I'm a Mage
"Hey, want me to let you in on a secret?"
We were sitting in a rundown old tavern tucked away in a back alley, an unpretentious watering hole that had basically become our private hideout. Across the small table, my friend Kim Hyung-jun narrowed his eyes with deep skepticism.
"What kind of utter nonsense are you about to spew this time?"
"Come on, when have I ever talked nonsense?"
"Uh... always?"
"Hey, no hitting below the belt with cold, hard facts."
This is why personal credibility is so important. Sure, I had a bit of a track record when it came to babbling about lofty dreams and grand ambitions, but today was different. Today, I was a changed man.
I squared my shoulders with absolute confidence and made my grand declaration.
"I'm a mage."
"......"
A quiet trickle broke the silence as Hyung-jun poured himself a shot of soju without batting an eye and tossed it back. He picked up a piece of spicy whelk salad with his chopsticks, chewed on it nonchalantly, and then looked at me as if an afterthought had just crossed his mind.
"Oh, did you want me to give you a reaction?"
"Forget it."
My grand pride instantly deflated at his sheer indifference.
"I'm serious, though."
"Right, sure you are. Just like how you practically won the lottery last week, except you missed by four numbers."
"You bastard, your sarcasm gets sharper by the day."
Grumbling under my breath, I pulled a fresh stainless steel chopstick from the metal container on the table.
"Fine, I'll show you proof."
"Sure, go right ahead."
Ignoring his lukewarm shrug, I closed my eyes and focused my mind.
My perception shifted. My vision slipped past the narrow band of visible light, entering an intangible, invisible spectrum that modern science had never managed to chart. Neither a wave nor a particle, it was a faint, bluish current of energy. In the world I had inhabited until yesterday, they called it mana.
"Wait... what the hell?"
Hyung-jun, who had looked utterly bored just a second ago, suddenly dropped his jaw. And who could blame him? An ordinary, mass-produced metal chopstick had just lifted off from the tip of my finger and begun levitating in thin air.
I puffed out my chest, wearing a smug grin.
"Well? Pretty incredible, right?"
"Incredible doesn't even cover it."
Nodding in pure amazement, Hyung-jun reached over and started poking and grabbing at my hands.
"Holy crap. I'm touching your hands and I still can't figure out how you pulled this off. Where'd you learn this sleight of hand? Teach me, dude."
"It's not a magic trick, it's real magic."
"Yeah, yeah, real magic. So what's the gimmick? Monofilament line?"
Unbelievable. This guy just refuses to believe me.
Seeing is believing, but when that fails, an undeniable demonstration is the only way forward. Without another word, I let go of the chopstick entirely and let it drift toward the center of the table. Still charged with mana, the metal utensil remained suspended mid-air, hovering steadily a few inches above the wooden surface just as it had over my finger.
"If you still think it's a parlor trick, why don't you pick it up yourself? I'll bet my entire net worth that it stays floating even in your hands. Put up or shut up."
"Wait... for real?"
Realizing that something was truly out of the ordinary, Hyung-jun's expression hardened. When it was floating above my fingertips, he could easily assume I had learned some clever street illusion. But floating on its own above the table, ready to be touched by his own hands? That was an entirely different story. What kind of preparation time would I have had to rig something like that up in a random tavern?
Suspicion plastered across his face, Hyung-jun leaned in to inspect the floating utensil. He extended an index finger and gave the metal stick a cautious tap.
The chopstick bobbed slightly from the impact, wobbled, and then gently swung right back to its original equilibrium, drifting placidly in space. He waved his palm underneath it, blew a sharp puff of air at it, and shook his head in sheer disbelief.
"Is there a hidden electromagnet under the table or something?"
He practically dove under the table to inspect the underside of the tabletop, and I couldn't help but chuckle. Look all you want, buddy. There's nothing down there.
He tossed it slightly upward, only to watch it sink back down and stabilize. He even held it directly over our steaming bowl of fish cake soup. By the time he exhausted every mundane test his rational brain could muster, his face had gone completely blank with shock.
That was the exact face I had been waiting to see.
"So, how about it? Bow down to your big bro's arcane mastery."
"You crazy lunatic!" Hyung-jun suddenly roared, grabbing me by the shoulders. "This is a room-temperature superconductor!"
"...Huh?"
No, it isn't?
A short while later, we left the tavern and ended up sitting at an outdoor plastic table in front of a nearby convenience store, each clutching a cold drink.
"Damn it all. I thought you'd actually synthesized a superconductor, and the shock sobered me right up. What a complete waste of expensive alcohol," Hyung-jun grumbled, leaning back in his plastic chair. "Magic in a modern, scientific civilization? Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?"
