Jacob Lacan
“Eldru min innan bren thru—”
Whoosh.
“H-Hek! That’s enough! Young master, that’s enough! F-Fire’s coming out of my hand!”
Enet’s face broke into a wide grin. At her fingertips hovered a flame a bit larger than a candle’s.
“Well done, Enet.”
Isaac praised her. “Big brother, me too, me too!” Yonas piped up, refusing to be outdone, conjuring his own flame. It dwarfed Enet’s—a roaring blaze the size of his palm.
“You did great too.” Isaac chuckled.
After revealing his abilities to the Count, the nobleman had agreed to handle Bernsi and the marquis as Isaac wished—but on one condition. Isaac wasn’t to teach Enet alone for the tournament; he had to instruct Yonas as well.
For Isaac, it was a welcome development.
“As expected, the little young master is amazing.” Enet looked a touch dejected.
“Enet, Yonas started learning magic years ago. He’s got a top-notch tutor and a vessel that’s anything but ordinary. No need to feel down. I’ve got your back. You just need time.”
“But at this rate, it’ll be tough to outshine the other nobles’ kids.”
The reason Enet was entering the magic tournament in Isaac’s stead: to sideline the other vassals’ and branch families’ children, establishing a duo of Yonas and herself. It also served as cover—if Isaac cast spells himself, they could pass them off as Enet’s.
But Enet hadn’t formed even a single circle yet. Naturally so. If weaving circles were that easy, everyone would be a mage.
Besides, it had been less than ten days since she’d started learning from Isaac. They were still covering the bare basics of magic, let alone circles.
Even so, Enet was following his lessons better than expected.
“Don’t rush it. Magic is an infinite realm. In infinity, one step can equal a thousand, and a thousand can feel like one. What matters isn’t speed—it’s direction. Alright, now try manifesting magic without voicing the ancient language. Say it in your mind.”
If all things in the world were one single living being, mana was its nervous system, linking everything together. Mana let you sense the world of all things and manipulate parts of it.
Magic, ultimately, was realizing your connection to all things and manifesting your will.
Spells were pre-made, crystallized wills left by others. The ancient language was the tongue for expressing them.
But you couldn’t rely on spells forever. A mage had to forge their own path.
“Nngh—nope. It always jams up here.”
“Me too.”
Yonas and Enet closed their eyes and focused, but nothing happened at their fingertips.
That was to be expected. Chantless magic meant thinking in the ancient language. Once you could think in that unfamiliar tongue instead of the common one, you no longer needed to voice spells aloud.
Even most circle-wielding mages could handle basic spells without chanting, but complex, multi-stage ones required diagrams or memorized incantations.
Isaac had passed that stage over half a century ago. With his multiple circulation paths, he could cast without chanting as much as they allowed—his thoughts in ancient language, speech in common. The switch was seamless.
Yonas was still learning the ancient language. Enet hadn’t even mastered reading and writing in the common tongue, as commoners often didn’t.
So both were stuck memorizing spell syllables as needed.
“The other families’ kids are probably at the same level. I hear only the top prodigies at the Royal Academy can pull off basics without chanting.”
“Yeah, that’s what they say. Finn’s second class, but the only spell he can do chantless is lighting a fire.” Yonas nodded.
Finn was Yonas’s tutor.
“That’s exactly why you two need to master chantless casting. It’ll set you apart in the tournament.”
“But Finn says unless you’re a genius, it takes a lifetime to learn the ancient language.”
“You don’t need to master it right now.”
“Huh? Really?” Isaac ruffled the wide-eyed Yonas’s hair as he asked.
“You’ll spend a lifetime learning the ancient language. But with time short, there’s another way.”
“How?”
“Yonas, Enet—watch closely.”
Isaac drew two overlapping circles on a blank sheet of cotton paper.
“Think of these two circles as two worlds in different dimensions. The left is the Imaginary Realm, the right the Symbolic Realm.”
“Hmm. Imaginary? Symbolic?” Both Yonas and Enet tilted their heads.
“Enet, when you first gathered mana. You entered an infinite world, right?”
“...Yes.”
“What did you see? Or hear, or feel?”
“Nothing.” Enet shook her head vigorously. “No perception at all. Just infinite darkness, literally.”
“Yonas, you?”
“Same as Enet. But mine was blank white, like an empty page.”
