After a few days of fighting Myon, Ichi was worn out. Physically, he felt fine. Mentally, the memories of the past few days were hard to process. A few times he thought to himself about all that he learned from Myon, the scenes floating into his head didn't seem like they happened in reality. As if he was imagining all of it, that's what Ichi felt like.

Ichi hefted the black and white stick across his legs as he sat down, pulling up his shirt to chest the seal Myon put on him.

He traced his hand along the seal, and felt his body shiver as he did. Tearing it off would hurt a lot more than a bandaid.

Thanks to this magical seal, Ichi wasn't tired. Physically at least. Myon explained that it 'stopped the body's time' by eliminating entropy. "Sealing away decay", Myon said after she slapped it on him when she beat him in 'kendo'. If Ichi tore it off, an explosion of decay would occur to Ichi in an instant.

Myon told him that normally that would kill a person, but the seal also had the property to heal the user when torn off. Ichi would nearly die and be entirely healed within a single instant. That would include all the damage his body and mind while the seal was still on.

"You'll be a new person. But, don't take it off until I say so. If you take a heavy hit and then tear it off, it will kill you." Myon's haunting words floated in his mind.

A few days ago, Myon explained magic to Ichi.

Ichi couldn't process it. It's not that magic was hard, it was the opposite. It's too simple. Myon's words floated in the air, Myon's instructive tone simmering his mind in anger.

"You believe in it. As in, you have zero doubt. When it's fully ingrained in the entire 'you' then that is your imagination of the world. People don't see reality as it really is, people see a simple mental model they've constructed: their imagination of the world, not the reality of the world. Magic is something your mind, not the mind you have awareness of, but the 'other' part of the mind as well, fully accepts as 'this world'. That's how it happens. Once your mental model of the world is altered, even the part beyond your awareness, then the rest is trusting yourself to execute the magic."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Ichi remembered screwing his face up like he used to in Math class. He did it half on purpose to show his disgust, half on instinct.

"Well," Ichi sighed, "at least it's not Math."

"It's the opposite of Math. Math wants to be accurate as a tool, to create an ever expanding self-contained system of rules to define the world. Math wants to observe what's there at it's best. Magic is imposing on the world, your will, to the point where the energy and existence of the world obeys you."

Ichi remembered what he told the Mountain Lord standing over his dying body.

"Then I will use nature to overcome nature."

Those words came out like they were from somewhere else, from someone else.

And the Mountain Lord's question floated to his mind as well:

""Fool. Mankind cannot surpass nature. We are all there is. You will come to see that, may you live long enough."

Ichi had been pondering his talk with Myon in the back of his head for the past few days. He groaned.

"Maybe I knew, somehow, by instinct. I am a part of nature. So, why bother imposing on nature? Could just live in harmon-"

In a few days, he would be fighting Renya. A homunculus, Myon said. A fusion between magic, the imposition of mankind's imagination of this world, and math, an attempt to understand this world as accurately as possible. Myon said Ichi couldn't survive.

Ichi wanted way more than to survive Renya. Ichi wanted to leave the village behind. And then what? No, Ichi shook his head, leaving the village alone would be impossible. One thing at a time, bird by bird, Ichi thought, thinking of some book title he saw once.

That is his desire. Ichi scratched his head.

"That is my imposition of the world. To survive, to thrive." Ichi thought.

Myon slapped him on the back from behind, knocking him out of his head and back into reality.

"It's time to see the witch," Myon whispered into Ichi's ear.