"Care to put it under a greater test?" Magister Mulligan smiles dangerously.

"No, I do not," I say, shaking my head. "I'd like to just jump into the next set of Cantrips. I've still got half my Mana to spare, give or take."

"Your reserves are pitiful, young Luciani. Perhaps a specific training regime could—"

"Yeah, no. I'm done with training montages for now. There's too much going on. Lemme just do this, please."

I turn to the Omnium Compendium and tap my knuckles on its cover. The book opens, slamming its back cover on the table with a thunderous thud.

‘Congratulations on completing the Twenty-Third Cantrip..."

But the 'Beware, the twenty-fourth one is much more difficult than the previous’ message doesn't arrive.

After such a long wait that even Magister Mulligan is peering over my shoulder, there's finally a response.

'You have qualified for the Second Set of Cantrips. Young [Mage], you have proved to have a basic understanding of the circuitry of magic. From now on, each Set will test you on specific magic topics. Hopefully, Delusum will be by your side to guide your steps. One too many Dragons have expired while trying to meditate on the nature of magic for too long. Alas, that is only the first step in the pursuit of greater magical proficiency. A great care for detail is needed. Our souls can only move so many mountains before the weight of the world crushes them.'

I read this a couple of times before turning to the old man.

"Who's Delusum?" I ask, confused.

"I have no idea," Magister Mulligan replies with narrowed eyes.

...

"Dragons are weird creatures, young Luciani. It is probably the disciple of whoever came up with those Cantrips," the old man explains.

"Ok, but... isn't that weird? Didn't you say that the reductionist approach was invented by a Dragon?"

"Yes?"

"And aren't Cantrips part of the reductionist approach?"

"Yes."

"So, does that mean that whoever passed down the Cantrips only had access to or decided to share those, therefore pointing at the fact that more Cantrips would be necessary to learn magic fully?"

I would have expected Magister Mulligan to be surprised, but he just shrugs my concerns away.

"Dragons were creatures of many kinks and terrible past-times, young Luciani. Do not bother trying to find an explanation for their folly."

Well, it seems like Magister Mulligan is a dead-end in terms of understanding what these Dragons were up to.

As I pore over the Omnium Compendium again, new words appear in front of my eyes.

'Only the laymen of magic believe in changing the output of a spell through Mana input. This and the next set of Cantrips will teach you to use your control over a spell, not your Mana, to enhance a spell's properties. The difference between a [Fireball] and a [Greater Firebomb] is not just the amount of Mana, dear novice. If that were the case, no spell above Tier 4 would be able to be cast more than twice. Each tier would suffer increasing costs that would quickly become unsustainable even for the best of us.'

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

'So, we learn to manipulate spells with our wit and mind, not just with our soul's gaze. A greatly resonant soul will generate the brightest [Fireball], but only the most trained mind will be able to progress beyond the simplest spells.'

"Alright, old man," I say, looking up from the book. "You gotta read this shit and stop being racist for a moment. This sounds suspicious as hell."

...

"Fascinating," Magister Mulligan mutters. "When including the Cantrips in the Omnium Compendium, I did not think this would happen. It appears that some degree of history has been encoded in the book. The half-sentience reached by my pure magical acumen has mixed with some... directives."

"What's the 'soul's gaze'?" I ask the man, ignoring his self-praise.

Magister Mulligan squints harder at the book before straightening up and looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

"Empathetic magic has been defined as such post-humously. Before, several terms have been used to describe it. This soul's gaze seems to imply that..." Magister Mulligan trails off.

"What? What does it imply?"

"That the book assumes you already mastered Empathetic magic before practicing the Cantrips—it's telling us that those who practiced Empathetic magic had problems controlling it. This is..." Magister Mulligan cuts himself off for the second time in the span of a minute. "This is unheard of."

"I mean, doesn't it make sense that one would want to mix intuition and science?"

The crazy old man actually slaps the back of my head so strongly I fall over the table.

"You fool," he says angrily, "do you think one can just will oneself to learn both?! Do you have any idea what this means for the broad theory of magic of the entire world?!"

"Ouch!" I say, holding the pulsating part of my head he hit. "What was that for?! Are you going crazy?!"

"Joey Luciani," Magister Mulligan trembles in anger as he looks at me. "Think. What does it mean if this was the true way magic was going to be practiced?"

"I don't know?" I say, massaging the quickly forming bump. "What does it mean?"

"I have practiced meditation and several techniques that have been ascribed to the Empathetic school of magic. I always thought they were a rather nice addition to my practice. But this... this means that I have spent my life practicing only one of the two aspects required for magic."

...

Well, we just had a little middle-age crisis, in magical terms, for the old man who said he needs to think in his own colonnade world. As for me, I'm more than happy to take a look at whatever the book wants me to do as long as I can get my hands on a way to cure magical cancer.

That's why I try hard not to think about the grand implications of missing one aspect of the magical training that’s apparently needed to finish this stuff as soon as possible. I look down at the Omnium Compendium, where my newest assignment has just appeared.

`For the Twenty-Fourth Cantrip, Magister Mulligan wants you to adjust the brightness of a [Light] from a dim glow to blinding brilliance in a steady rhythm and without changing the input Mana quantity. Focus on changing the amplitude of the magical wave to achieve this.’

Wait, what?

I re-read it again.

'Focus on changing the amplitude of the magical wave to achieve this.’

"The amplitude?" I mutter. "What? Is this becoming a physics class?"

Then, a thought hits me.

Wait. Is the book talking about the amplitude of the squiggly lines?

[Deep Focus]

[Advanced Mana Sense]

I create the spell matrix and look at the ever-changing, undulating, squiggly lines. The lines before me ebb and flow, each shimmering with vibrant colors. I try to focus on their amplitude now. Magister Mulligan has made a good point before about thinking of spell matrices as more than just science... rather as magic. I have been approaching this way too literally so far.

And so, I start casting the spell as I usually would, but I try to keep the spell matrix from disappearing as the [Light] finally comes to life.

Breathing slowly, I attempt to visualize controlling the amplitude of the magical waves. If I can change the height of these waves, I should be able to control the intensity of the [Light] spell. With a sharp intake of breath, I force the peaks of the lines to rise higher.

There you go.

In front of me, the [Light] spell brightens in response.