The forest air, thick and damp, clung to Eris as she ventured deeper into the ancient trees. The breeze whispered long-forgotten secrets in the leaves, and each crunch beneath her boots echoed in the silence. She stopped in a clearing, surrounded by nature's embrace, and closed her eyes. Her hands trembled slightly as she focused her will, forcing bile back up her throat. The vomit was bitter, a torrent of physical and ethereal impurities that her body, still in the process of cleansing, could not hold. She knelt, panting, feeling the lightness and relief that came with each retch. The "filth" of her former existence, the residue of her ordinary life, sloughed off her.
Though she couldn't yet manipulate the ambient mana at will, her mind remained fixed on the fundamental task: rebuilding Mana Core Number One. Within herself, Eris reviewed the intricate truth of this world. This wasn't just any world; it was a true domain of mages, where power and influence were intrinsically linked to the Circles of Mana.
"A circle," Eris thought, with the coldness of someone assessing a system, "is not a realm in itself, but a higher vessel. An energetic backbone that holds a magus's true potential." The academy was crucial precisely for this; it was the crucible where aspirants learned to forge and polish these vessels. From the outside, a magus's initial ten circles might appear to be a linear scale, but Eris knew that each number represented a chasm of difficulty. It wasn't just a matter of accumulating mana; each circle demanded unique understanding, unwavering willpower, and, most challenging, a "polishing" of the inner vessel that few could achieve. Most mages stagnated at low, intermediate, or high ranks, unable to transcend the bottleneck represented by each new circle. Treasures, techniques, magical inheritances… all were tools for this arduous process, but true progress depended on the purity and moldability of the core itself. A Ten-Circle Wizard, as the books defined him, was the pinnacle of what this world believed possible, an absolute master, the pinnacle of known power.
Suddenly, a strange sensation washed over Eris. It wasn't pain, nor mana, but a kind of subtle buzzing in the air, as if reality itself were being rewritten. Her eyes snapped open. In front of her, where there had been nothing before, appeared an ancient mirror, its glass surface opaque, surrounded by a rustic, unfamiliar frame. It pulsed with a dim but powerful light. Eris stood motionless, watching.
The mirror ignited with a blinding light. Millions of images, fragments of time Eris had never experienced, flashed into her mind: epic battles, fantastic creatures, floating cities, mages performing feats that defied known logic. There was a Hundred-Circle Wizard, a towering and terrifying figure, not a boundary, but a mere shadow in a far vaster universe. These flashes weren't alien memories; they transformed into her own, embedding themselves in her psyche with the same authority as her past experiences. The vision of that Hundred-Circle Wizard, the person who had killed her in her "previous life," was now just a dot on an incomprehensibly distant horizon.
Eris felt as if an invisible hand, a force beyond her understanding, was weaving a new reality around her. The limitations of the ten circles crumbled. The world wasn't small; it was infinite. The idea of the Ten-Circle Wizard as the absolute master dissipated, replaced by the realization that it was only the beginning of a path that extended far beyond.
"Good luck," a voice whispered in his mind, clear and ethereal, as if a god bored of watching had decided to intervene.
The ancient mirror went out as quickly as it had appeared, leaving Eris alone in the forest clearing. The flood of information dissipated, the divine intervention erased from her conscious memory. All that remained was one unshakeable truth, seared into her very core: She was a Thirty-Circle Magician. The knowledge of that level, the skills and understanding it entailed, was now a part of her, as if it had always been. The intricacies of how or why simply vanished.
Regresó a casa, la familiaridad de su hogar ahora impregnada de un nuevo propósito. Subió a la habitación que compartía con su madre y su hermanita. La madre dormía profundamente, su rostro sereno. La pequeña hermana, acurrucada, exhalaba un suave suspiro. Eris se acostó en la cama, acercándose a ellas. Sus manos se movieron instintivamente, no con la frialdad de antes, sino con una profunda e inexplicable ternura que se había arraigado en ella. Acarició el cabello de su hermanita, dejando una marca más profunda de su cariño, una conexión que iba más allá de lo carnal. Luego, se volvió hacia su madre. La acarició con la misma devoción, y aunque la mujer siempre había sido orgullosa y obstinada, el toque de Eris, imbuido de una nueva y abrumadora fuerza, la hizo suspirar en sumisión, aceptando el afecto con una quietud inusual. Eris abrazó a ambas, prometiendo en silencio protegerlas, una Maga de Treinta Círculos con recuerdos recién forjados y un propósito expandido, una red desconocida que la había atrapado, para bien o para mal.