Different magics

'Alright, whatever,' Savine could only sigh and read on. 'Let's see… the first two should be the scientific method and the willpower-based method that the Sovereignty and the Magicracy use.'

As for the other three. Judging from their names, Savine guessed that Sacred Magic was one focused on holy rituals and prayers that granted mages divine power. It was a system where the most pious followers would receive the greatest powers. Of course, it wasn't Divinity. For that, many stars needed to align.

Hex magic was something akin to stereotypical witchcraft, with sacrifices, curses, and voodoo dolls, etc.

These two spellcasting methods always became obsolete once either the scientific or willpower-based methods were discovered. The reason was simple. They took too long to activate.

As for the Magic of the Body… if it was what Savine was thinking, it was an extremely rare type of magic where people assimilated wisdomwood in their own bodies to strengthen it. Heaven called them Augmented Mages.

The specialty of these augmented mages was that though they couldn't cast spells, their bodies were much more powerful than that of normal humans. The weaker ones only had tougher skins, but the stronger they got, the sturdier they became. Tendons and fibers as strong as steel wires, bones that were like lead – both durable and flexible, organs and flesh that acted like nanomachines - capable of completely recovering itself to perfection.

And though they couldn't cast spells, it didn't mean they were incapable of using magic. But in their case, they used stances and movement to evoke magic effects. They were basically magical martial artists with overpowered bodies.

The appearance of these mages was a big blow to Savine's plan. It wasn't a hard thing to deal with normal mages, as in the end, they were simply humans. Hit them hard enough and they will die. It was the reason why Savine could stand against the duke despite the huge gap in their mana.

But augmented mages, one needed to hit them a lot harder. Though the current Savine could kill a dozen of their average ones without issues, she would be out of mana when the eleventh one came at her. And if their strongest came at her, there was no way for Savine to deal with them.

'I need to get control over all my mana as soon as possible…'

With a bigger mana pool, she would have access to methods better suited to deal with augmented mages. For the current Savine, her strongest spell was likely Explosion. It was cheap and powerful. The only downside was that she couldn't manifest explosions inside other people. It needed to occur directly next to them to deal lethal damage.

'If there really are augmented mages here, though, where are they?'

Savine was also curious if users of sacred magic and hex magic were still around. She could only ask.

"Mister, do you know where in the world they use Sacred, Hex and Body magic?"

The Sovereign glanced at Savine for a few seconds.

"Since coming to the Sovereignty, I realized that the magic here is different from the one in the Magicracy. Since the book describes these different types of magic types, I assume there are more."

"How can you tell the difference?"

"The spells are all different. I think that here, they use Magic of Understanding and there, they use Magic of Will."

"You're right," the Sovereign nodded. As for the others… The Hex method is no longer existent. At least no country openly allows its mages to use it. The Sacred method is used by the mages of the Far South. They're hermits that refuse to communicate with the rest of the world, so there's no point talking about them.

"As for the Magic of the Body… It's the main method of the Emporium. As the sole owner of five Divine Trees, they're the most powerful country in the world."

'Five Wisdom Trees? Wow.'

"Where are they?"

"They're on a different continent. We call our continent the Teran and the Emporium's continent Arrakis. But there, they have different names. Our continent is called the Old World. While the Emporium's is called the New World."

"Why?"

"It's because we're still stuck in the old, using magic to affect the world around us. They, on the other hand, use magic to strengthen their bodies. Fatal wounds to us are no more than light scratches to them. They mock us for our inability to use the Magic of the Body and call us the Old World."

The Sovereign's tone was one of forced calmness. From his eyes Savine could feel how much emotion he held in regards to this great empire.

But though Savine wanted to respect that, she needed to make certain things clear.

"Are they going to be invading us?"

The Sovereign glanced at Savine for a few seconds and scoffed lightly.

"It's not something you should be worrying about.

Savine shrugged inwardly as well. The answer was expected.

She continued reading. Gradually, she started skimming over the content.

The rest of the book wasn't as interesting as the first few chapters. It mostly described how the different methods progressed and developed later on. Savine saw this happen in at least 10 worlds so it was akin to reading a plagiarized book. It was somewhat interesting since there were 5 different methods, though.

Near the book's halfway mark, information on the augmented mages and the Sacred and Hex mages became very scarce. On the other hand, the details regarding the willpower and scientific methods were much broader. Eventually, the details on the willpower-based method became scarce.

Finally, the book described how different families started to focus on one type of spell only, mastering them completely. It was a much more effective method than to try and learn about everything.

The book finally mentioned a few noteworthy mage families from the Sovereignty. Naturally, they were the Sovereign's family and the ducal families of the Great Three Duchies.

'Hm… huh, the Sovereign is adept at gravity magic? 'Pressure that presses down from the heavens, the ability to levitate, a pulling force so great it's capable of ripping apart your body' …Yeah, it's definitely a gravity spell.'

Savine was impressed. Usually, scientific mages had trouble replicating gravity until much later.

'As for the other duchies… one's a pyromaniac, the other's a light and darkness illusionist, and duke Erst is an air mage.'

Erst duchy was rather controversial since his spells are similar to the willpower-based spells of the Magicracy. His most famous spell was Hard Air. He could basically create physical objects out of air.

That was definitely unscientific. But with how close duke Erst was to the Magicracy, it wasn't impossible for him to be able to cast spells like that.

Savine wondered if they had a teacher from the Magicracy, or if the Erst duchy captured and tortured a mage for information.

Finished, she put down the book and sighed. She thought about what she learned.

'Khalul is maybe an angel…'

There was no one else that could've taught five different spellcasting methods to the people. Normally, seeing a story like this, Savine would assume they're overembellished myths. People loved to think that they ancient people were better and stronger, especially in worlds with magic, but that was never the case. People never stood still. They always improved. Ancient progenitors of magic would never be able to defeat a mere initiate from a century later.

But it was true that the people of this world used different types of magic, and from the records, Savine could see that that wasn't a lie.

Thus, the only conclusion she could reach was that Khalul was an angel.