Rhys was extremely happy.

Well, his hands were a bit burned, and they stung like crazy every time a breeze blew through the cracks of the horse stall. But see, he had finally succeeded in drawing a spell!

Imagine living a completely ordinary, mortal life and then one day you are suddenly able to draw a spell. Anyone would have been bouncing off the walls with excitement, right?

[It is just an Initiate spell. Hell, it’s only a fundamental spell,] the system scoffed, its blue text flashing right in front of his face.

[Does anyone actually need a spell just to light a tiny fire?]

Rhys felt like someone had just thrown a bucket of freezing cold water directly over him. His wide smile faltered, and he glared at the glowing words.

"You just can’t understand..."

A cosmic being like the system could never understand the deep, burning thirst of millions of webnovel readers back on Earth.

They all just wanted to at least experience what the main characters felt, even if it was only for a fleeting moment. Well, preferably without the whole pain and suffering part.

How could a literal AI understand the quiet pain of someone living a totally ordinary, boring life?

Rhys had spent years self-inserting as fantasy main characters, reading about the incredible, world-shaking lives they experienced, all while he just sat in his room waiting for a boring mortal death.

To finally have that power in his own hands was a dream come true. So Rhys didn’t care about the low rank of his spell, or its complete lack of mightiness.

Was it a real spell? Yes.

Did it create real fire? Yes.

That was all that mattered to him. But as he stared at the screen, something else from the system’s text caught his attention. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"What do you mean by fundamental spell?" Rhys asked, tilting his head.

He had only studied in the Azure Lotus Sect for about a month before his broken constitution was discovered and he was promptly ousted to the manual labor division.

Although he had managed to learn the basic, common knowledge about spell ranks during his short time as a student, this was the very first time he was hearing the term ’fundamental spell.’

Did that mean spells were classified not only by their numerical ranks, but by something else entirely?

[Spells are classified as per their properties too,] the system explained smoothly.

[They are categorized as Fundamental, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. Fire, water, earth, metal, wind, and wood are the fundamental elements in Elemental spells.

A higher classification does not necessarily mean a more powerful output, because all properties have the same potential for the output. However, their unpredictability in combat is what makes them truly important.]

"Oh..." Rhys nodded slowly, tapping his chin.

To be completely honest, he understood absolutely nothing about the unpredictability part, except for the fact that there were way more divisions in spells for him to explore.

And more divisions meant more exciting, flashy spells for him to collect later!

But... his excitement hit a massive wall. He didn’t actually have any other spells, nor did he have any immediate means to buy one.

The low-grade Fire Spark scroll he currently owned had cost him a staggering two years’ worth of his hard-earned savings just to purchase from a shady merchant.

The cost of an Apprentice (E-rank) spell scroll would easily be five or ten times higher. Rhys leaned his head back against the wooden wall of the stall, letting out a long sigh as he considered multiple options for how a broke guy like him could get his hands on new spells.

The first option was to just come clean.

He could expose the fact that he could successfully cast spells to the elders of the Azure Lotus Sect. But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, Rhys shook his head fiercely.

That was practically suicidal.

If he revealed to them his ability to summon spells, the sect would obviously force him to take a constitution test to find out if he was telling the truth.

They would use their diagnostic tools and see that his internal mana circuits were still completely shattered and broken. He wouldn’t be hailed as a genius; instead, he would be viewed as a terrifying freak who could somehow draw a spell out of thin air without a single drop of mana.

They would probably lock him in a dungeon and dissect his soul to find his secret. Rhys quickly dropped that idea entirely.

He liked having his skin attached to his body.

The second method was just buying them from the black market or an official magic shop. But he had absolutely no money.

He instantly dropped the notion of trying to earn money through a clever business or trading, mostly because he knew he wasn’t nearly smart enough to pull that off.

If he actually possessed the brains to become a wealthy merchant, he wouldn’t have been a broke, jobless otaku back on Earth in his past life.

A man had to accept his own shortcomings, right? So that method was also thrown into the trash.

Then, there was the third option. Register as an official independent mage on the MSFRM, which stands for the Magi Society For Rogue Mages.

The MSFRM was a massive, global organization that didn’t care about a person’s background, sect loyalty, or lineage. It was a place where independent mages and mercenaries went to register their power level, take on mercenary missions, and trade resources.

Most importantly, the society had its own internal reward shop where members could buy spell structures using points earned from missions.

Rhys wasn’t interested in the missions, nor he wanted to risk himself. But there was a reward for simply joining them. He could rent the spell scrolls from there to read without paying anything depending on his rank.

However there was a condition, he had to earn fixed amounts of credits every month. Rhys’s eyes lit up as he thought about it.

The society didn’t care how you cast your magic, only that you could actually do it. If he could pass their basic entry test showing his rank, he would officially become a registered Initiate Mage.

"Hey lass, how can I do that?"

Rhys asked, his thoughts spinning. The mages in this world broke through in three very specific, rigid steps.

First, they had to understand the geometric blueprint of the spell and successfully draw it using their own mana.

Second, they had to copy that finalized formula directly into their official Spell Book.

Finally, they had to sit tight and wait for the world’s system to verify the work and officially approve their new rank.

But Rhys wasn’t under the restrictive authority of the world’s system anymore. The Celestial Origin had completely shattered that invisible soul-link.

This meant that even if Rhys somehow managed to summon an Archmage spell now, his status screen in the world’s database would still show him as an ordinary mortal.

[You are a Celestial Origin. You don’t need anyone’s permission to show your rank. You just consider yourself as an Initiate Mage, and you are.]

"That simple!"

* *

AN: I’ve generated a few covers for this book. Can you guys suggest which one looks the best among them?

Here->