By Zephyria 
Since moving past Geomancy, I wondered if I had ever lived splitting my days so busily and diligently.
The life of a Wandering Knight becomes monotonous with each passing day. There were times when chasing villains, I would run for four days, even fifteen, without sleep, using Light Footwork, but simply following traces left on the ground was something even a stray dog from a common household could do.
See, hear, chase, kill. On successful days, I would enter an inn, drink a bottle of Bamboo Leaf Wine, and fall asleep.
On such days, I would wake up late to catch up on lost sleep. There was no one to watch me, so I never heard a word about being lazy.
Therefore, waking up every dawn to train my mind and body, preparing for some future moment when my still-undeveloped limbs would grow stronger, worrying only about missing a single meal, and then spending the morning half of the day with dozens of fellow Martial Artists and a teacher full of knowledge to learn from—this recent routine brought me both the peace and relief of soaking in a warm hot spring.
Tension arrived when the unfamiliar was right before my eyes.
Monday was a day for Magic class.
I hadn’t mentioned Edwin Kiadris’s rampage to Shayden, fearing it would be a needless worry for him, but I hadn’t forgotten his challenge to a sparring match.
However, my grasp on learning was too short, and I knew too little about magic to find a way to contend with him yet.
From what I’d read in books, in a fight between a knight and a wizard, the swordsman attacks at close range while the mage attacks from afar, making the distance between them crucial for determining strengths and weaknesses, but I intuitively knew that wasn’t the whole answer.
I held onto the words Professor Douglas used in Aura class in a corner of my heart. The non-physical realm. I entered the classroom, recalling the world of auras and mana, which cannot be seen with the eyes or grasped with the hands.
The children who had been chattering fell silent simultaneously, and the air grew cold.
I was puzzled for a moment, then remembered that I had been the first to leave the classroom in a previous lesson without cleaning up the mess I had vomited.
“…Hmm.”
But I didn’t know who had cleaned it up, which was the problem. I looked around and took my seat.
In a far corner, I spotted a familiar head of purple hair. The girl’s hair, a deep violet like an iris, was cut short just below her shoulders. Marianne Philodendore, someone I had newly met during the camping class.
I gave a simple nod to acknowledge her, and she looked my way, her eyes fluttering slightly. Puzzled, I tilted my head, but then the professor entered and faced us.
Professor Angela Sting assessed my complexion before even greeting us. I offered a faint smile.
They said that at Mount Hua, young disciples were made to climb cliffs, and at Shaolin, they practiced facing the wall under icy waterfalls as a daily routine.
The Namgung family also believed hardship was necessary for the training of their young disciples, making it a traditional pastime to tie iron bars to their limbs and have them stand on bamboo spears. I felt both grateful and ashamed that I, having merely twisted my Qi and blood, and even then having been immediately treated, was still dwelling on it for over seven days.
“How was your first week at the Academy…? I’m glad to see everyone looking healthy. Last time, we explained the deployment and operation methods of Circles, right? Starting today, we will learn the principles of their circuitry by directly learning and using existing Magic Formulas.”
Angela Sting clapped her thumb and index finger together, making a sound somewhere between a ‘tak’ and a ‘tik’. My eyes widened in surprise at the handout that appeared on my desk, where nothing had been moments before.
It was utterly baffling. I suppressed a gasp of astonishment and fiddled with the bottom right corner of the handout. A sudden urge to ask what kind of magic this was made me glance at the child next to me, but seeing their focused expression, I hesitated to disturb them and looked straight ahead.
I had thought white was paper and black was writing, but surprisingly, a part of the written spell formula looked familiar.
It was a Purification Formula.
Sting explained patiently that the spell was concise, simplified seven of the forty-eight twists required for basic formulas, and since its power wasn’t great, its cost was also low.
I gathered from context that the cost of magic was akin to a price or a sacrificial offering for a spell.
There were other unfamiliar words too. I understood half of the lesson and half of it I didn’t. I began to understand, or at least glimpse, why Shayden Rose had been so shocked when he saw my schedule. It was like learning the Sierran Empire’s language, which was quite different from that of the Central Plains; the new words felt foreign to my ears.
After finishing her explanation, the professor, in her still languid voice, encouraged practice and then turned her gaze toward me.
“Our Swordsmanship Department student… do you understand…?”
“…Uh, um.”
When I couldn’t answer promptly, the gazes from behind me felt sharp. Since I wasn’t very tall and sat near the front, I couldn’t see the faces of the children looking at me.
“You said that in the early part of the formula, we use a Gamma Formula to decompose mana, and then insert a Beta Formula to slow its flow. For peace and tranquility, you added a silent spell in a twisted form, and then this… this is.”
“The pronunciation is a bit difficult, isn’t it…? Op-Zeinon… it’s the spell of verdure and greenery.”
