Fundamental Basics

A huge number of the comfortable chairs of a temporarily put together circular auditorium had been occupied. There were 18 people gathered here, all noisily waiting for the one in charge of today's lecture to arrive. Quite a few of them had never been here before, but upon vaguely being clued in as to what kind of astonishing place this was, and repeatedly being warned to never speak a word about this world's existence - else, the only ones that they would put in danger would be themselves - they avoided breaching the topic again.

The Siren, the Jack Bird Variant and the Demi Spirit amongst the group turned quite a few heads, and had even initially evoked slight hostility in some, but upon realizing that they were just as capable of civilized interaction as they were, no more friction occurred. A certain fluffy rooster actually ended up with far more adoring attention from the females in attendance than he had aimed for.

'Let's see, who did she bring here? Finn, Gareth, Tione, Alicia, Cynthia and Julie. Huh, I didn't expect her to trust those last two this much.'

Aside from those that he had specifically invited to attend, he had also allowed Lefiya to bring along all the magic users of the Loki Familia who she felt to be trustworthy enough. He had already expected to see Finn, Gareth and Tione, as well as Alicia, who could be considered to be on quite friendly terms with the rest of this bunch. But as for Cynthia and Julie, he only knew the former from back when he had trained the familia's members during the expedition, and the latter from running into her on the manor grounds once or twice.

Alicia Forestlight was a relatively mature, 25 year old Elf with light honey-coloured hair that cascaded about halfway down her back, as well as brown eyes. She was just slightly shorter than Riveria, who could be considered to be quite tall amongst the women of the familia. She wore a deceptively sturdy gambeson-esque pale pink dress with orange highlights that went all the way to just above her knees. Underneath, she wore black stockings as well as nearly knee-high adventuring boots. Usually, she would also wear some more gear above her current clothes, but as she was only here to attend a lesson, she had probably felt like she didn't have to fully suit up.

Isaac had never really spent much time with this woman before, and they had only occasionally exchanged a couple of words. Of course, this Level 4 adventurer had also been amongst those that he had given pointers to for a time back in the dungeon, which had apparently earned him her respect. Originally, she had been slightly wary around him, but that had all evaporated once she had realized that he wasn't driven by his lower head. In other words, she really didn't like perverts.

As for Cynthia Plumwind, she was a newly advanced Level 4, and also an Elf. She was actually a year older than Alicia, but both of them were considered to be very young by Elven standards. The previous expedition had been her second one as a member of the fighting force, and it was expected for her to still take a couple of years until she would be able to advance in Level once more.

The bangs of her shoulder-length brown hair were parted in the middle and revealed most of her quite appealing face. Her forest green eyes couldn't help but dart around nervously - it was clear that she had definitely not taken in the entire situation yet. Her clothing was rather simple, because she preferred to dress in a way that stood out less. A plain green skirt and shirt, casual leather shoes, a brown belt… and a long beige hoodless cloak that almost hid the entirety of her body from view. Yes, that actually served to make her stand out more.

Lastly, there was Julie Aedevain. As a mere Level 2, she was amongst the many supporter teams of the familia, and had been left behind in the Twilight Manor during the last expedition. She was a 16 year old human with medium-length curly black hair and very light blue eyes. Underneath her navy blue skirt, she wore black stockings and comfortable boots, while her upper body was clad in a long-sleeved dark grey shirt with white flower patterns.

Just like a few of her companions, she was clasping a staff in her hands - a Magic Item used to support the casting of her Magics. It looked relatively simple, basically like a slightly longer and more dapper walking stick - clearly, it couldn't have been too cheap, but the familia hadn't exactly invested millions into her equipment yet. Because she was currently in the presence of most of the familia's higher ups, and because she wasn't actually on casual terms with any of them at all, she was quite fidgety and nervous, which she really couldn't be blamed for.

Although he was a bit baffled regarding her inclusion in this group, Isaac decided to not make a fuss about it. She would also have her use very soon, so this would speed things up a little.

With extremely quick movements that seemed akin to teleportation to the weakest amongst those that were present, Isaac suddenly appeared on the podium in front of them, right next to a blackboard that he had borrowed from Riveria. He shot a polite smile at everyone and nodded, then he put the teacher inside of him onto the driver's seat.

"It's great to see you all gathered here. Welcome to my first lesson on magic. I plan to hold these frequently in the future, so I encourage you to return. Even should you fail to grasp certain concepts in their entirety immediately, over time, you will surely make considerable progress."

With these formalities out of the way, he paused for a moment, before sending an amused gaze into the audience.

"Let us begin with something basic. What is the nigh omnipresent energy that is all around us, the one that we use to cast various Magics?"