"You claim you sobered up, yet you're chugging a hangover recovery drink like your life depends on it. Does that make sense?"
"Of course it does. Even if the buzz is gone right now, there's a hundred percent probability that tomorrow's me is going to suffer. I have to drink it."
"Right, right. Whatever you say, genius."
Hyung-jun downed the remaining contents of the can at his own brisk pace, slammed the empty metal can onto the table with a sharp clatter, and fixed me with an intense stare.
"Alright, Park Ji-hyuk. Spit it out, you bastard. Where the hell did you go and what did you do to suddenly come back wielding actual magic?"
"Wait, you actually believe me now?"
"How could I not believe you? You made a piece of stainless steel float in midair with zero tricks or strings attached."
"Want me to show you more? Floating a chopstick is barely scratching the surface of what I know."
"Really? What else can you pull off?"
"Well... pretty much everything you'd read about in fantasy web novels? From generating basic light at the 1st Circle all the way to dimensional leaps at the 9th Circle. If you can name it, I probably know how to do it."
Hyung-jun looked thoroughly aghast.
"Wait, seriously? You could drop a bolt of lightning right onto this pavement right now?"
"Nope. Can't do that."
"What? Why are you backpedaling already? You just said you knew how to do everything!"
Faced with his fierce interrogation, I merely offered an infuriatingly sly grin.
"Knowing how to do something and having the physical capability to execute it are two very different matters, my dear friend. Heh heh."
"God damn it. I fell for this elementary schooler's nonsense again." Hyung-jun clicked his tongue, thoroughly drained of enthusiasm. "So, where did you learn this chopstick-floating trick in the first place?"
"Uh, well. I don't know if you'll buy this, but... I learned it in a dream world."
"In a dream?"
"Yeah, a dream. I opened my eyes this morning, and every single detail was just sitting right there in my head."
I gazed out into the quiet night sky, a distant look settling over my face. Even now, the memories rushed back the moment I reached for them. A grand magical civilization on a supercontinent known as Letnia. In that world, I had lived for two hundred and fifty years as an archmage of the 9th Circle, reaching an untrodden pinnacle of mastery that only a tiny handful of legends had ever attained throughout the entire history of magic.
And then, I woke up in my own bed, back to being Park Ji-hyuk, an ordinary corporate employee who had just enjoyed a deep slumber. The classic, infuriating 'it was all just a dream' cliché.
"The thing is, the memories were way too vivid," I murmured. "The sheer cognitive dissonance was overwhelming. It took me half the day just to reorient myself to reality."
"Hmm..."
To be honest, I wouldn't have blamed him if he'd dismissed it as a wild delusion brought on by a bad fever dream, but Hyung-jun listened to me with unexpected gravity.
"It felt so frighteningly real that I tried casting a spell in secret just to see what would happen. And it worked. That was when I realized it wasn't just a bizarre dream."
"So that's why you called me out for drinks? Just to show off?"
"You caught me."
'Bet you can't do this, huh?' How could anyone resist the urge to teabag their best friend with actual supernatural power?
"Good grief. You really are an oversized toddler."
"Thank you, Grandpa Kim. Who's next in line?"
Hyung-jun shook his head in defeat, rubbing his temples. Then, as if something had suddenly clicked, he tilted his head.
"Wait a second. Did you just say you lived for two hundred and fifty years in that dream?"
"I did."
"Then how is it that a guy who's lived two and a half centuries longer than me hasn't matured a single bit?"
"...Oof."
Put that way, he made a painfully valid point. But I still had a defense.
"It's... hard to explain. The memories are fully intact, but it feels detached. Almost like I'm looking into someone else's life through a window. The knowledge, theory, and sensory instincts are as clear as if they were my own, but emotionally..."
"I think I get the gist. It's like you read a massive encyclopedia of someone else's experiences. You possess the data, but the human identity sitting in front of me is still Park Ji-hyuk, right?"
"Whoa, spot on! You can always count on a Gwanaksan alumni to have a functioning brain."
I clapped admiringly, prompting a weary sigh from him.
"Do me a favor and never tell anyone in public that we went to the same university."
"Heh heh heh."
Seeing my mischievous smirk, Hyung-jun gave up on lecturing me and pivoted back to the main topic.
"Fine. Let's just say for the sake of argument that you spent two hundred and fifty years mastering magic in a dream, and you genuinely know how to cast spells."
"It's not 'for the sake of argument,' it's cold, hard reality."
"Shut your trap for three seconds."
"Understood."
There was a distinct edge of murderous intent in his voice just now. I wisely kept my mouth shut. Provoking a natural gym rat whose physique put Under Armour inspection squads to shame was a fast track to getting folded in half like a folding chair.
