The soulscape was a refle of the Soul.

  That was what I had read and what everyone said about it since my childhood, of course, I never uood it, or not till I finally got my first taste of [Wild Magic].

  It occurred one summer when I was five, we were pying at the park, and as normal unruly kids someone decided that throwing ourselves down a hill with only skateboards as a way to move forward was the best way to spend that afternoon. I of course decided that I should go first.

  "HEED MY CALL FROM THE VOID AND GUIDE MY DEST UPON THE MORTAL WORLD!" I still regret with all my being past me.

  Of course in my childish mind, I was some kind of hidden demon lord that inhabited the body of a human, and as such plenty of delusions were screamed here and there. It was...fun, at least till my skateboard hit a pebble a me flying towards a tree at high speed with no way to steer myself.

  "[Rend, Reality]!" And in my childish mind, I said the first thing it occurred to me to try and save myself.

  Only...that time, it worked.

  A magic circle materialized at the tip of my fingers and suddenly the tree turned into dust allowing quite a fortable nding. "HAH!" And in the same type of thing a child who mao turn its delusions into reality... "I TOLD YOU HEATHENS THAT I WAS THE DEMON LORD!" Young me was delighted.

  "MICHAEL SHEPHERD!" At least till my mother found me in the middle of the sawdust of the previous tree, "WHAT DID I TOLD YOU ABOUT PLAYING WITH THE SKATEBOARD?"

  "But moooom, look I mao awaken my demoniheritance..." Of course, my mother didn't believe me, and as a kid who just mao awaken its magic, I couldn't and magic as easily as I ow.

  It took me quite a few years to find the right mi (When not about to die) and to finally be able to sink into the [Soulscape], but at that time I had moved from delusions of being a demon lord into being a [Sage] from another world.

  And I thank the gods for that, since my soulscape turo be a [Mage Tower], "My Eye it seeks vengeance!" Sadly it took me another couple of years to fix those delusions.

  And in the same vein, "Mister Shepherd? We will get a traudent in a few days; care to give her the [Test]?" It took me till I joihe MPI to act...civilized.

  "A traudent? I wasn't aware such a thing ossible." Lately no one knew my [Dark Past], and they all thought of me as a [Cool] and [Intelligent] student.

  "It isn't, not uhe student is talented enough, this one should be. Miss Singh cims she is more talehan her even." Miss Agatha said.

  The [Young Witch] that taught Magic Skills and Magic Circle theory. The [Witch] closer to being the pupil of [Odyssey], and one of the rivals that could take that title from me.

  "More talehan Singh? I find that, doubtful. But sure, I shall test her mettle." Even if it hurt my pride to admit, Rossaline Singh was talented.

  She weaved plex pound spells as if nothing, and her mastery over multiple schools of magic was sed to none, even if all those masteries revolved around the same cept of [Healing]. I could weave spells from any school of magic too, but not even I could cim mastery over S & A - Tier magic at my current mana level.

  At best, I could maybe skip a tier in magic, but that girl not only could skip tiers till S & A, but she knew overly plex magi the [Biomancy], [Holy], [Divine], [Mind], aion] type.

  And I suspect that she dabbled in [Soul], [Void] and [Neancy] too, even if I didn't have proof of such types, the first one I could uand, she already had shown mastery over [Mind] Healing type of magic, so [Soul] healing wasn't that far away.

  But [Void] and [Neancy]... Yeah, 't really excuse those types of magic, but since I didn't have proof and she wasn't a [Vilin] (yet) I had no way to do anything about it.

  What could I do? Go to the Student cil and say 'Hey, my [Sage’s Intuition] Skill and my [Magic Eyes: Analyze] say that Rossaline Singh is a practitioner of very dangerous Magic types, though I have no further evideho.'

  No, I would not do that, they would require a full sy [Status] and there were plenty of things there that I wouldn't share with anyone, not even my parent knew of those things.

  That brought me to the hing, the [Status] s and my new [Skills]; I used to mock the [Powered] because they depended on the [Skills] instead of building their [Spells] as we [Mages] did before.

