Non-attribute Magic
Arum shrugged. The laughter of those nobles didn’t matter much to him.
A girl sitting beside Misty held onto her chin as she calmly made an analysis of Arum’s case.
“I see that’s why his scores in practical skills are so low in the entrance examination… Otherwise, it would have been weird for him to get such low scores even with such a high casting speed…”
She was the only one who took the situation seriously and put some thought into it. Others only ridiculed except for Misty who was still finding it hard to believe.
“Arum… is that really true?”
“It is. I can’t use anything but auxiliary spells.”
Arum shrugged. But Misty had a bewildered look on her face that didn’t seem to believe what she had heard. She was amongst the very few who weren’t laughing at Arum along with Lux. Indeed, Lux didn’t laugh either unlike the others. Rather he had a disappointed expression on his face.
“Arum there is no point in continuing. Let’s end the game here.”
Arum squinted his eyes.
“Why?”
Lux sighed. He felt somewhat guilty for wrongly accusing Arum of dishonoring him and cussing him in his heart.
“I admit that Non-attribute magic is somewhat necessary sometimes too. And I admit that your simple and easy to use auxiliary magic might be convenient to have at times. But it’s a magic form that is eating dust. It’s obsolete in today’s world and it is fatally unsuitable for combat and battles. You use auxiliary magic yourself, shouldn’t you know all of this already?”
The ridicule of the nobles… Misty’s astonishment and Lux’s disappointment. All of them were due to the weakness of the non-attribute magic.
In a battle of wizards, it is magic that determines victory and defeat. So what were the things that determine the strength of the spell itself?
The first was the amount of mana used. The mana used for activating a spell was fixed but after activating it a wizard can keep channeling mana into it thereby increasing the power of the spell.
But this method is highly inefficient considering the nature of the process itself. A wizard would be just trying to forcefully break the horizon of the spell. Thus, the power of the spell doesn’t change unless a lot of mana is put into it.
The second factor that determines the power of magic used is the rank of the spell. There are three levels of magic namely basic, intermediate and advanced with their power increasing in ascending order. The higher the rank of a spell is, the more difficult it is to activate. What’s more? A higher rank spell also consumes more mana than a lower rank one.
And the third and the most important factor is “Mana Conversion”
Mana cannot affect reality as it is. Even though it is possessed by all living things alive, it is but a phantom energy and has no real meaning or significance.
But, mana changes its appearance in the hands of a wizard. A wizard can transform mana into magic making it actually envision characteristics such as shapes, properties, and attributes.
This is the very basics of “Mana Conversion” and the more magician is good in their conversion the stronger will be the raw power of their magic.
While “Transformation” is the next process after “Mana Conversation” which involves tempering the converted mana into shapes and properties through means of spells and the user imaginations. The more concrete the form his the better would be the magic effectiveness. Having raw power itself is not enough the magic should be able to hit the target as well and that is determined by the wizard’s ability in “Transformation”.
So in other words…
“Mastery of Mana Conversation” = greater raw magic power, and
“Mastery of Transformation” = greater effectiveness of the magic spell.
‘But that is not the case in non-attribute magic,’ Lux reminded himself.
In the case of non-attribute magic, it can be said that the very basics and important aspects of magic casting were in a state of collapse from the very beginning.
As the name implies, the non-attributed magic has no attribute. It is a magic form that was originally created to train wizards to master the “Transformation” process. This form of magic skips the very essence of “Mana Conversation” and jumps directly into “Transformation”. Hence the raw power of non-attribute spells is almost nil except for some weak power spells like the [Mana Bullet].
And that was the biggest reason why the non-attributed magic is flawed. With no raw strength to speak of it was a magic doomed to be eating dust.
The “Mana Conversation” of the non-attributed magic is insufficient, and its effects appear as an ambiguous phenomenon that is something in between “mana” and a “magic spell”. Since it is not even considered magic spell its influence on reality is almost negligible.
Even the efficiency of the magic is at rock bottom.
For example, if suppose one can cast 10 spells of a certain attribute in a day to consume all of his mana reserves, he would be only able to cast 3 spells of the non-attributed had he had the same reserves on another day.
Not to mention that if one uses attack magic like a [Mana Bullet], he would have to waste even more mana to increase its attack power even after casting the spell.
And indeed, it was very inefficient to increase the power of a spell by channeling mana into it after it is cast.
If using “Mana Conversion” to convert to other attributes was like multiplication, then using non-attribute magic was just like addition. You need to keep adding more and more mana to hope for the spell to have any power at all! That was the very reason no one used non-attribute and it was ridiculed to such a degree in the magic society. It was considered a waste of mana and nothing else.
“Oh, I don’t think that would be a problem.”
Arum smirked. There was all the reason in the world for him to be confident.
