Transformation
1915 Words
Several Months Later
The mountain had changed.
Or perhaps it was Kael who had changed enough to finally notice.
When he had first arrived in the village, the mountain had seemed like nothing more than an inconvenient stretch of wilderness surrounding a forgotten settlement. Its slopes were thick with trees, its paths narrow, and its deeper regions dangerous enough that most villagers avoided them.
Now, to Kael, it was a treasure house.
Every stream had a pattern.
Every cave contained something worth investigating.
Every unusual plant, mineral, beast, and fluctuation of mana was another piece of information.
And the mountain itself had become the center of his life.
More importantly, it had become the center of Liora's transformation.
Several months had passed since the day Kael accepted her as his first apprentice.
The girl who had once been dismissed from the Royal Magic Academy as a failure was no longer recognizable by the standards that had condemned her.
She stood on a cliff overlooking the forest with her hands folded behind her back.
A faint layer of mana surrounded her body.
It was not wild.
It was not flashy.
It was compressed.
Dense.
Almost invisible.
That was what made it frightening.
The academy had taught its students to value visible power.
Large fireballs.
Wide-area barriers.
Massive elemental manifestations.
The greater the spectacle, the greater the perceived talent.
Kael had taught Liora something else.
Control mattered more than appearance.
Efficiency mattered more than waste.
And the size of an attack meant very little if the person using it could not control where it landed.
Liora opened her eyes.
“Done.”
Kael, who had been sitting several meters away with his back against a tree, opened one eye.
“How many?”
“Five hundred and twelve.”
“Stable?”
“Yes.”
“Errors?”
“Three.”
Kael nodded.
“Good.”
Liora frowned.
“Good?”
“You reduced your error rate from seventeen percent to less than one.”
She smiled.
“So I did well.”
“You did.”
That answer seemed to satisfy her.
The world they lived in had a formal system for measuring magical strength.
Liora had explained it to Kael several weeks earlier.
There were ten circles of mage progression.
First Circle was the lowest recognized level of true magical cultivation.
Second Circle.
Third.
Fourth.
Fifth.
Sixth.
Seventh.
Eighth.
Ninth.
And finally, Tenth Circle.
Theoretically, a Tenth Circle mage stood at the summit of mortal magic.
In practice, the current age had never seen one.
The strongest known mages across the Arc Continent were Ninth Circle.
There were fewer than ten confirmed Ninth Circle mages in the entire continent.
Even the headmaster of the Royal Magic Academy, an institution so prestigious that nobles traveled across kingdoms to send their children there, was only a Seventh Circle mage.
Most senior instructors were Fifth Circle.
Some were Sixth.
A Seventh Circle instructor was already regarded as an extraordinary figure.
A Ninth Circle mage was a living legend.
Liora had once believed that becoming a Fifth Circle mage would be the achievement of a lifetime.
According to everything she had been taught, that belief was reasonable.
Ordinary people spent decades advancing.
Talented individuals might reach Fifth Circle within twenty years.
True geniuses could sometimes accomplish it within ten.
Ten years was considered astonishing.
Five years was nearly unbelievable.
A few months was impossible.
Yet Liora had done it.
She had not merely reached the equivalent of Fifth Circle.
She had stabilized herself there.
Her mana foundation was so dense that even Kael had stopped comparing her progress with normal mages.
The System had begun displaying a separate analysis whenever it evaluated her.
[Subject: Liora Veyne]
[Current Magical Equivalent: Fifth Circle]
[Mana Density: High]
[Mana Control: Exceptional]
[Mana Compression: Extremely High]
[Growth Potential: Unknown]
[Recommended Evaluation: Incomplete]
Kael had asked the System several times whether her potential could be measured.
The answer remained the same.
[Insufficient data.]
He preferred that answer to a false certainty.
Liora had talent.
But talent was only part of it.
The real reason she had advanced so quickly was the path Kael had created for her.
The Triple-Point Mana Circuit had evolved.
What had begun as a simple method to compensate for her poor mana sensitivity had become the foundation of an entirely different magical system.
Liora did not circulate mana in the same way conventional mages did.
She compressed it.
Condensed it.
Refined it.
Then released only what was necessary.
Her spells were smaller than those of other Fifth Circle mages.
They were also considerably more efficient.
A normal mage might need ten units of mana to produce a spell.
Liora could sometimes achieve the same result with four.
Sometimes three.
When she focused completely, she could accomplish with two what others needed ten to perform.
Kael had realized early that her greatest weakness had become her greatest strength.
Because she could not sense mana naturally, she had learned to interact with it through pressure.
Because she had struggled to control large amounts of energy, she had learned to control small amounts perfectly.
Because she could not overpower problems, she had learned to solve them through efficiency.
Kael understood the irony.
The academy had looked at her and seen a defective mage.
He had looked at her and seen an unusual system.
And systems could be understood.
Systems could be optimized.
Systems could be broken.
Liora suddenly turned toward him.
“Teacher.”
Kael looked up.
“What?”
“Can we fight?”
Kael stood.
“You want to fight?”
“I want to test what I've learned.”
“That is usually how people get injured.”
