Under the Oak Tree

Chapter 113 – Max’s Resolve (2)

The enchanting illusion was shattered by Ruth the next day, who appeared as excited as he was at noon.

Max looked at the intricate diagrams drawn on a large stone tablet and listened to a long lecture by the wizard, who was very excited. Having made a pedantic remark about the concept of magic, Ruth started a heated explanation of how magic worked. It was as if she was listening to a foreign language.

“How is it? Do you understand?”

At the end of the long, long explanation, Max almost sobbed on the spot with frustration and disappointment.

Ruth frowned at Max’s tearful face, unsure of the reason for her demise, “Is there a difficult part in my explanation?”

“Th-there was no-nothing that was not dif-difficult” Max mumbled with low energy. “As e-expected... it w-was too much for me.”

“That attitude is already difficult.” Ruth grumbled discontentedly at her passive attitude. “You have to cultivate a habit of continually digging in. When you can’t understand, you have to ask until you can understand.”

It was too much of a demand for someone who got used to resigning. Max turned her eyes down and nodded blankly.

In a calm and soft voice, Ruth said, “I’ll repeat it step by step. If you don’t understand, let me know. I’ll explain it from the beginning.”

“I-I see.” Max felt a bit better.

He erased the diagram from the stone plate and began to draw a simple picture again.

“There is an invisible power in the natural world. Wizards call it ‘mana’.” This time he spoke slowly, but his hands moved quickly.

She immediately wrote it on parchment. Ruth waited until he finished writing and then continued his explanation.

“The wizards train themselves to accumulate the mana that exists in the natural world. Then, the ‘mana’ that is enriched by bringing it into the body is called a ‘spell’.”

“Th-that’s... isn’t it the same?” She asked.

“It is a mix, but it’s technically different. If mana is a stable energy that exists in equilibrium in the natural world, spells are quite unstable energy that artificially accumulates inside humans and monsters. Mana tends to obey the laws of the natural world, while spells are against it.”

“I-I... really don’t un-understand.” She was almost on the verge of breaking down.

“Look at this.” He reached out in the air. “Now the mana in this space is in perfect balance. It’s a very “natural” situation. But like this...”

He flicked his finger. Then, a fire the size of a fist rose into the air.

“I used my spell to break the balance of mana in this space. This is magic. From the point of view of the natural world, it is very unnatural. Originally, there should be no fire, light, or heat in this space. So, nature puts constant pressure on this unnatural state. Wizards call this force an anti-spell. Except, the spell the wizard placed into the natural world is a power to move on to a “state that makes sense’ and we are back to a ‘natural state’. By this power....”

The flames disappeared when he lowered his hand.

“The magic does not last and disappears like this.”

“D-didn’t you say you can’t do ma-magic without magic ski-skill the other d-day?” She refuted.

“The flame that just started is also caused by magic skills. If the spell is an ingredient, the magic skill is the recipe. The specific explanation for how much spell to put into this space is the magic skill. To become a wizard, you need to steadily accumulate enough mana in your body and learn how to manipulate it according to magic skill.”

She hurriedly took down his explanation, breathlessly.

Ruth squinted his eyes and asked. “Did you understand this far?”

“I-I un-understand, but....” Max looked grim as she looked down at the books she had piled up on her desk.

“That’s... h-how to d-deal with s-spell exquisitely ... like the ma-magic skill...it’s too di-diffficult and co-complicated to do.”

“Then I’ll explain that one by one.”

He scratched his head and rolled up the magical design of the book and tucked it into the back of the road.

“First, practice collecting mana and dealing with spell. Now,take this.”

He took out a transparent stone from his small pocket and held it out.

“W-What is it?”

“It is a mana stone used to develop mana affinity. It tends to draw nearby mana and produce a faint heat. If you hold it and practice detecting the minute movement of mana around the stone, you will become more mana-friendly and sensitive to mana’s flow. First of all, we will practice with it.... Here, Read all of these books. To understand the skill of magic, you need to study geometry and surveying as well as math.”

He handed out three thick books that seemed heavy to him to hold in one arm. Max felt less than a handful of confidence vanish. She looked at the book in a sullen way. The dense letters broke her heart at once. Can I really do it?...

Max recalled the fantasies of the previous day to revive her motivation. Riftan, who proudly looked at her being able to use magic. And Maximilian, donning a gorgeous robe worn by wizards on an adventure with him.

When imagining herself traveling through the mountains and fields with Riftan, she felt a great pressure on her shoulders. Only then did her heart become firmer and her fingers stretched out to take the mana stone in it.