Chapter 10: Teaching Magic

Rio opened the classroom door as he held a cup of coffee. Last day was a weird one... He was too careless, he didn't even realize he was too tired that he suddenly slept while sitting on the couch. He had a feeling something important happened during his sleep but he couldn't figure out what.

Well if he couldn't figure it out, he might as well forget about it. He couldn't do anything at the moment anyway.

As soon as he opened the door, all the student's eyes were redirected to him. Rio, looking back to the students walked upfront and announced his presence,

"Good morning."

""Good morning!"" All the students greeted as they stood up and respectfully bowed.

"Are all of you here already?" Rio asked calmly, observing the seated students. There seemed to be no empty seats, good. The means there were no absent students.

"Indeed, Professor." Eugene answered respectfully as he smiled. It seems the Professor that helped him yesterday was his teacher. What a surprise.

"Good. Then, I'll begin this class with an introduction," Rio said as he sipped his coffee, he continued.

"My name is Rio, Rio Salem. Rank C — Sorcerer. And in this class, I am your Magic Theory teacher... I want each and every one of you to address me as Professor Rio. "

The students nodded, listening in silence.

"To start this class, you must first know on why you are here, sitting while listening to a teacher ramble and talk about magic in the most boring or complicated way possible... Magic Theory's first and foremost objective is to understand Magic."

Rio said while sipping his coffee. He paused, staring at the array of students. He asked:

"Then what is Magic?"

"You then," Rio pointed at one black haired student sitting in the room—Amber. If the novel descriptions held any value, then he had a clue what her answer would be.

"It's a limitless, infinite, and miraculous energy from the vast universe that has no ends to its usage." Amber said concisely, standing up. This was the type of an answer Rio expected from Amber. A text-book concise answer. She was the type to rely on the textbook summarization more than her own opinion.

"Factual, concise, yet textbook." Rio nodded as he pointed at Eugene next. In truth, it was impossible to identify what magic was and its origin — the only thing people know about it is it's an energy that can bring out miracles.

"It's what we use to battle, and kill enemies," Eugene said casually as he smirked, he continued, "In essence, a way to show who is more superior."

"Partly correct, however just a fraction of what it is." Rio commented as he picked Arcuied next.

In the evolution of magic, from the First Era, Second Era, Third Era, Fourth Era and finally to the Fifth Era the primary use of magic remained to be to fight off threats of that endanger humanity. 

"…I guess, something we use to protect people..?" Arcuied said with hesitation seeping over his words.

"Is that your answer?" Rio asked as he stared directly to Arcuied eyes. In the novel Arcuied was indeed heroic, however why was there hesitation and confusion in the snowy white haired student's voice?

"...No," Arcuied shook his head, the purple eyes of the professor staring directly into him. 

"Then what?" Rio frowned, this was a key to understanding what kind of person Arcuied truly was. The Arcuied in the novel always had contrary and messy thoughts... as if his actions and goals were not aligned.

"…A tool to use for searching for the truth." Arcuied expressed quietly.

"Like a historian, or truth seeker." Rio nodded as he picked, Xiao Long... The 'truth'... It was a vague concept he was partly interested to know of. It was often mentioned in the novel that Arcuied pursued a greater truth. He wanted to know that truth, but unfortunately the novel never arrived at that arc.

"A tool used to achieve personal goals. Well if you want my reason; It's to be rich and happy." Xiao Long said cynically. Magic as Amber said, was limitless and infinite, but the most accurate answer for Xiao Long was to achieve personal desires.

At a human cynical standpoint, he was indeed right, Rio nodded in agreement. Magic, in essence, for humans was more of a convenient tool to achieve what they want. Whether it is to be rich, to be a hero, to be a murderer or to be master. The five weren't too different — one could all be five.

"Cynical, but I won't deny that." Rio nodded as he put down his coffee in the desk. Now it was time to explain the semantics of Magical Theory. He gulped audibly, preparing himself.

