for shadow magic.
And the major families hold themselves high because of their high affinity for their respective magic, but there are cases where someone from that family has a different affinity… and those usually end up with that person being banished and mother of that child being called a cheater and banished as well or executed.
There are also ranks of affinity, what I’m soon going to find out about is the ranking of my affinity for shadow magic is, there is elite, high, middle, and low in ranks.
So does this mean that I will be stuck using shadow magic as both Cid Kagenou and as the eminence in shadow?
Not at all! Affinity is just a way to find out what exactly you have the talent for, but being old fashioned people it makes them believe that they can only use that magic.
Even if your affinity is fire you can still use water spells but the difference is how long it’ll take to learn it.
If a person with no affinity tries to learn a mid tier fire spell it’ll take them 1 year to understand the spell, feel it, and cast it. But if a duke with high ranked affinity with fire attempted the same they would fully understand it within a month.
So it’s not odd that they don’t try to learn other classes of magic, but there is also people who are born with multiple affinities.
There are also different uses of magic, like in an average magic world there are multiple paths to choose from like mages, magic swordsmen, mana swordsmen, and spirt users.
Magic swordsmen utilize magic spells and sword skills to fight, a jack of trades in short. Mana swordsmen use magic but don’t cast spells and instead use that magic to form auras around their blades, boost themselves and send magic slashes.
And spirt users… Basically walking cheats that don’t use their own magic but the magic of spirts that had chosen them. They are rare but even those only use one but there are cases where a lucky person can summon multiple…
Anyway the Kagenou family have a long line of magic swordsmen, since Shadow magic can be used as a support, defense, and attack!
Back to magic attributes, there are elemental attributes, and non-elemental attributes. Water, fire, lightning, nature, air, and ground being the main elemental forms of magic, those also have multiple sub-classes, like ice, sand, metal, mist, and magma.
The non-elemental are sound, poison, gravity, shadow, dark and light.
Dark are shadow might seem the same but are different due to one key thing, demons. Just like any normal magical world there are demons, the demons utilize dark magic, spells of dark magic are more chaotic and hit more than shadow magic.
To combat dark magic there is light magic, which could also be referred to as holy magic but anyway it’s affective against dark magic but it is only used by saints, crusaders, and a gifted person born once a century, a saintess.
There is also spells that don’t use attributes and use just magic, sub spells, like levitation, transformation, annd illumination.
”Cid.”
Within the past 10 years I have been able to learn almost all of the magic classes and sub-classes, the only one I have yet to learn is dark magic, I’ll likely have to go to demon territory and dissect one of them to fully understand it.
”Cid!”
The only magic class I have mastered is shadow due to me having an affinity to it, all the others I have reached mid-tier magic and at most high-tier.
”CID!!!” An angry sounding Claire shouts as she shakes me violently
“Y-Yes Nee-san!?” I act startled although I actually am, guess I got too lost in my thoughts.
”Baldy and mom are in the carriage already!” She frowns “What were you so spaced out about anyway?”
”I was worrying about what my affinity will be… I don’t want to give you anymore trouble.” I say in the most sincere tone I can muster.
”Cid…” Claire’s frown wavers and she gives me a tight hug “Don’t worry Cid, even if you have no affinity for magic I’ll stay there to protect you!”
Please don’t do that…
Claire let’s go and holds my hand firmly as we walk out of the household and enter the carriage, pops and mom being there already.
“Are you excited Cid?” Ma Kagenou asks me, her characteristic smile plastered on her face.
”Mph!” I smile and nod excitedly, frankly I don’t know where my affinity ranks at I just trained and trained and trained! So I am actually curious about it.
”I just hope he gets a high rank like Claire…” Pop Kagenou whispers horribly as Ma Kagenou turns her head towards him, her smile losing all happiness it had.
“You damn baldy!” Ma Kagenou shouts as she nearly hits him with an uppercut but the carriage starts moving making her stop last second.
Rattle
“Phew…” Pop Kagenou lets out a sigh of relief as the blow didn’t land.
Ma Kagenou turns to me and gives me a warm smile “Don’t listen to him, any rank you get is fine.” She pats my head.
Claire then hugs me and then shouts “I know Cid will get the highest rank! He has potential after all!”
Claire please stop this! I want to be a background character! Not a protagonist who has the highest ranked potential for shadow magic! Ah… I’m starting to get stressed about this…
”Thank you…” I give them a warm smile, I just want low rank, even mid rank is fine!