“…”
Lux could only sigh at Arum’s stupidity.
But Arum thought otherwise.
Arum had strong beliefs that went contrary to what the spoon-fed nobles had.
‘A wizard is accompanied by battles no matter where he goes.’
Wizards are born to be fighters. To defeat monsters under their overwhelming strength of magic spells. To do things that a mere knight would never be able to do regardless of upbringing and training.
Their path is something that is riddled with blood and corpses. They had to fight ferocious monsters and sometimes even worse! They have to fight the wizards of other countries.
Wizards are thus none other than those that use magic to confront threats regardless of their nature.
‘There is a saying that magic is given only to those humans that are suitable for it.’
‘This is equivalent to saying that as long as someone has magic, they would have no choice but to walk on the path of wizards. Their fate is bound to be riddled with battles.’
Lux shook his head. He was definitely going to refuse to continue any further.
“If…”
But Arum interjected in between.
“Don’t worry. That doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
Arum was going to back down neither now nor in the future.
“My master sent me here, and I came here to be a wizard. It doesn’t matter if I can’t attribute or not. I will become a wizard regardless. As long as I become a wizard nothing else matters.”
Things were quite simple. That was what Arum believed.
What is power? What is strength? Isn’t all of that relative.
You might think that your attribute is the strongest but you would only be a frog living in the well.
‘What really matters is whether I can accomplish my goals or not.’
‘Power is not important. What is important is to physically make things happen.’
Lux was a little dazzled by Arum, who stood straight with a puffed-out chest and could speak clear and confident words.
“You want to know what a true wizard is?”
“Well… I’ll tell you.”
Lux nodded.
Lux didn’t want to use it. But Arun’s stern words made Lux think otherwise. There was a need to crush this commoner whose feet weren’t on the ground. There was a need for him to know what the true reality is.
‘Being positive is good. But in the face of raw strength, it is useless.’
‘Well, you can think of it as a cruel execution. This is the least bit of kindness I am willing to show you to make you realize that your words are nothing but a pipe dream.’
Someone had to make Arum realize his ruthlessness.
“…This is what a wizard is!”
A different kind of mana runs on Lux’s body.
What Arum saw was the appearance of Lux raising his arm as he took a casual stance.
Golden mana circled around the hand as it took form. It rose like a beam of golden light as it rose from his hand making it appear as a tribute to the heavens…
[Thunderlight Giant]
Non-attribute Magic
Arum shrugged. The laughter of those nobles didn’t matter much to him.
A girl sitting beside Misty held onto her chin as she calmly made an analysis of Arum’s case.
“I see that’s why his scores in practical skills are so low in the entrance examination… Otherwise, it would have been weird for him to get such low scores even with such a high casting speed…”
She was the only one who took the situation seriously and put some thought into it. Others only ridiculed except for Misty who was still finding it hard to believe.
“Arum… is that really true?”
“It is. I can’t use anything but auxiliary spells.”
Arum shrugged. But Misty had a bewildered look on her face that didn’t seem to believe what she had heard. She was amongst the very few who weren’t laughing at Arum along with Lux. Indeed, Lux didn’t laugh either unlike the others. Rather he had a disappointed expression on his face.
“Arum there is no point in continuing. Let’s end the game here.”
Arum squinted his eyes.
“Why?”
Lux sighed. He felt somewhat guilty for wrongly accusing Arum of dishonoring him and cussing him in his heart.
“I admit that Non-attribute magic is somewhat necessary sometimes too. And I admit that your simple and easy to use auxiliary magic might be convenient to have at times. But it’s a magic form that is eating dust. It’s obsolete in today’s world and it is fatally unsuitable for combat and battles. You use auxiliary magic yourself, shouldn’t you know all of this already?”
The ridicule of the nobles… Misty’s astonishment and Lux’s disappointment. All of them were due to the weakness of the non-attribute magic.
In a battle of wizards, it is magic that determines victory and defeat. So what were the things that determine the strength of the spell itself?
The first was the amount of mana used. The mana used for activating a spell was fixed but after activating it a wizard can keep channeling mana into it thereby increasing the power of the spell.
But this method is highly inefficient considering the nature of the process itself. A wizard would be just trying to forcefully break the horizon of the spell. Thus, the power of the spell doesn’t change unless a lot of mana is put into it.
The second factor that determines the power of magic used is the rank of the spell. There are three levels of magic namely basic, intermediate and advanced with their power increasing in ascending order. The higher the rank of a spell is, the more difficult it is to activate. What’s more? A higher rank spell also consumes more mana than a lower rank one.
And the third and the most important factor is “Mana Conversion”
Mana cannot affect reality as it is. Even though it is possessed by all living things alive, it is but a phantom energy and has no real meaning or significance.
