Boot Camp Training (4)
The training grounds of the campus, beneath a rising artificial sun.
Thirty-two students stood in neat rows across the wide field of soft, springy grass. Oscar regarded them with satisfaction before speaking.
"The training method is simple. From now on, you'll run laps around the field with Acceleration activated—until you drop from exhaustion. Easy, right?"
"……?"
Question marks practically floated above the students' heads. They hadn't gathered here to build stamina; they were here to stabilize their mana circuits.
Damian Proud, prickly as ever, was the first to knit his brows and voice the obvious.
"What does running have to do with stabilizing a mana circuit?"
"Hmm. Good question."
Oscar didn't particularly mind the attitude. Young as they were, every one of them was still a mage. And mages were not the sort of creatures who did things gladly that they couldn't understand with their own minds—which meant all he had to do was explain everything from start to finish until they were convinced.
"First, there's something you all need to know. The Imperial Magic Society has ruled that artificially stabilizing a mana circuit is impossible, and it officially recommends that any research along those lines be halted entirely."
At this sudden confession, the students' pupils wavered.
"Hold on. Does that mean what we're about to do is illegal?"
"Relax—it carries no legal force. It's merely a safety recommendation."
"……So either way, you're admitting it isn't safe."
"That actually makes it sound scarier," someone muttered.
Oscar looked over the darkening faces and continued.
"As you all know, the mana circuit is far more intricate than ordinary blood vessels or the nervous system. The slightest mistake can leave a person crippled or dead—and such cases are anything but rare."
What the Empire called mana rampage, and what the people of the Yeon Country called qi deviation—this was that very phenomenon.
"In other words, the Society simply couldn't find a hundred-percent safe method, so they concluded it couldn't be done."
"If it's really that dangerous, shouldn't we stop right now?"
"Don't worry. They couldn't find it—but the White Tower did."
Oscar drew a single book from inside his coat.
"You all heard the rumor two days ago, didn't you? That Oscar Sage's sanctuary had been discovered."
Heads nodded all around. The rumor had thrown the White Tower into an uproar for days.
"Unfortunately, no advanced combat spells were found there—but this breathing method was. The one commonly known as the Oscar-style Breathing Method."
"!"
In that instant, the students stared at the book as though spellbound. The Oscar-style Breathing Method was famous as the White Tower's greatest lost treasure.
"Wait, that breathing method—isn't that the one? The thing that lets you absorb mana twenty-four hours a day?"
"They say it completely erases the weaknesses of Harmony Sphere mages……."
"Don't tell me just mastering that thing stabilizes the mana circuit?"
"It doesn't."
Oscar gave the book a light shake as he spoke.
"As you know, mastering this breathing method lets you absorb mana around the clock. Normally the mana circuit only activates for the brief moments when you cast a spell—this puts it into a semi-forced state of constant activation. It's utterly exhausting, but the speed at which your circuits stabilize will be on an entirely different level from anything before."
Of course, if mastering this alone were enough to reach 4th level, the boot camp would never have been necessary in the first place.
"I've prepared a training regimen designed to draw out one hundred percent of this breathing method's effects. That training is running."
"?"
The question marks resurfaced. Most of them wore expressions that plainly asked, We were going so well—why are we back to this?
Oscar laid out the reasoning in simpler terms.
"As you all know, muscles grow larger as they repair and regenerate from microscopic damage. The remarkable thing is that mana circuits behave exactly the same way. Push them to their absolute limit until they need regeneration and repair, and they come back stronger and settle into place faster than ever. That's why battlefield mages who live on the edge of death improve by leaps and bounds."
The reason this brutal method had been utterly shunned by the academic establishment, however, was simple.
"The only drawback is this: until the damaged mana circuit recovers to normal, you have to drink expensive potions like water for a full twenty-four hours, with a priest standing by at your side."
"Ah! Don't tell me……"
"That's right. With this Oscar-style Breathing Method, all that money and hassle becomes unnecessary."
This was precisely why the Blue Tower had been so desperate to get its hands on this breathing method. They knew better than anyone that without it, the gap between them and the White Tower would never close.
Oscar swept his gaze over the students.
"So. I trust you all understand why you need to run now?"
"……."
In other words, to maximize the training's effect, their mana circuits had to be torn and battered first.
He addressed the students, who could no longer muster a rebuttal.
"What are you doing? Start running."
