Chapter 2

Give me the prophecy, Potter!

Come on, you can do better than that!

Hahahahaha!

SIRIUS!

"Sirius!" Harry gasped as he bolted awake, his pulse racing and breathing ragged. He frantically looked around before realizing where he was. A few deep breaths later, he calmed down enough to get out of bed and onto shaky feet.

Harry wondered why he was having nightmares of Sirius' de- that night now, of all times? But looking back, it had been the same with Cedric's death, hadn't it? The nightmares didn't start until after he'd gotten somewhat comfortable.

And until last night, he hadn't had an opportunity to properly relax since his summoning. Living in the forest the last week or so certainly hadn't let Harry sleep very well.

His rudimentary protections just weren't enough for him to sleep comfortably in a forest full of large and dangerous magical creatures. He practically ended up sleeping with one eye open, even if he never got attacked by anything. By the time he fell asleep from exhaustion, it would be nearing sunrise and he'd soon wake up from all the forest noises.

Getting to sleep in a town and in a nice, comfortable bed must have finally relaxed him enough for the nightmares to start.

Harry sighed and wiped the sweat off his forehead. His clothes had gotten sticky too so Harry quickly pulled them off and used [Tergeo] to clean the cold sweat and grime from his clothes. He then used the small tub of water and cloth provided by the innkeeper to wipe himself off. Harry really wished he could take a shower but a small, medieval town like this unfortunately didn't have such things.

Now feeling more comfortable, he opened the room windows to see that it was still quite dark out. Harry guessed that there was still around an hour or so before sunrise as he could only spot a few militiamen standing guard or patrolling.

Harry eyed the bed but knew he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. Not wanting to just sit around in the small, cramped room, Harry decided to just go take a walk to clear his head.

When he went downstairs, however, he was surprised to see Shizu already awake and sipping from a clay cup.

"Good morning," she greeted him with a smile.

"Good morning," he automatically replied, surprised to see someone up this early. Even the innkeeper wasn't up yet.

"Do you always wake up this early?" he asked, sitting down at her table.

"Normally, this is my training time but I usually just relax when I'm on quests," she explained.

Harry simply nodded, not sure what else to say. Just like that, the dimly lit room descended into an awkward silence. Well, awkward for him, Harry noted. Shizu didn't seem to mind it one bit.

"So, uh… What exactly is this quest you need to do?" Harry asked.

"There have been a lot of reports coming in about increased Monster activity in this region. Higher level Monsters that normally stay in the forest are suddenly coming out and rampaging and I'm here to investigate and, if possible, resolve the issue," she revealed.

"Well, if I'm being honest the cause is probably the Ground Dwelling Dragon from yesterday but it's not guaranteed so I'll look around the forest just to make sure."

"I saw plenty of dangerous creatures in the forest but nothing as powerful as that dragon," Harry idly noted.

"Wait, you were in the forest? When?" Shizu asked, surprised.

"Where did you think I've been staying since I escaped my summoners?" Harry asked sardonically. "I had to stay away from towns to avoid the soldiers and opportunists. Last night was the first time I slept on a bed since my summoning."

Shizu continued to stare in surprise for a moment before breaking out of her stupor.

"I guess you really are used to danger," she finally said, amusement coloring her tone. "You must have some powerful Skills to have survived that forest. I saw you use Ranged Barrier yesterday but do you have any offensive Skills?"

Harry frowned in confusion. "I don't really know what you mean by Skills. Also, if you're talking about the magic I used yesterday, that was the [Protego] spell."

Shizu gave him a quizzical look. "You're saying you already knew magic before you were summoned?" she finally asked.

Harry returned her quizzical look. "I'm a wizard, yeah. Do you not have magic in your own world?" he asked back.

"Not really. At least, I don't think so. But I was summoned when I was a child so I don't really know. You're pretty much the first Otherworlder I've met who could already use magic though. Maybe you're from a different world?"

Now it was Harry's turn to stare at her in surprise. Honestly, even after being summoned to another world, the idea that there might be several - no, there might actually be hundreds or thousands of - other worlds hadn't hit Harry until just now.

All of a sudden, the prospect of finding his world out of many seemed a lot more daunting than before. At least it somewhat explained why sending an Otherworlder back was not a simple or easy process.

"So what was that about Skills?" Harry asked instead, mostly to distract himself from his heavy thoughts.

"Skills are… Well, Yuuki described them as 'cheat codes'. Basically they let you do difficult things more easily," she answered. "They are a type of power or 'authority' bestowed by the Voice of the World.

"Let's take that spell of yours as an example. There's a similar Skill that I can use called Ranged Barrier but compared to a spell, using a Skill uses less power and it's a lot faster. I don't need any incantations, magic circles, or items to deploy my barrier and I'm pretty sure it's more powerful than yours as well," she explained.

