Chapter 9
#09. Initiation (3)
Having resolved to learn magic, I settled onto a small pile of stones.
Thud-
While I was waiting for the lesson with a slight nervousness, Iris brought over a large, thin stone slab from somewhere.
The slab was so smooth and glossy that anyone looking at it might have thought it had been cut with a water jet.
Since there was no way something like that would be lying around in a place as chaotic as this, it was probably Made by Iris.
I had no idea how she had made something like that with those thin, slender arms, but I decided it was probably the power of magic and let it go.
The more I thought about it, the more respect I felt welling up for my teacher.
Of course, it wasn't fear.
-Huh? Mr. Hyunwoo, you didn't do your homework?
-Th-th-that... I'm sorry...
-Mr. Hyunwoo, aren't you curious how much force water can produce when sprayed at high pressure?
...Probably.
“Then, Mr. Hyunwoo? We'll begin the lesson now.”
“I'm always ready.”
“Hehe, you're overflowing with confidence. It's nice to see.”
The lesson began with Iris's refreshing smile.
Although the darkness meant I had to resort to the pathetic spectacle of using my phone's flashlight for indirect lighting, I had no doubt that this would be the happiest lesson of my entire twenty-one years of life.
“I'll start by explaining the basics. You said you knew that what's in the atmosphere is called mana, while what's refined after entering a living creature is called magical power, correct?”
“Yes.”
Even if knowledge of magic was rare and valuable, this was the most fucking basic of basics—basic enough to be found on the internet.
“Then you also know that knights and mages are divided according to how they use magical power?”
"I haven't been interested in knights..."
As befitted a fantasy world, it seemed there was a profession called a knight.
Of course, they existed on Earth too.
In most European countries, the term knight was somewhat more well-known than hunter.
"That's understandable. To explain simply, knights gather magical power in the dantian below their navel, while mages gather it around the heart. The place where knights gather magical power is called the lore, while we call ours the heart.”
Gathering magical power in one part of the body was the same, but the decisive difference between knights and mages was how they operated it.
“Through training and enlightenment, knights become able to release the magical power accumulated in their lore to the outside, and that is aura. Aura takes various forms depending on the weapon. A sword produces sword aura, a spear produces spear aura, and so on. All of it is powerful and keen manipulation of magical power, but they are ultimately using magical power in its raw form. We mages are different.”
A green haze rose above Iris's palm as she finished explaining, forming a beautiful rose.
It wasn't difficult to realize that it was magical power.
The magical power became a rose, then a bird, then a jewel.
“A mage's use of magical power is free. Much freer than a knight's. There is no end to its variety. However...”
Iris began writing something on the stone slab.
Of course, there was nothing like chalk here.
Scrrrk-
She was writing with magical power rising from her fingertip. No, she was carving into the slab.
“...”
Was that what it looked like when she was suppressing her magical power?
“Mr. Hyunwoo? Do you know what I wrote?”
Within a neat circle was a collection of countless equations and shapes. With my knowledge, I had no idea what it meant.
Still, anyone living in the modern age who had even the slightest exposure to the internet could not fail to recognize its form.
“It's a magic circle.”
“Correct. More precisely, it's the magic circle for Fireball, an elemental fire-type projectile spell.”
Iris said this with a smile.
“Magic uses magical power and magic circles to cause phenomena that ordinarily could never occur. A knight uses magical power to raise a sword's cutting power to its absolute limit, while a mage might use magical power to summon a massive storm. There's no need to decide which is superior. The paths knights and mages pursue are different.”
Of course, a knight who reached the pinnacle could also cause phenomena that should have been impossible. They could even create a massless sword and kill an enemy with it.
Even so, mages were different from knights.
“One of the prerequisites for using the basic spell Fireball is creating a mana circle, the alpha and omega of a mage. A mage without a circle is merely a scholar, not a mage.”
Both the academic approach to magic and the training required to create a mana circle were equally important, with neither capable of being judged superior to the other.
However, no matter how well one studied, one could not become a mage without being able to create a mana circle.
“Mr. Hyunwoo, could you show me your wrist for a moment?”
“Hm?”
“Excuse me.”
Iris's slender fingers wrapped around my wrist.
I had touched her breasts and even held her hand before, so why did my face turn red and my heart beat faster every time our skin touched?