  But when the [System] came and it turned my [Knowledge] into [Skills]... Well, yeah, I was quite happy. My status was quite the thing to see, and to be ho, I don't think I even lost points, while I wasn't able to see them before, I know that I didn't o redition my body to this new world we now lived in.

  Status

  Name: Michael Shepherd

  Title: [Hero Trainee]

  Passive Titles:

  [The Promised Sage]

  [Awakened - Champion]

  Level: 25

  Health: 100%

  Mana: 100%

  Stamina: 100%

  Age: Body 17

  Strength: 10

  stitution: 10

  Agility: 10

  Dexterity: 40

  Intelligence: 153

  Wisdom: 153

  Charisma: 10

  Job: [Sage Apprentice]

  Job Skills[9]:

  General Skills:

  -Identify: 15

  -Privacy: 10

  The skills, however, they would haunt me beyond reason. Things I had fotten came ba strength, and I couldn't even pin about them, how could I?

  Skills

  Jeneral

  Titles

  Aegis’s Shield: XSage’s Intuition:XRitual Magic: X-Rend, Reality!-Shatter, Synapses!-Banishment This World!Mana Manipution: 5Magic Circle Manipution: 5Soulscape Perception: 3Spell Skill - Mana Bolt: 9Spell Skill: Shift [N/A]Magic Eyes: Analyze [N/A] Identify:15Privacy: 10

  How do you pin to the [Goddess of Magic] herself showed in front of you and gifts you your new [Skills], and she was [Odyssey], there was no doubt of it in his mind.

  I couldn't see her face, her body was made of a more pure form of mana, she was dressed in what seemed to be a sailor uniform like one a [Magical Girl] would use, but uhose, hers seemed to dah colors as stars flowed from them, the very fabric of it seemed as infinity as a gaxy.

  During the [Advent] of the [System] she showed in my mind and granted me the very [Skills] that made me what I was today, refined from within my own [Soul].

  [Magic Eyes], [Soulscape Perception], [Sage’s Intuition] and...[Ritual Magic].

  How could I pin about it when she made sure I could [Feel] my [Soulscape] again when no one seemed to be able to, that allowed me to nudge fragments of my previous spells and enabled me to cast freely as if nothing.

  I wondered if Rossaline had some simirities to me, but unlike me, she didn't seem to even look at [Odyssey] church, besides the first day it was inaugured when she went to search for a priest aed with a scowl on her fad a priest stuck to one of her legs.

  The only other ohat was a suspect for a blessing like mine was Akira, since he could cast magic too, but he focused mostly on [Magic Skills], unlike me or Rossaline who casted [True Magic].

  Besides that the only simirity betweehree of us... Was our [Mana], my [Eyes] allowed me to see [Mana] more clearly than anyone else, it was the reason I could cast [Spells] with such grace.

  My younger self was right on that, and my [Eyes] really were something a [Demon] would have...

  I of course hadn't been able to use them to see the [Status] of anyone else, not till a few weeks ago when I mao evolve the skill to include [Analyze] on it, but even then I could only see parts of the hidden information. And that made me find something quite... ing.

  We shared a [Title], or more specifically, Rossaline and Akira shared the [Theme] of a title with me. Both Rossaline and Akira shared a [Theme] with my [The Promised Sage], and we shared the same series of [Titles] with the [Awakened] one.

  That was ing as it implied that both were part of the [Four] that had been chosen by [The World] for some kind of mission that I had no memory of accepting. And that roblem, in the first pce I held no memory of accepting that, and I didn't feel any feeling of wanting to work with either.

  Rossaline was indifferent at the best of cases and straight-up hostile in the worst, she showed a calm demeanor wheing people. And even seemed to smile at the patients... For as long as her work demanded of her, outside of work hours in ics she wouldn't even give a sed go you. I know it siried to get close to her, to see if my [Title] would stir something within me or her.

  It didn't.

  The first year held some vague recolles of her going around with someone, but the sed year after the [Advent] she only came a few days and the on vacation, barely saying the css she o take care of someone full time. The school didn't want to let her leave, of course, she was one of three people in eion who could still use magic. But she asked for a leave or a dismissal, so leave it was.