Harry nodded along as Shizu finished her explanation. "So how do I get these Skills?" he asked her.

"Training and live combat," she instantly replied. "But you probably have some Skills already. Most people get some Skills when they come to this world, though there are exceptions."

Harry frowned in thought before he realized something. "So my danger sense and mental speed-up abilities are Skills?" he asked.

"Probably," Shizu agreed. "Skills are inscribed onto a person's very being so they're instinctual. Just try and think about it and the answer should come to you."

That was a vague suggestion but Harry nonetheless tried it out. Closing his eyes, he tried to ask himself 'what are my Skills?'. To his surprise, there was actually an answer. Well, it was more like he already knew the answer but just couldn't remember where he knew it from or when he learned it.

"It looks like I have two Unique Skills and a Resist Skill," he told Shizu. "The first Unique Skill is Unraveler and it looks like it comes with a few abilities that let me uncover lies and find the truth. There's Insight, which lets me detect and see through deception and get a glimpse of a person's personality. I think I've been using that instinctively on everyone. Then there's All of Creation, which lets me learn more about something based on what I already know. There's Analytical Appraisal, which lets me analyze a target in detail. I'm pretty sure I used that in my fight with that Razen fellow too. Finally, there's Thought Acceleration, which lets me speed up my perception. I guess I've been using my Unique Skill without even realizing it.

"The other Unique Skill is Defier and its abilities let me make the impossible possible. One of those abilities is Premonition, which warns me of imminent danger so I guess that's where my danger sense came from. There's also Probability Manipulation, which lets me manipulate probabilities, I guess? And then there's Law Manipulation, which supposedly lets me manipulate the laws of the world but I don't even know where to start with that.

"Oh, I also have a Resist-type Skill called Spiritual Attack Resistance that protects me from mental and spiritual attacks."

"Those are some powerful Skills," Shizu complimented, having patiently waited for him to finish. "And having two Unique Skills is rare. My old student, Hinata, is the only other person I can think of with two."

"What about you?" Harry asked curiously. He instinctively knew his Skills but despite Shizu's words, he couldn't really be sure whether they were impressive or not. Comparing his Skills to someone like Shizu would give him a better idea though.

"My Skills aren't as impressive, I'm afraid," Shizu deferred. "My Unique Skill is called Shapeshifter. It lets me separate a target into multiple elements or combine multiple elements into a single target."

At Harry's blank look, Shizu couldn't help but laugh. "It's a terrible explanation, I know, but it's the best I can do since potential targets can be materials, Skills, magic, and even people."

"Aside from that, I also have Extra Skills like Ranged Barrier, Body Double, Flame Manipulation, and more. I also have a lot of Resist-type Skills like Flame Attack Nullification, Physical Attack Resistance, Poison Resistance, Paralysis Resistance, and more."

Harry was amazed at how many Skills she had and it must have shown on his face because Shizu burst into another round of giggles.

"It's not as impressive as you think. What's more important than the number of Skills you have are the number of Skills you've mastered," she counseled with a gentle smile. "Of course, Skills themselves aren't the end all of strength."

"Yeah, I get what you mean. I've beaten a lot of older wizards with just a few spells that I learned at school," Harry agreed. "But what are Extra Skills? I don't think I have any of those but are they better or worse?"

"Hmm… That's a long explanation so let's leave and I'll explain on the way to the forest," Shizu suggested. Harry easily agreed and the two set off.

Almost an hour later, Shizu and Harry found themselves approaching the forest line. They'd spent most of that hour going over all the important details about this world. There was so much exposition that Harry could feel a mild headache coming on from the information dump and all the thinking he ended up doing.

Still, Harry didn't regret it since he learned a lot of important stuff about how this world worked. He learned all about the different types of Skills one could get.

Common Skills, for example, were the simplest to get and typically just needed some training. Extra Skills like what Shizu had were more powerful but equally harder to acquire. Unique Skills typically stood at the top but their effects were so varied that you couldn't tell how strong one was that easily.

Unlike Common and Extra Skills, Unique Skills were apparently born from one's desire and, as the name suggested, unique to the user. Thinking about it, Harry felt it made sense. He didn't remember his time after jumping through the Veil and before being summoned all that well but he vaguely remembered regretting his actions that put his friends and Sirius in danger and the causes behind them.

In any case, he also learned that all Skills were apparently bestowed by the 'Voice of the World', a magical system of sorts that handled things like bestowing Skills, racial evolution, and other phenomena. It apparently echoed in the minds of all related people and Harry vaguely remembered hearing a voice back then as well.

The whole 'racial evolution' part segued into an explanation on the different species that inhabited this world, including Humans, Demi-Humans, and Monsters.

