Leylin's grave.
This was his private lab carved deep beneath the Abyssal Bone Forest Academy. It was a cold, shadowy haven lit by flickering green torches on the wall, their flames casting jagged shadows across stone walls etched with faint, serpentine carvings.
Leylin slouched in a high-backed chair, his green robe loose, grey hair spilling over his shoulders, grey eyes with a reddish glint fixed on the Elemental Essence Conversion book from Siley.
The book's leather cover was embossed with swirling elemental sigils. It felt heavy in his hands and the pages crisp with cursive texts and a little bit of Siley's bold, ink-scrawled notes, the words glowing faintly with arcane aura.
Elemental Essence Conversion is a critical mechanic in the magical system governing one's abilities and growth as a Rank 1 Magus.
Elemental Essence Conversion refers to a Magus's or Warlock's ability to align their magical power with specific elemental energies (e.g., Darkness, Wind, Fire) to enhance the potency and effectiveness of their spells and abilities.
It is quantified as a percentage, representing the degree to which a Magus's magical energy has been converted to resonate with a particular element. Higher conversion percentages result in stronger, more efficient spells and greater combat prowess, particularly for element-specific magic.
If one were to calculate in a percentage-based Metric, usually a newly advanced magus has 1% conversion.
A Magi experiences a noticeable growth only after crossing the threshold of 10%, at this level a magus is able to gain an advantage against his newly advaced pears.
Stronger then them are the one's with 30% conversion, they can dominate weaker magi and defeat them, the growth in spell is enough to overpower others.
But real qualitative change, which is recognized as a mark of a veteran magi is at 50% conversion.
Magi with 50% or higher conversion are considered "semi-converted." At this stage, the increase in magical power becomes very obvious, giving them a significant advantage over less-converted opponents.
This kind of strength was pretty good in the entirety of the south coast. If no chairman of some major academies or the like stepped in, you could basically walk around the south coast uncontested.
One could say that even if 4-5 magi came together, they still wouldn't be able to stop one semi converted magi.
At the peak of this power system is a Rank 1 magi with 80% elemental conversion. According to the information Leylin has access to, the three family's elders' powers have reached an elemental essence conversion rate of 80% or more, which was the minimum requirement for initiating one's advancement to a level 2 Magus.
Magi at this level can easily overpower other Rank 1 magi, its not even a competition but a massacre.
As for fully converted Elemental Magus, a Magus with 100% conversion is impossible, because such an entity would be transform to an elemental beast. Only Rank 2 Magi can typically defeat such beings.
Conversion is closely tied to individual elements, such as Darkness, Wind, or Fire. Generally speaking, a Magi can have multiple conversions but the element chosen often aligns with a Magus's affinity, bloodline, or meditation technique.
Conversion also affects spell efficiency, reducing the spiritual force or magical power needed for element-aligned spells, while boosting its strength considerably.
Magi mostly improves conversion through meditation, spell practice, or bloodline refinement (for Warlocks bloodform of Leylin), but the most common and effective way, is to use elemental essence crystals.
Leylin's eyes focused as he read through the basics and eventually reached Siley's handwritten notes, a scrawl mess.
It explained that exceeding 80% conversion wasn't just possible, but it was a game-changer boosting one's strength, ensuring a smoother Rank 2 breakthrough, and laying a rock-solid foundation for future power.
Five years had flown by since Leylin joined with Siley's faction, these years have been a blur of grinding work and steady gains that hardened him into a force at twenty-three.
Two months after his breakthrough to Official Magus, Leylin wed Lira, Siley's granddaughter, in a lavish ceremony packed with the Chairman's allies, the memory was a cold snapshot in his mind, but his heart was untouched by romance, his focus on the power their union secured.
For the first three years, Leylin and Lira lived like ships passing in the night, him chasing leads on essence conversion, her grinding toward her own Rank 1 breakthrough, their manor a sterile space of spell hums and research.
Leylin's mind was always on the next hurdle, and when Siley first introduced him to elemental essence conversion, Leylin finally understood the pathway to further advancement but Siley didn't explain much back then.
Even when Leylin was adamant about his request to dig into this topic, Siley shrugged it off.
In chairmen's opinion it would be years before Leylin even reached the stage of worrying about this topic.
He instead unloaded Leylin with teaching duty and branding research, elemental conversion just another task on Leylin's endless list of obligations.
As required from him, Leylin completed all his obligation, joining the Academy as a teacher, even though at first he'd faced the Lilytell family's grudge and opposition, but they also reached a truce under Siley's intimidation.
Teaching was a duty Leylin generally excelled at, but his bargain with Siley demanded devotion to Branded Swordsman research, particularly the obscure art of branding.
The soul branding aspect of Branded Swordsman was the soul of the script but also a challenge Leylin initially sidestepped but now was forced to tackle with relentless focus, research and experiment.
Between teaching, Academy missions, rune crafting, and skill-sharpening, Leylin's life was a crucible of demands.
But thankfully the Black Horrall Snake blood, a Rank 3 lifeline, was his ace. The bloodline had affinity for Darkness and Fire element which also strengthen his elemental conversion.
But Leylin had to carefully dilute the blood's raw potency, from a Rank 3 blood to something appropriate for him to use.
Leylin spend a long time crafting potions with rare Dylan Garden herbs and Darkness crystals, a costly commodity in the necromancy hub of Abyssal Bone Forest.