  Akira... He is more problematic even, the kid has problems, serious problems. He looks down at everyone else and sino one ever mao get even a tie against him, no one do anything about it. He wasn't ever defeated in first grade (Even if some of the first fights in the year seemed to be blurry in everyone's mind) and in the sed year, he defeated all.

  He only got behind in the are by some teicalities (His words) as that test was made with finesse in mind so I held first pce, some girl called Watanabe Rena held sed pce, and finally Akira and Rossaline in third and fourth.

  Akira held by the fact that he had enough firepower to obliterate everything in the pce, and Rossaline by the fact that she could incapacitate everyone iesting arena. Both for the same reason, both using different means to achieve their goal.

  So having to test someone and having first-row seating to someone's evaluation was iing, if it was true that this udent had more [Talent] than Rossaline, she may be the fourth [Hero] to our cohort.

  And perhaps she would be a kindred soul. As such, seeing the girl on the day of the testing was... Different.

  Unlike everyone else around her mana was so...Soothing, it was calm beyond reason, as if she had full trol over every aspect of her [Soul], such a thing wasn't possible unless one knew how their mana moved and had a full uanding of what made one what it was.

  Using the sayings of the pre-system magic teag... It was only possible when one mastered their [Soulscape] the refle of what we are. But here it was, a girl of my age with full trol over her mana, as if mog my uanding of the world of magic.

  She fihe writte in record time too, and if that wasn't enough... Her demonstration of the testing in the arena was eye-opening too, in a different meaning.

  She started easily enough by spreading the mana over the arena floor, at first I had thought that she was a former [Powered] with a [Earth Manipution] skill of some type, but thehe shadows of everything in the arena spread and formed a web that seemed to be alive, well. I knew better.

  The former [Tainted] weren't ostracized anymore, and as such they had started to bee [Heroes] and [Magical Girls] more easily, siheir powers weren't kept in cheymore, not many decided to join a career to better the world. Even if most [Shadow] users were more powerful on average than anyone else, so seeing this girl manipute the [Shadows] with such finesse I could uand why they had accepted to get her an examination.

  Even if some teachers had implied that she would get accepted even if she failed, and that I o make sure she did fail. But then she went and made her presentation more impressive.

  How? She weaved magic like no one ever had done before, and his eyes didn't allow him to miss a single moment, her shadows helped the mana move ale in a plex manda that allowed her to prepare plex pound spells.

  That made him stop and look again, and ugh, ugh, and ugh again, as he uood what Rossaline had said before, this girl was talented, way more talehan Rossaline, and he uood that now. The style she was using was one simir to what Rossaline used, but more refined, more plex, and developed.

  This girl was the reason Rossaline used magic the way she did, so he prepared himself to see for the first time [Shadow Magic]. Only to be surprised yet again as the magic circle finalized its build up, and showed a variation of the [Earth Needle] spell.

  This girl was one surprise after another, especially since her version wasn't the [System] one, so that meant that the girl had build the spell from scratd ize it to the situation at hand, she saved on mana by using the same earth that her shadows had covered.

  Her test moved on like that using multiple plex pound spells to restraiest dummies, and she went oep ahead aralized the top four dummies too.

  The version of Rossaline and Watanabe Rena were restrained by shadows, while his version and Akira were incapacitated, he winced when Akira's one was incapacitated as she had misjudged the resistance of those dummies and that dummy ended quite pitiful.

  His fight against her... Well, that one was an eye-opeoo, as he was forced to use two of his three [Ritual Spells], and even after that he was defeated.

  So he followed after the girl (Elizabeth Starbright she was called) in his registration, of course, he preteo ighe gres he was getting from Rossaline... And would update the defensive wards and artifacts on his apartment to make sure no 'Weird diseases' or 'Weird acts' occurred to him too.

  And all the time he had with her ent trying to use his [Mage Eyes] and [Sage's Intuition] to find out if she was or not a rade.

  She wasn't.

