TRUE Magic and FAKE Magic
After ordering the annihilation of an entire family as if she were ordering online food, Nana looked at Lith and then at the unconscious Leon.
"Did he really kill them all?" she asked once more, still not sure how Leon was able to kill five adult and trained Soldiers without even a scratch on him.
Lith nodded and explained the details. Nana nodded, then checked on Leon one more time before sprinkling some water on him.
Leon woke up and, not understanding where he was, began to looked around, profoundly confused. "Where am I... wait, the Horseman!, I killed them all... aaghhhhhhhh," he cried, holding his head as he began to scream. Nana waved her hand to cast a sleep spell, letting him fall back to sleep.
"Haah! He is traumatized by it, poor child," she said, affectionately rubbing his head.
She then glanced back at Lith, who showed no emotion.
'Well, my fault for thinking he would feel something after seeing a human's death,' Nana thought, shaking her head. For the next few days, it was mostly them helping Leon overcome the trauma of killing humans.
For Leon, it was the most difficult part, as he had to act like he was in trauma. Thankfully, his studies in psychology came into help, and now, after a week since the incident, he is back to normal. Occasionally, he still shows signs of trauma lingering a little.
**
"The magic community is like a separate society, and just like any society it has a clear hierarchy. First there is normal people.
Anyone is capable of using chore magic, but their range barely reaches two metres (2.2 yards) and are incapable of executing any complex task. They are not even considered people. Most mages refer to them as cattle.
Then comes those like you, that can use all the six elements, can perform complex tasks with magic, but lack a proper magical education.
They are referred to as magico (males) or magica (female) and are the real grassroots of the magical community, from which mages can expect a magically talented offspring.
Even if it's considered uncommon, a magica can sometimes be accepted by a magic academy and become a full-fledged magician, like it happened to me.
A magico usually becomes a medicine man in a village or city, depending on his talent. A magico becoming a magician is even more uncommon, but far from rare.
Terms like mage, witch, sorceress, warlock are all just different words that identify someone that managed to enrol in a magic academy and complete the five years course necessary to be recognized as a true member of the magic community.
At that point, one has just to follow his ambitions. You can become the personal mage of a noble, I you enjoy life at Court. Others choose to devote their whole life to study magic or create specific artifacts.
As long as you don't do anything to contribute actively to the development of the Kingdom or the Mage Association, you'll only remain just a mage, no matter how powerful you are or what you accomplish with your experiments.
Remember, no mage can be forced to share his/her spells or discoveries in the magic field. Not even the King himself can openly violate this rule.
But what you keep for yourself has no worth for society, hence it gives you no merits.
Only by sharing your knowledge or by using it to perform tasks from which the Kingdom or the Magic Association take great benefit, you can be elevated to the status of archmage.
They are for the mages what dukes and marquises are for the nobles.
And finally, there is the Magus. A Magus is someone whose power is equal only to his outstanding merits toward the community and the knowledge he shared with the Magical Association.
A Magus usually ensures to those who come after him a deeper understanding of magic, and the means to achieve better foundations than their predecessors.
A Magus is a King to mages, and a god to men. Very rarely there has been more than one. Whenever any country has two or more Magi, it's considered to be in its golden age, everything becomes possible."
Nana begin to explain them the mages hierarchy as their started lesson.
As the first client of the day arrived, Nana handed them their Grimoire. It was as thick as a dictionary and a gift from Count Lark.
"From now on, treasure it dearly. Every mage has their own Grimoire where they store their spells," Nana said as she then showed them the way to the living room where they would be studying.
Lith and Leon both picked up the books and started to study.
"Amazing, simply amazing. It never ceases to impress me how profound Lochra's understanding of light and darkness is. Her description of the mana flow in the patient's body is just peerless. I would have never thought of that on my own. Only now do I finally understand why she wrote about them in the same section. Light and darkness are not separate elements, but two sides of the same coin. Darkness is of paramount importance for healing diseases and congenital conditions. Once I have fully absorbed all this new knowledge, I might even be able to use Tier 4 spells," Leon said, despite already having an arsenal of both Tier 4 and above spells, even beyond Tier 5, which this world has yet to discover.
Lith then curiously picked up the basic spell book and looked at it, flabbergasted.
"What the fcking fck is this? Is this how a spell book is supposed to look?" Lith exclaimed.
"By my core, what is this cr*p?" Solus cursed for the first time in her life.
Both Lith and Solus were too shocked to make any further comment. So, they closed the book and re-opened it, only to find it unchanged.
They had expected it to be filled with instructions on how to manipulate the mana flow in the mage's body and how to better connect with world energy to obtain spells whose power was incomparable to those they already knew. Instead, all they found was an odd mix of a spelling book and a hand-sign instruction manual. Not to mention that they already knew all of those Tier 1 spells, just with different names that Lith had invented over time.
"Blasting Sphere is just a Fireball, Piercing Ice is identical to my Frost Lance, if not worse," Lith remarked.
"Let's go out. I think I understood something," Solus said, and then Lith stood up and began going out, saying it was a nature call.
Leon looked at Lith, shook his head, and glanced at the spell book, which showed various hand signs and spell words.
"If not for my Analyst Talent, it would have been hellishly difficult," Leon mumbled, then began reading the whole basic spell book with just a glance.
Using his Talent, he analyzed the whole knowledge he had acquired, and within half an hour, he managed to master all the spell from the basic spell book.
"Well, compared to Mumud's knowledge, this is like child's play," Leon chuckled, and then he brought out a spell book from the White Obsidian Tower. He had early taken it out with him, opening it as he began to study it.
The spell is called Gáe Bulg, a Dark Element spear but without the usual weakness of Dark magic, which is that all dark element spells are slow.
Leon opened the book, which showed the various basic magic spells he had learn before he could master Gáe Bulg. These spells include homing—meaning all projectiles should reach their intended target.
Secondly, there is defense break and piercing, which are essential for any spear.
Third, enlargement: the barbs on the spear would enlarge inside the target, dealing more fatal damage.
Fourth, a switch spell called detonate, it is switch as Leon can remotely control wether he want to detonate it or not.
And lastly, it included bleeding and anti-regeneration curses, which not only made one bleed heavily but also prevented any regeneration.
Leon then opened the first basic spell chapter on Homing.
It included a hint to first mark his target by any means, whether by touching it directly or indirectly with the help of a spell.
Leon began to learn it, and unlike Fake Magic, which only required following instructions, True Magic involved understanding the flow of magic and performing many steps manually.
In contrast to Fake Magic, where you follow a set of hand signs in order and recite the spell name properly, and the mana automatically completes the spell, True Magic demands a more intricate process.
While Leon was learning magic, Lith discovered the differences between True Magic and Fake Magic.
Until now, he had thought what he was doing was the mainstay, but after reading history books, he realized how dangerous it was. Fortunately, he didn't tell anyone about this.
"By the way, I think Leon and Tista are Awakened too, right?" Solus suddenly said, causing Lith to almost curse his bad luck.
Thus Lith decided to take both Tista and Leon to trwan woods and explain the significance of the matter.