Isaac looks at the humanoid figure looking at the lake through the sticks of his hut. A piercing scream is hitting Isaac's ear, causing him to cover his ears as something wet leaks from them. The figure seems to start dancing, and with it, the trees and plants join in, swaying in the wind.
The plants around the figure start to produce a purple mist that orbits the figure, creating a dome that covers the figure. The mist gets thicker and darker as it slowly condenses into the figure, turning the figure into a purple skinned humanoid.
The air around Isaac seems heavier, almost like a key element was removed from the air. The tree that Isaac is leaning on seems to produce creaking sounds, almost like it has been completely dried out, and soon the other tree joins Isaac's in a cacophony of creaking.
The figure stops dancing and stands still for a while before another figure walks out from the forest. The direction the second figure walked out from was south, which was the same direction Isaac had been feeling a watching sensation from.
Isaac looks at the two figures and tries to make out as many features as possible.
'The one that was screaming seems a lot smaller, almost by about a foot, and is obviously purple from the mist. The screaming one is also wearing a long gown that drags across the ground. And the newer figure is a lot taller, at least two meters tall, and has a lot of muscle on his body, and has warm coloured skin.'
The tall figure kneels in front of the purple one and seems to be saying something, but Isaac is unable to make out what it is. The purple lays a hand on that tall one's shoulder and whispers something in their ear, which is then followed by the tall one rapidly nodding.
The tall figure stands up and seems to be leading the way for the purple one back south, and as the two figures start to walk away, the purple one throws a glance in the direction of Isaac.
Isaac is filled with dread as the gaze lands directly on him, and the purple one gives Isaac a smirk before continuing to walk behind the tall one.
Isaac waits a while to make sure both of the figures are gone before he leaves his hut. Isaac can't tell what was worse, today or yesterday. Yesterday, he only had to worry about living, while today he got a new trait called *minor cure*, and was spotted by some purple humanoid.
Now more than ever, Isaac needed his system, as according to Anix, the system allows someone to know themself, and that includes traits, so if Isaac can use his system, he can learn about that curse.
Isaac looks at himself through the water before splashing it on his face. Isaac looks around and feels the gaze he felt the whole of yesterday disappear. He looks north, which is on the opposite side of the lake and also seems to be farther from where the figures are, so he decides to head north.
Isaac walks around the lake and brings out James's textbook on magic theory. He tries to grasp what the nightmare was meant to mean, but the only things that came to mind were that James turned into some pus leaking monster, which doesn't make much sense.
Isaac opened the textbook, hoping it might help, but it made no sense to him. Even after years of James trying to teach him even the tiniest bit of magic, it just goes in one ear and out the other. The only thing Isaac knows about is the three casting methods of magic, but that is not very helpful in this situation.
Isaac flips through the pages and lands on a page on healing magic, in particular a spell that removes curses, but the requirements for such spells are hard to come by. Even if Isaac did have them, there was no one who could cast them, as Isaac didn't have any talent for magic.
The only thing Isaac knew he had was his trait *Unoriginal*, which was kind of vague in its wording *You can only learn things that others have before you.*
Isaac has spent years going over what it meant and had even had help to guess what it meant, and the most common assumption was that he could learn anything, but given the fact that most people already could learn most, it was viewed as kind of useless since it didn't mention anything about learning beyond what others have.
But considering Isaac's current situation, his only choice was to pray that it also means he can learn magic just like the people before him. This, though, had occurred before, which is actually how he met James, since James was in the magic theory club.
But obviously it didn't bear any fruit, but now wasn't the time to be reminiscing on the past. Isaac flipped to the front of the book, where the index was, and looked for those parts that mentioned magic for beginners.
There were five parts to beginner magic, the first was on feeling mana, the second was holding magic in a conduit, and the last three were on the ways to use magic, which are Circle magic, Chantless magic, and channel magic.
The spell to remove the curse would be Channel magic, which uses words or phrases to perform a predetermined way. The way Isaac remembers this way is by imagining mana as letters, and by constructing them into words, you can use the words meaning to perform the spell. The conduit for channel magic is the vibrations of your voices.
Chant less magic can be thought of like math, by doing equations in your head, you can find the same outcome as writing it down. All chant less magic can be done through a channel, but with chant less, you can do it faster, but you sacrifice some power, while channel takes longer but performs as advertised, it's like doing maths in your head vs doing maths on paper. The conduit of chantless magic is your own mind, as your magic is as fast as your mind is.
And Circle magic is like art, you draw a physical form of the magic so that it can gain a connection to its conduit, which is the object or thing it is drawn on. Circle magic is meant for long term spells and will get stronger the longer it has been since it was made, like how art gains more value over time. Only after time has passed can art show its true self.
Isaac sits under a tree facing the lake to keep an eye out in case any more of those figures show again, and then he looks back at the first part of magic, how to feel mana.