An Owl's Rise

Evelyn having formed her magic core collapsed onto the ground exhausted.

It had been a harrowing experience to absorb the ambient magic energy in the air into her body and compress it until it formed a core within her.

However, as soon as she collapsed, her magic core which should not have existed within her began to resonate with the beast core she had been born with.

It was at this moment when she realized something she had missed, being caught up in the moment of trying to form a magic core.

'If a magic core was necessary for someone to use magic, why have I already been able to do so?'

Her magic and the magic her parents used was definitely different from what she had seen from the humans.

Also, it seemed that every beast had a stone within their bodies that was filled with magical energy, and Evelyn now thinking about it realized that this was probably similar to the magic core that humans had.

'I do not know enough. I just jumped right into it because I was so excited, but Mason did not know that I was going to end up as a beast, so he directed me towards the way he had learned magic. Damn, I just do not know enough.'

Understanding that she had jumped the gun, Evelyn forced herself up and pulled out another book.

This one was about beasts, and she now thought that this one honestly should have been the first one she should have read.

She had just gotten so caught up with finally being able to learn magic, that she had not stopped to consider the differences between humans and beasts at the time.

But now she was worried that she had done something wrong and opened up the book on beasts and began reading.

Hours passed by as she did so, cramming as much knowledge as she could into her head until she literally began to wobble from fatigue.

Still, while she had not learned everything, she had figured out a great deal that answered many of her questions.

First off, she learned that beasts were unlike humans who were not born with the ability to use magic.

Every beast was born with something called a beast core that contained magical energy and grew stronger over time.

And unlike people that needed special techniques to absorb magical energy, beasts could absorb it just by breathing the air.

However, this was just one way that they increased their magical energy and apparently the most effective method for beasts was to consume the cores of other beasts or magically enriched plants.

Of course, there was a lot of speculation about beasts' evolution that Evelyn really did not understand, but she did learn that they were classified into six ranks and broken into four tiers within these ranks, starting at low, then mid, high, and finally peak.

The first rank was something called a wild beast, and these were from what Evelyn could understand, pretty much just normal beast that had no magical powers for the most part.

Then the second rank was something called a fiend beast which was where a beast started to gain control over its magical affinity, typically grew in size, and got a lot stronger physically.

After that was something called an awakened beast that had gained full control over their magical affinity and were far stronger than a fiend beast. Also, at this level apparently some beasts gained an awakening of intelligence. Though the book did not detail exactly why this happened, just that certain beasts were more likely to gain this intelligence.

For the next three tiers the book pretty much just had their classifications written in it without any real descriptions other than that they were all incredibly dangerous.

The fourth rank was classified as a tyrant beast, the fifth rank a sovereign beast, and the sixth and highest was called a calamity beast.

Now having a grasp of beasts, Evelyn understood that she was probably what they referred to as a fiend beast, since she figured what had happened to her after eating that silver plum was an evolution.

'So, I must be at the low tier of the second rank, at least according to human standards. I wonder what my parents were at. And what about that serpent? Was it at the fourth rank, maybe the fifth, or was it all the way at the top?'

Without a proper scale to judge the power of the beasts that she had seen, she had no way to know exactly what level the had been at.

Learning all of this Evelyn now had a decent understanding of what beasts were, at least from the perspective of humans.

Still there was a lot she did not know about humans and figured she would need to delve deeper into the book on magic to find out more.

Unfortunately, she was exhausted to the point of nearly collapsing, and did not have the capacity to read any more for now.

'I will get some sleep, and first thing tomorrow I will read some more to truly figure out the difference between beasts and humans.'

Collapsing on the spot, Evelyn closed her eyes and slept. Recharging her exhausted body.

When she opened her eyes again, the first thing she did was grab the book on magic and continued where she left off.

This time she did not stop until she had finished reading the entire book which took her the entire day.

Nevertheless, the effort was worth it since now she knew that the path of magic was far different for humans than it was for beasts.

Unlike beasts who were born with or may obtain an affinity for a type of magic through evolution. Humans were able to choose their affinity depending on what techniques they trained in and their compatibility.

'So, the basic affinities are water, wind, fire, earth, and metal. While advanced ones are nature, lighting, sound, light, and darkness. Though the book says that other concepts such life and death can be used as a basis for magic and that there were numerous other affinities that could be discovered.'

Shaking her head Evelyn was starting to get a headache from how confusing this all was.

There were the basic and advanced elements, but then also certain concepts could be used to create magic which is what she figured Mason had done with fate.

Still, this was only mentioned vaguely in the book which was mostly about creating a foundation in magic by strengthening the magic core.

At least she did find out that like beasts, humans had tiers as well.

Humans that had just formed their cores were at the initiate rank, then those that had strengthened their cores enough reached the Acolyte rank. After that the book did not detail what classified the other ranks, but just said that their magic cores had obtained the necessary magical energy.

'So that is what Mason meant in his diary when he wrote he had reached the Acolyte rank.'

Now having a bit of context for what Mason had written. Evelyn opened his diary again and looked through it trying to find the places where Mason said he reached new ranks.

There she found that he reached what was called the mage rank which was the third rank at the age of sixteen, he reached the fourth rank called Arcanist at forty-one, and finally the fifth rank of magi at one hundred thirteen, just a year before he made this place for Evelyn.

'I guess he did not make it to the final rank which is called archmagi. Still if he was at the second highest rank, he must have been pretty strong, but I guess as he left me in his last message that there is always someone stronger than you are.'

With her understanding of this world's magic now far better than it ever had been. Evelyn leaned back and began analyzing everything she had just learned so that she could try to discern her situation better.