“The world you’re in now is here—the Imaginary Realm.” Isaac pointed to the left circle. “No distinctions exist here. The boundaries between yourself and others blur; you and the whole world feel like one infinite unity. You’re fully absorbed into it, sensing no lack. There’s no ‘I’.”
Yonas and Enet listened intently, but their faces showed confusion—half-grasped, half-lost.
“Start learning the ancient language from here, and you’ll uncover this world’s rules. Like senses awakening. In the mana realm, sight, sound, smell, taste, touch form through the ancient language. Once they do, you’ll perceive the mana world, the world of all things. Boundaries between ‘I’ and others sharpen. Most mages spend their lives on this—perceiving infinity in their own way.”
“That... perception you mentioned. What happens if we do it?” Enet raised her hand timidly.
“You’ll know your will and convey it clearly.”
Enet still looked puzzled. So did Yonas.
“Say you’re casting a fire spell. But you don’t know the word for fire? Or even if you do, you don’t grasp its concept?”
“Couldn’t call it, and even if you did, no response.”
“Exactly.” Isaac smiled at her answer. Magic talk was always a joy. Teaching brought its own delight, one he was learning from Yonas and Enet.
“When the world is you and you’re the world, you might feel solitude but never lack—there’s nothing missing. But realize the world is a collection of others, and ‘I’ stands apart? Then you see what you lack. That lack births desire.”
Isaac pointed to the overlapping section and the right circle. “This is the Symbolic Realm. Aspiring mages inevitably shift from Imaginary to Symbolic. And between them, lack is the common thread.”
“Hmm, tough.”
“No need to get it all. You can’t, anyway. Point is, here’s the key to chantless magic without knowing the ancient language.”
What Isaac described was knowledge twenty years ahead of its time, based on a theory by Jacob Lacan—a quirky doctor of noble birth.
The theory itself was harmless. But applied to magic? Different story. His books were banned by clerics and noble mages.
“Without knowing the ancient language?”
“Yeah. You can go chantless without it.”
“How?” Enet’s eyes sparkled.
“You don’t need the ancient language to know lack. Sure, it reveals higher lacks. But we don’t need that now. Your body and mind are enough.”
Isaac smirked at their blank stares. To him, they were just cute kids.
“Enet, life in Goethe is endless cold, right?”
“Yes. Washing laundry in winter is brutal.”
“What’d you crave then?”
“Warmth.”
“Specifically, what thing?”
“Hot tea? Fireplace?”
“You’d need fire, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Close your eyes and picture it. You’re shivering in brutal winter, doing laundry. Wind bites like knives. What do you wish for? Money? Honor? Power? Nah. A warm ember, right now.”
“...Yes.”
Enet nodded, eyes shut, brow furrowed. She clenched her fists as if feeling the chill.
“Hold that cold, and clearly picture the ember you crave. No need for ancient words for fire, no incantation pronunciation. Just gather mana at your fingertips and wish it becomes that ember you desperately want. Make its size, shape, the warmth on your skin vivid.”
“Mmm.”
Enet cautiously opened her clenched fist. Faint blue light gathered at her fingertips, swelling in the air, tinged crimson, flickering yet holding form.
A flame. But unlike one from a chanted spell, this was fragile, delicate—radiating true warmth.
“Whoa, cool.” Yonas’s eyes widened at the utterly different feel.
But the flame soon lost shape and faded. Enet had stopped visualizing and opened her eyes.
“Did I do it?”
“Yes. Success. How’d it feel?”
“Not sure. Kinda fuzzy.”
“The ancient language precisely names targets. Emotions and imagination point to them. Less efficient than knowing and naming, but with practice, just as fast and accurate. We’ll focus on this training, Enet.”
“Yes.” Enet nodded.
Why Lacan’s books were banned: Knowing the ancient language was the privilege of noble mages and clerics. Magic or “miracles”—upper-class perks.
But now, even without it, anyone could wield magic.
This is the start. When Isaac built the Gray Tower, Goethe would birth countless mages. His heart raced.
“Young master. The little young master...”
Enet’s startled voice cut in. Yonas had closed his eyes, silently shaping mana as Isaac described.
His flame was faint, not hot—warm and cozy, like Enet’s.
But what stunned Enet and Isaac wasn’t just the chantless cast.
The flame took form like a sculpture. Blurred by fire’s nature, but clearly depicting: two boys at a piano, a woman watching beside them.
“What’s this?”
“...A memory.”
Isaac recognized it. His mother, watching her two sons play piano together.