Elements (II)

Ophelia ignored the looks everyone cast her way. Instead, the worry in her heart eased. Three spells in one year—no matter how one looked at it, that standard was not high. Even if she was not particularly quick at learning Elemental Magic, she did not need to fear being expelled.

In fact, this was merely the minimum standard. Few apprentices in previous classes had been expelled for that reason. What truly reduced the number of apprentices was the pressure of multiple course assessments.

Black Mage spoke with great eloquence. "Elements encompass all things. Everything you discover through your naked eye, a mage's perception, the touch of Mental Power—all phenomena that exist within and beyond the plane—are elements."

"Fire." Black Mage spread open his palm, and a cluster of flames blazed fiercely above it.

"Water." The flame vanished, replaced by a ball of water.

"Ice." The water ball froze solid, becoming a chunk of ice.

"Earth, light, darkness..." Black Mage demonstrated them one by one. Everyone watched, utterly enthralled, immersed in the wonder of magic.

"And wind." With a wave of the mage's hand, everyone felt a faint breeze whirl past their ears.

"These are all elemental phenomena that you can directly see with the naked eye. Elemental Magic is magic that applies them."

Black Mage continued, "In the age of ancient mages, those mages transformed phenomena into magic through day-after-day observation, using exceedingly crude methods. That approach was inefficient, because even when they comprehended magic from it, they did not understand its principles. This also made the inheritance of magic extremely difficult in that era. A spell was often rigid and unchanged, yet utterly unstable. Mages even risked suffering backlash upon themselves when casting magic."

Everyone listened intently to Black Mage's words. Before stepping onto the path of mages, their direct impression of the wonder of mages and magic had come from Elemental Magic. That great power of controlling nature was the source of their earliest reverence.

The Optical Projection behind Black Mage lit up, and three runes that everyone knew very well appeared within it.

"Fireball. Everyone should be familiar with it."

Everyone nodded. This was especially true for the apprentices from Barren Island. They had only reached the academy alive by relying on the power of Fireball.

"This was the first spell mastered by mages. In the ancient times of the Mage Plane, humans were slaughtered by all manner of Magic Beasts and stood on the brink of extinction. It was precisely through the creation of Fireball that they barely managed to reproduce and survive."

Fire was the source of civilization. That seemed to be true in every world, including Earth. Frail individuals like humans had escaped barbarism precisely through their use of fire, Adam thought.

"Fireball back then was different from what it is now. You should know that as long as you proficiently master these three runes, the Fireball you cast will be successful and stable. But in ancient times, it was far more dangerous for mages to use magic."

Black Mage paused, clenched his hand in the air, and then an archaic magic staff nearly as tall as a person appeared in his grasp. Black Mage took out a fire-element Energy Stone and set it atop the staff, then said to the apprentices,

"The earliest mages relied on Energy Stones and Magic Staves to cast spells. They used sound to vibrate their Mental Power, then used their Mental Power to activate the low-level energy stored in the Energy Stones, casting magic in this manner."

Black Mage gestured for the apprentices to pay attention, then opened his mouth and uttered several simple syllables. He then swung the magic staff. The Energy Stone lit up, and a burning but unstable fireball appeared at the tip of the staff.

Adam noticed that although those syllables sounded simple and meaningless, the shifts in pitch caused them to resonate with Mental Power, allowing energy to be extracted from the ore.

Ancient mages' spellcasting seemed to have nothing to do with aether or magic power.

Black Mage put away the magic staff and held up the unsteadily burning fireball in one hand. "This was probably the original Fireball. It is impossible to verify because so much time has passed, and modern mages have no way to fully reproduce it. You can all see its state: unstable, liable to fall apart at any moment. This spell might even dissipate on its own before it could strike an enemy."

A target rose in front of Black Mage. He waved his hand and hurled the Fireball at it. The target did not move in the slightest, and then a Numerical Value appeared on it—0.25.

Black Mage spread his hands. "Its power is very low. Nowadays, this spell cannot even kill an Ordinary Person."

Adam looked at the target and guessed that it was probably an Alchemy Product based on principles similar to those of the Crystal Ball. This method of Datafication was undoubtedly advanced and intuitive. Precise Numerical Values could display data precisely, free from vague descriptions such as perhaps or probably.

Adam was still thinking about this when he heard Black Mage say, "Next is the improved Fireball."

