Hefis's magic lessons did not go as smoothly as Gauss had expected.
Indeed, his talent for magic was formidable.
He learned 1st Circle Spells very quickly. Under Gauss's guidance, after practicing barely a dozen times, he had successfully mastered Burning Hands.
Everything related to flame was as instinctive to him as breathing.
But when the spell was replaced with the 2nd Circle Scorching Flame Orb, things no longer seemed to go so smoothly.
Although Gauss himself had learned Scorching Flame Orb from a spellbook, and did not use it especially often in his usual battles, leaving its proficiency relatively low among his many spells at only lv3 (39/50), that should still have been more than enough to teach someone else.
In his judgment, lv3 proficiency had already reached the level of mastery, allowing one to cast the spell reliably in most combat situations.
Seeing Hefis's frustration, Gauss offered him a few words of comfort.
He had guessed the reason. It most likely had nothing to do with Hefis's magical talent; perhaps he had simply been exposed to magic for too short a time, and his foundation was too weak.
For now, he lacked the basic knowledge needed to cross the threshold into the 2nd Circle. The complexity of 2nd Circle Spells truly was several times that of 1st Circle Spells.
One could glimpse the whole picture through the groups who first learned them.
A level 1 Spellcaster could begin studying 1st Circle Spells. Although Spellcasters with class levels were lofty mage lords in ordinary people's eyes, mysterious figures wielding arcane power, to the current Gauss, they were merely newcomers who had just emerged from ignorance. Calling them complete outsiders would not be an exaggeration.
Do not expect most level 1 Spellcasters to possess any particularly solid magical foundation.
As for