Ryuji had the ground-up rock powder for practicing his lesson and the rag was for cleaning the remainder off after each attempt. Dorn explained that this was important because the remaining powder on his finger would already be slightly infused with magic. If he then dipped his finger back into the powder then there would be some of the powder that would be charged with more magic than the rest and the result would be that the spell would become more unstable.
Ryuji was fascinated by the whole process and every part of the lesson was of complete interest to him. He was instructed to dip his finger into the powder and then try to feel his mana flowing like he did the day before. Once he felt it he was to try pushing only a small amount into the tip of his finger and out into the powder and then the challenging part would come. At that point, he had to keep concentrating on his mana and push a steady small trickle through the powder as he drew figures in the air.
Ryuji tried and his first dozen or so attempts failed utterly. After that, he had one time that he got a good long stripe to form a glowing brown in the air. Due to getting excited he kept botching it for a while after that. Eventually, he got to where he could feel the flow going through his finger and even feel the flow going through the powder. Once he felt that just once he grasped the principle and began writing in the air. He practiced infusing more or less mana into the same set of kanji, those that formed his name. He found that there was a certain minimum threshold of magic that had to be provided to make the words form and that the less magic in them the shorter they stayed formed in the air. So that was why a certain base reserve of mana was required to form certain tiers of magic!
Ryuji had moved on past that and was trying to write increasingly long sentences in the air and seeing how long he could make them based on the amount of mana that he infused into them. It was during one of those attempts that he heard a whistle behind his back and turned to find a wide-eyed Dorn staring in fascination at the still-floating script. Ryuji was mildly embarrassed that he had left the words “Taro rode the turtle to the dragon palace” floating in the air but then he remembered that nobody but him could read it.
Dorn shook his head in disbelief before speaking. “Well, I’ll be a goblins uncle. I knew tha’ ye had a lot o mana but ta think ye could reach this level o control after only a few candlespans o practice. It took me near on four eightdays o practice ta do wha’ ye did in just a day! I’d be a regrettin’ if I’d passed up tha chance ta be teachin’ ye. At this rate, ye’ll be a first-rate wizard in an eight o eightdays time or maybe even less.”
“Tha idea had occurred ta me before but I be thinkin’ tha ye was already a wizard. Ye claim ya canna be rememberin’ yer past, aye? Well, wha iffin ye was a wizard before? Ye wouldna’ be knowin’ it before tryin’, aye? Maybe this be just tha thin ta be gettin’ yer memory back! I donna be makin’ no promises now ya hear? But hey, just maybe.”
Ryuji had to nod along. He didn’t know anything about the past in this world but he suspected that the youma or god or whatever he was had created his body that day in the forest. Therefore it was unlikely that he had ever been a wizard. But that still left the possibility that the old dwarf was right. What if he was some kind of parasite, a body-taking ghost that was imprisoning the rightful occupant of this body? It was a somewhat scary thought that gave him a shiver.
They decided to take a break for lunch since it was that time and Ryuji had made so much progress. They had a simple lunch of leftovers from breakfast. The whole time they were taking their lunch break Dorn kept glancing at Ryuji with looks of mixed appraisal and pride. They covered several topics while chatting but Ryuji could tell that there was some topic that the old dwarf really wanted to ask about.
Finally, the topic got close enough that Dorn thought it might sound natural to ask what had been on his mind. As they were discussing magic script after the meal, Dorn casually asked about the writing that he had seen Ryuji using for his magic studies. So, that’s what he’s been so wound up about!
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Ryuji adopted a pensive and apologetic expression before he answered. “I hate to say it but I really don’t know what to tell you about it. I know how to read and write it and I’ve been able to since waking up in the forest but I can’t say much more about it. It seems to be a really complicated script but I’m not sure where in the world it comes from.” The truth that he couldn’t admit was that it didn’t come from this world at all!
Dorn seemed to deflate a little bit but he got over it fairly quick. To Dorn, it was probably a mystery to be solved like some kind of ancient long-lost script from one of those forgotten tomes he was telling Ryuji about. He would probably go looking for some trace of it if he thought that it might contain some value academically. Ryuji didn’t mind and there was always the chance that he might actually find some similar script in use somewhere in the world. Perhaps Ryuji wasn’t the first Japanese person to be transplanted here.
After lunch, Dorn began explaining more about the theory behind magic circles. Apparently, he felt that Ryuji possessed a pretty sizeable amount of mana and had a remarkable amount of control over it. It was for that reason that Dorn decided to proceed right along without worrying about more mana control lessons. He just told Ryuji to get some dirt or even water and practice on his own.
The topic he decided to broach was the tiers of spells and how they were to be arranged. It turned out that the tier of a spell was easy to tell at a glance by simply looking at the number of rings it had. The most common type of spell actually being second-tier. Dorn explained that by asking how much water he thought could be pushed through a small hole. The larger the hole the more water could fit through at once but the larger the hole the more water was needed to make a decent stream that would fill the entire hole up.
If a person didn’t have enough mana, then there wouldn’t be enough to power a larger spell of a higher tier. In the same way, the simplest spells tended to be too constricting for most wizards to use well. It was however important for mana control to learn the first-tier spells. Also, they could be cast quicker than someone could cast a second-tier spell. The reason for this was a simple matter of the spell's complexity, the higher the tier the more complex by nature and the harder to draw.
However, some wizards became adept at focusing larger amounts of mana through first-tier spells and were very quick about it. The reasoning in Ryuji’s mind was like pushing a lot of water through a tiny hole. If you could keep the water focused and keep the pressure from escaping you could cut metal with water.
Ryuji began wondering about the practicality of that and his mind was busy wandering until Dorn got his attention with a slap on the back. “Pay attention youngin! I’ll be minin’ me own grave before I’ll teach those tha don wanna be learnin’. Doncha be lettin’ yer mind slip. That’s important in all aspects o magic from learnin’ ta castin’. An doncha be forgettin’ tha! Bad things’ll be happinin iffin ye let a spell git tha better o ye.”
Ryuji made a mental note to never let his mind wander when he was learning or casting magic. He had heard it was possible for some of the more elite thinkers in school to keep their minds so well-focused that they could keep a running conversation with their friends and still retain every word of a lecture and repeat it verbatim. He decided it might be a good idea to try learning that skill.
The lecture continued with the practicality of certain geometric patterns for making spells. Ryuji hadn’t considered it but a triangle was the simplest geometric pattern you could put into a spell circle. It had the least number of sides that you could use at just three. Only when you went to the second tier the sides of the triangle just barely met the edges of a second concentric circle on the edges. A square would work for a first-tier spell of slightly greater complexity and a pentagon slightly greater still but there was a limit to the complexity that you could add to a first-tier spell.
Ryuji finally realized something that would be obvious to anybody gifted in geometry, you couldn’t use any of the simple shapes for a higher-tier spell except a triangle. A triangle could only be used up to a second-tier spell. After that, the third concentric ring wouldn’t touch because the spacing of the rings had to be even. The explanation took a lot longer because Dorn had to explain his way around concepts like concentricity which had words for them in Japan that, it would appear, didn’t exist in this world.