Chapter 51 - Magic Symposium (4)

Killam was a fifth-tier mage of the Green Magic Tower and the mentor of Milan, the mage to whom Penia had apologized. Yesterday, he had witnessed firsthand how Penia, that notorious menace, became a meek lamb before Count Pallatio. In truth, he had initially harbored a small doubt about the count.

A doubt about his strength.

Of course, Killam had not reached the sixth tier, where one awakened the Eye and could properly assess another person merely by looking at them. Even at the fifth tier, however, a mage’s senses grew keen enough to gauge another person’s mana to some extent. And to Killam, Count Pallatio’s mana seemed far too meager.

He knew, of course, that knowledge was what mattered to a mage. Without the knowledge to use magic, even the largest mana reservoir was meaningless.

But no matter how extensive that knowledge might be, someone born with too little mana could not cast magic. Naturally, he had begun to wonder whether all those rumors about the count were stories the man had deliberately fabricated to raise his own standing.

Seeing that menace Penia’s abrupt transformation had made him wonder if he had misjudged the count. Yet another examination in the arena today confirmed that his assessment was correct.

Count Pallatio’s mana was far too weak for someone credited with such extraordinary feats.

Nor was Killam alone in his doubts.

“Hmm. Judging by what I can sense, his tier cannot be very high. What do you think?”

“I agree. His mana reservoir seems... far too small for a high-tier mage.”

“... Tsk. So they were all baseless rumors after all. Did he spread them to bolster his own prestige?”

“Poor fellow. Now that he’s been drawn into a friendly match, all those stories are about to be exposed.”

Sure enough, the fifth-tier, professor-level mages gathered around Killam all voiced doubts as they sensed Alon’s mana.

That was before frozen ground engulfed the arena.

“...”

Every mage falls silent.

The lower-tier mages whose faces had been full of curiosity moments earlier, and the fifth-tier mages who had regarded Alon with suspicion alike—all stared at the scene with their mouths hanging open.

Yet their feelings differed.

The lower-tier mages watched Alon’s magic with awe. The higher-tier mages watched it in shock.

It had happened in an instant, but they understood what he had done.

‘Compound magic...! With at least three spells...!’

Killam’s jaw dropped.

Of course, he could use compound magic himself. There was not a single mage of the fifth tier or above present who could not.

But combining three or more spells at once, without a single error and with near-perfect execution, was something none of them could confidently accomplish.

“How in the world did he do that?”

The fact that Count Pallatio’s mana was weak had already vanished from the fifth-tier mages’ minds. In its place came the curiosity that had brought them to the fifth tier, along with awe for the mage named Alon.

And as every gaze focused on the arena—

“Crystallization.”

Alon murmured the word and formed a hand seal.

At the same instant—

CRACK!

Dozens of spheres, each about the size of a small piece of round hard candy, began forming throughout the arena.

“Axial Rotation.”

The spheres suspended in midair began spinning slowly and serenely clockwise.

As the mages wondered about the spheres rotating on their own—

“Ghk!”

Baruk, thrown off by Alon’s magic, finally regained his senses and began preparing a spell. He rushed to cast it, thinking that if he did nothing here, he would not merely fail to expand his influence—he might humiliate himself outright.

But the other mages looked puzzled or frowned when they saw the spell he was preparing.

“That’s—”

“... Ke-Malan?”

They had good reason. The spell Baruk intended to use was one of the Purple Magic Tower’s signature spells, an explicitly lethal magic that was never used in friendly matches.

But Baruk’s spell never fired.

CRACK!

In the next instant, Baruk became an ice statue.

Every mage stared blankly, replaying what had just happened.

In the brief moment Baruk had been preparing his spell, a small rotating sphere had burst, instantly turning him into an ice statue.

And with that—

“... Uh, uhh... Th-the winner of this friendly match is Alon Pallatio...!”

The officiating mage made the announcement in a bewildered voice.

####

“Truly remarkable.”

“What was that hand seal you used earlier? Is it ancient magic, perhaps?”

“You were using compound magic. How in the world did you construct the arrangement?”

Immediately after the friendly match, Alon left the incredulous Baruk behind and returned to the stands, only to be detained by the mages and their questions for quite some time.

Of course, none asked anything that violated the mages’ unwritten rule against inquiring into another’s original magic. Still, amid the barrage of questions, Alon discovered something he had not known.

Their conversation revealed that the mages knew nothing whatsoever about the hand seals and phrases he used.

‘... That’s curious.’

Of course, Alon knew that his seals and phrases were forgotten relics of a bygone age. Even so, he had never imagined there would be so little information about them that it seemed none had ever existed. That struck him as very curious.

As Alon continued speaking with the mages and absorbing this unexpected information—

“W-wait. What did you say? Third tier?”

“... Third tier?”

“There’s no need to be modest. Third tier, indeed.”

