I was playing with a magic circle in my hand as I waited for my brother to come out of the fortune teller with my father watching over me to ensure that I would not blow myself up, along with half the village on accident.
"I don't understand, why would you make a magic circle for an already existing spell?"
I sent a glance at him but returned to monitoring the stability of the spell trigger a moment later.
"Spells are spells, magic circles are spell triggers."
Getting a propper response of "Huh" I sighed and started explaining.
"Spells can be used by the caster, you either have to be an adventurer, a wizard or an Archwizard. Magic circles can be used by anybody as long as you have enough mana to activate it. It also costs less mana since it gathers, changes, and uses the mana it gathers. So..."
I grabbed his gloved hand and slapped the magic circle on it. When I moved my hand away, it remained on the glove and dimmed until it disappeared.
Extending his hand manually, I gave him a look.
"Gather magic into your palm."
He looked confused but did so anyway. A blade of wind rushed forward, dissipating a distance away before it could hurt anyone or destroy anything.
"So, if I made the magic circles permanent on clothing, the effects would still be there, even if you didn't know the spells."
Hiropon blinked for a moment and quickly, suddenly, picked me up and held me over his head, laughing uproariously.
"That's my son, everybody! The foremost Archmage that will pave the way into the next era of magic!"
I sighed, the street was empty, and nobody could hear him except for my brother and the woman inside who was doing the fortune-telling.
"Sure Dad, sure."
I was placed down on the ground and my father looked at his hand, channeling minute magic into his palm to study the magic circle.
I made another one on my palm and let it hover in the air as I leaned on the building and continued improving it.
A few minutes later Ethan came out of the building, looking satisfied.
"Did you end up dominating the world?"
I asked and he just smirked. Damn. This world was fucked.
"Your turn, dude."
I shrugged and went inside while our father gushed about the possible future that one of his sons had in store. The was dark, the only source of light was the glowing ball that was glowing and behind it, sat a woman with brown hair and red eyes like mine, a common trait of all crimson demons.
I sent an unimpressed look at her and stood in front of the ball, tilting my head to the side.
"Well then, shall we start young one?"
Fuckin... Ugh!
"Yeah, okay."
Showing no reaction to my flippant tone, she put her hands around the orb and closed her eyes for a moment.
I leaned in closer, watching as the orb cleared up and revealed myself, sitting on a couch and doing nothing in particular. I looked older, slightly muscular and I had no beard. Bummer.
The house seemed different too, not the one I was living in right now.
I watched with a deadpan as my future self did nothing but read a book. As I was about to, respectfully, turn around and leave, I spotted a small child running at me full tilt.
Before the kid could run into my knee, my older self closed the book and leaned down, picking the kid up.
The child had light red hair from what I could see.
Someone else picked up the closed book and opened it, sitting on the edge of the couch and leaning on my future self. She also had light red hair.
All in all, looks like I had a family.
"Would you look at that, your future seems peaceful-"
What a fucking joke.
The orb clouded over again and the vision changed the sky was painted red by the setting sun, and the field was stained with blood, marked by craters and gouged up by magic.
Dead bodies were scattered around and in the middle of it all, I walked like what I was seeing was a mere inconvenience.
I knew how this thing worked, and my theory seemed to be correct, but the timeline wasn't something I couldn't change, the future wasn't set in stone and I would not be tied down by predetermined events.
The orb clouded over again images started flickering.
I did not need an orb to tell me how to be happy, I didn't need it to show me the steps I would take to ensure the same future that was presented.
I would choose who I want to be this time.
Without a word, I turned around as the bewildered woman was watching the orb and left.
When I exited, I saw my two companions standing there, waiting.
My dad was still observing his glove while Ethan was just standing there, looking up at the sky.
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