Vol 7 Chapter 21

#(2)

Perhaps this wasn't a problem he could solve with his own power. This thought occurred to him after he had been training in a trance-like state, shooting Fireballs for what must have been five or six hours. Though he couldn't know exactly since the sun neither rose nor set in this space, enough time had passed that in reality it would have been from morning until sunset, and he had done nothing but shoot Fireballs the entire time.

But there had been no change at all in the power of the Fireballs he cast.

"Haa, haa..."

When a small Fireball wobbled as it flew before disappearing, leaving the tree completely unscathed, Kapros glared at it before slumping down in that spot. Though he had cast so many Fireballs that his once-abundant magical power had decreased to less than half, he still hadn't managed to create a Fireball of appropriate intensity.

The only thing he had achieved through countless practice attempts was an extremely weak Fireball that would fizzle out midway, like just now, by deliberately letting his thoughts wander to disrupt the image. He had tried making them smaller, and even done silly things like speaking the incantation more quietly, but no matter what he tried, his Fireballs either destroyed trees or disappeared midway. This came as a tremendous shock to him.

Fireball, the most basic of basic magic that he had been confident he could handle skillfully with his eyes closed, now seemed completely different from what he had known. Thinking it felt even harder than taming Inferno, he got up and struggled with it for quite a while longer, but finally, when his magical power was almost depleted, he concluded that he couldn't achieve anything more by just blindly shooting.

By this point, he even started wondering why weak power was necessary for using magic at all.

"Weak power... what use is that even for?"

"No need for such questions."

When he turned his head at the voice that came from right behind him as if it had been waiting, Superior was standing there with a refreshed face, though he had been sleeping deeply until just before.

"You'll understand why it was necessary once you succeed. But, giving up already?"

"I'm not giving up. I'll start again when my magical power recovers more."

"Haha! I'll give you credit for your persistence. Did you know you've destroyed about 2,500 trees so far?"

Though he had certainly been destroying them non-stop, had it really reached that many already?

'If this were reality, environmental protection groups wouldn't leave me alone.'

"At this rate, you won't succeed even if you destroy 100,000 trees, let alone 2,500. Try changing your method."

Superior casually threw out this curse before going back again.

Kapros gritted his teeth and lay down. Not far away, he could see the trees he had destroyed slowly regenerating.

'While my magical power recovers, I should think about the cause of the problem.'

Why couldn't he use a weak Fireball? Using a Fireball stronger than normal was very easy. Just imagine putting in more magical power and push it out with spirit, that's all. But while it's possible to increase the magical power that goes into magic from the start, it's impossible to decrease it.

For example, if using Fireball initially requires 50 magical power, you absolutely cannot use Fireball with only 49 magical power. If that were possible, magical power would have been meaningless and nominal. However, there were no restrictions on making it stronger by adding 100 or 200 more magical power to a Fireball that needed 50. Though there was some limit to the damage that could be dealt, MIST's magic basically had such a system.

Kapros had no idea what secret for using magic weakly could be hidden in this. He had tried making the speed slower earlier wondering if that might work, but the result had been the same - just more destroyed tree remains.

"Whew. My head hurts."

He clutched his throbbing head and lay on his side. Why was a weaker attack necessary, and why should it be done? Though Superior had just said not to have such doubts, he couldn't help those thoughts from persisting.

Why would weak attacks be needed against enemies? What he had pursued until now was training to become unconditionally stronger, and using weak magic had no place in that.

'If it were kendo, it would have been easier since I'd just need to relax my arm.'

He sighed softly as his movements from when he used to practice kendo came vividly to mind. Even now, he could recall them more naturally than breathing.

When sparring rather than competing, you shouldn't swing the sword with just the aggressive mindset of wanting to defeat your opponent. You need to swing while gauging the force you and your opponent will clash with and anticipating the intensity, so that both can properly enjoy it without getting hurt.

Constantly thinking about the impact your attack will have on your opponent until the moment the swords meet, without letting your guard down. That was exactly the kind of effort needed in demonstration matches performed in front of people.

Though it sounds easy, it was actually difficult to achieve, which was why people usually sparred with their most familiar partners.

'And my partner then was... always Seung-jo.'

As he clicked his tongue at the suddenly bitter taste in his mouth, a flash of realization crossed his mind.

"...Ah!"

Come to think of it, Superior had said earlier that the basis of magic was imagination.

As he said, to use magic you first need to determine the image, and this image could be seen as consisting of 3 stages: 'manifesting' the magic, 'using' it, and 'affecting the target.'

Here, the magic's power belongs to the third and final stage of affecting the target.

From his experience so far, different types of magic had different stages that needed to be emphasized among these three.

Magic where the third part was important included mainly non-attack magic, such as Detect Magic, Fly, Strength, and Hold Person.