In the frigid midnight, the air was like knives piercing the skin. Even in the small conference room of Moonview Manor, the chill could not be completely dispelled.

When speaking, the white mist in the air was clearly visible.

But for the elder and younger magicians, this hint of cold was stimulating, making their minds clearer.

In the small conference room, Rosen's voice was slightly immature, but already displayed the calm unique to great magicians.

"My lady, in the recent encounter with the Bear King, I observed an unconventional spellcasting method."

"The beast king's sorcery was fluid in execution and exquisite in effect, but seemed exceedingly complex. I cannot fathom its structure at all."

In the virtual spell machine, Rosen had tried to analyze the principles behind the beast king's magic, but all attempts ended in failure.

As soon as the recorded spell was input, the software immediately crashed with the error 'Spell too complex, analysis failed.'

This was the same as when he had tried to analyze Veronica's blood vine magic previously, rendering the 'spell analysis' function temporarily useless.

Hearing this, a glint of appreciation flashed across Sophia's face.

"The world of magic is as vast as the night sky. Just learning the knowledge accumulated by predecessors could easily consume a magician's entire life. As such, most only understand magic superficially."

"It's excellent that you always think to explore the principles."

She stood up and paced back and forth a few steps.

"To explain this issue clearly, you must understand the development process of magic."

Rosen's heart stirred. 'As expected of a grand magus, starting right from the origin.'

He immediately focused his attention.

Sophia began recounting slowly.

"On this continent, there are two major magical systems."

"The former is called the Natural system, though that term is only a hundred years old. Previously, it was called Witchcraft. Practitioners of witchcraft were called Witches."

Though it was only a sentence, it significantly expanded Rosen's perspectives.

He became even more attentive.

"The second is the Logical system, unique to the Golden Lands."

"Do you know the difference between the two systems? Did your tutor explain?"

Rosen nodded. "She mentioned it briefly without going into details."

Sophia gave a faint smile.

"Cerandis excels at the Logical system but has very limited understanding of the Natural system. She is an outstanding and rigorous magician, so naturally she won't speculate idly on matters she doesn't comprehend."

She began explaining in detail.

"The Natural system is ancient, with a long and rich history tracing back tens of thousands of years to the time of the Ancients."

"Its strengths are fluid spellcasting, easy to pick up, and many inconceivable, even incomprehensible capabilities."

Rosen thought back to the witchcraft he had witnessed from the beast king. While the mud armor and quaking spells made sense, the dwarf and bear sharing vision completely baffled him.

Sophia's voice sounded again.

"However, it has two major flaws."

"One is inefficiency. Much mana is wasted on spell structures completely unrelated to the target."

Rosen deeply agreed with this point.

The massive power unleashed by the quaking spell could have leveled the entire valley if focused into magic missiles instead.

"Second is emotion."

"The caster often imbues personal feelings into the spell. But human sentiment is fickle."

"When impassioned, it can certainly enhance a spell's might, but when disheartened, it can also greatly disrupt the magic, even causing it to fail entirely."

"That alone is just an individual matter."

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"The real issue is that everyone has different experiences, so their emotions differ too. This results in a grave problem - spells differ from person to person."

Hearing this, Rosen's eyes lit up as he immediately concluded.

"So natural magic doesn't scale well!"

The student's state of mind can affect the teacher too.

An attentive and eager student naturally ignites the teacher's passion for imparting knowledge.

Seeing the youth before her, Sophia felt as if she had returned to her own teenage years.

For a moment, she completely cast off the shackles of being the Countess, and forgot all fatigue.

A heartfelt smile bloomed on her face as she loudly praised.

"You're absolutely right!"

Focusing her mind, Sophia's speech quickened.

"The core of the natural system lies in four words - 'Concrete Visualization'!"

"Those witches not only draw power through concrete visualization, but also cast spells via concrete visualization."

These words were like a candle flame in the dark, dispelling many of Rosen's doubts.

Sophia's voice continued flowing into his ears.

"You must have noticed the beast king chanting incantations when casting spells. Things like 'Let the might of frost descend upon the land' or 'Let your power shake the earth', correct?"

Rosen nodded repeatedly.

"Ordinary folks think incantations are key to witchcraft, and even most witches believe so. But in truth they are wrong, incantations merely assist visualization."

Rosen understood in a flash of insight.

Chanting of mountains naturally conjures mountains in the mind. Chanting of storms is experiencing storms.

Language and text can definitely help imagination, but are not necessities.

"Concrete imagery refers to things already existing in this world. Like earthquakes, hailstorms, storms?"

"Precisely."

Rosen continued speaking.

