“I’m here! Here to demonstrate!” Rum yelled in a deep but excited tone. Tall, powerfully built, and with a long unkempt beard and a bald-shaven head, he wasn’t difficult to miss. He marched energetically into an old lecturing room, with his dirty green old backpack on his shoulders, just as he’d left the place. His robe was brown, thick, dirty in some places, flimsy in others. He was also barefoot, and very obivously so; the sound of his feet, skin thickened by years of travel, smacked loudly against the stone floor. A wave of stinking sweat trailed behind the former student, sneaking up on the nostrils of his waiting audience as he approached them. An ominous sign that Rum didn’t even think of.
“About time” said an old man, grabbing his nose for a second in disgust, behaviour that Rum gave no thought. This human who’d spoken wore an oversized and finely decorated robe, featured a probably involuntary almost-baldness, and carried a long pony-tailed white beard on his chin, just barely long enough to overtake Rum’s unkempt one. Ardmon, Professor of Spell Archeology, Rum recognized with the briefest of thought. Glancing over to the old man’s right, Rum noticed there were 2 women present in his audience as well. Lamboveri, Professor of Spell History, nicknamed Lamb. The name surfaced into Rum’s mind like a really old, almost nostalgic memory. The woman was mighty fat, middle-aged, and had a face and demeanor that made her a rather beautiful and kind-looking specimen of green-elf. She sat center, trying to fit herself in between thin colleagues. Next, and on the other side, sat a much older human woman, one that momentarily captivated Rum’s attention, and slowed his pace. Irridiklara, Irrid for short, among the oldest humans known to this world; The Witch from Another Age; The Professor of Advanced Magic Fundamentals. Rum eventually stopped to a complete halt in front of them all, and sat down his backpack. He knew each and every one, but for different reasons. Ardmon, his memory explored, I took your class just before I dropped out. You used to be fond of nitpicking I remember. Rum’s eyes moved down the line. Lamb. You were always the patient type. Especially with all my reaching questions. Eyes shifted to the last of the line again. To that one very special person. Irrid... I really can’t believe you’re here. Indeed, while the 2 first professors were quite low in status at the university, and that’s probably why you 2 were assigned to watch me. Irrid however – the only reason I can imagine you being here, is if you actually want to. For a moment, Rum just stood there, staring at the witch, awkwardly. Irrid... are you actually curious about me? You’re not just a witch of high status, you’re the most well-known mage in this city. There’s no reason for you to be here unless you want to. While Ardmon and Lamb were known to have a power level of around 100 each – impressive in itself if they weren’t professors at Flipped, where staff often had twice that – Irrid though, I’ve heard rumors your power level is getting close to 1000! You’re among the most powerful humans in existence. A power level unimaginable to ordinary people, who usually peaked between 25 and 40 in their old age. Even most adventurers would rarely peak past 70 or 90, and they tended to die before too young and before they even got to 50. All this considered, if Irrid were here, then you are genuinely curious about my demonstration. But damn Irrid, you are hiding that too well! The face of the most powerful witch Rum knew only really had one expression on it: pure, utter, sullen, boredom. Though, if Rum recalled correctly, Irrid had always looked that way whenever she listened to anyone; it was kind of her default face.
“Please start the demonstration, Rum” Lamb spoke softly, “it’s good to see you after all these years. I was so sad when you left us, I think you were on the track to becoming a great student in my class.” Rum thought about it for a second, and yeah he did recall that Magical History was perhaps the only class where his grades hadn’t really been near total failure at the end.
“I’m here today” Rum started, “to reveal to you magic as you have never seen it before!” He commenced rummaging through his backpack. While Rum rummaged, Irrid chose this moment to reveal her thoughts on the situation, her wrinkled mouth opening up like a goldfish to also reveal a voice that should’ve sounded older than it did: “I decided to come here today Rum, because you promised exactly this: NEW magic.” Her eyes lit up with emerald mana at the mention of the word. “I haven’t seen anything new in magic for decades now. So please, I hope this is not an exaggeration on your part, or the naivety of youth. I’m quite literally dying at this university to see something new… You don’t want to be killing me boy – kill me with false promise – do you?”
Rum’s enthusiasm was a little bit taken aback by the seeming severity of her words, but he tried not to show it as he finally fetched out a large pouch from the old leathery backpack.
