The Lifetime Free Pass
“Pardon?”
Had I misheard? Free lectures? And unlimited ones at that?!
“Unlimited lesson content. Unlimited duration. No tuition fees.”
“……”
“As long as you draw breath and I draw breath, I shall teach you magic whenever you desire.”
An answer beyond anything I could have imagined. The conditions were absurdly generous—downright impossible.
‘Even if she only taught me the basics, I’d be grateful beyond words. But she’s offering unlimited lessons for as long as I live?’
Let’s think this through. The most orthodox path to becoming a mage is attending a magic academy. You enroll in a formal institution, graduate, and obtain an official mage qualification. That route, however, costs an astronomical sum. Even the basic tuition is extortionate. There’s a running joke that you’d have to sell three noble mansions just to afford the diploma. Given that the academies gather the most elite, high-spec magic professors, the quality of education naturally comes at a premium. Add living expenses, dormitory fees, material costs, and experiment fees, and the total rivals studying abroad at a top foreign university. Ordinary commoners can’t even dream of it. Only royalty, nobles, and the children of wealthy merchants make it into the academies. Occasionally, a monstrously talented commoner is scouted as a scholarship student or sponsored by a noble house, but such miracles are rare. For the average commoner, setting even a pinky toe inside a magic academy is impossible. Someone like me can only suck on that pinky toe in envy.
Self-studying with stolen grimoires is theoretically possible, but that’s the domain of monstrous geniuses. Discovering ancient ruins or treasures that grant magic power is also the territory of monstrously lucky geniuses. The only realistic hope is catching the eye of a traveling mage who declares, “You’ve got talent, boy! Become my disciple!”
‘But even that kind of fortuitous encounter only happens to the talented.’
Who would take on a disciple with no aptitude or talent for magic? When I first met Altrong, I’d secretly hoped I might be one of those gifted types—that he had seen some hidden potential in me. I’d believed it. But after banging my head against the wall trying to teach myself, I realized the truth. I was an ordinary person with zero talent.
‘If I had any talent, I would’ve already succeeded in entering the path of magic through books alone.’
It was a painful reality, but for someone like me—lacking money, background, and talent—walking the path of magic was impossible no matter how many times I died and came back. Yet now, that impossible path had opened. A lifetime free pass had appeared right in front of me.
“Are there no other conditions? Like cleaning, doing laundry, or attending to your needs?”
She wagged her index finger side to side.
“A student’s duty is to study diligently. You need only devote yourself to learning magic to the best of your ability.”
Devoting myself to the best of my ability. If that was the condition, then so be it.
‘She’s not even asking for tuition or my blood. No need to play servant either. Really, no compensation at all?’
Why? Why would she invest in someone as talentless as me? Some mages supposedly possess the ability to see through a person’s nature and values at a glance. Had she found some other value in me worth investing in?
“But why are you showing me such kindness?”
The question I couldn’t hold back slipped out. It was important to me. She waved her hand dismissively, as if it were nothing.
“Hmm. It would be better to save the answer to that question for later. Now then……”
Her palms met with a sharp clap.
“Let us head outside!”
“Right now?”
“Yes. This very moment! Your first lesson begins!”
Just like that? Her momentum rivaled even Altrong’s staff-flicking speed.
“Hm~hm~hm~.”
Hey. Why are you more excited than the person who actually got the god-tier free pass……?
She hummed a little tune, her shoulders bouncing like a girl on a picnic. ‘Is she the impulsive type?’ Her orange hair, braided into twin tails, swayed gently with each step.
“Come along now~.”
“Ah, yes!”
I hid the coin pouch under the bed and followed her out the door.
* * *
The first lesson took place in the backyard. With her hands clasped behind her back, she asked,
“Boy. What is your name?”
“Juno.”
A name I’d given myself so Altrong wouldn’t call me “this brat” or “that brat.” It had no special meaning. Park Junho—my name from my previous life. Junho, Junoh, Juno, Juno. While repeating my old name, the pronunciation felt similar, so I’d stuck with it.
“I am Natasha. If you have questions, feel free to ask anytime.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Juno. Pick up any stone from the ground.”
What was she planning to teach? At fifteen years old, suddenly forced into a game of picking up rocks, I grabbed a small pebble nearby with curiosity and lifted it.
“What action did you just perform?”
“I picked up a stone.”
“With what?”
“With my hand.”
“Correct. More precisely, you used ‘your hand and arm—parts of your body’ to ‘move’ the ‘position of the object known as a pebble.’”
I focused intently, determined not to miss a single word. The content was simple, but the fact that she bothered to break down such a basic action suggested it connected to some important principle.
“Put the stone back down.”
Following her instruction, I returned the pebble to its original spot and stepped back.
“Now, watch the stone carefully.”
I stared at it with eyes wide enough to devour it. Then—
Whoosh. The pebble shot upward into the air in an instant, rising straight up against gravity at high speed. It looked like watching a high-speed elevator.
“What action did I just perform?”
“You moved the stone with magic.”
