Another way out (1)

Ever since he joined Dalaran, he had spent a great deal of time studying the fundamentals of magical theory on the second floor. After reading so many books, he had worked out how mages cast spells. The key lay in converting mana: mages used the mana within their bodies to construct a particular rune, allowing the mana outside to transform into the form they needed according to that rune. Water Bolt, Fireball, and other such spells were all different forms of energy that mages produced by transforming external mana.

That made the rune the key. He had searched for these runes on the second floor, but unfortunately, they seemed to have become closely guarded secrets among mages, not readily shared with outsiders. He had searched almost the entire second floor and found only a few of the most basic runes. Moreover, these were ancient versions, far inferior to the runes of today, which had undergone numerous improvements.

With no mana in his body, he could not do what those mages did. He therefore intended to try another approach and see whether he could construct runes directly with mental power, thereby achieving the same spellcasting effects as mages.

To avoid any accidents, he first went behind the house, sat down, and extended his mental power into the outside world. Then he began using it to construct a rune outside his body. He had found this rune in the library. It was a conversion rune used in Fireball, capable of converting the raw mana outside into searing energy.

The construction process was far from easy. Powerful control over mental power was fundamental, and there could be no deviations during construction. Even the slightest difference could produce a completely different result. Most likely, it would have no effect at all; at worst, it would cause a mana explosion, instantly draining the mana within the mage's body before exploding at the casting site. One careless mistake could very well get the mage blown to death. Throughout history, many mages had lost their lives researching powerful spells.

Although he had no mana in his body, no one knew what accidents might occur. Even though he was very confident in his control, he had to proceed with extreme caution. He spent several minutes constructing this simple rune. After the attempt, he knew he had failed. The rune had collapsed before it was fully formed, and there had been no movement in the surrounding mana either. It could only be called a complete and utter failure.

He kept thinking the problem lay in how he constructed the rune, so he spent several days working hard to revise his construction method. But no matter what Allen did, the result remained the same.

Unable to find the cause, he decided to set this research aside for the moment and check the library first. Over the following month, he returned to his former routine, either brewing potions or visiting the library. Fortunately, his success rate was now high enough; otherwise, he would not have been able to cover the cost of entering the library.

Allen's disregard for the outside world did not stop major events from unfolding there. It was almost time for the Kirin Tor council elections again. The election of council members resembled elections in the Western countries of his previous life, except that money and prestige had been the requirements in those countries. In Kirin Tor council elections, money was only an insignificant factor. Here, strength mattered most.

The Kirin Tor council had 120 members in total, each a mage of at least the fourth rank, and even fourth-rank mages were rare among them. Even when there were such members, without formidable strength to back them up, they had no voice in the council at all. This was why Dalaran had a Council of Six. In reality, the members of the Kirin Tor attached themselves to the six strongest members to secure benefits, eventually forming a political landscape resembling a system of parties.

Thus, reaching the rank of Archmage was the primary requirement for running for the Council of Six. Only afterward did contributions, connections, and the number of supporters come into consideration. Not long ago, Aksu, the oldest member of the Council of Six, had passed away, leaving a seat vacant. Now, that empty seat was affecting Dalaran's politics. The upper-ranking mages had banded together for their respective interests, attempting to carve up the benefits Aksu had left behind during this election.

Because of this division of benefits, even the atmosphere within the association had begun to grow tense. At the beginning of the following month, he went to collect his monthly assignment as usual. Once again, it was to brew Healing Potions. The only difference was that the quantity was far greater than last time, and he was even required to brew one medium-grade Healing Potion. Many other Alchemy Apprentices received the same assignment, prompting those unable to brew medium-grade potions to start buying them from others.

Because of this, he too sensed the unusual atmosphere in Dalaran. He did not know what the people above wanted so many Healing Potions for, but he did not really believe they were preparing for war. Changes of office in Dalaran's Kirin Tor were frequent occurrences. Surely they could not settle matters by force every time. Besides, Dalaran had not experienced war for many years. So it could not be war.