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“THIS is SALT” Rum paused, held it out at arm’s length and allowed all the wizard and witches to take a look at the large pouch while raising their eyebrows. “I believe you” Ardmon replied with a hint of sarcasm. “Good” Rum continued, “I’m now going to eat it. All of it, nearly a kilogram of pure salt. I wish to remind you all that eating this amount of salt is enough to kill a horse. If my magic doesn’t work, I WILL die.” The professors didn’t look much concerned, and they all just collectively shifted which eyebrow were now used to form the skeptical question mark.
Rum fetched out a funnel, then leaned back before slowly inserting the funnel into his throat. He then grabbed the pouch of salt and started pouring as slowly and carefully as he could. Rum couldn’t see this, but the three mages just gave each other glances to silently indicate that Rum was acting a bit strange, and that this whole situation was a bit weird.
Rum choked briefly on the salt, and almost started to throw up. When it looked like he was about to spew salt forward onto the mages they quickly rose up from their seats to back off, but Rum just paused for a second, silently channeling some magic into himself, before continuing as if nothing had happened.
When all the salt was downed, Rum coughed a bit before looking towards the mages in a mildly sick smile. “I’m okay” he said hoarsely, “and now, for the ending act of my demonstration.” He stumbled to his backpack and began fetching out a small bucket. With the bucket in one hand he then stumbled into a corner of the room where he began pulling up his dirty brown robe. With his buttocks on fine display, and his robe tied to his waste Rum started channeling more magic, now much louder. Yellow shades of colors started gleaming off of his skin, a fizzing sound went throughout the air, and suddenly the sound of sloshing water hitting wood.
“Are you urinating right now boy?” Ardmon stood up and put on an angry face, “Are you mad lad, is this really what we came to watch!?” Rum completely ignored him, and just continued on with his magic show while staring into the wall in front of him. It went on for a whole minute, so much so that the mages’ reactions went from shock, to anger, to finally boredom. They were highly displeased, but not enough yet to march out in protest. Rum stopped his spell, untied his robe and let it fall down. He then pulled up the bucket and went up to the three scowling mages, a happy look on his face.
As he sat down the small bucket in front of the three mages, he started explaining: “Nearly a kilo I said. This bucket now weighs just a little bit more than one kilo. And if you look inside, what you’ll see is salt. Maybe not as fine and white as you’re used to, but salt nevertheless.” The three mages stood up and looked into the bucket, disgusted. “So, you’ve invented an anti-poisoning spell, how lucky you are.” Ardmon’s sarcasm was now out in the open. “Yes” Lamb sighed, “I must admit I had expected more from you. This amount of salt would qualify it as poison, and it seems to me you just extracted the poison. Is this really all?”
Rum was prepared for their comments, and didn’t let their disapprovals damage his smile: “THIS, my fellow mages, was no anti-poisoning magic. It wasn’t even magic from any of known domains of magic. I didn’t seek protection against poison, and I wouldn’t have been able to eat that much salt if it wasn’t for my magic. This is a new kind of magic!”
At this mention Irrid perked up from her silent stare at the salt: “New kind of magic? What kind of magic? Which god is responsible for this magic? Is it perhaps a new god of magic we’ve not heard of? What does the god’s magic do?”
“That Irrid, is the most wonderful part. This magic has no god. It is magic without gods! Magic purely driven by your own drive, your own spirit, and your own doing. It’s magic that answers to no one and relies on no one but its wielder. I call it: Human Magic.”
“What?” said Lamb the elf, “Magic just for humans?”
“Uuuh” Rum started, he hadn’t been prepared for this framing, “no that’s not what I meant. I meant more like: this is the magic of the human spirit. It’s magic for the human condition.”
“The human condition?” she continued to look at him displeased.
“Okay, well, not exactly. I mean, you know, the experience of being hu… I mean of being your species, of being someone sentient, and who has to deal with being themselves. I don’t think it’s kin-dependent though. Dwarves, elves, gnomes and humans, it could be magic for anyone. But it is personal magic.”
“Godless magic!?” Ardmon yelled his annoyance now, “This is impossible. This is fraud! There’s no such thing as godless magic! We all know that all magic has a god, a god from which stems our power, and whose favor our magic depends on. You know this better than anyone Irridiklara, tell him please!”
“He speaks the truth, Rum. This was not as boring as I’d feared, but not as exciting as I demanded. You’ve disappointed me. Your magic was clearly some kind of restoration magic, perhaps from the Alarias, the God of Return? You’ve disappointed us all.”
Rum wasn’t quite sure what to do now that the people obviously wouldn’t believe him, and as the conversation continued, it turned out that whatever he said, they would find a way to compare it to existing domains of magic, leading only to their conclusion that he was, intentionally or merely out of stupidity: a fraud.