Chapter 8
#08. Initiation (2)
In the distant past, before the modern era, knowledge of magic was practically the exclusive domain of a particular class.
-Magic is for mages, and mages are chosen beings.
Even now, that's still the case, but mages in those days were little different from madmen consumed by elitism; it was the first master of a magic tower who shattered that ideology.
Several hundred years ago, he built a magic tower, gathered up talented people, and taught them magic.
Those mages, in turn, gathered dozens or even hundreds of disciples and taught them magic.
Beginning with a fully fledged mage teaching dozens of apprentices, the magic tower gradually expanded its influence.
Mages are valuable personnel even now, but before the tower was founded, they were even rarer.
That was because there were countless hidebound old coots who took the martial-arts principle of teaching only a single successor and never teaching outsiders for granted.
Of course, even centuries later, knowledge of magic remained beyond the reach of ordinary people.
The magic tower only made its knowledge available to officially recognized talents; it wasn't indiscriminately taught to ordinary people.
As a result, it was difficult to find information about magic even on the internet.
There were a few books sold in bookstores, but even those were limited to basic theory.
It was like buying a book called ‘Challenge: Build a Cell Phone by Yourself!’ only to discover that all it taught you was soldering.
Moreover, the prices were incredibly high.
Around 700,000 won per book, if I remember right?
It was outrageous price gouging, but since writing a book about magic without being a mage was itself a fairly serious crime, it couldn't strictly be called a scam.
Moreover, unlike other certifications, magic offered neither online courses nor academies.
All that existed were books with little substance, costing anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of won per volume. Even so, many people bought them because they wanted to become mages.
It wasn't hard to understand why.
Even a second-circle mage could be treated like nobility in poorer countries.
I had dreamed of becoming a mage once, too.
Even an orphan like me could gain wealth and honor if I became a mage. What greater magic could there be in this world?
Of course, wanting to become a mage didn't mean you could.
That must have been what people meant by the wall of reality.
A person without talent couldn't enter a magic tower.
It was the childhood dream I'd continued living with after half giving up on it.
“Magic...?”
“Yes, if you're all right with it, Mr. Hyunwoo.”
My mind went blank.
What am I supposed to learn? Magic?
Me??
“You don't have to feel so pressured. If you learn magic, Mr. Hyunwoo, interpreting the barrier will become much easier.”
Iris carefully continued.
Needless to say, obtaining something capable of replacing a holy relic was anything but easy.
Even with such a workaround, breaking the barrier here would be nearly impossible.
At best, we'd probably be able to make a small side passage.
But the problem was that we couldn't even say with any certainty what materials would be needed to make such a passage.
If you thought of the barrier as a dish, even without a recipe, you could eventually get a feel for it after chewing, tearing it apart, and tasting it a few times.
But what if it were an indigenous dish made by people living in the middle of a jungle?
Even the executive chef of a three-Michelin-star restaurant couldn't rattle off all the ingredients.
The only remotely promising approach would be to pile materials into a mountain and try to reproduce it through one experiment after another.
“It'll probably... be quite a financial burden...”
Iris didn't want to burden him any further after he had come to this place like a ray of light—the first person ever to visit her here.
A mage's abilities were lucrative.
I didn't know how much they were worth in the world he lived in, but in war, a mage was an irreplaceable military asset.
Naturally, they were paid enormous sums.
Though she wasn't certain, Iris resolved to teach him magic in the hope that it would help him somehow.
However.
‘All the money Mr. Hyunwoo works so hard to earn... would go toward materials...’
How was this any different from making him learn magic so he could procure the materials?
While she stayed here comfortably teaching him magic, he would have to work hard.
‘I'm sorry, Mr. Hyunwoo...’
A pang of guilt throbbed in her chest.
She felt as though she were becoming a bad woman.
‘M-magic...?’
As Iris's worries grew heavier, Kang Hyunwoo struggled to keep the corners of his mouth from rising.
It's magic—magic!
And not just any magic—the 8th-Circle archmage herself was going to teach him personally!
This was a fortuitous encounter.