"So why can't you cast anything more impressive?"
"There are two major reasons." I held up two fingers, curling the first one down as I started explaining. "First off, my physical body isn't conditioned as a proper vessel for magic. That puts an immediate ceiling on my mana control."
"Okay. And the second?"
"Earth's atmospheric mana density is abysmally low."
"Really?"
I gave a firm nod at his follow-up question.
"If we're talking numerical estimates, it's roughly one-thousandth of what Letnia had."
"I see." Hyung-jun accepted the explanation without hesitation.
"Wait, you're just accepting that?"
"When the subject-matter expert tells me how it works, what else am I supposed to do? I don't know the first thing about magic, so what basis do I have to argue?"
Fair enough. His logic was airtight.
"So," Hyung-jun continued, tapping his chin, "does that mean levitating a chopstick is the absolute limit of what you can do right now?"
"For now, pretty much. Technically, Low-Circle Mages operated on two-dimensional planes. If I had the precision equipment to engrave a magic circle, I could trigger plenty of functional low-tier spells without needing a massive mana reserve. But I don't have that kind of hardware lying around."
"So if you had the equipment, you could do it?"
"Yeah, easily."
Hyung-jun immediately pushed his chair back and stood up.
"Let's move."
"Wait, what? Where are we going in the middle of the night?"
"My private lab."
Unlike my wallet, which was drained every single month by an unending barrage of bills and living expenses, Hyung-jun came from serious wealth. His father was the chairman of a prominent mid-market corporation that pulled in trillions of won in annual revenue, making him the definition of a gold-spoon heir.
More importantly, he maintained his own independent research facility. I vaguely remembered him mentioning over drinks in the past that he had developed several high-value patents tailored for his father's company and sold them off for quite a handsome sum.
"Hey, are you sure you should be telling me about this magic stuff so casually?" Hyung-jun asked suddenly while we stood by the curb waiting for our taxi.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm talking about your magic. Aren't you worried about revealing something like that to me without any caution?"
"Why would I worry about telling you?"
"Worst-case scenario, what if I deceive you and exploit you for everything you're worth?"
I tilted my head, genuinely unfazed.
"Does it really matter?"
"Does it matter?"
"So what if you exploit me a little? Do you have any idea how much you've done for me over the years?"
Back during our college days, when both of my parents had fallen critically ill in quick succession, Hyung-jun was the one who had stepped up without a second thought to lend me the money for their medical expenses.
When they eventually passed away, he had stood faithfully by my side at the funeral hall until the very end. And when I had been frantic and desperate, unable to scrape together enough money for tuition, he was the one who had used his personal network to set me up with high-paying private tutoring gigs to keep me afloat.
"Even if you used me, I'd just consider it paying back a tiny fraction of the debt I owe you," I said firmly. "A man who forgets the debt of his parents' lives isn't a human being, he's an animal."
"I told you back then, you never needed to worry about that."
"Look, man. It might not seem like a big deal to the guy handing it out, but it's a completely different story for the guy on the receiving end. So shut your face."
"Alright, fine, you sentimental punk." Hyung-jun smirked faintly, shaking his head.
"By the way, why are we heading to your lab so suddenly anyway?"
At my question, Hyung-jun shot me an incredulous, deadpan look.
"What's with that look?"
"And here I thought you graduated from an engineering department."
"Excuse me? Watch your mouth, you bastard, you just insulted my honor. Follow me under the bridge right now."
"Cut the crap. You just witnessed a physical phenomenon that defies every known law of physics, and you expect me to just go home to bed? We have to run experiments and verify it! If this is real, holy shit, do you have any idea how many papers we could publish? Are you going to throw away Nature? Are you tossing Science out the window?"
"...Wait. Are you a fucking genius?"
When I actually stopped to think about it, mana was essentially an undiscovered Fifth Force of nature. The moment its existence was scientifically proven, getting published in top-tier journals wouldn't just be a possibility; it would be a guaranteed, history-making breakthrough worthy of a Nobel Prize.
"Wow. Why didn't I think of that?"
"Because you're Park Ji-hyuk, the eternal elementary school kid. The second you discovered something cool, all you could think about was scampering over to your buddy to brag about it."
Since that was literally one hundred percent accurate, I chose the dignified path of remaining silent.
Screeech.
Our taxi pulled up to the curb.
"Well? Are you coming or not?"
"Only if I get first author."
"You crazy bastard. Who else would be first author when you're the one actually casting the magic?"
"True that."
Hyung-jun yanked open the front passenger door and flashed an audacious grin.
"Let's go make the discovery of the century."