Absolute Mana Dominion: All My Talents Are SSS

Chapter 45: 45 - Six-Star Spell

”I still don’t understand what happened back there.” Adrien walked beside Amelia with his hands in his pockets, though most of his attention remained on the grimoire sitting inside his Inventory. ”That shop was there. We both went inside, bought something, walked out, and a few minutes later it apparently never existed.”

None of it made much sense, but Adrien had been in this world for less than a month. He had already met dragons, discovered one of their hearts inside his chest and watched people summon weapons from empty air.

’Maybe I should stop deciding what’s impossible.’

There could be a spell capable of doing it. An item. A formation. Something he had never heard of because eighteen years of borrowed memories were hardly the same thing as knowing an entire world.

”Can we go somewhere a little more private?” Adrien asked. ”I want to look at the grimoire properly.”

Amelia nodded. ”My house isn’t far.”

They reached it shortly afterward. The Edevane home sat high within one of Elyndor’s enormous trees, built around branches broad enough to support entire buildings. Vael appeared to be out, leaving the house quiet when Amelia led Adrien through it and onto a balcony overlooking the forest below.

Amelia rested her arms against the wooden railing. ”The way you made the book disappear earlier... it’s an item, isn’t it?”

”Yeah. A grimoire item.” Adrien moved beside her. ”And it definitely contains Lightning spells. The problem is that it isn’t remotely close to the Two-Star grimoire we thought we were buying.”

”I figured that much from your face.” Amelia turned toward him. ”I’ll ask Grandfather about the shop when he gets back. He knows Elyndor better than anyone I know. Maybe he’s heard of something similar.”

”At this point, I’ll take any explanation.”

”What are you going to do with the book?”

Adrien considered the question for about half a second. ”I paid a thousand crowns for it. I might as well open it.”

Amelia sighed. ”I guess.”

Adrien reached into his Inventory.

The grimoire took almost ten seconds to manifest. Black leather formed slowly between his hands, followed by the silver patterns crawling across its cover, and the moment it became fully solid, the drain started.

His expression tightened.

’Damn. This thing is hungry.’

Mana poured out of his Two-Star Core at a rate Umbral Root could not come close to matching. Adrien had reserves that were already abnormal for his rank, but even he could feel them dropping quickly.

He opened the cover immediately.

There was no introduction or any list of contents. The first page held a spell diagram surrounded by several short lines of explanation.

[Lightning Bolt]

Adrien read the rank beneath it and stopped.

Six Stars.

”What?” Amelia asked.

”The first spell is Six Stars.”

She pushed away from the railing. ”Adrien, close the book.”

”Give me a minute.”

”That’s four ranks above you.”

”I noticed.”

He kept reading.

The strange part was how simple it looked.

Lightning Bolt did almost exactly what the name suggested. Zephyr Mana passed through the Lightning Aspect, gathered into a concentrated discharge, and was fired toward a target.

That was it.

At least, that was what the explanation claimed.

Adrien frowned and went through the diagram again. Winter’s Reach had been Four Stars and its structure had looked like someone had built a clock inside another clock. This was Six Stars, yet the first page was easier to follow than spells several ranks below it.

[New Spell Observed: Lightning Bolt | 6 Stars]

[Affinity: Zephyr]

[Aspect: Lightning]

[Absolute Comprehension active]

[Comprehension: 1%]

The familiar pressure settled behind his eyes.

Adrien continued reading.

Three percent.

Then seven.

’What the hell?’ Adrien noticed something was wrong.

The spell itself was simple enough to follow, but that did not explain what was happening in front of him.

[Comprehension: 18%]

Then twenty-seven.

Adrien frowned at the page.

’That’s way too fast.’

Winter’s Reach had taken him hours of brutal concentration to push through. This was a Six-Star spell, two ranks higher, and Absolute Comprehension was moving through it as though something were helping from the other side.

His eyes dropped briefly to the black cover beneath his hand.

’The grimoire.’

He had no idea what it was doing, or whether it was even doing anything directly, but there was no other explanation that made sense. A Rank SSS item had landed in his hands from a shop that apparently had never existed.

At this point, strange was becoming the safer assumption.

Adrien kept reading.

The actual spell was another problem entirely.

Lightning Bolt demanded that a large amount of Lightning Mana be compressed into a stable channel before release. Lose control during compression and the charge discharged early. Let the direction slip for even a fraction of a second and the bolt followed whichever path offered the least resistance.

Push too much mana through an unstable structure and the backlash went straight through the caster.

’Easy to understand. Probably a nightmare to use.’

That sounded more like a Six-Star spell.

[Comprehension: 51%]

The headache became a pounding pulse behind his eyes. Adrien barely noticed Amelia moving closer, or the way she stopped trying to speak once it became obvious he was not going to hear much of anything.

She watched him instead.

His eyes moved rapidly across the page, occasionally jumping backward before continuing. His breathing slowed, and the rest of him became almost completely still.

Amelia had never seen anyone read like that.

’How does he concentrate this hard?’

For Adrien, it was familiar.

In his first life, there had been nights when he spent hours trying to crack an encrypted system, following one weakness into another until the room around him might as well have stopped existing. Once his mind caught onto a problem, pulling him away from it became remarkably difficult.

His mana was dropping almost as quickly as the percentage was climbing.

The grimoire kept feeding on his core while Absolute Comprehension took its own price. Sweat gathered along Adrien’s forehead. The words began doubling occasionally, and the pressure behind his eyes sharpened enough that he had to blink several times to clear them.

”Adrien, you’re bleeding.”

He wiped beneath his nose without looking away. ”Yeah.”

”That’s usually where people stop.”

”Almost done.”

[Comprehension: 74%]

Then eighty-six.

Adrien reached the final diagram, and the last pieces settled into place far faster than they had any right to.

[Comprehension: 100%]

[Spell Learned]

[Lightning Bolt | 6 Stars | Novice 0%]

Adrien stared at the notification for half a second.

’A Six-Star spell.’

Then his attention dropped to the grimoire again.

’What the hell are you?’

He shut it.

The world swayed immediately.

Adrien caught himself against the railing and sucked in a breath, suddenly aware of how empty his core felt. Amelia grabbed his arm before he could lose his balance.

”You’re done.”

”Technically.”

”Adrien.”

Before she could stop him, Adrien dismissed the grimoire. It disappeared back into his Inventory, cutting off the brutal drain, and he raised his free hand toward the open sky beyond the balcony.

[Lightning Bolt]

Electricity burst around his hand.

Adrien immediately discovered the problem.

Knowing the spell was one thing. Controlling a Six-Star spell at Novice 0% was something else entirely.

The charge snapped between his fingers and jumped toward the railing twice before he dragged it back under control. His arm shook from the effort while thin arcs of blue-white electricity crawled over his wrist.

’Come on. Straight.’

He poured in what remained of his mana.

The spell fired.

A blue-white bolt tore across the open air at a speed Adrien barely followed.

It also went nowhere near where he had aimed.

The lightning curved hard to the right and struck a distant tree instead. The trunk exploded near the middle with a deafening crack, wood and leaves scattering through the canopy.

Amelia stared at the damage.

Adrien managed to remain standing for another second.

’Okay. Definitely needs practice.’

His vision darkened and his knees gave out beneath him.

”Adrien!”

Amelia caught him before his head reached the floor. Whatever little mana remained in his core vanished with the failed attempt, leaving the strange SSS grimoire safely stored inside his Inventory.

Adrien was already unconscious in her arms.