The revelation that he was unable to use any magic containing arcane elements was quite disheartening for Ezren.
When he first received the 'Separated from the arcane elements' skill he had theorized that it would either be a defensive ability or a downside of his class.
His latest experience with fire magic had pretty much confirmed that the skill was indeed a downside belonging to his class. But that did not necessarily mean that there was no defensive component to the skill.
While the skill certainly prevented him from using arcane elements it might also prevent arcane elements from harming him. Another experiment was needed to confirm this theory.
Ezren decided to bother Jason one last time. Ezren knew that this would piss Jason off badly, but he just couldn't contain his curiosity and wanted to confirm his theory as soon as possible.
Ezren walked up to Jason who, predictably, was hanging around Alexia at the moment and asked him to create a weak fire ball.
Upon hearing Ezren's request Jason's head turned slightly red, showing his barely contained anger. Jason wanted to refuse Ezren and tell him to go to hell, but sadly for him he couldn't do that, and Ezren knew it!
It wouldn't leave a good impression on Alexia if Jason lost his temper or refused such a simple request in front of her, would it?
After a few moments of consideration Jason resigned to his fate and started casting a weak fire ball spell. After he finished casting, a small fireball appeared and hovered above his palm he then threw a glare at Ezren.
"I am done! What do you want me to do with it?"
"Just hold it there for a few seconds."
"Wha.."
Before Jason managed to express his confusion and dissatisfaction Ezren placed his hand in the fire ball just to pull it out a moment later.
Ezren's hand had received several burn marks, and he was now flailing it around as if he was trying to cool it down.
Ezren gritted his teeth and tried to ignore and distract himself from the pain since he knew that the burns would heal soon anyways.
'Theory disproved! I am pretty sure that I am no more fire resistant than any regular human, which means that the skill 'Separated from the arcane elements' really is a pure downside associated with my class.
This is pretty bad downside. I am practically a mage who can't cast spells!
No, there must be spells that don't include the usage of arcane elements, right? I should still be able to learn those once I find someone who can teach them to me.
But it is still weird to have such a debilitating downsi..'
His train of thought was cut off by Jason who looked at him with a dumbfounded and slightly scared expression.
"Ezren… have you ever considered that you might be a bit crazy?"
"Hmmm, of course I have considered it. And I came to the conclusion that I am indeed a bit crazy, but what I just did was totally rational… well mostly rational.
I just wanted to test out if a skill of mine grants me fire resistance. Admittedly there might have been better ways to go about testing this, but those would have been more complicated or brought a less deceive result.
And this test worked out fine, didn't it?" he answered while waving his burned hand in front of Jason's face.
Jason looked at Ezren even more dumbfounded than before.
"You call this fine?" he asked while pointing his finger at Ezren's charred hand.
"Yes? It will heal soon, and I am now almost 100% certain that I do not have any fire resistance.
Besides, that doesn't really matter to you anyways, does it?
Anyways, that was everything I needed from you. Thank you and I promise, again, to not disturb you again."
Then Ezren turned around and walked away leaving a dumfounded and confused Jason behind.
Once Ezren was a short distance away Jason turned to Alexia who had spectated the entire interaction without saying a single word.
"That guy is insane right? Or am I going insane?"
"Yes." She answered
Jason fist smiled upon hearing her answered, but his smile quicky turned into a frown.
"I asked two questions. For which one was that yes?"
"…" Alexia just looked at him smiling slightly.
_______________
Ezren's burn healed before he even arrived at his usual spot.
He took a short glance at his status and frowned upon seeing the amount of mana it had taken to heal the burn.
'Healing those burns required a lot more mana than I had anticipated considering that those were just some minor burns. Hell, I think that amount of mana would have been almost sufficient to regrow my hand if I lost it entirely.
Am I just incredibly weak to fire? That would be very ironic, discovering that I am weak to fire because I wanted to confirm whether or not I am resistant to it…..
Or is there another reason why it took so much mana to heal?'
After thinking of possible explanations, other than him being weak to fire, for a while he had an idea.
'There are two differences in circumstances compared to the previous times I have healed from injuries.
One is obviously that it was the first time I healed a burn injury.
The other is that my level has increased to level 2 and together with my level my maximum mana has increased from 190 to 310.'
Ezren used a bit of mana to create a crude iron knife and made a small cut on his forearm. He tried to replicate the cut he had made on himself back in the train cart when he was still trying to figure out his healing abilities.
Unsurprisingly the cut healed after a short while, but Ezren noticed that it had taken more mana to heal this cut compared to the time when he was still level 1.
'It seems that the amount of mana needed to heal the same injury increases based on either my level or my maximum mana. Thankfully the increase in mana consumption is not very large.
If I compared myself at level 1 and myself at level 2, the me at level 2 would still be able to heal more injuries before his mana runs out.
My level 1 self would theoretically be able to heal a wound that cost 10 mana to heal 19 times before it runs out of mana.
