Warlock of Oceans: My Poseidon System

An old man with short gray hair, light stubble, and two fat lenses that fit into his glasses saw us and quickly stumbled over, revealing that he was just barely taller than us.

Petra giggled just a bit as he kind of looked like a goblin, but ignoring his appearance, he was a very nice guy who helped me to one of the vacant tables.

"I was just about to close, and here come two children… well, what do you need? You would have gone to the infirmary if you were sick, so tell me…." The man's eyes scanned my body. "Is it something related to magic?"Nôv(el)B\\jnn

I slowly nodded, sweat covering my face so much that it began to drip from the bridge of my nose and down onto the freshly vacuumed carpets.

"I see…. Here, let me help you."

As the man helped me down an aisle, I directed myself in, I felt my nose tingle, and my eyes began to water.

"You smell…" I murmured just so I could hear it, yet despite me saying it so lightly, the man was able to clearly hear it to the point that he looked at me with suspicion. "You reek of metal… you imposter," I grunted before the man let me drop to the ground.

I smirked lightly as I flipped around, seeing the man's face distort into something uncanny, disgusting, and horrifying.

"You mimics can't rid yourself of the smell of blood…." I smiled, and as the man's jaw unhinged like a snake, revealing rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth, Petra rapidly tapped me. "I know… I know…"

But then, from the shadows, a woman with long black hair and abyssal black eyes appeared, causing the mimic to snap its head unnaturally toward the woman.

Clearly, he was surprised by her appearance, but before the woman could even act, the mimic glowed lightly, causing its host to fall to the ground, only waking up a few moments later.

"Shit! Get her! Quick!" I shouted as Petra began to run away, her expressionless face distorting into a creepy smile.

Her body slowly began to meld into the ground, and just from the look on the woman's face, I could tell she was intent on killing the mimic, even if it meant sacrificing Petra.

"DON'T!" I shouted, allowing the mimic to slip entirely into the floor.

The woman paused at my cry, and upon seeing the mimic get away, she clicked her tongue before running over to me.

"Goddammit… you're making my work harder," She muttered, helping me up until I found the right book I was looking for. "And this is what you came here for? Now about your sister? You just gonna leave her to rot?"

"U-Ummmmm… excuse me."

The old man beside us, who was the previous mimic host, looked around, confused as to how he ended up here and probably why he smelled so bad.

But, instead of talking to him, I turned back towards the woman with black hair who hadn't even listened to the old man.

"You know just as much as I do. He will try and find another host while using her as a hostage… so just help me up, please. I doubt he'll kill her…."

"And you don't care if she gets injured? Tortured possibly?"

"..."

The woman squinted and gritted her teeth, eventually helping me up reluctantly while I flipped through hundreds of pages.

The book I held was thick and had so many pages that I could barely fit its depth in my grip. So, I believed that there had to be some kind of section on Aether… and then I found it.

"Hey, why are you… glowing?"

"Please shut the hell up… If I don't solve this quick, I'm gonna have a knife through my brain," I winced as I sat down in a chair.

My entire body ached, and from the very core of my chest, a burning sensation only grew warmer and hotter until it felt like my insides were melting.

"Aether skills… monsters… oh, Angel Core," I smiled lightly.

The entirety of my vision was fading in and out of a blurry tint, eventually causing me to nearly stumble out of the chair while the woman with black hair escorted the previous mimic host out of the library.

"I-It seems you're having trouble with some kind of core… from the looks of the golden glow, I'd assume an Aether Core… no, Angel Core, forgive me," The librarian said as he was quickly shoved out of the room.

The woman with black hair looked back towards me, but I was too invested in the page to really care about anything else.

"Use your mana to control the Aether! If you just classed up, then you must still have residual mana in your body, even if you don't have a mana core!" The librarian shouted, and this time I actually heard him due to the suggestion.

I snapped my eyes toward him and then let out a long exhale, breathing out all of the steam conjurings in my chest.

"This better work, old man," The woman gripping the old man's tight shoulder muttered.

"I-It will," He stuttered, and so I quickly closed my eyes and sunk into the chair, attempting to relax my body while sensing for bits of mana.

It took a while, but eventually, I managed to find the specks and expanded and wrapped them around my Angel Core which was pulsating like a beating heart.

I squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until the mana just clicked into place, my body feeling no resistance towards the cores pulsating.

From the depths of my chest, a shell had wrapped around the core, ultimately limiting its movement and pulsations.

Once again, I released the built-up steam from within my body in one long exhale, the atmosphere in front of me turning slightly foggy.

"Huff… huff… huff… huff… Finally… I managed to-"

My eyes rolled into the back of my head, and from my neck down, everything went completely numb, my body collapsing onto the ground.

[You have tamed the Angel Core]

[You have gained your second ring]