Per what the system was saying, he didn’t need to sit down and plan a spell as if he were planning a novel. He did not need to intricately weave spells like in the books he once read in his past lives. Thinking about that...

’System! Is there any of my lives where I was a mage of some sort?’

[Analyzing Records...]

[6 out of 100 lives found!]

[Do you wish to access them?]

[Warning: Accessing these memories is permanent and could cause changes in your personality without sufficient willpower. Do you accept?]

’First, confirm if my willpower is sufficient. I’m not so masochistic to experience mind-numbing pain.’

[Surprising...]

’What?!’

[Processing...]

’Tch!’

[Willpower is sufficient to accept memories, but you will be incapacitated for three minutes.]

[Do you accept?]

[Yes/No]

Bahamut wasted no time in selecting Yes. And he regretted it quickly.

The stream of memories hit him like a strong wave. He could literally feel his head expanding, and his brain inflating. His head pounded so had he swore it was loud enough for people to hear it. The memories from six different lives he’d lived, and in each, he was some sort of mage or wizard or sorcerer.

One of them, he turned out to be a lizard shaman who died in war. He was very powerful, but he was killed by a dagger to the head, and his own child killed him. Another, he appeared to be a weak magician who worked as a lightbearer and guide for adventurers raiding dungeons. His own spell killed him.

In one, he was a very talented prince who awakened the fire element... a typical protagonist. His fiancée killed him the night they consummated their marriage.

The stream of memories lasted for five minutes, during which he relived all six lives. After that, he found himself so dizzy that he had to sit back down for five minutes, in which everything settled and arranged in his mind like a jigsaw puzzle.

"That was intense! What the-" Bahamut shook his head as he finally regained his sense of self. He could already feel the changes in him, and that was with enough willpower to counter the personality change thing. So what if he didn’t have enough?

He couldn’t help but shiver. It was too scary.

"Well... it didn’t happen. What am I worrying for?"

Bahamut flexed his fingers again as he pried into his six years of memories from different lives lived.

"Hmm... This was how it was..." He muttered as he stretched out his right hand and visualized what he wanted to do. The water from the stream moved slightly. Bahamut felt an energy passing through his body into his hands... Mana.

And the best part...

"I know this! It is no different from the mana I used in those other lives..." This also brought questions, but he sealed them at the back of his mind for later, because things didn’t look as simple as they seemed. Not as if it had ever looked really simple.

Water droplets floated from the stream and slowly formed into a ball in front of him. Bahamut felt the mana inside him depleting at a fast pace, but since he was experienced in it, he got the hang of it pretty quickly and managed to control his mana usage. Now all that was left was to use his element, specifically, the water element. He had managed to form a crude waterball and make it float atop the stream. What he had done was use his mana to control a surrounding elemental essence or object, so once the waterball formed, he did not need to use more mana. All he had to do was to make it stay afloat, and he did so easily.

If anyone were to see this, they would be demotivated instantly and quit cultivating. What Bahamut had just done was something that would take weeks, even months or years, for the least talented. It was never easy to control an element despite having an affinity for it. You had to become friends with it... That was the common analogy for it. But Bahamut had skipped all that and directly controlled an elemental object, the stream using his water element.

He then stretched out his hand towards the floating waterball. Mana passed through his hand as he resumed his control over the waterball, trying to make it shoot at something. It failed.

"Hmm... this will take some time, but nothing too big."

And he was right, as in five minutes, he was forming and shooting waterballs at nearby trees. Although the waterballs were weak and were just splashing and wetting the trees, it was more than enough progress for someone who had recently ascended. This wasn’t something achievable by talent, hard work, or luck. This was only achievable by...

[This is one of the many perks of having a system...]

’Did you just-’

[Your imagination.]

’You really did...’

[...]

Bahamut turned back to what he was doing... Grinding. He had decided to take things slowly. Well, to him, it was slow, but to others, he would be out of their league. He had decided to train one element at a time, and he had picked the water element. From his memories, water was an element that was looked down on by many because it wasn’t as destructive as fire or as sharp as air. It was mostly used for cleaning and healing, so many didn’t respect it. But in one of his lives, he was a water wizard, and despite not being among the top dogs, he was very powerful. Besides, he had seen how Elder Silvia used the water element, and he knew the water element was anything but weak.

A strong water element user could beat a fire element user with little to no effort. Waterballs were just basic conjurings anyone could do, since they were easy to do. But at the very high levels, waterballs would only be used if the person wielding the water element was bored; otherwise, you would find yourself in an artificial sea.

With that thought in mind, Bahamut continued his training, not sensing the pair of deep purple eyes staring at him from the shadows.