I See One Second Into The Future: Loner In The Apocalypse

Kairos was intently staring at Nicole. Or more particularly, her forehead. He saw the mana twist to become some strange diagram as it flowed downwards and to the rest of Nicole's body.

In other words, the most difficult part of understanding how spells were cast was actually figuring out what kind of strange diagram the head would shape into.

There was a part of Kairos that was just hoping the mana reacted to Nicole's emotions, but even when she started to blush, the mana did not budge slightly. On top of that, he could not even begin to understand how it was circulating around within.

Kairos held up his hand.

"Wait, wait, hold on."

Nicole stopped channeling the spell and looked back at him with confusion.

"Um, did you see something?"

Kairos nodded.

"I realized that spell was way too hard for me to learn. Could you try casting the frost spell instead and do it slowly?"

Nicole slowly nodded.

"Um, ok."

She did as told, causing the mana around her forehead to flow in a different way. While it was still complicated, as Kairos expected, it was far simpler. As he watched how it twisted, he quickly brought out a paper and pen nearby and began recreating what he saw.

His strokes with the pen were rough, but after drawing them all night, he had gained some proficiency in it. Though, if it wasn't for his high agility stat and future vision, he would've messed up far more.

Nicole really did cast slowly, which was still faster than Kairos would've liked, but it would've been unreasonable to ask her to cast any slower.

After getting a rough sketch down, Kairos nodded.

"Alright, I think I got the gist of it, thanks."

Nicole curiously stared at the paper, which had a variety of lines sweeping around that made no sense to her.

"Did you figure out how to cast spells?"

Kairos shook his head.

"Not even close, but that's what I'm trying to do."

Nicole scratched her cheek and took another look at the drawings he made on the paper.

"Um, I don't really see the connection to the spell I was trying to cast and what's on the paper though."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"I don't think you would be able to, because under most circumstances you can't feel mana. What I'm drawing should be unknown to you."

Nicole let out a soft hum.

"It looks really complicated though."

Kairos sighed.

"Honestly, I'm not sure if doing this will even be worth my time. It's pretty clear to me now that all of that studying I did in high school was basically pointless."

Nicole puffed up her cheeks.

"Well it would've been important! It's not like an apocalypse that screws that up is likely in the first place..."

Kairos shook his head.

"I suppose. But even if what I'm doing right now isn't the most useful, I can at least hope that it will be useful in some other way, even if it's only my skill in drawing."

Nicole tilted her head to the side.

"You never were that good at drawing..."

Kairos blinked a few times.

"You don't have to remind me."

Nicole giggled.

"But it was just so funny when you tried to draw me before!"

Kairos clicked his tongue.

"...I wouldn't have done it if you didn't ask."

Nicole smiled.

"Then what if I ask you to draw me after you've had some experience with this spell drawing?"

Kairos rolled his eyes.

"...Sure."

It was at this point a random thought came into his mind.

"By the way, could you try casting that one other ability you have?"

Nicole scratched her cheek.

"Ah... the one that lets me pass through things?"

Kairos gave a small nod.

"Yeah."

Nicole smiled bitterly.

"Hehe, I'm not really good at casting that, it's kinda confusing."

Kairos raised an eyebrow.

"But you were able to cast it perfectly those other times."

Nicole tapped her chin.

"But... it's more like a feeling."

Kairos clasped his hands.

"What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

Nicole tilted her head to the side.

"When I use that, I'm not really thinking of using it. It just happens automatically. If I try to do it, nothing really happens."

Kairos narrowed his eyes slightly.

"So... what if you stop thinking about it and use it."

Nicole stared at him blankly.

"Eh?"

Kairos tapped the table a few times.

"Let me rephrase. What if you empty your head of thoughts before you try using it?"

Nicole paused.

"Hm... I think I understand."

Despite how vague Kairos' instructions were, she had a look that seemed to say she saw through all of it.

She stood up and faced in an arbitrary direction. Her eyes gradually lost focus as her expression disappeared. Her lips gradually made a soft frown and parted ever so slightly, like she was on the verge of saying something.

In this way, she almost looked like Kairos, a generally neutral countenance, but one with a sad undertone.

It was almost as though layers of her were being peeled off, revealing a true self within.

Then, like a doll commanded to walk forward, she began moving. Her feet still remained above ground, but her body phased through the table in front of her completely. When she made it to the other side, she stopped in place like a disciplined soldier.

Kairos' eyes widened as he watched this.

The mana in Nicole's body had not moved at all despite the fact she used a supposed ability. In other words, it was an ability not tied with the usage of mana.

Though, when he thought about it, that made sense as his future vision ability never used mana either.

