Norris positioned himself with his sniper. Using the tank as a cover, he shot. Like an eraser, everything the bullet touched was gone especially the lion with three eyes, tentacles as leg, and a tail tipped with a mouth that bites off its body parts. The recovery of the body parts though was eery.
Blood red tendrils slithered and from Norris perspective, they seemed to consume and and eat each other, slowly healing the wounds.
Honestly, Norris was mentally scared by the abstractness of it all.
Norris heard a screech and turned around. He saw the legendary Griffin.
This Griffin though was very different from Griffin fantasized on earth. It had three noses on his face, with eyes red with thick vessels of blood all over its wings, it feet had tendries moving and curling all over it.
To be honest this damn thing was more damaging mentally than it's strength.
Norris obliterated it with one shot from the tank.
While retching, he received a large influx of memory. This time frame was a node in his life. His first exposure to the world of magic.
Memories from his childhood to the time he entered the academy. They all came back at once.
"I remember now, this was the first time I saw a griffin".
The memory scape rewinded to how it would look normally. With everything destroyed pieced together.
He turn around, his newly regained memory picking up similarities. He mused, "looking at this place, it looks like this is the academy of the otherworld", his eyes looking at a logo. Books. Just books.
"Well simple enough", Norris chuckled.
The academy looked like a giant library—just books everywhere, stacked on shelves, piled in corners, even carved into the logo on the wall.
The place had a quiet, studious vibe, like a mix between an old university and some kind of magical bookstore. It wasn't fancy, but it felt important, like hidden knowledge was tucked away in every corner. Norris looked at the entrance at the gatekeeper..
The lion....or lion like creature, a descendant hybrid descendant of the griffin that stayed in the academy. It came to scare and intimidate him with his big size. This was what it would normally do.
Norris found this place interesting like it was the first time he saw it. Elaborately,I guess the memories will take time to assimilate.
"Well so this the legendary Otherworld academy. Uhh!!", Norris looked on with confusion," Wait so that is the griffin.", Norris frowned, "does the griffin have three eyes?". Norris asked not very for sure.
Abruptly, he suddenly bent down.
The memory was false. It was trying to corrupt him. Norris struggled for a while, he was trying to affirm what he knew.
After a while he stood up. The intense struggle to right his cognition took a toll on him. With the memory scape around becoming dimmer. Though something else made him excited. He waved his hand with gestures and incantations and voila!.
A light ball at the tips of his fingers. It was the light ball trick(0 tier spell). He cast levitation trick(0 tier spell) on a bullet.
But he had gained....regained the ability to cast spells. He would easily do tricks since they don't need mana. They are the most primitive form of casting, using willpower alone to affect the world.
He could also remember his mom's face again. A beautiful lady whose face gives the impression you of a quiet lady. How long that impression will last is another matter though, Norris chuckled though a little down.
He tried to cheer himself up. In the world of magic, resurrection is very much possible.
Norris quickly got the got the hang of it, using his mind to affect the world and performing tricks. He also remembered from his memories while also noticing that they deplete willpower/mental energy or in his own case, the ability to resist mental erosion and create stuff.
Though the depletion is so small that he wouldn't have noticed, if he hadn't checked carefully. It made it seem unlimited.
Outside of his safe zone.... his core safe zone, he could use magic, hopefully it will give him surprises.
He fired a bullet. Checking his depletion, he compared it to tricks and felt that it caused him more resources. The bullets are his souls counter attack.
His skin too turned from black in his former life to his current light blue skin, updating based on his current memories.
"From nigga to avatar? Peak stuff", Norris chuckled.
Checking his memory, he had made this exact joke when he had newly regained his memory and gotten over the reincarnation shock.
His face remaining largely unchanged except it became more refined while inheriting subtle features from his mom.
Looking back, Norris armed with some magical knowledge noticed the strangeness of the fight and the memory scape. It felt abstract and conceptual.
Though his limited knowledge prevented him from understanding more.
Norris decided to go to the next memory node. Nothing to gain from staying here.
Moving forward, he came to the entrance of the next node. He had an idea of what he was going to face.
If the first node was about the academy which changed his life and led him to the part of image then the second node should be when something happened
A moonless night—under the dark sky, the air felt stale and oppressive. Norris look on to see a stronghold. Looking around, no other trace of activity. This can only be a criminal stronghold.
Before him, the stronghold loomed. No torches; no guards patrolled its walls. Only the glint of damp stone betrayed its presence, like the exposed ribcage of some long-dead beast.
"This atmosphere looks like the night where everything went wrong". He went into the stronghold and he watched quietly what was happening.
He saw a silhouette of himself sitting in a throne of bones with traces of defeated enemies surrounding him. A green substance was coming from the defeated enemies in little trickle extracted by Norris....or what was left of him after rage consumed him whole.
Using the memories of himself he figured that Norris was extracting the vitality from the bandits slowly making them feel their vitality slipping away. Despair, regret, rage, numbness; all these were seen on the face of the bandits but they could do nothing but see themselves go slowly approaching death.
While this goes against his creed and code of conduct, Norris couldn't stop what was happening. It's himself. He will obviously do it.
What was funny was that in this memory node, he was the boss to fight.
Norris stood watching.
After a standing in a brief moment of respect for the grieving man, he started analysing himself at this stage.
According to memories, Norris should be a newly sublimated mage.
The glow in eyes representing saturation of mana. Commonly shown in newly sublimated mages.
His staff wand though was weird. Like a long rod of meat, with tendrils around it. A dark coloured stone at the top. While observing, an intense sensed of danger came over him.