The Concentration of Salt Water

Suppose you have a salt solution, 50% concentration, made by mixing 100ml of water with 100 grams of salt in a 500ml beaker.

Now, pour water into that beaker without thinking. Keep pouring until the water sloshes right at the rim, a hair's breadth from overflowing.

Here's the question: what happens to the concentration of the salt water?

You could run through all sorts of calculations to arrive at an answer, but the truth of it is simple. The concentration gets weaker.

So then — what if you injected perfectly pure mana into a circle contaminated with impurities, all the way to its limit?

Simple. You could deliberately lower the concentration of the impurities.

There were about two drawbacks to the method.

One of them was that every drop of mana I took in through Mana Breathing had to be completely pure. In other words, the mana I absorbed had to be one hundred percent pristine water — not a grain of salt in it.

Of course, with the Pure Breathing skill at my disposal, that wasn't a problem for me at all.

The remaining drawback, though, was a bit more serious.

One misstep and I could suffer mana poisoning. If the mana I absorbed wasn't properly channeled, it would run rampant inside my body — wild mana bucking like a crazed horse. One careless mistake, and my heart could burst, or simply stop working altogether.

But that, too, came down to nothing more than handling the mana well. Handle it very well, and nothing would go wrong.

I began drawing in the mana around me, absorbing it at the greatest thickness possible while leaving just enough room for the mana circle to maintain its rotation.

It was a bit of a gamble. But then, a mana circle thins out the moment you cast magic anyway — its very structure is a matter of keeping the core pillars intact and packing flesh around them. Think of it as the principle of a reservoir. Back in the day, when mana was constantly being siphoned out of me, it was a little trick I'd devised to stave off mana exhaustion, if only by a hair.

Suddenly my mouth tasted bitter.

"Whew—"

I shook off the stray thoughts and refocused. The trembling of my mana circle rippled through my entire body. Mana came flooding in — bright and white, mana in its purest form — crashing against me in a wave. My limbs had begun to quiver. But just a little further, and I could slash the impurity concentration down to almost nothing. Just a little more...!

"...Hahk!"

"Ji-on!!"

My heart was pounding, while the rest of me had frozen over cold. Like a man pulled from deep water after being trapped there for hours, I shivered uncontrollably.

Then I felt a small warmth pressing against my knee.

"...?"

Pat, pat.

Seo Bong-gu had glued himself to my kneecap.

"Ji-on... you mustn't overdo it. Sniff."

His eyes brimming with tears, Bong-gu wiped his runny nose with a loud sniffle. I slowly stroked his head, and thanks to him, I came back to myself in no time.

And then...

Grin.

"It worked."

I could feel it, plain as day. The system's readouts showed no change, but it was unmistakably different — the blue remaining in my circle had paled.

If I kept using mana like this and refilling it, over and over, I'd have it fully purified in no time.

"Not a bad result."

I brushed myself off and stood up. I'd gotten more or less ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what I came for, which meant it was time to get on with the day's routine.

"Bong-gu, I'm leaving you behind today. You need to guard the field."

Just in case the frost thieves came again. Even in broad daylight, if someone managed to slip in slyly under Grandfather's or Father's kindly gaze, there'd be nothing I could do about it.

"Got it! I'll guard it real good!!"

"Excellent attitude."

I set him down on the floor and grabbed my schoolbag. Today I had to meet the club members and fill out some paperwork. The potato income had turned out far larger than expected, so we'd need the proper documents to divide the proceeds among the members. Those papers, of course, were already packed in my bag from last night.

"Hmm-hmm~"

I was humming to myself as I stepped out of the greenhouse. The sun, a hazy smear in the sky just before dawn, had by now sharpened into clear brightness. I idly picked up my phone to check the time.

"Still plenty of time..."

Oh no. Damn it.

I was going to be late.

At that very moment, Father's voice drifted over from near the house.

"Ji-on? What are you doing out there?"

Tap.

"Ji-on, you nearly ran late on top of everything else. What was that about?"

"Haha, I just stepped out to check on the field for a moment, and the time got away from me. Thank you for the ride."

"Right. Study hard at school."

And so I ended up hitching a ride to school in Father's car. I hated to admit it, but it was comfortable. I really ought to reach driving-license age soon myself.

The moment I entered the school, I made straight for the teachers' office. I needed to tell Ms. Park Ye-ji that the club would be filling out paperwork during club period today.

But I never made it inside.

A single sheet of paper, slapped dead center on the office door.

"...An exam?"

An unforeseen problem had arisen. An exam.

According to Seo Ji-on's memories, exams came once a semester — in other words, a system for evaluating half a year's worth of achievement. It would be no exaggeration to say that how you were treated for the following six months depended entirely on those grades.

Then a fragment of my mother's voice drifted through my memory.

'Ji-on, you have to master the basics before anything else.'

For a student, the basics meant studying. Which is to say, grades. I'd found the classes genuinely interesting — but sitting an exam was another matter entirely.

The one exam of my life, and my last: the magic aptitude verification test, taken to escape the front lines.

After awakening as a mage, I'd joined the kingdom's army. I did it because they fed you regularly, mind you — I had no idea that falling below a certain benchmark meant being posted to the front lines of the war against the Empire. In other words, an exam was ultimately a death-defying battle. Slip up, and you were sent to the front. And the front meant death, quickly.

Gulp.