That same injury would take my level 2 self 12-13 mana to heal, but since it has a maximum mana of 310 it would still be able to heal this wound at least 23 times.
This explains why the burn mark needed more mana to heal than I expected.'
After confirming that, Ezren dismissed the small iron knife he had created for the experiment and took a bit of time to digest the recent information.
He looked at the vast stretches of abandoned houses that stretched as far as the eye could see. Most of the houses looked very ordinary, which in and of itself was exceptional since these houses had been abandoned for hundreds of years, yet they still looked fully intact without any signs of dilapidation.
As far as Ezren knew, all historians agreed that there had been some kind of disaster in the time before recorded history which had severely diminished the number of humans living on mars.
Some historians even claimed that the abandoned and wild regions outside the districts had been habitable before said disaster, but not many believed that.
The millions of dead humans obviously left behind millions of empty houses, a lot of which still stood empty to this day.
Mars' population had increased quite a lot in the last few hundred years, but there were still a lot of empty houses left. This was especially true for the districts of the 3rd ring like district 19 and district 18.
Thinking about this part of history always made Ezren shiver a bit. What kind of disaster could have diminished humanity to such a degree that even after more than 300 Years the population had still not completely recovered?
How had the humans of the past been unable to prevent said disaster even with their advanced technology which had been far beyond anything the current humanity could achieve?
'Well, those are mysteries that have plagued humanity for hundreds of years and I have no hope of solving them any time soon.
I should keep my focus on the present instead of dreaming about the long-lost past or the uncertain future.
My previous experiment proved that I am not especially weak to fire, which is good news, but it is still disappointing that the 'Separated from the arcane elements' turned out to be such a major downside for the class.
Wasn't the 'Minor achievement' supposed to prevent the worst downside of my unique class?
What downside, that is even worse than 'Separated from the arcane elements' would I have gotten if I hadn't used the 'Minor achievement'?
And how the hell was this downside 'fixed' by changing my race!
I never asked for my race to be changed!
Haha, with my luck the downside probably wasn't even that bad and my race was changed to 'fix' it anyways.'
Of course, Ezren knew or at least suspected that luck had no play in anything here, he just needed something to blame for his misfortune, and luck was always a convenient target to blame for anything bad that happened.
That last thought had reminded him of all the misery he had experienced in the last days, and he fell back into depression, losing his motivation to do anything for the moment.
He only managed to ask Sarah for another dose of medication before he laid down in their camp and did nothing for the next few hours. The others ate dinner and soon went to sleep leaving him as the only one still awake.
Oh, how much he wished that he could just go to sleep and forget about everything. Was getting a short break, just a few moments of peace too much to ask?
Apparently, it was since no matter how long he laid there nothing changed. He laid there, alone, caught in a web of depressive thoughts and unable to do anything.
He wanted to cry, but what was the point in doing that, it would achieve nothing!
So instead, he just laid there watching the clouds move through the dark sky. Which sadly also achieved nothing, but he just did not have the energy to do anything at the moment.
While watching a weirdly flame shaped cloud, his thought wandered back to his conversation about magic with Jason. This memory had a bitter aftertaste now that he knew that he would never be able to cast magic the same way Jason did.
He suddenly remembered one of his discoveries during their conversation. Jason was not able to control his mana outside his body. Ezren on the other hand could control his mana outside his body and prevent it from dispersing for a short while.
This difference was most likely caused by Ezren's race since there was just no other relevant difference between himself and Jason he could think of.
To use his skill 'Mana-Matter transmutation' Ezren had to expel his mana outside his body and shape it into the form he wanted to achieve.
Jason or any normal human for that matter would not be able to do this. Which meant that a normal human would not be able to use the 'Mana-Matter transmutation' skill at all.
Now everything made sense to Ezren, the greatest downside of the 'Mage of Creation' class which had been fixed by changing his race was the ability to control mana after it left your own body.
If Ezren had chosen the 'Mage of Creation' class without using the minor achievement he would not have been able to use his 'Mana-Matter transmutation' skill at all. That qualified as a worse downside even compared 'Separated from the arcane elements'.
Did all unique classes have such debilitating downsides?
Usually, after figuring out a mystery like this, Ezren would have been happy maybe even ecstatic about his discovery.
He would have been glad about his choice of using the minor achievement and he would have felt bad for all the unfortunate people who choose a similarly debilitating unique class without having a minor achievement to make it usable.
It was just that he could not bring himself to feel anything right now. He felt empty and too exhausted to react to his own discovery in any way.
He just wanted to sleep and forget about everything.
But that was a dream that would never come true.
'A dream huh? I will also never have one of those again.
But why is it then? That everything feels like one giant nightmare?
Unable to dream yet trapped in a nightmare. What a life this is.'
In the end he just couldn't help himself and started to cry despite his earlier reluctance.