Sudden Enlightenment
Why didn’t Mage's Mana act on the body?
It wasn’t that Mage's Mana had no effect on flesh. It did, however faintly. But compared with the violent force of a Knight's Mana, its influence was so slight it might as well have been nonexistent.
Mage's Mana, Knight's Mana, and qi. Were there three different kinds of power in the world?
James tried drawing up the fierce mana of a knight—the kind he had once accepted as perfectly natural. A low hum rose through his body.
Then he could feel it clearly: unlike the heavy, layered mana of a mage, this power moved quickly and simply, sweeping through his body and adding force to his flesh. It was exactly the sort of mana that made sense of the name “fierce.”
They didn’t even seem like the same kind of mana anymore; their effects were too different.
Then he turned to qi, something he had only recently begun to taste through Director Choi Sang-guk’s memories. A clear, pure energy pulsed strongly through him. Even in a small amount, James could tell that qi held greater potential than a knight’s fierce mana.
So what, exactly, is the difference between the three?
James continued his contemplation, fingers lightly playing with the Mage's Mana that had become as familiar to him as his own hands and feet.
“Are you even listening to me?”
Even while he was lost in thought, he had kept one ear open.
“I am. So talk.”
“I mean the magic you use.”
“What about it?”
“If it’s all the same mana, couldn’t you use Knight's Mana to cast magic too?”
James shot Colt an irritated look at the absurd suggestion.
“How could simple knight mana ever be used to cast something as complex as magic—”
He broke off, startled by his own words.
Simple?
His attention snapped back to Knight's Mana.
...Was Knight's Mana not a composite mana at all, but a mana with only one attribute?
That would explain why it moved so smoothly and simply, without hesitation. By contrast, Mage's Mana was mixed with every force that made up the world. That was why he had come to call it a sea of mana.
Knight's Mana is a single-attribute entity. Mage's Mana is a composite-attribute entity.
The colorful mana that represented everything in the world, and the knight’s mana that seemed designed to provide raw strength, were fundamentally different.
James focused on the colors each of them showed him.
“A rainbow... and then a yellow light with every other color stripped away.”
What was more, Knight's Mana wasn’t a dull yellow. It gleamed like gold, radiating a force that felt powerful simply to behold.
It seemed as though their densities were different from the start.
Density?
His attention returned to qi. The clear, transparent energy had a density far beyond both Mage's Mana and Knight's Mana.
If Mage's Mana had that kind of density too? Then mana refined even more purely would produce even greater power...
Still seated, James extended his right hand and conjured a large flame above his palm.
Whoosh.
“Agh, hot! Get that thing away from me, Jim-Jim.”
The flame he had just created was a normal mana fire, no different from the kind he had always used.
Like Knight's Mana... and like qi... if I refine mana until it’s simple enough—
The fire on his palm gradually began to shrink.
More pure... even more... more!
Then all that remained was a tiny orb. It looked like nothing more than a small glowing bead, as if it couldn’t possibly hold any power at all. No blaze leapt from it anymore, and its flamboyant shape had vanished, but the small red orb’s strength was nothing compared to the earlier flame.
“Oh. Pretty.”
Colt stretched out a finger, looking as if he wanted to touch the orb. In truth, it was so beautiful and softly luminous that anyone might have been tempted to reach out and stroke it. It didn’t look dangerous at all.
“Stop! Don’t do that.”
At James’s warning, Colt hurriedly pulled his finger back.
“Why?”
“Touch that and you’ll turn to ash on the spot. Go ahead if you feel like dying.”
“……”
The little fire orb he had just made wasn’t releasing its power outward, but it was hiding a terrifying destructive force that would burn through anything it touched.
With a soft burst of light, James dispersed the dangerous orb and felt satisfied at having discovered a new possibility through mana’s refinement and concentration. This realization was a key to a leap forward—one that could produce maximum effect with minimum mana while opening the door to a new level of magic.
Why didn’t I realize this before?
Then he began looking back over his past, all the way to when he had first learned magic—the days when he had been digging in the earth with a needle and carving tunnels with a shovel.
From the very beginning, the magic and mana I learned were pure. I was drawing on a blank white page with nothing on it!
His master’s magic had come to him at the border between life and death, and back then he had been so free of distraction that he had obeyed even the instruction to dig with a needle. Thanks to that, he had been able to build up pure mana and, in the end, obtain the sea of mana. But that purity had also been the problem. Because it was too pure, he had never felt the need to concentrate, and as a result he had missed the chance to notice the difference.
That’s why I never felt the distinction between Knight's Mana and Mage's Mana.
Purity had been everything, yet the purity of his mana had actually been a tremendous advantage for a mage. If James had lived an ordinary life while learning magic, some impurity would have mixed into his mana, making its operation slower and its power weaker.
Better to realize it now than never.
Even though James’s mana had always been pure, this was the first time he had ever refined and concentrated it further, the way he had just condensed fire into a bead.
Through concentration and refinement, I can raise the level of every spell I’ve used until now by several steps.