All in all, their one hour walk from the town to the forest felt longer than one of Professor Binns' lessons. At least Shizu was a lot more interesting and engaging than a droning ghost.

As the pair entered the forest, a thought occurred to Harry.

"This might be a stupid question but how are the two of us supposed to search this entire forest?" he asked. "It'd take months if not years so will we be spending the entire time here?"

"That's a good question, actually, but no, we won't," Shizu reassured him. "Monsters are magicule-based life forms. The more powerful and dangerous a Monster, the more magicules it has so they're easy to detect with Mana Perception."

Magicules, Harry remembered from Shizu's lecture, were the magic particles that permeated everything. Monsters were magical creatures that spawned from magicules, and relied entirely on them to exist as opposed to Demi-Humans or Magic Beasts that simply adapted to magicules.

It was a complicated classification, much more so than the Ministry's danger classification system, and Harry was still trying to wrap his mind around it but he understood that powerful Monsters would have more magicules. That said, he still didn't understand one thing.

"Mana Perception?" Harry asked. "Is it a Skill that lets you sense magicules or something?"

"In essence, yes. You use your own mana to feel out the magicules in your surroundings. It's great for detecting spells and magical traps without seeing them and detecting Monsters since they have a higher concentration of magicules."

"That sounds amazing. Can you teach it to me?" Harry asked eagerly. That was an amazingly useful ability and, thinking back, he was pretty sure that old wizard Razen had it as well based on how easily he predicted and blocked Harry's spells.

"Of course," Shizu smiled. "It's not too difficult to learn for someone familiar with magic and having two people searching should speed things up."

The two of them found a small clearing and sat down facing each other.

"The first step is to use your mana to feel out the surrounding magicules," Shizu began. "Concentrate on the way your mana moves thro-"

"Sorry to interrupt but… what exactly is mana?" Harry asked, slightly embarrassed at having to ask what felt like a basic question.

Thankfully, Shizu didn't seem to mind, not even batting an eye at his interruption.

"Mana is the magic power present in all living things. When you cast a spell you essentially manifest an idea into reality. You do this by transferring your thought and intention onto magicules and using them to rewrite the world's laws."

Harry listened intently as Shizu began her lecture on magic. Hogwarts never really covered the 'how' of magic, mostly focusing on teaching spells and how to use them. Maybe there was a more advanced class that would cover this in later years but Harry felt Shizu was a much better teacher regardless.

"Of course, all this mostly relates to Aspectual Magic. There are other types of magic such as Elemental Magic, Holy Magic, Summoning Magic, Engraving Magic, and more, but what all of them have in common is that they all involve manipulating some kind of spiritual energy. And you manipulate these energies with your mana.

"Mana is… well, that can get pretty complicated so let's save that for the Magic Guild in Lura. Anyway, mana is essentially the innate spiritual power you use to manipulate magicules or any other type of energy for that matter.

"You can think of mana like physical stamina. Stamina isn't some resource or energy that exists in your body but as you move, you consume 'stamina', with difficult movements using more stamina, until you're too tired to move anymore. Mana is the same; you use it up when you cast magic and have to rest to recover it."

Harry nodded along as Shizu finished her explanation. He still didn't know what 'mana' was exactly but he knew that casting spells tired you out so what she said made sense. Either way, he always learned best while doing so Harry decided to stick to his strengths.

"I think I've got it so how do I learn Mana Perception again?" he asked her, bringing them back to the original topic.

"Concentrate on your mana. Think back to how you feel when you cast a spell and hold on to it. Your mana flows through every part of your body like blood. Get a feel for this flow first," Shizu directed him.

Harry closed his eyes and turned his focus inwards. He'd never really paid attention to the process of spellcasting so he wasn't really sure what his mana felt like. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, however, he tried a different approach.

"[Lumos]" Harry muttered. Through his eyelids, he could tell that his wand lit up as intended. He cast the spell as he had dozens of times before. Only this time, he paid closer attention to himself.

As Shizu described, he felt… something within himself. There wasn't really a word to describe it but he felt a ripple of sorts. It only lasted a moment but now that he knew what he was looking for, Harry found it easy to track the flow of his mana.

It didn't just flow through his body like blood, it was as if his entire being was suffused with this power. Harry could now tell how it ebbed and flowed through his body. In fact, now that he was paying close attention, Harry could tell that some of it was actually leaking out into the surroundings.

"Good. Now that you've got a handle on your mana, use it to extend your senses outwards. Connect your mana to the magicules around you. Notice how the magicules interact with the surroundings and get a feel for how they are displaced or changed. It might take a bit but you should get the Mana Perception Skill soon enough," Shizu assured him.

Harry frowned in concentration as he tried to do as she said. Following his leaking mana, Harry carefully studied how it interacted with his surroundings. He could tell there was, in fact, something moving all around him, even within him.

