My body feels as light as a feather… And lately, my mana’s been in top condition! Alfred thought as everything in his field of vision flew behind him in a torrent.
But having also seamlessly enhanced his vision and reflexes, he didn’t lose control over his body, even at this speed.
Then his classmates’ astonished cries started to reach his ears.
“N-no way…!”
“Is he for real?!”
“Is there supposed to be this big a difference between an ordinary person and a mage?!”
Alfred grinned.
Then without letting up, he ruthlessly accelerated even more.
Alfred flew past the goal like a gale—
—but Rix was already there waiting for him.
“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!”
Screeeeech—! Rix had come skidding to a halt next to the pole and was already catching his breath as Alfred fell and rolled past him.
“Good race, Alfred. Let’s do it again sometime.”
Cheerfully and pleasantly, Rix extended his hand to Alfred.
“Huh?! Whaaaat?! Huuuuuh?! What just happened?!” Alfred hollered. “How did you get here before me?! Whaaaaaaaaat?!”
Still collapsed on the ground, Alfred looked up at Rix and flew into a panic.
“Seems like he beat him by quite a gap, too…”
“What does this mean…?”
“Huh? Wait, which one of them hasn’t opened their Sphere? Alfred?”
The spectating students were lost in confusion.
“That’s why we were trying to tell you…”
“A prayer for the courageous souls of the fallen…”
“Ah-ha-ha-ha…”
Randy, Serephina, and Annie offered their exasperated condolences.
Crawford had been watching Rix and Alfred’s race from afar.
“…Hmm. Hrmmm…”
He sank into thought for a little while, puffing out purple smoke.
Then, finally…
“So there you have it. There you can see the stark and decisive difference in the physical abilities of an ordinary person and a mage,” Crawford remarked. “Now let’s move right along to working on your own physical enhancement magic. Are you ready?”
As if nothing unusual had happened, he nonchalantly moved on to the next point on the agenda.
Let me guess… It was too much of a pain for him.
That’s what all the students were thinking.
“Aaahhh, I’m beat…,” Randy muttered after the first period’s physical enhancement magic class was over. He and the others were in the classroom for their next period, waiting for it to start.
“That was my first time trying physical enhancement magic…but I feel like my mind is more exhausted than my body…or like my spirit is exhausted…,” said Randy.
“Yeah…now I really get what people mean when they say their Sphere is exhausted…,” Annie agreed with a strained smile.
“That’s the sensation of your mana being used up. It is a strange feeling when you first experience it,” Serephina added.
Rix stared happily at his palms. “I see… So that’s what this feeling is. Like I’ve worked up a good sweat…”
“That’s definitely not what we’re feeling,” Randy quipped. “But man, we practiced for a whole hour and a half, and all I could do was manage to run a little faster than before.”
“I—I couldn’t even do that… I wonder if I’ll be okay…,” said Annie.
“Worry not,” Serephina told her. “Everyone has trouble at the start.”
“That’s right! If you keep practicing, soon you’ll be able to catch up with me!” said Rix.
“No way.”
“Don’t think so.”
“No chance.”
“Rix, are you seriously even human?” Randy asked. “I’m starting to have my doubts…”
As the group was chatting, the bell signaling the start of class rang, and the instructor walked in.
“Let’s begin. Welcome to black magic class.”
The person who entered was a beautiful woman of indeterminate age.
Her purple hair was fastened in an updo, and her eyes were the color of blood. Her skin was pale white, like wax.
Her appearance was that of a bewitching mature woman, a fresh and vibrant youth, and a budding young girl, all at once.
And of course, she was wearing the black robes of a full-fledged mage.
“My name is Arca Claudia, Estoria Certified Mage, Rank One.”
She calmly introduced herself from where she stood at the head of the class.
“In short, that means I belong to the highest class of mages in this world. So please rest assured that I am more than qualified to teach and guide you nascent mages.”
There were clearly many students in the class who already knew Arca’s name.
Throughout the classroom, students started to whisper things like “To think we’ll be taught by the Arca Claudia!” and “We’re so lucky!”
“But really…how old do you figure she is?” Rix whispered to Randy.
“Who knows? Rumor has it she’s actually a vampire who’s lived over a hundred years.”
“Ahem.”
They were pretty sure there was no way she had heard them, but Arca cleared her throat to regain the class’s attention.