Learning martial arts with Colt had been a new stimulus for James, and simply discovering a new field had given him more than enough satisfaction. But now it was affecting even the thing he considered his specialty—magic.
“Colt’s absurd question turned out to be useful after all.”
If Colt hadn’t asked, James might never have thought this deeply about it. The question might have come to him someday, but it was just as possible that he would have gone through his whole life without ever wondering.
Above all, he couldn’t deny that Colt had helped him realize it this quickly.
“What do you mean absurd? I asked because if it’s the same mana, maybe I could use magic too!”
James had thought Colt had lost interest in magic after learning Knight's Mana, but Colt still hadn’t given up hope that he might be able to use spells himself.
“Sorry, but Knight's Mana has only one attribute.”
“...What’s that supposed to mean?”
“When a mage uses magic, they have to handle mana with multiple attributes. That also means following the proper paths and formulas, and making extremely delicate adjustments to the mana itself.”
Colt still didn’t understand James’s explanation and asked again.
“So basically, you’re saying it’s complicated?”
“You understood half of it. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though.”
Even though it was a single-attribute mana, someone skilled enough at handling it could still use a few low-level spells from the same mana family.
“Oh! When? When could I use it?”
“In about ten years?”
“That’s way too long.”
“Thanks to you getting Director Choi Sang-guk’s memories, it got cut from fifty years down to ten.”
“Damn it. I’d be dead before fifty years were up.”
“I said ten years.”
James didn’t just thank Colt in words for helping him ascend to a new level today.
“Colt. You’ve been spending a lot of money on dates with Hojung lately, haven’t you?”
“Gas is pretty expensive here compared to the States.”
Among the miscellaneous expenses that piled up during a date, the amount of fuel a car could burn was frightening.
James opened the black-hole inventory even more briskly than before.
Whoosh.
“...Seeing it so often is starting to make it feel normal.”
Ignoring Colt’s indifference toward the inventory, James reached into the black hole and found the fake apple crate. He pulled it out just as it was.
Thud, thud, thud.
It was five bundles of cash. At five million won per bundle, that made twenty-five million won.
“That should last you a few days, right?”
“You had won in there too? When did you exchange it?”
“Not enough?”
James stuck his hand back in and then pulled it out again.
Thud, thud, thud.
Five more bundles fell to the floor.
“……”
“...No. This is nowhere near enough.”
For the price of the enlightenment it had brought him, this felt absurdly modest. So he simply took out an entire box. Even then, James still had four boxes left.
Thunk.
“From now on, just take out cash whenever you need it.”
“……”
“What? Still not enough?”
Just as James reached into the inventory again, Colt shouted at him.
“Stop pulling money out!”
“Whoa, whoa. No need to get angry.”
“What exactly did I do to deserve you suddenly handing me money?”
“Enlightenment doesn’t come whenever you want it. Thanks to you today, my magic just leaped forward.”
“...When did I do that?”
“Just now?”
Colt still had no idea what he had done to help, but cash was reassuring no matter how you looked at it.
“Anyway! This is mine?”
“Of course.”
“Then I won’t have to worry as much about rent anymore. Heh heh heh.”
“……”
Not only had the cost of dating been a concern, but the rent he had to pay James each month had also been a significant burden.
“It’s late. Go to sleep.”
“Snore-snore. Heh heh heh.”
After telling Colt to sleep, James prepared to head out again.
“Where are you going this late?”
“I have someone to meet.”
“Not Su-ji, then... who are you meeting?”
“He won’t even be able to see my face. I’m only going to see him.”
“Using magic again?”
“Correct. To make the investment succeed.”
James intended to meet Blody, the CFO of Duojardin, the man who had recommended the investment to Chairman Kim Seong-oh. And tonight, James needed to cast a spell on him and make sure he headed straight for TY Telecom.
“Come back early.”
Since James had often used magic to help his investments succeed, Colt didn’t think much of it. Especially in Las Vegas, because of the time difference with the United States, it was always late at night anyway.
“It won’t take long tonight. He’s not far away.”
All he had to do was plant a simple false memory in the man’s mind.
James slipped into a dark hotel room where the lights had all been turned off.
And there, on the bed, lay a man sunk deep in sleep.
Mr. Blody. That’s him, all right.
James raised both hands over the bed and began tampering with the man’s memory.
Now is the best time to plant the suggestion for good and all.
When a false memory was layered over a sleeping mind, the brain naturally accepted it during sleep and wove it into something that felt real.
Tomorrow, you’re going to meet Choi Jeong-san of TY Telecom and close an investment that is guaranteed to succeed. The account where the funds are to be deposited will be... and you’ll even confirm that the money was deposited without fail...
It was simple enough to insert new information into Blody’s head and leave behind a copy of the account details, but there was a problem: Choi Jeong-san actually had to carry out the investment for James to reap the result.
Next comes Choi Jeong-san’s turn.
Blody wasn’t the only person James would be meeting tonight. After slipping out of the hotel, the magician headed for Choi Jeong-san’s house.
This is the end of your slush fund.