“I thought you were going to teach me combat.”
“I did.”
“You taught me how to fight with magic against targets.”
“That is combat.”
“You know what I mean.”
Kael sighed.
She was becoming more troublesome.
He considered her request.
“Fine.”
Liora immediately smiled.
They walked into a clearing.
Kael stood twenty meters away.
“No holding back,” Liora said.
Kael raised an eyebrow.
“You're sure?”
“Yes.”
“Then don't complain afterward.”
She raised her hand.
Mana condensed around her fingers.
Kael did not move.
“Begin.”
The forest went silent.
Liora disappeared.
Not physically.
She compressed her mana around her feet and used a burst of movement.
Kael's eyes narrowed.
Fast.
Very fast.
But predictable.
He stepped sideways.
A compressed blade of light passed where his chest had been.
Liora appeared behind him.
Another attack.
Kael tilted his body.
The spell missed.
Liora frowned.
“You're not even using magic.”
“I don't need to.”
She gritted her teeth.
She launched three compressed projectiles.
Kael moved between them.
One.
Two.
Three.
He reached her before she could form another spell.
His finger touched her forehead.
“Dead.”
Liora froze.
“That doesn't count.”
“Why?”
“You cheated.”
“I walked.”
“You're too fast.”
“That is not cheating.”
She crossed her arms.
“You're impossible.”
Kael smiled.
“You wanted combat experience.”
“I wanted to hit you.”
“That is a different goal.”
She stared at him.
Then laughed.
Kael stepped back.
“Your casting speed has improved.”
“I know.”
“Your movement is better.”
“I know.”
“Your biggest weakness is still your tendency to commit too heavily to the first attack.”
Liora's smile faded.
“Because I think it will work.”
“You think it should work.”
“What is the difference?”
“The first is confidence. The second is attachment.”
She thought about it.
Kael continued.“When an opponent responds differently from what you expected, you hesitate because you already decided the first attack was supposed to succeed.”
Liora nodded slowly.
“Like a bad strategy in a game.”
Kael smiled.
“Exactly.”
She had started using some of his old terminology.
He had never explained the world of his first life in detail.
There was no reason to.
But occasionally, a phrase slipped out.
Matchup.
Adaptation.
Frame.
Resource management.
Liora did not understand the origins of the words, but she understood their meanings.
That was enough.
Kael looked toward the horizon.
His own cultivation had progressed even faster than hers.
The mana in this world was crude compared with the qi and spiritual energy of his previous lives.
But crude did not mean useless.
He had spent his second life learning how to refine energy from almost nothing.
His third life had given him an understanding of the laws of multiple realms.
In his fourth life, he was using those memories without blindly copying them.
He had already reached the Nascent Soul realm.
By the standards of his previous cultivation path, it was still far from the apex.
But in the current world, it was monstrous.
Liora had taught him the ranking system used by knights.
Apprentice Knight.
Low-Rank Knight.
Mid-Rank Knight.
High-Rank Knight.
Peak-Tier Knight.
Sword User.
Sword Expert.
Swordmaster.
Grandmaster.
Celestial Rank.
Epic Rank.
Heroic Rank.
Legendary Rank.
Mythical Rank.
The names varied by kingdom and historical source, but the general hierarchy was widely accepted.
Swordmasters were already regarded as the pinnacle of the current continent.
A Swordmaster could live for three hundred years or more.
Beyond that were realms most people believed existed only in legends.
Celestial.
Epic.
Heroic.
Legendary.
Mythical.
Ancient records claimed that Mythical Rank beings could live for ten thousand years.
Those who surpassed Mythical Rank were said to become gods.
Kael had reached Epic tier.
He did not consider himself a god.
He did not even consider himself particularly strong.
That was the problem with remembering three lives.
His standards were abnormal.
The System had translated his cultivation into the local power structure.
[Current cultivation: Nascent Soul]
[Approximate local combat equivalent: Epic Rank]
[Warning: Local classification is based on observed combat characteristics.]
[Exact equivalence cannot be guaranteed.]
Kael had appreciated the warning.
Different systems could not be compared perfectly.
A mage's strength depended on spells.
A knight's depended on body refinement, sword intent, battle aura, and technique.
A cultivator's strength depended on spiritual energy, soul, foundation, laws, and comprehension.
The System could approximate.
It could not replace understanding.
Kael was still learning.
And while he learned, he also taught.
Liora had become his first disciple.
Now she had become something more.
A companion in his experiments.
A student who questioned him.
A person whose growth forced him to reconsider assumptions from his previous lives.
He had begun to understand why teachers in his former worlds were often respected.
Teaching forced a person to slow down.
To explain.
To examine.
It was one thing to know how to do something.
It was another to explain why someone else could not.
That was why Kael had not remained idle.
While Liora cultivated magic, Kael cultivated himself.
He had also studied the continent.
The village belonged to Felda County.
Felda County was part of the Geum Kingdom.
The county sat near the border with the neighboring Angel Kingdom.
The Angel Kingdom was famous for its knights.
According to local legends, an angel had descended upon the land thousands of years ago.
The place where the angel supposedly touched the earth eventually became the capital.
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