  He mao feel some kind of weird mana loop between the blonde girl and Rossaline, for some reason, Rossaline fed mana into the girl, and the girl circled it a it back to Rossaline. He wasn't sure what the deal was with that but wheried to tie a mana tread to that e Rossaliraight up gred at him and not only felt, but saw a magic circle with the [Soul] and [Death] node on it start to form uhe table.

  So he retracted his mana thread and ighe smug look Rossaline sported the rest of their day. He would get plenty of opportuo try and talk to Elizabeth, maybe he could try and find out what was the deal?

  Or perhaps was Elizabeth still sick? Was Rossaline applying tinuous [Heal]? He didn't see any residual magic circle...Was she using [Ritual Magic]?

  That would expin the sudden i Elizabeth had for that type of magic...

  His doubts weren't answered that day, but the day was iing enough. As the csses moved forward he mao see Elizabeth in his , they had started to share the s with former [Powereds], and as the csses would be everyohe teachers divided the material among themselves as ones had better skillsets for certain csses than others.

  Miss Agatha had the best skillset to teach about mana manipution and skill manipution, even if she had been a [Magical Girl] turned [Witch], and sure enough the css was iing.

  At least till Elizabeth asked about her former [Skill], that had been surprising, by her mastery over [Spellcraft] he had assumed she was a [Magical Girl], but then again from what he could glimpse from her [Status] she was a [Magical...*something*], he wasn't sure why he hadn't been able to read the sed half, but perhaps she was a rare variation of the [Magical Girl] job?

  Either way that wasn't the problem, the problem was one of the students that had beeed from the graduation css to their css pined about Elizabeth, surprisingly enough it had been both Akira and Watanabe Rena the oo e to Elizabeth's aid.

  Followed by Rossaline, and sihat was the case he joined in too, in the end, the ohat made troubles had sagely decided to not keep making troubles, not that it would help him, if the glint he was seeing in Rossaline's eye was something to go by, he wouldn't be staying too long in the school.

  It e that if you aoo much Rossaline, bad things happeo you. Nothing had been proven, and no evidencriminating the girl was ever found, but from the first roommate she had, to the sed...To the third, before she left for her vacation, no one ever found them.

  The first didn't leave any single indication of where she had gone, and that was the one on the first day of csses the first year, the sed...Straight up did on any record, the third ohat tried to settle in her apartment decred she didn't want to stay in school and would kill herself if they didn't allow her to leave.

  After that, the school stopped trying to get someoo room with her and even offered a single apartment, but she said she had a roommate and would take her of someone during her vacations.

  ...Oh...Was she speaking of Elizabeth? But then the memories he had lost...Had she been in his group?

  She had said as much, but he still found it hard to believe, [Odyssey]'s assion had wiped memories of plenty of things, but how close had she been to be this affected.

  Maybe she was the fourth [Hero] and [Odyssey]'s assion had messed her [Titles]?

  That could be a reason, yes.

  His title said there were four [Heroes], and so far with Rossaline, Akira, and himself they had three...Two males one female, then that meant that the fourth should be a female right?

  Akira and Rossaline were crazy, so he hoped the fourth wasn't as crazy as them, was it much to ask for a sane fourth person?

  Elizabeth seemed sane enough, he would try to make a friendship with her. Maybe he could steer her away from bad influences such as Rossaline and Akira?

  She didn't seem too impressed with Akira, but that guy had a way of getting into the girl's mind, he had seen him with a different girl each weekend, and most of the time those girls ended up missing half a week before returning to csses as if nothing.

  He had goer most [Healer]'s at some point too, but the sade sure to assign him only to very specific(male) healers after the fifth healer decided to leave school.

  He stopped taking [Healers] after that, actually the only ohat mao stay with him was that girl Watanabe Rena. Maybe she was his girlfriend?

  He didn't care to be ho, she seemed good enough to stay with Akira's power, but she wasn't a [Mage] nor used [Magic Skills] like Akira, so she couldn't be the fourth hero.

  If at least three of the four used some degree of [Magic], the fourth should also use magic. Right?