Ever the honour student when it came to her area of expertise, the first one to raise her hand was Lefiya. Noticing the adorable Elf excitedly staring his way, her ears fluttering slightly, Isaac smirked inwardly before nodding in her direction, giving her permission to vocalize her thoughts.

"It's Mind."

Because she had expected him to give her a short but appreciative nod before continuing with his line of questioning, Lefiya was stumped when Isaac shook his head instead.

"That's incorrect. Some of you might already be familiar with the term 'mana', right? I assume that you simply equated it to Mind, or thought that it was my personal term for Mind."

Lefiya, Titania and Ray - those who had gotten their Status updated by him and that were aware of some mainstream magic-related knowledge - nodded, a bit of confusion in their eyes. If that wasn't the case, then what exactly was mana?

"Mana and Mind are actually two different resources, which are both consumed when using magic. Mana is the energy all around us, and the one which we accumulate within ourselves as we get higher Magic stats. Mind refers to our mental strength, which also increases when our Magic stats rise."

With her brows furrowed, Riveria raised her hand and, upon being given the go-ahead, voiced her concern.

"If both of them rise with our Magic stats, and both of them are consumed when we cast a Magic, then what makes you think that the two are separate? Or that there even are two separate resources?"

Shooting her a grateful nod, having entirely expected her interjection at this point, Isaac calmly continued his explanation.

"It's actually quite simple. There is a clear difference between the two. Our available mana can only increase if our Magic stats increase, but our Mind can be enhanced further in many other ways aside from just that one. Overcoming traumatic events, maturing mentally, solitude… they all can influence our Mind. That is why I instead refer to it as 'mental strength'. It can be enhanced or weakened by many factors aside from simply our Magic stats."

After taking a slightly longer breath to allow the audience enough time to let his words settle in, he answered yet another question that had indubitably come to the DanMachi world's mages' minds by now.

"It isn't difficult to prove that both of them are separate. If one continually casts Magics and replenishes their Mind with Magic Potions, there will come a point where one will mentally be perfectly fine, but won't be capable of casting any Magics anymore, because one has no mana remaining. Now, to showcase this, I'll need your assistance, everyone. Because my Mind and mana are far too vast to deplete them in a timely manner, I'll have to rely on one of you to demonstrate this. Julie, can you help me out?"

Placing a few mana potions on a desk next to one of the empty areas that he had marked out nearby, Isaac shot a harmless smile towards the nervous girl. She froze up in shock, not having expected that she would be singled out like this, or that she would be asked to use her Magic in front of everyone else. Still, noticing the expectant gazes upon her, she gulped and nodded, then made her way to where Isaac was waiting for her.

"Whenever you're ready, please go ahead. Take all the time you need. Everyone else will have to cast their Magics later on anyway, so there is no need to be too nervous. They'll all get plenty of chances to embarrass themselves."

Smiling encouragingly, ignoring the indignant looks that some of the others sent his way, Isaac gave the girl a thumbs up and waited patiently.

After a few deep breaths, Julie managed to steel herself and ignore the fact that she was the current center of attention. With a deeply focused expression, she uttered the chant of her Magic.

"Holy maiden of flame, bestow upon me your breath. With a soft sigh, burn away my enemies. Wesion Breath!"

With the tip of her staff as the origin point, a conical inferno of flame spread out nearly twenty meters in front of her, burning away all of the uniformly trimmed grass and scorching the ground. Slightly worried about this result, Julie shot a guilty look at the master of this place, but when he simply gave her a warm smile and nodded, she obediently continued.

After she had cast her Magic seven times, she felt that she was extremely close to a Mind Down. To get rid of this very uncomfortable sensation, she grit her teeth and shakily gulped down an entire Magic Potion, before continuing to chant resolutely.

It was after she had taken her fifth Magic Potion and had grown a bit sick of them, after having chanted her Wesion Breath 25 times in a row. Although she felt like she should still be capable of doing it two more times… she couldn't. Also, a wholly unfamiliar feeling of semi-physical exhaustion and emptiness assaulted her, causing her to double over in confusion.

She was caught swiftly by Isaac and brought back to her seat before she knew it, sparing her any further embarrassment. However, she was far too focused on that strange sensation to pay full attention to her surroundings.

"What is this…?"

In response to the question that she sent his way after snapping out of her dazed state, Isaac gave her a short nod before giving another explanation.

"If we were to follow the previous naming scheme, then that state should be called 'Mana Down'. However, that sounds a bit too… amateurish to me, so let's go with 'Mana Deficiency'. As you've just personally experienced, it's an entirely different feeling from the Mind Down that most of you mages should be intimately familiar with. Now then, Riveria, I assume that this demonstration sufficiently proved my previous claim? Of course, you can also try to experience this state yourself. However, I would highly advise against it, as your body might burst solely from the consumption of an overwhelming number of High Magic Potions."