"So I couldn't parse the spell structure because it was too complex, beyond the capabilities of logical tools like precise geometry."

The rigorous geometry of this world was just analytic geometry, with underdeveloped trigonometry.

Using such geometry to describe nature's imagery was doomed.

Hearing his words, Sophia immediately praised him.

"Your understanding is extremely accurate. It seems you're even more brilliant than I imagined!"

She continued probing.

"What other major flaws do you think the natural system has?"

Rosen already had this in mind.

"The natural system has limited potential."

"Oh?"

Sophia's brows shot up in pleasant surprise. "Go on."

"Because it can only mimic imagery without delving into principles. And without principles, it cannot create something new out of nothing. Progress will certainly be extremely slow, likely stagnating or even regressing."

"Hahaha~"

For the second time, Sophia laughed heartily.

"You're absolutely right!"

"Nature is eternal and unchanging. Magic mimicking nature thus remains eternally unchanged. This is the true fatal flaw of the natural system!"

She continued explaining.

"Overall, magic has a developmental trend - from the concrete to the abstract, the sensual to the logical, the crude to the refined."

"And this development's pinnacle is the current Logical system."

"Although entirely new, it retains many natural system traits, like 'concrete meditation', having originated from it."

Rosen nodded repeatedly.

Meditating on the sun grants fire elemental power. Meditating on the ocean yields water elemental power. Both are concrete imagery.

Clearly, this was greatly limiting.

Rosen then thought of the meditation on the 'Lord of the Cosmos' he was performing.

To be honest, he had never seen the full cosmos, let alone the initial singularity. It was all imagination based on scientific knowledge from Earth.

So this was no longer concrete visualization, but 'logical meditation'.

Sophia's voice rang out again.

"The natural system's flaws are the logical system's strengths. But the logical system has its own flaws too. What do you think they are?"

The grand magus enjoyed probing others it seems.

Fortunately Rosen was up for it.

"I think there are two obvious flaws."

"Oh?" Sophia's brows raised in surprise.

Rosen elaborated on both.

"First, spellcasting lacks flexibility. The scale of a complete spell cannot be modified in real-time based on need."

Sophia smiled. "It can be altered, but unsafely. Alright, with that phrasing, it really lacks flexibility."

This problem led to many awkward situations.

For example, an apprentice with 1.0 magic missile power and one with 1.9 had almost no difference in casting ability.

After one spell, both had to wait for mana recovery despite the latter having nearly twice the power.

"What about the second?" Sophia asked.

"It's far too young. The logical principles extracted from the objective world are still too few and superficial."

Sophia's face was full of appreciation.

"You're completely right. I haven't seen a child as bright as you in many years."

"It is very young. The logical system is only 150 years from birth to now. Still an infant in swaddling clothes."

Sophia's face held sadness, but her eyes burned with fire.

"Although just an infant, in 150 years it has developed enough to contend with parts of the natural system!"

"Any wise person can see this infant's immense growth potential!"

Hearing this, Rosen was suddenly struck by a question.

He immediately asked, "My lady, what level has the logical system's pure spell power reached now? Mid or high tier?"

Pure spell power referred to the power achieved under standard mana levels and polarity. For example, the magic missile spell was just a low tier spell in pure power.

Sophia couldn't help pressing a palm to her forehead, a bitter smile on her face.

"This is truly a hard to admit question for a proponent of the logical system like me."

She gave a self-deprecating laugh. "But there's no point hiding it."

"To be precise, there are no pure high tier logical spells, only half witchcraft, half logic. And about seventy percent of mid tier spells are similarly hybrids."

"There are no grandmaster level logical spells in this world, only grandmaster witchcraft."

Rosen understood. The logical system had only just entered mid tier power levels.

It really was young.

As he marveled, a thought suddenly came to mind.

'I wonder what kind of magical applications would arise if I incorporated calculus into rigorous geometry?'

Following that thought, a vague inspiration flashed.

"It feels like it could be very useful, perhaps greatly resolving the flexibility issue in spellcasting."

Unfortunately, while he knew loads of math, his magical knowledge was still elementary. Incorporating this into magic would be extremely challenging.

He was inclined to ask the Countess for help, but saw that she already wore a weary expression.

His heart stirred once more.

"The Countess is a grand magus, but more importantly, she's the Silvermoon City ruler, at the center of vested interests. Even if she values me and wants to teach me, she's constrained."

Therefore, he had to be cautious and tactful before the Countess.

Who then could he seek help from?

The answer was obvious.

His tutor, of course.

The Countess was everyone's Countess, with very limited time and energy she could spare for him. But his tutor was his alone.

(End of Chapter)