Summer break ended, and our second semester in the academy began.

For the first time in a while, Laura and I wore our school uniforms and got seated for class.

“—Alright, in today’s lesson, we’ll be learning a new spell: Spirit Barrett.

Firvus spoke as he stood in front of the teacher’s desk.

The students reacted with gasps of surprise.

There were a wide variety of lessons in the academy, but the type of lesson most popular with the students was learning new spells. Such was only natural, considering everyone here were apprentices of magic who wanted to learn as many spells as possible, even just one.

Firvus’ chalk flew across the blackboard.

After drawing a single large circle, he drew an arrow, and at the tip of that arrow, he drew four other small circles.

“Spirit Barrett creates multiple spheres with one cast. Each individual sphere ends up becoming weaker, but being able to attack a wide area all at once isn’t all too bad. This is a fundamental spell of the Split-type magic class, so commit it to memory.”

The students memoed what Firvus said with a nod.

An image of the spell you’re casting is important in magic. You’ll never be able to learn any spells if you mess up on this step, no matter how hard you try.

Firvus then wrote various theories on the blackboard and gave an explanation.

“…Well then, that’s about it for the theoretical side of it. Alright, let’s move on to burning it.”

Burning was a word that referred to the actual learning part of a spell lesson.

I opened the spellbook I had and flipped to Spirit Barrett’s page.

Written there were three categories lined in a column:

Chant composition.

Spell song.

Spell pattern.

To learn magic means to understand these three processes.

Chant composition:

It’s literally the “chant” used when activating a spell. However, you could also omit it. Chanting before casting increased the likelihood of success, so it’s something you use when you aren’t confident. It has no actual effect on the resulting spell, so you generally omit it once you’ve fully mastered the spell.

Spell song:

It’s a song that evokes the image of the spell in your mind. It’s different from the chant in that you don’t say it out loud. Some phrases have meaning, and others don’t. You need to sear the images that the words evoke into your brain.

Spell pattern:

It’s the pattern by which a spell forms. It comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but they’re all an assortment of geometrical shapes. Similar to the other two, you can’t cast the spell if you don’t memorize it.

“Listen up. I’ll explain the meaning of Spirit Barrett’s spell song. Don’t you dare mishear it.”

Firvus began giving an explanation about the contents of the spell’s page.

Burning means thoroughly learning those three processes by heart and literally “burning” it into your body.

It isn’t something as shallow as memorization—it’s a labor-intensive process that you sear into your brain, as if you’re actually physically carving it onto your body.

In addition, low-leveled spells are quick and easy to burn, but the higher-leveled the spell, the more time-consuming and complicated it becomes, and the greater burden it places on your mind.

Learning a single spell is a great deal of work.

Upon gaining an understanding of all those theories, the spellcaster will correspond their mana to the necessary amount required, and will then be able to cast the spell for the first time.

…By the way, I didn’t do any burning to learn Magic Arrow.

I was suddenly able to use it one day.

This wasn’t really all too strange of an occurrence.

Magic is stored within the body. The aforementioned three processes were systemized for people to learn spells efficiently.

It wasn’t all that unusual for certain spells to spontaneously “ferment” inside of a spellcaster’s body.

“…And that’s my explanation of Spirit Barrett. I’ve done everything I can. Now then, begin burning. Call out to me if you have any questions.”

The students looked down at their spellbooks.

By the way, it’s likely that no one would be able to learn the spell within the lesson time. Even a low-leveled spell would take longer than a single class to learn.

There wasn’t a minute to waste.

That’s exactly why I decided to make haste and… not learn Spirit Barrett. I looked away from my spellbook.

I knew how it would end.

I couldn’t learn Spirit Barrett—I came to understand that fact 10 years ago.

That’s why the thing I should be thinking about is—

how I can take this impetus and use it to strengthen Magic Arrow.

When all is said and done, the reason why I—who can’t learn magic—attends the academy is for an impetus.

There’s a limit to how many ideas I can come up with by myself.

My homework was to receive information from the outside as I did today, which stimulated and became the impetus to my image…

Spheres that divide into multiple copies of themselves.

Magic Arrows that divide into multiple copies of themselves.

Each individual shot seemed weak at first, but being able to mow down a wider area than would otherwise be possible certainly didn’t sound all too bad.

Could my Magic Arrow really evolve in the end—

The bell rang, signaling the end of class.

While swiftly collecting his teaching materials, Firvus spoke.

“Well, it’ll take longer than a day to learn a spell. You all probably know as much. Steady and honest everyday practice is crucial. Give it your all, alright?”

Firvus exited the classroom.

It was break time, so I headed over to Laura’s seat.

“How’d you do, Laura?”

Laura groaned as she firmly clutched her head.

“Burning Spirit Barrett has my head hurting~”

“You haven’t learned it yet?”

“Yeah, so I was pretty happy to have this lesson.”

Laura dropped her gaze to her spellbook, which had been left open.

“I’m not very good at burning spells.”

“It’s pretty difficult.”

“If only everything was as simple as Magic Arrow…”

While saying that, Laura jotted down a drawing of Magic Arrow’s spell pattern on a blank section of her notes.

It was a very simple shape. Among the multitude of spell patterns that existed, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say it was the most simple out of all of them.

However—

I began speaking.

“This is how it’ll look if you make a scribble out of it, but it’s a lot more difficult if you want to draw it more precisely. The line here is two-thirds as thin as the line here, and the angle here is off by two degrees, just to name a few.”

I explained the parts that caught my eye while pointing at them with my finger.

Laura widened her eyes at me as I did.

“Huh? I-I’ve never been aware of any of that, though… Isn’t my drawing what Magic Arrow’s spell pattern looks like?”

“…Is it?”

To be honest, I found around 20 mistakes that caught my eye, though. Was everyone’s sense of Magic Arrow different from mine…?

Just then—

“…Hey there, Albert Luminous. Might I have a bit of your time…?”

Someone addressed me from behind me.

…Besides Laura, hardly anyone called out to me, though.

Laura, who could see who it was, made a small gasp.

Albert Luminous.

They went through the trouble of calling me by that name. That could only mean—

When I looked over my shoulder, I saw two students standing behind me. One of them greeted me.

“Nice to meet you, Albert Luminous. My name is Kyria, and I’m from the Grandor household of dukedom.”

Kyria continued with a sweet smile.

“I’d like to talk with you for a bit. Is that alright with you?”

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Yesterday’s second chap. We got some nice development on the magic system, and here comes these noble dudes. Later today is gonna be recreator, see you guys then.