Victor stood at the front of the transformed meeting room, now arranged to be an effective classroom with desks for the students and space for him to stand up front and deliver his lessons. His blue hair shimmered in the light as he looked over at the eager faces of his acolyte students, or players. Behind him was the magic-enchanted board adorned with intricate magic diagrams and illustrations, creating an ambiance of arcane wonder.
“Starting with the basics,” Victor began, “casting a spell might feel tricky at first. Visualizing the flow of infused mana in your body can be challenging, but with a simple analogy it can be made easier. Imagine a tub of water in front of you — that's your infused mana. Now, picture yourself holding a bowl. This bowl represents your spell model. With the bowl, you decide which part of the tub to take the water from. Using the water that you collected in your bowl, magic can be activated.”
The moment he finished his explanation, a magic flame appeared on his palm, causing all the players to gasp in surprise. “You’ve all seen magic in action, but understanding the mechanics behind it is crucial to becoming a proficient Magus.” By quickly clenching his fist, the flame vanished into nothingness.
Pointing to a projected diagram on the board, he said, “In this visual representation, you see a basic elemental spell model — {Heat Wave}. The core idea is to construct a mental model with your infused mana. Then, using the nature of your mana, you attract external energy particles and transform them intricately, turning them into a spell.”
Infused mana and spell models share deep connections and intricacies, much like meditation techniques and the Primordial Nexus. Without understanding these basics, even casting the simplest spell would be all but impossible.
“In simple terms, think of infused mana as the primer and the spell model as the catalyst,” Victor explained, his gestures tracing the lines on the diagram. “The primer remains constant, but different catalysts attract different energy particles, shaping a distinct spell. This connection is what fuels the magic and gives it shape!”
Walking along the aisles, Victor maintained eye contact with the players, ensuring they understood everything he just said. “Constructing a spell model is a complicated matter, and casting a spell requires a clear understanding of these components. The more you study and understand what each sequence corresponds to, the easier it will be to deal with the applications. In addition, you must be cautious of misaligned focus or flawed models; they can impair your mana and take weeks to recover.”
As Victor resumed his place at the front of the room, his posture emanated an air of authority. “If you have anything you want to ask, now is the opportune time to voice your questions before I continue.”
“Yes, Sir Astralium!” Mike eagerly raised his hand, his curiosity evident in his expression. “Er, you mentioned that creating a mental model with our infused mana is a requisite for casting spells. Are there any alternative methods to bypass this requirement?”
Victor offered Mike a nod of acknowledgement, recognizing him as a dedicated RPG gamer. With a wry grin, he tailored his response to suit Mike’s perspective. “Good question, Mike. Indeed, the path of spellcasting doesn’t always rigidly adhere to that single approach. In certain exceptional circumstances, Magi might resort to the use of substitute magic items to help them cast spells.”
Leaning into his explanation, Victor elaborated, “These substitutes can encompass a variety of options. They range from magic scrolls that carry the encoded essence of a spell to specialized magic tools designed to aid in the casting process and even sigils — a realm of mystical symbols that are, admittedly, far beyond your current purview.”
As far as Victor knew, magic tools, for instance, span various grades and capabilities. The defensive magic tool that had protected Victor when he was being betrayed previously was a superior-grade magic tool. Even the acolyte robes worn by the players were essentially magic tools, albeit a low-grade one. However, Victor wouldn’t teach them this right now, as it was not yet the time.
Similarly, magic scrolls were tiered according to the spells they contained, which was something he planned to explain shortly. As for sigils, they represented a deeply profound aspect of magic — one that only Elemental Adept Magi and above were qualified to explore. Victor must admit that he didn’t know much about this.
“Are there any other questions?” Victor asked.
The room remained silent. The players appeared to have been grasping the concepts he had covered so far. Perhaps it was because this was still the basics of the basics when it came to magic, or they were able to relate it to similar things from other media or on the internet. Either way, their lack of questions suited him just fine.
“Alright, moving on to tiers of spell models.” Victor drew a steadying breath before explaining, “Parenthetically, magic spells are divided into several tiers based on the Magus’s ranks of power: Aleph (1), Bet (2), Gimel (3), and so on and so forth. Magi have named the spells that acolytes are able to cast Aleph-tier spells. No matter if they are a second-stage or third-stage Initiate Attunement acolyte, they are only able to use Aleph-tier spells. This means that the subsequent names correspond to spells that only official Magi can cast.”
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He held their attention as he forged ahead, his tone growing serious as he emphasized, “Remember — the higher the tier, the more intricate and complex the magic spells become, and the more infused mana must be consumed to cast them. It’s crucial to recognize that only first-class Magi can cast Aleph-tier spells without injury, and this is often a sign of becoming an official Magus!”