But, mana changes its appearance in the hands of a wizard. A wizard can transform mana into magic making it actually envision characteristics such as shapes, properties, and attributes.
This is the very basics of “Mana Conversion” and the more magician is good in their conversion the stronger will be the raw power of their magic.
While “Transformation” is the next process after “Mana Conversation” which involves tempering the converted mana into shapes and properties through means of spells and the user imaginations. The more concrete the form his the better would be the magic effectiveness. Having raw power itself is not enough the magic should be able to hit the target as well and that is determined by the wizard’s ability in “Transformation”.
So in other words…
“Mastery of Mana Conversation” = greater raw magic power, and
“Mastery of Transformation” = greater effectiveness of the magic spell.
‘But that is not the case in non-attribute magic,’ Lux reminded himself.
In the case of non-attribute magic, it can be said that the very basics and important aspects of magic casting were in a state of collapse from the very beginning.
As the name implies, the non-attributed magic has no attribute. It is a magic form that was originally created to train wizards to master the “Transformation” process. This form of magic skips the very essence of “Mana Conversation” and jumps directly into “Transformation”. Hence the raw power of non-attribute spells is almost nil except for some weak power spells like the [Mana Bullet].
And that was the biggest reason why the non-attributed magic is flawed. With no raw strength to speak of it was a magic doomed to be eating dust.
The “Mana Conversation” of the non-attributed magic is insufficient, and its effects appear as an ambiguous phenomenon that is something in between “mana” and a “magic spell”. Since it is not even considered magic spell its influence on reality is almost negligible.
Even the efficiency of the magic is at rock bottom.
For example, if suppose one can cast 10 spells of a certain attribute in a day to consume all of his mana reserves, he would be only able to cast 3 spells of the non-attributed had he had the same reserves on another day.
Not to mention that if one uses attack magic like a [Mana Bullet], he would have to waste even more mana to increase its attack power even after casting the spell.
And indeed, it was very inefficient to increase the power of a spell by channeling mana into it after it is cast.
If using “Mana Conversion” to convert to other attributes was like multiplication, then using non-attribute magic was just like addition. You need to keep adding more and more mana to hope for the spell to have any power at all! That was the very reason no one used non-attribute and it was ridiculed to such a degree in the magic society. It was considered a waste of mana and nothing else.
“Oh, I don’t think that would be a problem.”
Arum smirked. There was all the reason in the world for him to be confident.
“…”
Lux could only sigh at Arum’s stupidity.
But Arum thought otherwise.
Arum had strong beliefs that went contrary to what the spoon-fed nobles had.
‘A wizard is accompanied by battles no matter where he goes.’
Wizards are born to be fighters. To defeat monsters under their overwhelming strength of magic spells. To do things that a mere knight would never be able to do regardless of upbringing and training.
Their path is something that is riddled with blood and corpses. They had to fight ferocious monsters and sometimes even worse! They have to fight the wizards of other countries.
Wizards are thus none other than those that use magic to confront threats regardless of their nature.
‘There is a saying that magic is given only to those humans that are suitable for it.’
‘This is equivalent to saying that as long as someone has magic, they would have no choice but to walk on the path of wizards. Their fate is bound to be riddled with battles.’
Lux shook his head. He was definitely going to refuse to continue any further.
“If…”
But Arum interjected in between.
“Don’t worry. That doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
Arum was going to back down neither now nor in the future.
“My master sent me here, and I came here to be a wizard. It doesn’t matter if I can’t attribute or not. I will become a wizard regardless. As long as I become a wizard nothing else matters.”
Things were quite simple. That was what Arum believed.
What is power? What is strength? Isn’t all of that relative.
You might think that your attribute is the strongest but you would only be a frog living in the well.
‘What really matters is whether I can accomplish my goals or not.’
‘Power is not important. What is important is to physically make things happen.’
Lux was a little dazzled by Arum, who stood straight with a puffed-out chest and could speak clear and confident words.
“You want to know what a true wizard is?”
“Well… I’ll tell you.”
Lux nodded.
Lux didn’t want to use it. But Arun’s stern words made Lux think otherwise. There was a need to crush this commoner whose feet weren’t on the ground. There was a need for him to know what the true reality is.
‘Being positive is good. But in the face of raw strength, it is useless.’
‘Well, you can think of it as a cruel execution. This is the least bit of kindness I am willing to show you to make you realize that your words are nothing but a pipe dream.’
Someone had to make Arum realize his ruthlessness.
“…This is what a wizard is!”
A different kind of mana runs on Lux’s body.
What Arum saw was the appearance of Lux raising his arm as he took a casual stance.
Golden mana circled around the hand as it took form. It rose like a beam of golden light as it rose from his hand making it appear as a tribute to the heavens…
[Thunderlight Giant]