“That cannot possibly be true.”

After watching the mages treat his stated tier as a joke, Alon finally left the arena where the friendly matches were taking place. He let out a sigh, then soon adopted a satisfied expression as he fingered the nail guard on his left index finger—the item known in Psychedelia as the Memory of the Black Eye.

‘It really is useful.’

The Memory of the Black Eye’s ability was simple. It could store a spell of the user’s choice from among those they cast, then let them use it with a slight enhancement to its power.

In short, it was something like an enhanced Memorize that cast a strengthened version of a stored spell. For Alon, however, it was extraordinarily efficient.

Bitter Cold, which he needed to overcome one of his restrictions, imposed a heavy cost on Alon, who could only cast magic five times. After casting Bitter Cold, he had a mere two casts left.

With the Memory of the Black Eye, however, he would be able to use all five casts in combat.

‘And the amplification makes the magic considerably stronger, too.’

He recalled how, when he had cast it earlier, Bitter Cold had felt more than twice as powerful as usual. Then his thoughts turned elsewhere.

‘The Snowy Mountain’s Shadow seems pretty good, too.’

Remembering the magic he had created earlier by exploiting that sentence’s properties, Alon could not help thinking again of the unidentified being.

When it had first taught him that sentence, he had not truly understood what it meant. Even with the sentences already in his mind, he had understood only that they strengthened magic, without knowing the details.

But after returning from the desert and repeatedly casting magic through The Snowy Mountain’s Shadow, he had only recently grasped the broad nature of its effect.

‘It freezes the surrounding air when the manifested magic finishes taking effect.’

Rather than twisting and altering the properties of the magic itself, its effect seemed to literally touch the laws governing it. He had used that effect to create today’s spell.

‘Is this what it meant?’

He remembered being told, [“Sentences are keys that can open specific gates leading to the laws ordained for this world.”]

‘... This is getting more and more interesting.’

The more he learned about phrases and sentences, the more rapidly his magic advanced, deepening his desire to explore it. Alon glanced at the view outside the tower.

The sun had just reached halfway down the mountain, bathing the landscape in sunset.

‘Not much longer now.’

Watching the sun slowly descend, Alon thought of the remaining item he needed to retrieve from the Central Tower today and turned away.

####

On the first night of the symposium.

“Um, my lord?”

“What is it?”

“Are you really... third-tier?”

“I am.”

“... Really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh... All right. I’ll take your word for it.”

Riyan departed looking incredulous, seemingly not believing him at all.

“M-my lord?”

“Penia?”

“Um, I know that you’re third-tier, my lord.”

“... You do?”

“Yes, I understand that you’re third-tier...! Absolutely, without question!”

“...?”

Late that night, after Penia had stressed his tier no fewer than three times and left, Alon checked that the moon was up and headed to the library.

HUM!

Accompanied by a low resonant hum, he arrived once more at the quiet, deserted library. He entered the somewhat eerie space, lit not by lamps but only by the blue moon hanging in the sky.

[“Since you’ve come up at precisely this time, it seems someone has cleverly solved my riddle.”]

The majestic resonance reaching his ears made his body tremble involuntarily.

It was not so much that he had sensed something. The trembling was purely instinctive.

As the weak instinctively trembled before the strong, merely hearing the voice made him feel fear creeping up from deep within.

“That’s right.”

Alon answered, forcibly suppressing his mounting terror.

After all, the item he needed could only be obtained by meeting her.

Then—

[“Oh, impressive. You can withstand my voice without falling into a panic.”]

Blue mana began gathering before Alon and taking shape. As he watched, he felt his palms grow sweaty despite himself.

He knew all too well who was about to appear before him.

‘The first human archmage to reach the eighth tier since the forgotten age of the gods—and—’

The mage whom all other mages had called the Chalice of the Beginning in her lifetime, with awe and admiration.

And a slaughterer whom the beings that had thrown the world into turmoil in those days had called Eternal Terror, with fear and praise.

“... Archmage Heinkel.”

As Alon murmured her name, what had been a mass of blue mana rapidly assumed a definite shape.

Soon, a woman appeared before him in the library, wearing a snow-white pointed hat. Beneath it were blue eyes and an unhurried smile.

The archmage who had been the Chalice of the Beginning to mages, and Eternal Terror to those beings that had disturbed the world.

Behind his expressionless face, Alon swallowed nervously.

Archmage Heinkel was not an enemy, but one careless answer could provoke her somewhat eccentric temper and get him killed on the spot.

Thus, Alon mentally reviewed several things he must not say to her and subjects he must not broach, as though reciting them from memory.

The archmage, whose mere appearance with that relaxed smile exerted a fundamental pressure, looked at Alon. Her first utterance was—

[“Eek...!?”]

A whimper that sounded terrified.

“...??”

... Questions arose in Alon’s mind.