"Rest for five minutes! Then ten laps around the field! How many laps?"
"Ten laps!"
"Listen to those voices! Fifteen laps! HOW many laps!?"
"FIFTEEN LAAAPS!"
Anyone watching quietly would have assumed this was training meant for knights, not mages. And yet, suffering as they were, it felt somehow petty to whine about not being able to keep up.
"Pull ahead up front and open a gap so the ones behind can keep pace! Don't block the road from the lead position!"
"Are you an individualist or what? Can't you see your classmate next to you is about to collapse? Carry them if you have to!"
"Think of it this way—a comrade who falls behind the pack dies! If we don't all cross the line together, we start over from the beginning!"
Bellowing like a madman, Oscar ran back and forth across the front ranks, covering at least twice the distance they did. When the instructor was putting in the most effort of anyone present, who among them could complain about being tired?
"Amy Ravin. Come here for a moment."
What's more, the moment he spotted anyone reaching their physical limit, he pulled them aside without hesitation.
"Here—chug this. It's a high-grade potion slated for release next quarter."
"Haah…… haah…… S-Senior…… this is too much. C-couldn't I just not drink it, and not run?"
"Of course you could. In that case, your classmates will simply have to run five extra laps each to cover for you. Go rest comfortably over there in the courtyard."
"……J-just give me the potion, please."
Naturally, the students were being driven out of their minds. Sweat poured from their mouths, and they could feel their stamina and mana draining away by the second. It was enough to make them think, So this is what running yourself to the brink of death feels like.
'Wait, but how does that man have so much stamina? Was he a knight cadet or something?'
'……Wasn't he the guy who got drunk off his face every single day until a few months ago?'
'Come to think of it, at some point that whole sickly-frail image of his just… vanished.'
Everyone's endurance was different. When a student collapsed again after drinking a single potion, Oscar no longer offered another—instead, he quietly taught them the incantation of the breathing method.
Several students who witnessed this had their eyes light up.
'……Hold on. If I collapse now, do I get to rest?'
'It's not like there's a prize for first place. No reason to risk my life over this.'
A few of the craftier ones faked exhaustion and crumpled to the ground—but no one deceived Oscar's eyes.
"Now, drink your potion."
"……B-but I already drank one?"
"You could have kept running. Think of this as punishment for trying to fool me—and yourself. Bottoms up."
Grin.
That tooth-baring smile carried a faint whiff of outright madness.
And so, having wrung every last drop of stamina out of the students without sparing a single one, Oscar addressed the corpses strewn across the field.
"Dinner is ready in the dining hall of the annex over there. Shower in the dormitory, change your clothes, then come eat. It'll take about an hour to finish prepping."
"……Don't tell me you're cooking it yourself, Senior?"
"Of course. I can hardly assign that task to you lot as well."
Having brushed aside their distrustful stares with perfect composure, Oscar headed off toward the dining hall, and groans of misery were already rippling through the students.
"How many days of this until we hit 4th level?"
"It's only day one and I already want to go home…… the mana elevator could take me straight to my room right now."
"……I'm going to endure it."
At that moment, Benjamin Scott sat bolt upright and declared his resolve. This was the same boy who had been sneered at by Leo Bruhlt mere days ago.
"I'm going to see this training through no matter what, and I'll come back as a 4th-level intermediate mage."
"Same here. If I want to say something to that insufferable bastard the next time I see him, I have to climb, no matter what."
With Sylvia Pinn joining in, the sight stirred a number of other mages as well. Damian Proud in particular—who had been seriously considering throwing in the towel and heading down the Tower—felt it most of all.
'……No matter what, I can't be the last one of us to advance.'
If every one of them reached 4th level except for him, no nightmare could be more horrific.
After a brief rest, the students filed into the dining hall—and every single one of them froze in astonishment.
"Y-you made all of this yourself, Senior?"
"……I'm officially starting to get scared of that man. Seriously, what can't he do?"
Salad and soup, steaks to shoulder the nutritional burden, even pasta. Every dish looked delicious enough to devour on sight—and tasted every bit as good as it looked.
"No, seriously—when did you even learn to cook?"
"Picked it up here and there, watching over people's shoulders."
Oscar replied as he pulled off his apron and chef's hat. The truth was, he'd learned it all on the battlefield.
'That was no place where a high-tier archmage could hold up his noble hands and refuse to lift a finger.'