Harry didn't know how much time had passed since he'd started working on this. He'd activated Thought Acceleration so he couldn't be sure of the time since all of his focus was on analyzing the movement of the magicules around him and how they interacted with the environment.

Already he had a good idea of his surroundings now. He could 'see' the clearing he and Shizu were in. He could even see past the trees behind him, noticing some birds watching them from the branches.

[Confirmed. Extra Skill: Mana Perception… Successfully acquired.]

The moment Harry heard that, it was as if a switch were flipped. The subtle movements and shifts of the magicules that he'd been painstakingly observing and analyzing were now easy to understand.

He could now 'see' all around him with surprising clarity. Harry could even see Shizu smiling at him and he opened his eyes, a wide grin plastered on his face.

"You're still very much a beginner so keep practicing," Shizu said. "The range and detail of your perception scales with your mastery of the Skill so keep working on it."

"I will," Harry promised. "But isn't this Skill too amazing? For something you can learn so easily, it basically makes you immune to surprise attacks and smokescreens, doesn't it?"

"It's not that simple. Mana Perception is easy to get but most people don't have the mental capacity necessary to make it useful. The effective range of perception for an average human mage is only a few dozen meters or so. But Otherworlders like us naturally possess higher physical and mental functions because we possess a lot more magicules so we're not as limited," Shizu explained.

"Besides," she continued with a smile. "This is just the tip of the iceberg. Once you get comfortable enough with using Mana Perception, I'll show you how to use it to analyze sound waves so you can understand anyone regardless of their language."

With that the two resumed their trek through the forest, this time with Harry keeping an eye out as well.

Now that he had Mana Perception, the forest seemed simultaneously more intriguing and foreboding to Harry. He was able to 'see' far more of the forest than before and it really emphasized how serene yet dangerous it was.

The forest was lush with trees, foliage, and various small critters. At the same time, Harry spotted almost half a dozen Monsters within just a 100 meter radius. Nothing too dangerous for them, of course, but the point still stood.

Harry's musings were cut short when he felt something strange with his Mana Perception. For a moment he thought it might have been his imagination but Shizu appeared to have noticed it as well.

Harry focused his mind and activated Thought Acceleration again as the two of them silently stopped in their tracks. For what felt like several minutes, but was actually less than a second, Harry patiently watched and waited.

His patience was rewarded as this time he felt it when the creature entered his perception range. It was some kind of large, bee-like Monster and it was blazingly fast. With his enhanced mind, however, Harry was able to somewhat track its movement as it headed straight for them.

Despite his mental speed-up, Shizu was actually the one to move first. In an instant, she pushed him away and pulled out her sword, swinging it where his head was previously.

Harry was barely able to follow the movement of her sword but he could guess what happened based on the two halves of the bee-like Monster that crashed into the trees behind them.

"An Army Wasp," Shizu revealed, her tone and expression more serious now. "This is bad. Army Wasps don't move alone so there must be a nest nearby."

"Are they that dangerous? I was able to follow its movements with Thought Acceleration so how bad can it be?" Harry asked, quickly getting back up and readying himself for combat.

"Alone they're not that dangerous. They have sharp claws, poisoned stingers, and incredible speed but they're not very durable. But in a swarm, they become far more dangerous, especially in forest environments like this. It's especially bad if there's a Queen Wasp to control them, which I'm pretty sure is the case here."

"Do we retreat then?" Harry asked, feeling slightly conflicted. He'd always recklessly pushed ahead in the face of danger, usually because there was little time to plan or prepare, but his misadventure at the Department of Mysteries had made him more open to caution and retreat.

If Shizu, powerful and experienced as she was, decided it was better to retreat, then he wouldn't disagree.

After a moment of thought, Shizu gave her response.

"No. I'm going to take care of this right now," she declared. "It'll take too long for the Council or the Church to mobilize. If there really is a Queen Wasp, then we can't afford to let it build up its forces."

"Alright. How are we doing this, then?" Harry asked her.

"We are doing nothing," Shizu instantly replied. "I'm going to find the nest and kill the Queen. You are going to leave the forest and alert the townspeople. The Mayor should be able to contact the Council."

Having finished giving him orders, Shizu made to leave but stopped when Harry followed her.

"What are you doing?" she asked him with a stern expression. "You're my student now so listen to what I say."

"I've never been good at listening to my teachers," Harry admitted with a smirk. "And like I said, I'm quite used to danger. I can watch your back while you go after the Queen."

Shizu tried to maintain her stern expression but Harry could see the corners of her lips turn up. Not to mention his Unraveler Skill told him she wasn't too upset with him.

"Is that so? I'll look forward to teaching you some discipline then."

Her words sent a shiver down his spine but he nonetheless followed behind her as they set off in the direction the Wasp came from.