Chương 8: Exploring

The next day at school, Damion considered how he could 'have fun and make friends' as he had promised his mother. The kids in his class were all older than him, and since he had already shown he was smarter than they were, they were not at all interested in being his friend. As for fun, Damion considered learning about magic fun, but he also enjoyed discovering new things about this world. He decided a stopgap would be to finish the magical theory book first and then perhaps he would start exploring around town.

His mother had taken him to a few places in their city, but Damion wanted to know about more than just the grocery store and the local parks. Exploring on his own was a good chance to discover what else was out there. Over the next two weeks Damion continued to read Ms. Teft's book and finally finished it. Aside from complex magic theories that he was not able to wrap his head around due to his lack of actual experience with magic, finishing the book did not provide any new revelations to Damion.

The day after finishing Ms. Teft's book, Damion, instead of going to the library from class, headed out of the school grounds to explore. One of the many places he wanted to see with his own eyes, was the city wall. Even though the city of Saung was built in a Green Zone, it still had a magically strengthened wall that ran around the entire city. Damion had caught glimpses of the wall in the distance, but his mother had never taken him very close to it and he was quite curious to see how big it really was.

As Damion made his way towards the wall, or at least he was fairly certain he was going in the right direction, he knew that if people saw a six-year-old child walking the streets alone they would consider it quite odd. There was even a good chance a good-natured person would snatch him up to keep him safe until the police could find his parents. To make sure he was not caught, Damion took to following side streets and cutting through backyards, avoiding people whenever he saw them.

The plan was working fairly well until Damion was cutting through an alley and a sinister looking man stepped out in front of him. The man had long dark straggly hair and reeked of liquor. Damion attempted to make his way past the man, but before he could get past the man reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt. Damion was lifted up off the ground easily by the man, who hoisted him to eye level before letting out a harsh laugh.

The man's breath nearly made Damion pass out, but luckily his fight or flight instinct kicked in and he began to struggle against the man.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" the man snickered as Damion struggled in his grasp.

"Let me down you big oaf!" Damion shouted as he reached up and tried to claw against the man's arm that was holding him. Unfortunately, his mother took too good of care of his grooming, and Damion had no sharp fingernails to scratch the man. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Where you off to by yourself boy," the man asked as he spun Damion around by his shirt to take a good look at Damion.

"None of your business you big bully!"

"Suppose tha's true, but it's also true ain't no one around to stop me."

"If you don't put me down, I'll… I'll… I'll scream!" Damion shouted again before crying out at the top of his lungs, "HELP! I'M BEING KIDNAPPED!"

"Hush up, or I'll smash your head on the wall," the man threatened as he shook Damion. Damion, still with his hands grasping the man's forearm, did the only thing he could think of to free himself. He activated his one and only usable magic spell. After learning from Ms. Teft's book and from the system, Damion had taken a closer look at his only spell. What he learned was that he would only hurt himself by absorbing more than twice his mana capacity.

With his capacity at 25, it meant he could keep the spell active for several seconds before he risked injury. The other important thing he learned was that if he was touching something, he would absorb mana from what he was touching, but the rate of absorption depended on the object. Damion did not know how quickly he could absorb mana from a person, but he had a feeling it would work.

His guess was that on a non-mage, like his assailant, pulling the little bit of mana they had in their body out would be just as painful for them as when Damion had overloaded his body with mana. Ms. Teft's book had taught him that all living things in this world needed magic to live. If the mana was removed from a creature, be it man or beast, it would die. Damion did not want to kill this man, but he also did not want to be subject to whatever plans this man had for him.

'Activate Mana Absorption.' Damion mentally told the system while he got a firm grip on the man's arm. Damion's assailant was not sure what was happening to him, but he knew something was wrong. All the power of his body seemed to be getting sucked out and it all seemed to flow towards the arm he was using to hold Damion. While the man did not know what was happening, or if Damion was really the cause, he still instinctively tossed the boy down the alley.

Once contact with Damion ceased, the man felt the drain on him vanish, but he was already so exhausted that he simply collapsed on the ground. As Damion was flying through the air, he deactivated his spell before he hit the ground and slid a few feet. Not wanting to see what happened to the man, he got to his feet and ran out of the alley and headed to the closest group of people he could find.

If the man chased after him, Damion did not want to be alone, and he counted on crowds shopping in the area he was in to protect him. Once his heart stopped pounding, Damion took a look at himself. From being thrown to the ground in the dirty alley, his clothes now had a fair amount of dirt on them, and he had a scrape on his elbow from where he landed. All in all, he was pretty much uninjured, and he could easily explain his appearance and scrape to playing in the schoolyard when his mother undoubtably would ask.

Now that he was sure he had no permanent damage, Damion took a look around to see how close he was to his goal, the city wall. To his amazement, just beyond the shop he had stopped at to look himself over, was the city wall. The city wall stood a good five stories high and was pale blue in color. Damion was not sure what it was made of, but now that he was looking at it, he could almost feel the magic power radiating from the wall. Just as Damion started to move closer, a blaring siren sounded throughout the city.