“Interesting. Very interesting.”
“What is?”
“Try three at once this time.”
“Okay... I understand.”
I actually didn’t, but I went along with it and did as he said. I selected three spells from Beginner Flame Magic—Fireball, which made a ball of fire; Flame Cutter, which formed a flame blade; and Blazing Floor, which slightly heated up the ground—and tried to cast them all at the same time.
“I did it—oh.”
The next moment, the fireball I made burst apart. Rather than exploding, it was more like the flame had failed to maintain its form, and like a bubble—pop!—it was gone, just like that.
“I couldn’t do it.”
“No, that was a success. You really are interesting.”
I raised a brow at him.
“You were able to do it; you just didn’t have enough mana,” he explained. “This technique uses up nearly twice as much mana as casting each spell individually, after all.”
“I see...”
“You’re already plenty amazing for being able to activate three whole spells at your age. That said, activating all three at once is way more impressive.”
The man was in an even better mood now, seemingly delighted at the fact that I was able to cast three spells simultaneously.
“Since you don’t have enough mana, I’ll just explain verbally from now on. Sit down.”
“Okay.”
I did as I was told. I didn’t even know his name yet, much less where he even came from, but already I was viewing this man as my teacher.
“If you keep using this technique, you’ll eventually run into an inane obstacle.”
“An inane obstacle?”
“Right. Long story short, this technique only activates at prime numbers. You know prime numbers?”
“No.”
“All right, then study up on that in your own time. You nobles go to private schools, right? I’ll just tell you which numbers are prime numbers for now.”
The man eyed the ground between us. He was making no other visible movements, yet some characters—or more precisely, numbers—began appearing on the ground, as if someone were writing with a stick.
Two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen...
“These are prime numbers,” he said.
“Okay...”
“As you progress, you’ll hit your first hurdle at four. You won’t succeed no matter what. Even if you could use five spells at once, you wouldn’t be able to do the same with four—that’s simply how it works.”
“I see. In other words, I might end up going around in circles trying to do it with four or six, even though in reality, it just isn’t possible with those numbers.”
“Good, you seem pretty smart too—but that’s not quite right. Once you’re past four, that experience will help you get over six more easily.”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
“Moving on, the next point you get stuck on after that is nine. By then, experience would tell you that this technique just doesn’t work with an even number of spells, but then you’ll just realize one day: ‘Huh? That can’t be right. Didn’t I start out with two spells?’”
“Right... I get it.”
I stared at the numbers the man had written. I still didn’t understand these “prime numbers” or whatever they were called, but I should remember them for now. It wouldn’t be too hard if it was just these numbers he wrote down; I memorized them immediately.
“By the way, this is my limit,” the man said as he cast several magic spells at once.
Fire, ice, lightning, wind... Various spells activated at the same time and floated in the air.
“Thirteen,” I counted.
“Yeah. I can feel that I have enough mana to get to sixteen, but it’s not possible to use sixteen at once; after thirteen comes seventeen. If I had to say, this is the weakness of this technique—any little bit of growth will still recalibrate you to the smaller prime number, making it seem pointless. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen all become thirteen spells in the end.”
“But you’ll show improvement all at once when you get to seventeen.”
“That’s how it goes.” The man grinned. “You really are a clever kid. How old are you? Twelve? Thirteen, maybe?”
“Um, I’m twelve.”
I was actually way older, but I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t even know why I changed bodies in the first place.
“If you’re this smart at twelve, then you have a promising future ahead of you. You might even surpass me one day.”
“I wonder.”
“Your youth is your weapon—and your willingness to listen to others, I might add, is an even greater weapon.”
“Okay...” I nodded hesitantly.
I strongly agreed that youth was a weapon. Before entering this body, I always had to worry about muscle pain the following day and had to be careful not to get injured since it wasn’t easy to heal up.
But listening to others... Isn’t that a normal thing to do?
The man looked down at the frost magic grimoire in my hands. “A grimoire, hm... Do you have any more?”
“No,” I answered. “But I want to learn more, so father told me he would get some for me.”
“You wanna learn?”
“Yes!” I responded immediately, full of conviction. I loved magic and wanted to learn a whole lot more.
“In that case, I’ll give you this,” he said.
The next moment, something floated through the air and stopped right in front of me.
I stared at it. “A ring?”
“It’s called a magicpedia.”
“A magicpedia...”
“Simply put, it’s a grimoire.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a specially coated practice item that contains a hundred grimoires’ worth of information, to be exact.”
“A hundred grimoires?! I-Inside this thing?”
“Yeah, but that’s all it is. It doesn’t make it easier to learn magic—it’s just jam-packed with spells. About the only benefit it has is that you don’t have to walk around with a hundred books in tow.”
I stopped listening to him halfway through. A hundred grimoires—just that alone turned this into a precious treasure in my eyes.
The moment I gently held the floating ring, the names of more than three hundred magic spells appeared in my head.
“F-First, I’ll try Wind Shot.”
Using the ring as a medium, I immediately followed the instructions that appeared in my head and began learning Wind Shot.
Three hundred magic spells! That thought completely took over my mind, and I could no longer think of anything but this ring.
“You really are an interesting kid. That enthusiasm of yours is your greatest weapon of all.”