Since it was a day off, after putting away his Galleon, Morris decided to laze around in his dorm all day, flipping through the pile of books he had borrowed from the library.
Reading always brings a sense of peace.
" The Book of the Mage "
With a thought, the phantom image of the book slowly appeared in his mind.
Turning to the last page, I found new content.
Morris perked up and immediately gave it a cursory glance.
The new content in this edition of the Book of the Mage is extremely complex; it's not simply a single spell or magic circle, but rather a whole field of study.
"Runes"—that's the title of this chapter.
The main content consists of various magical runes, somewhat similar to the Ancient Runes of this world, which are strange symbols resembling writing.
Each rune represents a different meaning, and when infused with magic, it can produce different magical effects.
The runes filled more than ten pages; Morris counted them roughly, and there were about two or three hundred.
To harness the power of runes, they must be correctly and stably inscribed onto a medium and infused with magic.
This "engraving" does not refer to engraving in the traditional sense.
Instead, it uses Mental Power as a guide, transforming magic into a carving knife to carve runes onto the substrate.
Practice makes perfect.
Morris chose the most common rune, "fire," and planned to have it engraved on his water glass.
What will he get?
A cup that breathes fire? Or a cup that automatically heats up?
However, thirty minutes passed, and Morris looked at the still water glass in front of him and rubbed his forehead.
Transforming magic into a carving knife sounds simple, but it's incredibly difficult to do.
Although he has been practicing Meditation for a long time and can now clearly perceive his own magic, he is still quite far from being able to accurately control it.
So, in the days that followed, Morris had a new task – practicing engraving runes.
This is a technology that needs time to mature.
The first Friday of February, early morning.
A full month has passed since the start of the new semester.
After countless attempts, Morris finally succeeded in engraving his first rune on his water glass: "Levitation".
However, the results are extremely inconsistent.
After being infused with magic, the water glass rose into the air in the dormitory room, finally crashing into the wall with a "smash" and Reducto.
Survival time is approximately ten seconds.
Morris stared at the wreckage of the cup and shook his head helplessly.
The study of runes still has a long way to go.
He stretched and looked at the clock on the wall; the hour hand had already pointed to ten o'clock.
It seems he's become too engrossed in his rune research; he's already missed most of the morning's classes.
What class was it this morning?
Oh, Transfiguration.
That's alright then.
He decided to skip classes and continue studying runes.
Around noon, Morris strolled out of Professor McGonagall's office.
Even though he had explained that he missed Transfiguration because he was too engrossed in studying magic, he still lost ten points from his House Points for unexcused absence and received a severe reprimand.
no way.
After such a long period of contact, Morris had roughly figured out the personalities of each professor.
If it were Flitwick or Snape, they probably wouldn't lose points for it.
In the corridor, he took out a small piece of wood and tried to carve the "floating" rune as he walked.
After a morning of practice, he is now very confident.
As the last stroke was made, the wooden block gleamed slightly, leaving behind a delicate, silver-gray symbol.
It went smoothly, a success on the first try.
Morris nodded in satisfaction and then infused it with magic.
This time, unlike the previous cups, the wooden block didn't suddenly shoot out; it simply hovered about a foot above his palm, floating slightly.
Seeing this, Morris seemed to be deep in thought.
After a morning of studying, he had almost figured it out.
Although they are all "floating" runes, even the slightest change in the rune can result in drastically different effects.
Theoretically speaking, there are countless variations of the "levitation" rune alone.
Finding the one you need from so many variations is a huge undertaking.
Furthermore, the same rune will have different effects when engraved on different objects.
That's really interesting.
This magic, capable of creating endless possibilities, is the most fascinating thing Morris has ever encountered.
He let the wooden block slowly fall back into his palm.
Now, let's try engraving a new rune on it.
What should be engraved?
Morris searched through the Book of the Mage for a moment.
"Explosion"? That seems like a good option.
He immediately began trying to carve the rune called "explosion" onto the wooden block.
What kind of effect would "floating" combined with "explosion" produce?
Once he found the trick, the engraving wasn't too difficult, and Morris completed it in one go once again.
This time, the runes are dark red.
Morris looked at the red-glowing wooden block in his hand and hesitated for a moment.
Is there any danger...?
..?
But he soon felt relieved.
It's just a small piece of wood; even with an "explosion" enchantment, how much power could it possibly have?
So Morris strolled to a quiet corner of a corridor and infused the wooden piece with magic.
"Whoosh!"
He lost his grip, and the wooden block shot out like a rocket, leaving a dark red trail as it zigzagged through the air before crashing head-on into a student who had just come out from around the corner.
As we all know, when faced with a small object flying rapidly towards us, we instinctively use our arms to shield it and then try to catch it.
The same goes for Draco Malfoy.
What is that?
After catching the wooden block, Draco looked down and saw a flash of red magnified in his eyes, and then...
"Bang!"
A loud, but not too loud, explosion rang out in the corridor.
"Aww~"
Draco was thrown back a few steps by the force of the explosion and landed hard on his backside.
His palms burned with pain, his wizard robe had been ripped open with a hole the size of a bowl, his carefully styled hair was disheveled, and his face was smeared with black ash, making him look quite comical.
It's not very powerful, only slightly more powerful than a firecracker.
Morris nodded to himself, and before Draco could react, he quietly left the scene.
"Who is it?!"
Morris remained calm despite hearing Draco Malfoy's angry scream from behind him.
I don't know what the other person was thinking, insisting on sneaking into this secluded corridor while he was experimenting with magic.
Yes, it wasn't his fault.
It was all Draco Malfoy's bad luck.
He didn't do it on purpose!