The Sixth School Ch. 019

'Because the system is bonded directly with your soul,' Came the reply from Olivia. 'Even if it didn't use any kind of text, you would still understand it as it bypasses your logical mind and communicates directly with your soul,' She further explained. 'Think of it as the difference between someone uttering the word warm, and you feeling the warmth on your skin. In the one case, your brain has to be able to decipher what the other person is trying to communicate, whereas, in the other, you don't need an understanding of what the word warm means to feel it on your skin,' She added.

Greg's eyes turned bright as he considered the familiar's explanation. 'Wait, can you use the same means to communicate with me?' he quickly posed mentally.

'How do you think you can tell when I smile, nod, or shrug when we communicate mentally?' Olivia replied with a mental arched eyebrow.

'That's perfect!' Greg replied mentally, unable to hide the excitement he felt. 'You can help me learn the languages even faster,' He stated. 'All you have to do is repeat whatever the healer is trying to teach me with the direct meaning of the words!' he declared. 'That way, I'll be able to far more easily recognize and remember the words! In no time at all, I'll be able to...'

'STOP!' the word was communicated so forcefully that his body stopped even before he even knew what he was doing. At first, Greg thought that the familiar was objecting to the idea that he was presenting to her. The grave tone in Olivia's voice, however, made Greg revise this conclusion. 'Quick, into the room next to you,' Came the follow-up instruction from the familiar.

Without wasting time, Greg, who'd been about to step out of the infirmary, turned and dove into the room closest to him on the right. 'What's going on?' Greg asked, unable to hide the slightly nervous note in his voice.

Rather than answer him, the familiar emerged from Greg's glabella in her corporeal form and stood before him. "Here," The familiar spoke, holding out Greg's storage ring to him. "Take out your armor and put it on," She instructed him verbally. "You'll be needing it quite soon," She added ominously.

"What's going on?" Greg couldn't help but ask even as he quickly did what the familiar had just told him.

"I don't know," Olivia replied causing Greg, who'd been bent over pulling on the subtlety pants, to look up at her in confusion. Seeing the serious look in the familiar's eyes, however, Greg could see that this wasn't her trying to pull a prank of some kind on him. "Let's just call it an intuition," She stated.

Olivia knew that there were memories that she didn't have because her original hadn't granted her access to them. There was a possibility that the reason she couldn't put a finger on what it was she was sensing was because it wasn't among the memories she'd been left with. But then, if that was the case, then the boy needn't bother struggling. It was already game over for him. The reason Olivia thought this was because, when her original summoned her into being, the boy had already unlocked the basic tier of the magic shop. Which means that he already had access to items and materials ranging from tier one to tier three. As a result of this, her original had left her with the knowledge of almost everything within those three tiers, so that she could give effective advice to the boy. As such, if this was the reason she couldn't pinpoint what it was she was sensing, it could only mean that they were dealing with something at tier four or above. And if that was the case, not even the healer, with her damaged mana pathways would be able to put up a strong fight.

For whatever reason, however, Olivia couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't a lack of memories that was inhibiting her from finding out what was going on with the aura that she'd picked up on. Something else was at play, impeding her ability to understand what it was she was sensing. This possibility, to Olivia, was even more scary than the first one. She was presently limited to the power of a second-tier mage. This, however, didn't change the fact that she was a higher-order life form compared to humans. For an entity to be able to interfere with her senses, it would have to, at the very least, be a higher- order being equal to her in life order or higher in life order than her. A tier four human or beast was scary, but even at tier one, a being at a higher life order could very easily pose a greater threat to the boy. What was worse, was the fact that, with just the power of a second-tier mage as she presently had, she probably wouldn't be able to stop whatever it is that she was sensing...

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