The Darkness crystals were a prized and scarce resource, especially in an area which housed the most talented and researched magus in darkness and necromancy.
To procure darkness crystals Leylin needed to spend a fortune and obviously use Siley connections, but Leylin's bloodline assimilation lessened his reliance on them.
As time passed his potionerring also improved drastically, and he successfully brewed the blood potion, helping him to increase his spiritual force and essence conversion steadily.
After five years of meditation, and Blood assimilation despite his busy schedule Leylin pushed himself to reach a spiritual force of 70, and an essence conversion of 77%, a hair shy of the 80% which is the basic requirement for Rank 2 breakthrough preparation.
Currently Leylin is merely 23 years old but he reached such a strength, even genuis Magi in dozens of years can't reach such a level, but Leylin obviously hid his growth to others especially Chairman Siley.
Three years into marriage, Lira his wife successfully reached Rank 1, but unfortunately for the busy Leylin, her heart was now desperate for Leylin's limited time.
She began to persistently push for closeness, their manor a battleground of her warmth and his coldness.
Eventually under her percussion and Siley's own obsession for a great-grandchild which was a nagging prod, Leylin understood that he needs to fulfill his wife and grand father-in-law's desires.
Although chairman Siley has many children, Lira was his favourite and most talented descendant.
One of the main reasons why Siley let Leylin marry her was because, he was a fifth grade aptitude genius, and Siley wanted to integrate Leylin's superior bloodline into his own family.
Unfortunately Magi conception is quite an arduous task, because despite their high vitality for sensual activities, an official Magi body generates an innate radiation which repels any life essence or foreign entity.
It took the couple a whole year of effort and innumerable potions for Lira to eventually conceive, her heart finally triumphant for a new life, while Leylin was simply relieved to move on.
Soon after Delphini's birth, Leylin dove harder into growth, and also decided to leave once his task with branding research was done.
After a few years of use, Leylin also noticed that his body is building resistance against the Black Horrall Snake blood's potions. In response to that Leylin used the easiest solution simply upping its concentration in the potion.
With the amount of blood that Leylin has, and his own Cursed Bloodline Codex powers, he is sure to reach Rank 2's peak, though Rank 3 seemed daunting.
Leylin spiritual force is increasing steadily, his essence conversion is near advancement level, the only thing he is lacking currently is an innate spell.
The next innate spell for Serpent's Requiem's Rank 2 level was a real thorn in his side.
But Leylin has a solution for that as well, creating his own spell, he already has three Rank 2 spells from his Book of the Great Serpent. Thankfully, Serpent Requiem seems to have been inspired by warlock meditation techniques, which share many elements of similarity.
However, Leylin still has to find a way to construct a spell model for his Rank 2 innate spell from these three Rank 2 and multiple Rank 1 spell he has.
One way to increase his chances of constructing a proper rank 2 spell is researching other spells of similar rank but unfortunately buying more rank 2 spell model is a tall order, not to mention extremely rare, Leylin hasn't been able to gain anything in that regard.
But one year ago, another opportunity rose. It was just when Leylin's experiment with branding was almost complete, Dorotte had made him an offer.
It was an offer to explore a ruin—a place where Dorotte had found traces of a Rank 2 spell. However, it was extremely dangerous; Dorotte barely made it back alive when he first explored that ruin years ago.
*Yawn*
Leylin leaned back, his heart heavy with future planning, just then a prickle hit his senses.
Leylin eye's narrowed diving into his sleeve, pulling the Wrath Wand, its bone grip warm, red runes glowing.
He pressed the wand to his temple, "What's is it?"
A voice crackling through, eagerly sounded "Sir, Lord Beruit confirmed that your tickets are reserved ."
"Okay, Marcom," Leylin replied.
Marcom hesitated, before continuing, "Sir, do you want me to arrange travel to Gedlis City?"
"No need. Your task is done, I am sure you have clear understanding of not meddling in a Magi business."
"Yes, of c—"
Leylin stood, green robe rustling, as he waved his wand around the room.
Following the wand movement, the torchlight dimmed and books laid open zipped from the worktable to shelves with a soft thump.
Leylin strode out of the room and into the corridor, stone door grinding shut, Abigail also slithered beside him, as she made a sharp hissing sound.
Leylin looked at her and shook his head, "No, Abigail, you stay with Delphini. The journey's too dangerous. You are far too weak."
Leylin reply was in pasletongue, to a stranger's ear it sounded like a snake hiss but no one dare question Leylin and why he is talking to a snake.
As he walked through the corridor students bowed in reverence.
The Void White-Eyed Snake slipped from Leylin's wide sleeve, only its white eyes were visible, as it hissed a taunt at Abigail.
Abigail incensed by the taunt, replied with a fierce snap, she opened her mouth trying to intimidate Void White-Eyed Snake but it only started a hiss battle among them.
Leylin ignored their bickering as he walked forward, and just as he was about to leave the academy, his gaze caught a golden-haired youth ducking into Dorotte's lab.
Abigail turned her attention away from Void White-Eyed Snake and hissed madly towards the golden-haired youth as if complaining.
Leylin's voice slid into parseltongue, "Who cares if he takes Dorotte's lab? Dorotte's dead, and I'm leaving. Bosain's grudge is nothing. He's just a new Magus, not worth my time. That petty boy was probably waiting by the door just to lord around that he got my mentor's laboratory. Pathetic!"