Ch.3 - Road to Magic

Magic, the power to reshape reality to one's wishes.

On Earth people would kill for this kind of power, make deals with devils, and literally reject their humanity, alas, it was not meant to be. Earth was sadly completely magicless and even if there was some magic hidden somewhere it was clearly not powerful enough to change the status quo.

In this world however magic is everywhere, and inside every living being; in fact inside every human and animal lays a core and a vein-like structure, this complex system has the role of gathering and storing mana particles inside the body, particles that could later be used and transformed into a specific element through intent to cast a spell. "Magic" allows you to use magic, you ask "Magic" for permission to cast it, and if you have enough mana and control over your element you would then actually be able to perform your desired spell.

While complex to explain the practical part was much simpler.

Why then aren't you a master already? Two years of training every day should be more than enough time to be invincible right? That was also my question when I first read through the original novel; the short answer is that there is a reason why the academy starts at 13 years of age and not earlier, and that is because not only do nobles live up to 70-80 years of age so they had all the time in the world, but it also the age where the magical core stabilizes and can regenerate mana quicker while also correctly providing the requested amount of mana. As such serious training before your core is ready (12-14 years old since nature demands individual differences) could become counterproductive and even damaging.

That is why I only ever did the best I could while I mostly worked on stamina, breath control, and not that many strength exercises because, you know, I am not stupid and know how the human body works, even if magical.

Magic was divided into elements: Ice, Fire, Earth, Water (yes they are different, no it is not as simple as changing states), Electricity (very rare), Air, Holy, Darkness, and finally Physical. Physical is just imbuing mana in your body to get faster, stronger, and more durable and to enhance vision, in the past, these warriors and archers could take out enemies so fast mages were left powerless. However, when mages started to slowly implement Physical element spells in their arsenal, the advantages started to disappear, it did not help that generally Physical mages had less mana than average and more mana consumption.

Everyone can use any element however as one might imagine the cast speed, strength, and mana usage of these spells changes accordingly.

Everyone could use magic, but not everyone was talented enough to enter Avalon Academy, most commoners without talent who wanted to fight for their country entered the simple military academy and mostly learned useful spells and physical spells.

Recounting his knowledge of magic was a boy in a carriage directed toward the Academy in the center of the kingdom, with him in the carriage was his butler.

"That is splendid young master"

"Thank you, Alfred, thankfully these past few days I had a lot of time on my hands I chuckle as I take a better look at the small ice statue in my hand depicting a royal knight in shining armor.

"It seems your core has fully stabilized, your body is producing a healthy amount of mana, even the mana outside is gathered inside very evenly from the Veins (with the capital V it is the term used for the vein-like structure connected to the core). I would have preferred you asked me for help instead of doing it on your own with the sole assistance of the books in the library, however" called it, he already knew I was training. I decide not to answer the implicit question and instead asked one of my own, even if to be fair he had a point.

"Does my father know?" Alfred for his part just smiled

"He doesn't, as you know your father never really trained his magical abilities after the Academy meaning his senses aren't that great, and, respecting your privacy, I decided not to tell him." to that I nod

"Thank you"

"Naturally" he bows lightly.

"How well do you think is my control?" I ask him as I make another ball of ice to cut and slowly refine into another small statue.

He pretends to think about it before answering "For someone who just started it is admittedly pretty good, sadly you weren't born with an impressive core, way bigger than your parents, but still not that big in the grand scheme of things, I have to admit that focusing on controlling your mana and transforming it as efficiently as possible trying to disperse as little mana as possible is a great strategy. What you are doing right now is however another facet of control which is called construct control. With time you will be able to instantly transform not mana but the construct directly with impressive speed but right now, it is a bit useless for you " He pauses "May I suggest another training method?"

After thinking very shortly about it I agreed to be helped, he is a great mage, if he says this is useless right now, it probably is. Let's see how good he is at teaching then. "Ok, let us do this then"

"Try to directly form the statue from before (and other objects) the moment you transform mana and not after like you were doing just before. This will really help in mastering your control" As a demonstration he formed a horse with his fire and let it run inside the carriage.

"Let's try it then"

...

-Avalon Academy, Gates-

"-aster?"

"Yo- -ster?"

"Young Master!" not expecting the high voice I snapped my focus letting my perfectly crafted statue hit the ground and shatter.

"Holy cow Alfred, you surprised me"

"Holy cow? Anyways I have been calling you for a while now, we have arrived at the Academy"

"Oh..." I paused "Let us get to my room then, we have a lot to unpack"

"Yes"

Since we departed together and from the same place the Duke's daughter, myself, and some other nobles arrived at the same time, as such the moment I got out of the carriage I saw Quinta and the Hero entering together, Quinta was explaining things with a happy smile on her face. It is a shame that she will never have the happiness she asks for since the hero is a bit of a womanizer; I call these types of love stories Burned Youths cause you literally burn yourself chasing something you are not going to ever get.

While crossing the gates I see someone walking beside me, blue eyes, blonde hair, cold face and I immediately recognize her, a real world is different from a drawn one, the illustrations of the novel don't really translate that much in real life but there are some characters you just cannot mistake: Anya Chillhow daughter of Duke Chillhowl, his duchy located north of the Capital city.

She isn't particularly important in the story except for becoming a world-class mage that literally gets forgotten in the second and third seasons of the novel. With her, that battle against the demons would have been way easier, but she just disappeared. What the hell happened nobody knows.

Averting my eyes from her I started thinking about the future which looked entirely fucked.