This time, there were no casting movements at all. An orange fireball appeared out of thin air and hovered steadily before Black Mage.

"I only drew upon the Mental Power of the apprentice stage. This fireball is no different from the ones you cast. Watch carefully."

With a bang, the fireball struck the target and exploded. This time, the displayed Numerical Value was 1.

"Modern magic, supported by knowledge and constructed from runes, has a minimum power of one. The same Low-Level Magic is fully four times as powerful as Ancient Magic."

"This is the power of knowledge," Black Mage concluded.

Most people had not previously known what meaning the word "knowledge," which mages constantly kept on their lips, actually held. They still did not understand now, but that did not stop them from longing for knowledge from this point onward. Mages were not some mysterious and uncanny profession after all. So long as they had "knowledge," they too could accomplish the same things.

"The essence of Fireball is combustion, and the source of its power is temperature. It is an exothermic reaction produced by the interaction of combustible material and a burning agent. In Fireball and most fire-element spells, aether is the combustible material, magic power is the burning agent, and magic power stirs aether into releasing magic."

Adam felt that Black Mage had not fully explained the principles of Fireball. At the very least, he had not introduced aether, that mysterious and great substance. According to Earth's terminology, combustion was an exothermic reaction between combustible material and an oxidizing agent. In the Mage World, aether had evidently replaced both of these conditions.

Then rather than saying that a mage's power came from knowledge, was it more accurate to say that it came from aether?

As Adam listened to Black Mage's explanation, he recorded it in terms he could understand. Clearly, in a plane-based world like this one, the fundamental physical quantities had no essential differences. The greatest difference—and the reason worlds like this possessed Supernatural Power—was the mysterious aether.

"No, Mental Power must be included as well. In other words, apart from the Four Fundamental Forces whose forms of existence are still unknown, there is a fifth Fundamental Force, Mental Power, and a sixth Fundamental Force, aether. The six great forces together construct a high-magic world."

Black Mage did not demonstrate any other spells or teach any other knowledge. He continued his introduction based on Fireball, repeatedly mentioning aether, which further confirmed its importance to Adam.

"Then can it be said that everything in this world was created and unified by aether? That mages are merely exploring aether through knowledge?"

Adam knew that his current shallow understanding of this world was nowhere near enough to study a question that reached the essence of the world. He did not even know whether the question itself held any practical meaning. But he could now be completely certain of one thing.

That was that the value of the fragmented knowledge obtained from the "virus" had decreased once again. Because of the existence of aether, the magic-guided science unique to this world and Earth science had diverged down different paths from the very beginning. Whether that knowledge could hold true in this world was already uncertain. Perhaps it had only the slightest reference value?

At the end of the lesson, Black Mage displayed three Rune Arrays, each composed of three runes: the water-element Water Screen, a Defensive Magic; the wind-element Wind Blade, the spell William had once activated with a magic item aboard the ship; and the earth-element Earth Spike, an offensive spell.

"The elemental knowledge of the first-year free stage will not teach you anything profound. Your task during this year is to learn three Elemental Magic spells. You may also choose to pay to study Rune Arrays for other Low-Level Elemental Magic spells in the library, but three is the minimum requirement."

"In the following lessons, you may bring any problems you encounter while constructing runes to me. Of course, do not waste my time with stupid questions. I dare say you will not want to bear the consequences."

Black Mage left the classroom after speaking. This time, the apprentices' enthusiasm soared even higher. Unlike the morning's Meditation Method, seeing the power of magic with their own eyes excited them even more, especially when they had a chance to master that power.

These simple spells posed no difficulty at all in Adam's eyes. He had discovered what the Rune Arrays had in common. Including Fireball, each contained one rune that was similar or even identical—the rune that guided magic power.

Sure enough, aether is the origin of magic.

Over the following week, the apprentices attended every free course once. Every instructor had their own requirements, and failure to meet any of them resulted in expulsion. Though none of them were difficult, they remained a tremendous challenge for some apprentices who were not especially clever.

Naturally, none of this was difficult for Adam. He did, however, discover the purpose of the first year of study. This method was similar to Earth's preparatory classes: it was used to select promising seedlings sufficiently suited to mage cultivation from among apprentices whose Mental Power met the standard, then return the defective goods.

Under the pressure, the apprentices all grew tense, and the atmosphere for study reached unprecedented heights. With everyone studying, Adam once again became an oddity. The apprentices all believed that he had given up on himself.