He could not think of a reason, nor did he care. All he wanted was to finish this month's assignment. He had already brewed medium-grade Healing Potions before, so he was not worried about the assignment itself. Instead, he worried about whether the workload would increase again next month. If so, his losses would still be substantial. Completing assignments for the association brought in practically no income and could even cost him money.

He was growing increasingly dissatisfied with the association's practices, but there was nothing he could do. With knowledge and his fate both in other people's hands, he had no choice but to bow his head. Allen sighed and was about to leave when a young man around his age stopped him. "Hey, friend, your assignment is to brew Healing Potions too, right? This really is awful. You see, I'm not good at brewing Healing Potions. You must have a way to get hold of some, right?"

Allen turned back and asked in puzzlement, "With so many people here, why do you think I have a way?"

The young man told him proudly, "I'm an excellent judge of people. You look miserable, but you're not anxious. You must have a way to finish the assignment, right?"

Allen thought it over and decided to tell him the truth. "The difficult part of the assignment is the medium-grade Healing Potion, right? If that's the case, I do have a way to get some. But what price can you offer?"

The young man was delighted. "Twenty percent above market price, and I'll take as many as you have." Allen immediately realized that he intended to resell them. What a clever fellow. But Allen was not about to pass up this chance to make money either. He immediately demanded fifty percent above market price. The young man clearly had no experience bargaining. After a moment's hesitation, he agreed.

After they arranged a time and place, Allen went back to take stock of his potions. All the ones he had sold before were inferior-grade, while he had kept the better ones. Upon counting them back home, he found he had twenty-two medium-grade potions and two high-grade ones. He had only managed to brew those two through extraordinary luck, and it had been far from easy. They were his means of saving his life, so he would not sell those two potions under any circumstances.

He did not intend to sell all these medium-grade potions, only half, keeping the other half to see how the market developed. The next day, he handed the goods over to the young man and received more than seventy gold coins. These coins would allow him to stop brewing potions and rest for a while. These days, he had needed to produce several finished potions every day; otherwise, he could not supply the merchant and complete his association assignments. Brewing potions had forced him to cut back considerably on his reading time in the library.

Now that he had so many gold coins, he could simply find some excuse about going away to fob off the merchant when the time came. During this break, he had to discover why runes constructed from mental power could not cast magic. For the next few days, he brewed no potions at all, spending all twenty-four hours of every day in the library. He did not even sleep, sustaining himself solely with his powerful mental power.

After these few days, Allen really did find a book. It was actually a record of experiments, written by an obscure mage whose name he had never heard. This mage's experiment was very similar to Allen's. He too had used mental power to construct runes in empty space, attempting to induce mana resonance.

Through this, he had hoped to cast spells without relying on mana at all. Unfortunately, he too had failed, at the same point where Allen had failed. In the end, the mage could only conclude that mental power could not construct true magical runes at all. Like runes drawn on paper, they would produce no magical fluctuations whatsoever. Only mana could attract mana, so only runes constructed from mana were truly effective.

This conclusion had been an accepted theorem among mages for many years. No one would question its correctness-except Allen, of course. He knew that even the most correct theorems and conclusions had a limited scope of applicability. Besides, this conclusion was not necessarily correct. Daring to question authority and being good at innovation had been a focus of education in his previous life. He certainly would not assume that everything those Archmages said was right.

However, he had no evidence to prove this conclusion wrong. He still needed to keep looking for new ways to prove it. First and foremost, the underlying reason his mental power had failed to construct a rune during his experiment was that it had quickly dispersed during construction. It was not a matter of faulty construction as he had previously thought; he could not construct it at all. But why? He sank into thought.

Mana could cause magical fluctuations because they were the same substance. Mental power had no effect because it was not mana and therefore could not react with mana. Following this logic, it seemed correct. But his intuition told him that mental power and mana must be closely related. Otherwise, why was mental power alone able to control mana?