Self-Study (2)
Before going to sleep. Swollen with anticipation, I opened the basic magic book Beni had given me.
Once upon a time, magic was a miracle. Just as a blacksmith melts stone to extract iron, the God of Magic bestowed upon mortals the method to draw phenomena from the mana that fills the world. We called this magic.
Yet everyone knows the vast difference between magic and blacksmithing: versatility. Blacksmithing is something anyone can learn (though talent is still required to reach the highest levels. The author has no intention of disparaging artisans), but magic could only be wielded by a chosen few. This is only natural. Mana is scattered across the world, yet the sense to command it is granted solely by the God of Magic. This magical organ—whether in our brains, our hearts, or perhaps somewhere within the soul—was never something one was born with. It was a gift from the God of Magic.
That is why magic was a miracle. A miracle of reshaping the world according to one’s desires, using the tools handed down by a god and the answer sheet he revealed.
However, magic today is not entirely the same. The God of Magic could not escape the flames of the War of Fallen Gods and perished. At the final moment of his life, he cast the ultimate grand spell at the cost of his own existence. Thus began the age in which even dogs and cows are born with magical organs (and yes, even dogs and cows truly are born with them. They simply cannot wield them properly). Therefore, modern magic is no longer a miracle, but a technology.
Yet do not be disappointed. The fundamental beauty of magic has not vanished, and the layers upon layers of accumulated techniques have become a shortcut to truth. Bear in mind that systematic knowledge is superior to any indescribable enlightenment. The Magic Tower is not a gathering of outstanding individuals, but a vanguard shouldering the mission to lead all humanity toward truth.
If you faithfully study the contents of this book, you too shall become one of us.
First of all….
“……What the hell is this even saying?”
It’s stuffed with words that sound profound but carry zero substance, and the random author’s notes sprinkled throughout make it an absolute chore to read. Not to mention the content itself is drenched in elitism. This isn’t written for an audience—it’s the author getting high on his own voice and saying whatever he wants. By any standard, this book fails at the fundamentals.
“Haa…”
I forcibly swallowed the professional fury bubbling up from inside me and calmed my anger. Yeah, yeah. It’s common knowledge that mages are insufferable, and this isn’t even a novel anyway. So this much is tolerable. The important part isn’t the preface but the main text.
I took a deep breath and kept reading.
And then—
Thud!
Even after skimming all the way to the end, nothing had changed. I could barely understand what it was trying to say, and while it explained how to rotate circles, I didn’t even know what a circle was in the first place. Sure, I could feel mana gathering in my heart, but what the hell did it mean that it naturally formed rings? What kind of nonsense was that?
After staring at the fancy cover for a long time, I finally nodded.
“Yeah. Time to roll the gacha.”
I think this is the correct choice….
With a heavy sigh, I used the magic book as a stand and placed the jade goddess statue on top of it. She stood in her usual pose, offering a benevolent prayer toward someone. Looks like she had nothing to complain about today.
I stroked her bouncy hair for no particular reason and grumbled.
“Sigh. I’m working this hard just to beat up some heretics… You get that, right?”
The goddess statue violently radiated divine power in protest, but it only produced a faint, sparkling glow.
“Hey, why! Did I ask for a five-star? Magic category pulls are rare enough as it is, but this is still just a one-star!”
“Just do it! Do it, do it! If you don’t, I’ll leave you trapped in the subspace all day and only take you out when I absolutely need you!”
“Vwoong….”
“…Okay, don’t look so depressed. How about this instead? If you do it, I’ll hug you like a body pillow and sleep with you for a while. Sound fair?”
As if shouting “Deal!”, the goddess statue lit up the entire room in brilliant light.
She’s even communicating properly now. I let out a hollow laugh and opened the Gacha System.
[Normal Draw]
Consume cash or equivalent magic stones to randomly obtain items and skills ranging from 1 to 5 stars.
[Single Draw] [10+1 Draw]
“Let’s gooooooo!”
The thirty silver I earned in the labyrinth today, plus the ten silver from Beni—I dumped every last coin into the gacha. My money pouch grew feather-light in an instant. The sound of rolling dice echoed only in my ears, and soon a translucent window unfolded before me.