“Now, would you close your eyes and concentrate?”
I didn't know what I was supposed to concentrate on, but I closed my eyes anyway.
My already-dark field of vision grew pitch-black.
With my sight blocked and no sound reaching me, my sense of touch instead became sharper.
I could feel Iris's hand and fingers holding my wrist, as well as my heart pounding harshly because of it.
“Read, understand, and memorize. That's the framework of learning. Magic is the same. You read mana, understand it, and accept it. Now, focus on your wrist.”
Along with her gentle voice, I tried to heighten my concentration on my wrist.
Something began to stir in the place where I had felt only our body heat.
It was cool. Like dipping my hand into a cold river in the middle of summer.
“Can you feel it?”
“...Yes.”
“Then imagine a river flowing. Pleasant weather, warm sunlight, birds chirping, and a stream running gently.”
Iris must have stood up, because my arm rose above my head along with hers, and the energy I felt at my wrist naturally began moving toward my shoulder.
At first, only my wrist had felt cool, but now my entire arm felt cool.
Then my collarbone and chest.
Eventually, even my heart, which had been beating fiercely, grew cool. The sensation was so strange that I almost wondered whether I was still alive.
“How does it feel?”
“Um... I don't know, apart from the area around my heart feeling cool.”
Though I was startled by the unfamiliar sensation at first, it gradually began to feel less cold and more refreshing and pleasant.
By now, even the cavern's air, which had initially felt somewhat chilly, seemed just right.
It was an ironic phenomenon. My entire body had clearly grown cooler, yet I felt warmer instead.
“What you're feeling right now is mana. It only feels unfamiliar because it hasn't undergone self-ification yet.”
“This is mana...?”
No wonder I had felt strangely full of energy.
“As expected, you had talent, Mr. Hyunwoo. Even with me directly infusing you with mana, being able to sense it at once isn't easy.”
“Oh...”
When Iris withdrew her hand, the mana no longer moved as easily as before. But there was definitely a residue of mana left inside my body.
I could especially feel it gradually gathering around my heart.
“Would you close your eyes and concentrate again?”
When I closed my eyes once more, the dense darkness came to find me.
And so did the magical power that brought fresh vitality to my entire body.
I had merely closed and opened my eyes for a moment, but I felt like a completely different person from the one I had been five minutes earlier.
A sense of omnipotence? Not quite, but this was certainly a power that made me an entirely different person from who I had been before.
“Can you feel where the mana I infused into you is now?”
“...My heart.”
“Mr. Hyunwoo, I told you earlier, didn't I? The mana in your body hasn't yet undergone the self-ification process.”
“Yes.”
“As I explained earlier, mages undergo a process of accepting mana from nature and making it their own. The more mana there is, the more effort self-ification requires, but the amount currently inside your body isn't enough to make it particularly difficult. So concentrate.”
Gradually melt the mana swirling around my heart into a part of my body.
Think of it as something that had been flowing through my body from the beginning, like blood flowing through my veins.
Don't reject it as something unfamiliar. Think of it as something familiar.
Mana is a mage's companion, after all.
Before Iris had even finished explaining, Kang Hyunwoo began observing the inside of his body with frightening concentration.
In this place where the phone's flashlight was the only source of light, a clear blue haze began to rise.
Kang Hyunwoo was undergoing the process of turning mana into his own magical power.
Iris was aghast at the sight. Though she didn't show it, being able to sense mana instantly and guide it all the way to his heart was an utterly absurd talent.
He was even undergoing the self-ification process now.
For an ordinary mage, completing this entire series of processes would have taken several years.
Even Iris, who had been praised as a genius, had taken two months to complete this initiation into magic.
‘What on earth is Mr. Hyunwoo...’
I had intended to end today with a lesson in theory alone. I had infused him with mana because he needed to become as familiar with it as possible, and I had planned to do so regularly every day.
When Kang Hyunwoo opened his eyes a short while later, Iris was certain.
“...Congratulations, Mr. Hyunwoo.”
A new mage had been born.
Ding-
[Thank you sincerely for participating in the dating consultation curriculum]
[Congratulations on achieving the initial goal of the Become an Attractive Person of the Opposite Sex! project]
[☆1st-Circle Mage Achieved☆]
[Check the reward prepared as a dating incentive in your mailbox]