"What is your name?"
Asked Clauria while maintaining her distance from the man with broken Labhi. By this point, the demonic circle had vanished into thin air, leaving the abandoned city square to assume its former desolation.
Of course, it was desolated if one could ignore the fact that it was hosting a bunch of witches and demonic beings surrounding a seemingly foreign man.
"Eren," the man gave his name without any fear or trepidation. It was odd that the man who did not even have Menaka's Blessing on him to be this calm. "My name is Eren Elijah Idril," the man said while looking around him, observing the stances of people who had him pinned to his position.
'I was hoping for a peaceful landing. But I guess, like always, luck isn't on my side,' Eren sighed internally and thought to himself as he looked at the people surrounding him.
[ Skill: Truth Seeker ]
All of a sudden, Eren's body was coated in an ethereal energy. It seeped into his body and even tried to touch his soul, which was a kind of intrusion he evaded successfully using his Spiritual Force.
'So these are the skills from Labh Salem,' Eren thought to himself as he concluded. 'They are quite different from spells I'm used to casting in Anfang,' the butcher concluded as he let someone's skill do an initial inspection on him and what he had just said.
Eren had collected a lot of information about Labh Salem from Hettie, Eliza, Layla, and Leela. It was them who had told them that the way people in Labh Salem used magic was quite different from the practices of Anfang.
Eren had then asked the witches about the common Skills and how they worked in Labh Salem. Truth Seeker was one of the most fundamental Skills found in Labh Salem. From the looks of it, things hadn't changed much when it came to these fundamentals.
This was why he wasn't surprised when a skill was used on him. And this was why he had bothered to give them his actual name. He didn't want to have a bad start with the denizens of Labh Salem right from the get-go.
Alas, even when he didn't want any trouble, the trouble found him. In fact, it not only found him, it summoned him.
"He is speaking the truth," Hilbeli said while nodding at Clauria. Eren immediately figured out that it was her who had used the Truth Seeker Skill on him.
Eren raised his right hand in front of him before closing his eyes. He concentrated and tried to feel the mana around him. He tapped into his mana core and tried to summon a simple Fireball using his spell.
"What… what are you doing?"
Clauria asked Eren warily as she sensed a weird form of mana fluctuation coming from Eren's hand. The more she observed this man the more curious she was. The more shocked she was. It was as if this man had a lot of secrets on him.
***
'Haah! No use,' Eren sighed and thought to himself as he brought his hand down. He concluded that use of spells in Labh Salem was a lot more difficult than he had initially thought.
It was not like he couldn't cast spells on Labh Salem. He could if he concentrated and tried his best. However, the casting time was going to be horrendous, mana expenditure was way out of proportion, and the spell output was abysmal when compared against what was normal in Anfang.
It was as if someone really powerful had cast a giant invisible web all across Labh Salem. This invisible and intangible web was making it difficult for Eren to cast his spells normally. And at the same time, this intangible web made it easier for people to wield magic in the form of Skills.
Menaka's Mesh.
This was the term the denizens of Labh Salem used to describe this intangible web. Skills were a shortcut to casting magic. A shortcut that was exclusive to the worlds that were covered with Menaka's Mesh.
The Skill use was instantaneous and its effects were very potent when compared against what Eren would get by casting spells in Labh Salem. The Skills themselves were near limitless in numbers with a myriad of effects, allowing the denizens of Labh Salem to wield magic as freely as they wished.
Thanks to his interrogation and data collection, Eren knew that Skills worked a lot like Abilities back in Anfang. After all, Skills and Abilities didn't have casting time lag or incantation requirement. Both of them were very easy to cast and used a minimal amount of mana.
However, unlike the case with Rankers with their Abilities, the denizens of Labh Salem didn't have to work hard or achieve a profound level of mastery in their respective fields to obtain Skills.
One could technically get as many Skills as they want through a special medium known as Menaka's Blessing. Of course, they also needed to pay using special means to get those Skills.
Eren had to say that Skills had a definitive advantage over spells because of the restrictions in spellcasting he felt. He felt that his A-Rank mana core would have to face some stress just for him to cast a simple and non-threatening Fireball.
'All the spells I learned in Anfang are useless now. All my hard work in learning them. All the time spent in honing them. All my Elemental Attainments. They are all useless.
People in Anfang were happy with casting spells using their free will and based on their own efforts. They never adopted this approach. And I guess now I have to pay the price for that.'
Eren clicked his tongue and thought to himself. He felt that someone had robbed him of his major advantages he had over the others.
'Thankfully, the Abilities are still working more or less in the same manner,'
The butcher thought to himself and smiled as he looked at a tiny green flame dancing over the tip of his index finger. He felt relieved when his Abilities weren't affected by Menaka's Mesh for the most part.
