CHAPTER 133: MAGIC POWER EXPOSURE

"Don’t play dead. I know you heard me," the elf’s calm voice sounded in Juwon’s ears, chilling as if a vengeful spirit was chasing his soul.

But Juwon was determined not to respond. He would play dead to the very end.

"I’m not really stopping you from playing dead, but there’s one problem: before you fake it, can you at least pull back the mental energy drifting in the air around you?"

At those words, Juwon’s spirit jolted. The flower he was disguised as perked up, looking full of life.

He recognized every single word the elf said—separately—but somehow, when put together, he didn’t understand their meaning.

He had mental energy?

His mental energy was floating around in the air?

So mental energy could actually be detected by others?

Suddenly, the thoughts about mental energy filled Juwon’s mind.

With his limited knowledge of the continent and blurry inherited memories, he couldn’t make sense of mental energy, let alone understand it.

Forced into ignorance, Juwon had no choice but to ask his system for help.

[ System? System?? Little System? ]

Juwon frantically called out to the system in his mind, hoping it would respond quickly to answer his questions.

[ System! At least tell me what mental energy is! Why did the elf say my mental energy is floating in the air? ]

Alrhough the system didn’t want to deal with its troublesome host, it still dutifully provided basic knowledge about magic power to its clueless master.

[ Are stupid? Is there really no knowledge about mental energy in my inheritance memories? ]

Juwon searched carefully but regretfully delivered this sad news to the system.

He wasn’t fooled by the system’s sarcastic and gloating tone.

He had no idea what exactly it was pleased about.

System: ...

It really wanted to kill its master.

But the system’s rules were like shackles welded tightly to it, each regulation restraining it.

It was truly angry!!!

Taking a deep breath, the system violently straightened its data scrambled by rage.

Before answering, it silently queued a mercy chant in the background for itself.

[ Trash... I mean, dear host, mental energy is like this. ]

[ In this continent, whether you become a swordsman or a mage, you are required to use magic power. The difference is only in how much you rely on it. ]

[ I won’t talk about swordsmen; I’ll just explain mages. Mages require a lot of magic power. Magic power represents the use of magic. It’s used to draw magical elements from within the body or from the air, then cast spells. This is the use of magic power. ]

[ There’s also meditation. magic power can grow and recover through meditation. But there’s a problem: once you fall into meditation, your control over magic power weakens sharply. Then magic power can drift everywhere. However, since everyone practices controlling their magic power from a young age, this rarely happens accidentally. ]

Here, the system chuckled quietly, which sounded oddly sinister in Juwon’s ears.

Indeed, it was very sinister.

[ But, host, you’ve never practiced at all. So once you focus into your own world, your magic power drifts everywhere. You can feel it—your magic power are scattered all around in the air. ]

A bad premonition rose in Juwon’s heart, and that premonition was confirmed by what the system said next.

[ On this continent, magic power floating everywhere is no different from... an accidental public exposure~ ]

Juwon: "..."

Thanks, I really appreciate it.

Without the system saying it, Juwon finally realized what had happened, suddenly understanding why the elf had to forcibly wake him up.

It’s turns out, he had accidentally "exposed" himself in broad daylight—really... just thinking about it made him feel like his flower petals were withering away.

How lucky it was that he wasn’t humanoid now?

Fortunately, Juwon was not humanoid—this was the first time he actually wished to be expelled from humanity.

Not being human really saved him this time.

It preserved the last shred of his dignity.

It was truly difficult.

Illiya looked at the ice flower in the pot with a pitying gaze.

See? He said it right—the social death would come sooner or later.

Whether it happened early or late, it was unavoidable.

A social death that could not be escaped.

Being stared at with scorching (or rather, burning) eyes, Juwon, who already wanted to bury himself underground, felt even more uneasy standing there.

The entire flower looked off.

Manifested in the flower, the leaves curled up tightly, and the petals drooped limply.

"Ahhhhhhh!"

Juwon could only scream silently in his mind, terrified that if he got too agitated, his magic power would lose control and escape again.

He didn’t want to run out butt naked a second time.

If he was watched again, he really might give up being a flower altogether.

Although Juwon screamed inside, Illiya, being an elf, was keenly perceptive and sensed the surge of emotion from him.

Truly, the innate talent of elves sometimes felt like cheating.

After identifying the emotional category and considering the current situation, it was hard for Illiya not to chuckle out loud.

However, for the sake of the flower’s mental health, he bit back the laughter and tried controlled himself from bursting out loud.

After having just witnessed that whole episode, Illiya could roughly guess what was wrong with the soul inside that ice flower he was holding.

This ice flower was probably not an acquired intelligence, but was likely born with wisdom. Or rather, this flower in its past life had been a member of an intelligent species, which was why it was so unique in this life.

That explained why the ice flower had no awareness of the problem of its magic power drifting away.

It seemed it had been forced to reincarnate in this life but did not choose to erase the memories of its past life.

As a result, the ice flower’s inherited memories were corrupted, failing to properly receive its ancestral knowledge.

Naturally, it didn’t understand what magic power was, let alone how to control it.