Although she felt a little irked by the slightly smug look on his face, the motherly High Elf wasn't too close-minded, so she only helplessly nodded. Even just thinking about the taste of those potions made her stomach churn. The battle that had allowed her to break past Level 7 was still fresh in her mind. She would have to consume far more potions now that her stats were even higher, so it would be an even more nightmarish experience to try to enter the state of Mana Deficiency personally.

Seeing that the most well-versed mage amongst the audience seemed to have accepted the result, at least for the moment, Isaac smirked slightly, then he continued his lesson.

"Before any of you start to feel stupid for not having realized this sooner, let me give you some words of encouragement. The entire Lower World has simply fallen victim to an inevitable false equivalence, a common logical fallacy. There were so many similarities between mana and Mind that it would be only reasonable to equate the two, at least until the information that I have just presented you with would come to light. I simply sped up the process. I have no doubt that it would have happened naturally sooner or later. Also, now that you're aware of this, you can avoid some potential dangers in the future. What if you run out of mana in the midst of a battle, while still having far more than enough Mind to continue on? To know your mana pool's limits can be vital. See this as an opportunity to remove a risk factor, not something to reproach yourself for."

As he had taken note of the slightly downcast expressions of Lefiya, Elfy, Cynthia and Tione, Isaac had judged that he needed to lay out a few more of the facts to make this revelation easier to swallow. After all, it was only the most rudimentary one that they would be confronted with today.

"Now that this first matter is cleared up, let's continue onward to the second one. Don't you all want to learn how to do things like this?"

With a wave of his hand, Isaac created many magical phenomena in the scorched area that Julie had left behind - because this was his private world, it was really easy to fix and couldn't even be damaged unless he allowed it. There were tornadoes, crackling flames, pillars of ice that were repeatedly cut into pieces by powerful blades fashioned out of pure water, as well as many others. They were all no more than circus tricks to Isaac, but to the present mages that hadn't borne witness to his magical feats before, they felt like miracles beyond their understanding.

This time, the one to raise her hand first to request permission to make an inquiry was Alicia.

"Excuse me, how are you casting Magics without chanting? And how are there so many different effects? Are you even casting Magics in the first place? Could this be some otherworldly trick that is only possible in this… odd place?"

The Elf couldn't help but doubt what she was seeing - after all, it went against everything that she had been taught about magic up to this point in her life. Even the revelation that mana and Mind might both exist and be separate resources hadn't taken her aback as much.

"Yes, I am casting Magic. However, contrary to what most of you might be convinced of, chanting isn't necessary to do so. Rather, the term magic simply refers to the control of both our own mana, as well as the mana around us. We fashion it into whatever phenomena that we need, and are only limited by our imagination and proficiency."

Taking a piece of chalk out of his inventory, Isaac began to draw on the blackboard, until the outline of a very accurate rendition of a human body could be made out. Then, on top of it, with a differently coloured piece of chalk, he drew yet another human body that was more indistinct in nature. It felt fleeting, and as if it wasn't really there. Yet, at the same time, both of them made up a greater whole. In the chest area of this 'second body', there lay a stagnant lake of some sort of liquid.

"When I first attempted to research this world's magic system, I aimed to locate the mana within my body. However, no matter how convinced of its existence that I was or how long that I searched through my physical body, I couldn't find it. I knew it had to be somewhere, because I could feel it accumulating inside of me every time my Magic stat increased, but I didn't know where it was. That was when I made a discovery."

Pointing at the second body on the blackboard, he showed a reminiscent smile.

"What you see here is a simplified representation of the reality that I encountered. Aside from a physical body, people of this world also have a mental one. That, however, is not their soul - that is actually an entirely different topic that I shall not dive into at this moment. Just know that they are not the same. Anyway, I refer to the soul as the 'soul layer', the physical body as the 'physical layer' and the mental body as the 'mental layer'. But why is that?"

He took out three sheets of paper from his inventory, atop which he wrote the words 'soul', 'physical body' and 'mental body'. After showing them to the audience, he then placed them on top of each other. To their surprise, once the words were superimposed, they somehow formed a new one: 'self'.

"It's simple. Each of these three make up a layer of your current existence, your 'self'. Only by combining all three of them do you all come to be in your current forms. If even one is lacking, then while you would still be partially yourself, you also wouldn't be. But let's leave these advanced topics for another day - they aren't even related to magic either."