The students stared him silently, waiting for his lesson to start. Rio nodded.

"...Magic is nothingness and everything combined. It is nonexistent and yet existent. It's purpose is to bring about the user's imagination and wish, while also to cause fear and nightmares to others. In a sense it is everything." Rio elaborated, his back turning as he continued. "But how do we use magic to begin with?"

"Now, this is the part where people discover whether they could be a Miracle Invoker or not," Rio expressed seriously. "To use magic we need to have a strong imagination. Magic is fueled by the will of a person; the imagination of the mind and intent of the body. Magic is what you make it to be."

The students opened their eyes wide. Magic is what you make it to be... It was a powerful statement.

"For example..." Rio hummed, his hand raising. At that moment, every student turned to look at his hand. He imagined the concept of fire, remembering the scroll he used the first time he casted a skill. He said softly. "«Agi»."

A flaring fire suddenly erupted from his hand, burning the air as it abruptly vanished in mere seconds. Rio nodded as he continued. "What you saw was the application of magic through strong imagination."

"The mind of the being is what crystallizes magic." Rio said, as he continued. "Don't confuse it as merely wishing hard. Even if you have strong imagination — but if you don't understand what magic is, then you wouldn't be able to use it. Note that students, you need to understand what magic is before you can use it."

In reality, strong imagination was merely one of the main prequisite of using magic. It was not everything in using magic, it was but the prequisite or beginning requirement for using magic.

The students collectively nodded in understanding.

"And what is the fate of those that don't have a strong imagination but understand magic quite well?" Rio asked the class. One of the students raised their hands. He pointed at the student.

"Professor Rio... as you said, strong imagination is the determiner whether a person could become a Miracle Invoker or not," The student answered conscisely. "Consenquently, if a person does not have a strong imagination then they can never use magic for their lives. No exceptions."

"Excellent." Rio praised with indifference infront of the class... The seperation of talented and trash was not only limited to modern society, but even more so in an fantasy world. He continued "Sadly for those who have weak and average imaginations... they are bound to be unable to use magic in their whole lives, and nothing can change that."

It was a common belief that imagination was heavily connected to the soul. If a person has average or weak imagination, it could be interpreted as the person having a weak soul. In the matters of the soul, nothing could ever be done about it.

The soul was a mysterious concept no one knew about, except for occultist, but they were shunned upon in the Miracle Community.

"But those are not your worries, all of you here are students of Volund Academy. Every person inside this building, a janitor, security or you students, all have a strong imagination." Rio said as he paused. He stared at a student in the room. He continued with a loud voice. "....But even if you have a strong imagination and you have little knowledge of magic by not listening to your teachers..!"

At that moment, he flicked a chalk to a student snoring aslept on the back the room. The chalk was reinforced considerably, accelerating as it landed in the student's head.

"Gra!" The student groaned, startled awaked.

"Then you wouldn't be able to even be able graduate in the academy." Rio said, his eyes staring at the student sharply. "Do you want to get banned from my class?"

"N-no..!! S-sorry, professor!!!" The student shouted, anxious.

"First warning. The second, I'm kicking you out from this class and will mark you as a failure for your whole stay in this academy." Rio stated coldly. "If that happens, you might as well give up on graduating from being a First Year."

Most of the students gulped, feeling fear from the threat. The student that was sleeping turned pale white in sheer terror.

"Back to my point. Even if you have strong imagination but has little understanding of magic then you wouldn't be able to use it at all," Rio continued, his hand crossing over his chest. "Before you use magic, you must first understand magic. Before you use fire, you must first understand fire. Before you use you use water, you must first understand water... and that concludes our class for today."

At that moment, the bell rang loudly.

"In essence, there is a limitless, infinite, never ending energy in this world called Magic. The way humans use magic is by crystallizing them by strong imagination and understanding of concepts." Rio declared, causing a second of silence to pass by the room "Do you have any questions?"

"…So what if we wanted to magically produce food using magic?" Xiao Long quipped, if it had never-ending ways then surely that was possible right?