Claire doesn’t let go of the hug, knowing her she’ll stay like this until we get to the church within the Kagenou territory… couldn’t we have just walked?
Anyway! The magic particles I saw when I first gained consciousness are absorbed by the magic system in our bodies, theres one large core located in our abdomen and then from the core magic pathways branch out, they have similar pathways to the human bloodstream.
Our body doesn’t interact with the magic pathways, unless you spread the magic in the pathways outwards and wrap it around the part you want to strengthen.
Magic spells are casted through magic circles, each one has different writings on it, the lower tier spells can use modern language but the high tier spells require ancient language.
You can also use ancient language lower tier spell which will boost the spell and make it more concentrated.
Higher tier spells require more writing, circle formations and overall more size and precision.
Basic attribute spells can be shot out without needing a magic circle if enough mastery, you can shoot out pure magic, a simple fireball, and smaller sized blasts.
What are also needed for magic circles are the understanding of what each magic letter on the magic circle means, the feeling of the specific type you’re using and perfect calculation.
Thats a reason why anyone simply can’t cast it, if you want to cast a fire spell then your best option would be near fire and feel and understand it.
So I found that the best solution was to mediate in fire as I heal myself to truly grasp it! Same with others, I poisoned myself, stabbed myself with metal, submerged myself in water, bathed in a ice bath, buried myself in ground, dropped myself off cliffs, gotten struck by lightning, sat myself in darkness for hours and much more!
Really effective but I really went through stuff that any normal person would have gone insane to. It wasn’t easy but it did increase my pain resistance by a large margin which is good! Can’t have the enigmatic figure in the shadows yelping in pain!
Clunk-Rattle-Rumble
The carriage stops and the doors are open, the bright sunlight shining into the carriage and reflecting off Pop Kagenou’s shiny head causing all of us to flinch.
”Ugh…” Claire groans as she steps outside and drags me with her.
I look around, the buildings, shops, and vendors looking the same as always.
”Oof!” Grunts Pops as he gets shoved out of the Carriage while Ma walks out as if she didn’t shove him out…
”Let’s get going now.” Ma Kagenou smiles sweetly as Claire and me nod. Are we going to leave him there?
We spend a couple of minutes walking, Claire holding my hand tightly as if the wind will blow me away and eventually Pops caught up.
”We’re here!” Pop Kagenou huffs our excitedly even though I’m the one who’s going to get their affinity checked…
We stand in front a small and simple church that is in the Kagenou territory, the outside looking nice.
“Are you excited Cid?” Ma Kagenou asked me as we enter the church, the sunlight making the inside a nice view.
”Mph.” I nod with slight hesitation to show that I am excited yet nervous to whats to come. Please don’t give me high ranking affinity!
As we walk past the rows of seats, all empty, a gentle elderly voice speaks out.
”Look at how much you’ve grown Cid!” A kind looking elderly man pats me on the head, smiling at me.
Also I haven’t grown much… When will my growth spurt start? Or will I have to accelerate it with magic?
“Father it’s been a while.” Pop Kagenou smiles as he greets Father. Sure surprised me when the Father of this church was the father of pops.
We all start walking towards the altar, there on a table is a crystal ball that glows of multiple colors and behind it is a statue of a godly looking women, the goddess Beatrix.
The Father walks being the crystal ball and sits on a chair as my the others step back.
“Good luck Cid.” Ma Kagenou cheers gently.
And both pops and Claire just pray heavily… I can’t blame them, I also am nervous but not for the same reasons.
”Okay place your hand on the crystal ball.” The Father gently instructs as I nod and put my hand on it.
The colors start swirling, the colorful colors disappearing as the darker colors start dominating and slowly shifting into a navy black.
”Hmm…” The Father looks at the crystal ball closely, just tell me the results! Am I truly born a perfect mob or not!
”As the color shows he has affinity for Shadow magic and his rank of affinity for it is…”
Everyone in the room shows slight nervousness, pops sweating buckets and Ma brows slightly furrowing.
”Mid rank.” He finally says with a small smile.
I smile slightly, relief washing over my body. Would have wanted low but mid rank is better than high or elite rank!
Pops Kagenou lets out a sigh of relief, Ma Kagenou face relaxes, and Claire runs up to me and hugs me.
“See you do have potential! We’ll have to turn that mid ranked potential to elite though.”
That isn’t how it works though… I think? I’ll have to test out some experiments on test subjects…