GUARDIAN OF THE END

A three inches long piece of black mana detached from Jason's hands, solidifying mid-air, before hitting the trunk of the tree.

It looked as though a mini-black version of Jason's lightning bolt had gotten stuck in the tree.

Jason, however, smiled at the success achieved by him on the first attempt.

'Maybe I do have some talent.' He thought before hearing a DING echo inside his head followed by the opening of multiple system screens.

< Dark mage job class has been unlocked. >

< Dark mage: A person that can use dark magic. >

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No skills.

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Jason blinked in surprise after seeing nothing appearing in the skill tree page. The system immediately explained things from there.

[ It's because there are no basic skills provided this time. There are certain job classes like this out there with no basic skills provided and you will have to create your own skill for progression. ]

'Hmm, I wonder if you are more of a guide than a cheat.' Jason mused before shifting his gaze over to Risa.

Though she looked a bit surprised by his sudden dark magic usage, she didn't seem completely blown away.

"Well, that's the quickest I have seen someone use magic just after being taught about their element," She then paused and smiled slightly. "Or that's what I would have liked to say but no, there are those who could do this without explanation."

She patted his head at his attempt before shifting her gaze towards the piece of dark mana stuck in the trunk of the tree.

Risa stared at it for quite some time and the more time passed, the more surprised she felt.

'He might not be the quickest learner but he is definitely the most lasting one…' Risa observed.

"Jason, do you have some kind of other help that you are not telling me about?" She asked aloud, wondering whether he had some secret blessing helping him.

"No, I just understood how I could use it myself," Jason replied nonchalantly though he was slightly nervous on the inside.

Jason didn't feel comfortable about revealing his system to anyone currently. Though he might reveal it in the future, Jason currently didn't want to reveal the fact that he had a system.

"I was about to teach you the basics but I guess you managed to grasp them on your own," Risa commented. "So instead, I am going to teach you how to heal yourself using dark magic."

She suddenly placed her hand on his right shoulder and sucked some of his dark mana, making it appear on the palm of her hand in the form of a ball.

Risa brought her other hand closer to her mouth and bit her thumb tightly. opening a wound and drawing blood.

'System, make sure your record that.' Jason ordered as he closely focused on what Risa was doing.

The ball of mana in her hand was swirling quickly as it moved directly to the wound and hovered over it. The mana then slowly entered the wound and in less than a second, the wound closed up.

"Dark and light magics work in similar ways, the only difference being that dark element removes the number of dead and dying cells while life and light magic completely recover the damaged cells," Risa explained as she showed her healed thumb to Jason.

'Science follows me here too…' Jason thought before deciding to try the same thing himself. He lifted a sharp stone off the ground but before he could inflict a small wound on his fingers, Risa stopped him.

"Woah, slow down kiddo. You can't just open a wound and expect yourself to heal it that easily. You need to practice it before doing that because if you are careless, you might end up destroying your entire hand."

Jason threw the stone back on the ground before sighing. More training and practice.

'Like father, like son. Both of them definitely share that restless energy and excitement to learn and show off something new.' Risa mused.

'System, can you confirm that I won't have to learn physics or chemistry here? I have forgotten most of it by know…' Jason on the other hand wondered whether science was more closely related to magic than he had thought it was.

[ Host, if we get that stuff here, leave it on me and focus on things you can do. ] The system sighed.

Having been reassured with an appropriate reply, Jason proceeded to ask some questions.

"Grandma, the dark element is corrosive, right?"

"Well yes but that depends from person to person. Only those with an A grade affinity or higher can freely control the corrosive nature of the dark element making it possible for them to heal themselves and others."

"Then how much can the dark element heal if there is no life mage present around me and I am severely injured?" Jason questioned.

"Well, it can most likely heal anything below bone, muscle, or tissue damage. Basically, anything too internal or deep cannot be healed by either dark or light magic. Only life magic can heal such things.

"I see...."

The system didn't want to admit it but it was getting slightly bored by the topic of the conversation that was going on.

It wanted to either skip it or have some comedy going around from time to time but neither of those things seemed possible to it.

[ An explanation now... ] It yawned knowing well that Risa would provide some explanation.

"Jason, consider that light and dark magic are two sides of a coin. Though they are different sides, they are connected in the middle.

Where light magic heals cells, it also has a small amount of corrosiveness and vice versa with dark element. Life magic is something separate."

"So somewhere in the middle, they are both the same," Jason muttered feeling enlightened. "How can I practice the two elements then?"

"Hmm, my suggestion would be to do it fishes since it would work well on them and you could eat them later on," Risa replied.

"Uh…" Jason abstained from asking another question as he knew that Risa had realized it herself. There were no fishes present inside Duphia.

"Let's go fishing." She smiled as the two of them headed towards the town's entrance.