I Refused To Be Reincarnated

After Julius and Arun returned to their rooms, they spent half an hour making space for the young man before starting to train for their future expedition.

As Arun took the room's desk to study his two spells, Julius retrieved the old dusty tome. The pages were yellowed by the passing of time. The cover's title was unreadable but still emanated an aura of mystery.

"Where did you find that book?" Adam gazed sharply at Julius. He didn't know why, but he felt inexplicably drawn to the tome.

"Vikram gave it to me. According to him, it should focus on mana manipulation and control." Julius responded pensively before adding, "The mana-gathering technique should be element-neutral, too."

Adam nodded before conjuring an ethereal mage's hand to manipulate the old book. Unfortunately, the language seemed old, lost and mixed with potent magic.

It was the first time he encountered a language his Grimoire Lingua failed to understand. However, as if challenged by Adam's thoughts, the enigmatic book suddenly appeared before the tome.

As Adam's eyes widened in shock, the grimoire passively used his Ephemeral Lexicon enchantment, analysing and assimilating the old tome's language. After all, the enigmatic grimoire was described as a living lexicon that broke the usual item rarity's scale.

After a short moment, the grimoire turned transparent and disappeared with a puff as if nothing transpired.

'What just happened?' Adam thought, stunned by what he just witnessed.

Little did he know that he was in for a ride filled with surprise now that he possessed the old tome.

After recovering, he gazed at the first page's text once more, his eyes blazing. He understood the old symbols written in otherworldly ink.

"This book records my lifelong achievements in mana manipulation. If you can read this message, it means you are worthy to inherit it as you thread the same path I did. Note: The content of the book changes depending on who holds it. Only my true inheritor is granted access to my knowledge."

'Ha? Wasn't this just a book about mana manipulation?' Adam's confused thoughts mixed with his earlier astonishment as he read further.

"My name is Kwame Adewale. I was born and raised in the Kumbuka Empire, where magic was law. Sadly, in this spell-filled world, in which elemental affinity dominated the fields, I was an anomaly. Unable to unlock a talent and born without any affinity, I was deemed a failure."

"I was kicked out of the royal palace and erred the world for years before stumbling on a secular magic order known as the mana conjurors. Instead of relying on spells and elemental affinities, they shaped mana directly to do their bidding, making them fearsome opponents."

"After much effort, I managed to join their order and finally found my path in this world. Sadly, one day, the Franca empire deemed them too dangerous to exist. They labelled them rogue mages and rallied the world to annihilate them."

"However, left for dead amid the order's ruins, I miraculously survived. I secluded myself, determined to continue my friend's research."

"Now, in my twilight years, I'll record all my knowledge in this book, hoping our path won't disappear forever like many others."

"Knowing that my life is drawing to its end, I'll leave this book and die, trying to avenge my long-departed friends. I know my attempt is bound to fail, but I have no regrets... Actually, I regret lacking potential, as the best I could do was to become an archmage."

Adam stood, flabbergasted, in front of the first page of the tome. He was sure he just uncovered a part of long-forgotten and hidden history.

'Wait... mana conjurer! That's the class I chose from the system's propositions!' He fell into deep thoughts, finding that Kwame's story hid more information than what met the eye.

'Rogue cultivators, other paths disappearing and how body cultivation is underdeveloped. Everything seems to be controlled by someone or a group of persons.' Pieces of scattered knowledge started to assemble in Adam's mind as he started to suspect that this world wasn't regulated the way people thought.

'It seems that someone is purposefully imposing a single path to power and destroying all the others for some reason!' He theorised before putting those thoughts on the side. He needed to find more pieces of lost history if he wanted to, one day, learn the truth.

He refocused his attention on the tome, starting to read the second page.

"After many years of studies, tests and failures, I finally uncovered this world's ultimate lie. I don't know why no one ever thought about it, as it was right in front of our eyes the whole time... Or maybe all the paths that were destroyed were because they were approaching this truth."

"Elemental affinity is a bait!"

Adam fell into a daze as he read that sentence. It was common knowledge that every human had a dormant elemental affinity that would awake around twelve if they practiced mana. Wasn't it natural to have one? Despite his confusion, he kept on reading the text.

"Think about it. What is the strongest possible affinity you could have in this world? Do you really think it would be something like a rare element? Even time and space pale in comparison to my discovery."

"HEEEEE? Stronger than time and space elemental affinity? Is that even possible?" Adam screamed in shock, startling Julius, who almost fell from his bed.

Then, he read the next sentence, placed in the middle of the page in a beautiful calligraphy font.

"Mana Affinity."

"Yes! I discovered human beings could unlock affinity to mana, the energy source fueling every other element!"

"However, to be able to possess this heaven-defying power, strict requirements are necessary: One, you must not have any elemental affinities. That is also the prerequisite to reading this book. Sadly, Except for me, only ghosts are known not to have any affinities as they have no bodies to channel them."

"Two, you must have exceptional mana flow. This requirement is easier to meet as some destroyed paths have records of potions capable of improving it."