A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
If I could become a mage under Iris's tutelage, her escape would be only a matter of time.
But I had one concern.
“...But don't you need extraordinary talent to become a mage?”
Not that it was anything to brag about, but I'd already been judged talentless by a mage dispatched from a magic tower when I was in sixth grade.
The talent required for magic was overwhelmingly innate, so becoming a mage after I'd bombed my talent assessment in elementary school was, by conventional wisdom, close to impossible.
“You don't have to worry so much. If it's you, Mr. Hyunwoo, I'm sure you'll master it in no time.”
“Ms. Iris...”
Iris clasped my hand and smiled gently.
Her green eyes glimmered softly, as if brimming with kindness.
Above all, I could even glimpse inexplicable goodwill and trust directed at me in her eyes.
‘...’
I'd thought I was past the age of hungering for someone else's recognition or praise, but experiencing it firsthand left me feeling strange.
It was a little embarrassing, but it was by no means unpleasant.
“...I look forward to learning from you.”
“Yes!”
It felt as though confidence were surging up from somewhere.
***
Whether before or after the magic tower was founded, becoming a mage's direct disciple was exceedingly rare.
Even the professors at the magic tower didn't regard the students they taught as their disciples.
Modern sensibilities didn't draw much distinction between students and disciples, but the world of mages was different.
To a mage, a disciple was practically another self, someone to whom they could pass down everything they had.
It was only natural for a mage to pass down not only their magical knowledge but also assets such as cash, real estate, and stocks to their disciple.
Sometimes, a mage especially fond of their children would divide their inheritance between disciple and child at roughly a 7:3 ratio.
Of course, the disciple received seven and the child three.
Anyway, to return to the point, if you asked whether one had to become a mage's direct disciple to learn magic, that was another story.
To put it simply, one could become a mage.
As I said, the first way was to enter a magic tower, and the second was to buy your way there.
There were many wealthy mages. No, it was harder to find one who wasn't rich.
There were various reasons: mages were irreplaceable personnel, and they were exceptionally brilliant even among the naturally brilliant.
And some tycoons with obscene amounts of money would hire mages to teach them and become mages themselves.
Of course, very few of those who took lessons that way actually became mages. If they had enough talent, there was no better environment for becoming a mage than a magic tower.
It was like how no one who was kept out of school and received only private tutoring at home ever turned out well.
There were supposedly occasional gifted, silver-spoon kids who became mages through private tutoring because their parents had the bizarre idea that they didn't want to send them to a magic tower.
It was harder than a dragon rising from a ditch.
The important thing was that most of the mages who were hired to teach for money had no affection for their students.
They simply worked for what they were paid, more or less.
In that respect, Kang Hyunwoo was incredibly lucky.
With rippling platinum-blond hair and eyes that looked as though emeralds had been set directly into them, she was an 8th-Circle archmage and an extraordinarily beautiful elf—so beautiful that medieval connoisseurs would have spent a week praising her before collapsing from exhaustion—and she was giving Kang Hyunwoo one-on-one private lessons.
And she did so with tremendous affection.
Though whether that affection was pure was another question.
‘T-thank goodness...’
Iris had told one small lie to Kang Hyunwoo—and to herself.
She had said she was teaching him magic so they could analyze the barrier, but her true feelings were a little different.
He would leave someday. He had no choice but to.
He had a life of his own, after all; he couldn't stay here forever.
So Iris's plan was to give him at least one reason he couldn't help but return here.
There was no end to scholarship—or to learning of any kind.
Magic was no different: it wasn't something one finished learning in a day or two. If anything, learning one thing about magic only made you curious about two more.
She was confident.
No matter how different this world was, she was certain it would be nearly impossible for him to find a teacher as skilled as her!
‘Even if I spent the rest of my life here giving Mr. Hyunwoo magic lessons, I...’
Her eyes, fixed on Kang Hyunwoo, gleamed with a bewitching light.
Like a predator hidden in the grass, watching its prey.
Kang Hyunwoo shuddered at the inexplicable chill, but he couldn't figure out why.
And so, in the dark cavern, a somewhat twisted master-and-disciple relationship took shape.