I swallowed. My stomach burned at the memories that surfaced unbidden, and my palms went cold with sweat.

— Sergion! Run!!

The voice, faint and blurred in my mind, sharpened into vividness. The thunder of bombardment. The war... and she...

"Hey, why are you just standing there?"

Choi Seo-dan, on her way up to the classroom, had spotted me and called out. I collected myself and answered.

"I had a question for the teacher. About the paperwork."

"The office is off-limits because of exams. Just ask her after homeroom."

"Uh, right... wait, you knew about the exam?"

"Obviously. It's next week. Sure, I came down to the countryside because farming's fun, but I keep my grades locked down tight!"

Seo-dan furrowed her brow as if I'd insulted her.

"Lee Dae-kyung's probably already prepping, too."

"So everyone knew except me, huh."

I shook my head and brushed the memories away. Right. That was all in the past. That kind of situation didn't happen anymore.

"You look pale. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Totally fine."

Middle school exams were not a matter of life and death. I consoled myself with that thought and got through the day.

During club period I filled out the commission paperwork and set up the conditions for paying wages; during classes I focused and marked down the exam scope. And so, in my own way pursuing a state of relaxation, I arrived home.

"I'm back."

"Ohh, Ji-on, time for dinner!"

"Yes, Ma!"

Mother smiled brightly and laid out dinner.

"Aren't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you eating, Mother?"

"I ate lunch late, so I'm fine."

I nodded and lifted a spoonful of soup to my mouth — and that was when it happened.

"By the way, the school calendar said exams come around about now, didn't it?"

"...Pfft."

I nearly sprayed it. I barely managed to swallow the soup before laughing.

"Haha... right, yes. Next week, I hear."

"My, my. The way you say it, you'd think it was someone else's business."

Mother's eyes glinted sharp as blades. In that instant, I remembered the dining table — the one that had cracked clean through from a single downward blow of her hand, the one we'd had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to throw away when we moved.

"H-, haha! Someone else's business? It's my own, of course. I'll study hard!"

"Right, right. Farm work can keep you busy as anything, but you're a student first, my Ji-on. I believe you'll do well."

I take back what I said about life and death. It was a matter of roughly half a neck.

'I have to somehow pull this off — first place...!'

As Seo Ji-on forced down his rice with that grim resolve, the very person who had planted the crushing sense of crisis — Madam Kim Mi-suk — gazed at her son with a fond, satisfied smile.

'Right, as long as he scores over fifty, that's all that matters.'

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Two people, for whom "doing well" meant entirely different things.

If I had to take the exam anyway, I'd decided to take first place. With my age and experience, flopping on a test like this would be too humiliating to bear. I ought to be aiming for a perfect score across every subject.

There was only one problem.

Math and science — a guaranteed perfect score. Those were fields I'd worked with my whole life. But subjects like social studies or English, which existed only in this world, would be far harder to ace.

So I resolved to prepare for every contingency. If I'd been at the 3rd Circle, I could have broken through the crisis with a memory-recall spell — but alas, the current me was 2nd Circle. Memory recall was beyond my reach for now.

Did that mean I had no way at all? Of course not. There is always, always a shortcut, wherever you happen to be.

I decided to craft a memory-assist artifact.

"Feels like it's been ages since I made one. Wonder if I've still got the touch."

The raw material for an artifact was a magic stone. But there were no magic stones here. So I made one — a makeshift stone, a suitable rock with a good capacity for holding mana, into which I hammered my own mana.

"This should work fine for a one-off."

Smiling to myself, I pocketed the stone. If I did this in my room, the house might well come down — and if the house came down, money went out the door. A lot of money. Absolutely not.

I slipped outside and headed for the empty lot where I did my dawn workouts. There was nothing around it, so a suitably shaped mana barrier to muffle the noise would spare everyone any harm.

I settled myself at the center of the lot. This time I made sure Bong-gu couldn't come anywhere near — if he got caught up in it and hurt, that would be a disaster.

Engraving work on inanimate objects never failed to put me on edge. The small mercy was that the inscription I'd be carving today was one I'd repeated countless times before. The misfortune hiding inside that mercy was that this body had never once done object-inscription work.

Gulp.

A dry swallow. I set the makeshift magic stone on the ground and called the design to mind — the pattern these very fingertips had drawn out time and time again.

A spiral band wound around an eye-shaped motif at its center, and beyond it, petal-like patterns spread outward, layer upon interlocking layer, arranged in perfect rhythm. A magic tool that, simply by being carried, multiplied its holder's memory several times over.

Exactly as the design lived in my mind, I began carving the pattern into the stone's surface. From my fingertip I drew out a mana filament — hair-thin, fine enough to control in the smallest increments — and slowly, following its flow while keeping the pattern true, I pressed the engraving in. I held my focus. Not one breath could be let out too hard or too long.

How much time had passed? I had no idea how many hours I'd held the same pose.

"Hahk, heh. Finally... done...!"

Thud.

I flopped flat onto my back on the ground. Dignity and decorum could wait. When I'd started, it had still been daylight; now a darkened sky had crept into view.

Sitting here like this, I remembered the very first time — when I'd inscribed the Mana Land. Back then, too, I'd felt as if my lungs were crumbling to ash.

"Heh heh..."

But I'd finished it.

A pebble, its surface dense with an intricate pattern etched so finely it was barely visible against the white stone.

There it is. With this, first place is a certainty.