As he was absorbed in his thoughts, Nicole's knees suddenly gave way. She caught herself on the table with one hand, while the other held onto her head.

"...Ow. It doesn't feel good to use it."

Kairos took a deep breath.

"Well, I'm going to try and memorize the diagram I drew. Maybe that way I will be able to cast that spell as well."

Nicole tilted her head to the side.

"Can I watch?"

Kairos opened his mouth, then closed it. He was on the verge of declining without a second thought. But he decided to relent.

"You have to keep quiet and not be distracting."

Nicole smiled.

"Alright!"

Kairos picked the pen back up before refining the details of the sketch he drew. As he continued to deepen the details, the image of the spell gradually became clearer in his head.

Though at some point, further refinements were pointless as the mistakes he had done in his sketch were a bit too glaring to ignore. Thus he set the paper to the side, and using that paper as reference, he began drawing it from scratch.

One thing that Kairos was rather hooked up on was continuing on something after it was started. After all, it simply felt too wasteful to give up on something one had committed time to.

This was something that Kairos had stuck with for quite a while in his childhood, making him a stubborn kid. However, he realized that this mentality was more so an excuse to be lazy. Not to mention, it would also have consequences.

He remembered one time he and Edward were off on their own. They weren't exactly sure of the way backward, but after a bit of consideration, Kairos pointed to one way decisively. The two of them followed that general direction, crossing streets, passing by people, buildings, and cars again and again.

The further they continued, the easier it was to tell that it was in fact the wrong direction. Edward wasn't exactly sure, but proposed the idea that they might need to turn back. However, Kairos didn't listen, thinking that if this was the right way, then they would waste so much time going back.

And so, they kept going and going.

Until eventually, they were so lost, they didn't even know which direction was turning back.

It was purely by the help of other people that they were eventually able to get back home, but it was a journey that nearly took a day. That time slapped Kairos rather hard, making him realize that he couldn't arbitrarily commit himself like that, else he could suffer quite dearly.

It was also around this time that he decided never to make a promise for similar reasons.

And so, Kairos didn't feel anything as he started anew, drawing another diagram from scratch despite the fact only tiny improvements could be made from each version. In fact, there were several times when he did a worse job than the last drawing.

However, he continued despite how much time it took.

Nicole rested at his side, watching him do a monotonous task over and over. It wasn't exactly the most entertaining thing, but Nicole didn't feel all that bored.

She kept to her word and didn't distract him. Other than leaning on him, she didn't do anything else.

As time passed, her eyelids gradually fluttered and she fell asleep.

With that, the only sounds in the air were the sound of writing along with light snoring. Quite a few hours had passed.

For some reason, having Nicole by his side made him more focused, like he didn't have to think about anything else. And with that focus, he found himself more or less memorizing the diagram.

It definitely wasn't perfect, but it was enough to give Kairos confidence to try casting it himself. He first attempted to manipulate the mana around his body, trying to bend it in the same way as he had drawn.

After getting a feel for it, he closed his eyes and manipulated the mana within his head as best he could. After roughly thirty seconds, he was somewhat confident that he properly shaped the mana in his head properly, then began pushing it through the rest of his body.

The entire process took nearly a minute, but it all worked out.

And at the very end, the mana coalesced at his palm, before becoming a few crystals of ice. The ice slowly dispersed, covering his palm and arm in a thin layer of ice.

Kairos continued to stare at his hand in surprise for a few minutes. He used a spell that wasn't even his.

Granted, before he could even start channeling, it took nearly a minute. On top of that, Kairos could feel his control over the spell was very shaky. If he tried to continue channeling the spell, he wasn't confident that he could keep going, like it could collapse in an instant.

The actual practicality was nothing compared to one of the spells he had already learned from evolution, but it wasn't as though he could learn as many spells as he wanted that way. But through this, as long as he committed time, he could begin casting other spells he wished to as well.

To get it to a usable level may take quite a bit of practice, but the point was that it was possible.

Kairos let out a long drawn-out breath.

Then, out of nowhere, a notification popped up.

[First One Hundred To Decipher A Basic Elemental Spell (First - By ID: 345315364923) - 250 points awarded]

Kairos' eyes widened when he saw this and genuinely lost his composure. Namely, because of the extremely large amounts of points provided. As he gradually calmed down from getting so many points, he then thought of something else.

Normally, notifications happened immediately, perfectly suiting those that craved instant gratification. However, this one appeared not just seconds after, but full minutes.

Kairos muttered to himself.

"...It seems like learning spells manually wasn't supposed to be possible."

A smirk gradually formed on his face after this realization.

"I guess this system doesn't actually have everything planned out. I wonder if there are other things that it doesn't expect..."