[0745] The Out-of-Touch Old Man

Karya dared to say that because he had good reason.

At first glance, Ixtal's situation, with "everyone being an elemental mage," was indeed impressive. It had the air of countless ships racing against the current, as if the Kingdom of Ixtal had woven magic into every detail of production and daily life.

But after taking a closer look, it wasn't hard to see that the elemental magic these people used was rigid and formulaic. Their control over magic was standardized, and most importantly, their Source of Magic Power was very unusual.

Even in Runeterra, energy couldn't appear out of nowhere.

So if a mage wanted to cast a spell, they had to expend magic power—and elemental mages were mages too. Normally, casting spells consumed magic power.

But here was the problem: these spells were extremely formulaic, and the elemental mages themselves had poor control over magic. Where could they possibly get enough magic power to waste?

This clearly didn't fit with established Magic Theory.

After observing carefully, Karya finally realized that the reason the people of Ixtal could cast spells in such a formulaic way was the unusual elemental environment here.

Throughout Ixtal, within the elemental gradient barrier, the concentration and activity of the elements were both very high. Their level of activation was high, too. People living in such an environment were like those indescribable beings in the Shadow Realm—Shadow creatures that could only twist, shriek, and crawl. They naturally possessed spell-like abilities.

Of course, no matter how high the elemental concentration and activity in the environment were, or how astonishing the overall activation level was, ordinary people without magical talent still lacked the basic magic power needed to channel magic.

To compensate, the people of Ixtal added large amounts of magic-power supplements to their food. In this way,