Clearing his throat to give everyone enough time to take in his words - not that any of them could truly fully understand or accept them in an instant anyway - Isaac pointed at the blackboard again.

"What you need to know is that most people can only perceive their physical layer. However, it is also possible to discern the mental layer and the soul layer. Your mana, the result of your Magic stat related efforts, is located on the mental one. This, however, begs the question: How does one perceive the mental layer?"

With a slightly helpless expression, Isaac shook his head and heaved a sigh.

"Sadly, as I had no Magic or mana utilizing Skill to rely on like you all, I had to walk a far more difficult path to do it. However, that also means that because all of you have a Magic - don't worry, I will update your Status soon, Aselina, then you will also have some mana of your own. Ahem, as I said, because all of you have a Magic, there is a far simpler path for you to take. Just close your eyes and 'feel' the path that your mana takes through your body while you are casting your Magic. The more experienced ones amongst you may already be familiar with this."

Confirming his guess, Riveria, Lefiya, Titania, Alicia and Elfy nodded their heads.

"That is the first step. The second step is to locate the source of your mana in your mental layer. A few of you have unknowingly discerned this elusive layer of your being many times before, but you have never explored it. This time, instead of only focusing on the channels which your mana follows, try to find its source. As for the rest of you who aren't familiar with that feeling yet, please come forward and cast your Magics in one of the prepared fields. Again, closing your eyes may help you in discovering the flow of mana within you, but feel free to keep them open if that feels more natural to you."

Right as the last word left his lips, an excited Mina had already bolted towards one of the marked out empty areas nearby. Her tail was wagging joyfully and her eyes beamed with anticipation. However, before she even chanted anything, she suddenly froze and turned her head to look at her lord, clear confusion written all over her face.

"Milord, I can only use my Magic if enemies are nearby. What am I supposed to do?"

With a sigh, Isaac clapped loudly, garnering everyone's attention once again.

"Hold your horses, everyone. Some of you have Magics that can only be activated under specific circumstances. For those, I have made some preparations. Mina, I picked up and restrained some monsters for you. Jakk, here's a plushie that has some monster lures sewn into it. Just think of it as an ally and protect it from the monster that I will place in its vicinity."

Making trips to the dungeon to kidnap unsuspecting monsters was as easy and fast as taking a breath at this point, so of course, he had prepared sufficiently for this first lesson of his. Once he had dealt with the two that had to fulfill certain requirements to cast their Magics, he focused his attention on the two who couldn't follow in the others' footsteps.

"Aselina, as I stated before, I'll update your Status in a bit to give you your first few drops of mana. But until you have enough to successfully cast your Magic, you won't be able to join the others. However, you can take part in Quinn's training if you want to. I don't think you'll be able to succeed in that way, but you're free to try. As for you, Quinn, you'll have to take the hardest path - the one that I took."

Clear signs of bewilderment surfaced in the cat boy's eyes. There was something that had been bugging him for a considerable while now, so he chose this opportune moment to inquire about it.

"If having a Magic already would make it easier, then why didn't I get a grimoire?"

Relieved that the youngster had picked up on this, the corners of Isaac's mouth rose.

"Grimoires aren't entirely free lunches, at least according to my understanding. I'm honestly not confident in the others taking the same path that I did, but I think that you do have a fair shot. I believe that you will be able to do it. But prepare yourself, it's going to be excruciatingly difficult."

Realizing how much confidence his master had in him, an embarrassed but proud smile spread across Quinn's lips. At the same time, however, Aselina's appearance became sullen as she was confronted with the fact that her lord didn't have such expectations for her.

Heaving a weak sigh, Isaac reached out and patted her head. After having known her for more than a month, her thoughts were way too apparent to him, despite her barely changing expression.

"Do you really think that you are talented in magic? You don't even have any mana of your own yet. Before trying to take the hardest path that there is in something that you have never attempted, make sure that you have at least some sort of foundation. Not everyone can excel at everything. It's good enough if you refine what you are good at to the pinnacle, and cover all of your weaknesses sufficiently to still make it to the top. You can worry about mastering many other things when you have made significant progress in one thing first. Understood?"

Only partially listening to him - because she was primarily enjoying the head pats - Aselina nodded with an uncharacteristically cheery smile on her face. What did she have to worry about? She would just become the strongest - correction, the third strongest - in her own way. Everyone had their own path, and if she could enjoy her lord's attention on the way, then wasn't that already considered a major win?

[ Aselina Sceaga's Loyalty has increased by 2. ]

Upon noticing this system notification, Isaac's hand froze for a moment, before continuing to pat the raccoon girl's head. For the nth time, he was baffled at how easy it was to raise his head pat-loving subordinates' Loyalty.