Of course, although the Xinfei Merchant Guild's research had made learning magic accessible even to ordinary people, differences in ability still existed, just as they did in the basic subjects taught on Earth. Lowering the threshold for learning magic did not mean everyone performed equally well. In a sense, this was another, new expression of "magical talent."
Freya, for example, was one of the most outstanding new-era mages receiving this entirely new form of magical education.
Her great-grandmother was an archmage, her father was the youngest great mage in history, and her mother was now a level nine mage, only one step away from becoming a great mage herself. Born into such a family, Freya could not possibly avoid exposure to magic.
Moreover, Freya had indeed been fascinated by magic's many wonders since childhood. From the time she turned six, Archmage Camilla, Xu Yi, and Stille had all made time to teach her magic.
Unlike the vast majority of the continent's earlier mages, however, Freya had primarily learned magic using the methods Xu Yi had redefined. Before learning and mastering any spell, she first subjected it to a basic quantitative analysis.
Because of this, Freya had never regarded magic as a vague concept, as earlier mages had. She only considered a spell truly mastered once she could analyze it in meticulous detail.
The drawback was that Freya needed more time and effort to learn and master any new spell than earlier mages had.
For instance, when she first learned the Fireball Spell, the most basic fire magic spell, Freya took an entire week to cast it successfully. This was much slower than the average of three days taken by many novice and second-level mages at Xinfei Academy.
Compared with magical geniuses like Archmage Camilla, Xu Yi, and Stille, she lagged