A month had passed. There were just two months left until the examinations—and when I factored in how long it would take to make the journey to the capital, the time I had left in this house was closer to a month and a half.
Over the course of the past few weeks, I’d more or less come to understand the effects my awakening had had on Allen’s original abilities—which was to say, it had only taken me a day to figure out that the addition of my past personality hadn’t resulted in any significant changes to Allen’s abilities whatsoever.
It would have been a different case if I’d been reincarnated into a strange, mystical world as a baby, but given I’d had twelve years of Allen’s memories as the basis for my research, all I’d had to do was verify if there had been any changes before and after I’d awakened. I’d quickly concluded that apart from the introduction of my original intelligence and personality, there weren’t any tangible differences. Of course, I hadn’t really expected anything else—but there was a part of me that had hoped my awakening would be the basis for discovering a “Reincarnation Cheat Code: Waaay Too Strong?!” or some other cliché like that...
Although I hadn’t been able to uncover an OP cheat code, one somewhat unexpected benefit of my awakening was the sense that my mental faculties had been considerably enhanced. It wasn’t just that my knowledge had increased either; it’s fairly normal to have an easier time memorizing and thinking through things that deeply interest you, and I had been reborn into my long-admired world of swords and magic. I pored over the facts and bits of information that Allen had filed away as nothing more than common knowledge. After all, even the reincarnation cliché of “I just reincarnated here, so let me get some late-night secret magic training in” was a no-go if you didn’t have some basic knowledge of that world’s magic. Magical theory, monster information, geography, and history—over the last month, I’d devoured those topics as though I were starving.
I had also hypothesized that there was a chance the superimposition of a second set of memories had physically increased my brain capacity. For all his hatred of studying, it seemed like Allen possessed above-average intellect—significantly sharper than my past self’s, easily. And it wasn’t just his memory; the speed at which he processed things and his insight went far beyond what the average person possessed, and my awakening had only furthered that.
The brain’s capacity only increased the more you used it, after all. It was like how the number of books you read was directly linked to your ability to verbalize your thoughts and the size of your vocabulary; you could always tell when someone had never opened a book in their life. It was also like how a person who’d learned mental arithmetic from early childhood could rattle off unbelievably speedy calculations without even thinking. The earlier you started using your brain, the smarter you got—and the potential was basically unlimited.
It was a fact that the brain had the most capacity to absorb new information during one’s childhood. Thirty-six years’ worth of experiences from my past life, plus twelve years in this one—all forcibly jammed into the fresh gray matter of a twelve-year-old’s brain. No matter how efficiently one raised their child, that kind of result was normally impossible—there was no overcoming the constraints of time. My twelve-year-old brain now likely had the cerebral folds of a person four decades older. Of course, I would never be able to prove this hypothesis of mine, but in the absence of a scientific method to examine it more closely, I had decided to go ahead with that theory to explain my newfound mental prowess.
Next, I had tested out my physical abilities, but I hadn’t been able to detect any significant changes. Honestly, given that I had been thin as a twig in my past life, with motor skills and athletic abilities well below the average, I’d been afraid my physical skills had actually gone down postawakening. Luckily, it seemed that wasn’t the case.
Finally, there had been the part I’d been most looking forward to exploring: my newfound magical skills. But there hadn’t been any changes there to speak of. Strengthening Magic, which utilized the magic reserves amassed in one’s mana core to enhance one’s physical abilities, was the only type of magic Allen could use. Actually, it was a type of magic anyone could learn to use, and it was such a practical tool that it was taught in the general curriculum. Whether for farmwork or making deliveries, the effective use of Strengthening Magic made an immeasurable impact on productivity. However, the levels of mastery differed greatly from person to person.
Use of magic relied on two integral factors. The first was the capacity of one’s internal organ known as the “mana core,” in which magical reserves were stockpiled. These reserves were usually referred to as one’s “magical aptitude,” or mana. The natural capacity of one’s mana core was thought to be fully grown by the age of twelve, but one’s true capacity was determined by a skill known as magical compression. While natural capacity was limited, magical compression could be slowly developed over years of practice to exceed that limit. The more mana you had access to, the higher the power of your output, and the longer you could cast.
