The First Student

"N-No way..."

How is that possible? How does a boy like him cast a magic spell without any incantations?

And to cast a fireball spell without using a magic wand or chant—is he a genius like I expected? No, this is beyond prodigy at this point. The way he stepped back and moved... almost as if he already had a lot of experience in sorcery.

"Lugh Acrylis... Who are you really?" I whispered as I stared at his back.

"My apologies, I thought I had that under control, but I'm still a bit rusty on the edge, haha..." He chuckled.

I stood up and walked toward him, my index finger pointing at his chest. "You! How can you possibly do that?! How were you able to cast a magic spell without any wand or incantations?! I demand to know!"

"C-Calm down, Miss Vanessa. I will explain everything, so please relax..."

"I don't understand it. First off, during our encounter in the library, you seemed like a different person. You don't act like a child at all, and you're very keen about political issues. And then all of a sudden, you invite me here to this secluded place to do magic and you want me to be silent about what we're going to do..." I exploded.

At first, I didn't find it weird that a kid like him would be interested in magic. But being interested in history and executing a no-chant magic spell—that was enough to make me suspicious of this child. He isn't normal. And he said I need to keep quiet, but why? What do we have to hide?

My family had exposed me to deep education with our local and personal magicians ever since I was seven, so I know all the fundamentals about magic. But this is the first time that I saw someone emanating with such an overwhelming aura. Not to mention, his fireball spell was powerful enough to destroy a building.

"Don't tell me—! Are you a spy from the Crown Loyalists?! You are, right?! You're a new technological weapon developed by them, and you're only pretending to be a kid to lure us mages so that you'll draft us for war, isn't it?!" I shouted.

He must be some kind of modified homunculus using illusion magic to act as a child to scout for potential mages so that they can fool them. The library is always full of scholars learning about magic, so that must've been his primary target for location.

"Erm, I understand that you're wary about me, but assuming that your conspiracy theory is true, I have absolutely nothing to do with them, Miss Vanessa." Lugh sighed.

"Then prove it! How can I trust you?" I stepped back.

"I uhh... I wouldn't bother showing you my secret if I intended to harm you, no? Besides, I have a real family, Miss Vanessa. You haven't heard of the Acrylis?"

"Oh... If I recall correctly, they are a family of farmers who once helped us with drought, right?"

I'm not sure about the context, but I heard from somewhere that during the great drought a couple of hundred years ago, the Acrylis family was responsible for solving the famine in various towns. My family. the Hamilton, we were also greatly affected during that time. It is only thanks to the Acrylis that we were able to get back up again.

Though I didn't realize that Lugh was a member of that family. He introduced himself as an Acrylis, but I didn't even notice it. Grah! I have to pay more attention next time!

"I'm sorry. It's my fault for leading you too much. I have a lot of secrets, and as much as I want to divulge them to you, it would be preferable if I withheld them for now because it's a long-term assessment. After seeing how dedicated you are in your studies, I felt that I could entrust you at least with some knowledge." He stared at me with serious eyes.

He looks so sincere and a bit scared... Perhaps I misjudged him. No, I did misjudge him. I let my irrational thought cloud my mind after seeing what he can do. I'm such a fool for getting overwhelmed when I'm trying to be a decipherer. Things like these shouldn't surprise me that much.

"Okay, fine... I won't question you more about your intentions or whatnot. But promise me that you'll open up to me when the time comes, okay?" I glanced down at him. For some reason, I felt taller and bigger than him. Well, I'm still older than him, so it's natural. If he weren't being enigmatic like what he's doing, I would've seen him as a little brother or some sort.

"Yes. I swear that I'll give you direct answers soon. But for now, please trust me and follow my instructions. As my first ever student, I'll teach you the REAL essence of magic."

***

"For starters, we don't need these grimoires..." I used fire magic again to burn down the Grimoires. "Oops—! Wait, you don't need those grimoires anymore, right?"

"Hahaha, no... It's fine. Those are just copies anyway." She shrugged.

"Miss Vanessa. Starting from now, I want you to forget everything that you learned about Magic, but still retain its fundamentals." I said.

"Eh? What do you mean? How are we going to do that, and is that important?" She asked.

"The knowledge that you will receive will eclipse what you currently know, and it might cause some academic overload. We can't remove what we have already learned from the past, but I could probably perform a spell that could erase an excerpt of your memories. The question is, are you willing to undergo that process?"

During my time as Arkan Valis, I've experienced several cases of anxiety attacks and severe mental overload caused by continuous research in magic. It was such a painful slump that my advisor and fellow scholar ultimately recommended I take a break. Heck, even Miss Elvainne had to drag me to bed and keep me there for a week. 

That's the time that I realized that not many people are capable of digesting much information at once. Even scholars would experience stress if they were exposed to a multitude of topics at once.

I don't want Miss Vanessa to get overloaded by Ancient Magic. The last thing that I want to do is burden her mind with information from a millennium ago.

"Huh? Are you underestimating me? I don't need that. Let's just start with it already!"

"Oh..." If she can flat-out reject me like that, then I guess I don't have anything to worry about. "Okay. But still, if you ever feel like you're mentally stressed, don't be shy to tell me. Your mental health is more important." She nodded firmly.

After taking a break for a while, I decided to start the lesson.