It typically took Victor himself more than half a month to master a spell to the point where no backlash occurred. For these players, casting magic for their first time would be quite a hurdle to overcome. However, death was hardly a concern for them, as they were essentially immortal with the ability to revive, unlike Victor.
With this lesson, Victor felt he succeeded in imparting a glimpse into the broader realm of magical possibilities. By breaking down the complexities and offering relatable examples, the players would appreciate the multilayered avenues that spellcasting could encompass and, therefore, appreciate how much the “game developers” had sacrificed to make this “game.”
Having covered all the material for this session, Victor opened the floor for questions. No players raised their hands this time, however, as they seemed hard at work absorbing the information that he had dumped into their heads. It seemed his information-packed session had left them momentarily speechless.
Victor felt accomplished in that he had succeeded in covering the essentials, which would be enough for now. Any more than this, he doubted that the players would have the patience to learn. When dealing with something out of the ordinary, it was essential to use an out-of-the-ordinary tactic. Although players were curious beings, they would prefer discovering the intricacies of the game on their own rather than being spoon-fed in one huge information block. That was why he tried to keep his teaching style brief and to the point.
Honestly, there were many other subjects that a Magus academy usually covered, such as the study of elemental manipulation, alchemy and herbology, magic artifacts, the history of magic, and the basics of the ancient Seraphian language, to name a few. There were more advanced and complex subjects other than these, but he would save himself and the players from exploring those.
Victor turned his attention toward the window, gauging the time remaining before the players had to log out — there should still be some time remaining. Aside from that, the session this time was recorded by Lizbeth, so he wouldn’t need to reteach these basics to the next batch of players. He pondered over the possibility of letting his assistant handle these fundamental teachings entirely.
Hmm, I guess all the players have to learn this much to understand the basics. Well, let’s make this into a two-day mandatory class, then. Victor planned ahead in his mind. Still, something feels lacking if I end it like this… Right, he-he, how could I forget?
With a sly idea in mind, Victor nonchalantly stated, “All right. This will be the last class I’ll be giving to you, my dear acolytes. But before we wrap up, I have a little test for all of you. Let’s see just how much you’ve absorbed from these two sessions.”
“A test? This game has tests?! Oh my god!”
“Whaat…? But I haven’t studied for the test!”
“Damn! I haven’t had test anxiety in ages, and now this…?”
“Uh-oh, if I fail this, will my parents get mad at me again?”
“Respected Headmaster, can we negotiate a rescheduling of the test for tomorrow?!”
This mixture of reactions erupted from the players. Obviously, they were caught off guard by a surprise test, perhaps causing them to relive an old nightmare of their school days.
“Silence!” Victor released his mana force to encompass the whole room and calm the panicked players as he explained, “I will grant you twenty minutes to review and revise everything you’ve learned so far. If you are able to pass the test, I shall bestow upon you a reward! You shall receive one hundred merit points!”
The instant the words “merit points” left Victor’s mouth, it triggered a remarkable transformation. The once gloomy visages of the players briskly turned into radiant expressions of excitement. There was nothing better than this to lure the enthusiasm of the players, even though it didn’t actually have much inherent value at the moment.
“I suddenly have a burning desire to take the test.”
“Me too! Bring on the questions!”
“Same here.”
“Test? Why, that’s my middle name — Test Enthusiast!”
“Anyway, what can happen if I fail this test? Nothing at all! Hahaha!”
“…?”
Despite being a gamer himself, Victor couldn’t entirely grasp the mindset of these players. Regardless, their reactions aligned perfectly with his design, so he made swift work of drafting the test questions while waiting for the allotted twenty minutes to pass.
Once the time was up, Victor sent the test to each player’s Shadowlink Marks. It was similar to how modern colleges on Earth conduct pop quizzes, presenting the questions digitally.
“Begin with the test!”
The test only consisted of ten easy questions regarding the basics of magic, meditation techniques, spellcasting, and spell models. Any acolytes in his past academy would likely breeze through these fundamental questions with their eyes half-closed.
Not even half an hour later, the first player — Storm — signaled his completion, triggering a domino effect as the remaining players submitted their answers. Victor then graded all the players and was surprised to see all of them had passing grades, with the lowest answering 70 percent correctly. I guess the desire to learn something they don’t have on Earth pushed them to be serious. I wonder if this is the case for everyone else…
Satisfied with the result, Victor honored his promise, awarding each player the coveted one hundred merit points before dismissing the class. Of course, he didn’t forget to give these players an extra reward by providing them with a serving of cooked boar meat — the last few pieces he had on hand.