The other factor integral to magic use was one’s ability to freely manipulate these magical reserves at will. The ability to manipulate magic was essentially an innate instinct. While it could be developed through training and practice, the fact of the matter was that one’s intuitive instinct for magic was the biggest deciding factor in their potential abilities. It was like how certain people excelled at playing instruments because they had been born with a knack for perfect pitch. Anyone could learn an instrument with enough practice, but some were just innately better than others.
In my case, while my magical aptitude was considerably higher than the average person’s, it was my magical instincts that were lauded as truly outstanding by those around me. It was difficult to get a general sense of how good my magical manipulation was compared to the rest of the world, but the swordmaster at the local training ground had once reckoned it wasn’t a stretch to think I’d be placed into Class A at the Royal Academy, supposing I passed the written exam. I couldn’t be sure if that was just the self-serving flattery of a rural swordsmanship instructor who felt personally responsible for all I’d achieved, but considering that soon after my eleventh birthday, he’d resigned from his position with a cool “There is nothing more I can teach you,” maybe there was something to what he had said. After that, I had mostly practiced on my own, apart from occasional training from my mother, who also excelled at Strengthening Magic.
Well, this had been a long-winded explanation, but essentially, there had been no change to my magical aptitude or instincts as a result of my awakening. Magical aptitude could be measured with specialized tools, so I’d been able to confirm the lack of change immediately. The average magical aptitude level across the general population was around 100; mine had been measured at 2,000. With my current magical compression abilities, I could amplify that by about twenty percent, so my true magical aptitude level was around 2,400.
From what I had learned, successful applicants to the Royal Academy had an average level of around 2,000, whereas the minimum threshold to even progress to the actual examinations was around 1,000—although that level varied each year based on the cumulative levels of the approximately ten thousand applicants. Unfortunately, in the year my sister had applied, the threshold had been unprecedentedly high at around 1,500.
The highest recorded magical aptitude level in the kingdom’s thousand-year-plus history had been achieved around three hundred years ago: an unnervingly high 67,000. The applicant had been a twelve-year-old boy who had later gone on to be known as the Founding Father of Magical Medicine; he’d also failed to be admitted to the Academy. Apparently, he’d been utterly uninterested in studying, and his written examination score had been too low to gain him entry. That tale had gone on to become an oft-repeated anecdote demonstrating the Academy’s stance on the importance of comprehensive excellence, and it was also solid evidence that pure physical ability wasn’t enough to cross the rigid threshold line. It was a favorite story with which to lecture children who were slacking off on their studies, and accordingly, it had been drummed into the head of preawakened Allen so often that it had likely left an imprint.
On the other hand, an applicant’s ability in magical manipulation was harder to quantifiably measure, because one’s magical aptitude did influence their control over magical manipulation. Speaking in terms of my past life, if you tried to estimate an athlete’s skill, it would be nearly impossible to distinguish the degree to which their genetic composition contributed to their overall ability. But to the trained eye, even magical manipulation instincts were somewhat gaugeable (albeit difficult to verbalize or quantify); this was done by studying the unity of the user’s body movements and the speed of their reactions while they used Strengthening Magic. And naturally, if someone had suddenly undergone a dramatic change in the level of their magical manipulation ability, they would be able to detect that intuitively.
Ultimately, aside from an increase in mental faculties, there had been no changes to my existing abilities. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Calling it an “ability” was a little off the mark, but there had been one more change that, at some point this past month, I’d realized I’d acquired.
I was brimming with vitality.
Well, it was difficult to put it into the right words. Rather than “vitality,” maybe it was more my zest for living? Or a driving force that allowed me to overcome any difficulties that came before me? Whatever it was, what the past month had taught me was that I was overflowing with it. I guessed that maybe the feeling of having two souls in a single body felt a lot like having one soul with a really strong will to live. And so, brimming with this so-called vitality, I’d spent the past month diligently testing out...
“Here it goes... Fireball!”
...nothing. I’d spent a month verifying the various things I couldn’t do. I mean, I’d been reborn into a world of magic, right? Why wouldn’t I want to use it properly? I’d always been biased toward mage classes, even in my previous life. But magic like fireballs fell outside the scope of Strengthening Magic, and my attempts always ended with the same result: failure. It seemed that using Emissive Magic was basically impossible for me.