“You have all opened your Spheres, commenced training in physical enhancement magic, and have begun to vainly believe you have come closer to understanding the essence of magic. But you are wrong,” Arca began. “Except perhaps a few of you students of high stature who have already begun training before attending the academy, surely none of you can even satisfactorily kindle a fire within the omnipotent bounds of your own Sphere. And why is that? Because you do not yet know how to kindle a fire.”
Ignoring the noisy students around her, Arca continued.
“To be sure, within your own Sphere, you are all omnipotent. However, you are not omniscient. Why a fire kindles, why lightning forms, by what logic time and space exist…you know none of these things. You are the very essence of ignorant Fools. It goes without saying that one cannot control knowledge that one does not know, nor laws and reason one doesn’t understand.
“Unlike physical enhancement magic, which relies on knowing oneself through one’s Sphere, one must be omniscient in order to manipulate external phenomena with omnipotence. The path to that omniscience…that fragment of omniscient omnipotence that is to know the very truth of this world…that shred of truth that serves as a guidepost to the free exercise of magic… is knowledge. Law and reason. This is what you will learn in the form of what we call magic formulas over the next three years. By using your own magic within the omnipotent Sphere according to these magic formulas, the very marrow of our knowledge, you shall create your own first magical work.”
All around the classroom, the students voiced their wonder at Arca’s explanation.
“Today’s class will be split into a first half and a second half,” she added. “In the first half, you will learn the first spell that all new students learn, the most common fire spell: Ember. I will teach you all the magic formula for this spell. Then in the second half, we will go out to the training grounds and practice the actual execution of that Ember spell. Understood?”
And with that, Professor Arca began her instruction.
“Black magic investigates the physical and scientific logic of this world: heat and energy, the motion of objects, sound, electricity and magnetism, elements and their properties, light and waves, gravity, time and space…and so on,” the professor explained. “Black magic seeks the truths of this world—omniscient omnipotence—through the mastery of its fundamental laws. Hence, there is a precise, subtle, and rational chemistry underlying the magic formulas of black magic. Are we good thus far, everyone? Please do your utmost to understand the concepts learned in this class. There’s no place for rote memorization and the like when it comes to using magic.”
Prefacing thus, Professor Arca drew a pentagram-shaped geometric figure on the blackboard and added mathematical formulas and instructions to each part of the figure.
The magic formula itself looked to be a schematic diagram that included a rough sketch of the world, the flow of power behind a particular phenomenon, the natural laws at the phenomenon’s root, and the mathematical function and output calculation for the mana needed to manipulate the phenomenon.
At first, the students had no idea what the magic formula meant, but Professor Arca carefully explained the meaning of each aspect of the formula one by one.
What is the phenomenon of a fire starting in the first place?
What of the flow of energy behind the event and the movement of the elements that make up this world? How does one convert mana, a spiritual energy, into heat, a physical energy? And how does one do it efficiently?
Arca explained these difficult theories in a simple and concise manner, using language anyone could understand, and without being overly pretentious.
She even accounted for taking extra care in the sections that she knew would be particularly difficult for beginner mages; it was a perfect explanation.
And by the time the first half of the class was reaching its end, the students had understood the concept. They fundamentally understood the phenomenon of a fire starting in this world.
And they didn’t simply understand it logically. They understood with their souls.
“I—I get it now…”
“So this is why Professor Arca’s so famous…”
“They don’t call her the Obsidian Sage for nothing…”
After hearing the professor’s explanation, students around the room began to whisper.
“Hmm… Flame magic is supposed to be my specialty, but this made me realize my understanding is still too shallow,” Serephina noted, looking deeply impressed.
“So even you feel that way, Serephina…” Annie widened her eyes in surprise.
Meanwhile, Randy started excitedly talking to Rix, who was next to him.
“Professor Arca’s lectures are difficult, but she makes it so easy to understand, right?!”
“Yeah. She made it really easy to understand that I have no idea what she’s talking about. She’s incredible…” Rix seemed deeply moved.
“Are you serious right now…?” Randy stared at him suspiciously.
Among the students who were so taken with Arca’s lesson…
“…Hmph.”
…only one—Shino—looked bored. She leaned her head on her hand and stared out the window.
“All right now, everyone. Let’s hurry over to the magic training grounds,” said Arca. “It’s time to put what you’ve learned about the Ember spell into practice.”
“I bring forth a stone of flame!”
The students’ shouts echoed over the magic training grounds, where a number of round targets were lined up.