Chapter Twelve

On a sunny morning, we could see a boy standing. He was surrounded by greenery, grass below his feet. Trees planted in a row further ahead of him, flowers of different colors and smells were present, giving the place a soothing air. Boy's image too matched with scenery giving it a touch of gracefulness. Currently he was practicing his control over magic. Control was a very important aspect for a mage. Without control, every mage would be a angered bull, rampaging around him. But with control, a mage would be a fencer, fast and accurate. He would know when and how to hit the opponent.

For control, one had to practice as much as one can. Basically, to have control over magic, one need to have control over mana. When one casts a spell, one channels mana from the environment but to have control, one needs to measure how much mana one needs to supply. Mana can only be supplied to a limit, after which it reaches saturation which means no matter how much mana is provided after the saturation point, it would neither change spell's potency nor range. Saturation point could be also be increased with help of control. It is rumored that an Archmage with perfect control could withdraw infinite amount of mana without any pressure.

Sometimes, mages would channel too much mana without having proper control which leads to Mana Overload. It is a serious condition which is life threatening. Generally, mages would bear a physical and mental toll when they overexert themselves, but when they cross body's threshold they could land in a fatal condition, but many ignore these warnings as everyone wants to have fame, riches, women. To pursue great heights, risks need to be taken. And oftenly young mages with no proper guidance would lose their lives in these risks.

Once an Archmage used Mana Overload to temper his body. By chance he succeeded, since then many tried to do so, but very few succeeded and many more lost their lives. The risks are needed to be taken but only calculated ones.

Currently Claude was also doing so but he was taking a calculated risk since he had two great masters to take care of him. It had been one and a half year since he first casted magic. He was currently an Amateur Grade 1 mage. He had learnt all the amateur spells and was able to cast them. For the past months, he was increasing his efficiency as well as his body strength. Efficiency was different from control, control was how well you managed to manipulate mana to do your bidding whereas efficiency was how minimum mana you required to have maximum effect.

Mages needed to be adept at both, efficiency and control. But they didn't. One of the reasons was they got both mixed up and tangled. Second was it was tedious and time consuming and nobody wanted to delve into this, if they could just rank up and become powerful. Ranks were given out by Mage Associations which were present all over. There were many Mage Associations, some were run by families of great power, sometimes royal families themselves would run a association. Some associations were amalgam of mages of same ideologies. They all gave out ranks to the mages. All the associations had the same categories for the rank. It was universal even in all the realms.

To attain a higher rank, one had to clear a rank up exam which would be held by the association. It would generally test a mage in all fields, whether it was theoretical or practical. At last there would be a duel which you had to win to finally clear the exam. Many mages chose this path because they thought that the higher the rank, higher the spell they could cast and more the powerful would the spell be. They weren't wrong but they weren't right either. All higher tier spells were powerful than lower ones but one needed to have a sturdy foundation to draw out the spell's whole potential.

Claude had the foundation as sturdier it could get, his masters had laid down the whole path for him. He was polishing his skills everyday. He used Mana Overload to temper his body but he did in moderation, as soon as his body would start feeling numb, he would disconnect himself from feeling mana. He used physical exercises to train his body. He would go for a run in the morning. He used air magic to increase air drag on his body, to push his body to his limits. All this was taught by Milo, he tried to integrate science into his magic. He wanted to make them one, not just complement each other.

Claude was also being taught how to handle weapons. Milo had gifted him a pair of guns. But they were simple guns, not magic guns. According to Milo, he wasn't prepared enough to handle magic guns. He had read about the guns. They were the weapons of new times, they were first introduced around 500 years ago. They were first made by a human named Vladmir Koshnikov. According to Milo, he was his senior and he too came from Milo's homeland.

When Claude asked " Have you ever met him?"

He replied, "No"

"How did you know that he was from your homeland, then? " Claude

He replied mysteriously, "This kind of weapon can only be made in my homeland. This universe's people don't have enough brains to manufacture this. "

Before the guns, the swords and bows were prevalent but now their relevancy has decreased. Though many still used it as a main weapon, they are a minority. Majority develop their skills around guns and swords being a secondary weapon. There were mainly two types of guns : physical and magical. Physical guns were those which use gun powder and magical guns were those which needed mana to work. There were two types of bullet too : one being simple bullets which could only harm the non mages and engraved ones which had runes engraved on them, they were created to harm the mages. These bullets were four to five times more costlier than the simple ones.

Guns, bullets, armors could be obtained anywhere, trading houses or mage associations. But they were manufactured by only Gunsmiths which were few and far between in the human realm. In Callisto, many gunsmiths are managed by associations, noble houses, trading houses. They generally are nurtured from a very young age and are taken from the main family to ensure loyalty to the house.

Gunsmith enjoys a reputation of an mage because of their talents. They are also quite influential in the politics.

Dwarven realm has the highest number of Gunsmith or any kind of smith, they are pioneer in this field. Many other realm outsource their guns to them but it requires a large amount of wealth beacause their products are of very high quality.

Milo too was a gunsmith, a talented one at that. Claude had seen his workshop which was underground. It was filled with machines, different kind of machines. All of them were designed and manufactured by Milo and his friend. Claude asked Milo about his friend so he told him that he currently was in Dwarven realm and would visit him soon.

Claude also wanted to learn this craft but Milo refused to teach him, citing that he wasn't the best teacher for this craft and that he had someone in his mind who would teach you or even better, take you as a disciple. When Claude asked him persistently who was he, he told him it was Tormund. It was the same Tormund whose bullets Claude had bought at the Shelby's.

Claude was very excited when he heard this but Milo poured water on his excitement when he said that he hadn't asked Leslie about it yet. Claude mood soured but he still was optimistic about it.

The guns Claude had were twin guns, they were made by Milo as a gift to him. He used them to practice his aim. Many mages had different guns for different bullets, for example their guns could not fire both magical and simple bullets, so they carried two different guns but Claude had a mixed gun, it could fire both magical and simple ones.