“Yes, uh… by inserting Op-Zeinon, and then applying dispersal and amplification in this form, you used Alpha to close it.”
“…Hmm… Do you remember where you made a mistake before, Young Master Ernhardt?”
“I believe the most significant issue was that the flow in the second twist of the dispersal formula became blocked, causing the aura that should have spread outwards to flow backward, reversing the Beta Formula. The aura that should have slowed down sped up, and at number one in front of the sphere, there was no Alpha Formula, so it couldn’t be completed…”
My voice trailed off uncertainly, unsure if I had answered correctly. I felt like a one-eyed person who had entered a village of two-eyed people. The language of the Sierran Empire already sounded drawn-out and flowing compared to the Central Plains, and my stammering pronunciation of unfamiliar words felt unsuited for my age.
However, Professor Sting, who had waited silently for me to finish speaking, smiled broadly, her large eyes crinkling, and nodded.
“It’s not the first time I’ve met a Swordsmanship Department student in the Department of Magic,” the professor began, and then conjured a spell directly before me. She showed the process of deploying the spell in order, explaining it step by step, and then looked back at me at the end.
“You understand well…? Even if you don’t deploy the Mana Formula yourself, knowing the form of the spell will allow you to avoid panic and understand the opponent’s intentions if you suddenly encounter magic… However, remember that mana and aura used in magic are similar but different concepts, so don’t misuse them…?”
“Yes, Professor.”
Relieved that I had passed that hurdle, I let out a deep breath. The professor assigned me the task of thinking more about how to deploy a Circle and then proceeded to watch each student as they cast the Purification Formula.
Unlike Maelo Sanson, who, as a Martial artist of Hwagyeong, provided excellent eye force and simultaneously observed swordsmanship, Sting went to each student’s desk, watched the spell deployment up close, and meticulously corrected their deployment speed, hand gestures, the way they chanted the spell, and the amount of mana consumed.
It was a tedious task that took a considerable amount of time, yet the students eagerly awaited their turn, watching the spells intently with anticipation and tension. The professor also showed a diligent and meticulous demeanor, making her truly worthy of respect.
At that moment, I felt a prickling sensation on the back of my neck again and turned my head.
A boy with light purple hair was looking my way. Looking into the eyes of the boy, whose straight, waist-length hair was tied back in a half-ponytail with strands falling by his ears, I wondered if Circles took on the color of a person’s eyes.
His golden eyes, tinged with a reddish aura, were glaring at me as if he wanted to kill me.
No, ‘glaring as if he wanted to kill me’ might be an exaggeration. The boy’s stern face was etched with frustration, but like his previous pranks, there was no murderous intent. As I watched him, his slender eyes looked incredibly familiar.
I tried to recall where I had seen them before, sifting through my memories.
I had to go back to a very distant past.
It was during my first participation in the Martial Alliance Dragon Phoenix Gathering. Moyong Amu-gae, who claimed to be from Moyong Sega, was a young man with long hair neatly tied back in a half-ponytail, wearing a beautiful white robe like a cabbage butterfly, much like Edwin Kiadris.
He had made exactly that kind of expression when the match was decided by a narrow margin in the preliminary rounds, just as he was about to be defeated by me.
He died on his journey as a Wandering Knight before reaching the age of thirty-five.
In my youth, we had opportunities to associate often, and I had considered him a close acquaintance, so I even attended his funeral.
He was also from a collateral branch, not a direct one, like me. He prided himself on his Flexible Sword, which suited his lithe appearance, and had told everyone to bury it with him. However, I sent only the broken sword hilt along with three taels of travel money.
The old often reminisce about the past even when seeing something new. I had always called him Young Master Moyong, so I couldn’t even recall his given name.
As a melancholic feeling washed over me, the professor called my name, and I snapped back to reality, realizing I was making eye contact with Edwin, who wore a rather bewildered expression, from afar.
“…Did something happen with Young Master Kiadris…?”
I couldn’t tell what expression I had on my face.
I blinked slowly and shook my head.
“No, I was just lost in thought for a moment. I apologize for not paying attention during class.”
“Hmm… I see…”
After that, I diligently practiced the Circle exercise, murmuring the beautiful, song-like incantations the professor taught, drawing mana, swirling it around my Middle Dantian, and then dispersing it. My internal energy, which had been pooling in the lower part of my Dantian, kept stirring and complaining, asking why it was being neglected.
The concept of drawing in mana from the outside was unfamiliar, and it felt like I was just repeating futile actions, but since Professor Sting seemed satisfied that I could perceive and draw mana, I repeated the action until class ended.
During dinner, every one of my peers asked if I had a crush on someone, leaving me bewildered, but I dismissed it as a trivial matter, considering their age and sensitivity to puppy love.