[1-Star: Well-Dried Mana Herb]
[1-Star: Processed Recovery Herb]
[1-Star: Platypus Bone Fragment]
[1-Star: Well-Dried Mana Herb]
[1-Star: Well-Dried Mana Herb]
[1-Star: Processed Recovery Herb]
[1-Star: Well-Dried Mana Herb]
[2-Star: Magic — Violent Flame]
[1-Star: Lowest-Grade Recovery Potion]
[1-Star: Wooden Arrow]
[1-Star: Well-Dried Mana Herb]
[1-Star: Aura — Sensory Enhancement]
[1-Star: Magic — Mana Discharge]
The rewards clattered onto the floor half a beat late. But that wasn’t what mattered right now. They were mostly one-star junk anyway.
“Wait, I asked for basic magic and got a two-star spell plus Mana Discharge? And out of nowhere, an Aura skill…?”
I tilted my head at the goddess statue in disbelief for only a moment before the incoming pain forced my mouth shut.
“Khhk…!”
My heart felt like someone was crushing it with all their strength, while a burning pain erupted from deep in my lower abdomen as if I’d been shot. Fortunately the agony didn’t last long. But it wasn’t over.
Before the aftershocks even faded, knowledge began hammering directly into my brain. A headache like being smashed in the head with a hammer. This pain was brief too… but the kind that lingered.
My vision spun, my head throbbed, my heart felt tight, and there was a strange sensation in my gut. It wasn’t as bad as when I obtained the four-star Sound-Eating Steps, but the simultaneous pain from multiple places left me dizzy.
With a sense of injustice, I poked the goddess statue’s cheeks repeatedly.
“I said basic magic would’ve been enough…”
The light was clearly weaker than before. Even the will contained within it felt slightly blurred. Like a doll running out of battery. Or an exhausted human.
“…Don’t tell me you can’t completely control the gacha either? And manipulating it tires you out?”
The goddess statue had gone completely silent, having lost all radiance. She no longer had the strength to answer. Yet her current drained appearance was answer enough.
“Tsk. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have asked for something like this. It’s not even urgent.”
Now that I thought about it, ever since she forced a four-star reward on me right before the fight with Those Who Swallow the Twilight, nothing useful had come out of the gacha. I’d rolled quite a bit, so the complete absence was actually surprising. Of course, since it was gacha, I could just chalk it up to bad luck… but maybe I had used up all my fortune in advance. Naturally, the goddess had been the one to shoulder that burden.
Feeling guilty, I patted the goddess statue’s backside for a moment before a sudden thought made me stop.
“Wait a second. Last time when I summoned eleven of you at once, you were full of energy.”
I narrowed my eyes and glared at the statue. The carved pupils somehow looked wronged. She must have her own circumstances too. I could roughly guess why.
The Goddess of Love had been relatively fine whenever she dropped items related to herself through the gacha. Slipping her own belongings in was easy, but directly tampering with the gacha itself seemed difficult.
“Well, thinking about it now doesn’t change anything.”
I could just ask the Goddess of Love directly once I reached the bottom of the labyrinth. I chuckled and decided to check the newly acquired items first.
First, Violent Flame. This was the higher-rank spell of the Weak Flame I had been using. Just as the name suggested, it summoned fierce flames. At two-star rank, its power was actually quite usable. In other words, testing it indoors was a bad idea—I’d need the labyrinth or a proper training ground.
Too bad. I’d check Violent Flame later and moved on to the others.
Mana Discharge
A primitive technique that consumes mana to release a formless shockwave. Extremely fast activation, but mana consumption is heavy and power is lacking.
Bang! The power of mana burst from my fingertips.
Mana Discharge was simple. The rest was equally straightforward.
Aura — Sensory Enhancement
A basic reinforcement technique that wraps the body in aura to sharpen the senses. The sensation of drawing aura from a tiny core the size of a bean was unfamiliar, but the difficulty itself wasn’t high. However, since my senses were already heightened from Sound-Eating Steps, the efficiency was somewhat reduced….
I’d have to test the details in the labyrinth and learn with my body.
What I needed to do right now was…
“Clean up all this mana herb junk.”
As always, it was time to dispose of the trash items. I shoved the unidentified monster bone fragment deep into my subspace and began munching alternately on mana herbs and recovery herbs.
After eating my fill and stuffing the rest into a drawer, I wiped my still-grassy mouth and picked up the jade goddess statue that had been resting on the magic book like an altar.
“Haa. A promise is a promise.”
I hugged the statue to my chest and lay down on the bed.
The next morning.
For some reason, the statue’s skin looked unusually glossy.
…What exactly did you do while I was sleeping?