Perhaps an army in peaceful times like these could afford such luxuries. But back then, hands were short everywhere, and one person had to do the work of three or four—so you did whatever needed doing. Cooking was one of the things Oscar had learned that way.
"Listen up while you eat. Rest is part of the training too. When you finish your meal, go straight back to the dormitory, don't mess around, and sleep until morning. Tomorrow's training starts bright and early—same as today."
Stop.
At the appetite-killing announcement, the students' spoons froze mid-motion. It was Cale Smith—the schemer who'd already burned through two high-grade potions—who raised his hand.
"Senior, if the mana circuit really is like muscle, wouldn't subjecting it to load every day actually do more harm than good?"
"Oh, a perfectly legitimate point. But rest assured on that front."
Oscar flashed a glimpse of the enormous backpack stuffed to bursting with potions.
"I brought plenty of potions with exactly this in mind. If we run short, I'll simply go to the Potion Manufacturing Department and get more. I will keep your bodies in peak condition at all times—so trust me and leave it all to me."
"……."
The students, rendered speechless as if fed a mouthful of honey, had nothing to say.
—Day five of boot camp.
The first to feel the change in his body was Damian Proud.
Waking that morning, he realized at once that something about his condition was different.
'Was my mana always this smooth?'
The very sensation of mana coursing along his circuit when he cast a spell felt unfamiliar. Before, no matter how hard he wrenched the wheel, it wouldn't turn—now it was like gliding leisurely around a corner.
'Could it be that this idiotic training here is actually producing results?'
At first, when they'd made him do such bizarre exercises, he'd considered quitting outright. But now that his mana moved exactly as he willed, even crafting simple spells had become genuinely fun.
"Hoo, hah."
Whether it was his imagination or not, even the stamina training felt less grueling than usual today. His whole body felt lighter, easier to move.
"Hmm?"
Having noticed the change, Oscar summoned him to his room the instant the stamina training ended.
"Congratulations."
"…What are you talking about, all of a sudden?"
"I mean congratulations on earning the qualification to become a 4th-level mage."
"……Me?"
Damian Proud's eyes wavered violently. Anyone watching might have thought he'd just been diagnosed with a terminal illness.
Oscar gave a faint chuckle and nodded.
"Yes, you. You must have felt something change in yourself, haven't you?"
"I just…… assumed I was finally seeing returns on the training."
But for that to mean his mana circuit had stabilized completely—that he now stood qualified to reach 4th level…
A realm he had dreamed of for three and a half years, ever since his days at the academy, was suddenly right before his eyes. And after a mere five days of boot camp, no less.
"When you install your fourth mana circuit, use this book as a reference."
With those words, Oscar handed him a single volume. Damian accepted it carefully and opened it—and his eyes went wide as saucers.
'This is……'
Inside were detailed blueprints of a mana circuit. A precision-drawn design, tailored to his own physiology—even to the habits he'd developed in his everyday spellcasting.
The most astonishing part was that the blueprint wasn't alone. Circuit designs for the ones he would install at 5th level, and at 6th level, were drawn out in painstaking detail as well.
"Don't tell me you wrote all of this yourself?"
"I did. Is that a problem?"
"……."
Damian stared at Oscar, struck speechless. He was only now grasping, anew, the sheer scale of the man's talent.
'If he wrote this, it means he's already finished analyzing my body and my mana circuits……'
Naturally, Damian had never shared such information with anyone. Which meant Oscar had assessed all of it on his own, in the spare moments between supervising the training.
"……."
Thought of one way, this was a skill that surpassed even the Designer of the Violet Brigade. The Designer worked from a foundation of fully shared information to construct a circuit—whereas the man before him had produced one entirely on his own.
Damian parted his lips slightly, lost in awe. The so-called geniuses he'd met at the academy were nothing compared to this man.
'……So this is what a genius is.'
A being like fate itself—as if the heavens had descended, and the era simply had to accept him.
Remarkably, not even envy or jealousy stirred in his heart. No fool ever resented a cloud for flying higher than him, or a mountain for being larger than his own body.
"In any case—congratulations. I knew you'd be the first."
With those words, Oscar held out his fist. Damian stared at it for a long moment, then returned a helpless smile and bumped it with his own.
"Thank you, Senior."
It was the first time he had ever called Oscar "Senior."