"You can, indeed. If you have the right understanding or you possess a skill that teaches you how to do that, it isnt a far dream to have unlimited supply of magical food." Rio said as he stared at the students, continuing.

"Huh...is that how famous restaurants at the Royal Capital make food?" A student quietly muttered in suprise.

"Don't be an idiot," The student beside the person expressed, "Do you think magic taste something?"

"Well, no." The student replied, staring at the person seated beside, "But, have you tried tasting it..?"

"...You have a point," The other student paused before answering, "Wanna try cooking at the dorm later?"

"But I would advise you not to ever give that magical food to common people. Magic is a toxic and poisonous energy. One bite, and they would instantly get killed." Rio said, hearing the students voices. He shook his head as he announced, taking his luggage from the table. "...Alright, I'm going out now. If you have any further questions, wait for my next class. I don't entertain personal tutoring."

The students nodded, gulping loudly. They waited until Rio left before they directed their eyes to the traumatized student behind the room.

"How terrifying..."

—

In the hallways of the academy, a brown haired professor hummed silently admist the silent hallways.

Rio looked at the doors that he passed by through, searching for the faculty of teachers they were supposed to stay in during academy hours.

Ah, there it is.

He arrived at the faculty room. He looked at the inside, noticing that there were only few teachers, most likely because most of them have not come back yet.

Surpisingly, one of the few teachers that already came back was Samantha. He approached his own desk as he greeted her:

"Good morning, how was it?"

"Ah!" Samantha yelped in suprise at being greeted suddenly without warning, she looked beside and saw her first supposed friend teacher.

"You surprised me, Mr. Rio," Samantha sighed as she continued. "I did just fine, I was nervous at first, but after getting into the lesson…it just flowed naturally."

"I knew you could do it." Rio expressed sincerely as he took out his laptop. "You just have charisma that charmed even me."

"Uh, are you hitting on me, Mr. Rio?" Samantha asked, half embarassed as she tilted her head confusedly.

Rio paused at that. He was about to open his laptop, but it just hit him on what he just said. It was a poor choice of words. Should he feel embarrassed or ashamed? It seemed hard to formulate such expression. 

"Ah," Rio said with a poker face, looking directly at the embarassed noble girl. He continued, "Is that how it came out to you? I apologize then, I just meant you're a beautiful lady with a nice personality."

"…Those are poor choice of words, Mr. Rio." Samantha said, chuckling. 

"That, I agree. Ms. Samantha." Rio nodded in agreement. Well atleast she was not misunderstanding anything anymore. 

After that little misunderstanding, they each focused on their own matters. He needed to arrange his plans of getting The Formless Seed as the weekends were near.

He first needed to search up where the place actually is. He knew what it was called and where at the map it was, but physically? He didn't know where exactly. All he knows is the location.

He searched up the location. The place was called "Valley of Encantiá", It's was named after the settlement near it, Encantia City. The place was actually limited as only those accompanied by Miracle Invokers can tour.

That was to be expected, since magical beasts still roam free in the world, endlessly multiplying. Making them extinct was a no brainer, as it would just ruin the ecosystem.

However, magical beasts are just minor problems for humanity as a whole anyway. The biggest problem was the relationship between the other races, aside from humanity. The daemons were an exception, they were natural enemies of the everyone.

As he was searching, he found out that the world was actually a supercontinent. There were no divisions of land, but the lands converged into creating a gigantic continent.

The world was large, there were many places that was unexplored and havent been researched yet. It didn't help that since the era of magic, humanity was in constant danger and chaos was everpresent.

Only in the last millenia's were peace was achieved. And that peace was gonna break later this year. If the novel events hold any weight, the serene and still peace that was present was merely an illusion by a greater danger surpassing imagination.

Rio sighed, it seemed he needed to get stronger quickly. The plot, the schemes and danger was ever present in this world. If he wanted to have a chance to live he needed to get stronger.