"Alright, Miss Vanessa. I want to start by shattering misconceptions around Magic. In theory, you said that not a lot of people can cast magic without saying the chant, right?" I confirmed.

"Well, yes... the Holy Order of Arcane Arts specifically recommended to us to say the incantations. They said that the natural elements of magic are provided by the Gods of this world, and they connect the chants as some sort of umm... thanking the Gods for the blessing?"

I see. So that's the reason behind the chants. They thought that magic spells were blessings from the Gods, and so they had to offer some kind of prayer using the incantations as the medium to make it work. I'd say that's ridiculous!

"Well, they're wrong." I sighed.

"Huh? What do you mean?" She tilted her head.

"Magic spells or Magic in general, is NOT connected to the Gods of this world. They are a by-product of nature. Something that already existed from the beginning of creation. You can cast magic whenever you want, even without those ugly chants. Like this..."

I snapped my fingers and generated a small spark of electricity circling my index finger. I then fired it off on the side as Miss Vanessa looked carefully.

"Woah... You just literally made that lightning appear out of nowhere and without incantations..."

"Listen carefully. The current Magic of today only has two elements: One is Incantation, and the second is Magical Energy. The generation of mages today believes that the concept revolves around these two. But it's wrong. There are three primary elements."

"Wait, so you're saying that they are teaching us the wrong concept all this time?!" She exclaimed.

"Well, I'm not sure how much they diluted the teachings in this generation, so to speak. But in ancient times, the three primary elements were: Conversion, Construction, and Imagination. Or CCI for short." I was the one who coined these terms after all.

"Hold on, let me just note that real quick!" Miss Vanessa grabbed her notebook from the bag and started scribbling. As expected, you're not a scholar if you don't carry a notebook at all times.

"This is the only way that I can explain the concept of magic in layman's terms. First, magic works primarily with causality. Cause and Effect, to be exact. Let's say that you are hungry. Tell me what are the advantages or disadvantages of eating a food versus not eating."

"Ermm uhh... Well, eating food will give you energy for the day. Not eating is the opposite."

"Great. So the effect is fatigue or not having enough energy, and the cause is not eating food. Magic works the same. Let's say you want to cast a fireball or any type of flame magic, the 'effect' that you want to achieve is fire, but what 'cause' do you think is needed for that to happen?" I asked.

"Umm... well, fire is generally made out of like oxygen, fuel, and heat. That should be the cause." She answered.

"Precisely. To cause a fire, we need fuel, oxygen, and heat."

"So, how are they related to the CCI?"

"Good question. The first is Conversion. We humans cannot perceive the wave of energy in nature visually, but we can feel it. Where do you think Mana or Magical Energy comes from?"

"Umm, well, they came from the person themselves, right? The grimoire states that human beings can wield magical energy because we have innate mana." She folded her arms.

"That's incorrect. Human beings do NOT have innate magical energy. We are made out of atoms, the building blocks of this world, but we cannot generate magical energy. Why? Because, like I said earlier, magic is a by-product of nature. In short, even the magical energy is manufactured by our surroundings."

"Oh, so we're not producing magical energy from our body, but from nature?"

"Yes, that's where Conversion will enter. The first formula of a magic spell is to harness the magical energy around us and convert it into a matter that can be manipulated. I think you'll understand it better if you go back to how your magic wand worked."

"Oh! I get it now! The magic wand absorbs the magical energy around me and stabilizes its flow to the lance!" Her eyes widened.

"Exactly! The wand shaped your magical energy into electricity, and that's how you fired your lightning bolt earlier."

"Then, I'm assuming that the Construction is the cause or materials you mentioned earlier?"

"Yes. Once you have a converted form of magical energy, you can now enter its materials to craft or 'construct' the effect. Pour the correct elements, which are fuel, heat, and oxygen, into the magical energy. This is the Construction phase."

"Huh? But where do we get those three elements? We can't just bring those out of nowhere!"

"That's why Imagination comes next." I winked.

"Oh? Can you please elaborate?"

"It all boils down to nature once again. We are always surrounded by oxygen most of the time, and the same can be said of heat if there's sunlight. The only material left is fuel. And so we pseudo-construct a fuel using our Imagination."

"Huh?! But how? You just need to imagine what the fuel looks like?!"

"Not exactly, you have to imagine what makes up a fuel. If I recall, I think in this generation, they call it Carbon and Hydrogen. If you understand the concept behind this element, then you can reconstruct the said material using only your imagination. These are comprised of many formulas."

I didn't know about the periodic table in my past life, so I was just anchoring fossil fuels like coal to help me with my CCI but I guess it works the same.

"And then once you merge these three..." I opened my palm and conjured a small fireball. "You can produce magic... Why don't you try it?"

"Umm, okay... like this?" Miss Vanessa raised her arm and closed her eyes. Using the method of CCI, she garnered enough magical energy in the area and ultimately managed to conjure a simple fireball.

"I-I did it! I did it! Oh my god! I cast a magic without a chant!" She jumped in delight.

"Great job! You did it on your first try as well! I'm impressed..."

Not a lot of people, even back in my time, could master or understand the basic foundation of a magic spell. But she just did it after one lesson about my magic.

I look forward on how you'll grow, Miss Vanessa.