It was a familiar sight. Altrong had probably used telekinesis on his staff in the same way to flick my forehead all this time. Ugh. Suddenly feeling PTSD coming on.
“You and I both lifted a stone. On the surface, the two actions appear identical, but in reality, there exists a decisive difference—so great that they could be considered entirely different actions. What is that difference?”
Natasha kept throwing questions at me. Her repeated inquiries poked and stimulated my thought process. Having been steeped in Korea’s rote-learning education system, I had expected her to immediately dump a flood of concepts and explanations about magic straight into my brain. But all she was doing was two things: showing and asking. She demonstrated first, then gave me time to ponder and think about the phenomenon myself.
‘Isn’t the difference just whether magic was used or not?’
A decisive difference…… ‘What could it be?’
Let’s try thinking about it objectively, as a third party. One person moved the object directly with their hand. The other used magic instead of their body. Right—the means of moving the object were different.
‘It must be telekinesis. Using telekinetic force to pull the object, lift it against gravity, and stop it.’
Hmm. I found myself scratching the back of my head. No matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn’t grasp what the decisive difference was beyond telekinesis.
‘What is it? There’s definitely something more.’
There was some essential element I wasn’t perceiving. I felt like I was only groping at the fog floating on the surface, unable to reach the true essence. This was the limit of a talentless brain.
‘No matter how much I think, I don’t get it……’
Frustrated, I clutched my head—when suddenly, I realized my thinking had been trapped in visible, visual elements alone.
‘Let’s change my approach.’
If you’re stuck on one side, you can’t see the other. I decided to try shifting my perspective. Instead of visual elements, I would focus on sensory ones.
‘Is there something invisible?’
It might not be telekinesis. ‘What if it’s not force?’
What if it wasn’t some coercive force or energy? The pebble still hovered in midair. Looking down at the stone floating at waist height, I mobilized all my senses to detect any foreign sensation around it. I leaned in close and sniffed. I even licked it with my tongue and tried biting it.
‘Hmm. Tastes like rock.’
I also pressed my face into the grass beneath the stone. I stirred the air around the pebble with my fingers. Natasha’s expression as she watched me was that of someone witnessing a student suddenly doing a handstand on their desk during class.
“……Juno. What are you doing right now?”
“I couldn’t find the answer just by looking, so I thought I’d try approaching it with other senses.”
After observing from every angle for a long while, I finally arrived at an enormous realization.
‘I don’t know!’
I still had no idea, even if I died and came back! Aside from discovering that I possessed teeth strong enough to bite a rock without breaking, I had gained nothing. As I clutched my head and delayed my answer, Natasha chuckled softly and spoke kindly.
“Don’t be embarrassed. You may speak freely. It doesn’t have to be the correct answer. I simply wish to hear your thoughts.”
Finally, after much deliberation, I tilted my head and opened my mouth.
“Something invisible.”
“Something invisible?”
“When you lifted the stone, it seemed like you used some kind of ‘thing’ that couldn’t be seen.”
Natasha, who had been patiently waiting in silence, adopted a rather serious expression at my answer.
“What thing? What could it be?”
“……Well. At first I thought it was telekinesis, but it also feels like there might be something else besides force or energy.”
“It might not be energy? Why?”
“Because moving an object probably isn’t limited to just energy. Beyond that, I’m not really sure. It just felt that way. Since I couldn’t sense any change or sensation from the pebble, I vaguely thought that might be possible.”
There was, of course, no logical reasoning behind it. Just a feeling. A hunch about a faintly grasped possibility.
After hearing my answer, Natasha’s eyes lit up with anticipation, like someone who had just discovered an intriguing video in their YouTube recommendations.
“Ohoho. You’re quite close to the correct answer. Well done.”
Huh? I almost got it right?
“It is exactly as you sensed. Something that is not energy. That is the answer.”
Natasha continued while moving the pebble up and down.
“Most people believe mages use telekinesis to control objects like this. But that is a mistaken preconception. True magic does not involve anything like telekinesis.”
It was shocking. Telekinesis doesn’t exist? Object manipulation = telekinesis = the standard fantasy magic formula, right?
“What is moving this stone right now is neither telekinesis nor any special force. Because, fundamentally, I am not controlling this stone at all.”
Natasha pointed at the empty space beneath the pebble with her hand.
“[Space].”
As they say, the answer is often right under your nose. The true answer had been hidden beneath what looked like the answer.
“What I am manipulating is [space]. I am pushing the [space] beneath the stone upward.”
She stepped closer to the pebble and pointed at the gap between the ground and the stone with her finger.
“It is exactly as it sounds. Right now, I am pulling up the empty space beneath the stone—the mass of that void—raising the volume and length of [space]. Then the stone resting atop [space] is naturally pushed upward by [space] itself.”
“……”
“To put it in simpler terms, it is similar to placing a ball on top of a long spring and stretching that spring upward.”
Natasha snatched the floating pebble out of the air with her hand and clasped her hands behind her back once more.
“Thus, manipulating [space]—that is precisely what ‘magic’ is.”