The Magician of Sound

"Alright. What should I tell you first…" Ishii closed his eyes and crossed his arms while thinking.

At the same time, Kai glanced over Mia's expression, finding it was completely normal. In fact, she was the first to open her mouth. "I think you should talk about the core, Father."

"Ah, right." Ishii nodded before noticing the doubt in Kai's eyes. "Sorry, but Mia is my successor. I have been training her. Unlike the other powers, I can transfer my mind power to Mia, allowing her to become my successor, so I hope you don't mind her staying here."

"Of course. I don't have a problem. Besides, I am not a full-fledged protector yet." Kai waved his hand, telling them it was not a big deal.

Ishii nodded with a smile. "I will talk about the core. First of all, it's not like what you are thinking. What I mean is the core is your power. What is the essence of your power and how you wish your power will evolve in the future? Those are the first two questions you should ask yourself."

"What is the essence of my power? And how I wish it will be in the future?" Kai tilted his head. "I can't understand. My power is Sound, so the essence is air?"

"No, no. Maybe I should give you an example…" Ishii smiled and raised his finger to his forehead.

Suddenly, a round-shaped blue light came out of his forehead. "This is the core of my power. It's a kind of personification of your power. After understanding the essence of your power, you can form this core. Of course, everyone has a different core. Some are tattoos and some even have a physical body.

"What is this core anyway? When I asked that to my Father, he told me that the moment I noticed the essence of my power, I would be able to concentrate the Magic Particles in my body. In other words, the core is a personification of our power that connects our body to our magic. That's my conclusion.

"However, even if you ask me about your core, I don't have any kind of explanation to it other than what I said earlier. It's completely different for each person." Ishii sighed helplessly.

"A personification, huh." Kai looked down and thought. "This has become too unscientific…"

"Ahaha." Ishii chuckled. "Magic alone is already unscientific. Well, you people are incorporating science into magic, so it might look like it can be explained by physics. But I want you to know, the people in the past have never once considered it something that exists due to your physics law. Instead, they call it magical. My age is almost three thousand years old, so I have witnessed the changing eras.

"From what I know, there are many people who can wield magic. Although they are small in number, the evidence is very clear. Do you remember the story about witches? And how they fought against them?"

Kai furrowed his eyebrows and asked for a confirmation. "The fight between the Church and the witches?"

"Yes. For an unknown reason, I believe that those people have taken Magic Particles in their body, allowing them to control the natural elements. From what I understand, it seems there is a small scale of apocalypse there because I haven't felt any Protector sacrificing their lives to call the Great Calamity.

"Though the Magic Particles in the air increases slightly. From my point of view, it's caused by a dying Protector."

"A dying protector, huh." Kai furrowed his eyebrows and looked down.

"Yes. A protector will have a body that can withstand a huge amount of Magic Particles. When they die, their body will release the magic power into the air. If they die without using the altar, their magic power wouldn't be amplified, so the Great Calamity…Or you can say the Magic Particles outburst wouldn't happen."

"Now it makes more sense." Kai nodded in understanding. He remembered how the first strange occurrence happened.

Everything suddenly changed when the animals began to evolve into magical beasts. If he believed that the name was Magic Particles Outburst, he understood the reason why the human couldn't change into magicians in one instant.

"I see. The reason why humans need one generation is due to the pollution…" Kai sighed.

"Exactly. I have been using my power to protect this village to make sure that it won't get contaminated by pollution. As you might already know, pollution has started decreasing after the great outburst. It's simply because they have a purifying power.

"Unfortunately, humans have lived long enough to break free from the pollution. Even their babies have a certain amount coming from their mother. However, the moment the magic particles enter a mother's body, it would purify everything, so the baby will become pure enough to wield magic particles."

"So that's how it's." Kai looked at the ceiling and wondered if something would change if humans didn't pollute the Earth.

"Still, I don't blame whoever it was that called the Great Calamity. The Earth was literally dying back then and they must fear that the Earth would become unsuitable for living. Before entering that era, they decided to take the matter to their hand and called the Great Calamity."

"Fair enough." Kai agreed with him. The Earth from back then was a mess. The rising temperature and sea level, extreme weather, the change of season, and so on. Everything wasn't like how it used to be.

"Anyway, to the second question, what kind of power do you wish to have in the future? This will give you a more concrete imagination as to what your core will be."

Kai nodded, still having no answer.

"This is not meant to be answered immediately. Even I took two hundred years just to find it. Of course, I am a lazy guy, so that result could be expected." Ishii chuckled. "You should be able to find it pretty soon to be honest."

"I understand. I will keep asking myself those two questions." Kai nodded with a solemn face.

Suddenly, Ishii turned to the left and smiled. "Oh! It seems that your friends have woken up from their good night's sleep."

"!!!" Kai widened his eyes and checked them, finding their voices. "How do you… Wait, do you also have the ears?"

"Every protector has these ears. You don't know that this is a requirement?"

"No, I think I have heard it somewhere, but…" Kai tilted his head in confusion. The one who said it was a dolphin whose hearing was already too good to begin with.

"Surprisingly, Mia also has these ears too. I wonder if someone wants me to die, considering only one person can get it every generation. As long as the first one hasn't died, the second one shouldn't appear."

"Father…You are not going to call me a bastard child, right?" Mia pouted.

"You idiot. I will be punished by your mother in my dream. Even though it's not real, it's still scary." Ishii flicked her forehead while laughing.

"Anyway, do you know anything about your ears?"

Kai shook his head.

"I guess I will explain it to you." Ishii sighed. "No wonder you want me to be your mentor. Anyway, the ears are known as the ears that can listen to everything. To put it simply, your hearing will be enhanced and understanding another language will be easy."

Kai nodded. "By the way, this may be a bold request, but can I search for a book that can explain other races' languages?"

"I am afraid no…" Ishii scratched the back of his head with a weird smile. "Our books are translated to Oni's Language. Even though I am talking with you, it doesn't mean the others can. Other than me, only Mia can understand your human language. Though I can lend you the book to understand Oni's language or Mia can even teach you herself. It will probably not take too long."

"That will be great. I can ask my friends to stay here for the time being while I am learning about it. Well, I can't really stay here for more than two weeks, so I guess I can't complete it."

"You are underestimating our Mind Power too much. To be honest, with Mia's Power, she can teach you everything within a week. Though you will face exhaustion until you get bedridden for one or two days." Ishii smirked as if challenging him.

"Well, that's good. I don't mind as long as it doesn't give me a long-lasting effect."

"Don't worry. It's just exhaustion."

"I understand." Kai smiled and turned to Mia before bowing his head. "Could you please teach me about Oni's language?"

"!!!" Mia and Ishii were surprised to see Kai's reaction. They never thought that he would lower his head. Despite leaving this place, the habit remained. If he were to ask someone to teach him, he thought it would be normal for him to lower his head no matter his status.

"I will. Please don't lower your head." Mia bowed her head too. "If you don't mind me being your teacher, of course."

Kai raised his head and smiled. "Thank you. Please take care of me."

"Yes."

Suddenly, Kai remembered something. He took out his device and opened a picture, asking Ishii. "Do you know this symbol? What does this mean?"

"Hmm…" Ishii frowned when he saw the symbol. After a few minutes, he let out a long sigh. "I see. So, that's how it is."

"Do you know something?" Kai tilted his head in confusion. "Can you tell me about this symbol? What does this symbol mean?"

He smiled and nodded. "I will just cut to the chase. The symbol means Naga. It seems that the one sending those birds in the past comes from Naga Race or its affiliation."